Talking to Squirrels

Blah blah blah. Can’t say I really have anything interesting to write about, but I’ll do some waffling, it’s got me this far in life…

It’s the start of half term, meaning a week off  for me, which is always good. I say always, but any spare time I have I’ll be revising for the rest of my GCSEs in. Yuck. I have thirteen exams between the 1st and 10th of  June, which is just lovely isn’t it. The nine I’ve had so far have been okay (fingers crossed), with the huge “ARGH!”, english literature, now done and dusted. This means I’ll never have to touch it again in my life. Hopefully. It also means I can burn my copy of Lord of the Flies. Woo! I won’t rant about it now, but what can you realistically do with a degree in english literature apart from teach it to bored kids or work in a library?

Apart from revising, I’m off for a picnic in the woods tomorrow with some friends, so I have to make my trademark brownies at some point (they must be ideal heart attack material: golden syrup, double cream, butter, chocolate and biscuits. Mega yum!). It goes to prove that the media have us “youths” all wrong; some of us are really caring young people that skip through the woods and talk to squirrels. Okay, maybe not the last bit, but that would be pretty cool. I guess the closest I’ll get is Walkers Cajun Squirrel flavoured crisps, which rather strangely are suitable for vegitarians. I mean, what strange person comes up with a spicy squirrel synthetic flavouring?

Ooh, and before I go, I should mention I’m now a Twit who likes to Tweet. That’s right, I’m on Twitter, and loving it. Follow me, please: http://twitter.com/FrazerRoberts

Long Time No Speak!

Over half a year of neglect for my poor blog. Oh dear.
I was just re-reading some of my old blogs and thought how terrible they sounded. Please don’t read them, it’s about as cringeworthy as watching a video of yourself, which is VERY bad.

So alot has happened since September. I mean, Christmas, my brithday and the official opening of a new theatre have been, as has… COMIC RELIEF!
That’s right, the lovely charity event that raises money to help in the UK and Africa. The charity event that lets me do something crazy to raise money. This year of course was no different. Seen as a picture speaks a thousand words, here you go:

My Comic Relief Outfit

Yep, it’s the traditional transvestite. The outfit includes: boobs, miniskirt, wig, tights and 4 inch heels! Oh yes! Just in case you’re wondering, the size 12, 4 inch heels were bought on eBay. Where else?! It didn’t help that the heels were about a size too big, meaning bathroom sponge had to be involved, stuffed down the back of the shoe.

So came the big day. And dear lord, did I get a reaction going into school, even though I arrived late (I didn’t walk all the way, I was part chauffered). Half a dozen phones were instantly whipped out to photograph me, and several questions were fired at me asking about the shoes and boobs (which were made of socks). Photos continued to be taken all day, so I was pretty much plastered accross Facebook. Surprisingly, lessons went on as normal (well, as normal as they can for a transvestite). I suppose it isn’t that normal to see someone with a huge wig, heels and boobs to be soldering a circuit board is it?

In the end I raised about £110 for Comic Relief, which is pretty good going, more than double what the full Nun’s outfit earned me a couple of years ago. Saying that, it did come at a price: my legs ached ALOT that weekend, and because my feet had been squashed into the end of those shoes all day, my feet went into spasm several times when I went swimming that evening. Nice. All worth it to see people’s faces though    =D

In other news, MEGA PANIC, seen as GCSEs are starting soon. My French and Spanish orals start in less that 2 weeks, so wish me luck! Exams will probably be the reason you won’t see a blog for a little while.

The Bavarian Nutter

Keep reading, it’ll make sense. I hope.

So, RATS (Ruyton Amateur Theatrical Society), in the village down the road from us, are starting to prepare for their annual panto, which this year is ‘Frankenstein, the Panto’. And I got a call last night following the second read-through audition on Sunday to tell me that I’d been given the part of Prince Ludwig. From what I’ve gathered, he’s the naïve one who goes out to rescue the heroine. Nice. The plot line is odd, with Frankenstein not being the villain at all, and the story itself taking place in Bavaria. There are some great characters and one-liners, so I shan’t ruin it in case anybody reading is planning on going to see it. However, it will be taking place around about the time that I’m doing my mock exams, which could prove tiring. But I like being busy, so I’m sure I’ll find time for revision.

In other news, hence the ‘nutter’ part of the title, I’ve taken up jogging. Yes, you read right. I’ve decided that I’m probably not the healthiest of people around, and I might as well do something about it. So I thought I’d start this morning, no time like the present and whatnot. And of course, at 6 o’ clock this morning, the good old British weather was out in full force to welcome me.
Rain + wind + holey trainers = mud + puddles + cold + soaked clothes + wet dog.
So, just as I got back and was standing in the garage with the dog, both of us soaking wet, Dad appeared, as he usually walks the dog at about half 6. (He obviously hadn’t heard me going). I was asked “What the hell’s brought this on?” after I told him that I’d taken up jogging, with the dog. Well at least that’s one less thing for him to do, surely? Conversely, Mum’s reply when I returned was along the lines of “Good for you”.  And if I’m honest, good for me it was, as I did feel very pleased with myself, and I’m guessing that the happy endorphins kicked in when I got to school, as I felt rather happy, despite the weather. I was feeling rather achey, as I’d done an endurance test (the bleep test) at school the day before, with a score of 9.0, but hey, I didn’t care.

So in a shocking revelation, I’m saying that exercise makes me a happier person.
For the moment at least…

The Million Dollar Bottle

Well, two actually.

Yes, it eventually got to that part of the holiday where I started finding odd things to do, what with the little amount of coursework I’d been given done. The inspiration this time came from a wine bottle (okay, I did help empty it) that looked rather nice (yes, I thought a wine bottle looked nice) at a dinner party Mum and Dad were holding. As you can see to your left, it’s rather tall, pretty much transparent, slim and has a weird texture to it. So I thought “Hmm, I’ll have that on my window sill”.

So for a period of time I had this bottle upside down on a towel in the bathroom to dry it, before Mum suggested I put it in the airing cupboard. Good thinking, Batman. But then the idea came to me that I should put some of my 10 million Zimbabwean dollars in there. Hey, why not? So when I had a day with nothing to do, I sat down at the kitchen table with my dried wine bottle and wad of notes, which I sifted through to find the tattier 20 (brown) and 50 (purple) thousand dollar bearer cheques (seen as I have rather a lot of these). To put them in, I would simply roll them up and stick them down the neck of the bottle. Wahey. And as I went along, I discovered (with the help of Mum, who couldn’t help but intervene with this exciting activity) that various kitchen utensils could be used to help squash more notes into the bottle. A wooden spoon was my first weapon of choice. Then length became a problem, so I delved in a draw for my chopsticks, complete with chopstick holder (I still have no idea how to use them). These proved rather useful, as notes could be grabbed whilst still in the bottle. However, the bottom tier of notes could still not be reached, so a metal skewer was utilised, which proved useful due to its length and note-squashing ability. In the end, I’m guessing I got about 2 million dollars in there, give or take a few hundred thousand. To finish, I shoved a cork in the top for good, decorative measure, and this bottle now has pride of place on my window sill. So I was thinking, maybe I could fill/decorate bottles in other ways, like filling one with corks, or pasting newspaper to the outer of another. As that lovely advert once said “Recycle. The possibilities are endless”. Oh how right they were.

In other news, I’m trying out a memory foam mattress. Trying, because Mum and Dad bought one between Ross and I to see if we like it. So I’ve got it for the first half of the week, and I must say, it’s rather comfy.

And finally, ugh, I went back to school today. [*Groans, rolls eyes and sighs all at once*]. Six weeks of bliss, over. We were on the new timetable too, meaning no lunch until half 1. Luckily, I had plenty for breakfast, but was still rather peckish during the lesson before lunch. I hate to imagine what it was like for those who’d had no breakfast. On the flip side, we all got to go in our new dark red (or Burgundy, as school calls them) jumpers, and I got to wear my yellow head boy badge at last. Woo!

It all makes my first day of being a frightened little year 7 seem so long ago. Isn’t it amazing how much has changed in four years?

Me, Myself and Madonna

The random word generatar has spoken: pointed.

Ahh yes, the first thing that comes to mind is me playing Madonna in our school’s version of the Queen musical ’We Will Rock You’ last November. No, it’s really not as bad as it sounds.

For those of you who haven’t seen ‘We Will Rock You’, I was part of a group called the Bohemians, who are the rocker rebels of the musical. In the future, rock music has been banned, and so the Bohemians hide underground, getting all their knowledge of the past from the ancient scrolls that are video tapes, so everything is a bit mixed up, as they only have bits to go on. So none of us resemble our past characters, and in some cases girls had lads names and vice versa. To start with, I was cast as Bob the Builder. Cool. But then Mr. Evans (the director) decided to mix things up a bit. So one rehersal he came up to me and said:
“Ah! Frazer, just the man I was looking for. We need someone who doesn’t mind making a total idiot of themselves, and so we decided on you.”

Allow me to explain. I quite frequently make a total tit of myself, and to be honest, I don’t care. For example, every Red Nose Day/Children in Need (charity events for those who don’t know), I have gone into school as: (Year 7) Anne of Little Britain, the nighty wearing mental patient, (year 8 ) Emily Howard of Little Britain, the dress and wig-wearingly bad transvestite and (year 9) a nun. That’s right, Mum made me a full nun’s outfit, complete with head dress and everything.
(For some reason we weren’t allowed to go in fancy dress this year, so they’d better damn well do it for my last year. Maybe they did it to stop severe embarassment from nutters like me…)

Anyway, Mr. Evans then gave me the part of Madonna, which is actually scripted as a male part. But as we had all seen the West End production, Mr. E was now yoinking ideas from there; the man Madonna in London had the usual ripped jeans and chunky boots, as well as a basque/corsety type thing with the trademark Madonna pointy cones. So guess what? I had to wear it too. Thrilling stuff.

I was then tasked with trying on the corset thing. It turned out I’d have to go to Ace’s Party Shop in Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury-ites, it’s over the Welsh Bridge, on the opposite said of the river from Smithfield). I was told to make a reference to a Mr. Evans of The Corbet School and they’d know what I was talking about. So off I toddled to Ace’s, with Mum, just incase the pervy bloke sitll ran it, which he wasn’t. Running the shop was a woman and (presumeably) her other half.
Me- “Hi, I’ve been told to come and try on a Madonna corset.”
[* Woman gives puzzled look *]
Me- “Mr. Evans, of The Corbet School.”
[* Woman goes into histerics and the husband gives very odd looks *]
In the end, we all went upstairs, minus the husband. The corset (which wasn’t a corset, it was all made of soft fabric but looked very corset-like) fitted well, although rather tightly. It turned out it was £30 to hire this thing for the week, and one-hundred and something to buy. Yikes.

Luckily, for the show, I was allowed to wear this gold beauty over a ripped t-shirt. So my final outfit consisted of the following:

Chunky black boots, ripped jeans (with safety pins), a ripped T-shirt and that gold corset thing you see above, the cones stuffed with kitchen roll. On top of that, an awful lot of hairspray for the backcombing and a helluvalot of make-up. And that on the right is Nat, who played my wife, Mrs. Nurse, in ‘The Crucible’ earlier on in 2007. Good times.

In the end, the show itself was fenomanal to do, and watch apparently. So all that painful backcombing was worth it.

And whilst I was writing this, they had the We Will Rock You cast performing at the London 2012 party on the telly.
MAN MADONNA WAS THERE!!! WOO!!!

Land of Frogs and Snails

Okay, even though I say this every time, I’m sorry. It’s been a month and a day since I last wrote a blog. There are valid reasons though, honest. I mean, not an awful lot happened between the last blog and my holiday, and I’ll say that I’ve been “recovering” from my holiday since I got back (ignore the irony there).

Yes, as the title suggests, I’ve been in France, the land of glorious cheese (from the 1st to the 15th) on holiday. And of course, I wasn’t going to get away without eating regional delicacies, even if I didn’t choose to. After a mid-day ferry crossing, we stopped at a hotel north of Evreux (west of Paris), with things getting off to a good start with the car being scratched by some Belgians and their bikes; not that it was noticeable or anything, but of course Mum has to go and make a big deal and not let go, despite the fact that the Belgians (as per usual with sickeningly good English) gave us their details so they could pay for the repairs. Anyway, we went down to the restaurant and of course only vaugely knew what the dishes were on the set menu, so ordered all four things for all of us, with one of these being the dish of the day (the same was the case for each course). So along came the first three dishes. Fine. Fourth plate. Hmm. A lovely big plate to snails. Of course none of the rest of my (whimpy!!!) family wanted to eat them, so I voulunteered, seen as I’m not a snail virgin. So away I went at these escargots (still in shells) and large pot of mystery sauce with my fork, with the waitress and barman standing behind the bar to see if le Garçon Anglais would eat his plate of snails. After mentioning the difficulty of the task of removing small snails with a large fork, Mum then pulled an implement from behind her plate and said “Oh! Maybe that’s what this is for” and ever so kindly passed it to me. This piece of snail eating cutlery is about the same size as a cake fork (I’m English don’t you know) and looks exactly the same as those two-pronged things you use for pork (see above). This, thankfully, made the task much easier, and I finished the plate of slimy, chewy beasts, which is maybe why I was given such a large glass of cointreau by the waiter (not for free though).

So on we moved to our gîte in a hamlet south of Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin, which is south-east of Angoulême. And this all looked very good; a nice old stone cottage with swimming pool. However, come 3 am, things weren’t looking good. The gîte we were staying in was on the end row of a terrace of three gîtes, each of which slept four. The owners (who lived in another gîte, detatched) had put on both floors paper-thin doors that allow them to open up the property to make it big enough for 8 or 12 people accordingly. Great. More money for them. Less sleep for us, as next door to us was a baby of so many months old, which screamed its head off at random intervals throughout the day and night. Anyway, apart from the fact that my bed was really sqeaky, everything else was really good, including “those nice young Belgian girls” (as Dad called them). And towards the end of the week, Dad and I were having a chat to them (in English of course, as nice as the Flemmish language is) and the younger one (19) claimed that her English wasn’t really that good. Was it hell! That with the fact their French is near fluent, and the rest of the family speak Spanish and “a little” Italian, is enough to make your “Avez-vous un fromage comme Parmesan?” standard French sick. (Actually, that was the best bit of French I used all holiday; Mum wanted some Parmesan-esque cheese to go on the spag bol she’d made.) Ross had his birthday that week too, turning 14, so is still a youngster by my standards.

Our second week was spent in a housey thing in Baudrières, Burgandy, near Chalon-sur-Saône, which is between Mâcon and Dijon. Actually, it was a bungalow, not a housey thing. Yes, low is in bold, because all the doorways were a good few inches too short for myself, Dad and Ross, meaning we had to duck everywhere, even in the shower. Mum, on the other hand, being the short-arse that she is, was fine. This week too was fine, with nothing really to complain about besides the odd burst of rain and the slightly cooler weather (it was in the low 30s during the first week).

On the way back, we stayed with Dad’s cousin and her husband in Harlow (London-ish area), both of whom are lovely people who insist on filling you with as much food as is physically possible. Ooh, they have really cool stairs too (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen them). And, we found out that the cox for the mens eights rowing in Beijing (Acer Nethercott) is one of their son’s best friends from school, once again proving that it’s a small world. (Pat and Martin, thankyou once again, and now that I’ve written a nice paragraph about you, would you please be so kind as to leave me a comment so that I know you’ve read this. Expect a plethora of angry emails if you don’t  )

In other news, I got the result of my Critical Thinking AS Level paper one today. Miss. Youngs was phoning people at half nine this morning giving results; does she honestly expect anyone to be up by then?! Anyway, I phoned back when I woke up to find that I’ve got a C, which I think is very good, seen as it’s an AS level and I’m only on my GCSEs at the moment!

And good luck to all the year 11s who are finding out their GCSE results tomorrow, all the best!

Three Toblerones and a Plastic Duck

Okay, to all you non-existant avid readers of my blogs, I’m sorry, as it’s a day short of 2 weeks since I last wrote a blog. So soz’ard. But with a few exceptions, nothing that exciting has happened since the first week of work experience.

My second week of work experience past without incident, and as a thankyou present to everyone, I bought a card, three toblerones and a plastic ornamental garden duck, which seemed to be the highlight. So next time I or my parents go into Tanners, we must ask of the duck (maybe in the vain hope of a discount).

On the Wednesday of the second week of work experience, I came home to find a letter on the worktop, addressed to me. Well, I say me, but school, of all people, had spelt my name wrong on the address. The people who have my name on every register, record and piece of work that I’ve ever had anything to do with spelt my name with an s. Curses go to my parents (for giving the awkwardly spelt, Scottish name (God knows why, we have no Scottish connections)) and in some parts to America (who’s stupid TV sitcom ‘Frasier’ has meant my name has been pronounced and spelt wrong by anyone new to me). Anyway, I opened up this letter, which I found asked me to go to a meeting on Monday about being senior prefect (i.e. Head Boy). After a pause, and a run around the (empty) house screaming, I decided to celebrate by eating some breadsticks (sod the Moët, which I’d been working with for the last week and a half anyway).

So, off I toddled to school on Monday, rather nervous and thinking up answers to all the possible questions I could think up in my head. I later found that the only contenders I had were Oli Longland, who I get on quite well with and… Tarquin! Yes yes, you might laugh at the name, but really, it’s as prattish as he is. This is the same person who has in the past stabbed me (in the chest) with a pen, ripped my T-shirt (making it look like a boob-tube) and told Kim (South African) that she should F***k off back to her own country (causing Kim to cry) just because she told him to shut up. On top of this, his trousers are way to short, he has an annoying voice, he tries to act ‘ard all the time and thinks of himself even more so because he does kick-boxing; also, there’s hilarious videos on Bebo (social networking site) of him punching a punch bag, which are so obviously sped up. What a bastard, you might be thinking, and you’d be right. Socially, he is looked down upon by nearly everyone for these exact reasons. Anyway, I went to this meeting (I was the first out of three boys and four girls up for the jobs) that was being conducted by Miss. Youngs and Mr. Sherwin. This involved a variety of questions, including “What do you think the job would involve?”, “Describe yourself in three words” etc. I thought the interview went okay, but not brilliant.

“Oli, Tarquin and Frazer, could you please go to the foyer at break-time”. Two hours! That’s how long I had to wait from getting that message from my tutor to finding out the result of my interview. So, after this agonising period of time, all seven of us met in the foyer and were then taken into Mr. Thompson’s (the Head’s) office. But rather than just telling us who had gotten what, he proceeded to waffle for another agonising five minutes. Just bloody get on with it and tell us! And he did, in a rather casual manner. So now you’re reading the blog of the Corbet School’s head boy (Y). The deputy head boy is Oli, meaning that Tarquin got diddly-squat! Ha!
So all that was left to do was receive the badge off the previous year’s head boy in the 40 minute, end of year assembly, in which all of years 7, 8, 9 and 10 (about 600 pupils) are squashed into the hall. Great. But thankfully that went without incident.

In other news, my (French) Spanish teacher, Mrs. Chudleigh, is leaving, as her (English) husband has got a job in Devon and she too is going with him. I think this is a real shame, as she was really nice to our (small-ish) Spanish group, and even brought in Orangina and brioche (not very Spanish) on our last lesson. Despite this, the rest of the school says that she is a total cow in other lessons, and gives out after-schools rather un-necessarily. But anyway, she was nice to us, so I don’t really care.

Well I’m off to Yorkshire tomorrow morning with Kim, Georgi and her parents until Thursday, so if anyone is stalking me, please follow closely (I wouldn’t want you to miss me).

This Rives-Blanques?

Oh yes, work experience week one has passed, without too much incident.

For those of you who live in a box or on the moon, work experience is (a fairly self explanitory) two weeks of Monday to Friday, unpaid work that school makes us do. Most schools only do one week, but ours let us do two, and some people choose to work at a different placement each week. I opted to do two weeks a Tanners Wines of Shrewsbury, which (for the Shrewsbury-ites among you) is at the bottom of Wyle Cop, by that wierd junction and not too far from the English Bridge.
Why did I choose Tanners? Well Mum and Dad get their wine from there, it’s somewhere different, so I thought, why not?

Unfortunately, working in town means I have to catch the bus (yay) at 8 in the morning. I then start at 9, and I get away with finishing at about quater-to-five, so I can catch the 5 o’ clock bus home (which is quite good considdering Tanners shuts at 6).

Monday involved a tour around the building (big), and its 40 or so staff, by Steve, who’s quite high up the rankings. A large chunk of the attention during the tour was taken off me by Robbie, who’s first day of proper work it was after a 3 month work placement last year. Mostly, introductions were as follows:
Steve – “Hello everyone”
Tanners People – “Ooh, hello”
Steve – “I’m sure you all remember Robbie”
Tanners People – “Oh, of course we remember Robbie” [*friendly banter follows*]
Steve – “And this is Frazer, he’s here on work experience for two weeks”
Tanners People – “Hi Frazer”    [*sometimes followed by a handshake*]
[Note how I say nothing. Great.]

Followed by a few forms and health and saftey rubbish, I was set to work.
My work mostly involves moving boxes or bottles from one place to another, whether that be the shop, the store room or the beer end (where the delivery stuff goes in).

Monday afternoon was so exciting. I was told by Rob (also quite high up the tree, and the one that had organised my work experience) to dust every shelf in the liquers/aperetifs/fortifieds etc and whisky/brandy sections. [*Jaw drops*]. To give you an idea, the shelves go from the floor to about a foot taller than me, with the height being divided into 5 boxes, with each box being able to fit about 5 liquer bottles accross, and the same for depth. In total, I must have done about 50 boxes. To dust each box I needed to take out every single bottle, dust it, and put all the bottles back. This lead to me nearly dropping two bottles of Bells whisky on the floor, but I managed to catch them and was on the floor, in a heap clutching two bottles of whisky to my chest. However, I did learn that they have some wierd liquers. Some noteable examples include hazelnut, melon, mint and banana.

Wednesday entailed me going to the Welshpool depot with Matt to help sort out orders, as all deliveries and orders go in to and out of Welshpool respectively. The (comparatively small) store room at Shrewsbury has labels on each shelf (e.g. Italian Red, Beaujolais etc), whereas Welshpool is just a wharehouse of two floors, no labels, and a helluvalot of wine boxes. This meant I looked totally stupid, as every time Matt gave me an order to fetch (he needed to stay in shop ¬¬) I had to ask someone in the wharehouse where each wine was kept.
But seriously, they have some shifty shifty looking customers in Welshpool.

Thursday went by okay; it started with me making boxes in the store room, a theraputic activity as Steve called it. Anyway, all was not too bad, as Radio 1 is always on in the store room, and I heard the best Live Lounge performance ever. Dizee Rascal doing a cover of ‘That’s Not My Name’ by The Ting Tings. A-MAZING.

Later that day, I think I was the cause of some missing wine. Oh dear. Nick told me to note down all the wines that were missing or in short supply (in the Southern France and Italy sections) and to then go and replenish them with bottles from the store room. Anyway, when I got on to the Italy section, Steve and Will (works in the office I think) were dashing round looking for four bottles of Rives-Blanques Chenin something or other. They were still dicussing this whilst Nick and I were having a tea break in Rob and Steve’s office. It then clicked in my mind. So I finished my tea, went and rumaged in the paper bin under one of the counters and ventured back into the office. I had with me the piece of paper on which I had been noting down missing wines on. I gave it to Steve and on it was the missing wine times 3 bottles, which Steve was relieved to see, although they were looking for four. I shall ask them on Monday if they found them.

Friday was dull dull dull. Dull. I was sent to work in the office, where I was instructed by Bob to go through this list of customer/business accounts (of which there must have been a good few hundred) and make sure that each name entry was less than 30 characers long (there were columns on the sheets to tell me the original number of characters). This meant backspacing/abbreviating account names all day. How exciting. This was slightly compensated for by the fact that the people that work in the office are a great bunch, and make cups of tea all the time. In fact, all the people at Tanners are wonderful, and always make an effort to make you feel like you’re doing something useful.

So, one week left. And I have a teacher from school coming to check up on me on Tuesday.
Oh the joys.

A Mere Exam

Sorry for the bad pun, but I just couldn’t resist.
And oh dear; 8 days without a blog. Tut tut.

Some background info for you first, which might add some sense to all this. I’m a Hoff wannabe, so I’m doing a load of lifesaving exams, with my training being done at Oswestry Leisure Centre once a week, and the examination board being the RLSS (Royal Life Saving Society). Three out of the five awards they do are pool-based, which is fine. However, two of the awards, the bronze and silver crosses, need to be done in open water, and so ours take place at Ellesmere, in the Mere.

The Mere (hence the ‘punny’ title- oh I’m on a roll) is the main Mere out of the many Meres around Ellesmere, and probably is oficially called Ellesmere too, like the town. A Mere, for you non-locals, is a lake. Anyway, on Tuesday, Thursday and today, I was in it. That’s right. So the RLSS (Royal Life Saving Society) must have decided that as well as doing very tiring pool-based examinations, they would subject teenagers to the freezing cold British water in their awards too.
“Now what’s he on about?” you might ask yourself, “it’s June, it’ll be lovely and warm.” And usually, you’d be right. But not this year…

Tuesday’s training session was overcast and windy. It was also the first time I’d been in some cold open water since The Red Sea at new year, but then there was WARM SUN, which Britain doesn’t have an awful lot of. To say the least it was something beginning with F and cold. We did a few excercises to prepare us for out bronze cross award on Thursday, as well as some theory. Lovely. Bring it on.

Or maybe not. Along came Thursday. In typical British ”summer” fashion, it was blowing a gale and pouring with rain all day, and didn’t let up for 6.30. Oh dear. Once you were used to the very cold water temperature, being in the Mere wasn’t so bad, it was just the standing on the bank being a bystander or waiting that was absolutely freezing, causing you to shake like a [insert simile here]. On top of this, any swimming and towing of casualities that had to be done was hard work, due to both the cold and the fact that we had to wear shoes, socks, trousers and two tops, with the same going for the silver cross examination. Bring on Sunday.

And I wasn’t a happy bunny to begin with, as I’d had to wake up at 7 to get to Ellesmere for 9. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I was told that I was in the group that wouldn’t be doing its examination until midday. That meant 3 hours of waiting. Plus, when I finally did get started, my whole family were watching. What’s more, it was windy and had started to rain on and off.
There were a variety of tests, a couple of which involved rescuing two caualties, and another two that involved towing a casualty from 30 metres out, which there and back makes the length of 1.2 Olympic sized swimming pools. Without all the clothes, the casualties and the cold, that would be fine, but I had all those. By the time I was finished I was absolutely knackered, to the extent where I just felt like collapsing on the bank.
Thankfully, it was all worth it, as I passed. Woo!

So all that’re left to do now are my award of merit (silver medallion) and distinction (gold), both of which are pool based. YES! After those, once 16, I can take lifeguard exams and get a job as a lifeguard and then a teacher at the leisure centre, both of which pay quite well, with sociable hours.

In other news, my work experience starts tomorrow. *Groans*. It means getting a bus at 8.08 and working until 5. Also, I have to wear a shirt (of which I now have a few, thanks to a Matalan special offer). I hate wearing shirts, but I guess I’ll have to live with it. On top of that, school make us fill out a diary of what we did each day and our feelings before and after.

So if you phone Tanner’s of Shrewsbury and hear “Hello Heathrow Customs and Excise” , then chances are its me.

Teenage Kicks

Seen as Georgi wrote one on this, I might as well too, seen as she thinks mine will be better. We’ll see.

How do normal teenagers get their kicks? Sports, games consoles and vandalism are a few that might spring to mind. Not me. Although I don’t suspect I’m classed as your “average” teenager. I mean, I might look relatively “normal”, but you know what they say about the book and all that. Let’s take a look shall we:

Case study numero uno: shoe stealing.
As I’ve already mentioned, we’re allowed to sit on a patch the school field at luch time, now that it’s “summer” term. So usually I’ll be with Kim, Georgi (no longer, she’s supposed to have left), Connor, Erin etc, and almost always end up in a spot near to this lovely couple [*cackles*]. Come to think of it, the girl’s mum used to teach me when I was at primary school (Christ, that’s a whole blog in itself, Primary school). Anyway, we’ve had notices in the registers telling couples not to show their love for each other so “passionately”, or words to that effect (i.e. STOP SNOGGING EACH OTHERS FACES OFF!!!). So of course these two, in the year below us, continue with their passion on the school field, amidst their friends so they don’t get spotted. Now the other week, I noticed that her shoes were off her feet. Que wierd mind.
“Wouldn’t it be great if I stole her shoes whilst they were romancing and they’ll get all worried at the end of lunch when they’re gone”, was the kind of thought that appeared in my mind. So whilst they were *ahem* on top of each other, I stole the shoes, and they didn’t realise they were gone ’till the end of lunch time. They got annoyed and I threw them back, when they were turned around, so they got hit in the head. Ha!
Now I was hooked. I needed my fix again.
So I was on the field with a slightly bigger group, and an opportunity arose. She had gone off to talk to someone, without her shoes. So I waited until the boyfriend had turned around, so I could make my move. I ran, I grabbed the shoes, I was just leaving when… he turned around and saw me! “No! I’ve been rumbled!” I thought to myself, but I ran back to my group nevertheless. Ooh! So, being the valiant and brave [*sniggers*] boyfriend, he came over with a mate to get her shoes back. Bless. I had them under my leg at this point:
BF- “Can I have those shoes back?” (no please ¬¬)
Me- “What shoes?”
BF- “Those shoes that are by your groin, ya prick!” (Ooh! I thought)
Me- “Oh! Those shoes.” (Throws shoes at BF)
*BF walks off*
BF – “And get a haircut [*mumbles*]” (That’s it! I thought)
Me- “You can talk” (then, at top of voice) “TOSSER!!!” (which caused half the people on the field to look at me, then him).
This was war. I needed those shoes again, just to spite them.
Every dog had its day, and the next one was MINE.
Now, the couple saw me come onto the field, so were a bit wary. But of course they were on top of each other soon enough. My chance came, I snook over (quite stealthily, I might add) and took the shoes that once again were not on her feet. Some people never learn. I kept them for the rest of lunch and put them back on her feet when the bell went, only to get glares as I walked off.

Wierd enough for you? Well here’s some more.

Case study numero dos: road signs.
After recitals, Georgi and I were often quite happy to sit by the bus stop, waving at random motorists to see if they wave back. But after a while, like rats on THC (see last blog), this didn’t give us our full fix. So we’ve written “HONK! 4 CHEESE” on a piece of A3 paper, and have since had barrels of fun.
Last night was no exception, and we were helped by traffic lights (apparently they’re fixing something outside the pub), meaning people had to slow down or even stop to read our sign. To start with, chavs were on our bench, so we of course stood opposite the traffic lights, right were people stopped. We got a fair few honks and puzzled looks, and even some adoring fans in the form of red Land Rover people. When we did move back to our bench (a couple of hundred yards away), people started to wave at us. No. Since when does wave look like honk? 
We need a bigger sheet, maybe even A1, if I can get my mitts on one. And we should try rush hour, when there are queues of people.
Then there will be no excuse for waving.

Case study numero tres: hide and seek.
Is it not slightly worrying that I still enjoy this? And (without sounding too cocky here) I’m not too bad at it, considdering I’m over 6′2″ in hight. I mean, I managed to be the last person found when playing in the Wilson’s back garden, by moving furniture and then curling up into a ball behind the end of a sofa in their Wendy House (no father Wilson, it is not a ‘Ponder Shed’, or whatever you called it). It was so good that the seeker even came to the door of the Wendy House and said “Nah, he won’t be in here, he’s too big to fit”. How wrong she was. 

I’m sure I could add more case studies, but I think y’all get the picture.

Now I must go and finish my English media essay, which I’ve been given an extension on. Comparing Sue Barker and Anne Robinson is great fun, really great fun.