Reasons that I hate winter.

I chose the blogging alias "Summer" for a reason and that is very simply because I love the summer! I love the sun, the long days, the warmth, the barbeques, the time on the beach, the time spent in beer gardens drinking chilled cider... I really could go on forever. I won't, however, because this post is geared for the exact opposite - an "I hate the winter" rant.

I mean, seriously, who likes winter? All this nonsense about loving to snuggle up indoors is a load of rubbish. The only reason we have to snuggle up indoors with duvets and hot water bottles is because the weather outside is horrible. It's cold, rainy and windy and without looking like the michelin man, there is no way to escape that once you step outside. And yeah, don't get me wrong, being snuggled on the sofa with a hot chocolate and a duvet is great... once in a while. When it becomes a necessity because otherwise it's just too cold to sit there, the novelty very quickly wears off.

I'm not denying it's pretty, just better to look at than
to be outside in.

The short days are the worst, and there is nothing more depressing than getting up in the dark, walking to school in the dark and getting home in the dark. When the only daylight you see is when you are on playground duty you know this is a season that cannot end soon enough. It makes everything harder, particularly getting up, and even the smallest of trips outside becomes the ultimate chore (taking the bins out, walking to the corner shop etc) because not only is the weather foul, but nipping out even for a minute involves putting on layer after layer to avoid completely freezing.

I guess in some ways I could be swayed by the food (when has my stomach not dictated my mood?), because the warm, hearty meals you can indulge in at this time of year are a treat which wouldn't be so pleasant if it weren't for the cold outside. But even that is with its downfall because the heavy food only instills even more lethargy than is already being felt due to the lack of daylight. Bring back the lighter salads any day, as much as I do love a stew.

And please do not get me started on snow. I mean, in what way is snow fun after the first 15 minutes? The whole country grinds to a halt, it's cold, wet and debilitating. Not fun.

Christmas might just save it for me this year, because it's all new being in London and, for the first time since the age of 5, I will be seeing ALL of my family over Christmas. But even so, I'd be much happier doing that in the sun...

My two furry new flatmates

I realise I have been a truly awful blogger this month and I would apologise but we've been having far too much fun enjoying London to sit indoors on my laptop... which makes a change (not only to the weather but also my attitude). But as of tomorrow I'm getting myself back into a routine of working so normal service will no doubt be resumed.

So anyway, I thought I'd share my two furry new flatmates with you all: a couple of days ago I went out and bought myself two new dwarf hamsters to keep me company when I'm here on my own! Here they are:

Rosie and Posie the hamsters! I can't tell them apart in any way though so they will just have to be referred to in a collective sense!

Although my plan for them to keep me company seems to be going to pot right now because they don't like me and don't get up if I put the lights on when it gets dark. But I'll have a nice cheap electricity bill so I guess it's swings and roundabouts.

They like eating spinach leaves, papaya chunks and sweetcorn. They like me when I feed them those things and they will already happily run onto my hand and sit there to eat. So fricking cute :)

They are already very spoilt, with a big cage and a wheel, two exercise balls, a run with a large maze and a see-saw, plus lots of wooden chews! They blatantly got better treatment this week than my boyfriend did...

Something on the horizon.

I need to start by apologising for my last few posts. It's been a hard few days, I've found myself overwhelmed on more than one occasion but I'm beginning to settle into a new routine now and hopefully I can keep on top of my anxiety again. Blogging helped though, I knew I had taken this up again for a reason. It helped me to feel much less lonely when the feeling really kicked in. Which it has, there's no doubt about it, but it's not bothering me too much today.

I think having something to look forward to is an amazing motivation. I expect that a lack of it, as I now have everything I've been counting down to, has been partly to blame with my negative mood and anxiety difficulties recently. This theory seems to have been further confirmed today because now I have things to get excited about again, suddenly I am finding myself much more able to cope.

So, here's my happy list for the month:

11th - I start my induction week at school. Activities include a social night, a transfer meeting and meeting my new class. I am SO excited about that I cannot begin to describe;
16th - I have a friend coming to stay. The friend I said I would stop seeing... oh well;
20th - Back to Devon;
21st - My graduation ceremony;
22nd - Only going to see actual Jeremy Kyle being filmed!
23rd - Weekend with the grandparents and my Dad. Plus car shopping with my Dad, but he doesn't know that yet;
29th - I inherit my classroom. MY classroom, to do with whatever I like!

And, most importantly of all, today is my last early morning because of deliveries and it is the last day of waiting around for even more deliveries. I'll be free to get out and do what I want, explore a few more places and I can eventually have my trek out to Ikea. Don't try to tell me I don't know how to live...

Life is much more peaceful today. I'm feeling good :)

Never mind the rain...

Despite the fact that the rain has been torrential here for the best part of three hours, there is still an air of summer around today. We may be sat in a dark living room in warm jumpers, but yet there is an air of optimism and summer excitement in our family.

Mainly because Wimbledon is on. This is the annual fortnight of tennis which brings with it short-lived enthusiasm for tennis in the UK, a boost to the sales of strawberries and a good excuse to spend whole days sat indoors watching the television. And watching it, despite the rain, reminds us that it is finally summer.

Summer is always a pick-me-up for me. I hate the winter, I hate dark evenings and as for the 'cute' evenings when you cuddle up on the sofa with a bottle of wine and a good film, they are nice the first time and maybe, at a push, the second time. But any more after this and it is just plain boring and miserable. Summer is all about getting outdoors, socialising, watching the natural world bloom and look glorious before our eyes.

And traditionally it is a time of change. Leaving school, graduating from university, moving to new jobs and the such like all happen in the summer for new challenges to await us in the autumn. This is, of course, no different for me this year and I don't think I need to explain how excited I am about this because it has been the subject of far too many posts of mine lately.

Furthermore, today, I did most of my packing. At the weekend I did the shopping which means I have all the utensils and appliances I will need. And as such, today, the count down really is on - in seven days time, a week today, I will be in my flat. My flat, with no-one else to answer to, with my own things and with my own life in front of me so that every decision from next Monday onwards will be about me. And it's lovely to be able to have such a selfish outlook on life for a change because I have spent far too long riding in someone else's wake, letting them lead me down their pathways and finally I am free of that. I can truly find out who I am, what I want and who I am going to become. I can lay my own path.

This is what summer signifies for me, more so now than ever, and it is wonderful to fully embrace this. And, as you all know, I can't wait.

However, my tennis racket is already packed. My enthusiasm for tennis will have to extend to reaching for the remote, not the racket. And drooling over Nadal, of course...

I have somewhere to live!

I finally have a flat in London! My moving date is the 27th of June and that will be the day I have been waiting for - every single decision I've made in the last 4 years has been building up to this and now I'm 20 days away from having everything I've ever wanted, and this flat really is the icing on the cake. Don't get me wrong, it's not massive, but the kitchen is lovely, the bathroom is nice, the bedroom is spacious and the living space is nice if not slightly compact. I couldn't take any photos of the inside because the current tenant had boxes packed up to the ceiling, but, check out the view:

Plus, being right on the river bank, it is so quiet you wouldn't know you were only 20 minutes from central London... other than being under the flightpath for London City Airport, but everywhere in the area is (obviously) so I can't hold that against it. And anyway, even when I sat and ate my lunch on the benches opposite I only counted 4 planes in 45 minutes, which you wouldn't even notice after a while. On top of all this, it's a ten minute walk to my school, probably only 15 minutes walk to the train station or a 5 minute bus ride, and even better, there is a sports club down the road which runs the kick boxing school I used to be a member of before it closed locally, which means I can start going again! I'm so excited I just want to scream and dance around!

I have literally never been this excited in all my life, I just want to run out and buy all my furniture, accessories and kitchen stuff now! I know it will be a pain to move it all but I can't see myself holding out this long. Plus, there isn't a Tesco/Ikea very nearby so it might be worthwhile doing, especially seeing as I now have the opportunity to do three trips in the car when moving rather than just two.

Ok, I'm going to get up and sort my life out so I can justify getting excited!

Plus, I have another date on Wednesday, if you can call it that. This all followed a very messy night out with the girls to celebrate graduating, but I think that story is best left forgotten and this whole thing kept pretty quiet. Which would usually not be worth the hassle, but I'm now moving in less than 3 weeks and, if I thought London was a long way, he's moving to Cairo to teach in August, so this is as short-term as is humanly possible and, to be honest, is basically about sex and right now that suits me fine.

So heres to an exciting last three weeks in Plymouth before I finally escape this hell-hole and get everything I've ever wanted. Finally :)

Ahh, sunshine, you are bliss.

I absolutely adore the sun, it's the one thing that can always guarantee a happy mood and that it will make everything look positively beautiful. I've been sat out nearly all day so far and it just makes you feel so much better in your own skin for having had a bit of sun on it! This lovely little heatwave is the perfect pick-me-up for this time of year, it's been a beautiful Easter holiday so far. Yesterday was such a nice day in particular: spent all day in the library working on my dissertation, then went and had my hair cut, then home for a barbeque with the grandparents and finally out with my girlies to the pub. I also firmly closed a door in my life and feel a million times better for it. Men, you are well and truly out of my life.

And why am I enjoying the sun as opposed to being in the library again with everyone else? Because I've fricking well done it! Just needs a read through and my reference list needs to be compiled and alphabetised, only bloody 3 weeks early... Proud or what :D Yesterday really was an amazing day, though when I got up I decided I was going to finish it and it was just the mind-set I needed.

Even my hair-cut went well despite my fear. I had a 'lob', which is basically a long bob and it looks really nice. Not sure it's helped me look any older, if anything probably done the opposite, but it's nice and manageable and much thinner now which is what I wanted. I was feeling much less nervous when I sat in the chair and I don't think I flinched or worried even once! Mostly because the two apprentices at the salon asked to watch as it was such a restyle from what I had before, so the hairdresser was talking them through it meaning I knew exactly what was going on behind me. So yeah, I didn't behave like a child and actually sat in the chair and sustained a normal conversation without freaking out. Another proud moment.

Anyway, I'm off outside to sit in the sun bliss again.

Why I love the sunshine
1) The smell of suncream is lovely
2) It reminds me of being 16 and skiving off GCSE revision to go to the beach every day
3) It's a valid excuse for laying around all day and not being productive
4) I love that sun-kissed look, it makes me feel more healthy
5) Topless men *drools*
6) Ice creams!
7) Driving around with the window open is such a nice feeling
8) Plymouth actually looks nice and not like a depressing shithole
9) Summer dresses, bikinis and flip-flops.
10) It means there's actually something to do and somewhere to go in this dump
11) No frizzy hair worries
12) Cider, particularly brother's strawberry cider.
13) The 3 B's: Barbeques,
14) Beaches and
15) Beer gardens!
16) Getting just that bit too close to being sunburnt (don't ask me why I like being that bit too red...)
17) Not having to wear a coat, even in the evenings.
18) Related to the last one, going out wearing a dress for a night out and not freezing to death.
19) Being bored of writing this because I want to get back outside... adios!

(Oh, and the best thing about sunshine at this time of year? No hayfever yet, woop!)

Nothing.

This weekend (and in fact, from Thursday of last week on wards) I have done absolutely nothing of worth; I've sat and chilled out, listened to some new music, browsed the internet, cooked and baked, cleaned and then gone back to chilling out - and do I feel guilty? Not in the slightest!

You see, usually I choose to live my life at 100mph - if I have two hours spare in my day then I'll fill it with going to the gym, baking, cleaning, sorting, planning... anything at all to avoid having the dreaded 'nothing', and am completely incapable of relaxing for more than an hour at a time. It was something I was starting to worry about with the impending move, given that for the summer I will be skint and predominantly friendless, but actually, I think I just need to accept that sometimes having nothing to do is as valuable as having lots to do. I'm relaxed, I'm refreshed, I have the beginnings of a normal sleep pattern and I'm beginning to feel slightly less overwhelemed by the things in my life right now. And it's a lovely feeling, although I do love being busy, this is almost as nice too.

Though I suppose I am still slightly more occupied than usual, seeing as my Mum woke up yesterday pretty much paralysed from back pain which means I've taken over full reign of the house and the associated chores. It's a good job I like cleaning!

Now to get back to sitting in gorgeous sunshine of the garden... oh wait, I never left it! God bless wireless internet and my dinky netbook :)su