Communiloving

I am just coming to the end of three days home alone. It's been strange.

When I arrived back from the Lake District on Thursday (lovely, thank you very much) I was a little bit excited about having the house to myself. Now I should say, as one of my readership of two is my housemate, that I wasn't excited because I don't like my housemates. They're wonderful. And when you're alone, no matter how long you wait, spaghetti bolognese never magically appears in front of you. But the concept of some alone time seemed quite attractive. A good chance to sit and be and think and reflect and go to the loo with the door open seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I think I thought I would come out of the experience a bigger person. Maybe even a better one.

To be fair I enjoyed it for a bit. Not having to queue to use the laptop/toilet/shower/washing machine/straightners/mirror/stairs/hoover (I joke on the last one) was good novelty value. Choosing to live in mess is quite liberating, tidying things away and them staying away is nothing short of brilliant. And coming and going and not telling anyone where you are makes you feel a little bit Destiny's Child (without being black or having sold 40 million records worldwide). But...it's also a little bit dull.

It's quite a nice thing to appreciate afresh that you really enjoy living with the people that you are contractually obliged to live with. Whilst I have an irrational annoyance towards anyone who might dares turn on the bathroom extractor fan before I'm awake, and I can see anyone who tries to make conversation with me in the morning as setting out to ruin my day/life, and generally no one else will ever match up to the golden standards I set in all other areas of my life, it turns out that for Party Cat to live up to her partying* reputation she needs other people to bounce off of, have jokes, occassionally irritate and generally share life with.

So I'm a little bit scared that this is just the impact of Orange's advertising campaign that I'm just realising I am who I am because of everyone else. I would prefer to think I am much deeper than this. I tried to engage Esther in a conversation earlier which likened my experience of living alone to the age old A Level Philosophy dilemma of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in an empty forest. She didn't give it much time of day, and, to be fair, even apart from my three contemporaries I probably am still real and do exist, but I think I have realised the life part of Parklife is in the community that exists between these walls. Parkexistance is probably a more appropriate description of this weekend. Anyway, everyone (plus an extra) is coming home this evening and I imagine at 7.55 in the morning I will be mentally cursing whichever of them has the weakest bladder, but, right now, I praise God for having placed us all here.

Community is something I could (and do) bang on about for ages, but I think it's how we were created to exist. Not necesarily in the shape that this one does (humanity would die out fairly quickly!), but in various forms of interdependent existance. It just works. I might never be able to wire a plug, drive a car, play a piano or speak Russian, but I'm glad I know people who can.

*Drinking tea and playing Scrabble.

(Marlborough) and (chain letters).

Ooh, hello, anyone at home? Don't mind me, just dropping in for anicecupofteaandasitdown.

So, blogging didn't really happen in June. Mybad. To catch up, in short, life is really quite good. Nuff said :)

I went away to a quaint, little town called Marlborough this weekend and stayed with my friend Emma and our other friend Jon (and Emma's family and dog and her Mum's friend). We were all drawn to this particular corner of the south west because there was a jazz festival in her town. I thought I was being slightly ambitious in comparing it to the Edinburgh Festival, in that all of the town's pubs and restaurants host live music all weekend and you wander from venue to venue supping pretty cider and having your ears entertained. However, upon reading the Festival's brochure, it seems they compare themselves to SXSW in Texas. I would agree if SXSW's key demographic was John McCririck. I don't think it is.

Anyway it was really good fun. It was nice to go away and be with people who are really good friends and not have the pressure to, like, chat and stuff. We saw loads of music, bumped into Bradley from Eastenders, befriended the dog of a former member of Fairport Convention, ate and drank, was merry, slept in a giant bed (singularly), and just generally switched off a bit. Was wonderful. Don't get me wrong, we went for free I did feel free to judge the cash paying punters, but it was cool anyway.

You know what Jo just reminded me of? Chain letters!! That is retro cool. Jo was saying they made her very upset and she remembers crying to her Mum under the pressure, whereas I think my Mum was particularly anti the chain letter movement, so mine were always a covert thing. But, yeah, brilliant! And the ones with the chocolate bars! Like an early form of those pyramid schemes that GMTV always warn you against. Anyway, I have nothing left to add to this, just something I had forgotten about.

These people were so good we saw them twice. See you soon. x

Half term high jinks

It's half term!! Woooooo!! Now, that's not to mean that I don't love regular life and stuff, but I'm not sure I will ever grow out of that half term feeling. And, as I see it, if full grown teachers are allowed to be as excited as the yoofs in Radi8 then I'm pretty sure I must be allowed to join in the fun too. Someone almost tried to throw a spanner in my works (metaphorically speaking) the other day by asking what I was doing over half term. Uh-oh, I don't like wasting time and apparently everyone else is going on trips and visiting people...does the fact that I am not booked on lots of advanced single trips around Britain mean that in fact this time is meaningless and wasted and won't have any significant impact on this transitional decade of my life?!

No, it doesn't.

I rather impressed myself by being able to say I was actually just staying around Exeter because, get this, it means I get to be in Devon. In Devon! Imagine having a life where you get to live in Devon?! Well, maybe you don't have to imagine, or maybe you're quite happy just where you are thank you very much, but I, for one, today, am very, very happy and grateful for abiding somewhere quite this wonderful. Even if it is raining...

I was excited by my afternoon off today and all the possibilities of working through my Half Term To Do List Special, but it's not been terribly successful thus far. Lunch, tick. Book hair cut, no one is picking up the phone. Book dentist appointment, call disconnected (x3). Order wedding present for Hannah and Chris, mygiftregistry.com is cretinous. Tidy bedroom, have better idea of throwing away "half my clothes"..so far this has involved making a pile of them in the middle of my bedroom floor, getting slightly overwhelmed and retreating to the living room.

And so I blog. Whilst this didn't make the official list I was inspired to write a little when I whiled away a good 20 minutes at work this morning on Lauren's new blog. I really like it. If you're wondering what other blogs I quite like then take a gander on the side of this page somewhere. All top quality stuff.

As I should really get back to the list I am just going to leave you with a clutch of really quite good things that I have appreciated recently....

A clutch of really quite good things that I have appreciated recently

* Walking and the sun and Topsham and cake. All of these things individually are fairly up there (where?) on my list of examples of good things in life but when combined into one that's quite a dangerously exciting combination.

* Tunnock's bars. I have a circular relationship with these chocolate bars that I ADORE them and then manage to forget they exist and then stumble across them again and am convinced that they are even more brilliant than the last time I ate them. Possibly I just have a poor memory. Possibly.

* Finding out that only two men in the world know the speical recipe for Irn Bru and that so top secret is this classified information that they are unable to both travel in a plane together at the same time. Brilliant.

* Ben Folds. I have been enjoying a BF renaissance in the past week, both home and away, and he has made me happy. Like remembering an old friend. Listen.

I am going to tackle the clothing issue. I hope to win but please don't hold me to account on the 50% statement. Always a visionary, not always a realist.

Salutations.

Cor and blimey. It's been a very long time since I've writ anything here. Not that I suspect anyone cares, but a tad lazy on my part. That said, I think I've commented before that I tend to write more when I have some kind of emotional knot that needs some kind of release. That hasn't happened recently. The good ship is sailing quite happily on the Ally Ally O.

Since my last splurge I have been offered a place to do a PGCE in further education at Exeter College in September. This is ace. A year of learning how to work with grown ups to teach them how to make the most of reading and writing. It a little bit seems to be the best possible thing that I could be given the opportunity to do with my time and it reminds me that in all things God is there working for the good. Sometimes I find myself thinking that I have had my fair share of good living and that I should expect imminent rubbishness, but I've been realising in the past months that just isn't true. I'm not promised that life will be a constant picnic but actually all this blessing stuff isn't a conincidence, and I'm not using up my magic wishes, He just is good. So, yeah, Amen to that.

Right, teatime. Esther is bringing home panini tonight. Did you know there's no such thing as 'paninis'? Nope. Panini is in fact the plural and a single item should be referred to as a panino. Every day's a school day.

Finally, Squeeze have been important today. Lend them your ears.

Merry Easter

Shalom! It's funny, this year is the only ever year of my life thus far where I have worked for a church, and yet this year I feel like Easter crept up on me more than any other. You would think, being in the resurrection business and all that, I would have been more prepared. But no. Maybe I'm just out of the loop but I just feel like more than other recent years it's been less of a hype. I was trying to work out today whether a) this is true or false, b) whether it's just because I'm not 4 and my parents don't feel the need to dress up as large chocolate bearing animals or c) whether it just reflects people generally being a bit distracted with life. I didn't conclude upon any of these points (well, apart from b, which I think is definitly true) but it did make me realise that it's pretty cool that however much I might be an eventist and not having an egg hunt round my garden and a bonnet making contest and a stations of the cross and 15 gamillion creme eggs might make me slightly dissappointed it's also pretty cool that every day is kind of Easter Day. Not just because Esther brings home hot cross buns on a daily basis, but because Jesus is the reason for the season. And He is risen. Not just today, but tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow. And, despite the whole Good Friday thing, even yesterday and yesterday's yesterday. Yesterday, today, forevermore. That's pretty cool. Even if they don't give you chocolate on Cathedral Green every day to remember it by.

So..what else. We had fun in France visiting Ross. There's a fairly select(elite?) group in the UK that recognise his coolness, but I feel like the whole of France is Ross keen. This obviously makes me want to start the official backlash, but we had a good time eating and drinking Frenchstyle, pottering around, having balloon animals made etc etc. It was a good break in the way that I felt in the middle of it refreshed and like I was having a good time, but also like I would quite like to go home and get on with that life too. Generally made me feel excited by things again.

The Simple Life is offically done as of this morning and the ending of Lent. I'm not quite what I would conclude from it. I think I thought it would be easier than it was. Not that I found myself having to be pulled off of H and M window fronts or owt, but just I really wanted stuff. And not in the, "Oh dear my flip flops are falling apart" type way (which they are), but in the most ugly, covetous, "Ooh my life would be so much better if I just had more....stuff" type way. Doing the charidee shop thing quite a lot I think I thought that maybe I might be above all that material greed thing, but, I realised, I'm not at all. I'm not sure what that means now though. I definately learned I don't need to buy packaged sandwiches, and that's a good thing I can continue not doing, but I do want to continue to muse upon the needing stuff thing.

Right, I was supposed to be getting down with the parents and watching Lewis but I have failed miserably by writing this instead, so I should drop in for the last few minutes. Merry Easter everyone...

Cheers and Boos

Cheers and Boos used to be a very, very important part of my life. My youth group (which may well have been The Coolest Youth Group In The World Ever) met on a Sunday night, we were in fact the imaginatively named Sunday Night Group, and amongst many other important things involving lard, jelly and the Lord Jesus Christ, we celebrated, commiserated and generally put the world to rights through cheering and booing through one another's lives. Here are mine today.

Cheers

Getting ready to go on holiday to France on Friday. Est, Rach and I are taking an aeroplane at Early O'Clock from Southampton and we are going to Ross town for a few days. I'm in the habit of being a bit blaise about holidays (having been fortunate enough to have done quite a few of them), but this one I'm really excited about. I'm not sure if it's because I'm looking forward to seeing Ross, or if it's because real life can be a bit mundane sometimes. I'm gonna tell him it's the former.

Googling. My actual job is fairly dull. It is data inputting, it is filing, it is spreadsheets, it is moving files, it is redirecting phonecalls, it is being told off for having crap posture. Fortunatly my colleagues have realised this of late and have given me the extra special job of googlin' questions they have. I have a piece of paper taped to my desk and they write stuff on it and I reserach it and give a small presentation on the subject. This has enriched my knowledge in the last few weeks on subjects as varied as Snow White, viaducts, concertinas, large bumble bees, pencils, Luke Perry and the cast of Dallas. Every day's a school day.

Exeter. This sounds barrel scraping, but it's sunny. Exeter in the sun is fricking brilliant, and life is just better. It means you can go to the Quay and the Cathedral and Weigh and Save....just better and more beautiful and just generally more full of wonder. And I can wear flip flops and it doesn't look too strange.


Boos

Getting up in the middle of the night to go to France. I don't want to do anything, ever, when it affects my sleeping pattern. I literally think the world might end.

Feeling a bit end of termed out. As much as I might pretend to be all grown up now, I think that I still only function properly in 10 week spurts (preferably with "reading week" thrown in the middle). Everything is fine but I feel slightly like I'm running on empty. A break will be good.

Not everyone has such as easy and enjoyable a life as me. This makes me a bit sad sometimes.


That was fun. Now, I need to revise for my New Testament exam on Thursday quite badly. If the exam is just on the first three chapters of Mark then I think it's fair to say I will probably kick quite a lot of arse. If it, in any way, broaches any of the rest of the NT, I think it is fair to say at this precise time I shall be a little bit troubled. Still, there's always a chance...

Home Alone

Hello. This literally only happens when I am home alone, I reckon there could be a scientifically measured relationship between the frequency of my blogging and the sociability of my housemates. As soon as I have paid off my student loan I may well fund the research myself. Watch This Space. (I have just realised that by the time I have paid off my loan it will be the year 2065 and the others might have moved on a bit by then...).



I havent worked out if I am only meant to do this when I have a Point or not. And I am only really driven to write when I have some kind of emotion which feels like it needs to outburst, but this does not necessarily reflect the status quo of my life. http://www.davegorman.com/ is very important to me. Dave blogs a lot. He is both my blogging and vegetarian role model. He always seems quite happy in his blog, but my knowledge of his (fairly public) borderline personality disorder thing suggests that this probably isn't always the case. So is there some kind of blogging etiquette I need to find out about?? Hm, an example of the very unimportant things which plague my mind.

This means a lot to me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dxf6keoYV0