Tasty tea.

Went to Norwich with Alex yesterday. Was great fun. Story to come soon, but first of all, BUY THIS TEA it is possibly the tastiest tea ever!

York

York is a beautiful town of ancient walls, cathedrals and cute little streets paved with flags and filled with quaint little shops. It has buses that bend in the middle, a ferris wheel and an Ask pizza house in the stunning assembly hall. Conversely, York University is made out of concrete. Some of the buildings are quite impressive (central hall for example), while some are just plain mad (hedgehog buildings for example), and others just ugly. However, in its favour it does have a huge lake (filled with ducks, and, I am reliably informed, Trevors*) and Heslington Hall, a lovely Elizabethan mansion house which stands opposite a slightly creepy topiaried Yew garden (Alice in Wonderland springs to mind).

As you can probably tell, I visited my sister at York this weekend. We had Friday off (shock horror, thanks to some smart lecture shuffling) so I went up in the early afternoon having gone down to the Corpus Playrooms in the morning to teach some actors the ChaChaCha. I don't really know the ChaChaCha, but mine and Alex's rudimentary knowledge of the basic, new york and turn steps proved useful in forging a bond between actor and actress. Anyway, I digress. Went up to York on the train (which only took 2 and a half hours!), and Hannah met me at the station. Pretty soon toad in the hole was being devoured at a local pub (the Cross Keys if anyone knows it), and Hannah was working through a steak (much to her boyfriend's gall later on!). We then toddled back to campus (on a bendy bus, oh joy of joys!), and sat in her (pretty nice) kitchen for a few hours chatting to her friends. Thinking about it, they are probably reading this, as Hannah often subjects them to this torturous site, so I suppose I'd better say something nice. Teddy Bears.

And so, we went to McQ's (it's a bar, not an exam**... I know, I was confused and slightly worried) and had a few drinks before coming back home. Hannah's house is... functional. Long corridors, no plaster (painted breeze blocks) and mildew, but it's homely now it's lived in and everyone looks settled.

The following day, Hannah took me on a tour of the campus (see above), and then she, George and me walked into town. We got some lunch (Ask - see above), and then came home again, because, like a great big retard, I forgot my camera. Arses. Really, though I convinced anyone it was because I was stupid, this was infact because I figured that was better than admitting that all I wanted to do was ride on a bendy bus again! So unnecessarily fun.

So, much fun was had. I ended up waiting ages for a bus back in Cambridge (as I didn't check the timetable until I'd been waiting for 30mins - I was too engrossed in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), but was greeted when I finally arrived by requests for chinese takeaway... so we did! Huzzah!

*Trevor is the name given to a black Swan that attacks Hannah's kitchen window every day. Due to their rudimentary undergraduate swan differentiation skills however, this results in every black swan being named Trevor despite the fact that many are infact named Charlotte.
**MCQ = Multiple Choice Question.

Cornwall - Train Japes.

And so Tom travelled to deepest Cornwall. The train journey was a long one (the longest I've ever made), and took me from Paddington to Truro (via Plymouth). I was surrounded by prepubescent school children who, between the sugar rushes that followed mad dashes to the buffet car, were trying to convince each other that as we rushed across the coastal rail, the large expanse of cool blue water outside the window was not the sea.
"It's not the sea you know, it's just a lake," one would say.
"It so is the sea," a small confused voice would reply.
"It's not! It's a lake"
"It's not! It's the sea"
"No, lake!"
"Mr BARKER!!" the little voice would exclaim. "Is that the sea?"
"Of course it is the sea," the much maligned Mr Barker would reply. Ah, if only we all had an authority figure like Mr Barker to make everything right.

I seemed to have been followed around by the smell of cheap bacon. I foolishly went to burger king at Paddington, and the kid opposite me bought a bacon bap... man it smelt bad. Plus, on the train from Paddington I was sat next to an old lady who also smelt like bacon. As I expected, when I saw Alex in Truro she put these "olfactory hallucinations" down to the only possible cause - brain tumour. Humm.. hopefully not! Thankfully the smell left later that afternoon! Phew!

Truro was lovely, we stopped for a quick cream tea in a little tea shop with incredibly high ceilings with hanging baskets with honed, pointed bases precariously dangling from it. Eep!

Little Red Car

Got up at 8am as I wasn't sure what time Mary was arriving, but it turned out she wasn't getting here until 12, so it meant I had plenty of time to get ready, and watch some Green Wing before she arrived. I crammed myself into her little Toyota Yaris, which was full of boaties and bags, and we started our way North. I managed to navigate to the M4 from memory - Huzzah. The journey was really enjoyable. Holly and Ed slept for the first two hours, so Mary and me just chatted on the way, and then we stopped at a service station, thus waking said boaties up, before making the final leg to Leeds. However, we realised it was 4pm on a Friday, and that getting into Leeds would be hell (let alone Mary getting out again), so we drove into Bradford (gulp), where Alex met me at the train station. There are two stations however, and we needed the other one, so a rapid trek across Bradford ensued. An odd Polish guy shouted at me, we were accosted for money while buying tickets, though we smartly refused. We eventually arrived at Alex's at about 6*, where tea was waiting. Eeexcellent.

Backdated from 11/01/07

Les Arbres, gay Paris, and Escargots.

It's been far too long since I last posted, but I've not really stopped since I got home from uni. I arrived back at home a Saturday that now feels far in the past, greeted by a slight nausea (from getting slightly lost in Staines) that was soon saved by a cup of tea and (surprisingly) a malteaser cake loving crafted by my sister. The following day, I started selling Xmas Trees, in my new post as assistant manager. A typical busy weekend, that had already been organised, so I just pitched in and did my bit! There are so many people, you just have to get people into a routine and it all goes well; I just ran round filling in all the gaps that started appearing! On Monday Alex arrived (in the evening, post-practical-purge), and the following day we donned to Eurostar and sped our way to Gard de Nord, Paris.

Excited vetscis (me saying everything in my typically awful franglais - I really couldn't help it!) met an excited Jen, and we jumped on a (shallow) metro train to her house, which was mini beyond all imagination! She'd warned us it was mini, but I wasn't expecting it to be as small as it was! Still, it's a good enough little home-from-home for her, even if she does get attacked by beans when she cooks, melts chopping boards that should be drying, and has to do a worm-dance to get out of bed - every little nook has been filled... some with a little bit of bad design! But, we bought a metro carnet each, and toddled off seeing all the things that people should see; Notre Dame, Crepe stall, The Seine, Crepes, Moufetard (hehe) The Eiffel Tower, The pompidou (PAMPLEMOUSE!) centre, the arc de triomphe, crepes, the Montmartre, Jen's Workplace, more crepes. All in all, a good couple of days were had, despite the fact that Alex was poisoned by an evil spaghetti bolognese of DEATH. Grr. And the fact that we nearly got blown to smithereens just standing by the Eiffel tower - it was so windy we didn't risk going up it. I got to try snails (mm. Taste like garlic), and a green Pistacio macaroon (amazing!) AND many crepes and croissants for breakfast, which I ordered myself! Huzzah!

En plus, we got home on Thursday night, and Alex went back Leedsward on Friday afternoon. On Saturday I began work selling trees again, and worked on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It is now Tuesday, my second day off! YAARGH! It's been hard work (did 53 hours last week), but enjoyable most of the time; it's much more interesting when you're vaguelly thinking about stock, staff etc. rather than just mindlessly selling. And the increase in pay is BON!

So, that's where I am. I'm going to scan in some paris photos soon and put them up, once I've done my Christmas shopping (which is my plan for today). First of all though, bacon must be eaten.

Much love,

Tom

Dogs and Views.

The holiday is nearly over; it's only one day until I go back to Cambridge, and I'm surprised. My second summer holiday has essentially flown by and now I'm starting my graduation year (yeah I have 3 more after that, but it still feels a little significant). My bedroom is a pit, owing to the first attempts at packing I tried yesterday. It's surprisingly hard to take only select stuff; when I pack to come home from Cambridge it's much easier as EVERYTHING needs packing! I have finally thrown away my filthy sauce pan (ruined in Castle End by some unidentifiable tomato burnage, and non-stick scrapage, perpetrator technically unknown), and have bought some shiny new ones from Ikea.

I arrived back from Leeds on Wednesday; I only went up for a few days to say hello (and to keep Alex and her brother entertained while their parents were away enjoying the sun, sea and sand of the Devon coast. We visited Mary, which was great fun - she showed us many photos of her amazing trip to Kenya - Giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, leopards, buffallo, antelope, impala... everything you'd expect! We also walked the dogs to the top of the hill and took stock of the amazing view. Just one of many discoverable in the foothills of the pennines. Both Alex (Yorks) and Mary (Lancs) have views everywhere - within a few steps of their front-doors, something that I miss in the Kingston Basin, and in the Cambridge pancake. They seemed confused at my almost constant "Wow! Another view!" as we walked round. I also discovered that I like walking dogs. Thus two things for me to attain when I grow up are dogs, and views. You can see the amazingness of the landscape, Alex and Mary and the Dogs in the three photos I have uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

We also had a bonfire with a load of paper shreddings. There's something about fire that just fascinates me, and if I think correctly, every other human being on this planet. Maybe it's hardwired into our brains so that we can actually cook our food (and thus enable us to have lazy digestive systems(?)). We toasted marshmallows in the papery flames, and were merry.

• Films watched: 2. Some like it hot (v.good), and This Boy's Life (a bit dull and drawn out, but it finished well).
• Books read: 1. The Blind Watchmaker. Read it on the trains, and well worth reading. Just ignore the chapter about taxonomy because it's dull.
• Miles Travelled: ~500 including Alex's first venture onto a motorway behind the wheel (and very well she did too).
• Packed: 60%
• Kisses from drunk 30something's on tube trains: 1. My hand I hasten to add.

Leedssssss

Went to Leeds for the weekend. Lots of stuff happened.

• Got lots of trains. Four in total

1. Uneventful
2. Got moaned at snidely an old man as we asked an old lady to move out of our reserved seats. Her seat was empty anyway - but she moved with bad grace. Damn this reverse ageism
3. Train broke down... Got stuck in reverse. Had to stop for ages at some random station while they moved the back train to the front. GNER let us down. Got home 3 hours late.
4. Uneventful - just later than expected.

• Fixed Alex's dad's computer. Took us a couple of hours, but we defeated it.
• Went to Ilkley and bought sequins... Well, if I will come on a dress-making trip, I should expect this stuff ;) More excitingly, I saw Alex's dad's practice. Was very posh!
  
• Played lots of frisbee, distracting her brother from AS level revision in the process - it's necessary - he would have melted from the Latin pain if it weren't for us.
• Played lots of guitar - need to practise for the May Ball! So many songs, so little time!
• Went to church... St Wilfrids is a very good looking building.
• Ate Alex's Mum's amazing food of joy. MMmm

Tom
xxx

London is a nice town. Big, fun and impossible to get lost in.

London

Alex and I went to London for our first anniversary on the weekend of the 11th/12th of Feb. We had booked a hotel in Hyde Park, just north of Kensington Gardens by Lancaster Gate a while back and wandered down to Cambridge train station early on Saturday after our repro lecture. After tea on the train, and a queue to end all queues outside Kings Cross station, we had tube tickets and were free to wander anywhere in zone 1. Huzzah! First stop - hotel. Lancaster Gate station smells. This picture does it far too much justice as it has been taken before they ripped all the posters off the walls, and forgets to point out that you have to climb 78 steps to get to ground level. No escalators... and who would risk the lifts :s crazy people.
Anyway, the hotel was beautiful, as can be seen from the photo I took in the rain on the second day, and our room was warm, had an en-suite bathroom and the bed was well comfy. We were in heaven.

So, after bunging our stuff, and getting very excited by the lockable safe (and locking our train tickets, keys and Alex's earrings in it), we went back out into London for an afternoon of discovery! We went to covent garden where we had doughnuts, cake and hot-chocolate, went to Tesco metro (strangely - needed change), and the London Transport shop, where alex bought a beautiful 1920s summer sale poster (nicer than the image suggests). We then had an insane work around trafalgar square, the strand, picadilly circus, the 'NPG darling' and everywhere basically :) Alex was worried we were getting lost until I pointed out that it is impossible to get lost in London. No matter where you are, you are always close to a tube station, and if you don't know which tube station that is, you can get a train to the next one that you do know the name of :) It's amaaaaazing. Anyway, we spent the evening trying to find somewhere for dinner - eventually coming to a lovely Italian place. I had garlic mushrooms (sorry Alex) and canelloni, and Alex had minestrone soup and beautiful spicy pasta thingie. We then had zabaglione for dessert - whipped egg whites with sugar and wine.... *drools*.Following dinner we had another little walk before going back home.

The next morning we woke up to rain :( - but, heads held high we went down to our complimentary (we paid for it :S) breakfast. Croissants, fruit, cereal, coffee... everything. Twas amazing! We then spent the day seeing the sights of London - it was really really lovely. We saw the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, (see bad mobile phone picture) which is less urinal like in real-life than it appears on telly when everyone is telling you how much it looks like a toilet. We also saw the Prince Albert memorial, the "Statue of Physical Energy" (weird) and Buckingham Palace, before having a yummy pub lunch and coming back home.

An amazing weekend, with an amazing girl :) yaaaaaay.
xxxxxxx

Wow - so it's been a while. "What have I been up to over this Christmas period", I imagine is something you are not running through your heads at the moment. If you are, stop, because I am not on a Jamie Frost level of fame yet, and any comparisons are not fair.

Righteo. So, 6 Weeks of holiday, what have I filled them with

The first 3 weeks, from the 5th to the 23rd of December I spent working. I got the job selling Christmas Trees, and spent up to 12 hours a day at a small bowling green in Richmond flogging Norway Spruces, Nordmann Firs and Fraser Firs amongst others. It was a good job - a little cold at times, but I quite liked being outside and £7/hr is not to be sniffed at. Somehow I managed to mix in some Xmas shopping in my 3 days off.

After Christmas I went and visited Alex au Leeds, and trundled across the pennines to celebrate new year at Mary's. We played trivial pursuit (Alex and me got about 8 questions in a row correct - at least 2 of which I knew the answer to!), and I drank a massive glass of Champagne. Woke up the next morning with a hangover (obviously), but luckily managed to shake it off on the train (sorry Halifax) so I was well enough to enjoy Alex's mum's 3 course new years meal (using the 2nd best cutlery! I was honoured!). It was great fun :)

Upon returnerising I have realised that I only have a week to get all my work done for uni. This includes two pathology essays and a researchy thing, plus revising for exams (PfVP next term and a path mock)... arses! Back to the grindstone

My apologies for not keeping this up!

Tom
xxxx

Au Brighton je me ne pas suis reste a la maison!

Today, My sister and I decided to take a say trip down to Brighton - we'd done it last year, so why not go again. We arrived in superquick time, leaving the house at 9.30am and being in Brigton just before 11. We wandered down to the promenade by the sea and spotted a cycle hire shop, and, on the spur of the moment hired a tandem! I asked the guy how likely we were to kill ourselves and he replied "not likely", though I'm sure he took one look at my face and wondered if he'd ever see his bike-for-two ever again. Fortunately we didn't crash... we wobbled, and I paniced whenever we went past someone coming in the opposite direction, but we survived! Hopefully I'll have some photos up - I forgot my digital camera so we had to buy a disposable so I'll have to wait for it to get developed.

And so we discovered just what a talking point a Tandem is - an old woman from south Wales came up to us and said "you don't see Tandems very much nowadays!", after which she continued for 10 minutes to tell us about her grand-daughter who lived in Hong-Kong for 2 years... each of the things she told us had the smallest relation to the tandem, so it all tied together, but her 10 minutes was 70ps worth of tandem time gone - still, we were polite young children and listened "interestedly" - I was more entertained by her husband who just stood there and mumbled a nod every now and then.

We also got fish and chips and ate them by the sea - classic seaside fare of course. We had an icecream, wandered about the pier and imagined what it would be like to go on one of the rollercoasters. Then we played crazy golf and came home!

Leeds Festival

Leeds Festival

Leeds festival was amazing - my first festival, and well worth the £136 odd we paid for it. We (Alex and I - oooh correct grammar) saw about 24 bands (I think) including the wonderful Cooper Temple Clause, The Coral, Elbow, The Killers (who were distinctly average), The Foo Fighters, Babyshambles, Razorlight, Clor (who amazed me both in being great and in having a guitarist who looks just like Ben...), Maximo Park, Sons and Daughters, Yeti, Forward Russia (with the best ginger, plump, glasses wearing, bearded guitarist I have ever seen - everything a guitarist shouldn't be, yet amazing!), Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, The Futureheads (bore) and Kasabian.

We arrived on Friday morning (probably around about 8am, we had to get up at 5.30!) and hunted for a tent pitching spot, eventually finding one next to three tents with "peace and love" stickers on their outsides - clearly we had friendly non-rioting neighbours! So, we pitched up and then made our way through queues and queues of people to get our wrist bands (which has since fallen off my arm - grr, they are supposed to be invinsible) and to get into the main arena bit. I was amazed at the sheer volume of tents there, it took about half and hour to walk from our tent to the arena, through a sea of tents.

We did stuff other than listen to music of course, including a Ferris wheel trip, the eating of lots of lovely festival food (including tent-cooked super noodles; so good!). Alex also got a henna tattoo, a picture of which is below - fortunately it had just dried by the time we went to see The Coral as the henna got minced by the bouncing crowd! I could have said 'mosh' but I don't think a Coral crowd can be described as a mosh - it was all too friendly.

It was always interesting being woken up in the middle of the night by random drunk people stumbling over your tent's guy ropes and other people loudly asking their friends questions; questions including the classic: "have you got any cashew nuts?"

Generally the weekend was amazing, see the photos below!

Our tent, pitched up and safe from arsonists.


Forward Russia's guitarist :)


The arena, including shark-shaped Lee Sounds Unsigned Tent and someone in the foreground who I assure you is not Mary.


The Elbow photos came out best because it was daytime. They were also amazing!


A good shot of the main stage and screen


They sprayed us with little bits of paper with the title of their new album on. Best marketing plan EVER. I'm buying it! It was like it was snowing!


Alex displays henna tattoo.


The Cooper Temple Clause how I love you.


The Killers... pretty lights!


Look! Up high! Goodbye vertigo, we went on the ferris wheel... the rickety old ferris wheel... that wobbled... and unscrewed itself... and clanked and clunked...


Alex was windblown and scared... come to think of it, so was I, but I didn't capture that on camera. haha


Guess who these guys are!


A round of a clause


Yes, the lasers were better than the foos.