‘Tis The Season To Be Jolly’.

‘On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me..’

Surely we don’t need to be reminded everyday since October that Christmas is coming, it’s the same time every year from what I recall, 18 years of Christmas’s and yes it’s always  fallen in December. Yet the likes of Iceland insist on shoving their £1 king prawn rings in our faces with Jason Donovan singing about his fantastic family Christmas party, and  my sister has decided that watching Elf whilst dressed as Santa is a good November afternoon. Christmas doesn’t start in October or November just stop forcing mince pies and trees on me!

Scrooge is probably a good term to use on my opinions of Christmas, but it’s a time of the year where it’s no longer socially acceptable to wear flip-flops, go outside in a vest top or wash your car wearing both and a denim skirt. You feel the need to eat so much that you spend the rest of the year trying to lose ‘christmas weight’. You get so hyped up about four days before Christmas day, it gets to Boxing day and you begin to ask yourself what was the point? I’ve now opened all the presents, look like a whale and have to endure the sales where crazy middle-aged women will batter you for 25% off.

It’s not all bad, every family has their quirky little traditions, mine is no different. We have the same story telling Santa that comes down to visit from the loft every year, suffice to say no-one listens to it. Someone always has to be the ‘Christmas Angel’, the description of that job is basically someone gets to put the star on top of the tree, it’s over hyped, but there will always been an argument over it. I will continue to use the 18 year stocking that is knitted with Rebecca on it, it will also double up as a sock when it gets chucked down from the loft. We will all be forced to listen to the ‘Platters Xmas album’, whilst Jess insists on parading around the living room, dancing as if she was a 5-year-old again. Oh and finally I do insist on standing up during Christmas dinner and making sure I sing ‘Happy Birthday to Jesus’, considering he caused the whole commotion.

Christmas would look a whole lot better if I was socially allowed to wear flip-flops..

 

 

47 Lines of Pure Ego Heaven.

‘Don’t lie or exaggerate in your personal statement, UCAS will hunt you down’

Write about yourself. Witty, Charming, Intelligent, Oh and did I mention beautiful? 47 lines of pure ego, great, perfect, now this will be fun. I’ll start with an Einstein quote, pull in my work with saving the world from AIDs then mention my 25 A* grades at GCSE and now my 5 A* predictions at A level. The universities need to know about my Great Britain appearance for netball and how my art work sold for £1 million last month. I also enjoy volunteering with orphaned puppies, I feed them out of a bottle, I’m like their mother. Apparently this slight exaggeration doesn’t wash well with the admissions officers, instead let’s link every work experience to how we’re inspired and it helped with our ‘communication’ skills.

4000 characters stands between you and the perfect university place, Cardiff, Loughborough, may as well throw in Oxford & Cambridge. The illusive personal statement that your tutors insist on ripping apart because you’ve not highlighted your skills very well, it’s not like every admissions tutor hasn’t read – ‘I’m extremely motivated due to my commitment to college football team, which inspires great communication and leadership skills, also promoting time management on my part to organise training and structure sessions productively blah blah blah’. It really doesn’t sound like you, but your being judged for your future career on that 47 lines.

People have moaned about personal statements because they don’t like ‘bigging themselves up’. I guess you’ve gathered I don’t have that problem, although the ego orientated me is done mainly as a joke, but organising my personal statement actually filled my little heart with joy. If anything to sum myself up in 47 lines was more difficult than I imagined, without appearing like an arrogant arse. You get to write about what makes you great, why people should have you representing their university and how ‘well-rounded’ you imagine yourself to be. Your allowed to make yourself look good, use it!

Well the deadlines are looming, of course time management has already finished my UCAS but it leaves you with a little worried feeling in the pit of your stomach, what happens if I get rejected? I wish my Ego got to admit me to uni..

If only we could produce ‘Hockey Handbags’.

‘If I had enough time in the day I’d try & save the world one social clash at a time’

If only ‘Bernads watch’ really existed and we weren’t lured into a false sense of security as children, that we could stop time with that magical old watch in order to fix life’s little dilemmas. Well finally at age eighteen it’s hit me so hard that I may actually live on coffee, move my life into the car and produce a motivation that will keep me working until it’s all finished. Deadlines are mounting, Sports wants to be the only ‘man’ in my life, but it’s been competed with by an uglier annoying model known as ‘time’.

Maybe the universe should decide that we all require one extra day of weekend, we’ll name it ‘Orgaday’. A whole 24 hours just for organising, finishing those last minute issues, it may actually allow me to play that precious 80 minutes of hockey at the weekend without missing out on a party the night before or having to actually work. I’m being too hopeful, God hasn’t been great on the old ‘extra time’ front in the past and I don’t see him processing this little idea either.

My poor little Nokia calender dreads the red dashes placed in the corners, filling up every time you get off the phone – ‘Deadline this, Training, See so and so’. It lets out a little gasp when you go to enter more than one event on a day, knowing its going to have to travel a few miles, endure some stressful phonecalls and lower it’s battery. A full social calender is a productive one, at least I won’t be moaning of boredom? Surely a good thing? Well maybe.

You do miss the nice Saturday breakfasts that you argue about because of  mess later in the day, not actually seeing anyone until at least 11am, or Steve Jones entertaining the masses between the circulating episodes of ‘Friends’, but I spend my weekends wondering If I’m going to require extra concealer for my knees or if the dentist is still open in case I happen to lose a part of my smile, just don’t moan because you love it.

It’s not going to happen anytime soon but I’ll invent the world greatest time saving invention, the Hockey handbag with added Psychology text books, you’ll see.

He’s Just Not That Into You.

‘Covered in bruises from the playground tactics, but he’ll break your heart in an instance’

Pulling your ponytail, hitting you when your backs turned or any opportunity to give you insult that you’ll take to heart eventually if he doesn’t stop saying it. Going home to your parents, crying because some idiot boy has bullied you all year, ‘don’t worry love, it’s just because he fancies you, boys do that when they don’t want to tell you that they like you’. Your parents are generally reliable people (Bar lying about the tooth fairy and Santa), but this one is a certain lie, 9 times out of 10, your totally wrong, and anyways why should I fall for someone, who instead of complementing me decides it’d be a better show of affection to insult your face. What a catch?!

We’re all amused how certain guys end up with girlfriends, it’s certainly not their  perfect personality and overall niceness that has caused it, maybe its just the newish car. ’Treat em’ mean keep em’ kean’ unless you’re a cockney thug staring in Eastenders this isn’t going to start a lasting relationship, if anything it’s going to make us look at you like ‘what a prick’, there’s a degree of flirting then there’s just plain terrorising, please find the balance!

So until he decides he can man up and say he likes you assume he doesn’t, playing this game causes too many injuries.

 

 

Until I say “I do”.

Fairytale weddings, Diamond encrusted glasses, Vera wang gown – how cliche?

Surely ever girls most planned day of her life, at the age of 5 your parading round your bedroom dressed as a bride, lining up your barbies as the congregation and wearing a hula hoop as your wedding ring. It’s perfect in your head, limitless bank account, and the ’perfect’ male species happening to be the reason you get to do this all, then again at that age you don’t understand the concept of divorce or debt.

I’ve spent the whole summer with weddings shoved in my face, the release of ‘Bride Wars’ & ‘Maid of Honour’, My sisters unnatural obsession with ‘Don’t tell the bride’ and my own cousin getting hitched in the winter. An innocent conversation in the car earlier whether you are bothered about it all? Lead to my, I would but only for the day because I really don’t understand the need to get married comeback. Maybe it’s the newly found Philosopher in me, knocking back everyone who’s ever claimed ‘true love conquers all’ we all know thats a fallacious argument now.

Watching ‘don’t tell the bride’ you wonder why she’d place the most important day of a girls life, into the hands of her fiance, who seems to round up his football loving mates to organise a wedding! I’d plead insanity after that decision, no choosing the dress, no cake tasting, the china wouldn’t match the colour scheme and the shoes wouldn’t be made out of silk. Why not just declare your love for each other over an average meal if you’re going to ruin the day like that?!

Well some of us may wish, I hope I’m proven wrong on the true love front someday, until then we’ll dream of what life throws us at next; no doubt it won’t be a wedding.

15 minutes of fame.

 ’Maybe we’ll just make a spin off  of ‘The Hills’, for London ’The Capital’

Reality TV may as well be the comeback of 80s fashion, everyone denys they love it at first, now our streets are full of legging cladded, neon colours and the high waisted skirt wearing people. Its addictive, you can find yourself watching 12 people sleeping at 1am in a rather funky looking house or two tribes of beautiful people getting it on in the south Pacific. It fills conversation, makes you so angry you feel the need to spend your hard earned cash evicting people, or cry when its all over. (Please note: Shipwrecked 1st season, was a painful ending, Brain & Crawford, I Love You!)

The end is in sight for Big Brother, after 11 whole years on Channel 4, the death of reality TV may be upon us, don’t be afraid, our schedules will revolve solely around Twitter next year. It’s bought hope to the millions who want 15 minutes of fame, kiss and tell in the ‘daily star’ and a shoddy column in the pull out of OK magazine (yes I’m referring to none other than Nikki Graham), Or how about bringing out an autobiography which has been placed in the sale items bin the day after it hit the shelves (Yes Chantelle Haughton, that will be you!). Well at least one of them has made it, prime slot on 60 minute makeover as the ‘top handy man’ (Oh Craig you have fullfilled your potential there).

Big Brother has sparked many a row, cheating, stealing, maybe a pregnancy?, live sex, punch ups, racist remarks, love stories, engagements, oh and did I forget Kinga and the wine bottle. Priceless, and to think I thought I could have wasted that one hour a night on something more productive. Hours I’ll cherish!

It paved the way for more tacky, over hyped, apparently celebrity endorsed programmes such as ‘Love Island’ and ‘New York goes to Hollywood’. All have pretty much failed, with terrible ratings, although bit of success with the old ‘Love Island’, when Callum Best decided he needed to ’settle down’ for about 2 weeks. Maybe it’ll move onto ITV 2 with ‘Paris’s new BFF’ or Jordans bingey weekend with Pete in tow?

We’re all moving forward thanks to the addiction known as ‘The Hills’, who knows is it reality or just unscripted drama? Either way, you speak to any teenage girl, they’ve seen it, love or hate, they’ll have an opinion on the infamous Spencer Pratt or LC herself. Teenage boys are the same, you gain the same ‘Oh I’d love to date one of those girls’ response. These people are everywhere, MTV R, MTV, TMF, Twitter, Cover of Elle, The City, Fashion lists in every tabloid paper. If Spencer Pratt can spread his wise words in his over hyped twitter statused book ‘How to be famous’, then anyone can. According to Reality TV you don’t require a talent to hit the big time for 15 minutes, so go ahead join the BB audition line.

Behind the Ray-Bans.

‘Life from a sunbed next to the Mediterranean’

Holiday In Crete

Everyone enjoys people watching whilst on holiday, its made easier by huge dark sunglasses and Ipod filled ears. It passes the hours while you fry in the sun and attempt to humour the ever enthusiastic animation team, who want you to partake in a volleyball tournament, against the hugely competitive Russian speedo tribe.

My trip to Crete has been no different, from the moment we stood waiting for the transfer to the moment we left the tarmac at Herakalion airport you spot the most interesting and hilarious people, and you think to yourself how did you get here? Why Crete? Sissi bay was of course full of different nationalities, plenty of British, Russians and Dutch all there for their yearly holiday, I have compiled my favourites from my poolside people watching.

Aguna – Our Russian animation team girl, I’d spotted her whilst having a cold plate on the first night. She was rather long and just had one of those interesting faces you could stare at for hours. Lauren had thought exactly the same as me having arrived 3 days earlier and pointed her out on the first morning at the pool, according to Lauren, Aguna truly hated her for an unknown reason, maybe the staring? just at a guess. Every night you’d turn round from the salad cart to see Aguna randomly covered in patterns drawn in biro on her face or funnier when she dressed as Charlie Chaplin but resembled Hitler for a dance competition. She begged people to do darts games everyday, but everyday failed to organise, score or even play the game! I feel we bonded over daily beach volleyball games, where I seemed to always ended up on her team, where she’d sport a pair of orange thin rimmed sunglasses and Jesus sandals, genius. The last morning at breakfast, I knew she loved me after she made the effort to walk over say ‘Hello Girls’ and stroke my back, yes it sounds like shes a lesbian but Aguna = legend.

Random pasty Australian woman – We left as she was over a week into her holiday, we’d see them walk back and forth past our apartment everyday looking surprisingly white for a holiday goer, her two sons round about my age looking noticeably just as white. I discovered the reasoning for this after a hard days tanning at the sea view pool, She comes into the sun in a full length maxi dress, positions the bed in the shade and pulls out Marion Keates, retreats to lunch at the same time each day to the dismay of her son, who she disowned one lunch, as he claimed he wasn’t hungry yet, got lunch as soon as she got back (Funny argument to witness). However she did get some sun around 6pm for 15 minutes, interesting tan topping method, It makes me wonder why she though Crete was the right destination for her.

Alfred (

Waiter & apparently chief Malia hater) – He’d taken a shine to our table during the first few days of the holiday, ignoring my dad, insisting on cleaning our plates and making small talk that we rarely understood or politely smiled along to thinking ‘why are you saying that?’ . He gave me a lecture on my protest of never going to Malia again after getting a huge hangover the first night, of course I returned to Alfred’s distress and constant mocking for another week ‘You say you never go Malia again, yet you go Malia, I never go Malia again, but you go Malia, Lier, You tell your sister she not go Malia again’. My response to the last bit being ‘I wouldn’t be able to my flight leaves in 3 hours?’ He may have wound us up, took the piss out of me, but Alfred was part of the Sissi bay experience, one which if removed may not have given fuel to this blog.

There were other characters, ones which made me laugh but don’t deserve a paragraph of my writing or maybe you just had to be there, to find them as amusing as we did. Holiday people spotting, what a great part of the animation programme.

Life In A 20kg Case

‘Does a reversible bikini count as one or two?’

Packing for holiday doesn’t fill anyone with joy, its something you promise to do around a week before you go, each day goes past and your yet to even get a case down from the loft. Piles of clothes that you ‘may’ need or are packing for the sake of it are piling up beside your bed, and your left wearing winter clothes and items you wished you’d never purchased from the Zara sale a year ago.

Holiday is the opportunity to walk around all day in a bikni, sip cocktails and wear dresses every night as you go out to dinner. Its a break from fast paced London life, tan the pasty english skin and tick another country off your world map (Having apparently only seen 4% of the world, more exotic destinations may be required). Everyone just forgets about the stress of the packing.

The moments arrived you have an empty case that can only reach a maximum of 20kgs in front of you, a mountain of clothes for all eventualities next to you and in my case a list of the items I’m taking, organisations heaven, Yes! Your thinking to yourself ‘this is good, I’m packing, I’m putting my clothes in this case and yes it will fit and I won’t pay any excess, wow your organised’. This little thought lasts for the first two vest tops.

Further thoughts to packing from two sisters; please bare in mind, I’m left with less than half a case!

‘Your going to have to take some clothes out, because I’m not, you’ve packed your wardrobe, why do you need that?, why is that in there! unpack it, I’ll do, Oi what are you doing! We are not paying £48 for excess, Easyjet are trying to rob us, what arseholes. That scales lies, it told me I was 3 different weights this morning, don’t trust it check it again, we’ll take an average. Does a reversible bikini count as one or two? I need an answer, this could affect 1kg here. Sit on the case, you put that hairdryer in there and its not going to shut you idiot, argh, just go away I’ve got it. ‘

My life is packed up in 18kg, it holds my favourite dress, my slightly obsure flip flops with gold leaves off the pack and my new jeepers peepers, that case holds the ‘what if I need this’s’. That case holds my holiday.

 

Legally Allowed To Tow A Caravan, Only When I Go Pink.

‘Trust me few more lessons I’ll be like Lewis Hamilton last season’

The little green license with the mug shot of me on is like a pass to freedom, a reminder it hopefully won’t be long until I no longer have to be a ‘Bus Wanker’ or spend another 10 minutes on South West Trains, reading the bland Metro, And having a mini heart attack anytime they say ‘Tickets please’ even though I know I’ve spent a small fortune for delays & other peoples coffee cups on the seat. 

The process began almost a month and a half ago, I’d put it off since September because of a ’slight’ disagreement me & my dad had about maybe being slightly too close to a recycling bank, when in matter of fact he caused the incident to become a lot worse by shouting, the accelerator pedal is very close to the brake! Anyways after getting out of the car crying, refusing to get back in and walking home to avoid ever having to drive again, I realised I may actually have to pass my test if I ever intended on driving.

My evenings now consist of 2 hours of driving nonsense, cockpit drills, safety checks, the ‘biting’ point, endless observations, 1 2 1 parallel  parking and parking breaks! Don’t get me wrong, I do actually enjoy it, especially when I realised I’m not bad at it, and that it just gets easier every time you step in the car. You even get a free therapist thrown in, who loves to listen to your life as much as they love talking about theirs. A particular favourite anecdote of my instructor is the time his sister hit a skip on the road in his mums company car, and his mum having to take the blame, funny but a serious message as well.

So not long until the test, I need to spend my nights conducting ‘bonnet checks’ and pretending to tell my tester about the difference between a safe tyre and one that may kill me. Bring on the license, and my opportunity if I so wish to tow a caravan up the M1 without someone over 21 in the car. Happy Driving, R x

‘Shaniqua 2K9 In Da Hood Bruv, Uh Huh’

‘Must you talk like your regurgitating texts messages constantly?’

 

You neither live in inner city London, nor probably have ever stepped foot in a borough past Hounslow, so why are you kissing your teeth at me and using phrases like ‘You get me blud?’. I’m all for freedom of speech, go ahead express yourself! but when its actually in a standard language and you don’t pretend to be a member of a gang.

Like all young girls I went through the ‘Just do it bag’ phase, an important stage in year 9 where all girls generally adhere to chav conventions, fringes gelled to the side of your head, high ponytails/cane row, tracksuit bottoms at inappropriate moments, Nike air max in a ‘hot pink’ and the all important & positively the most unpractical bag known to man, the ‘Just do it’ bag, in either a baby blue or pink. Fortunately I have come through the trauma to a life of handbags (spacious and actually attractive) skinny jeans and speaking standard English without kissing my teeth or feeling the need to shout ‘Oi’ at everyone.

It pains me to see the regular residents of the ‘Jeremy Kyle’ have yet to see the ‘normal’ dress code light, or the chavs round Tescos on a Friday night. The everyday make-up for a chavette involves : Foundation which is generally supposed to be the same tone as your skin, not used as a mask to fight away non ‘chavs’, bronzer attacks their ever thick foundationed cheek bones and topped off with a streaky orange fake tan, just stop! Your already wearing Lonsdale trackies outside on a Friday night, with nasty patterned socks on show, why make it worse by looking like Pete Burns?

I wish to shove copies of the latest Elle and Grazia in their faces and persuade them that there is a way out of this life of poorly applied make-up & terribly constructed sentences, if not then please don’t refer to me as ‘posh girl’ or make out that I’m the idiot for dressing in socially acceptable attire.