Summer

Well, it's been a long time since I last blogged. I've finished my second year at Aberystwyth University and summer has arrived. I plan on changing my blog around at some point, maybe even switching to WordPress - my brother's fiancée has recently done this and it seems as though WordPress allows more to be done :)

This post is just going to be a brief overview of the past few months and then I hope to blog on more detail about some of the things I've done or will do this summer.

Last time I wrote, I'd just been baptised at my church in Aberystwyth where my mum and grandparents had come over especially to watch. That was in February and although nothing major has happened in my life, life has continued to move forward.

I suppose an important event that occurred was that my brother proposed to his girlfriend (the fiancée mentioned previously) whilst they were on holiday in Athens. They've been together since they were 17 and he's almost 22 so I'm guessing it was the naturally the next stage in their relationship.

I also had my geography field trip to Killarney in Ireland. For saying that Ireland is so close it's the first time I've ever been. I had my worries about the trip as the things that were going to be looked at weren't really my cup of tea but I managed to get through the week, without too much trouble.

Over the Easter holidays I went back to working at McDonald's for the first time since my brother died; I wasn't sure how it would go to begin with - I thought I'd have forgotten what to do but it seems like it never goes away. Lots of new people have started working there, some of them in Kieran's year at school which not only makes me feel old, but makes me realise what Kieran is missing out on in terms of getting a job, going to college, having a future ahead of him.

After Easter at uni I had my final exams for second year and I feel as though they went much better than the one I had in January which is a good sign I hope :)

Despite finishing my exams on the 23rd May, I didn't go home from Aber until the 7th June - this was so that Alex and I could actually spend some time going to places and just relaxing instead of having essays or revision to do. Thankfully the weather was mostly nice so we could go to the beach and make the most of our seaside location :)

I was only home two days though before heading down south to see my family. My parents have gone away to Germany for the week and Aidan is still at Loughborough so I'd have been home alone and since Kieran died I haven't really liked being in the house on my own. So, I've been down in Essex from Tuesday until Saturday seeing my cousins and my Auntie and Uncle (I wish there was a word that co-joined these like how you have siblings for brothers and sisters). Now I'm at my grandparents's until Tuesday when I head back to the Midlands.

Over the summer I've got a few things planned involving a Mission Week with my church in Aberystwyth (the students go to another parish and help out there), visiting Alex in Wales as well as starting work on my dissertation and working at McDonald's. I think I'm in for a pretty busy summer so hopefully I'll actually have things to blog about for once :)

13. being home

So, Christmas 2012 has passed, and we were all around to see it - so I guess that's a good thing. I came home from Aberystwyth on the 15th Dec, where my mum picked me and Rob up from Telford to save us changing trains etc in Birmingham. I was glad about this cos I hate changing trains especially with my luggage (I'd tried to pack sensibly but I always seem to pack way too much stuff!)

I had work on the Sunday as I was covering a shift for a friend - the communication at McDonalds is awful so I haven't been put on ANY shifts at all - quite annoying when I actually wanted to work to get some extra money over Christmas.

On the first Friday back, I went to Ashby (thankfully just the pub - although it was mega busy) with some of my friends from school, and it was good to see them again. I didn't drink very much and I had to go fairly early as due to living in the opposite direction my dad came to pick me up - which I thought was fairly good of him as he'd probably wanted to go to bed!

I went to a couple of church services over the Christmas period, one which was introduced by the new vicar - The Crib Service. This seemed to be aimed at really young children, but it still portrayed the story of Christmas well. The other one was a family service, that I've gone to as long as I can remember - Christingle. The Christingle service is always good, and we get given Christingles which symbolise different things. I play in the music group at our church, and normally when we ding one of the songs by candlelight, they leave some lights on so that the music group can see to play - this year they didn't so it was quite difficult to see the music. I always plan to go to Midnight Mass - the service that's held Christmas Eve night, and goes over into the morning but I think that I'd probably fall asleep as I'm not good at staying awake when I'm supposed to!

I'll probably write a separate post on my actual Christmas Day and Boxing Day as they were fairly packed, as I spent time with both my family and Rob's. After Christmas and Boxing Day had passed everything was slightly more relaxed. I went to see The Hobbit again, this time at the IMAX cinema in Birmingham - so it was on a much bigger screen. Unfortunately is begun to come down with something, so I found it difficult to watch as I had a huge headache throughout. This illness meant that I spent the New Year in bed asleep, instead of enjoying it with Rob.

I'll mention New Year's Day alongside Christmas and Boxing Day, but since the new year, I've met up with Natalie and Steph, (we were all at band together) when we went to the cinema to watch a film ( yes, it was The Hobbit again - this time in 2D so it was a different experience for me). We almost managed to get away with having three large tango ice blasters for free, but due to our honest nature, we paid for them. Watching The Hobbit with Nat was definitely an experience as she kept doing her fangirl squee, which in turn made me go hyper over it (even more so).

So, I go back to uni next week and in a way I'm looking forward to it although I'm dreading the exams - I have 5!! 2 essay based ones and 3 multiple choice ones. Hopefully will do a post on Christmas Day specifically soon! :)

Tara

15. birthdays

On Sunday it was my younger brother, Kieran's 16th birthday. Although he has turned 16 I still think of him as like a 13 year old. I swear the last few years have flown by. It still seems like yesterday that I was in year 11 taking my GCSEs and making decisions about what I wanted to do for A Level.

I bought Kieran Cars2 and contributed towards some of his skiing gear that he had to get for his ski trip to Austria (with school) in February half term.

For his birthday we all went to see Rise of the Guardians in 3D, which although a cartoon, wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. Plus, as Hugh Jackman was the Easter Bunny, I got to listen to his voice, as well as Chris Pine's (he did the voice for Jack Frost). It's not a film I'd recommend to everyone as I know a lot of people aren't into children's films or cartoon animation (I'm still a sucker for kids' movies). But if you do like that sort of thing, then, why not go and see it? (Or, if you like these kind of films secretly, wait until it's out on DVD and then watch it).

We went out for a meal after the film too, to the Tamworth Wetherspoon's. I love Wetherspoons (there's one in Aberystwyth) as it's good food and not extortionately priced!! I had a chicken burger with bacon and cheese! Yummy!

Yesterday was Rob's birthday, so this morning when he'd finally woken up I made him open his presents. He'd gotten some comedy DVDs as well as some CDs and music. Most of the day was spent being lazy, but in the evening his parents took us to Prezzo in Swadlincote. I wasn't sure what to have as usually at Italian restaurants I'll have pizza to be on the safe side, but for once I had spaghetti carbonara. I hate eating spaghetti because it goes everywhere, so instead of attempting to eat it correctly (by wrapping it around my fork), I just chopped it into small enough bits and scooped it up. Much easier! I didn't manage to finish it all as there just seemed to be so much pasta! Normally at uni, I have about half of what they had served up. For dessert I just had a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream which was pretty nice. 

After the meal we went back to mine, where we just relaxed and watched Sunday's Ripper Street. However, before having gone out to Prezzo, Rob's parents gave him the cake, which had these really cool candles that flashed numbers, so they set them for 19. They also played the 'happy birthday' tune - which would have been good if they weren't out of sync!

14. christmas and new year

So, here's the post I promised I'd write on my Christmas and New Year. I know that it's been a while since they happened, and I'll probably have another post to later as it's my little (and I say little in the sense that he's 2 and a half years younger than me) brother's birthday today, and we're going out to the cinema and for meal.

Christmas Day

My Nina Ricci 'Nina'
perfume

This year is the first year we've had dogs at our household for Christmas so instead of beginning to open at presents like previous years, we had to wait until 9. I'd woken up fairly early for once (half 7!!) so I made sure I had some coco pops for breakfast as our family tends to have mince pies for breakfast (which I think are disgusting). Just before 9 my older brother (Aidan), his girlfriend (Beth) and my nan turned up. This meant that unwrapping presents took way longer than usual as normally there are only 4 or 5 of us, and this year there were 7!! I got quite a few presents this year including: Nina Ricci 'Nina' perfume, some toiletries, an atlas and a jigsaw puzzle globe (in 3D - to increase my brilliantness at geography hahaa), some chocolate (of course!) and some money/New Look vouchers as well as other stuff! I didn't get any fictional books this year which is quite unusual but I'm guessing it's because I got a KindleTouch for my birthday in July.

My new slippers!

After opening presents I got ready to go to Rob's as this year I was having Christmas dinner there. I always feel bad when it comes to dinner time as I don't like the traditional Christmas dinner as such, so I have to have something different. This year Rob's family was having to cook me some chicken (as I don't like turkey), so I had that with some broccoli, parsnips (I love parsnips - why do they only seem to appear at Christmas-time?), chipolatas, roast potatoes with gravy! Yummy! Even for pudding I have to be different as I ding like fruit cake (and therefore Christmas pudding). I had some mini Melt-in-the-middle chocolate puddings with custard! Rob's step-dad actually managed to do that thing where you set the Christmas pudding alight (something which never happens at home! I think mum always uses too much brandy), so that was pretty cool to watch. I got some more presents whilst I was at Rob's - from him and his parents - which was good cos I like it when presents are spread out throughout the day. I got some DVDs including War Horse (when I watched it, I cried - lots!) and Rob also got me a really pretty necklace :D

My 3D Globe Puzzle

The rest of Christmas Day was spent relaxing really, watching the Doctor Who special (which compared to the previous episodes this series was really really good! Actually looking forward to watching it when it returns) and just eating some chocolate!

Boxing Day

One of the games we
played

Boxing Day morning and afternoon were spent at Rob's just chilling and watching one of his comedy DVDs that he got. But around 4pm we got picked up in order to go to my Nan's house for Boxing Day tea and games. My nan always does a little buffet with sausage rolls and breadsticks (which is what I usually eat when I'm there!) This year, both of my brothers and Rob got these games which are easy to play with large numbers (there was 8 of us, so madness often occurs) so we played some of those in teams of 2. At 9 the Christmas special (and start of series 3) of Miranda was on, and as the majority of us watch it normally we watched that. I enjoy going round my nan's because it's a chance for the whole family just to have fun!

New Year's Day
As I said in my previous post, I was ill over the new year, so instead of seeing the year in at midnight I was fast asleep in my bed. I'd originally been planning on spending it at Rob's but I'd felt so awful New Year's Eve, I went home in the hope I'd feel better for the next day. Luckily I did feel better to an extent. The headache I'd had continuously since the Friday (28th) had lessened so I felt that so long as I had paracetamol with me, I should be okay. Rob's parents picked me up at around half 10 and we headed north to the Keighley & Worth Railway (in Yorkshire) for the Mince Pie Special train. One of the stations along the line (I think it's Oakworth) is where The Railway Children was filmed (the one filmed in the 80s?). I was tempted to do the whole 'Daddy! My Daddy!' thing but it'd probably have looked a bit weird. We were also in Bronte Country so when we got off at Haworth station, people could go and see where the Bronte sisters used to live. The day out was good, and in the evening we went out for a meal at The Charnwood Arms. Luckily, if I cut up my food into tiny pieces I was able to swallow it without too much difficulty as I'd been struggling to eat with a swollen throat.

So, there you go. My Christmas/Boxing Day as well as my New Year's Day. I'm quite surprised that I've managed to write it so soon after I'd said I would. I'm usually hopeless when it comes to things like that!

Tara