Stress.
I was worried when I first got home about my dad and I was stressed to no end. Cut a long story short we live beside a coal yard and they want to be build (sorry have been starting to build) a shed to house 18,000 tonnes of coal. That’s 600 lorry loads. Where do they want to build it? The other side of our fence. About 30 ft away from our back door. The planning permission has been
refused but that isn’t the end of it.
My dad has a chronic condition and it gets worse with stress. I wanted to relax but I was constantly on edge just like dad was. I’m angry with the yard owner for putting us through this stress. And I’m angry with myself for feeling like I let myself down by feeling stressed when time at home is precious. I ended up so stressed I was only home for 3 days before the tinnitus I thought I had beaten started again. And it hasn’t gone away since although today isn’t too bad.
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(click thumbnails to see bigger)The flight home
My start off home wasn’t exactly a smooth one. We got stranded on the runway for half an hour in nottingham whilst we waited for spare parts for a broken plane in Belfast to be loaded into our plane. Then when we did take off the pilot put his foot down to try and make up time. I felt as though my organs has been taken out and put back in the wrong way round. And some rude trolley dolly woke me up by shouting at me if I wanted a scratch card. At least I was spared the welcome to Belfast fanfare. ‘doot doodle do, last year over 90% of ryanair flights landed on time beating every other European airline’.
Flamingo Day.
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The next day was an anxious wait for the postman. It was flamingo day.
The postman eventually turned up with this cd by this cool artist called Brandon flowers. I adore that man. The album isn’t the genre I would normally listen to, a lot of it has an almost country feel to it, but I think that man is a lyrical genius. I could write a whole other blog on the album flamingo. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s honest. It was playing on my old playstation (the original big grey brick) for all of 3 minutes before I started crying. (you might be asking why the playstation? I haven’t got a cd player in my room in Ireland). Sometimes it excites me and sometimes it’s honestly heartbreaking the songs he wrote about this mum’s death.
There are lines which inspire me:
‘Please don’t tell me I can’t make it, It aint gonna do me any good’ ‘Be an advocate for joy; find your little heart’s desire’ ‘Only the young can break free’ ‘Sometimes dreams are all you got to keep you going when the day gets long’
There was also some Brandon flowers live on Zane Lowe on radio 1 which excited me and an announcement of an extra date in Brixton live on the radio that me and me killers mate are now going to see. Can’t wait!
I’m going to see Brandon flowers on Wednesday in Dublin and I’m finding it hard to get excited because the anxiety is kicking me. What if I get lost? It’s a good job mum reminded me I need euros…. and I call myself Irish LOL.
The postman also brought me my custom made flamingo hoodie and i'm in LOVE with it :D
Road trips.
There was a random road trip to newtonabbey to pick up dad’s laptop that took 9 hours and involved about 6 1/2 of those hours on buses. Urgh. (sudoku? Yes I suck). Then there was my highly planned master classes on how to work windows and word and itunes for daddy. ermm yeah. lol.
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There was a road trip to Belfast the next day with involved getting up at stupid o’clock to sit on a bus for 2 1/2hrs to go shopping. I bought some fabulous things. A new make up bag, new lip-gloss, a new purple fleecy hoodie, a floral top from next, a lady gaga canvas bag from H&M, a pair of purple suede shoes (that had £40 off in the Espirt closing down sale), a £10 top from the clockwork orange (that had £55 off in the closing down everything a tenner sale)…. Oh and some beads to make bracelets. My dad took one look at the bags and asked (for once) is that all you bought? Lol
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Love and tenderness.
There were some tender moments at home. The home made food. The hugs. The cups of tea. the rabbit and cat watching...
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and feeding some horses in a local field...
and eating some proper Irish Ice Cream:
Then there was the play fighting:
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dad found this genius cartoon in the paper:
I got excited when I discovered how to convert VHS to DVD. Bit of a long story but it works a treat. I had a proper love fest with the bands I love and it was so great to look back to all those years ago it was recorded. Who knew I recorded so much shit as well though ;)
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When I wasn’t converting VHS to DVD, I was out with my best friend lou at the cinema or else she was over at mine. In two days we watched all of series 2 of not going out, ardal o’hanlon live, 5 episodes of gimme gimme gimme, 4 episodes of bottom, the comedy gala! And even had time for snap (although I shouted snap I forgot to put my hand out lol), dominoes (Lou you suck) and jenga (mum you suck). Great times.
At the mooovies.
There was some dinner for schmucks and some other guys at the mooovies.
I hated dinner for schmucks when I seen it, but looking back now I rather liked it. I just wasn’t in the mood for it that night. It’s a cool movie and Paul Rudd is HOT.
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The other guys was hilarious. I loved it. Not normally a fan of will Ferrell but he was good.
Chatting to Darren Hayes.
There was also some chatting to Darren Hayes in his fan club chat room :D. I really enjoyed those chats. Pony go bye bye LOL. Sometimes that man can make me feel 14 again. The d-zine is delicious. I love the photo from the shoot and I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings us. Excited much? TOURRRRRRRR.
Other ‘news’
I took Lou and my mum a hummingbird red velvet cupcake each. Lou loved hers, mum wasn't so keen, oh well, 1/2 of it for me then ;)
Weather? don't mention it. the only good day was the day we decided on the roadtrip to newtonabbey and were stuck on a bus all day!
we also won't mention the day the new cooker broke down. luckily we got it fixed before mum got home. lookie what I found along the way....
There was so proper irish cheese and onion tayto crisps and there was laughing at dad when he got soaked in the rain. It wasn't so funny when he whacked me round the ear with the wet cuff hehe.
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And there there was the moth incident. I got hiccups for a third time and decided a cuppa was the cure.... then this huge moth flew up in my face and i spilt said cuppa all over myself and my baby pink time machine tshirt. I wasn't happy, but I can laugh now, almost.
I decided two days before I left to try and sort out my Darren Hayes collector’s catalogue. Yeah easier said than done. Who knew I had that much stuff? Not I.
I did manage to sneek a few photos of sunset that night whilst photographing my colllection.
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I just wish I could have had longer at home. With the stress and the feeling like my feet didn’t touch the floor I needed another week. I’m a dreamer and I feel as though my ‘me time’, my time to dream was missing. I didn’t get the chance to take half as many photos as I would have loved to.
Flying back.
It was a total wash out on the bus leaving but i felt safe watching the rain fall, listening to brandon flowers.
I was that bored at the airport last I tried to distract myself from the thoughts of missing the cube and joe mcelderry’s single ambitions that I downloaded an excerpt from a Tony parson’s book on ibooks. Fab quote:
“there is no age limit for dreams, no escape from who we are & always will be - fallible creatures, full of love & longing”
I then took a photo of a gorgeous sleeping stranger in departures. He was gorgeous; I loved when he woke up, jumped up and checked his ticket time. Awwww. I considered sneaking onto his plane to Luton. Excuse officer I’m not a terrorist, just a stalker. LOL.
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To console myself I went off the the duty free and bought and wonderfully gorgeous fiorelli purse ;)
Btw both the cube (check itv player) and joe mcelderry’s single are fab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNLPHaCzqZo
...the only problem I had was that the smoke alarm runs on the lighting system and as the lights hadn’t been on for a few days it was chirping at me. Make it stop! and it appears that autumn has turned up whilst i've been gone
I got back to my house in Nottingham last night (I still have trouble calling it home) and my Brandon flowers ticket to Manchester was waiting for me on the mat. Squee. Now all I’m waiting on is my tickets to Birmingham and Brixton :)
Now if only I had a spare lifetime at home to finish the VHS to DVD and the cataloguing. I’m trying to get back to my life but I’m tired of it, too tired. I’m 24, I’m lost and I sometimes wish I didn’t feel so alone.
