501 cities & Bangor

About 3 years ago on one of my infamous stationary buying binges I was allured into buying one of those huge travel books. It is 501 must see cities. I have flicked through it hundreds of times thinking up amazing holidays and road trips, but I have now taken it upon myself to actually see if I can complete it. This is a ridiculous challenge, and I doubt very much that I will finish it in a life time, but I thought I would give it a whirl and see what i could actually achieve. Rather pathetically I have only been to 12 out of the 501 cities, so I have a very long way to go.

Bangor & Snowden

For reasons unbeknown to me Bangor is one of the cities it recommends -(Only 3 cities are mentioned for Wales. Bangor, Cardiff & St Davids - but NOT Swansea!). So taking advantage of being in Wales and all the girls having the day off work, we went on lil journey to go see Becky up in Conwy. 

That bit of the world is absolutely beautiful. We wandered along the pier in Bangor, I tried to convince Jeannie to jump in the sea so that Prince William would come and save us but it didn't work. I was surprised at how small Bangor was, but it does have some very pretty and old buildings. After Lunch Becky took us over to Anglesey. We went up a viewing column that had stunning views of Mount Snowden and the national park around it. Lizzy and I could have stayed up there for ages, but stupidly both Becky and Jeannie dislike circular staircases, so the trip both up and down was rather stressful.... I think it was worth it and we all survived in one piece, but I don't know if everyone would agree.

Since we only had one day up there we tried to fit in as much as we humanely could. We went to the longest place name in Wales (is it in the world I can't remember) Becky did teach us how to say it properly in Welsh but I have completely forgotten now. Then we headed back over the bridge and went for a wander around the foothills of Snowden. We all made vague claims that one day we would all climb it together, but nothing has been said since, and we didn't set ourselves a time scale or anything....... one day...... I'm sure.....

Once the sun had set we headed back to Conwy to explore the castle and head to the pub. I LOVE castles, don't really know why but where ever I go I find one out to explore - (maybe that could be another challenge visiting all the Castles in the UK). It was especially magical as we were there at night and it was all lit up.

As always, road trips with my girls are some of the happiest times I've had this year. And this one was extra special as I hadn't seen Becky in almost forever. And any excuse to go back to Wales.

So that's 1 down. 500 to go.

Beans on Toast

Last Saturday Pel, Albear and I ventured into deepest darkest Birmingham to find a lil pub where Beans on Toast was playing in a back room, and amazingly it was really good!

Beans on Toast has the most cigarette scarred voice I have ever heard (I'd love to know how much he smokes) and his friend Ben on Banjo. He sings topical songs about the state of the world and politics, all of which are very tongue in cheek. The reason we know him is because he is friends with Frank Turner (he is the jay standing on a wooden chair that Frank sings about in I Knew Prufrock Before he Became Famous - Beans first album is called standing on a chair.....) and obviously being in the cult of frank, his friends are our friends - at least that's what Pel argues.

The pub appeared at first glance to be an old man/ biker bar and Pel and I were the only girls in there, but once we found where he was playing we came across friendlier faces. And the support acts were pretty good to. Al really liked My Name is Ian, and even got a Kiss off him after the show.

Beans was really funny and up for a lot of audience participation. If he thought the crowd wasn't into a song, he simply stopped half way through it and asked what we would prefer. He also danced on demand and stood on one of the tables to sing one of his songs - looking rather precarious throughout.


So people who are coming to Leeds, and also everyone else to, you need to learn the words to this song as we will be singing it al ot whilst we are drinking our baggy waggy wine by our tents.

Gigging times

One of the best things about having more disposable cash is that I have got back into music, and seen some really amazing gigs in the last few months. In fact I have seen more bands in the last 6 months than I have seen in the previous four years. And best of all I have seen four of my favourite bands, 3 of which for the first time. So now I only need to see Counting Crows and I will have seen the full set. Any one want to to take me to America to see them, coz they are touring there this year.......

Pel & I finally got to see Jimmy Eat World with just the 2 of us, no boys or friends or Drama to interfere with our good time. It is so nice having my Princess all to myself again. And seeing them together was a nice way to say goodbye to the way wood teenagers we once were, when sweetness was our anthem, and our dancing would draw a crowd at JBs... We are now proper grown ups and all that Jazz. We survived the drink and the boys and 300 miles distance at uni with our friendship intact and listening to Jimmy just brings back good memories, no matter how bad their new stuff is.

I finally saw sense after years of Neffi insisting how good We Are Scientists and have become a faithful addict. They are amazing live and are more of a comedy act then gigigng band, so would recommend that everyone go see them, even if they arent to into their music, just because it was a really good night out.

Another wonderful thing about moving back is finding out that all my friends from uni get on amazingly with my friends here. Was so happy when Nick came to see the amazing Frank Turner with Pel, Albear and me. despite gettin punched in the face in the 'mosh pit'. A ridiculous occurence since it was the meekest pit I have been in and yet the first time I have ever really been injured. Liking Frank is like being a member cult, its insane how devoted his fans are and he seems to be getting more and more famous. We also stumbled across Ed Hardcourt outside the gig whilst trying to find Al, whom we had misplaced. He was a really lovely, and seemed a bit bemused that 3 girls were fawning over him.

And best of all, Nick and I travelled all the way over to Berlin to go see The National. It was an amazing gig, even if German people don't seem to dance to music at gigs as much as we do. They even did an acoustic set at the end. Well worth travelling a thousand miles to go see ( I made that number up it may not actually be that far to Berlin) .

And now I get to see all of them again (except WAS) at Leeds festival where virtually all my friends are coming along to party with me. It is going to be Legen-Dary! I am soooooooooooooooo excited. I already have my wardrobe planned.

Rainbow Cup Cakes

Although I really like to cook, baking wasn't something that has come particularly easy to me. I have had many an addiction to cooking shows (Masterchef, the Great British Bake Off etc ) and can cook a mean curry, but cake making just is not my forte.

Now that I have excess time on my hands I decided to teach myself how to bake. I knew the basics and have lots of cook books so it wasn't to big a challenge, but it filled up my Monday afternoons and meant we always had nice food for Glee night.

So, Pel and I will be making rainbow cup cakes today as the sun has decided to disappear. Pel found the idea on a random blog so we toodled off to Morrisons earlier and will attempt to make them tonight. Fingers crossed the ink doesn't all run and they just go a funny brown colour.






The recipe can be found here: http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/rainbow_cupcakes

100 books to read before you die

Last November this list went viral on Facebook. It is the BBC's list of 100 books to read before you die, and according to them the average person has only read 6 on their list. I decided then to try and read all of the books in a year. At the time I figured i would actually read all 100, but I now realise what an epic task that is, so will try at least to read the books I haven't read before. If I have extra time at the end I will then try and reread as many as I can.

I couldn't find the original link, and couldn't be bothered to troll through facebook to find it, but this is the list I am using : http://www.listal.com/topic/average-adult-has-only-read

So far I've read 53 books on the list and am currently reading Number 88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. It is no where near as hard a read as Wuthering Heights, so I don't Imagine it will take me more than a few days to read. ready for the week long marathon of reading that is the family holiday I'm going on next week.

So that is another 47 books to read by 24th November. Easy.

Road Trip!

I figured that I have 7 months worth of travelling and baking to slot into this blog for it to really show what i have managed to do with my new found freedom, so I will disperse my older stuff inbetween what I am up to now and hopefully it will eventually be completely up to date.

So finding myself suddenly single last September I did what every self respecting female (who watches far to many American sitcoms/films) and went on a road trip to Liverpool with my best friends .

I had only been to the city once before to look around the university, so most of it was still all shiny and new.

Being Us though we still did the geeky stuff, spending a day going around castles in Chester and also going around the Slavery Museum (whilst being horrifically hung over) and the history museum in the city centre.



There was one awesome night out though, Nick took us to a very nice cocktail bar and then on to a rock club. It was very surreal moshing in  6 inch heels, but it was really nice dancing about to very angry music that we all used to listen to when we were teenagers.




The best bit of the trip thought was definitely the Ice cream farm ( http://www.cheshirefarmicecream.co.uk/). They had more flavours of ice cream than i ever knew existed. It was incredible! we had 3 different flavours each, and planned to go back for seconds, but we were beaten by the amount of ice cream we had ( shocking I Know). at the time it was just what the doctor ordered.

Hello world!

This is the blog I meant to start last September, but due to being technologically inept it has taken me this long to sort myself out.

So in September 2010 I unexpectedly found myself single and living with my parents again. I had just finished my Masters degree and had planned to be living in Wales for at least another year. Instead I am now living in the Black Country and am at a complete loss with what to do.

However, over the summer I also lost my Grandad. This came as quite a shock and made me really think about how I was living my life. He would always ask questions about what I would be doing next and hearing my tall tales of what I was learning about at uni, and what adventures I had stumbled across driving around in my little car. I realised once he was gone that my stories were running thin. My university career was over and I no longer had any trips or goals to aim for.

So this is a blog about me trying to live life to the full. Travelling as much as possible. Learning as much as possible. And challenging myself to cram in as much stuff as I can whilst I am still gloriously young and unsettled. 

I am going to revel in my lack of direction and see where it leads me.