Country roads take me home...

...To the place I belong.

This particular monkey of a blog monster is written on the behalf of a certain Monsieur le Lindley, after his comment about my general rubbishness with regards to keeping this updated. I must concede that given the multitude of dastardly adventures upon which I have embarked lately, he might be right. However, I would like to point out that to a certain extent these escapades have prevented me from having the time and sanity to record them.

The next concern is trying to recall all of the spiffingly-marvellous things which have be

fallen me of late.

I will begin on a certain Monday, a few months ago. It was, in fact, just another manic Monday. Several of my

readers will be familiar with the photographs from the day (there are MANY). Upon finishing our degrees, my beloved housemates and myself saw it particularly fitting that we visit a certain childrens' playground of which we were aware but had yet to visit. The outcome was a lot of startled parent

s and small people, and three very satisfied sort-of-e

x-students. If I could figure out how, I would post the video of Jayne making a spectacular entrance down a slide, followed by her headbutting the camera due to her overly-enthusiastic descent. All in all it was an excellent outing, probably in my top three highlights of the summer, up there with a trip to Co-op.

Possibly one of the most daring of my escapades of late involved a forray into the adult world of car hire. Yes, I know it is pretty overwhelming to imagine, but I am no

w starting to pretend to be a real grown up pusson. Avec le Megan and le Jayne, I went on an in-depth expedition of the Northern part of our beautiful nation of Mexico. We went forth into the unknown (in our lovely,

shinyshinyshinyshiny hire car),

and made it in three distinct pieces to the Umbria of the North. There was a suspicious absence of sleeping in a borrowed tent, a little bit of swimming in the North Sea (which nearly ended in death from frostbite on several counts) and the odd bit of poking. We poked high and low, including Bamburgh playground and castle, some public toilets and the Holy Island of Lindisfa

rne. Aidan seemed to be doing OK, so we left him well enough alone, and came home via the land of Go Ape! For anyone who is unfamiliar with Go Ape! it is basically a playground for big people. There are really big ladders, tunnels to crawl through, swings, and zip wires and all sorts.

Sadly, I don't have the dedication to my small collection of readers to write down detailled accounts of all of my adventures, so I have to skip over a few, including the time w

hen Jayne ate an entire two litre tub of ice cream in 45 minutes on live radio which was being broadcast from our house.

But I move ahead to the very beginning of probably the last long summer holiday of my life. It began incredibly well, with a collection of peculiar creatures squashed into a fairly small car, on their way to the Isle of Wight. It just so happens that I was one of those creatures. And I did actually know all of the others, they weren't just strangers that I picked up along the way. To recount all that we did over the course of a week might just take a week, so I will just include the highlights:

1. Trip to Co-op. Nuff said.

2. BEACH! With multitudinous beach toys including buckets, balls, bats, boards and a boat! We did manage to play with all of the toys over the course of the day, and the English Channel was far superior to the hypothermic North Sea.

3. Church at St. Catherine's with Graham the Great who thought we were from Sweden. (We weren't, by the way).

4. A visit to Vicky and Bert at Osbourne House.

5. The Needles Old Battery and Alum Bay. N.B. I am not including the chairlift in the list of highlights as it was almost as terrifying as being savaged by seagulls whilst eating fish and chips on the beach near Bamburgh Castle. I still retain my eyeballs, but it was a close call.

Obviously there were a lot of other magnificent moments, including the wonderful food, the rather peculiar company, and mine and Jayne's ability to wake up Megan with our collective snoring. Also, there were a lot of public toilets, which is a definite bonus.

Upon returning from the Isle of Wight, my life was thrown into disarray as my friends were from their mother's wombs untimely rip'd. Or something along those lines. I did that silly graduation thingumy, and visited the Brontes. Then there was an Ellen, and there was Brighton, and there was London, and there was the M25.

My most recent adventure, however, has been to the North, i.e. Carterton, near Oxford. I went on an expedition on a train, and was collected from the station by my soon-to-be-boss, to take me to Carterton Community College. I was not, in fact, going to college, but was going to play with lots of kiddies and to pretend to be one for a week. It seems that there are few things better than a week of kayaking, football, basketball, dressing up as a thug, and doing arts and crafts. Not necessarily all at once. We also had some fantastic conversations about God with the kiddiewinks, including all sorts about suffering, free will and the Holy Spirit. The food was incredible, the people were almost as crazy as me, and I got to sleep in a tent. Our theme/verse of the week was John 8:32: 'Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.' Life (or lice) just keeps getting better and better, seeing as I get to spend the whole of next year hanging out with the same crowd, doing much the same things. Feel free to quote this back to me when I am complaining about life-saving in a lake in January. I got back late last night, and am slowly returning to humanity, and may reappear in the real world sometime next week.

I appreciate that this is the first reference to the title of this blog post, but thought that it was a good note to end upon. After a very busy year I am home once again, both physically and spiritually, and very excited about it! In writing this I was reminded of a shopping bag from FatFace that I kept from a while ago. It turns out that I am not actually completely insane, as it did have writing on it, which fairly aptly sums up my view on life: 'Just living is not enough, I must have fresh air and freedom.'

The Life and Times of a Freebasin*

I am not, in actual fact, a basin of any variety, as that would be absurd. In fact, I am WOMAN, hear me roar. It is a distinct possibility that the roar is somewhat more akin to a high-pitched squeak, and that it is more of an in-my-head kind of a roar than an out loud one. But the combination of indoor plumbing and internal squeaking makes nothing less than a Free Woman. And that is what I am: a Free Woman of the first waters, to be precise. There is also a distinct possibility that I have been a Free Woman of the first waters for a substantial period of time, but the jury is still out on that one (and/or I am ashamed of my lack of dedication to the blogosphere and am not prepared to admit it).

There has been one significant (or less so) product of my Free Womanly wiles, and that is the creation of a diary of my summer. However, being in possession of a great deal of laziness has not helped this to develop in any substantial way, so that diary is still only a few days long. However, I will quote a choice excerpt:

Thursday 3rd June 2010:
It was barely 8 of the clock this morning, when the death monster also known as H.R.H. Princess Megan Carrot dragged two suffering weasels into the great outdoors. And then there was praying, with an all-too-pyjamad David for this weasel's liking. The prayer was international-flavoured and delicious. However, by far the most important and thoroughly top banana moment of the day was the going-outy part, carrying in our midst a picnic of kingly magnitude, i.e. a lot of food, not a large king, as those are not quite as edible, and they tend to appreciate the eating less...Buses and a library, followed by Mr Ponce Extraordinaire in the Treasurer's House, accompanied by an Emily (or Eeeeemily) , and Ambassador Ellen on behalf of the Hamburgese. Despite being poncy, Mr Ponce Extraordinaire had done marvellous things to the grand housey thing and there was merriment and cheer all around...A roaring success all around except for the fact that the Eeeeemily monster was most uncouth and badly-behaved and was googling me left, right and centre in a decidedly outrageous manner. It was wholly insubordinate and despicable, and she won't be invited next time unless she promises to behave herself. The Poncemeister did himself proud, and picnic part deux was consumed in his fab and marv garden before the return home.

This post was written on 20th June 2010 and then vanished into a thick ear, but alas, alack, alanky! It has been resurrected from the fiery depths and here it is! More to follow soon!

*Please understand that no discourtesy towards the Freemasons is intentional; after 21 years on this planet I am still without any understanding of who they are or what they do, the saucy minxes.

And this is what I would look like if I had green udders.

To the land of the free and the home of the brave!

That is where I have been. For three whole week-a-doodles! And I enjoyed myself SO MUCH, and met SO MANY wonderful people that I very nearly showed human emotion upon leaving. Not quite, but it was close.

While I enjoyed my new freedom and courage, I managed to have a wonderful collection of adventures. Which may or may not have largely involved a certain rugby team in all their glory.

My initial flight was somewhat uneventful, save for the epic hour-and-a-half queueing before getting onto the plane while EVERYONE had their hand luggage searched. I think that the woman checking my bag may have been a little confused about my age. She found my teddy in my bag (which does seem to suggest someone under the age of 94), and proceeded to jokingly refuse me entry to the plane until I produced a passport for said teddy. Since I had spent the previous hour standing in a line listening to every kind of complaint imaginable, I was not feeling as smiling and cheerful as I otherwise might have been, and as a result the response I gave her might not have been quite as cordial (substitute orange squash as appropriate) as it could have been.

To discuss all of my adventures and 'scapades in the greatest depth with Jonah and co. might take approximately 3,000 years, so instead I am going to briefly skim over most of them. I spent so many nights just thinking how you did me wrong and I grew strong...and I slept on your bedroom floor. This seemed to be something of a theme. Except without the wrongdoing, and instead a lot of rightdoing. And fetching me food and sneaking me into the dining halls when no one was looking. There were board games, there were Sangria Thursdays with singing and guitars and the amphitheatre in the middle of the night. And there was So. Much. Rugby.

Rugby certainly deserves its own paragraph, maybe even two, we'll just have to see how the first one goes. I had anticipated returning to a truly awful rugby team to watch them run around and drop balls on the floor for three weeks. And I was mistaken in so many ways. So many ways. For one, they let me train AND play matches with them which was fabulously useful because now I am the queen of fitness and scariness just in time for Roses. Also, they are no longer the most abominably awful thing in the universe! Perhaps that language is a bit strong, but it sounds so much more exciting than 'they weren't very good'. BUT...they are now! Enormously better than they used to be! Which I am pretty sure is owing to two things:

1. New coaching. From the fabulous Laura, and assisted by Adam. They 'don't take no nonsense' and really seem to know what they are talking about which is nice nice nice. And because Laura played in the back line she has re-vamped the whole attitude to the game, and included the concept of STRATEGY! Shock, horror! C'etait marveilleuse. Or somesuch.

2. Social probation! Rugby has cut socialling with alcohol completely this year and as a result: gone are the players who were only interested in the beer and obnoxious singing! Which means, a rugby team who actually have a chance of taking the game seriously once in a while. I am ecstatic.

After three weeks (and three different positions) I hope that I am a little bit better than when I left. I have one sad knee, but as I am SUPERRACHEL I am impervious to pain. And I can fly. So with any luck everything will re-learn to function in the next couple of weeks. I would be most grateful. Any York ruggers who are reading this, please don't tell on me. Obv there is nothing wrong at all.

Bien. So I have spoken about rugby and wine, but seem to be missing all of the talkies about my very epic roadtrips. One of the bestest things about returning to the fatherland was meeting NEW people. That is not people who are newly born, as they tend to be in hospitals rather than attending college. I was actually referring to people who I had never met before. Of whom there were many. For example, little Allie who (poor darling) thinks she is huger than me. Which, of course, is impossible considering how HUGE I am. Obv the hugest of the shopping centres. But we will let her keep pretending, eh? She can eat a pie if she would still like to be a puppy, I suppose. Also I have finally met the baby sister of my fake girlfriend at last, and she is a beast (quite appropriate considering that just this afternoon she will be on her way to the BEAST of the East which I am tragically excluded from, considering that I am now on the wrong side of a very large ocean). And then there were three. Amber was my road-trip buddy, and I had many an adventure in the back seat of her HUGE red truck with flames on. Including one particularly special outing to the dollar store which we left with the most attractive fake hair known to man, and also smelling rather too strongly of old ladies.

I am British. Which can mean one thing only: that I am obliged to write about the weather. Which was tres bon by the wayside. We even had one day where it was 32 degrees. That, of course, is in celcius, because I am British.

And what does hot weather call for? That's right, it sings a merrie song about sky juice. And it just so happens that at Mount Holyoke there is a lot of sky juice collected together in two places. These places are called Upper and Lower Lakes. And while Lower Lake contains hepatitis and the plague, Upper Lake seems to be relatively clean. And there is a dock sticking out into it. It does seem that a logical follow-on from running around in absurd temperatures would be to leap off said dock into said lake. So we did. Willy nilly and with gay abandon. It it was wunderbar. And then we had to sit through a very damp dinner. However, I still maintain that it was well worth it.

There is one significant occasion that cannot escape this blogination fo' sho'. And that would be my troublemaking adventures with a certain Miss Violent Violet. Violet needs a couple of mentions, actually, because she also fed me fish. Which I liked. A lot. At the time of these adventures I was sleeping in Violet's room. It came to evening and we had nothing with which to entertain ourselves. Sad times. So we plotted. The end result was two people dressed all in black, with tights on their heads. If you have never put tights on your head, it is difficult to explain just how absurd it looks. I highly recommend that you try it and look in a mirror. Anyway, we left the room so attired and proceeded to visit people. Most of them were a little surprised by our appearances. We even managed to persuade a sad and poorly Hannah stinky to join us on our mission possible. Which was fairly short-lived actually, and entailled putting a hat on the skeleton of the giant sloth in Clapp, and hanging a bra in its mouth. Both items of clothing were extracted from free bins. We also obtained a shirt which claimed, 'I think your tractor is sexy'. I have yet to understand this. The t-shirt has been saved for further havoc-wreaking in the not-too-distant future I hope. When I have located my camera cable, photos from our adventures will accompany this post. Until then you will have to imagine them.

Last but not least, was the flight home. A very wonderful Dumbleplunk assisted me in locating the bus station from whence I made my way to Boston Logan airport only 3 hours too early (which I suppose is infinitely better than three hours too late). My flight was on time, no problems etc. Dinner came round which was advertised as ginger chicken but upon opening the container turned out to be some sort of beef casserole. Pretty much the same thing, though. And then the man sitting next to me took it upon himself to tell me his life story. And that of each of his five children. I now know how old they all are, where they went to college, what they studied, who they married, where they live, what they do for a living and how many languages they speak. He was going to a business meeting in England, and was very excited about his afternoon off to visit a castle in Kent. I was so excited to hear this. ALL of this. And as a result I never saw the end of the film I was watching. Unsurprisingly, this man is not my new best friend. Perhaps we can just remain acquaintances for now? The kind of acquaintainces you want to hunt down and lock into a small, soundproof box. M'kay?

And alas I must depart to commune with the fishies, they are calling my name from afar.

'The hippopotamus was no ignoramus, and sang her this sweet serenade...'

...I have never seen that much mud in my life. Not even once. Except maybe the time I fell over in the stagnant pond and lost a welly. Or when I went hunting for Mickey's shoe in the wonderous New Hampshire bog. OK, so I may have seen that much mud in my life. But I'm pretty sure I've never tried to play rugby in it before.

Yesterday I reached the pinnacle of my manhood. I have spent years of my life in the pursuit of all things big, butch and scary, and have been laughed at whenever I have claimed to be those things. NO MORE. Alas, I have left the land of the small and timid people to become one of the most fearsome, savage adventurers of the world. I might even explore the possibilities of become a Viking.

At about a quarter to two, one cloudy afternoon (yesterday, in fact), I donned my number 6 shirt (how peculiar) and ran fearsomely out onto the pitch. I then took great delight in smushing people much bigger than me. Repeatedly. And slipping over in scrums because of the absurdly-short (suck on that, Philip Larkin, I can use compound adjectives too!) studs in my children's boots. So perhaps I have a long way to go to be big, but I think that I definitely have butch and scary in the bag after my expedition to the dark side.

As far as I know, there aren't any photos from the match, but I would like to assure all of my readers that I can strike fear into the hearts of props the world about. Be afraid. And instead I have included a photo of what I would look like if I were a Viking. And had a beard.

To top it all off, after being fearsome I was awarded forward of the match. An honour that still seems absurd. A forward? Me? Are you sure? Hooray for trying out new things, and let that be a lesson to all the people who mocked me and told me I wasn't butch and scary enough. HA!

And now that I have had a chance to be both a blindside and an openside flanker, I can happily say that it isn't quite so bad after all. I may even try again one day. But it would be nice to have the chance to do something sneaky deaky with the ball every now and again.

It's Christmas time, mistletoe and wine...

...children singing Christian rhyme. Or Megan, Rachel and Jayne salsa dancing with Nadia. Which is largely the same thing, I reckon.

About a week and a half ago (I'm not exactly sure of the dates), it was Christmas time at 20 Sussex Road. Sadly we roll a little behind the times, but it was fantabulous to stretch the wonders of the holiday season well into January.

Having celebrated the birthday of a certain Mrs. MFA Carrot in the last week of term, it was deemed that to avoid stealing the thunder of said personage, we would postpone our celebration of all things merry and delightful. Which was duly done. (It also provided a very necessary opportunity for certain unnamed, disorganised people to actually do the purchasing of Christmas pressies!)

In life, it seems to me, that there are some kinds of gifts that are better than all of the others. Of course amongst these are the gifts of love, joy, peace, patience... (see Galatians 5 for full details of last years anniversary card). But putting aside all things holy, I really like toys. And when I say I really like toys, I REALLY like toys. So as far as Christmas is concerned, all things stocking-related provide hours of entertainment. (Any donations to the retirement fund for the inhabitants of 20 Sussex Road are always appreciated...) And as we are poor, financially-challenged students, we took the Father Christmas route for our gifts for each other.

In case you are confused as to what this really means, I AM Father Christmas. Bringing peace and goodwill to all men (or was that the angels? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not one of those...) Anyway, I jiggled my belly and wiggled my nose for all (as did Megan and Jayne), and stocking presents appeared! We had a spectacular time, and ate turkey mole and spiced pound cake. For those who might be a little concerned, no moles were harmed in the filming of this programme. Of course my stocking was the bestest of the shopping complex, and included pirate candles, bubble gum that insults you in Shakespearian language, and all sorts of other wonderful surprises. Jayne got a dance with Nadia DVD, from which we were able to ascertain that although we are not very good at salsa dancing, neither is Nadia, which is a considerable encouragement.

As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared, and we read the gospel according to Luke; we spent a wonderful evening together amidst fun, merriment and a loaf of cake with no legs. And a reasonable amount of raucous laughter.

Attached are a couple of photographs of our dastardly adventures and superfluous 'scapades; please take particular note of the Christmas tree fashioned from cardboard toilet roll tubes. Which had not been in the fridge.

I feel a terrifying attack of the waffle coming over me, but am reluctant to fetcher la vache until I have told the story of the CELEBRITY GUESTS who came over for lunch today. We were joined by none other than David and Jono of the Graveshifters show (University Radio York), of particular fame amongst the members of Vanbrugh CU for their Bible study-leading, toasty-making skills. In our very own house.

It might be the case that David and Jono have something of the Feathers about them, but we had a minor food crisis. It seems that although 5 loaves and two fish can feed 5,000, 36 sausages and half a bag of potatoes are not sufficient for 5 hungry students. A very mysterious thing happened. I have cooked sausages many times in my life before, and never have I been met with such a strange occurrence. Yes, when you cook them they shrink, but these sausages were so enthusiastic in their shrinkage--almost to the point of aggression--that when we took them out of the oven they were the size of cocktail sausages.

We did what any sane person would do in this situation: we ate a lot of cake. A LOT of cake. And once again, cake and custard saved the day. And I will forever be of the opinion that there are few things in life better than chocolate cake and Articulate in the same afternoon. Which I would like to point out was won by the girls. Due to their superior knowledge of bird life (in particular Chaffinches).

And now it is time for me to go and combat the mighty and evil forces of the claminator. That is all.

My housemate is a carrot

I am sorry to have to announce that a curious change has come over one Megan Frances Abigail. We spent a glorious weekend together in the cold and snow of Shropshire, with our other housemate Jayne Stinkypants. The food was wonderful (and if you've never seen anyone eat an entire bowl of sour cream by itself, it is pretty entertaining), the Bibley-talkey bits were excellent and we slept in a beautifully freezing cardboard house. At least I did. And we all know that you can't beat frostbite for making a weekend memorable.

So you can imagine my consternation when, upon our return, we retire to bed quite as we should be, and wake up quite as we shouldn't be. At least in Megan's case. I'm not sure what the medical term is for turning into a carrot in your sleep, but I reckon it's pretty serious.

What's worse is that now Jayne and I have the dilemma of what to do with her. It seems very heartless to eat one of your best friends, but similarly wasteful not to. And if we leave her too long she'll osmose and get all old and soggy. And if we put her in the back of a wardrobe somewhere in Cambridge I reckon she'll go runny at some point.

Feel free to contact me with any suggestions/recipe ideas as we mourn the sad loss of our friend.

In other news, there was snow. SNOW. In England. ENGLAND. What is the world coming to? And it wasn't piddly, fiddly little teeny-weeny-eeny-smeeny amounts of snow, it was great gadzooking monster amounts of snow. At least for England. Especially that fine suburban hub of Alton-en-le-wey. Apparently.

And what do all sensible English people do when it snows? They go 'boggan in their wellinga boots. Of course. Or tobogganing in their wellington boots if they have a little more self-respect. Preferably wearing the most absurd clothing they can find. In my case a full waterproof outfit belonging to my father. You can't beat flourescent orange trousers. Ever. Especially when the waistband stops just two inches below your armpits. Spectacular.

I decided to go 'boggan, but my adventures were somewhat more spectacular than most people's. I like to believe that this is because I have more imagination, but probably it is because I wear bigger knickers. We managed to develop a new and improved sledding technique, which involved three overgrown children (substitute adults where appropriate), lying one on top of the other on top of the other on top of the toboggan. And then taking the hill head-first alongside all of the other, less-adventurous inhabitants of Guildford.

This is not, however, the peak of the excitement! Which came when two girls, probably aged about 9 and 12, come bombing down the hill on their marvellously speedy-weedy 'boggan with metal runners. They see a group of people at the bottom of the hill and decide not to stop, not to change direction, not even to call out, just to keep going and see what happens. If you have never had a sledge go over your leg at full-speed, it is pretty surprising. Not the most comfortable moment of my life, but possibly worth it for the spectacular bruises and hard lump that is still in my leg.

Chuck the Pig is in fine form, as is Rachel, and three cheers for Merrie England.