[Belief over Misery]

So, again, not doing so well on the whole blogging-every-Sunday thing. But this time, this time, I have a reason. And a pretty darned good one too: I’ve not been here.

My love of travelling combined with my feeling of being cooped up during exams meant that I had just over a month of not actually spending a weekend in Manchester. It was great fun, made my room extraordinarily messy (living out of suitcases just after a two week revision period and plain laziness will do that to you) and meant that I visited England, (Ireland through films/dreams), Scotland and Wales in less than a month. Impressive, eh?

The weekend after my exams finished I went home, to see my brother’s pantomime. He was surprisingly good – and I know I say that more out of surprise that he can actually do something than anything else. I think it really showed me that he’s not seven years old anymore, and can do things like act and sing in plays. And be quite responsible, really. Mind you, he is 15 now and so I should really have seen it coming I suppose... but still. I’ve seen it now – better late than never! My Grandma was down that weekend too, which was also nice, and I got to see Cara, who I didn’t really see over Christmas (sad face L). But it was indeed a lovely weekend!

The first weekend in February (after I’d spent the Friday morning in a lecture for a module I later found out I didn’t have to take) was spent in Aberystwyth. And I must agree with Matt, it is very nice. People are friendly, the sea is round the corner (literally) and everyone lives so close! Having been shown all five of his “Five Best Things About Aber”. I must agree that all five are pretty good. Here’s a quick review:

5: Hollywood Pizza does lovely deep-pan pizza, and I can totally understand Ruth’s mouth watering when we got back to eat it! I think that home-delivery for Matt, while on the border of being unacceptably lazy, has to be done. The shop is literally 30 seconds’ walk (at a reasonable pace) from his front door...

4: Consti does have a lovely view from the top, even if we were nearly blown off! The place that sold ice-creams didn’t have any that I could see, but they did do Hot Chocolates! Maybe I was still a bit early in the season. Still, you really can see most of Aber (you can’t see the main campus) and all the different bits of it. It was nice because later, when we walked down and through the town, we walked past places I’d seen from the top of the hill.

3: I’ve already mentioned how close everyone is to each other, but Aber is literally tiny. As in, the furthest place from Matt’s house that we went to (other than Consti) was Morrisons, which is by the railway station, and that was literally 10 minutes’ walk. He’s not exaggerating.

2: The sea front is indeed lovely to walk across. There’s one sandy beach and one pebbly beach (the latter is used for bonfires, apparently, but it was too wet for fire while I was there) and the castle ruins overlooks both of them. We didn’t walk on the sandy beach, because of the sand, but we did walk across the pebbly one, and I found a pebble/rock thing that looked like a burger J. I also kicked the bar... but only because Matt told me to.

1: All the people that I met in Aber were lovely. Everyone was really friendly (although I suppose they were all Matt’s friends, and so would be friendly...) and everyone seemed really happy too!

This is the Bar that I kicked, and needs to be kicked, for unknown reasons... You can see the paint coming off again already!

The weekend after that I went to Glasgow, to visit Zoe. Neither of us can remember what we did on the Thursday night, so we must have just chatted for ages. On Friday we went into town and went shopping, which was nice, before rushing back to grab our Valentine’s Day cake to take to JSoc Friday night meal. It was very yummy (the cake and the meal!) and we stayed until about midnight, I think. On Saturday we went into town again and met Emma, and spent a lovely afternoon wandering round Glasgow – to the Cathedral and the Museum of Religious Art and Life. And reading Maisy books, obviously... This was followed by a showing of a film at the Synagogue. The film was hilarious – my favourite character by far was the Grandma. I can’t remember the name, but rest assured it was very good! Crossing Delancey – that was it! Anyway. Sunday was spent on a lovely walk through a park and some Botanic Gardens, followed by Pancakes (or rather, Crêpes) which were very yummy! I had one with an apple filling, but Zoe and Emma had ones with chocolate filling, while Caitlin had a savoury one. They all looked lovely!

The weekend after I went to visit my Grandma, which, as always, was lovely too. I got in quite late on the Friday as I had labs, so when I got to Grimsby we just went shopping for about an hour in ASDA. Good bargains to be had at about half past ten on a Friday night! I saw one of my cousins on the Saturday, when he came over for lunch with his fiancée, and the other two on the Sunday, before catching my train back, which was nice.

The weekend after THAT I had at home, which was nice as it gave me chance to tidy up the house and sort out my room a bit, as last weekend my friend (and manager) Linda came to stay. This inevitably meant McDonalds, free Dominoes pizza, visits to the Museum of Science and Industry and the Manchester Museum, and CHEESE. I found this good. J

In between all of this, exam results came out – I had such a range of marks, it was somewhat ridiculous. I failed an exam (sad times) which means I get to come back to Manchester in August to resit it, but then I got two 2.2s, two 2.1s and a 1^st. Typical, really! I’ve also now signed up to a revision skills workshop, which will teach me how to revise, I hope! I’ll try to remember to let you know how that goes...

And it’s Lent! The main reason for my post, about a thousand words in... I wish I could just bash out my 750 word German essay like this. I’ve got to 150 words and I don’t know what else I want to say... still, never mind. It will come to me eventually, I hope. Anyway. Lent. Lent always strikes me as a bit of a funny season. It seems like a much better time to start New Year’s Resolutions (see previous blog) as I think that we’re much more likely to stick to them, as you only really have to do (nor not-do, depending) for 44 days between Shrove Tuesday and Easter Sunday. This year, to help my New Year’s Resolution of Eating More Healthily (yeah, that hasn’t really happened too much...) I’ve given up Chocolate, and to help the New Year’s Resolution of Being More Organised I’ve given up Facebook. It’s the latter that’s proving more difficult to be honest, or maybe I’m just more aware of it. I’ve also realised that all the passive news – that is, news that is news but not text-worthy news – that I get is now gone. Now I have to actually talk to people and listen to what they say if I want any information! Haha. Isn’t that a novel idea?

And what have I been doing with all this spare time, I hear you ask? I've been baking. Yes, my entire afternoon yesterday was not spent working, as it probably should have been, but in the kitchen. After making tea (Sweet and Sour vegetables) I then proceeded to bake a very yummy Victoria Sponge (even if I do say so myself), some thick chewy Oatmeal and Sultana cookies (I didn't have raisins) and, for the first time ever, some Challah. The recipes for the last two I got from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and she is wonderful. She takes lovely pictures of her food as well, which mean that you really want to make them! Challah, by the way for those who don't know, is bread made using eggs. Because it doesn't use milk or butter, it's pareve, which means that it's neither meat nor milk so can be eaten with either! It was a bit too gooey going into the oven I think, but better luck next time!