...and so it begins.

Day 2: How much have you changed overall in 2011?

According to my friend Aimée I haven’t changed this year, but in a way I know that I have.

I’ve gained a much more positive attitude towards work and it would appear I can be quite dedicated and hard working when I want to be. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot this year, not just to do with work but with other things also, and I think that as a whole can change you whether you know it or not.

I’ve learnt to trust instincts, not to ignore that niggling voice in the back of your head. If you have doubt, quit whilst you’re ahead. I’ve also realised that actually, I am quite a strong person, and this year has proved that and strengthened me further.

I think I have grown up more, but having said that I can still be a mardy bastard when I want to be. But you’re still gonna have to deal with that, soz!

Day 1: What has been your most memorable moment in 2011?

I’m going to have to say Glastonbury, day 1. Memorable for all the right and wrong reasons. It was such a tough morning, I’ve rarely seen such a torrential rain downpour, the sky was black and the whole of Worthy Farm became a mud bath in minutes. People were falling over, possessions were soaked, stuff was just getting wrecked. My red hair dye had ran down my face, as well as my mascara and I think all of our excitement and motivation had fully disappeared. Except for Danny Miller, what an absolute hero. He was constantly looking at the positives and moving us on.

After hours of queuing, we then had another hours trek across the farm to get to our desired camping spot. Aimée’s trolly had broken so the boys’ carry loads increased significantly and it was just mentally draining and physically exhausting. The rain had soaked into my rucksack, making it twice as heavy. I remember the patronising girls on the entrance giving out the programmes saying ‘Smile guys, it’s part of the experience’. Yeah, you’ve got your tent set up, all of your stuff is dry and you’re top to toe in waterproofs - what the fuck do you know? Anyway, by the grace of god, as we reached our desired camping spot - the highest point of the campsite on Hitchin Hill - the rain stopped, as if to give us a chance to set up our tents. My stuff was pretty soaked. But, wind forward a few hours. We were set up, changed into dry clothes, my make shift washing line was drying all of my soaked possessions, and we all sat around a camp fire, drinking cider, laughing over the day we’d had. At that moment, I knew it was definitely DEFINITELY worth it. 

2011/2012.

I’m gonna try and remember to do this. You should too.

Day 1: What has been your most memorable moment in 2011? 

Day 2: How much have you changed overall in 2011?

Day 3: A person who has impacted your life in some way this year. 

Day 4: Something you’ve learned this year.

Day 5: Describe an adventure you had this year. 

Day 6:  Any words of wisdom/advice for anyone?

Day 7: 10 things you want to say 10 people.

Day 8: Things you hope for in 2012.

Day 9: What are you looking forward to in 2012?

Day 10: Anything you wish to say to end 2011/start 2012

Friday 18th November 2011.

I turned 23 on this day, and it wasn’t particularly an age I was greeting with open arms. What the hell is supposed to happen when you’re 23? But, I guess if it’s anything like being 22, 21, 20, 19 or 18 I’m in for a pretty good ride. 

Birthday celebrations actually started on Tuesday, which was essentially my last day at work as obviously, I’ve booked holiday off over my birthday period. I turned up to work for my 10-7 shift a couple of minutes early and it turns out I ruined my colleague’s master plan to concoct a birthday surprise. I was greeted by balloons, banners, and a frustrated Natalie trying to light candles on a birthday cake whilst screaming ‘GO AWAY WE’RE NOT READY FOR YOU YET!’ I did as I was told until I was instructed to re-enter the office, which I did to the chorus of ‘Happy birthday’. It was all a lovely surprise, and they all bought me a very lovely and generous bunch of presents. 

On Thursday I received my birthday present off Aimée, which was a ticket to see Chase & Status at the o2 Academy in Birmz. So off we went, I had a few Baileys’ to get the ball rolling and I was ready to dance the night away. And I did! It was pretty awesome, sounded great and we made a couple of friends in the crowd too! It was the sweatiest gig EVER, I felt bloody vile afterwards. But it was an awesome pressie, so thanks Aimz!

Annoyingly I had a crap nights sleep and was wide awake at 8am on birthday morn. I was greeted with a nice little pile of pressies which included a generous amount of Benefit make-up, Ugg boots and a very nice Vivvy Westwood necklace and notebook! Never been so spoilt, so thanks Ma and Pa!

Me and Aimée headed to Birmingham AGAIN yesterday afternoon to kick start birthday proceedings. The German market had opened a day previous so it’d be really rather rude not to head there and soak up some festive atmosphere. I ended up getting on the outside of a pretty delish Frankfurter and chocolate coated marshmallow skewer! It was a rare treat, as dieting is still very much underway. After a chill at The Sun on the Hill (ha!) we headed to one of my most favourite places in the world ever - The Electric Cinema, to see…ahem…Twilight. We booked a sofa, I had cocktails and Aimz made full use of the ‘text the waiter’ bar service! Twilight was bloody stupid though, but I still enjoyed it all the same. After out visit to Forks, it was time to join the masses of Friday rush hour people to head back to Nunners in time for the evenings proceedings, which was curry for me and 15 friends.

Adam, Laura, Kay and Aiméé headed to my house first for a drink then we headed down to the Agra, and it was a really fabbo night. I was joined there by Ben, Katie, Stu, Danielle, James, Elliot, SSJ, Luke, Sam, Lou and Adam’s girlfriend. Needless to say, things got rowdy, Elliot started playing the salt shaker, the two Sam’s started playing with the cutlery and James and Danielle were force feeding each other birthday cake, But hey, wouldn’t have had it any other way!. Ben, being the darling he is, bought me a birthday cake which we all got involved with, Danielle gave me moolah and Lou bought me a nice new purse. James bought me a gift voucher for a sofa at The Electric which is just pretty fabulous! It was a reet good laugh, but the curry has killed most of us by half 11! I was fully ready for bed by midnight, but I FORCED myself to go to Fever. The remaining few headed there, that being me, James, Lou, Ben, Danielle. And yeah. Ended up being there till 3! Talk about a second wind. Had a pretty fabbo time in there, highlights including Nero being played twice. I think boutique had never quite seen dance moves like it. 

I’m pretty tired today, but me and Kay are off out…and guess where I’m going? Birmingham AGAIN! I NEED to live over there. We’re seeing Smashing Pumpkins and I’m pretty excited, been a while since I’ve seen any form of live rock music as I’ve been going through a bit more of a ‘popular’ phase so it’s nice to be revisiting my old school loves. 

I get the feeling that being 23 ain’t gonna be so bad after all :-)

October and November.

As you may or may not have gathered, I generally don’t use Tumblr anymore. I find it a bit boring, however I really miss writing. I’ve got a bit of an urge lately to write, so I thought I’d write a blog, alongside writing poems to put in the Christmas cards of my friends and work colleagues. They’re quite insulting, so please don’t be offended when you read yours. Writing a poem about how fabulous you are and how much I love you would just be boring.

I’m very much looking forward to Christmas, but as always it’s the build up to Christmas that’s the fun part. Seeing all the Christmas displays in shops, choosing what pack of overpriced Christmas cards to send out this year, hearing Shakin’ Stevens for the first time on the radio and seeing our fridge at home get full of awesome food. Food. Something I’ve been depriving myself of of late. That sort of sounds like I’ve developed an eating disorder - I haven’t - but I have been dieting, and getting some very good results. I’ve lost 10lbs so far and I intend on doubling that figure. 

Alongside concentrating on dieting, I have also, as usual, been giving myself lots of lovely things to do and things to looks forward to. As a Christmas treat to ourselves, me Adam, Aimée and Laura are going to London for the weekend at the start of December which is going to be fun, alcohol fulled and full of lolz. Alongside this, it’s my birthday next Friday and I’ve managed to plan what I hope is going to be a very good day. I’m going over to Birmingham with Aimée in the day to visit the German Market and then we’re heading to one of my most favourite places ever - The Electric Cinema - to see (ahem) the new Twilight film, accompanied by cocktails. Then later that evening me and approx. 20 of my nearest and dearest friends are going for a curry and then we’re going to go and get disgustingly drunk. Well, I am anyway, it is my birthday after all!

But yes, speaking of The Electric, I’ve had some lovely evenings there in the past few weeks. Me and Lou had one of our infamous dates in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago, which consisted of Latin-American eats in Las Iguanas and drinks at The Sunflower Lounge, finishing off with the last showing of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia at The Electric. It was absolutely stunning in every aspect, visually beautiful as well as the narrative. I have also recently been to see John Carpenter’s Halloween with my friend Sam, we booked a sofa which is always ace and it was beyond awesome to see one of my most favourite films in a cinematic atmosphere. Most recently, I visited The Electric with James on Thursday to see We Need To Talk About Kevin. I read the book before seeing the film, and the book was one of the best novels I’ve read. So brilliantly written, and the characters are built up fantastically. Needless to say, I had very high expectations of the film but for once, a film based on a novel actually delivered. Kevin was exactly how he should have been, as was Eva, Tilda Swinton’s character. I’d thoroughly recommend reading and watching the aforementioned. 

Besides cinematic niceties (which have also included the very disappointing Paranormal Activity 3 and Contagion), I have also been indulging my musical senses by going to see a decent amount of live music. Now, rock/indie or whatever you want to call it will always be my musical calling, however I am currently enjoying dance/d’n’b/dub or whatever the hell you’d class it as. The music snob will instantly reject anything of this ilk, but my GOD it’s fun and I love it, and as a result I’ve been to see Nero twice in the past fortnight. The first gig was at Birmingham HMV Institute in Digbeth which was just fantastic. The crowd was really good, we got pretty damn close and just danced the whole gig away.

The following Friday we saw Nero in closer proximity, at the colly in Coventry. What a difference that made. It was the 14 year old’s big night out, and it was just ridiculous. Now I know at that age, actually being allowed to go somewhere such as a nightclub was a big and exciting deal but now I understand now how fucking annoying it is to those who are older. In no exaggerated terms, me and Aimée were easily two of the oldest people there, at the age of 22. And obviously, the kids did what they think is etiquette at a gig - shove each other, kick each other and just generally dick about. Yes, I am aware that mosh pits occur at most gigs but this was something else. We were packed in to the point where people were stood against the door entrance to the room, if you wanted to get to the bar you didn’t stand a chance. I spent a good deal of the gig picking up kids off the floor and babysitting, but after a while I just let them get killed. People were jumping OFF THE BALCONY into the crowd below which was pretty terrifying to see, but once I stopped babysitting I actually enjoyed it. In Birmingham I didn’t really *see* the gig due to one reason or another (only Aimée will know what I mean by this, ha!) but at least in Cov I could actually watch the stage show, as eventually me and Aiméé stood on the DJ stage at the back of the room. So yes, same artist, two VERY different experiences. I also saw Katy B the evening prior to Nero in Coventry, and she was also very good. It was the first gig I’d been to at the new academy in Birmingham - what a load of crap that place is! Literally as much atmosphere as the inside of my wardrobe. Oh well.

I’ve missed out a load more of what I’ve been getting up to, but for now I’ve satisfied my writing urge!

STUFF. LIFE. THINGS.

Stuff and things have been going on in my life, as usual and as is to be expected. I’ve had quite a good fortnight, which is quite ironic, as it has been a fortnight since I split from my boyfriend, aka. World’s Biggest Twat. Obviously it’s horrid at the time, and given the circumstances of this particular break up it made this particular instance even worse… but I have to say, despite that minor set back, I’ve actually had a pretty ace two weeks, which probably wouldn’t have been the case had I still been with him. 

A highlight was last Saturday, going out with people from work on a hen do. Seeing the boss attempt to eat a jelly shot and bust some pretty outrageous moves on the dance floor is something that I can definitely look back on with a smile on my face. Not only that, the work crowd are an excellent bunch of people. It annoys me when people say they keep work and friends separate, but by doing that you could be missing out on some of the best friends you’ll ever make. The job you’re both in doesn’t define you or your colleagues. True, if your boss/colleague is an absolute tosser at work than I can understand why you wouldn’t wish to continue your relationship outside of the work place. But what about those colleagues you have a laugh with? What’s to say you wouldn’t be able to laugh outside the confines of your employment? I’ve made some brilliant friends at work, who in the outside world I wouldn’t have looked at twice. Different backgrounds, opinions and intelligence pretty much sum up the people I work with but they’re all really great people, who I’d have never met otherwise. 

Another highlight was seeing Jurassic Park on Monday with James, Ben and Stu. It was the greatest thing, and it was also nice to see Ben briefly, as he now lives in Kings Heath in Birmingham. 

I had my tarot cards read last Wednesday, which was so so so so so good. It made me feel a lot better and she knew things she couldn’t possibly have. It was followed by curry which is always a good thing.

As a last minute thing last Tuesday, me and James and went to see The Subways in Birmingham which was actually a pretty good gig. The new academy is wank though, much preferred the greasy grimy Carling Academy. Got loads of gigs coming up… Nero… Chase & Status…Alkaline Trio… Smashing Pumpkins and hopefully Katy B. Pretty gooooood!

Life at the minute is currently full of making plans and fulfilling them, and also looking at my future options and possibilities. I’ll keep you posted, as for now, I’m watching Submarine and it’d better be fucking good. 

I may write a blog soon, watch this space!

So I got bored of Tumblr.

And turned to Twitter. But now I’m just at home and I miss writing so I thought I’d put some stuff on here that hardly anyone will read or care about but I’ll have enjoyed writing it.

Sooooo. What’s been happening? You know me, I generally keep myself busy doing this and that. The main exciting thing that has occurred in recent times was my trip to Glastonbury a month ago. Despite the introductory rain, mud and just sheer horribleness, it was a fantastic weekend, absolutely made by the awesome people I was camped with. And I even ended up with sunburn! Highlights included walkie talkies in the car, Hadley falling off his chair, Chase and Status and Coldplay. No other festival even comes close to Glastonbury, and there is a distinct lack of the arseholes you get at the Reading and Leeds festivals.

I also went to go and see Arcade Fire the week I got back from Glastonbury in Hyde Park, London. It was of course, brill. They were supported by (a disappointing) Mumford and Sons, Beirut and The Vaccines. It also meant I got to see my friend Mike twice in one week which was slightly over kill (:p) but great all the same. I also went to The Electric cinema the day after with Lou, SSJ and Elliot to see a late night double bill of REC + REC2, which was SO good! The Electric is the greatest place, sofas in cinemas is absolutely the way forward… and it has its own bar and waiter service. What’s not to love?

My time since Glastonbury has, per usual, been consumed by working, being stressed over work, seeing my friends… AND…by a very nice boy I’ve met. Which is all very good. But I shall leave it at that. 

Next on the agenda is a holiday to Crete, which kicks off on Sunday! I’m very very excited to be having a beach holiday. My trips abroad are usually city breaks, and don’t get me wrong I love them, but they’re very tiring. I need to just chill out for a bit. I’m going with Lou and Danielle, so they’ll be plenty of cocktails and sun on the agenda. Plus I’ve had the excuse to buy all new clothes which is part of the holiday process itself!

So that’s it really, another nutshell blog post.

JUDGEMENT DAY!

I think I’m gonna be the first one to fall into this earthquake (can you even fall into earthquakes?) judging by the headache that has been bestowed upon me this morning. Last night I spent far too much money and drank far too much cider but it was pretty good. I went and saw The Cribs in Coventry with my friend Elliot and they were TOO good. I really miss going to dirty sweaty gigs, I need to start making them a regular feature in my life again. I think part of this headache is due to the fact I was making it my business to keep up with Elliot’s drinking, I’m usually nursing a pint for ages not drinking it in 5 minutes. Blergh. I was pretty disappointed The Cribs didn’t play Mirror Kisses and The Wrong Way To Be AND there was no encore! And even more annoyingly you get kicked out the Colly after the gig, what happened to getting entry to the club night?! Money grabbing bastards. Soooo we went The Phoenix which I enjoyed more this time, it sucked the life out of me last time I went in there. I knew it was a good call when Deftones got followed by Disturbed and finished nicely with Slipknot. However, two shots of Captain Morgan’s rum was quite frankly the most disgusting shout EVER. Just typing the name makes me taste it, errgghhh. 

But yeah, the night ended at the Colly again, I don’t remember too much from there! I know I heard some dub step and some Chase and Status… and some indie jingle jangle in the other room but apart from that…. tis aaallll a blur. After some roaming around cov for cash points/food/chatting to other Cribs fans, at around 3am it was home time. And in the taxi I actually wanted to die.

So here I am, sat up in bed watching The Vicar of Dibley, hating the burning sensation on my chest from last nights cider intake and waiting for the world to end. I’m supposed to be going out again tonight but quite frankly at the minute I’m not feeling it!

It’s also really really really good to have two days off work. It’s been a stressful week. I’m also starting to get post-Derren depression again but tomorrow night that will hopefully get curbed by seeing RUSH! I hate how things I’ve been looking forward to for months are coming and going SO quickly :-(

Oh well after that…GLASTOOOOOOOO!

I went to watch Derren Brown and he picked on me.

So basically I am a huge Derren Brown fan, and I think I have literally watched everything he has ever recorded. I saw him around this time last year, and I blogged about that show at the time. Well last September he announced a new tour, Svengali, and I managed to get me, Lou and her Mumma front row seats. Amaze. Obviously when you book things so far in advance you just never think you’ll live to see the day, but that day… was yesterday.

If you are going to see Svengali please don’t read this, I won’t be giving anything substantial  away, but still, do yourself a favour. 

Anyway, we headed to our seats once getting into the theatre, and then reality just hit… we were RIGHT at the front. I’ve never even sat in stalls for anything before let alone have the best seat in the house. Lou’s Mum requested to swap seats with me, as she felt too vulnerable being on the end AND being on the front row, haha. About 10 minutes before show time, Dezza announced via the PA that he wanted 150 people to grab paper from the stewards, and to write down an embarrassing moment or confession. Me and Lou got some paper, and wrote down our confessions, folded the paper into quarters and popped it back into the stewards paper basket. We then watched the stewards tip the paper into a glass bowl which was sitting on the stage. After we’d taken part in this, me and Lou suddenly felt very nervous, and very vulnerable!

Anyway, Dez came on, looking fabulous as always in his tails, and he made a young man further along the front row pick a piece of paper out of this glass bowl, put it in an envelope and ‘look after’ for a while. Derren proceeded to give us some background chatter on his show etc, and scouted the audience saying it’s easy to guess just from looking at someone what they do for a living. He looked at one bloke and said ‘You look like a teacher’… and then his attention turned to the front row where he said ‘And this gentleman here looks like a male boxer’. I turned to Lou and said ‘I swear to God he’s looking at you’… to which Derren Brown responded ‘My apologies Madame, it’s very dark in here’. haha! I think there and then Lou could have died a happy girl.

Anyway, the first half went on, and it was fabulous. Then Dezza’s attention turned back to this piece of paper the young fellow was looking after. He instructed this guy to open the envelope, and read to himself what the confession was. Then, in his own words, the guy had to come onto the stage and say what the confession was. Derren instructed that, whoever’s confession it was, had to remain calm and not give themselves away, similarly with the people sitting around them. He got up on stage, and said:

‘This person once whilst on a driving lesson, went to grab the gear stick, but instead ended up grabbing with the driving instructors cock’

The audience and Derren laughed quite substantially…except for me. Because, dear blog readers, that confession… WAS MINE. I had my hand covering my mouth, and I felt a massive ‘OH SHIT’ smile creep across my face. I whispered to Lou ‘Oh fuck…oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck’. You literally had no idea what was going through my head.

Every single person in the auditorium (2,099 to be exact) had to stand up, and by process of elimination, Derren made his way closer and closer to finding me. He eliminated males… then anyone over 30… anyone over 25… anyone under the age of 18… which eventually left a handful of girls, including Lou, standing. Next thing I knew, there was a camera in our faces, showing our mugs on the big screen to the entire auditorium. He then asked each of us ‘Repeat after me… I did not touch my driving instructors cock’. He asked a lot of the girls to sit down, and of course when it came up to me, I fluffed up my words! Eventually, it was just me and Lou stood up in the ENTIRE place. Derren gave us a microphone, and he lay into Lou. He was speaking SO frantically and SO fast to her ‘Did you do it… did you touch the driving instructors cock… was it you… did you honestly not do it? Are you sure it wasn’t you’… to which she was frantically replying ‘It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it, I really didn’t do it’. Then it was my turn, my face on the massive screen declaring that it wasn’t me, it was Lou! hahahaha. THEN, Dez got Lou’s Mum involved! hahaha, to which we burst out laughing. We sorta gave ourselves away then, as Dez said ‘There’s something going on between these three’. After some questioning of Roberta, she was allowed to sit down, leaving me and Lou again. Lou was told to sit… leaving me stood up infront of everybody. It was a really frantic, mad few minutes. Derren was shining a torch in my face, and said ‘Lucy (I’d told him my name by this point)…did you, or did you not, touch your driving instructors cock on a driving lesson when reaching for the gear stick?’… to which I simply reply ‘I did’. The crowd went mad, Dez thanked me, told me to go for a drink and that it was now time for the interval. Words just cannot describe how we felt. It was just fantastic, I don’t really get starstruck or really in awe of someone but I truly felt that last night. I just couldn’t believe it had happened to us, and I love the fact that all three of us got a bit of Derren.

Me and Lou headed out at the interval, where we got a LOT of attention from the crowd. I actually felt famous for 5 minutes. I felt EVERYONE stare at us, and one bloke said to me ‘You come for a squeeze?’… a few other people asked me where the gear stick was, and some just chose to shout ‘GEAR STICK’ at me. A group of lads at the bar asked me if I was an actor or stooge, whether Derren had placed me there. It was pretty awesome.

Lou had to read out something from a piece of paper in the second half (I don’t want to give anything else away)… but between us, we had the most fantastic experience ever. Being on the front row… being so close to him… having him run around literally infront of us on the floor and of course, being part of one of his tricks, was just more than I could have asked for. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, and I will never EVER forget it. It makes me sad to know it’ll never happen again.

And by the way, they made my confession sound A LOT worse than it actually was… my hand just flinged back off the gear stick and brushed his crotch area… I think they made it out to sound like I’d molested him!

I’m going to sign off here and carry on smiling to myself and gushing to Lou via text. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D