...Have A Little Laugh.

So today is comic relief (in Britain, not sure if it happens in other countries, wait no I'm sure it doesn't happen in other countries...) and lots of people are doing lots of silly things to make people laugh and raise lots and lots of money. Well I'm not involved in anything comic wise but I still like to make people laugh so here it goes.

I found this video via the Huffington Post and it is HILARIOUS! It sure as bells made my Friday morning so why not spread some cheer I hear? And just for you I will!

Enjoy!!

Happy Friday people and please enjoy St Patrick's Day/weekend responsibly. (It's on Sunday but why not devote the whole weekend?)

...The Last Book You Read.

The title is pretty self explanatory on this one, I want to know what the last book you read was and what it was like. As most of you know I am an avid reader and if the book is engaging I can finish it within a few days; I prefer to read then to watch tv (sounds like a bloody online dating blurb right? Sickening...).

I always like people to recommend a good book so this is where you guys come in, let me know what the last book you read was and give it a rating. Don't be scared (said in an American accent, preferably a rapper's accent...), you can post under this blog, on facebook or if your massively ashamed of what you've been reading then you can drop me a private message.

Now the last thing I read was Terry Pratchett's "Men at Arms" and before that it was David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas". I wanted to read the book before I saw the film and I'm glad I did. Bits of his book were (I'm not gonna lie) a struggle, I just didn't give a shit about the character and found my mind drifting off to another dimension. I did however LOVE the middle section, I thought it was well written and engaging (cor it seems like it's a Sunday of big words!) and just for that I would recommend it.

I adore anything Terry Pratchett writes, in my eyes he can do no wrong, he is a bloody genius. I am steadily making my way through his Discworld novels and if it was up to me I would have finished all the books by now but my brain can't handle that much awesomeness in one go. So I have to read in bursts of 2 or 3 otherwise my dreams become infected with Discworld characters and it's quite hard to get much sleep (I don't sleep much anyway so any intrusion on said sleep is NOT WELCOME). I have to read them in the order they were written (I don't know why, just put it down to one of those "eccentricities"). I finished "Men at Arms" in 3 days and I loved it, I really enjoy the Watch characters and anything with them, Death, the Witches or Rincewind in are amongst my favourite stories. If you haven't read any Pratchett then I highly recommend you do it, now, right now, I'm being totally serious.

Some people not familiar with the brilliance of Discworld may call this an obsession (Natalie this is directed at YOU...) and maybe it is but I really don't care, I am obsessed. The books even have their own shelf in my room...see...

a step too far?



 Please don't judge me, I've already judged myself.

Right anyway, I like to keep a stack of "books that must be read" in my room and it looks like this:

I've obviously read "Cloud Atlas" but all the bookshelves are full and it has no home. Next up is another Pratchett and then I want to finish Bram Stocker's Dracula. I'm trying to munch my way through a few of the classics that I neglected to read in Secondary School, primarily because they were "suggested reads" and back then anything that was "suggested" meant it was clearly not worth reading/doing/listening to...etc.

So if you've managed to stumble through this post and want to add books to my pile of "books that must be read" then please do! Don't be afraid! Embrace this! Embrace this right now! Look at all the exclamation marks! Clearly this is something worth doing!

I'll leave you to muse over this, as for me I'm going down to Sainsburys to buy me some ingredients to cook up a Mother's Day storm. I'm going to attempt to cook my mum her favourite food, I'm not going to say what it will be just in case she reads this, I like to cover my bases. I'd be an excellent spy. Fact.

Happy Mother's day everyone and remember a Mother is for life, not just for a day.

...Playing The Waiting Game.

Now we play the waiting game a lot, especially us Brits, we like to show our perseverance for patience and we sit or stand quietly (sometimes making the occasional grunt or sigh - but that is as far as it goes, anymore and it would just be impolite now wouldn't it?) waiting for the queue to budge along, the hold music to err hold (witty I know), for that important email or further more for that all important phone call.

I have been playing the watchthephonetillitringsthengiveitafewsecondsbeforepouncing game. The phone is winning. The bastard. I'm waiting for that all important phone call to tell me that I'm fantastic and I must be employed RIGHT NOW. Obviously not in those exact words however something along those lines wouldn't go amiss. (I'm also waiting for a big ol' delivery of books - yes books, I hate not having anything to read and my new sense of reuse/renew/recycle has led me to ordering second hand books for half the price - result).

But all this waiting has got me thinking, how do other countries/nationalities deal with having to wait? One of the things that wound me up in Asia were other people not queueing. Silly I know but I absolutely hate it when I've been standing there for ages and then some nitwit thinks it's perfectly okay to walk straight to the front because they think their issue is of greater importance then mine. And no I'm not referring to the Thais or the Cambodians, I'm referring to the tourists (bloody tourists) strolling to the front and then looking around shocked when people start complaining and telling them to go to the back. A brilliant example of this was when I was standing in the immigration queue to cross the border into Thailand, on the day were I seriously thought Asia was trying to break me (it nearly won - 4 and a half hours in the sun, shouldering two heavy backpacks, with no food/water or toilet access (cos I was alone I couldn't leave the queue innit?), moving inches every 30 mins - hell) and then all of a sudden I heard people shouting "no, get to the back" and I look up through sweat stained eyes to see a group of people manhandling a guy who was trying to reach someone/something further up in the queue and the people he was trying to barge through kicked off. It's totally understandable, they like me, had been standing in the heat for ages and I guess the overpowering sense of IT'S NOT FAIR gave them a surge of adrenaline because it wasn't fair, he should wait just like the rest of us and fair play to them for telling him so. This shouting carried on for a good few minutes, every time the guy tried to get past them they screamed and shoved him back, needless to say he didn't get past and like the rest of us he had to wait. Result.

So why do people do it? What, pray tell, was the point to my story? Serious questions I know and to be honest I don't really know the answer to either of those questions (to be fair I should know the answer to question 2 but I really just felt like giving a story that sort of backed up my point? *sigh* I was never good at essay writing...) I'm still trying to figure it out. Should we be made to learn how to queue? In fact does it all just boil down to learning how to be patient? Can you teach that? I know we are taught as children to be patient and "to wait our turn" but does it really stick once we grow up and away from our parental talons? Is it a cultural thing? Does it differ from person to person, nationality to nationality? Or is it a personality trait? Can you imagine teaches having to teach their children the art of patience once a week? I know in most schools that wouldn't go down well. So I have a lot of questions but not a lot of answers and I really want to know, yes I could just google it and be content with what wikipedia tells me but I want to debate this. Come on people debate with me!

Needless to say I think I am a patient person - to some degree. If I know what I want is in front of me and is not being given to me then I get angry and demand that the person controlling the said thing I want give it to me. Right now. But if it's something I can't see, something I have no control over whatsoever then - I'd like to think - my patience kicks in and I can't wait, play the waiting game for a while until the paranoia takes over and I convince myself that I don't want it anyway. (Waiting to hear whether or not I got the part is sending my paranoia into overdrive. I've been told by a good friend to wait (there it is again!) till the end of the week *sigh* fingers crossed eh?).

I've been breaking up the wait by playing mindless games on my phone, playing with the cat, quietly tidying up my mental space and giving the postman evils when he doesn't knock on the door, arms weighed down by my joyous package - I want my books dammit!!! They should have been here already *pout*. I have also downloaded (and paid for) a few new albums to lift my mood and give my soul some nourishment. My favourite album being "My Head Is An Animal" by Of Monsters and Men, I love it, it is perfect, it is beautiful and it fills me with a quiet joy every time I listen to it. The stand out song for me is "Your Bones" and it sounds something like this:

So watch and enjoy, please ignore the awful video, it was the only one I could find. If you fall in love with them then "your welcome", if you don't, well then bugger off. Please if you have any answers to my questions above then feel free to voice them, if you don't, well then bugger off. I will continue to play the waiting game and I will also continue to give the postman the stink eye (I know he has my books, he's holding them ransom...) I'll keep you updated cyber buddies.

Until then!

...This Is Fucking Awesome!

Hey party people, it's Friday so you know what I thought I'd share a song with you that I'm quite obsessed with. Since coming back from the East I have been bombarded with all the new music that's currently out at the moment and I have a list the size of my arm of all the music that I am loving! Currently I am crushing "Young the Giant" (their album is AWESOME) and Imagine Dragons song "Radioactive" - I don't know what is about that song but I love it. I could listen to it over and over again.

However all those amazingly ridiculous bands have nothing on this song, don't ask me why I like it so much but I really, really do. There's just something about it; it makes me wanna dance, it makes me want to get dolled up and shake my arse, in short IT IS FUCKING AWESOME! (Please fellows don't judge me by this choice - it's not Nicki Minaj or any of that shit don't worry...I haven't gone that far down the musical road).

Please enjoy!!

To all those still at work "Happy Friday" enjoy your weekend and to all those breaking up for half term, go to the nearest supermarket buy yourself your favourite tipple and GET DOWN MUTHAFUCKERS!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

...Back in Britain.

Right well as most of you know I have returned from my epic wanderings and I'm now back home *sigh*, so I figured I'd give you an update from sunny old Britain - aren't you lucky bunnies? Well apart from my insides freezing on impact whenever I leave the "safe zone" (the safe zone being my bed, my bed is my heaven, God knows why one must leave the house!) not much has happened (looks like it's going to be a short blog!).

I put off writing this blog in the first week when I got back because it was all doom and gloom. I really wasn't happy to be home, in fact I would have preferred to be anywhere else but in England. That feeling only deepened whilst I waited patiently for my backpack to make it's journey from the plane's underbelly to my waiting arms and I heard a girl with a distinct Croydon accent and all I could think was "Oh God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I cannot be here. Put me back on that plane, take me somewhere, ANYWHERE!" It's safe to say I lost a grip on what little sanity I had left in that following week. It was brilliant to see my family and the handful of friends I've seen so far has made coming home feel less like a step backwards and more like well, like a step, I guess. So I went and chopped off my "Asia-fro" and got down to business. (Not like hooker business as that sentence implied.)

I landed on my feet with my "job", even though it's not something I want to do, like it's not my career, which is fine I guess cos it pays the bills - sort of. But whilst on my epic adventure I realised that what I want to do is get back into acting, so my lovely lovelies that is exactly what I plan to do. I've been applying for jobs since I got back and now I have my first audition in 2 YEARS on Friday - wish me luck. I just hope my new found steam can carry me through it seeing as I'm totally bricking it, I think it's just down to having not done it for so long, do you know what I mean? Like when you haven't ridden a bike for 2 years and you get back on one and your like "how the fuck do I ride a bike?". It's the same kind of feeling - minus the bike of course, that would be a completely different audition if you get what I'm saying...!

My cousin told me to give it a while, that I'll fall back in love with London again and to be honest I didn't quite understand what she was saying. Before I left I wanted to escape the city and her hustle and bustle, the crazy crowds, the pavement hogging tourists and the countless cars, buses, cabs and trucks that seem to clutter her streets. Unfortunately none of those things have changed but what has changed is my outlook (vomit inducing sentence I know but please fellows just bear with me!) I don't get as irate when a tourist cuts me off or stops in the middle of the pavement to stare at a map because I was a tourist and I must have pissed a lot of people off with my irregular walking patterns and what must have seemed like stupid questions regarding transport. And she was right, I am falling back in love with London again, especially when I'm standing like a statue in the freezing cold waiting for my bus to chug up the hill and take me to work and I look out across the roof tops and I see the sun rising. That brings a smile to my semi frozen face, it make waking up at 6am all worth it - well sort of.


So good news London, I'm falling in love with all your rough edges all over again and this time I just hope the love lasts.

 

On another sunny side it tried to snow yesterday and the result left my garden looking like a botched version of the Ice Queen's servants, cousins, brothers garden. Pretty no? The cat hated it!















So I'll leave it there for now, I'll let you know how my audition went - please keep your cyber fingers crossed for me! I'll leave you with a final picture, in a way it's like a goodbye to South East Asia, like once and for all, so friends I'd like you to wish goodbye to the tower of beer. Goodbye friend, I'll drink you one tasty can after the other tasty can...

P.S. I forgot to give a big shout out to all my fellow traveller buddies out there, I hope it's all going swell and I will see you again someday, hopefully sooner rather then later!

...Tales from Thailand - See you later South East Asia.

So I've given myself sometime to sit down and really go over what it is I have been doing for the past 4 and a half months and still I haven't really understood the enormity of it. Tomorrow I will be leaving on a jet plane and I'm not quite sure when I'll come back again. There are so many things I could tell you but to find the words for them would take me years. My world has changed immensely and I'm so glad it has. I've met some wonderful, kick arse people (I've also met a lot of c**ts), I've had experiences that I never imagined I would ever have, I've laughed, cried, basically I've grown up and hopefully the new found wisdom I have now will carry me through all the ups and downs life seems to keep throwing at me. I've also missed my sisters and my family more then I ever knew I would; I know we were close but the impact their absence left on my life is one that I won't forget. I know family can tug at your heart strings but boy, I love my family, their messed up and crazy (whose isn't?) but I wouldn't trade them for the world - aren't you guys lucky?! 

Not really sure how to start saying goodbye. I'm tempted to go back to the beginning and retell everything that I've done and tell you what my favourite bits have been. On the other hand I just want to slam you will loads of pictures you haven't seen and then hopefully you'll see why I'll miss this country so much. Which will it be?

After a few hours of careful deliberation I decided that I will give you both. Pictures you haven't seen before and my oh so endearing love for the beautiful countries I've been in.

Let us start with Cambodia, yes?

Cambodia has my heart, it is however in competition with New York but I think Cambodia is going to win, hands down. The country is amazing, I had so many experiences there that will shape me for the rest of my days and I am so thankful to the people that I now call family, I love them to bits and here, my ever loving bloggahaloics, I present to you my new family:

 Toooooooo much Absinthe....

Beginning to love the French...

 Not enough Absinthe...

I absolutely, hands down, love this girl. She is an amazing woman and will go on to be an absolutely fantastic individual.

The terrors of cycling in the evening rush hour.

Most of these pictures speak for themselves, therefore they don't need captions. All I know is that I met a fanfuckingtastic bunch of people that I will cherish for the rest of my days (yeah ok I'm being a little sentimental - so shoot me!!). I don't have many pictures and some of the people that I love aren't in the pictures I posted but mates don't worry the love is there, it's all around you and I will follow you like a ghost till the end of your days (spooky huh?).

I've already given you a final blog of Cambodia so I won't reiterate all the stuff I said before because all of it stands true. Instead I will let you know how I feel about Thailand. I bloody love Thailand. Not as much as I love Cambodia though, although the people here are far nicer to me and one man even asked for my number - result! But no, the country is lovely, the people are friendly and the food is delicious. I will miss South East Asia with every once of my being but unfortunately there are more countries I wish to see and more environments I want to explore. But the highlights?

- Partying with my girls on Koh Phangnan and Koh Tao.
- Seeing the beauty that is Koh Chang.
- Elephants!!!
- The simplicity and extraordinary beauty of Chiang Mai.
- Monkeys (sometimes...).
- The friendliness.
- Elephants!!
- The food.
- Sangsom...

I will not however miss the heat, it is oppressive or the stench. When it gets really hot you can smell the sewers and that's just fucking gross. It is not a smell you want in your nostrils. I won't miss travelling on long haul buses even though that was an experience in itself.

I will miss the freedom, the anonymity of life over here. I can be who I want, say what I want and I don't give a fuck what anybody thinks. It will be something I will employ once I reach home soil so people, you have been warned.

I don't know what else to say. This experience has opened my eyes and I feel like I'm a better person for having done this (vom). I know that I can travel alone and never truly be alone. I know that I have the capacity to make friends and also the capacity to spot bullshit from a mile off. I am strong and I think that it is a beautiful thing to notice in yourself. Before I undermine this "journey" (God I hate that word...thank you Central!) I will leave you with a few pictures from Thailand. Again I don't have them all and a lot are missing (girls I want those pictures! How else am I going to build my shrine?) but I will leave you with a few, enjoy:

 Love.

 Oh Nemo, if you only knew what lay ahead...

Goodbye South East Asia, I will always have fond memories of my time with you and that is how I'll leave it. I'm scared I will start sounding like a back alley prossie trying to get her pimp to love her honestly and none of us want that on my last night now do we? So I will bid you adieu. It's fucking emotional and I really don't want to do it but circumstances dictate otherwise. I have loved every fucking second here and I will not change it, not for all the money in the world. 

Now I will go downstairs and have a farewell drink with my friend Kip who runs the lovely cocktail bar outside my guest house. This time tomorrow I'll be trampling on English shores (just so you know it's 9.59 pm...).

For the last time,


Big Ocean crossing love ya'll.

...Tales from Thailand - Lopburi - Monkeys vs Elephants.

Now I don't want to mislead you (even though the title is pretty misleading...) there weren't any "actual" elephants in Lopburi and if there were I don't think that they would go around attacking monkeys. Well, at least I hope they wouldn't. No this is just to settle the life long debate of which animal is better, monkeys or elephants? Don't fear friends all will be revealed in this oh so revealing blog. (Do forgive me if I veer off into the dramatic and spectacular, it's been a long day and my brain just ain't what she used to be...)

My day started out with one mission - to see some gosh darn monkeys. There were a lot of obstacles put in my way and a batted them all down gracefully (mainly tuk tuk drivers and taxis trying to overcharge me and me having to be use the "big smile" to get what I want (and no I'm not referring to my breasts...geez)). I make it to the train station after the most terrifying ride on the back of a moto; I swear I never, ever want to be on the back of a moto in Bangkok ever again, he did give me a helmet though which made me feel a little bit better...only a little. Once I get there I buy my ticket, which only cost me a mere 28 Baht (that's like 70 pence - roughly) and await my train (I had to wait an hour because the travel agency woman told me the times for the trains ARRIVING from Lopburi not GOING to Lopburi *sigh* like I said before - obstacles). Just to give you a mental imagery the station looked like this:

And the train on the opposite platform (I had a lot of time to stand around and watch and be watched...creepy) looked like this:

And just so you get a well rounded comprehensive view of a Thai train the inside looks like this (I'm having a really hard time spelling the word train...):

Lovely no?

The journey wasn't too bad, it did take longer then they said to get there (obviously) and I did start to have a wee panic around oh 3 hours into the journey when we still hadn't got there and I was the only westerner in my carriage and perhaps the whole train. But luckily when it was time to get off the lovely Thai man on the seat across from mine told me that this was Lopburi and basically to move my arse before the train decides to move again. FYI the trains stop for about 20 seconds to let you off and on and then they start moving again, slowly at first and then you know, full speed. In some cases you have to walk across the tracks to get to the platform, there's no "live" rail though so no nasty shocks (trust me, I did it and I'm still here). The journey was interesting, lots of people were roaming up and down selling food and drinks and it was nice to see a bit of the Thai countryside - it looks a lot like the Cambodian countryside minus all the cows. I do miss seeing a cow every 45 seconds though.

Lopburi is a quiet town, not much to see there apart from a few ruined Khmer like temples and once out of the station I am accosted by a lady and her bilke/tuk tuk/pedal seat thing and she says she will take me around for 100 Baht, so I was like cool (watch carefully for she features heavily in this tale...). So we go to a few temples and I'm like, where are the fricking monkeys? Then she takes me past a market and I'm like yeah nice, now tell me, where are the fricking monkeys? (Don't worry I didn't actually verbally abuse this woman). So I say to her, where is the monkey temple? And she's like "oh! You want to go to the monkey temple?" No shit Sherlock, why else would I travel 3 and a half hours to get here? So she eventually takes me there and by this time my excitement has started to build, I keep catching glimpses of monkeys and then there they are, on the street, hanging off of lampposts and baloneys, running along telephone wires and generally being a menace. I was a little disappointed, it wasn't what I quite imagined. I pictured gangs of monkeys roaming the streets, terrifying but amazing their human neighbours. She must have noticed my disappointment for she told me that the streets are where they hang out but the temple is their home.

So we go to the temple. I pay my 50 Baht and bam! It's monkey heaven. It starts with only a few,

And I think really? Is this all the monkeys? Then we round a corner and there they all are. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated,

there were just so many of them, mummy monkeys, daddy monkeys, sisters, brothers, babies, the whole extended family and the place reeked of monkey piss - mmmmm, nice. So yeah I felt a like they maybe were secretly plotting to take over the human race by sheer number and monkey intimidation tactics but then this fella(?) put my mind at ease:

Just chilling with his/her stomach out, getting all the fleas and ticks picked off by the lesser monkeys. The big monkeys were mean though, I saw more monkey on monkey crime then I would like to admit and the "guides" were ready with the sling shots and sticks, which the monkeys cowered at when raised towards them. That made me sad. I know that they can be infuriating and it is only meant as a warning but the reaction to the stick being lifted was too much for my poor monkey loving heart to bear. Some of them monkeys were proper scabby though and I passed one licking the wall, God knows why it was doing it but I guess even in the monkey world you have some that aren't quite right.

Anyway I then explored the inside of the temple, which was cool, like I said before it reminded me a lot of Angkor Wat, the architecture was similar and so was the layout. All the Buddha's that were in the temple were beheaded though which was a little bit creepy, I asked my tour guide why but I don't think she understood my question, instead she told me to look up because the ceiling was full of bats. That was enough to freak me out, I do not want to be that close to a bat.

After the narrow escape from the bats and the monkeys I went and had lunch at a place that reeked of monkey piss (mmmmmm) and then headed back to the train station where my "lovely" tour guide tried to charge me 200 baht for a 45 min trip. I was not impressed. I refused to give her the money and told her that we settled on 100 baht so she's going to get 100 baht. I was so angry. After being nice to me all day she decided to try hoodwink me out of an extra 100 baht? After I paid for her drink at lunch as well! The sneaky son of a witch. I understand it's all business and they think that we farangs are loaded but matey, tricks like that don't swing with me. Needless to say that put a bit of a dampener of the day, I then had to wait nearly 2 hours for my train back to Bangkok (boooo). The train back was hot and cramped but it just reminded me of being on the London underground so I wasn't too fussed. By the time I get back into Bangkok I'm starving and I head in the direction of noodle soup and sleep.

But we still haven't addressed our argument have we (promise, I promise this is the end...) monkeys vs elephants? Well I have to say it's got to be elephants. After seeing the monkeys today and watching them frolic and errm attack each other I have decided that I much rather sit on the back of an elephant, riding through the jungle (terrified of falling to my death) then be surrounded by monkeys. It's a sad day for monkeys all over the world. I did have a great time watching them though and it was refreshing to get out of Bangkok for the day but at least now I know and I can put my curiosity to bed (that is only until I get to see some orang-utans!).

So fellows I must bid you goodnight, my typing has become erratic and I'm not quite sure what I'm talking about but I know that tonight I will definitely be dreaming about monkeys. Let's just hope I didn't "accidentally" bring one of those suckers back with me. I would have heard it by now no? Tomorrow I will go check out the weekend market and maybe spend some money in a frivolous fashion...

Until then!

Big Ocean crossing love ya'll!


P.S I'm gonna leave you with my favourite picture of the day:

I was the one behind the bars. They were the free ones.


P.P.S I'll also give you the ex-rated monkey chilling on the steps picture. Enjoy.