Wednesday 29 September 2010

Rainbows, tears of joy, mice and ridiculous hours.


Well it has been a while! I'd like to start by apologising for the ludicrous style I know I'm going to write this blog in. Being up for so long sends me, to say the least, a little bit wappy. The reason I'm still up at 3.54am on a Wednesday night, I will make clear shortly. First though, lets start from the top!
So the last time I left you, I had just returned to London (I think..) and I stayed there for 2 weeks. Within that time, we did the usual stuff; dossing around, watching TV, sleeping etc. We also went to a party at my old house - this messed around with my head a little, seeing as I could no longer 'just put something in my room' or 'just go and make an abnormally large BBQ / bonfire'. It was weird, however a good night.

We also began brewing our own beer whilst I was ba
ck. I bought the ingredients from Wilko, which I've found out is pretty rare down here in London..
We then bought our 'Fermenting Barrel' in the form of a kitchen bin from B&Q. After a few days our beer, which we keep warm by wrapping in a sleeping bag and blasting warm air in a regular intervals, had started fermenting nicely.


Drifting slightly from the chronological theme of this blog, I can say that we have since tried the beer, which we store in lemonade bottles, and it is very nice! We currently have two batches done, and intend to acquire some more ingredients in the near future.

Back onto the road of time.

I went home for a week following the brewing excitement. This was for a few reason, 1 being I had a dentist appointment, which turned out to be in December, not September. Damn. I also needed to bring my car back, as I'm not keeping her in London this year to save money. I'm going to miss her very much!
Finally I went to finish a video about the new build at Rainbows Hospice. After a quick extra shoot and a furious day and night of editing I finished. Not one of my greatest pieces, however the people seemed thrilled, so I'm content! Here it is, incase you're interested!

I then left Loughborough, and embarked on a journey to Warwickshire where I'd arranged to stay with my Dad, to do some work for him. That was a monotonous task and a half, but there we are! That's my share of the TV license paid!

Monday evening, we both came to London. This notion seems pretty straight forward, simple and easy. However, adding a microwave into the equation made the experience somewhat challenging. I never knew how awkward and heavy a microwave could be until now. I'd love to see the CCTV of us on the tube, attempting to get out of the barriers.

Dad stayed at my house that night, and we got up early on Tuesday to visit Chloe who was having her annual check up at the Evelina. I have never been so amazed, seeing my sister, who not that long ago couldn't even sit up do this... (Click here..)
I literally had tears of joy seeing this, I haven't seen her walk like that for such a long time, so this was a really amazing experience.

On my way home I stopped at B&Q to get supplies for a newly noticed problem with our house to add to the list; mice. They're eating our food and weeing on our things so we are not overly pleased. My mum told me to get humane traps, but quite where I'd take a mouse to set it free in London I don't know...
We caught one earlier today and I couldn't help feeling bad. They have to go though, and this is the only way. Others have had lucky (or skilful) escapes too, as bait from the traps has gone missing without the trap being set off. I'd love to see how they do it... I've trapped my finger so many times in the last two days just setting them!

Finally, why I'm up so late; it's now 4.23am. I've been working on a project and the director said that he wanted to see the first cut tomorrow... or today now. It has been, admittedly a little more time consuming that I originally thought, I'm now moving into my 18th hour today, but at least I've finished. I'm just waiting for it to export so I'm ready to show it later on. It says it's going to take 4 hours... maybe I will sleep for a bit.

So anyway, I think it's time to round up, and maybe I should include an AOB section:

  • A huge spider managed to climb into my bag, come with me on a 40 minute journey before springing upon me in a public place, causing mass panic.
  • My car broke down after a journey through central London.
  • During that journey I ticked a box on my list of things to do before I die - Driving across Westminster Bridge.
  • Just to clarify from my previous story about the part at my old house - I did actually officially move out a couple of weeks ago.
  • I acquired an ear infection.

Well then, I hope not to leave you in the dark for so long this time, it's been a mission catching up!

Write soon!

Flan x

Friday 10 September 2010

Driving, Bartering and Water.

It's been a while, I have to say, apologies.

So the weekend before last we had our race weekend at my Dads. It was an awesome weekend of Scalextric, go karting as well as other driving events and copious amounts of beer. I started off well with my F1 predictions. I know nothing about F1, at all. However, initiative was on my side, and I have a lot to say for William Hill for this round - thank you.

It was all downhill from there. I lost at scalextric, go karting (although I still blame this on a crap kart) and finally PS2 driving and Lego car creation - my concept self powering car didn't go down well with the judge. However I argue that aesthetics was never the primary concern for the competition, and my innovative design should have taken the prize.

The weekend ended with me being last, for the second year running. Result!

I've never been the most competitive of people, so the fun of the weekend was enough to make me happy.

I had a slow week after that. I dossed around in Loughborough, wondering what else I could do to amuse myself in this seemingly continuous loop of nothingness this holiday has materialised to be.

On the Sunday I did a bootsale with my mum. I have fond memories of selling stuff at bootsales as a child, but things have definitely changed! No longer do people accept the price your asking 8 times out of 10, now, even 50p is too much to ask.
'50p' "30?" 'no... 50..' "30?" 'no.... 50!' "Ok, I'll give you 30." 'no.'

This went on for quite some time before the punter gave up and stormed away.

Funtimes. On the upside I made quite a lot that day to tie me over for another couple of weeks.

The day before I left for London, I went to Waterworld in stoke with my mates before they went off to uni. It was an awesome day out, despite up being too old really...

So now I'm back in London, trying to find work before we go back to uni. I really can't wait to go back now!

Speak to you soon! Flan x