Calendar Girl

I've been having a play with Google Calendars. Have a look at the new little device on the right there, and let me know if scrolling down causes you any problems. It keeps crashing IE here, but it might be this computer!

Get It Together Girl!

OK, what's this blogging thing again? Ah yes. Well I've been distributing this address out to a lot of people lately, so I figured I'd better make an effort to post at least once before "the trip". We've got less than a month before we're kicked out of the flat, and we've got a LOT of stuff to get rid of in the meantime. So if anyone wants to buy anything (and I mean pretty much ANYTHING) please let me know! We're doing a boot fair this weekend, but our boot doesn't hold much so I'm not sure how successful that's going to be. Still it's only a fiver, not much to be lost.

We've started buying the bits and pieces we need as well. We still haven't negotiated the minefield of insurance, and I still haven't properly got my head around what to do with money but I've started doing some important shopping and we've also joined WWOOF UK - this will keep us occupied until we leave the country in July. We're planning on WWOOFing all over the world, so it'll be the perfect starting point we think.

Anyway, can't chat long. Many things to be done...

This month I have...

I’ve been a bit rubbish at updating this lately haven’t I? Here’s a quick update of the last month…

L’Enclume

We drove over to Cartmel in the Lake District, stopping off in Grange Over Sands for a nose around as we couldn’t check into the room until 3pm. The room was very nice with a beautiful view of the Priory. We then had a walk around Cartmel (it’s not very big so it didn’t take long!) and I bought a necklace to go with my outfit for the evening. Back at the room we watched the first half of the football while we got changed – then Darren switched off the TV and dropped to one knee to propose to me! Of course I said yes, but it took me a while to stop shaking!

We celebrated with a glass of champagne to start our meal. It’s difficult to describe the experience of the meal itself. We went for the Underground, a meal of at least 20 courses (we actually finished with 21). Some are staple dishes to the restaurant, for example the Razor Role Reversal which has clam and chestnuts served in an eggshell and chicken served in a razorclam shell. Sometimes the staff were as puzzled as us about what was in a dish and had to check with the chef – “he’s experimenting” as one of the waiters explained to us!

There are a few dishes and elements that really stand out for me. BBQ pig with sweetcorn puree, cola jelly and deep-friend oregano was brilliant. Expearimenthol frappe was pear jelly, mint cream and coffee flavoured crushed biscuit served in a shot glass. The slow drop duck egg which had been cooked for two hours but was perfectly runny. Liquid chocolate – it looked like cake and felt like cake at first, but then dissolve to liquid. Foie gras ice cream (it takes a couple of mouthfuls to get used to that one!) All of the dishes were presented like works of art, but then that’s the difference between a great restaurant and a Michelin star restarant.

The staff were particularly wonderful. They served the meal with humour and we got the feeling that they were perfectly aware of how bizarre the idea was. They were attentive but we never felt pestered. The sommelier helped us pick an amazing bottle of red wine for the second half of our meal (we started with a white). I don’t think we’ll spend £65 on a bottle of wine very often, but you can taste the difference – the depth of flavour was incredible.

I struggled with the final few mouthfuls and just couldn’t face the coffee and chocolates (served on skewers). It was back to the room to collapse on the bed and allow my body and mind to digest everything! We also had breakfast at the restaurant, which was probably the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I was surprised I was hungry at all! We had another wonder around Cartmel, picking up some of the world’s best Sticky Toffee pudding on the way (we’ve since devoured it and it’s truly wonderful). I think I want to live in Cartmel. It’s the food capital of the world…



Marillion – Somewhere Else

I’m not sure what insanity drives us to travel to Glasgow to listen to an album that’s out in a few weeks and that I could probably download if I were that desperate to listen to it. Especially when we’d already heard over half of it. Such is the life of a Marillion fan. It was an opportunity to catch up with some friends as well, always worth a journey. The listening party was held in Arta, a lovely if expensive bar. The soundsystem wasn’t particularly good though, and the heavy bass combined with the chatter made it quite difficult to really assess or appreciate the album.

There were two tracks that we heard at the Convention that I was very much looking forward to hearing again. Most Toys is probably the most catchy song Marillion have ever produced and The Wound is dark and moody. Opening track The Other Half again appeared to me as a song of – ironically – two halves, the first being my personal favourite. Of the songs I hadn’t heard before, No Such Thing stood out the most in it’s quirkiness, and the title track definitely has potential as a grower. Overall it’s quite unusual for a Marillion album in that all the songs are relatively short and many are of a basic song structure. It’s really quite Beatle-esque. Although I couldn’t hear much of the lyric, what I heard was quite dark, both on a personal and a global level.

Afterwards I got a chance to chat to bassist Pete Trewavas (who recognised us from our exploits in Luxembourg a couple of years ago). Even he thought the bass had been too loud! He was in fine form and we had an excellent natter about the album. Unfortunately it was all too short as he had to go and mingle further. The album is out on the 9th April – I can’t wait to hear it properly!

A Lucky Weekend

Not only did I win £150 on bingo last Saturday, I also managed to nab a couple of Glastonbury tickets! This is VERY exciting! I’d never thought of going to Glasto before, but we thought we’d give it a go and after half an hour of refreshing browsers I managed to get through. Now where are my wellies...

Busy busy busy...

Life is still pretty breathless! Last week we got last minute tickets to see the Kaiser Chiefs at Newcastle Academy. Unfortunately they were seated balcony tickets and I just couldn't get into the gig at all. Nevermind, maybe we'll snaffle Glastonbury tickets and see them there instead...

Before the gig we went to St Sushi - it's like Yo! but a bit cheaper and it feels less like a chain. Really excellent and pretty experimental sushi. My favourite was deep fried prawns with strawberry.

We went to the Destinations Travel Show on Sunday. It was essentially just a huge travel agents, but we grabbed quite a lot of brochures to give us some ideas. I also got a copy of Rough Guides new World Party book - I want to go to as many carnivals and festivals around the world as possible!

This weekend is L'Enclume. I'm REALLY excited about it, I don't think I've done anything this posh before!!!

Busy Diary!!!

Wow, my "Forthcoming Dates" are filling up aren't they?! I've barely got a quiet weekend until May, and then we move out! There are a lot of Preston matches on there because that's where Darren is from, so we try to get to as many matches as possible. Especially as they're doing well at the moment. We saw them playing Stoke at Deepdale last weekend - they conceded two goals in 7 minutes and then won it 3-2. It was a very exciting match (and believe me, I don't always come away from Deepdale thinking that!) So we try to coincide visiting his family with home matches, and squeeze in the odd away match too (I prefer being an away supporter, it's much more fun!)

We are going to L'Enclume for our anniversary. We were planning to go to the Fat Duck in Bray but - owing to it's many Michelin stars, rating as the world's best restaurant and owner Heston Blumenthal's current high profile - we couldn't get a booking. So after a bit of searching we found L'Enclume. We're staying there as well. We'll probably go for The Underground - a minimum of 20 courses in a meal that can last over 5 hours. We both love good food, and this is supposed to be an experience unlike any other.

In other news, today I got my first jabs before the big trip. I'm such a wimp. I haven't had an injection for 13 years and despite having three tattoos I was petrified. When it came down to it neither of them hurt (combined hepatitis A and typhoid in one arm, combined diptheria, tetanus and polio on the other). But a mixture of adrenaline, relief and euphoria after getting over my fear made me go doolally and I passed out. Three times. How pathetic am I?!!

An hour later I managed to feel strong enough to leave the surgery. I decided it probably wasn't worth going to work for the rest of the day. My arms have felt really weak all day - that's now subsiding but my shoulders feel like I've done 3 hours of yoga practice! Now I'm all protected against 5 nasty diseases. In a couple of weeks I go back for yellow fever, then a hep A booster in 6 months and I should be all good to go. Exciting innit?!!

Happy New Year!!!

Well, all the festivities are nearly over and it'll be back to work again in less than 24 hours. I hope you had a good one. Darren's son Jordan has been with us for the last week - it's always nice to have a young person around over Christmas. It's been a busy week too! We collected him last Saturday, taking in Preston v Colchester at Deepdale on the way. Christmas Day we went out to a pub for lunch. We spent a lot of the week playing on Guitar Hero on PS2 (truly excellent game btw). On Wednesday we went to Newcastle for panto. It wasn't the big professional one, but a smaller scale version of Dick Whittington. It was very, very good - I haven't been to panto for years!

Darren's parents came up on Friday to take Jordan home. Preston were playing at Sunderland on Saturday, so being season ticket holders it fell nicely for us all to go there (watching a match as an away supporter is much more fun!) They left on Sunday and the flat seems much quieter now. Peaceful. Jordan's a lovely lad but kids are hard work aren't they? I marvel at all parents who look after their children full time - I don't think motherhood's really for me!

So finally it's 2007. Last night me and Darren went to a local restaurant, Krimos. It really is the most fantastic food. We'd scoured the country for the bottle of bubbly which was recently voted as the best, so we came back for midnight to toast the new year in, catch the end of Jools Holland's Hootenanny and watch the fireworks going off around the North Sea coast that is our balcony view.

This should be a life-changing year for us. After two years of talking we're finally going on our worldwide travels in July. That's my main reason for starting this blog, so that family and friends can keep up-to-date with my adventures. I'm getting seriously impatient itchy feet now!

I'm also starting a new job tomorrow. The company I was temping for had to let me go - I suppose that's temp life for you. So a quick hello to everyone at Expamet who made my move oop North so much easier!!!

And Happy New Year to anyone who reads this. The years are whipping by so quickly nowadays (is that a sign of getting old?), I don't want to waste a minute of it. Hopefully this is the years that my life really starts to get exciting!!!

Madonna & Child

I can't quite understand this big commotion over Madonna wanting to adopt a Malawian child. I suppose it's another big stick people can try to bash her with. I don't entirely agree with adopting from a foreign country, but I don't know why a lot of people suddenly want to be so against it. There wasn't this fuss over Angelina Jolie. So, a couple of points to set straight:

• I think it's highly unlikely that she's just waltzed into the country, selected the one she wanted like a new pair of shoes and expected to waltz out again. She would have had to go through stringent assessment in the UK before even being allowed to approach the authorities in Malawi.
• "She's just doing it for publicity." Of course. That would explain why her publicist has been denying the story and trying to keep it hush hush...
• "Why doesn't she donate the money she would spend on the child here to charitable causes within Malawi." As if the $3 million she has already pledged just isn't enough.

I do think it's a bit odd that the child she has chosen does have living family (perhaps she wasn't aware of that at the time). And I wonder if Madonna - at 48 - has been turned down for adoption in this country due to her age. I may not entirely agree with foreign adoptions, but if it gives just one child a happier, healthier life with better prospects I don't see how it can be considered a bad thing. And I'm sure that she is doing it for all the right reasons.

It's Not Easy Being Green

But it's kinda addictive. I've been trying to live as ethically as possible this year. I guess it all started with the MakePovertyHistory thing last year. I never really agreed with it, but I could never quite work out why.

Then someone at work brought me a Traidcraft catalogue. FairTrade suddenly came into my consciousness and it all became clear. You can't make deals on these kinds of issues with politicians. They make empty promises that they can't keep and within 5 years those world leaders have been replaced and you have to start all over again. You have to tackle business. And from my relatively lowly position, there's only one way to make my voice heard - to vote with my purse.

So slowly but surely I've tried to buy FairTrade products whenever I can. It makes shopping a whole new experience! When you start to think about the hours that people have put in to make your clothes or farm your food it sheds a new light on things. I no longer want to wear clothes that people have slaved over for very little pay, or eat food produced by people who have little or no employment rights. I wouldn't want to have to work under those conditions, so why should I expect other people to just so that I can save a few pennies?

This kind of thinking escalates. Once you start on one small part of trying to make people's lives better, you want more. We've started getting fruit and veg delivered through an organic box scheme, and I try to buy organic wherever possible. I'm making a more concerted effort to recycle. I try to buy health and beauty products from the most ethical sources (Boots get a big green tick in The Good Shopping Guide). I try to save as much water and power as possible. I walk to work rather than driving, and try not to drive anywhere if it's possible. I try to buy FairTrade presents, and if anyone says they don't want anything I'll buy them one of Oxfam's funusual gifts.

People ask me why I care. Helping the environment is too big a thing, it won't affect us in our lifetime they say. To me "the environment" is not about the big wide world or a hole in the ozone layer. It's about the very air that everyone breathes, the landscape around you. "The environment" is much more immediate than the whole world. And it's already affecting us. I can't believe anyone can honestly look at masses of car fumes and say that makes for a nice place for people to live. I've heard people complain about having to separate their rubbish for recycling - I'm sure they'd complain a lot more when the local playing field is turned into the local rubbish dump or when an incinerator is built next to the local school. All that rubbish, it's got to go somewhere. And it's such a tiny thing to do, sorting your rubbish.

This is just a simple example of what I'm talking about. People do things without thinking. They buy things without thinking. I guess all I'm trying to do is put thinking back into my life. I'm far from perfect. I still shop at Tesco. I still use the dishwasher. I still fly from one end of the country to the other to visit my family. But I now get a twinge of guilt whenever I do these things, and everything I spend my money on now comes with the thought of whether it's the best ethical choice. It's become a second nature. And it's actually a lot more exciting than you probably expect...

Vroom Vroom!!!

When I asked Darren what he wanted last Christmas, he consisitantly said, "a Ferrari." So I got him one. Actually I got him two. Only for 3 laps each though!

On Saturday we cashed in his Drivers Dream Days voucher and went to Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire. Firstly he was driven by an instructor in a Subaru to show him the track and the best way to drive it. Next up was 3 laps in a Ferrari 360 Spider (with the top down, natch!) On his last lap the instructor told him to miss out the chicane on the back straight and floor it - he reckons he hit 170mph!

We took his son Jordan to watch, and we got a pretty good view (thank goodness it was a nice sunny day). You could also get quite close to the cars - Jordan was particularly taken with an orange Lambourgini that made a massive roar every time it was started up! Next on Darren's agenda was go-karting. I got some good video of him, but unfortunately one was when he got overtaken!

We then tried to get a drink and a burger from the van on site before Darren's next drive. Fast cars, not so fast food. After waiting in an unmoving queue for 15 minutes, it was time for Darren to get in a Ferrari 355 for his next 3 laps. All was going well until the last lap where he spun it! He claims that the instructor hit the dual brake - all sounded like a bit of a misunderstanding to me...

We eventually got a drink and some nosh. Darren then decided to treat Jordan to a lap in "that" Lambourgini. 1 lap for £45 ain't cheap, but I'm sure he enjoyed telling his mates at school on Monday. Darren offered to pay for a lap for me, but I can think of better things to spend that kind of money on. Definitely a bloke thing!

Finally he had a "high-speed passenger ride" in a Subaru Impreza - this is where the instructors show you how it's done! I think Darren was suitably impressed. We were also entitled to a 4x4 passenger ride, but I think one of the 4x4s had broken down so we were looking at a 40+ minute wait and decided not to bother. Darren bought some professional photos and we headed home.

It's not cheap, but it's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The staff were fantastic (apart from the twitchy instructor!) - all really friendly, especially with the young 'un. Only problem is he now wants a drive in something else...

Find And Seek

Last weekend we went geocaching. "What is geocaching?" I here you cry! Well basically it's a worldwide treasure hunt. A cache is generally a sandwich box, ammo box or something similar, containing a logbook and a few small gifts, although they can be as small as a film case. People hide them (often in bushes, trees or rocks), taking a note of the GPS co-ordinates, then file them on www.geocaching.com where other people (like us!) log the co-ordinates and try to find them. The idea is that you take one gift and leave another, and write a message in the logbook. We thought we'd do a bit of promotion of our favourite band Marillion, and leave sampler CDs.

Darren's son Jordan came up to the North East for the long weekend, so we located a few near us to try to track down. We started with a relatively easy one (all caches are graded on Difficulty and Terrain) called Air Power, then found Hardwick Hall Park and Rodridge Lane. Hardwick Hall was particularly nice - a wooded park with lots of ponds and ducks. 3 out of 3!!! Just when it started to look really easy we seemed to hit a wall...

Next on our list was Rule Of Thumb. We knew it was a multi-cache, where the co-ordinates don't lead directly to the cache but to a clue. We could see a bird-box among the trees, and sent Jordan in to have a look but he couldn't see anything. It started to rain so we gave up. Dalden Tower seemed even more fruitless - lots of overgrown nettles and the tree cover made it hard to get a good GPS signal. Again the heavy rain drove us back to the car. Alienation was quite good fun - a VERY steep path down the cliff onto a raised beach. But we searched and searched among the rocks and could find nothing (we weren't quite brave enough to stick our hands in blind holes!

So after 3 successes and 3 failures we had two more on our list. It was getting late and we only had time for one more so we decided on another multi-cache, Dead Man's Bank. We had to find out the co-ordinates by answering some questions, and we were on our way. It was quite a long walk along the cliff, and when the heaven's opened we were really too far away to get back to the car. So we plodded on in the rain (which soon subsided) to a bunch of gorse bushes. Hmm. It was obviously in there, but they're prickly things and as they were covered in spiders there wasn't a chance I was sticking my hand in! Darren wasn't going to be beaten though, and eventually he found it. 4 out of 7, we won!!! Also in this cache were a travelbug and a Geocoin, both of which wanted to move from cache to cache.

On Saturday evening we e-mailed the owner of Rule Of Thumb (who very quickly replied with a hint) and studied the pictures of Alienation. Dalden Tower looks a bit of a lost cause as no-one's found it for a while, but we thought we'd have another go at the others. Firstly Rule Of Thumb. I decided I was going to investigate the birdbox this time. I found a small metal stick around the back of the telegraph pole, and when attached to a metal disc on the bottom of the birdbox a tape measure came out with the co-ordinates on it! Clever! Alienation we found by taking a picture with Darren's mobile phone - his arm was just about long enough! We left the Geocoin (which wants to travel around the North East) here. Finally we found Go Down In The Woods Today, the one we didn't bother with yesterday. It was a long, long walk in the Dene Forest - and a long walk uphill walk back!

We had a lot of fun Geocaching. It's a great way to explore places you wouldn't have otherwise known about, and get some exercise. We'll take the travelbug with us next time we decide to hunt some treasure...

Going Ape

With V Festival coming up and us in possession of a new tent, my boyfriend decided that we had to test it out. Now, I'm not that girlie a girl, but camping has never been my idea of fun. My protests were to no avail - we were booked to stay near Ullswater in the Lake District.

We met up on Friday night with Darren's parents who have a nice comfy trailer tent, along with his son Jordan and his mate Marcus. So much for summer - looks like it's all over. It was really quite cold overnight - my boyfriend mocked me for wearing jogging bottoms and a fleece but when I woke on Saturday morning he was wrapped up in his fleece! We made our way over to the trailer tent where his mum was cooking up a fine breakfast - we would need a lot of energy today...

We were about to Go Ape. Basically, Go Ape takes you up over rope bridges, tramlines, cargo nets, up rope ladders and down zip lines in the forest. This one was in Grizedale Forest, and there are 6 other locations around the UK. You are fitted with a harness and taken through a pretty rigorous training session before you are let loose on your own. At all times you keep yourself attached to the trees, so you're never in any danger, even on a tiny platform 60ft up a tree! I was amazed at how confident I was with it all. Until one of the last obstacles that is - a "Tarzan swing" into a cargo net. Unlike the zip lines which you could almost sit into, with this you had to jump off the platform a free fall about 10ft before the rope tightened. I still did it (even if I did scream a bit!)

It was a real sense of accomplishment to complete the whole course. I'd highly recommend going - it takes about 3-4 hours to go round and if it's quiet you can even go round again. You don't have to be particularly fit or young even - the oldest person to complete the course was 86 years old!!! Have a look at Darren's blog for some pics.

On the Sunday we said goodbye to our fellow campers and made our way back across the country. On our way down we'd taken a wrong turning off the A66 into some strange place called Rhegad, and as we were passing again we thought we'd check it out. Turns out it's a strange shopping centre / cinema / exhibition hall / conference centre hybrid. It's been built into a hill so you can bearly see it from the nearby roads. We had a good nosy around the shops. My favourites were Taste, a proper foodies food shop with lots of local produce, Saunders the chocolate shop where you could watch them making the chocolates through the window, and Talent, an art and furnishings shop with lots of fabulous individual pieces (I would love to be rich enough to fill my home full of these things!)

There is a giant cinema screen which shows movies on things like Everest, the Grand Canyon and the Serengeti, and the National Mountaineering Exhibition, but we decided not to pay for these. The temporary Buddhist Himalaya market was a bit disappointing. All in all it was a slightly odd place, but it's worth a look around if you're in the area and fancy something unusual.

And so to V!!! Please pray for me that it doesn't rain!!!

Long Weekends...

It's the way forward!!! Just working 3 days this week - it's my boyfriend's birthday on Friday so we're taking his son to Alton Towers for a couple of days. Week-long holidays are over-rated - with 20 days holiday you could work 4 days a week for half the year. Not sure if anyone's ever found a boss who would accommodate that...

I'm soooo bored of everyone complaining about the weather. Apart from everything I'm living on the North East coast which means we get immense sea breezes (gales more like). It's nice, but I kinda miss that really hot, sticky, muggy city heat from when I lived in London.

And what is it about the British which makes us unable to cope? You don't hear about the roads in Saudi Arabia melting? Or the trains system in Spain falling apart? Warmer weather is here to stay, and we can't just feign surprise every year.

And still people complain from the comfort of their gas-guzzling cars that are contributing to global warming, believing that there's nothing they can do and that it's not going to affect them. Wake up people - it is ALREADY affecting you!!!

Me & My ROKR

An explanation about my playlist to the right of the screen. For Christmas my boyfriend bought me a lovely Motorola ROKR, a mobile phone with iTunes on it. It holds 100 songs, and accompanies me on my walk to and from work. Sometimes I put whole albums on it, but quite often I'll let iTunes decide and go for a random selection. I used to play the tracks on random mode, but I found that it would often give me the same tracks so I found a nifty way around that - I sort the songs alphabetically and play them in order that way. It's been really good for listening to a lot of stuff I haven't heard in ages, or stuff that my boyfriend has that I probably wouldn't choose to listen to.

At the moment, I'm on a random, but it's a selective random. I'm off to V Festival in 5 weeks time, and to prepare myself I've created a playlist with all the V artists that I own. The computer picks 100 songs for me and off I go! You can probably see from the playlist the artists who I'm most looking forward to seeing - Beck, Gomez, Radiohead, Starsailor and the newly reformed Kula Shaker. Coincidentally, V Festival have actually got their act together and announced the full line-up for the main 3 stages. All very exciting!!!

But before that is Madonna...

First Blog

Hello All!!!

Well, I'm not sure how many people might read this, but I thought I'd start one anyway. The main reason why I wanted a blog is because I plan to go travelling with my boyfriend next year, and I thought it would be an easy way for my friends and family to keep up to date with where I am and what I'm up to.

A brief history:

I'm 28 years old. I was born and grew up in Braintree in Essex. I went to university in Stoke On Trent and got a BA in Creative Arts. I then worked in music retail for a few years, living in London for 5 years and working in store for HMV before getting a job at their head office. A year ago I turned my life on it's head - I moved to Hartlepool in the North East to be with my boyfriend Darren. Now I'm temping on a reception and biding my time before we head off on our travels around the world next March.

My main love is for music. I love a wide range, my very favourite two artists being Marillion and Madonna. If I can combine music with travel, all the better - I've been to Barcelona, Cologne and Luxembourg for gigs. I also love my food, and try to have a good meal out as often as possible.

I'm passionate about issues like fairtrade, conservation and ecology. I didn't entirely agree with the Make Poverty History campaign, but it did make me re-think my own habits (particularly when it comes to shopping) and try to change them. I'm sure I'll get onto preaching about that sort of stuff at some point!

Well, that'll do for now...