Lloyd the Llama

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It's Tuesday.

Hey everyone. Or anyone. Or no-one. Whatever!
I've been pretty busy lately, worked a full on 9 hour shift today. Woohoo go me. I have such a love-hate relationship with my job. I love the kids at the same time as hating them, well what I mean is I hate their situations in life. It's so so so unfair that some children in this world are not loved as much as other children. It breaks my heart and in a really unethical-1984-Big Brother-type-way I kind of wish people had to go through a screening process before they could have kids. If people aren't going to be good parents then they shouldn't be allowed to even have kids to begin with.
Obviously I know that you could never do that to people, but just sometimes, when I'm looking at the faces of such beautiful children in the knowledge that their parents don't deserve tham I wish with all my heart I could do something about it.
I know that I talk about this alot, and everyone is probably sick of me waffling on, but I can't help it. I care about the kids and so I can't help talking about them alot!

Anyways, work is taking up most of my time at the moment, as Tim said we went to the beach last Sunday with all my side of the family which was fun. Freezing cold in the sea, but I still swam! Eventually! lol. I love the beach!
Well, I'm writing this in the living room and Home and Away is on now so it's ttfn!
x x x

Say hello to...

Charlene*. Possibly one of the strangest kids on the planet. She's five years old, cackles like a witch, has head lice and actually has white skin. I kid you not that her skin is white. White I tell you! It looks like she's had talc rubbed permanently into her skin! A number of the other children comment about how strange she looks.

But aside from her appearence, Charlene has won my heart. I love her. She's such a little darling and just loves to be around people. She always wants to hold me hand, hug my leg, sit on my knee... (the latter of which is great when I can actually see the lice crawling around her hair.)

The thing is that Charlene is blatently neglected at home. I met her mother for the first time this morning, it's always been her 15 year old sister who brings and collects her. As far as I know, today was the first time ever that her mother has actually shown up in person to the kids club. It seems that no-one really bothers with her at home, she's come with a big thick fleece for the past three days and I've been meling in the heat just looking at her. When all the other reception kids had a bug day, Tony came as a bumble bee, Larry came as the cutest little ladybird in the world... and Charlene had nothing. The poor child is crawling with head-lice and no-one's done anything about it. It truely breaks my heart and I worry about how she's going to turn out. I don't think she gets nearly enough love and attention. I get very protective over her and often yell at the other kids to leave her alone, but you see because she's so small they take advantage of her and delight in scaring her, or taking her toys from her. So I just get really mad with them!

I really love her, and her strange little ways!

*again I've changed her name.

Meet Tony...

Tony Forest*. One of the strangest kids in the world. On the surfae he's an adorable looking 5 year old with loads of energy and character. But underneath that sweet little face is a monster! He can be so ferocious and has absolutely no concept of gentleness. Swinging off my arms and leaping on my legs, I've almost lost a limb or two to his exuberence. He has the most selective of hearing, often causing me to kneel down and practically yell in his ear before he hears what I'm asking him!

I don't know if he has any siblings but I reckon he must be an only child because he is useless at sharing and doesn't understand how to play fairly. For example, playing table football, whenever he scores a goal that's fine, every time I score one it doesn't count. He's allowed to push the ball with his hand, but I'm not. Playing pop-up pirates, he's allowed to have twice as many pieces as me and that's fair, but when I reverse it, it's not fair! Sometimes it is fun to tease him! Hee hee.

He really does live in his own little world, last week after Sports Day he left his school uniform at school and when his mother questioned what he was going to wear the next day he answered cheerfully, pulling a spare pair of pants from his back "well at least I've still got my pants!"

Little darling.

Oh and as requested, here's a picture...





*name changed.

Introducing...

...Larry*

Larry is one of the sweetest boys in the whole world. He's 5 and in Reception and is just the kind of child you wish was yours. He's perfectly happy to play on his own, or with other children he doesn't mind. He can make up games with nothing but a piece of string and has the most beautiful little face you've ever seen. He giggles all the time, and when his mum comes to pick him up he always goes over to her and throws his arms round her and starts telling her all about his day. He has a beautiful little stilted voice and really is just the nicest and easiest little boy to have in the Kids Club.

I'm starting with the nice ones!
Enjoy your day!
*name changed for safety reasons!

60th post...

...coming to you direct from my bedroom! Yay, that's right, I finally have the wonders of wireless internet installed on my laptop. It's brilliant isn't it!! I know for all you who have laptops with it inbuilt this probably isn't a big deal but it is for me! Yay! And to make it even better, I can now play DVDs on my laptop, so have just finished crying at Cold Mountain. I'd only seen it once before and though I thought it was good the first time, it is much better the second time.

Anyways as easy as it would be for me to rabbit on about wireless and DVDs for ages, that wasn't the original topic of this post. I've been wanting to write about the kids' club where I work for a while now because it's becoming such a big part of me. Not least in the fact I'm working there every hour of every day that they're open! But also because as I'm getting to know the kids I'm becoming more attached to them, either because they're so endearing or likable, or because they are absolute nightmares and they drive me up the walls! But we love them all equally! At least we're supposed to, not so easy in practice!

I think I may have mentioned before how even thought I enjoy it, it's a very difficult environment to be in because of the very nature of an out of school club that children go to because their parents are working such long hours they have to be cared for either end of school hours. There are some children who are with us from 8am-6.15pm which is such a long time to be away from home. But you see there's a strange irony here that I truely believe that some of the children are better with us than at home. And that upsets me so much because I'm comparing their experiences to my own of a wonderful family based upbringing.

There are some children who are so horrible and ho badly behaved and they can be so rude to me which I can't stand. I hate rudeness from kids no matter what the situation. Call me old-fashioned but there is absolutely no need for rudeness, from anyone of any age. But then I see them with their parents and begin to get a glimpse of why they are so aweful. Some blatently have no relationship with their parents, many are from very broken and complicated families. Some have parents who can't cope with them, who don't discipline them, who spoil them... the list goes on. And so while I enjoy my job because I try so hard to make it good for all the kids but especially those who I know have tough lives, I could come away crying every day due to the state some of them are in and there's nothing I can do to help it.

It terrifies me that one day I'll have the responsability of raising kids and while everyone might tell me I'd be a good mum, what if I'm not?! Life is just so hard on so many kids and it's not their fault, and it's not fair and there's nothing that I can do about it. It breaks my heart.
I think I'll introduce you to some of the kids over the next few days/weeks and let you into my world a little bit!

black over bill's mother...

My mother always says this when there are black clouds in the distance. All my life I've wondered who Bill is/was and why it's black over his mother's house. I guess I'll never know the answer. But today even though it is sunny there are black clouds looming and I'm pretty sure they'll move from Bill's mother's over to here later on.

Isn't it annoying how the weather does that to you. You think it's all going to be nice and sunny; the newspaper tells you it will be, the nice man on the news at 10 the night before told you it would be fine, and when you wake up it looks like it's going to be sunny... everything is going well. And then you look up and there it is. A huge big black cloud not actually doing anything, but threatening to ruin everything you've ever planned. It's just hanging there and mocking you and there's nothing you can do about it except wait for the inevitable. The torrential rain that you dread, but know will arrive sooner or later.

I hate black clouds. They destroy everything for two reasons. They make your view look ugly. Everything was nice and sunny before and then now there's this big blotch out of the window. And the second reason is that black clouds always threaten to rain, but they don't always. So you're left in a kind of limbo between wanting to carry on as normal but then hanging back incase everything goes wrong. But then it might not actually rain, but then it might. But it might not... and so on and so forth.

I hate black clouds.

We Brits...

I was reminded again yesterday of the phenomenon that is 'The British Public'. We are wierd aren't we? I mean how many other nations would have an open air concert continue regardless of the pouring rain? It's rediculous really, and it made me laugh so much when I saw people (including myself!) sat under umbrellas, tarpaulins and jackets listening to a brass band concert. Can you get any more British than that?! I don't think so. No wonder the French all think we're raving mad! It's because we are!!! And as my mum so rightly said, there even seems to be a feeling of proud endurance at having 'stuck it out'.

The concert was brilliant, and it's just another one of those British events that we'll talk about for years to come. "Granny, tell us again of the concert that got practically flooded but where the band carried on regardless..." Or then again, maybe it won't ever be referred to again because it'll be lost in the 'sea' (ba-dum-ching) of other rained off events. But all the same, you have to love the Brits and their ways. We even sang Jerusalem, the National Anthem and Land of Hope and Glory.

I love being British! (Just don't mention any of this to Oli!)

the sky is blue

...well it is. and plus my dad told me to write that. and then called me a 'daft head' for writing it. i don't know, parents!

anyways, went out for a lovely meal with my brothers today. mum treated us all to a nice lunch together and said we could go anywhere we wanted. so off we went into town to find something nice. trouble was we had three very different ideas of 'nice'. i wanted a nice posh sandwich deli france style, whereas richard was after an all you can eat chinese. problem.

anyways after much deliberation and near arguments we settled on a bakery, bought a load of nice stuff and some sticky buns and went and sat on the grass. whatever else harrogate may be it is nice for just 'sitting' in! and we had a lovely time, finishing up with a cup of tea for edd, a muffin for rich and a frappuccino for me! yay for brothers!

chao x x x

mental take over

yesterday was quite a dramatic day at work. actually no, i take that back, it was a very dramatic day. while the boys were playing football outside, i noticed that someone was lying on the ground at the far end of the pitch. as i started walking towards him, another child came running up the field very quickly, i shouted to him what was wrong and he said "he's shaking". so i asked who it was as i started running towards him. the answer came back, oliver.

when i arrived, i saw that mac had been right, oliver was lying at an unusual angle on the floor and his whole body was twitching. his eyes had rolled to one side and he didn't respond to anything i said. this is what i mean by mental take over because i am a panicker, and i would have thought that something like that would totally freak me out. yet something inside me totally took over and i immediately knew what to do. i called for claire (the boss) to come over and asked the other children to move away.

the ambulance arrived and took oliver away. he looked so small lying on the ground with an oxygen mask on. we took everyone else inside and kept calm trying to stop them from re-enacting the whole thing and to keep them away from the windows. one little girl was very confused and thought that the police were here to take someone away.

when i think over what happened it all seems so surreal. i don't think and any point i was actually thinking about what i was doing. i just did. it amazes me how the human mind is able to take over and be rational in times of complete emergency. there's no time to think, you just have to do. i don't understand why or how it works, but i thank God with all my heart that we have this instinct within us.

and hopefully oliver will be alright.

day all ruined.

This post is a lament to my destroyed day, due to the unavoidable act of my brother eating the last bowl of my favourite cereal. I am not over-exaggerateing, I feel forlorn and miserable, because as I was waking up I could think of nothing else but a lovely bowl of the Crunchy Bran that I knew was waiting for me downstairs. But alas, it was not to be.

I arrived downstairs, greeted both my mother and my brother and I opened the cupboard to extract the box of Crunchy Bran. On seeing that it was not there, I quickly looked up, it must already be out on the counter. But no. On the table. Again no. With a wimper I exclain, "where are the Crunchy Bran...?" My brother emits a guilty sigh. I knew it. He'd eaten the lot and I'd only had one bowl.

So now my breakfast and my day are ruined. I don't want any of the other cereals, they are all sawdust in comparison with the delights of Crunchy Bran. And so I will be hungry all day because I can't cope without breakfast. Call me petty, immature, a drama queen, what you will, today I do not care. I am cross.

how many things can you do at once?

i'm challenging myself. though not through choice!
right now i am talking to three people on msn, writing this blog, writing a letter, sending an email, eating my lunch and making a picnic. quite impressive i thought.
i wonder how many men could do that? no, sorry that's mean and sexist. men can multitask, just not in the same things women can! but then i wouldn't be able to do a load of office things all at once like my dad can!
i love how men and women are so different!

sorry this is short, but have lots to do. love you all. x

me and edd

just thought, for lack of something to write that i'd put in a photo of my and my brother at our murder mystery party. we were a rich italian brother and sister from 1914. hee hee. i love this picture!

life, the universe and everything

Hello from sunny Harrogate.

I've just been reading everyone elses blogs, whilst eating pancakes, and it would be so apt for me to add my thoughts on the year, coming home, being in Durham/not being in Durham. We have all written very much the same thing, that the year has been amazing and we're all feeling melancholic having left, and we are all going to be facing various issues over the summer, for the most part, alone away from each other. University life is such a strange concept, we are all forced to live two lives and it is very hard in many ways to equate them both.

One of the things that was talked about in church today was how everyone wants to lead a profitable and fulfilling life. We all want to see the purpose and feel the fruits of our actions and lives and I guess one of the difficult things about coming home is having to get new goals and actions from the ones we have in Durham. But I think there is something pretty important to learn here, that our goals shouldn't really change that dramatically. If I think about the things I want to achieve in my life, and the kind of person that I want to become, it really is a challenge to strave for that just as much in Harrogate, where nothing much happens, as in Durham where I feel my life is 'lived' much more fully.

I've said this before, but a philosophy I want to have is that in view of the fact we can never get back a single minute of life lived, surely the most important way to live is so not waste a single minute of the life we have.

Boys and Toys

it fascinates me, the phenomenon of how drastically boys change when around plastic guns, swords, or plastic little green and blue men and horses and canons. i played Risk today with some friends, and the buys suddenly became these war driven soldiers on a mission to take over the whole world. why is it that these things promote such a major change in a boy? is it the primeval instinct to invade and conquer? or maybe the macho image of power? whatever it is, give a boy a little toy soldier and he becomes a ruthless, power hungry maniac!

it does make me laugh when i see my friends brandishing plastic guns at me because i've said something to wind them up, but on a much more sober note, how easy it is to transfer the playful fighting i see in my friends, to the real life fighting in some countries of the world. when young children are given guns and told to shoot... to kill. it seems there is a part of us all, but i think, not sexistly, particularly in men, that can be converted into a killing machine. and that frightens me. alot.

when the day sets itself against you...

... oh the things that can happen!
it would take me a long time to do justice to yesterday, sunday 18th june, but as amie so aptly put it, it was an intense day. and nothing happened the way we had wanted it to.

to begin with, we had decided not to go to mary's day because it was £7.50 and looked pants. we planned to get all dressed up and go drink pimm's and eat strawberries by the river. of course that good plan sort of fizzled out when it rained all morning. so, not losing spirit we decided to picnic out in the cloisters, it's pretty out there. but, predictably, there was a band playing there for mary's day. so we went up to the chapel where it's nice and quiet and very beautiful. however, in a fit of conscience we wound up eating just outside the chapel so as not for anyone to think we were being disrespectful. we had a great time, pimm's, crisps, dips, ciabatta, carrots... some great photos.

then the next plan was to go on a boat on the river, there were enough of us for two boats so we got all competitive as you do and started talking about races. we did split up the actual rowers, helen, helen and amie just to make it fair. we got down to the bridge... and the boats we not open, apparantly it's not possible to row in the rain. so, after attempting to jump onto the prince bish as it went under the bridge... on to brown sugar for a hot chocolate yay! but not surprisingly brown sugar was packed. after a great deal of discussion and 'no i don't like that cafe' we settled on esquires, giggling on the way down about how much that day had not gone according to plan but how much fun we were having all the same.

once there we guzzled the strawberries with nutella and cream from the coffees, and talked and laughed and sang and just generally spent time being 'us'. not long before we were thinking of leaving, a man came up and was peering into the window (we were sitting outside, extending the cover overhead with umbrellas!). we started talking to him, and found out his name was michael. he has lived in durham most of his life, but he hasn't had a house or a job for a long time. he looked in a pretty bad way really. amie bought him a coffee and ffi got him some more rizlas, and we talked about all kinds of things. i was shocked to discover that there is nothing for homeless people in his age group in durham. the nearest shelter is newcastle, and there don't seem to even be any soup kitchens. i felt ashamed to be drinking a mocha and eating nutella.

michael asked us if he could come to church with us that evening and we said of course. on the way back we prayed that whether he came of not, he would remember us and would feel something of God's amazing peace and love for him. i love knowing that God loves me and you in exactly the same way as he loves michael. our God is amazing. michael did come to church with us, and two rows back from him was his godmother he hadn't spoken to in years. coincidence? not at all.

an intense day indeed. i'd learnt that morning that my grandad was in hospital again, it's nothing to worry about, but it's there in my mind all the same. my dad got hit a few weeks ago on the motorway and the car is totally ruined. my dad is ok. these are all reminders to me of how little control we have over the events of the day, but also of how much control i believe God has over every single event. it's a humbling thing to realise.

when the day sets itself against you... the things that can happen!

Smells

as in good smells not bad ones!
i was walking earlier today along thinking about smells and scents that make you feel like you've suddenly been transported somewhere quite different. i'm sure most people know what i mean when i say this, and i began to think about the things that transport me to other places. for example, the smell of buttercup syrup reminds me of going skiing because the medicine bottle spilt over all our things. The smell of freshly cut grass makes me think of summer and rain makes me think of New Zealand. Lynx Africa takes me back to the first guy i ever fancied, and the smell of magazines makes me feel sick because it's the smell of dentist waiting rooms and i hate dentists with a fierce passion. dusty roads smells of Peru and Calvin Klein Be smells of Tim to me.
the point i'm making is that i like smells, i love it when i smell something that takes me somewhere else, it's like i was talking about in a previous post, it brings back all sorts of memories, and if i close my eyes and think hard enough, sometimes i feel as though i really have been transported back to the place of that smell.

PRAGUE ROCKS!!!!!

oh i have had the most awesome few days in prague, and it would take me years literally to explain everything properly, and you would probably get bored and jealous of my ranting, so here is my prague experience in a bunch of words/phrases:

beautiful architecture, fantastic apple strudel, absinthe, singing the same songs over and over in my head, amazing gothic cathedral, lots of walking, incredible views, laughing until almost sick, dancing in ma-hu-sive klute-like club, negociating scary trams, trying to stop Gary from punching waiter, too many sexual inuendos, rusks, great food, beautiful scarves, late nights and early mornings, sunshine, cocktails, wonderful icecream from Dream and Cream (hee hee), delayed flight, new and closer friends, arriving home in daylight!, highlight of the year.

well, just read over that, is a pretty random list of stuff, but there you go, would be shorter than writing it all out! this really is a flying visit to durham, off to CU houseparty tomorrow to the lovely wensleydale and i'm really looking forward to that. this really is 'the time of our lives' if i can say so without the cliche, which is admittedly pretty hard, but i am trying! i remember when i was younger, like around 14/15, someone telling me to grab every opportunity that comes at me in life with both hands. my one greatest ambition is to get to the end of my life and know with all my heart that i wouldn't change anything i did in my life if i were to go back and start again. i want to know that i've lived my life with every ounce of energy i had, and to enjoy every moment.
right now i feel pretty good. i have had a wonderful term, i'm being given so many opportunities to do things here, and even though i am so unbelievably tired it's getting hard to focus on anything... i am so so so happy.
i love my life!
x x x

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz...

... well that is if he lives in Prague, which I'm not sure about, I'll have to get back to you on that one. But anyroad, this is my last post for a while, because I'm off to Prague! Yay. Very exciting. We're singing a couple of concerts and then sightseeing and partying til Friday. I was thinking this morning that I've never been anywhere in the world where I didn't at least vaguely speak the language. In other words even though I've travelled a fair amount, I've acutally only been to English, French or Spanish speaking countries. So it'll be an experience for me to practice my non-existent Czech!

Well, this can't be any longer I've still got a load of stuff to do. I hope I've got everything! Passport Bridget. Pants.
Well, that's all I really need really at the end of the day!
Enjoy the sunshine and I'll see you all soon. Provided I don't get hijacked anyways, but it's ok, my insurance covers me for that! Not sure who gets the money seeing as I will be locked up somewhere... maybe my family? Ah well.
Chao.
x x x
ps... we here he is a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was.

Friends

aren't friends the best things ever? well at least since sliced bread.
but seriously, i don't know where i'd be without all my friends. and it's only since coming to durham that i've realised how amazing true friends are. how there are people here that love me and accept me for who i am and would do anything for me. how incredible is that?!

last night we had a very girly girly night with the 'mildert lot' and it was soooo much fun. proper post-exam destressness. (which btw totally is a word, i looking in the dictionary.) and not only was it fun and brilliant to just chill out and go wild, but also i was given a place to sleep, and shampoo to have a shower (thanks vicky!) and it was awesome to be around such great people! i know this doesn't sound much, but my friends here in durham, all of them, are such an important part of my life, i just feel so privilaged and blessed by everyone.

so yeah, here's to all my friends.