Anne of Green Gables

 When I have all the time in the world to blog, I can never think of anything to write; and then when I have a dearth of potential blog material I never have enough time to sit and write it out.
This is irony, apparently.
Well, this is one of the all-the-time-in-the-world-times so I thought I would do a quick little book review, just for a change :) (Such an original idea..)
I am currently re-reading the Anne of Green Gables series for the billionth time. They are the type of book you pick up and then have to carry on reading; corny I know, but it's physically true!
I grew up with Anne of Green Gables.
We were bosom friends and kindred spirits (back then, that is...) I used to desperately want red hair.
She ruined my childhood ideals. They could have been so innocent, so lofty. But no. She brought them down to the envies of red hair.
If only Anne had had a blog we would have all got bored of her... but alas this was not to be, and instead we are forced to like her and laugh over her and long for her to make up with Gilbert Blythe because we are all in love with him anyway and we know its going to happen so why prolong the suspense?!
So if you haven't read the books, read them. And if you have read them, read them again!!

(Was just wondering how I WOULD look with red hair... I think not)

Exercise - and of COURSE I'm not complaining...

(Lately the weather has been like this. And tomorrow I'm expected to jog in it! It's like running through a fog... It IS running through a fog, actually.)

Exercise? Why not?! It's as popular a topic as any. Very popular in fact, hence the naggings from parents and certain friends I could mention.
I thought I'd write about it since I do it so little. I'm not lazy (of course), its just that exercise is not a subject which fills me with enthusiasm.  Perhaps, mehopes, my blogged musings might inspire me...
Well, I actually went for a little jog to the postbox the other day, which incidentally is just down the street. People who saw me probably assumed I was being chased by a knife-wielding mugger.
Unsurprisingly, nobody offered assistance or even bothered to check if I needed it; there's society today for you!
I reached my destination wheezing like a dying fish and then forced myself to turn homeward immediately; since one of my reprehensible parents had told me that it was only when you were in pain that you were truly exercising. I think that is an unspeakable falsehood. Exercise is defined as 'improving your health' and I cannot believe anything is improving when you're hobbling along in agony. :(
So, I there I went in the style of an old, old lady. As a thought, I hope the old lady watching me from by the bus stop realised my manner was coincidental and a result of my exercise rather than a crude mimic. It's not good.
Well, all I can say is that maybe I should have asked for a treadmill for Christmas. Then at least I would be able to perfect my agonies unseen...
But it's not happening.
Apparently I am to go jogging with a friend tomorrow. A friend whos family win long-distance RACES and who go trotting 8 miles before breakfast. And who apparently is going to make me run 2 miles at least and who I know is going to watch me turn purple and will laugh in my face...
And I KNOW it will be foggy tomorrow...!

And Back Again...!

I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be able to write these words - without worrying about how many marks they are going to get!
Because that is what I have been doing for the past several months.
And until next year, I am never going to have to do that again!!
So yes, two exams are over, and I can begin to breathe once more.
Don't raise you eyebrows; I actually did stop breathing from stupendous horrorification at several points during the past three weeks.
The first paper of my first exam went pretty well... except that I fell asleep during the exam. Embarassing to say the least. :( It was the first paper of the Bible Knowledge O-Level (which by the way is fantastic - I recommend) and it gives you treble the amount of time you need to do the paper. Unless, of course, you write slower than a very (very) elderly snail. Obviously, the time slot has been created for people who write slower than elderly snails.
After painfully trying to write as slow as possible, to thought-process my answers in what felt like a ratio of years, I finished the paper with fifty minutes to go. So I decided to just look and look and look again over my answers to make sure they were as correct as I knew how. The sun was shining, the room was quiet, the inviligator was preoccupied so I didn't feel self-concious, and with my hand propped under my chin, I drifted into a doze. I opened my eyes to find the inviligator staring straight at me. That's when I felt self-concious. I bit my finger and sat it out.
Prior to the second paper I suffered a horrific attack of nerves, as instead of a one hour journey it took us THREE HOURS TO GET THERE, making me ONE HOUR LATE FOR MY EXAM.. it makes me capitalize just thinking about it. A frantic phonecall revealed I would still be allowed to take it, as I was the only candidate sitting it there. I rushed into the exam room and the invigilator smiled benignly and said, 'There's no need to feel stressed...' I draw a veil.
So, on the whole, that one went pretty well.
A week later, I sat my English Language exam.
To cancel out any repeats of the previous horrendous episode, I stayed nearby at a Bed and Breakfast the night before. This disreputable place was a supposedly four star establishment.. and I must say, it was very nice and elegant.. however, we were bonged into a newly built basement room down a flight of newly installed wooden stairs.
The room had no signal, no tv, no wifi connection, and when we tried using the beautifully decorated en suite, the toilet seat slid off its hinge and catapulted its unfortunate occupant onto the floor. Not good.
This was not its only problem however. Oh no.
No, it was after a perfect cooked breakfast the next morning, when we went to the room to collect our things and hurry to the exam... and the door would not open.
The key turned in the lock, but the door refused to budge.
In general I have nothing against doors. They can be prestigious to look at, they can be interesting colours, they usually keep you safe.
But this one I hated quite frantically.
I knocked and banged and kicked.
We called the girl and she knocked and banged and kicked and also pounded.
She called a handyman.
He was unavailable.
Time was ticking... but my heart wasn't ticking. This was one of the points at which I stopped breathing: my heart had died, dropped like a stone, and drowned somewhere around my feet.
I sent up an arrow prayer and put my shoulder to the door... and, somehow... it opened!!
God is so good, that there was amazingly no traffic on the way to the exam and I made it with fifteen minutes to spare!!
For my last paper, I stayed in a B & B again, but this was a different one, just a little further down the road. The landlady was a lovely motherly woman who told us that the rush hour traffic was unbelievable and that she would serve breakfast at seven thirty to give me plenty of time.
I went to bed happy.
The next morning, we got up slightly late but in good time, and ordered breakfast. The breakfast took a quarter of an hour arriving, we dashed for the car and onto the road... and found the traffic at a standstill... with twenty minutes till the exam was due to begin.
Three minutes to go, and I got there.
So all in all, taking those two exams was a crazy, terrifying but also enjoyable and amazing experience.
I'm just wondering.... how am I going to cope, taking FIVE of them next year?!

The Red Rose

This is a beautiful story that I heard the other day...

It was England; it was wartime.
Somehow, through a friend, a young man and lady had started writing to each other. They wrote often, even whilst he was away fighting at the warfront, and through their letters they found they shared a bond, and became very close.
One day the man wrote asking for a photo. The lady refused.
After a while he repeated his request, but she again refused.
Then finally, just after the war was over, they decided to meet each other.
The man asked for a photo, so that he would know what she looked like when he came to meet her at the train station.
She refused, but told him she would wear a red rose, so that he would know who she was.
The day came; and the man stood waiting on the platform as the train drew in. It crawled to a stop with a whirl of smoke, and several passengers alighted.
As he stood on the platform he saw a young dark-haired woman wearing a lovely green coat, walking towards him, and straightaway he thought: 'It must be her!' But when he looked, he saw that she was not wearing a rose; and she passed him by and walked out of the station.
Then he turned, to see an old lady with a stick, hobbling towards him. In the lapel of her brown tweed jacket she wore a red rose.
His heart fell, but he thought to himself, I must be polite, I will take her to the restaurant and I will make sure she has a wonderful time. I must not show my disappointment.
And he greeted her with a smile, and took her arm and led her out of the station towards the waiting taxi.
Then, just as they stepped out of the station onto the pavement, the old lady turned to him and said: 'My dear boy, as we were nearing the station, a young lady in a green coat told me that you were waiting to meet her here, and she gave me this rose and asked me to wear it.' She looked at him, and smiled.
'She told me it was because she wanted to see how you would treat her when she was old.'

Exams

I repeat my title.
Exams.
(Just trying to rub the word in; fellow-sufferers, groan in unison)
Don't we just love them?!
Actually, our mutual dislike of these horrific forms of torture (with the odd boffin excluded) are really rather undeserved (as the odd boffin would agree).

I mean, what are these exams doing, but trying to help us?!
They're teaching us hordes of interesting information on a wide and varied range of subjects that stimulate and increase our knowledge besides sharpening our brains and increasing our IQ levels to at least rise above that of a potato... they're providing credentials to look good on our CVs (that is if we pass them, obviously)... they're propelling us into avenues by which we may further our education...(avenues as in blah blah rather than the tree-lined kind)

I sound like an odd boffin.

Somehow, I feel that is not a good thing.

At least, not at my age.

Really I should wait until I have at least grown a beard.

Awkward silence.

Moving on...

Well, what about this amazing quote?
'Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.' - Thomas Edison.
Obviously for me, it's the other way round...!!
No more to be said.

Well, lets face it then: exams in a month, and I'm now at the cramming stage!

It's where you get down to it and grind.

It's called pegging.

I like that word. It invokes such wonderful imagery: me with ink stains all over my face and my tongue hanging out the side of my mouth in concentration, as with wild eyes and fiersome gaze I desperately and  frantically peg sheets of scribbled paper onto a washing line.

Epic.

You can probably tell I'm trying to study for an English IGCSE. Right?!

As you all know, I peg money onto washinglines just to pass the time. 

Something I've always wondered about... why does Jo March in Little Women, think that the word 'pegging' is slang?! Is it slang? And why is it apparently a 'boyish' thing to say? I'm no feminist but I don't get it.
I mean, pegging is what most women are doing at least every other day, at least, the ones with families who don't use tumble dryers?

English language is crazy.

Latin is even crazier.

NO, we're not going into Latin!!

Save that brain-grinding subject for some future post; I need to go away and finish pegging up my money on the line... :)

French Horns.

So last week I just started attending wind orchestra! It was an absolutely amazing experience... playing in a band... how every note is different yet in harmony... how all the instruments weave together to produce that Music...

Except this was slightly dampened by the fact that I had three french horns blasting out behind me.

Literally.

We arrived a little late, so I found myself with the second flutes on an extra chair placed at the end of the row... which meant I had the horns plonked directly behind my back.

What made it worse, was that with all the rush of things, I was sweetly unaware of this fact.
Therefore, when, in the middle of tuning, as I was sitting contentedly (and... maybe also rather smugly as the conductor had pronounced that my tuning was perfect and I had no need to adjust my flute; he's a very nice conductor!) - I almost suffered a heart attack when a deep and extremely loud HONK blared out a few centimetres away from my head.

I like french horns, as a rule. They are extremely... uh... nice... instruments! They have a very lovely resonant tone. No wind band would work without them.

But I do object to having one played a handspan away from my head! (No offence to all my friends who play french horns. I'm a flautist. I'm allowed to debase you!)

Anyway, when we started playing I was too busy sight-reading to notice.
That was another thing...
Our Dear Conductor seems to have a thing about speed. I am positive that if he drove his car as fast as he set the tempo for us, he would have lost his licence and have written off any poor vehicle he happened to be driving within a hair's breadth of writing off himself.

That kind of speed is... not good for sight-reading.

I managed to start on the right note, I did! Then I got lost somewhere in the third bar, floundered between a few phrases, tried a note here and there (and subsided because my fellow flautist was giving me odd looks) and ended up pretending to finger the keys and hoping that nobody behind me had noticed that my fingers were doing something utterly different to the flautists next to me.
They were probably too busy sight-reading themselves, so I think I got away with it... just.

I adore this picture! That is a real mouse! With a real french horn!

Anyway, well this week was un upgrade! We now have six flautists and a new trumpet, which meant that the layout had to undergo drastic changes so as to fit everyone into the room (conductor tearing out his hair).
Now we second flutes are in the corner behind the firsts... and the horns are in the other corner!!

I am not complaining.

This week was also an upgrade in that I had been practising feverishly all week, and barely made any mistakes!

I like upgrades.

'There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.'
- Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Logic. Bees. Buzzing Noises

'That buzzing-noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee.'
- Winnie-the-Pooh

Now that is what I call pure logic!

 I just thought I'd post this because that quote is so awesome. At least, I think it's awesome.

Coffee

So, I am the sort of person who starts a blog full of Enthusiasm, Hope and Resolve... which gradually fades away until the last post there is dated three years ago. Okay, okay, not quite three years. But almost.
Well this time I promise, promise, PROMISE to keep on posting!!
*bright smile*
You tut tut and shake your head like one of those Churchill Home Insurance bulldogs that people stick on the dashboard of their cars. I know. You're right, it probably won't last. But if I can't even keep New Year resolutions... how can you expect me to keep a resolution made in the middle of September...?!

Besides my tendency to ramble, which effectually bores any poor readers I might have to death (which means that all you who are reading this are obviously still surviving, CONGRATULATIONS! you must have very hardy constitutions) I can never think of anything to write!!!
It is a constant source of irritation to me.The hours spent uselessly at the screen, frozen by lack of inspiration into a statue of immobility... which means, being a statue, I would no longer be alive, and therefore, wonder of wonders! will have actually expired before my readers! Unheard of.
Actually, come to think of it the above declaration is a contradiction. You probably noticed it before, but I didn't. Being a statue, my brain wasn't working very fast... I say I ramble (the dictionary definition of the word, verb, type four: 'to talk or write in a discursive, aimless way' Yep. That's me.) yet I claim I cannot think of anything to write? Scratch that. I probably mean that I can't think of anything worth reading to write. Scratch that as well. If I carry on like that, most readers will probably have been frightened away...

I don't think congratulations are enough to reward you for have managed this far. I offer you my felicitations, commendations and condolences... Readers, I salute you.
(I have no idea where that sentence came from? but it sounds good. Go away, genius, go away...)

Anyway, now the usual first-post-of-the-blog blurb about inspiration (or the lack of it) is over, let me continue...

So, I have this new blog. A marvellous thing. And I plan to fill this blog with scribbles, hence the wonderful title.
A sort of online journal.
Minus the private thoughts, secrets, and feelings that I've heard people write in their journals. Obviously, if I wrote about them on here, they would no longer be private.
Which therefore makes this an online blog.
Back where we started, methinks!

Well, I have come to the conclusion that I talk too much! So much so that by the time I've realised what I'm saying, I don't even know what I mean anymore. That's happening right now.
I'll stop.
I could say that it's because I've been drinking coffee.
What we do without caffeine to blame?!

So I guess I'll just go have another cup to rejuvenate my spirits... because who can look at that picture without wanting to drink it...