As I begin this post I have had to set my spotify to 'Walk of Life' by Dire Straits (my dad would be so proud!). I hope it will soon become clear why...
...On Saturday, the day after I finished my placement, drugged up with pain killers I travelled to North London to Dynasty's flat to meet her, The Blonde One and Dynasty's two younger sisters to embark on an 18 mile walk around London all in the name of Charity. The Walk of Life is seeming like an inspired song choice now isn't it!?
The Charity in question is F.R.O.G.S...friends of Gambian Schools, and one of Dynasty's sister's is travelling to Gambia to help set up a school and fill the school with enough resources so that all the children will be able to access a fair education. She speaks about the walk on her blog All About Abbie , so if you want to read more head on over.
And for pictures of our brilliant day just read and click on the post from Dynasty herself at The Style PA.
Although I was rather ill on the day itself and had to drug (legal painkillers I thank you) myself up several times throughout the day, and although I now have a delightful blister just under my big toe that is as beautiful to look at as it is painful, I have well and truly got the walking bug. Being outside in the blazing sunshine seeing so much of London and pondering how many other people had stood where I was walking or gazed out onto the same view I was gazing out at was a really nice feeling.
It was also a bloody fantastic way to spend a day with my two best friends and two of my honorary sisters. Just as The Blonde One and I do on road trips, as we embarked on our walk around the capital city we decided to play 'travel games'. Understandably walking around London it was not appropriate to spot 'Eddie Stobart' lorries (if you have not tried this game when travelling along the motorway you must. When I was introduced to it, The Blonde One and I were travelling to Manchester and I thought she had gone slightly mad. Well she had, but not for this reason. Spotting Eddie Stobart lorries? Why would I give a flying fuck? But by the time I had spotted 12 lorries I was hooked. London to Manchester on a cold Thursday morning in October The Blonde One and I spotted 57. It's exciting stuff, I tell thee. I recently got my cousin - the cool London girl about town one- into this game and will not stop introducing it until all my travel buddies are as obsessed as I...) so we decided to give ourselves wee items to try and spot as we walked. I know 'London Black Cab' was one item as was a 'clock face', but I think the more unusual spots such as 'a ginger child' or 'a jogger in need of a sports bra' were far more entertaining and amusing to spot.
And here is where I must have a very quick and very out-of-character rant...anyone planning on keeping fit this summer by riding through Hyde Park on a Row Bike, don't. You look pretentious, you take up too much space and frankly, you make everyone around you want to trip you up, and that is before you pass a group of walking girls for the third time yelling 'Move out the way' or 'Coming through'... I have never wanted to put a stick through a bike wheel before, but I came pretty close on Saturday. However, as we were walking for Charity, I thought better of it and instead gave my most ferocious stare. It's terrifying.
As for the rest of you, I suggest you get on your good trainers (or only trainers as in my case) and get yourself walking...and if you need any inspiration, how about a little Dire Straits on the ipod....?
Where next? The Yorkshire Moors or the Scottish Highlands?
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Rainbows raced...
Dear me, I have been naughty not posting on here for a while. I am sorry. I have already been told off from The Country One, so do not fear, I have not been able to escape my laziness without a little punishment.
In my defence, if at all I have one, it was the last week of placement and I had a surprise visit from an external examiner as well as being hit with yet another virus. I promise you now this sickness malarkey is simply not me, I am not such a sickly creature as Anne de Bourgh is in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, however, since my delightful visit from Glandular Fever during the summer one just has to utter the word 'flu' and I get knocked for six for at least a week. It is very unlike me and something I plan to put right as soon as I possibly can. Not that I like to over-exaggerate anything you understand.
With the flatmates away back at their respective homes, my darling mum and Sister told me to come home home (why is it that I call where I live 'home' and where I grew up 'home, home'?? Isn't it strange the sayings we adapt...?) to be looked after during the Easter period. I don't usually run home home at the first sign of trouble but I felt so rubbish and I had to travel down south anyway to organise Sisters baby shower, so I threw caution to the wind and went home to be looked after old school style.
But it isn't old school style, not even close. As a baby I put my parents through hell with Sleep Apnea, and this was before the discovery that I only had twenty per cent of my hearing until I was six, however, during my everyday-common-cold illness, because my mother was a teacher and my daddy worked away from our family home, my Nanny (my mothers mother), who moved into our family home just before I was born, used to look after me. And what a bloody good job she did. I am currently at home 'resting' but without my Nanny here to 'not fuss' around me and still manage to make me feel more loved than Princess Catherine's engagment ring, it just isn't quite the same.
My Nanny passed away a month shy of my 21st birthday five and a half years ago and without her, sickness days just aren't as fun. She was very much a no-nonsense well-to-do lady who was even more stubborn than Sister. Who knew that was even possible? But I guess Sister has to have inherited this from somewhere. There was absolutely no fussing when I was ill. Nor whem my Sister was ill or any other cousins who lived closed by that were dropped off to be looked after by our Nanny when they were lucky enough to have a day off school. There was no 'Oh my wee darling, snuggle up to your nanny and I'll make it all better'. No, no, it was much more 'bring your duvet down, lie on the sofa, watch the tv, don't get in my way and I'll bring you your tea when I'm ready'. For a laid back individual like myself, it was bloody heaven. Please don't get my wrong, my Nanny loved us with all her heart and would have done anything for us, but babying us was just not something she knew how to do. I always felt loved, but I also knew that when you were ill you must get on with it until your body recovered. Since living with a hypochondriac I am bloody glad she did. I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to bite on my tongue and stop myself from saying (or yelling at the top of my voice) "pipe down, man up and get out of sight you ridiculous human being. You. Have. A. Cold. A COLD!!" to one of my flatmates. Needless to say I never had to guts to actually utter these words. It's quite nice to pretend I did though...
In my defence, if at all I have one, it was the last week of placement and I had a surprise visit from an external examiner as well as being hit with yet another virus. I promise you now this sickness malarkey is simply not me, I am not such a sickly creature as Anne de Bourgh is in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, however, since my delightful visit from Glandular Fever during the summer one just has to utter the word 'flu' and I get knocked for six for at least a week. It is very unlike me and something I plan to put right as soon as I possibly can. Not that I like to over-exaggerate anything you understand.
With the flatmates away back at their respective homes, my darling mum and Sister told me to come home home (why is it that I call where I live 'home' and where I grew up 'home, home'?? Isn't it strange the sayings we adapt...?) to be looked after during the Easter period. I don't usually run home home at the first sign of trouble but I felt so rubbish and I had to travel down south anyway to organise Sisters baby shower, so I threw caution to the wind and went home to be looked after old school style.
But it isn't old school style, not even close. As a baby I put my parents through hell with Sleep Apnea, and this was before the discovery that I only had twenty per cent of my hearing until I was six, however, during my everyday-common-cold illness, because my mother was a teacher and my daddy worked away from our family home, my Nanny (my mothers mother), who moved into our family home just before I was born, used to look after me. And what a bloody good job she did. I am currently at home 'resting' but without my Nanny here to 'not fuss' around me and still manage to make me feel more loved than Princess Catherine's engagment ring, it just isn't quite the same.
My Nanny passed away a month shy of my 21st birthday five and a half years ago and without her, sickness days just aren't as fun. She was very much a no-nonsense well-to-do lady who was even more stubborn than Sister. Who knew that was even possible? But I guess Sister has to have inherited this from somewhere. There was absolutely no fussing when I was ill. Nor whem my Sister was ill or any other cousins who lived closed by that were dropped off to be looked after by our Nanny when they were lucky enough to have a day off school. There was no 'Oh my wee darling, snuggle up to your nanny and I'll make it all better'. No, no, it was much more 'bring your duvet down, lie on the sofa, watch the tv, don't get in my way and I'll bring you your tea when I'm ready'. For a laid back individual like myself, it was bloody heaven. Please don't get my wrong, my Nanny loved us with all her heart and would have done anything for us, but babying us was just not something she knew how to do. I always felt loved, but I also knew that when you were ill you must get on with it until your body recovered. Since living with a hypochondriac I am bloody glad she did. I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to bite on my tongue and stop myself from saying (or yelling at the top of my voice) "pipe down, man up and get out of sight you ridiculous human being. You. Have. A. Cold. A COLD!!" to one of my flatmates. Needless to say I never had to guts to actually utter these words. It's quite nice to pretend I did though...
My Nanny was Italian and a bloody marvellous cook, which I did not appreciate enough when she was alive. Whenever I was ill she would always cook me home made ravioli, which she would carry in on a tray and place on my lap, again, no fuss made. But what I am really missing, sitting here on my sofa writing this post, is the moment I always waited for all sick-day - or maybe I wasn't waiting for it, perhaps I only realise now how much I loved this wee moment between my Nanny and I- the moment when my Nanny would decide that she could take a break and would produce our very old video copy (filmed from the telly, where else?) of our favourite film 'The Slipper and The Rose'.
Prince Edward and Cinderella
It is still one of my all time favourite films and a guaranteed way to left my spirits. For anyone who hasn't seen this film it is simply an adaptation of the classic Cinderella story, however, there mixed up with all the camp song and dance numbers and beyond cheesy lingering looks there are some wonderfully funny lines that never fail to raise a smile. I did not realise quite how funny they were, of course, until years later. As with most old filmed-from-the-telly videos, my 'Slipper and The Rose' video died and would no longer play and it was quite a few years until I found it on DVD and was able to watch it again. It was here that I came to love the script as well as the brilliant songs.
I think my favourite line has to come from the campiest man Cinderella has ever seen; Prince Edward's cousin, The Duke of Montague, when he once again Royally (please pardon the pun) puts his foot in it and utters "Have I made a little Faux pas? Oh, I was enjoying myself!" And there are just too many lines that the King of the wonderfully named Euphrania, played brilliantly by Michael Hordern, says that I simply can't choose just one. You will have to watch this spectacular film to find out.
I could watch The Slipper and The Rose on my own, of course, but there was something about my Nanny deciding when we could watch it that made it all the more of a treat. Now, having my duvet downstairs, making my own ravioli (usually store bought....if I'm ill, I can hardly be dancing around the kitchen making home made ravioli now can I?) and putting on The Slipper and The Rose just doesn't have the same effect. However, seeing Cinderella singing (but never joining in myself...ahem!) 'Rainbows raced around the room when he danced with me...!' I do feel that bit closer to my darling Nanny and I believe it's as good a painkiller as any aspirin.
So now I must return to the land of Euphrania to where Prince Edward is 'twice amazed' and the king becomes easily distracted by the sight of a dainty slipper...
I think my favourite line has to come from the campiest man Cinderella has ever seen; Prince Edward's cousin, The Duke of Montague, when he once again Royally (please pardon the pun) puts his foot in it and utters "Have I made a little Faux pas? Oh, I was enjoying myself!" And there are just too many lines that the King of the wonderfully named Euphrania, played brilliantly by Michael Hordern, says that I simply can't choose just one. You will have to watch this spectacular film to find out.
I could watch The Slipper and The Rose on my own, of course, but there was something about my Nanny deciding when we could watch it that made it all the more of a treat. Now, having my duvet downstairs, making my own ravioli (usually store bought....if I'm ill, I can hardly be dancing around the kitchen making home made ravioli now can I?) and putting on The Slipper and The Rose just doesn't have the same effect. However, seeing Cinderella singing (but never joining in myself...ahem!) 'Rainbows raced around the room when he danced with me...!' I do feel that bit closer to my darling Nanny and I believe it's as good a painkiller as any aspirin.
So now I must return to the land of Euphrania to where Prince Edward is 'twice amazed' and the king becomes easily distracted by the sight of a dainty slipper...
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