football is coming

I’m excited. The return of the football season is upon us. My first Bournemouth game of the season is so close, I can almost taste it. I will soon be found at an array of northern stadiums on a Saturday afternoon and I can’t wait.

 

I’m a bit of a peculiar football supporter. I live 5 hours drive away from my ‘home’ games, so they are extremely rare experiences for me. I genuinely feel more in my comfort zone at an away game, smaller crowd, familiar faces and me and my dad navigating back alleys to find a place to park. Not to mention walking through crowds of the opposition’s fans in my Bournemouth scarf, simultaneously proud and a little bit frightened. That is what football is to me. 

My interest and dedication has varied throughout the years. I remember when I was in year 8, our English teacher gave us the task of a presenting to the class on a subject that we feel passionate about and I chose AFC Bournemouth. Looking back, I think this was extremely brave of me. To do a presentation on an unknown football team in the area (Bradford City or Leeds is the norm where I live) as a teenage girl in possibly one of the most judgemental years of your life? Yeah, brave. I took in my Dad’s flag from the 2003 play off final, hung it behind me, and waffled on about Bournemouth. I particularly focused on James Hayter’s record breaking hatrick, and the fact that his missus had given birth the day before, 'cos I'm a huge softie and I love things like that.

Then this year, whilst being at university, it’s been up to me to keep track with what’s going on. I can no longer rely on my dad’s daily updates when I only see him once a month, and I genuinely think this has caused me to be more into it than ever.

However I don’t tend to join in debates about Bournemouth, I’m blessed (or cursed) with the ability to look at each side of an argument and always see the positives. But something that has stuck with me since I was younger is taking the personal aspect of a player’s life into account. When Danny Hollands moved to Charlton this summer, I didn’t berate him for it, if I had a family, and in his exceptional case triplets, I would do what I had to, to ensure they have the best possible life. And however much I adored Jason Pearce as our captain, I understand him wanting to move on, as shown through the heartbreaking example of Ryan Garry, a football career does not last forever.

I think as a supporter it’s important to remember that loyalty, such as we have found through the legendary Steven Fletcher, is extremely hard to come by, and shouldn’t be expected. The loyalty is provided by the fans. I went to my first Bournemouth game when I was 5 and I’m now 19, how many players can devote 14 years to a single club? And of course my record of support is pitiful in comparison to many fans. A fan can give allegiance to a team that a player could only dream of. Overall, we’re more important.

For me, all I expect is a full team, trying their absolute hardest. I don’t even mind losing if I feel like the lads have genuinely fought hard for 90 minutes. So I’m excited for this season regardless of summer goings on in the squad, and I’m counting down the days ‘til August 6^th.

home sweet home

Don’t get me wrong. I love living on my own, and I love Lancaster. But at the moment, after a long hard year of university (just kidding, it was first year), I am very happy to be home.

This is the first reason: 

This is my reservoir. Well not my reservoir, but I call it that cos it's on my doorstep and I laaaaarve it! I love Yorkshire, I really do. I was born down South, but have lived in West Yorkshire for the last 11 years of my life, and it is just beautiful and you can’t deny it.

Walking around that view with my pooches, makes me a very happy bunny. 

I promise I’m happy there even if I don’t look it and don’t the clouds look thunderous?! 

I had another picture with my beautiful wellies which I got for Christmas this year fully exposed, but I was smiling and thus looked like a douche on that picture. (Douche is my word of the moment.) To be honest, walking my dogs is merely a secondary reason for requiring Hunters, I wanted them for festivals! I want them caked in mud and other questionable substances! But alas I am not going to any festivals this year. I cannot tell you how gig-thirsty I am. It’s killing me.

On a happier note, today was the sort of day that makes me love being at home. I’ve spent the day with my momma and her boyfriend being a right little home critter.

First of all, me and the mother shelled some peas from her garden.

It was trés cute, and homemade peas are the BEST. It made me feel like a member of Enid Blyton's Famous Five, I remember tons of scenes when the ‘five’ had casually stopped off at a farmhouse and the girls would help the farmer’s wife shell peas for the huge farm dinners. All we were missing were a few bottles of ginger beer and Timothy the dog of course!

Those peas contributed to the pea, mint and courgette soup and to round it off I made banana cake with nutty crumble crunch for pudding. I seem to have a knack for baking.

What a divine day. And yes, I know I’ve somehow come off as an old-fashioned housewife in this post (I do desperately want an aga when I’m older...) so the next one will be about something more suited to my age. Perhaps a night out clubbing in leeds and getting the first train home at 6am. Or maybe someone should accompany me to a festival and I can blog about that?! HINT HINT. 

Ta ta for now lovers.

manifesto

I’m annoyed at myself. I should definitely be blogging more often. It was a task I set myself and I’m failing miserably. However, it is now summer and I don’t return to Lancaster for my second year until October therefore I have no excuse not to blog so I promise to be more committed.

I’ve acquired a notebook which I’ve started writing various things down in, lists and songs I like and things I think of for this. Now that’s dedication. I think my main problem is I actually have too many things I want to waffle about and I have difficulty condensing the material, so I’m attempting to tackle that. I’m also considering changing the name of my blog to ‘the erratic blog’ or something like that, because my subjects, length and even style vary so much. In case you hadn’t noticed, my blog name was always going to be temporary, I truly couldn’t hack the pressure of naming my blog.

So there you have it. A manifesto to blog more often. And to shoot this post into the highest realm of pointlessness, here’s a picture from my holiday last week:

(Gorgeous huh?! This is a Greek island called Lesbos, I kid you not. It was stunning. But alas, it was not littered with lesbian couples. Just stray cats and dogs, which broke my ickle heart!)

today

I had a simply awful exam and I was very disheartened.

Then I remembered this beautiful moment of Simon Neil singing Folding Stars at a Biffy Clyro gig.
It was so beautiful I nearly cried. Now I feel a teeny bit better.

(See how the bulbs are like stars?)

Thoughts of a Fresher: Parte Uno

So my first year as a fully fledged university student is coming to an end and if that’s not a blog worthy subject I don’t know what is! So here I’m going to share my enthralling thoughts on the past 9 months with you...

1.      I am extremely clumsy, and I genuinely never knew this. Or at least never admitted it. In retrospect I did once chip my tooth playing blind man’s buff with the siblings and broke my sister’s toe falling off a sofa...but I never took the hint. Thus far this year I have managed to staple my thumb, set fire to the grill and cut myself whilst attempting to catch a knife. I have now fully embraced my clumsiness and carry a first aid kit with me at all times.* I also fell out of a taxi and have scarred my elbow, but that’s less related to being clumsy, don’t drink kids, it’s not big and it’s not clever. But it is fun.

2.       Students do not stick to social norms, night time for sleeping? Not necessarily. One night, at about 3am, I’d just got into bed, about to drift off and boom, Lady Gaga kicks off and I start to hear some curious, repetitive bangs. Raunchy flatmate? Hell no. I reluctantly text my flatmate, kindly asking her to turn her music down, only to receive the text back: ‘sorry babe, maybe I should choose a better time to practice my zumba routine.’ Amazing.

3.       I CAN COOK. Before I started university, I was terrified of myself, or rather my questionable cooking skills, and this fear was justified. A few months before leaving for university, my mum asked me to brown some mince for some burritos whilst she picked up one of my little brothers, in her absence I BLACKENED the lot, I didn’t know what cooked mince looked like and thus charcoal burritos were had by all. However I have pleasantly surprised myself and  become quite the foodie, chorizo anyone?

4.      I love twitter. This time last year, not so big on twitter, but now, it is my social networking site of choice. Not only is it the perfect outlet for my girls from home and I to vent stuff that would be controversial on facey b, I also get to tweet about stuff nobody really cares about, guilt free. Let’s face it if I updated my facebook status to: ‘do not appreciate being woken up by my alarm when it interrupts a dream in which I am an honorary weasley’, I’d get slated.  But on twitter? Unfollow me if you like suckers! Also I’ve met some lovely people through twitter which is simply delightful (Bournemouth fans, I’m talking about you).

5.       I now have a plan B for life. My flatmate Kat (if I continue this blog, you will all read a lot about Kat, she’s priceless) and I plan to open a novelty cake shop if our degrees go belly up.

       Exhibit A, a boob cake:

 Exhibit B, a tardis cake:

Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

Tune in for part two, whenever I get round to writing it folks!

*No I don't really carry a first aid kit around with me, don't be so literal.

My first ever blog post

There are two occasions in life when I find myself wanting to be male. 

Don’t worry folks, neither are serious enough for me to consider a change of gender, overall I quite enjoy being a girl, but there are just two teeny things.

The first relates to football, at football matches I would like to be able to chant. Now I know some girls will chant at football matches and I completely respect them for this, but I don’t tend to, mainly because I know my weedy voice will add nothing to the general chant and also because my little brother laughs at me. I really don’t know who he thinks he is, I’ve been going to Bournemouth matches with my Pops since I was five, and he supported Man U until about three years ago! But still, a deep voice would be nice in this context. And I wouldn’t want to be a girl with a deep voice so the natural solution to this is to be a boy of course. I actually tend to mouth chants and clap along; it’s pathetic really, but also, I like to think, endearing.

The second reason, and I think about this one more often, concerns lyrics. For those of you who do not know, (I say like people are even reading this, HA) I’m doing a degree in English Literature, so in general I just love words. And I love music. These two passions combine nicely in the form of lyrics. But I don’t listen to many female artists, the two main exceptions are probably Blondie and Ellie Goulding. I listen to more males, whose songs tend to refer to women.

I shall elaborate, at this exact moment in time on my itunes shuffle, a song called She Had The World by Panic! At The Disco is playing, it’s not a favourite of mine, I think it’s an album track which I tend to skip (guilty) but nonetheless it’s an entire song about a girl, this is swiftly followed by Songbird, by Oasis, another song about a girl, followed by Sleep, a Dandy Warhols song that I recommend because it’s b-e-a-utiful...and yes it’s about a girl: ‘well I could sleep forever but it's of her I dream.’

There are better examples than this, but my mind has gone blank because there’s pressure upon it to think of them. Anyway, my main point is, I think men have a minefield of lyrics at their disposal to use to their romantic advantage, and if I was a guy I would relish this. Thus this is why I sometimes think it would be nice to be a man. However, I must stress, I do not guarantee a 100% success rate with the lyric method, some girls may not be as hopelessly romantic as me.

In other news not relating to my personal gender issues, I sent my Mum a recipe today which I used to make Malteser slices last week, a recipe which included my own personal annotations and recommendations. I felt like a real adult. Or a pompous cook. Whichever you prefer.

P.S. Isn’t it a funny coincidence that I decide to start writing a blog 2 weeks before my first year exams start?!