Camping schmamping

Hi!

Me and Dave went on holiday camping last week for a break in-between my placements. We had a lovely time but, being us, had a few hiccups.  

Here are ten pointers to help you have a more successful camping holiday than we did:

1.       Take waterproof clothing. It rains

2.       Don’t wear flip-flops, especially your favourite ones, because they may be ruined by the elements and you may end up throwing them in the campsite bin

3.       Use a tent that doesn’t allow water in

4.       Don’t bother doing your hair because you may wake up with half of it wet and matted stuck to the tent

5.       Don’t roll your clothes up and put them down the sides of the tent. They may be dripping wet when you wake up and you may have to leave the tent in your pyjamas and have nowhere to dry those clothes due to ongoing rain

6.       Find a pitch near the toilets in case you hear owls and wolves and your other half has to wee outside because you're scared

7.       Use a tent at least the length of your body to prevent waking up with brand new hip problems

 

8.       Midgies like to eat your face. Get something to prevent this

9.       Trying and testing a BBQ numerous times doesn’t necessarily mean it works when you get on your holiday. It might not cook meat when you’re not in your garden

10.   Remember your knickers when you go for a shower or you're in for an uncomfy day

 

Our camping holiday lasted a day before we went up to my friend Emily’s to stay.

 

Here is our holiday album. It is not how I had previously imagined

 

Dave willing the rain to stop and the meat to cook

 

Entertaining ourselves when we realised there was inadequate space and lighting to play Monopoly and that we had nothing to do

 

My gorgeous head pressed against the leaking tent



Dave trying to dress

My first real live badger. Dead

 

 

The moment Dave realised the crotch of his trousers were wet

 

Me sulking at the top of a waterfall





 

 

A lovely pub we went to for breakfast, that was shut

 

Blue skies

Pickles

That time has come again where I have work to do and so decide to write a new blog post.

It was mum’s birthday in May. I bought her a trendy handbag which she loved. She approached me after the 'present opening' sesh to notify me honestly that she wasn’t keen on the purse.

“What purse?” I asked.

The purse that had been inside the bag. I told her not to worry as I had accidentally stolen it so we would have to return it.

 I’ve thieved twice now. Last year I accidentally stole 2 chocolate bars from a supermarket which will remain unnamed. When I realised I ate them both in a panic.

 

We went to Birmingham for our friends’ wedding last weekend. The sun shone and it was a lovely day. I was sat patiently in the church waiting for the bride to arrive. David was an usher so I wasn’t sat with him, but with his friend who I was just getting to know. I leaned forward on my pew and heard a frightening rip. I whispered into her ear,

“Something has just ripped.”

She tried not to wet herself and exclaimed

 “it might be your dress!?!!!”

which was very reassuring.

It turned out it was not my dress, thank the Lord, but in fact my mother’s brand new pashmina which she had kindly lent me. It was torn in two places and I spent the rest of the day trying to ‘ruffle’ it in the area it was ripped so people wouldn’t see the hole.

That evening we were waving off the bride and groom. Everyone was in good cheer so when I realised I couldn’t move and noticed my heel was stuck in a grid I simply slipped my foot out of my shoe discreetly and bent to remove it. [I had already had some heel-stuck-in-grass scenarios earlier in the day (standard), one resulting in me kicking a passer-by in the shin]. I lifted the shoe and, to my horror, the 2ft grate came up with the shoe, making a screeching/clanking noise to which the large group of guests turned and gasped. I returned the grid to its rightful place, shoe still in situ.

 

Not much else has happened of interest really, I’ve been too busy to do anything really stupid, so I will go serious on you for a moment.

The last 6 months have been (- in a word-) tricky. I think life is always tricky to an extent (I don’t know about you but mine is!!) but I have had some challenges thrown my way.

One aspect that has been tough is Uni. Due to unforeseen circumstances and me having to re-sit modules I am graduating a few months later than all my peers so while this week should have been the last of my whole degree, I will then have a week off before starting another 8 week placement whilst completing an assignment and my dissertation.

I’m so thrilled for my friends who are very nearly ready to don the cap and gowns, and get jobs(!), but part of me is very sad not to be completing the journey that I started out with them and I’m still planning my dignified gatecrash to the graduation ceremony (not joking).  

Some of this inconvenience is down to myself (least academic person IN THE WORLD) and some I have had no control over. Sometimes the worst feeling is being out of control. Not being able to change things can lead to serious serious frustration. But if you step outside of a situation for a minute and take a look in, things can often look different. This isn’t always possible when you’re in the middle of it…it’s usually a bit later on you can get the better perspective.

I’m coming to the end of a placement that I technically shouldn’t have had to have been on. In the past 7 weeks on it I have received more support, reassurance and encouragement than I could ever have asked for and it has been exactly what I needed.

Unable to find a final placement that could accommodate me over summer and with 2 weeks only to go I was starting to think I was going to have to wait another year to graduate. But then a lovely individual who didn’t even know me showed an interest in supporting me to find somewhere and a few days ago it was arranged. I met my supervisor and colleagues-to-be and they just oozed friendliness and support. They even made me a cup of tea purposely in a cup that matched my top and insisted that I ate some of their cake.

I couldn’t have graduated this month. For various reasons, I’m not ready. I found myself in a right old pickle and you just can’t jump straight out of a pickle. I trust God that I’m going to end up in a fulfilling job and that my experiences, both bad and good, will have put me in the perfect position to support others. If things aren’t going exactly the way we have worked out in our mind we come to the conclusion that we have somehow failed. This isn't true though. We think we know what’s best for us, but a lot of the time we don’t. And even when we do, we can't stop those other things that get in the way. But thankfully God knows what's good for us and can help us out of even the biggest pickles.

Abi x

 

 

Rush of blood to the head

Hi again!

Walking.

It was a lovely summer wasn’t it? I’ve been on a couple of walks lately. The first one was to Asda with the husband. We only realised when we got out of the shop armed with bags that it had been a stupid idea to walk to Asda. Obviously it rained to top it off.

Anyway, it was on the way that we experienced an incident. We spotted a metal barrier, a bit like this but without the horizontal bar in the middle:

I fondly reminisced, “Ohh. Remember when you were a kid and you used to roly-poly over them?”

Dave smiled in agreement until I asked him to hold my handbag. He took it but shook his head frantically and repeated “No. No Abi, no..no” even as he did.

I braced myself and swung over the bar.

I got half-way (so, upside-down) and stopped.

I tried to force my body over some more but it didn’t move. I shouted to Dave for help. I was all giddy, like you get sometimes when it’s really not funny. So he didn’t take me seriously. In fact he didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t see him because I was upside-down the wrong way.  I wanted to let go but I was all twisted and feared some sort of dislocation.

I started to panic as I could feel the blood rushing to my head. I shouted “I’m stuck! HELP ME!” and after what felt like ten minutes he proceeded to push me back the way I had come – which wasn’t going to happen as I had gone past ‘the point’ where that was still doable. I shouted “Wrong way, WRONG WAY!” and he aided me forward until I was upright again.

My face physically tingled for the next 20 minutes. I asked Dave why it had taken so long for him to intervene and he advised that he had been trying to take a picture but hadn’t been able to work my phone. Thank heavens, because my midriff was definitely on show.

The second walk wasn’t so incidental, but it was good all the same. Last Sunday afternoon Dave informed me he had found a new local walk, and, would I like to go? Of course the answer was yes because I was just about to start working on an assignment and in those moments it’s always good to do something else.

I asked Dave if I would need my camera and he advised me I did not, that there was nothing to see. During our walk that afternoon we saw cows,  sheep, newborn calves and lambs, fish, ducks, herons, birds of prey, butterflies, geese, goats, horses, dogs (standard), were threatened by some fearsome sheep protecting their young, enjoyed a beverage outside a remote country pub and waved at canal boat people sailing downstream. Now if that didn’t require a camera I don’t know what does.

Education.

I was with my friend’s seven year-old daughter recently when she began to ask me about leap years. I tried to palm her off when I realised immediately that I did not know why or how leap years occur or how many days there are in February - ever. I was relieved when she moved onto the subject of the moon until she started questioning its impact on the tide and waves. What?! I’m 26 and noone’s ever told me about that stuff. Thankfully she later gave me the chance to redeem myself when she asked if we were in Preston or England.

 

I will end this entry with an Abi quote that I let slip on placement last week.

Whilst asking a manager if they could enlighten me on some neurological terminology, I mentioned that the patient in question had been referred for an urgent spray tan.

Either she didn’t hear, or she was so appalled she chose not to respond. I gasped and quietly followed with a mortified  “CT scan.”

 

Love, Amanda x

(I just looked up from the keyboard and had completely unknowingly typed Amanada'!!!?!!!  Probably a subconscious mix of Abi and Miranda, anyway I thought rather than correct it I'd let you relish my stupidity a bit longer)

Hi again!

Hi!

            So, some people read my 1^st entry which makes everything much less awkward than it could have been.

                Girls.

Girls are funny creatures. Sometimes people have referred to me as a girly girl and I have fallen off my chair [that reminds me – one of the girliest things I’ve ever done is repeatedly blow kisses to my friend across the food technology classroom in high school after we were banned from sitting together. I reached up to catch one she had sent in my direction and fell backwards off my high stool. We had fun explaining that].

One fond girly memory occurred during my modelling days (Day. Hour). Yes, ladies and gents, I did used to be a model. I was snapped up in a bridal shop whilst trying on bridesmaid dresses. When the kind lady asked if I had ever done any modelling, I actually thought she was taking the mick. I could not believe she would humiliate me like this in front of my family and friends. I replied rudely and sarcastically before her facial expression informed me that she had not been joking.

Two weeks later I turned up to a posh venue where I would be paid for a hair stylist and make-up artist to doll me up before I ‘catwalked’ in wedding and bridesmaid dresses.

Every girl’s dream! Surely?

Yes. It was. Until I realised I was to change in and out of dresses in some small toilets along with 2 staff and about 8 other girls. One by one the girls began to strip off. At first I didn’t know where to look. Then I thought to myself,  ‘Hey, I’m a professional. This is what us models do!’ and began to relax. Until I noticed everybody was in lovely white/ivory bridal-type underwear. Practical and beautiful. Sadly, mine were neither. My once-white once-strapped strapless bra was suddenly the least of my worries when I remembered I had opted for my comfy knickers that boldly stated “SWEET CHEEKS” across the buttocks.

I wasn’t asked to model again.

                                                                -------------------------------------

A regular occurrence in our household is me questioning Dave about which earrings I should wear.

Dave has a theory that, before women have even spoken such a question, we have already made the decision as to which earrings we would like to wear. It’s like a test. If he picks the ‘wrong’ ones, we say something subtle, like “You picked the wrong ones” and then he says they both look just as good and we think he is lying (he is), then we opt for the ones we had in mind all along and can’t enjoy our evening fully because we are paranoid that he doesn’t like our earrings, when really he couldn’t care less if we had a bull ring through our nose aslong as there is food.

 

Busy bee

I’ve been such a busy bee these past couple of weeks and the next few months are going to be no different. I have bought myself a whiteboard and created a planner which is going ok but I can’t help it would have been a useful thing to do 3 years ago when my course started.

Although due to obvious reasons I can’t discuss much about my placement, I’ll just share these two mortifying little gems with you

-On my first day we were given an induction by a member of staff. We were touring the staff kitchen when I exclaimed  (complete overreaction) “My mug has gone! I’ve only been here an hour and someone’s taken my mug!”

Another student asked, was my mug not the one I had just been drinking out of? “Oh, yes. Yes it was. Panic over”

-We had a staff meeting today and half-way through I was reminded of the urgency to wash some black socks that are all black. Glancing down, beneath my awful green trousers, the words “LOVE MACHINE” glared at me. In fear of forgetting and crossing my legs to display the robot clenching a rose in its teeth, I bent down subtly and folded them over as best I could.

Miranda x

 

Hello!!!!

Hi!

A while ago someone suggested that they would quite happily read a blog about my life. I'm not sure that was a compliment, but, I thought I would experiment with the idea...

I'm Abi (as in the very adventurous blog title) and I'm in my final few months of an Occupational Therapy degree. I got married 9 weeks ago to Dave and am just settling into married life!! (married people will know that sentence is worthy of exclamation marks)

I have several nicknames, none of which are very endearing. My main nickname is ‘Miranda’- after Miranda Hart. I think some people think we share some characteristics. I like to call them qualities. Dave also often greets me with the fond names of 'Albert '(Einstein - he thinks it's ironic), and also 'Columbo', because I have a lazy eye. This was operated on as a child, but it came back, so sometimes when I’m tired one eye looks elsewhere and I can see two things at once which is very confusing, especially for a blonde.

As a small child, I was  likened to ‘sad sack’ from the raggy dolls and also adopted the pleasant name of ‘weetabix man’,  simply because I resembled a Weetabix.

 

Lastly, Dave calls me J-Lo because he thinks it takes me a long time to get ready and that I’m a bit high maintenance.

He has no idea.

I can wake up and be out of the house in ten minutes, I have mastered doing my make-up on the bus (withOUT a mirror. Once) and I once went away for the weekend and forgot my suitcase.
Inside I had a little breakdown but I didn’t let it show. A high maintenance girl would have gone home to get it, or raided the nearest shopping centre. A high maintenance girl would certainly not have worn her mother’s too-small swimming costume the first time swimming with her new boyfriend..

You can get a decent snapshot of my life from a small selection of my facebook statuses

Was looking at booking our honeymoon last night. Me: "What is naturist? Is it when you're naked?" Dave: "Yes. Abi, please don't book anything without consulting me first"

[courtesy of Dave] 7am phone call from Abi Hartley in 'our' car. *Alarm sounding* "Dave the key is stuck in the ignition". Only Abi could produce an alarm from my car which I didn't know existed.

You should never take knickers out with you that put Bridget Jones' to shame. Especially if you might leave them in a bridal shop. After you have worn them

Proud to share I got referred to as a "tall skinny blonde bird" yesterday. Somebody didn't go to specsavers, and shouldn't bother either

Had a classic moment today when I fell out of an old tree trunk. I was led unable to get up for shock/laughing when I heard the class of students and their teachers approaching. Emily would have warned me had she not been FAR too busy wetting herself

Was so excited to see my work friends last night that I made a stunning entrance and proved (to several large parties of people..-in a heaving pub) that you don’t need to have had a drink in order to perform an impressive fall. As I sat on the floor gathering my thoughts and belongings and wondering what had just happened, I heard a quiet “Miranda’s here”. Oh. My. Goodness.

Dave said I wouldn't have time for a shower before tea.."you could do that thing you do when you put talc on your body instead" ...me "Dave, that's my HAIR..please don't ever tell anyone I put talc on my body instead of washing it"
 

Following are a couple of stories I wrote about last year. I was going to start a blog then but Dave proposed so I had loads of other stuff to do.

June/July 2012.
 

One thing you might learn is that I google quite a lot. Mainly words or phrases I don’t fully understand. I don’t like to pretend I know things I don’t – partly in case someone tests me on it.

My sister’s wedding is fast approaching and this month’s tasks have included sending out invites for the hen do. Firstly, I googled “where does hen party get its name from?” in order to establish if it made sense to put pictures of hens on the invite. Turns out it was something to do with henna and warning off evil. I stopped reading before I cancelled the whole thing. Dave came round and had a look at the invite so far, which simply read “Dear…….. You are cordially invited to Debs’ hen party”. He then minimised the screen and I didn’t make it to the laptop in time to remove my google results page for “what does cordially mean?”.

Dave despairs quite a lot.

I’ve really enjoyed the football. We were invited to a friend’s to watch the England vs France match. The 1st half I mostly bit my lip.
Some questions I wanted to ask were: “which colour are we playing in?” and “doesn’t Joe Hart look good in green?” (this subject actually came up which I was most pleased about). When I did ask what I thought was a reasonable question; “who is playing?” (meaning our LINE-UP) Dave thought I meant which countries; gave me a ‘please don’t embarrass me’ look and completely ignored me.
The next (perceived) valid question I asked was “He [French player]looks familiar. Who does he play for in the premier league?” Dave “That’s Samir Nasri. He plays for the team you support.” Ouch.

Myself and Dave were invited to tea at friends’ a couple of weeks ago. During the meal, we were presented with some ‘dragon sauce’ , which came in a small glass bottle with lots of pictures of fire and chillies on it. I accepted the challenge to try some with my meal.

As tears and snot streamed down my face, the hostess calmly presented me with multiple tissues and glasses of milk and water, whilst muttering to her fiancé “why have you done this to our guests????”. Our other friend’s boyfriend simply paced the kitchen, repeatedly muttering “…there are no words.”

 

That's it for now kids (just a wee taster), but I start an 8 week placement in the hospital emergency departments tomorrow so if nothing happens in that time and within that setting that would go well in a blog post I will give everyone a million pounds.

If noone reads this it will be my first and last blog and that would be really embarassing (hint HINT).

Ciao ciao
 xxx