Okay, so, some time last week i got an email from my friend Helen saying she was coming up my way to do a 6 mile walk around Mansfield with our friends Nikki and Vee and asked me if i wanted to join them. Now, they're doing this to train for a 26 mile walk that they are doing for a Breast Cancer charity. I'm not doing this walk but since i'm trying currently to get fitter i thought 'why not?.'
The last time i did a walk i did an 8 mile walk around Carsington Water and by about mile 5 i was dragging my right leg behind me propping myself up on a big stick ... but i did complete it. The reason for this is i was the type of girl who never wore flat shoes. I wore at least 4 inch heels everyday, so my calves couldn't put up with such a distance in flats. Walking on tip toes helped. But since i've been wearing flats religiously for a good couple of years now i thought i'd be ok.
We set off, the 4 of us along with Nikki's daughter Ferne, friend Maxine and her dog Jaz. We set off that little bit late ... mainly because we are women and things like gossiping, tea and cakes easily distract us. It was gone 3 by the time we set off i think. We were walking through Sherwood Park, which has many different routes through the forest all of varying lengths. We decided on doing the 6 mile one, not too little, not to much. You choose a trail, follow that coloured markers and arrows in sequential number order. At some point someone said the 6 mile route goes up to number 20. We saw 1, 2 ..... 3 ... there was a small diversion but that eventally put us back on track ... we carried on counting. We all seemed to be coping ok ... my legs, on the whole .... worked ... by about 16 i could feel my right leg giving me a bit of jip, but not too much. I soldiered on. All the way round we nattered and had a laugh. We passed 19 ... got that little bit excited when we could see another marker in the distance .. not only because we were nearing the end but because the sun was rapidly setting, and we wanted to get back to Nikki's for food, vodka and games. We got to marker 20, couldn't see the carpark so just followed the direction of the marker ... another one came into sight ... 21 ... then came 22. Ok it must be 30 it goes up to not 20. It was getting dark, i'd developed a bit of a limp, eveyone else was feeling it too but we could cope to 30. But when 29 eventually appeared i was feeling somewhat relieved ..... More so when i could see another marker in the distance ...
12 f*cking 12! ... the marker said 12 .... 1 to 29 to 12! in what warped method of counting does this occur?!!
By this point it was dark, the ground was muddy and uneven and we couldn't see where we were putting our feet. Somone said 'at least it hasn't rained' ... then it rained, But we had no option but to follow the direction of the arrows and pray they didn't count up to infinity. Now anyone that knows me, will tell you i have a pretty overactive imagination. But i felt it was pretty justified given the situation. I realised that this forest, at night, would be the perfect place for a serial killer to hide out, lots of trees and shadows to hide behind ... and wildlife, there had to be tons of wildlife in such a dense area of forestry ... wolves? Don't wolves live in the forest ... one went for Little Red Riding Hood in broad daylight ... we were surely potential wolf food! Luckily i'm not silly enough to worry about them being warewolves ... it wasn't even a full moon! lol.
Seriously i was that little bit scared. I lost count of the amount of times i said 'i've seen horror movies that go like this' Every time i pointed out a particularly dark, scary bit of forest, the next marker arrow would point us in that very direction! There was even a random car aboned in the middle of the forest ... Hells thought there could be people erm .. fornicating in the back, Nikki thought probably doggers ... i reasoned that a serial killer must get into the woods somehow ... funny how different peoples minds work! At about marker 20 (the second time around ... i seriously thought we would just be going in a circle for all of eternity) we could see in the distance a flickering orange light ... could i imagine this to be something sinister? .... Course i could! Cannibals .... Cannibals living in a forest would need a fire to cook their prey surely ... this orange flickering light .. said fire!!
Well, since i'm writing this ... you can presume we got out alive .. either that or i'm still wandering through the forest but weirdly with a laptop and broadband connetion ... surprising what you can find in the forest along with the ghosts and ghouls ... It turns out, this trail goes from 1 to 30 then 12 to 21 ... and the flickering orange light was the light of a security vehicle keeping watch over our cars, which, since the park had closed and it had been dark for hours were the only vehicles left in the car park. I've never been so glad to see a car in my whole life. My right leg had been walking on sheer will for the past 5 miles We deducted we walked approx 9 miles ... my suggestion .... 38 miles ... felt like it.
When we got back we binged on pizza, curly fries and cupcakes ... we'd more than earned it.
............ could only happen to us!
Monday 24 January 2011
Wednesday 12 January 2011
One Born Every Minute
Monday night i watched 'One Born Every Minute' on channel 4. For those of you that aren't familiar with it it's basically a documentary set on a maternity ward. I love it. It confuses me immensely though. One minute i think 'there's no way on earth i am ever having a baby ... ouch' the next i'm thinking 'awwww i want one!' The pain looks hideously horrendous and i'm the biggest wimp in the world. One thing it has made me realise, when i have children, i want an epidural .... scratch that, 3 epidurals. Or i might attempt to be too posh to push ..
or i might just buy one.
This week it showed two births, one was a woman who screamed the hospital down ... i realise it hurts, but seriously, she was flailing about as if she was drowning, kicking the end of the bed, almost jumping out of it ... dramatic. Even after she'd had an epidural, she was still pretty vocal. I found her irritating, but quite amusing To be fair on her though, she did say before she went into labour that she wasn't good with pain. The second was a woman who ended up having to have an emergency C-Section after being induced .... as if i'm even going to attempt to spell that word. This was pretty similar to my sisters labour. I was there for the majority of it, until she got rushed to theatre for her C-Section ... pretty scary stuff.
Overall, interesting opening episode.
It's on on Monday nights at 9pm ... watch it ... or +1 it ... Glee is on E4.
or i might just buy one.
This week it showed two births, one was a woman who screamed the hospital down ... i realise it hurts, but seriously, she was flailing about as if she was drowning, kicking the end of the bed, almost jumping out of it ... dramatic. Even after she'd had an epidural, she was still pretty vocal. I found her irritating, but quite amusing To be fair on her though, she did say before she went into labour that she wasn't good with pain. The second was a woman who ended up having to have an emergency C-Section after being induced .... as if i'm even going to attempt to spell that word. This was pretty similar to my sisters labour. I was there for the majority of it, until she got rushed to theatre for her C-Section ... pretty scary stuff.
Overall, interesting opening episode.
It's on on Monday nights at 9pm ... watch it ... or +1 it ... Glee is on E4.
Sunday 9 January 2011
All that glitters ....
This week has been pretty uneventful, i worked, then got a bit tipsy at the weekend with a few of my favourite people. There was one thing however, which was that tiny bit weird. Thursday, i found a ring in my handbag. Quite an old looking amethyst and diamond gold ring. I had never seen it before in my life. It was very bizarre, my handbag is full of crap to be fair, so it could have been in there for ages before being discovered. My Mum thought it might have been one of hers ... if it was, it somehow got from a box in her wardrobe, in her bedroom, at her house, into my handbag. When i showed it her though, she'd never seen it before.
I put it down to someone, somewhere accidently dropping it into my handbag ... Until last night, when i was in a hotel in Birmingham, i dug into my handbag to look for a lipstick ... i found a ring .. a different ring .. silver, with white and red stones in (one stone missing), this, i had also never seen before in my life. This promted me to search my bag properly .. i came across a third ring! Pretty similar to the second one i found, but gold. This proper freaked me out. Upon telling people, their suggesstions on what was occuring, freaked me out even more. My mum's suggestion was that someone could have been trying to set me up as a thief! That would have been fun. I dismissed this though as surely i would have been accussed before i'd have had chance to take them out of my bag. My friends suggested that someone else had stolen them but ditched the evidence in my bag to save getting caught ... i'd like to think i don't associate with too many people that steal things, and if i did, they certainly wouldn't have access to my handbag!
The ending of the story has a somewhat boring conclusion (apologies for you having read this far). When showing my mum the new rings i had found in my bag my nana, casual as anything, goes 'oh they're mine'. So i somehow managed to get my nana's rings in my handbag. How they got there is still a complete mystery ....
maybe i bought a ghost back from the wedding ... i'm hoping not.
I put it down to someone, somewhere accidently dropping it into my handbag ... Until last night, when i was in a hotel in Birmingham, i dug into my handbag to look for a lipstick ... i found a ring .. a different ring .. silver, with white and red stones in (one stone missing), this, i had also never seen before in my life. This promted me to search my bag properly .. i came across a third ring! Pretty similar to the second one i found, but gold. This proper freaked me out. Upon telling people, their suggesstions on what was occuring, freaked me out even more. My mum's suggestion was that someone could have been trying to set me up as a thief! That would have been fun. I dismissed this though as surely i would have been accussed before i'd have had chance to take them out of my bag. My friends suggested that someone else had stolen them but ditched the evidence in my bag to save getting caught ... i'd like to think i don't associate with too many people that steal things, and if i did, they certainly wouldn't have access to my handbag!
The ending of the story has a somewhat boring conclusion (apologies for you having read this far). When showing my mum the new rings i had found in my bag my nana, casual as anything, goes 'oh they're mine'. So i somehow managed to get my nana's rings in my handbag. How they got there is still a complete mystery ....
maybe i bought a ghost back from the wedding ... i'm hoping not.
Sunday 2 January 2011
To have and to hold
Thursday i went to my second ever wedding ... one of my best friends in the whole world, Charlotte was getting married. I was also asked to be Bridesmaid, i've wanted to be one of these since i knew what one was, and i had to wait til i was 27 to be one! I still loved it.
The night before the wedding, i went up to stay with Charlotte in the honeymoon suite, which was quite exquisite, and easily larger than my whole apartment! We even had a bath in the main room instead of the bathroom! Just as we were dropping off to sleep (well as i was, i don't think Charlotte got that much sleep) the groom rang to say he'd been speaking to the night porter about ghosts. Apparantly there are two rooms in the hotel that are known to be haunted, room 31 and Coniston suite, rooms where people have been known to leave in horror in the middle of the night! We were in neither of these rooms but this still didn't make sleeping any easier ... every noise from then on sounded exactly like the noise a ghost was likely to make :( and the fact that i was in a room on my own the next day terrified me ... i actually made a special request to not get any of these rooms when i was checking in the next day. I was in 107 ... miles away from any of the haunted rooms thank god! Even when me and Charlotte went looking for these rooms in broad daylight the next morning ... in pyjamas .. it still seemed pretty spooky!
Anyway ....
The wedding was beautiful. Being female i've often thought about what my wedding would be like. It varies between wanting a church wedding, one in an old celtic castle or barefoot on an exotic beach somewhere. Yeah 'm indecisive. I might let any potential groom have a little input .. if i'm feeling generous ... But yeah, if i'm honest, i know i'll probably never be getting married as it is dependant on someone asking me.
Charlottes wedding was in a lovely little church. And she looked absolutely stunning in her dress ... i was highly tempted to try and steal it ... i'd look a bit random wearing it on a typical Saturday night however. We walked down the aisle to a beautiful ballad version of 'Auld Langs Syne' (the wedding being on the 30th December it was pretty apt) a version by Mairi Campbell played in an episode of Sex and the City <3 it definately brought a tear to my eye.
I wore a lovely champagney colored dress with a little fur jacket thing to keep out the December weather. Luckily Charlotte has impeccable taste so i didn't look like a meringue bridesmad as is often famously the case. I shall add pictures when i get some.
After the church wedding we had a candlelit dinner at the Abbey Hotel in Barrow, before the meal we let off heart shaped lanterns into the night sky after making wishes. Mine had a hole in it, but i still got it to float away which i was glad of ... i didn't want my wish tainting!! lol. Was a nice touch, and the heart shaped lights floating off into the night sky looked beautiful.
I had a great time at only my second ever wedding, i went alone but all of Charlottes and Dave's guests, family and friends, were lovely and all made me feel very welcome and we all had a laugh! I completely forgot i'd never met any of them before.
So, thank you Charlotte and Dave for letting me be a part of it. I can't think of a more perfectly suited couple than the two of you, i wish you the best of luck in the future .... i'm confident you won't need it x
The night before the wedding, i went up to stay with Charlotte in the honeymoon suite, which was quite exquisite, and easily larger than my whole apartment! We even had a bath in the main room instead of the bathroom! Just as we were dropping off to sleep (well as i was, i don't think Charlotte got that much sleep) the groom rang to say he'd been speaking to the night porter about ghosts. Apparantly there are two rooms in the hotel that are known to be haunted, room 31 and Coniston suite, rooms where people have been known to leave in horror in the middle of the night! We were in neither of these rooms but this still didn't make sleeping any easier ... every noise from then on sounded exactly like the noise a ghost was likely to make :( and the fact that i was in a room on my own the next day terrified me ... i actually made a special request to not get any of these rooms when i was checking in the next day. I was in 107 ... miles away from any of the haunted rooms thank god! Even when me and Charlotte went looking for these rooms in broad daylight the next morning ... in pyjamas .. it still seemed pretty spooky!
Anyway ....
The wedding was beautiful. Being female i've often thought about what my wedding would be like. It varies between wanting a church wedding, one in an old celtic castle or barefoot on an exotic beach somewhere. Yeah 'm indecisive. I might let any potential groom have a little input .. if i'm feeling generous ... But yeah, if i'm honest, i know i'll probably never be getting married as it is dependant on someone asking me.
Charlottes wedding was in a lovely little church. And she looked absolutely stunning in her dress ... i was highly tempted to try and steal it ... i'd look a bit random wearing it on a typical Saturday night however. We walked down the aisle to a beautiful ballad version of 'Auld Langs Syne' (the wedding being on the 30th December it was pretty apt) a version by Mairi Campbell played in an episode of Sex and the City <3 it definately brought a tear to my eye.
I wore a lovely champagney colored dress with a little fur jacket thing to keep out the December weather. Luckily Charlotte has impeccable taste so i didn't look like a meringue bridesmad as is often famously the case. I shall add pictures when i get some.
After the church wedding we had a candlelit dinner at the Abbey Hotel in Barrow, before the meal we let off heart shaped lanterns into the night sky after making wishes. Mine had a hole in it, but i still got it to float away which i was glad of ... i didn't want my wish tainting!! lol. Was a nice touch, and the heart shaped lights floating off into the night sky looked beautiful.
I had a great time at only my second ever wedding, i went alone but all of Charlottes and Dave's guests, family and friends, were lovely and all made me feel very welcome and we all had a laugh! I completely forgot i'd never met any of them before.
So, thank you Charlotte and Dave for letting me be a part of it. I can't think of a more perfectly suited couple than the two of you, i wish you the best of luck in the future .... i'm confident you won't need it x
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