I don't hate her.

I dont hate Mrs Thatcher, and i shall not celebrate her death, or be pleased she is dead. 

Still, here is a topical and enjoyable song. 

New Places For Old People. 2. Hitching with father

The father and i watched "Into The Wild" together for the first time, in May, last year. At the end of which, as usual, i was enthused and inspired and hastily exclaimed that i was going away the following week on a mini adventure. This remark was met with "Where are you going? How are you getting there? Where will you stay? How long for?" ect. ect. ect. His reaction is of course understandable, he is my dad after all.

 To all of his questions i simply replied "I dunno." and shrugged. As i gave it thought i decided to hitch- a thought that wasn't so foreign in my head since i had been hitching for about two years previous to this trip- I had forgotten, however, my parents weren't fully aware of my more 'reckless' activities... So then that discussion happened. My father still not being totally satisfied that i would be okay- or just looking for an excuse to spend some time in my spectacular company- decided to accompany me.

It wasn't a long trip together.

We hitched to the east coast. Despite my fathers skepticism, and warnings, that hitching may be a long and difficult task, it took us no longer than 20 minutes to get a lift each time.

We made it to Arbroath where my father gave me a tour of his childhood holiday scenes, and also showed me the spot where he and his father had sung old hymns to the fishermen.

We then walked the coastal walk to Auchmithie.

After which i was beat.

So we set up camp, without tents, Right next to the old pier. 

That evening we cheated a little, and ate like kings. 

Before retuning to camp and falling asleep to the sound of the ocean waves.

So day and night number one went rather well. A few blisters but no more injuries. We even had a good nights sleep. Day two started off well, with the most stunning sunrise i have ever seen. We hitched back into Arbroath and wandered the town for a while. But having no plan and feeling like we had to accommodate each-other the day started to drag out. We did find a fascination lighthouse museum, where we hung out and watched full length documentaries on building lighthouses to avoid the rain, before it closed.

Night number two was a tad more miserable, but at the same time gave better experience. So it wasn't all bad. Our attitudes to each-other warmed as we both had to sleep on a slope getting cold and damp and intermittently removing slugs and snails from our area.




All in all it went well. My father knows his stuff, and has passed on enough that i can cope on my own. Perhaps one day he will believe that 100%. 

New tastes for old buds. 1. Small changes.

Perhaps this is an irrelevant teenage angst blog.

I have tried to avoid it. I don't want to moan about life. And i don't want to vomit fleeting emotions and cliched changes all over the place. However, i do want to record my story in a small form here. And since cliched changes and "cliche" because, well because they happen to most people in some form. I don't think i can (or should- sometimes i fail to appreciate people) dismiss others situations and feelings because they are important to them- and no matter how many times i hear about a girl dating the wrong boy and still crying over the brake up, that was not so unexpected. I shouldn't roll my eyes in exasperation because i know I've cried over a dumb boy in a scene very similar.

Anyway this part Isn't about boys, promise. This is perhaps going to be the first in a small series of changes posts. Its been a weird year. Good, bad and ugly. A lot has been good. A lot has been simple change.

Small changes:
I have never been a fussy eater, but as far as i can remember i have disliked 6 things that the majority of people in the western world very much enjoy. In one year i have got over most of them, and enjoy them often.

  

Vietnamese coffee sort of started the snowball for me to try things I've never liked. I'm still working on tomato's, but I've given up on peanut butter.

Tonight is too much to go any further than food I'm afraid. I'll do better next time.

Some Seriously Smokin' Music.

Tom Waits- Alice.

An evening in an 80's film.

 I went to her house. We got angry at boys together. We disagreed over politics. Got drunk. Smoked Drugs. And shaved our heads.

  Okay so most of that previous spiel is preposterous. Although at the end of the evening we did feel as if we had lived a little bit of our own 80's teenage angst movie. To be more accurate:

  I went to her house. We did, of course, chat about boys. I'm sure social politics will have been discussed at some point in the evening. We drank tea and water from jars. Listened to some seriously smokin' music. And yes, we did cut all my hair off.

  For all the time I spend trying not to enjoy repeating teenage history, I cant help myself. It wasn't for a boy. It was a cliche excuse. But in some ways it worked, I got what i asked for.

 





 

                                 

 

Before.                                                           After.   

I lost half a pound in cutting my hair off.

That City Barcelona

I want to travel. Have done since I was 12 years old. Its the goal I try to orientate all of my activities around to accommodate.

As I've grown up, however, my idea of traveling has been changed. Molded and shaped by my experiences. The time scale on which I want to travel has changed, why I want to travel has changed, how I plan on traveling has changed, where I want to travel has changed, and how much money I need to travel the way I want to has changed.

In the last year especially (since around May 2012) traveling has become more of a foreign thought- although still my goal in life currently. I left school, completing only 5 years of high school, and not achieving my level best grades because academic achievements, by that point, weren't what I wanted. Leaving school and getting a job came in rather close succession and I thought that was it. I was making money, and thus well on my way to traveling the world. Again I proved to myself I was still ignorant to the world.

Money, or at least the amount of money I am trying to attain takes a bloody long time to acquire. Especially in a minimum pay, part time job. But more than that was causing my enthusiasm for traveling to dull. My job is lonely, I have less contact with old friends, even less contact with school friends, I wasn't of age to go to places I would find easiest to meet friends close to home. Then winter came. Making hitching harder because there is less day light, traveling around Scotland is harder because if I get stuck I cant just weather the night as its far too cold. So I felt stuck. I felt like I should be closer to my goal and yet I was getting further away.

However, in January 2013 my parents, along with my grandparents and an aunt, decided to spend some of their money on a trip to the 2nd best restaurant in the world, which is in Barcelona. It turns out January is not the most desirable time to travel to Barcelona, so accommodation is cheap and flights cheaper. And so I got an invite. Not to the restaurant, but to Barcelona.

My photos aren't similar. They are edited differently (and badly- one day i'll invest in a proper editing system) because the city was so diverse I couldn't create a single visual link the whole way through...

The city demands you to look up. 

To witness architecture so beautiful every building could be from a painting. 

A city of culture.

A food culture that far succeeds any i have ever seen.

Even in the park you could pick your own oranges from the tress. 

 Filled with all sorts of artists.

All corners are filled. Alleyways my mere arm span wide, with Narnian like entrances and buildings that look to be falling in on each other. Filled with drugs, good food, book shops and people- both suspicious and superbly friendly

I remembered I want to see the people who live in all these places. I want to understand their happiness and accumulate all their ideas to create my own. I remembered why I want to travel.

I didnt document the trip as much as i had planned to. I was too busy seeing it. But i was happy with a few images to capture the memories of a city that gave me back my traveling bug. 

To a future valentine.

This song shall be played at my wedding. 

P.S.
I am not a fan of Valentines day. Apparently I am not a fan of many celebrated occasions. It makes it near impossible to find a nice place to eat dinner without reservations on the 14th of February.

I'm not very good at New Years.

Don't get me wrong I love the event. Ceilidhs are a, not so secret, love of mine. A tradition I have participated in every year (save one particularly odd new year) since I was a child. This year I attended two!

 I also enjoy New Year's reputation of being a "new start". I read in a book once, that every cell in the human body is renewed every 6 months, meaning you basically have a new body every 6 months, meaning we have the opportunity to "recreate" or change ourselves every 6 months. Now i'm not sure this fact is accurate, but as I have previously stated: if I enjoy believing a 'lie' and it impacts positively on my mindset I have no problem letting myself believe it. I digress... So I appreciate improving my life and making positive changes, and i understand as weird human animals we enjoy the encouragement of events and dates and designated times to change. However, i struggle with the deadline. I suck at deadlines. I also suck at change. Thus I try and achieve change by making myself accountable to people- cue blog. Also i encourage myself with change by taking it slowly and giving myself props to make it easier and more enjoyable- cue calendar and map.

This is my poster calendar. Its the calendar i have wished to own for 3 years. It is also incredibly difficult to find if, like me, you can't keep up with how quickly new year comes and goes thus you find yourself in February when every shop has sold out of calendars. I finally acquired this one online and am now hoping it helps me to stop double booking myself.

On my search for my poster calendar i came across this world map for £2.50!! Its bigger than me! I like maps. This is another item i have been in search of, since i was 12 years old, in fact. My current goal in life is to travel the world. This 'prop' shall help encourage and focus me... i hope.

So here is to starting my year, perhaps a little late, aiming to be a more organised and reliable person and focused on achieving my dream.

Tonight I went to a book signing of sorts.

We were greeted with a signed copy of "The Fault in Our Stars", entertained by a writer and his brother who played some songs, and then charmed when two american brothers who, mildly, resemble the Reid brothers singing 500 miles. Most enjoyable. 

I wrote John Green a thank you note as i figure we are both better at reading than talking. 

And how else can you tell a stranger you are grateful for their work and respect them in less than 13 seconds of face time?

Although i hope to do proper posts, with purpose and points of interest, i do also hope to use this as a place to record the things i do. 
Forgive me.

Abandoned Playgrounds.

I love stories.

  Fables, Tales, myths, peoples recollections (even false ones), anything! I just enjoy glimpses of things i haven't experienced. However,  I like stories not to end. So it is rare for me to completely finish a book, even one i really enjoy. I relish filling in the gaps myself, and letting the characters created by other people, but adapted by myself, live on in some area of my mind that i can revisit whenever i wish.

 I figure this is why i enjoy abandoned spaces so much. Places that were once occupied, left standing empty. They are usually left due to some uninteresting tale of lack of funding, but most of the time I'm not interested in why they were left. Even as a young adult i like to play 'pretend' and an empty space that still has the stains and dents of occupancy, are playgrounds for my imagination.

Here is one, particularly intriguing, abandoned playground:

The towers. Through one, of several, broken windows is the view of the towers on the surrounding buildings that used to form together as a functional mental hospital. They, even now, look foreboding. Still the green moss softens its oppressive nature, just a little.

Windowsills are weather eaten outside, and more disturbingly chipped away at from inside. 

An empty cupboard, with empty hangers, once filled with bed linen and  coats.

A place both alive, and dead. 

Some old salt and pepper jars. 

I am not so good at exploring my thoughts and stories i create. But here is a grand story teller indeed. 

"Sleep is not, 

Death is not.

Who seem to die, live.

House you were born in,

Friends of your spring time

They are all vanishing

Fleeing to fables."

Another Attempt.

Here goes again. Another late night. Another feeling of determination. Another desire for accountability. Another attempt. 

My arms have been in every exasperated position possible for the last 15 minutes. This blog making bushiness is nerve racking and strange. But sometime diving in at the deep end means not wasting time. 

I am creating this for several reasons:

-Firstly, to document, what i hope to be, some of the most exciting years  of my life.     
-Secondly, to make me accountable, thus forcing me to DO things.
-Lastly, i hope to create something I'm proud of- A good story. 

“Good stories don’t happen by accident, I learned. They are planned.”

 (Read "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"- By Donald Miller)