It's Just Not Cricket!

Ok, to start off with I'd like to say how cool it is to be sat in cafe nero on my own computer using the wireless network. It's so good to be able to use my mac again after a month of annoying PC's!

Anyway, last night went out with a couple of friends to the pub. Apparently the latest craze with these particular friends is to play darts. Now, I've never played much darts but I have dabbled and since with my competitive instincts I realised that there were three of us and that (as far as I knew) only two people play darts at a time, I was hoping to be able to avoid complete humiliation by simpy, gracefully, allowing them to play while I watched.
No such luck.
They introduced me to a game called cricket (which has very little to do with the real game I might add) and unfortunately, this game can be played by three people. One person 'bowls' by throwing three darts, if they hit the bullseye, the 'batsman' they are bowling at is out and becomes the bowler. The batsman then gets to score in the usual darts way before the bowler then gets to bowl at the other batter. The first person to get to a pre-determined score is the winner. And, through a combination of sheer luck and a bit of skill... ok just through sheer luck, I won the first game! And was then rightfully destroyed in every other game we played.
It feels like I'm starting to find my feet in London now. Or at least, I've found the dart board.

We apologise for the delay...

To start with, an apology, I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I actually wrote anything on my blog. This is mainly because my last few weeks have been completely mad.

I spent half my last week in Sheffield staying at my sisters and her husbands in Derby. Which was nice, but fairly uneventful. Although we did spend a day at Alton Towers, which was the worst trip to Alton Towers I’ve ever been on. It now costs £30 to get in and it was so busy that for my 30 quid I got to go on 6 rides and spent 2 and a half hours in one queue. When I got back, I had two days to sort all my stuff out for my move to Putney, London. So how did I sped that time? Packing and sorting? No. I spent those two days going out with my friends, watching the first Ashes test and sanding down a bench for my Nan. All this meant that, on Friday night, having been cooked for by Tina’s boyfriend (who is a wonderful chef by the way) and going out with Zoe and some of her work friends in Chesterfield and getting in at about 2:00 I had to then sort all my stuff out before leaving at 9:00 the next morning. I did have a great night out though. At one point we were in a place called the beach bar which served its beer in neon pink pint glasses, which I wasn’t a particular fan of, but they played some excellently cheesy music (think the blues brothers, madness, los lobos, early Beatles) and then we went to a club where Zoe’s friend blagged us all into the VIP section so it was all a lot of fun.

I am now writing this sat in my new favourite coffee shop on Putney high street. It makes great coffee and has internet access, which is great since the place that I’m living at the moment doesn’t. It’s wonderful, strange and weird to be back in London. I’m staying with my best friend and his wife, which I was worried would be awkward, but so far (after 4 days) hasn’t been. I start my new Youthwork job next Wednesday and at the moment I’m looking for a second job somewhere, although hopefully got one lined up at a local pub, just waiting to hear back from them. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say really at the moment. It all feels very much like a new start, just not sure what it’s the start of yet.

And I promise to try and update my blog more often now I’m a bit more settled, if nothing else it’s a good excuse to have a good cup of coffee.

Crickets, Bombs and Mobile Phones

Yesterday was a strange day.
I went to my Auntie and Uncles. I did this for a couple of reasons. Firstly because when I'm in Sheffield I have to go and see them, and secondly, if I am going to see them I might as well take advantage of the fact that they have Sky Sports and go on a day when I can watch England again beat Australia at cricket, which we did. However, at about 10:30, as the news came in about the bombs in London the day took a distinctive turn for the worse. I knew that where the bombs went off was no where near where any of my friends or family live or work. I knew that most of them would have been either at work or in bed at that time in the morning. But my immediate reaction was to worry about them. It wasn't until I'd heard from them that the whole weight of what had happened hit. I'd been lucky, but there would be people that weren't and that wouldn't be able to get through to their friends and family. But after realising this, I turned back over and watched the cricket. There just didn't seem to be anything else to do.

I've also got to say that, despite my moaning about him in the past, Tony Blair has done nothing but impress me over the last few days. His chairmanship and diplomacy in the G8 summit has led to some great results for Africa. Ok, there's still along way to go with both fair trade and the environment, but 50 billion in less restricted aid and a commitment that everyone will have access to Aids medication by 2010 is fantastic. As is the commitment to continue talks on trade and the environment. But not only has our Prime Minister done this, but he has reacted to the bombing with dignity, compassion and a determination to do the right thing at the same time as not allowing the terrorists to disrupt the G8 meeting. For the first time in a while, I was proud that he was our Prime Minister.

Today has been a relaxing, ok, lazy day. I've listened to some good music. Talked to some good friends, and been given a free phone upgrade by Orange, which I'm sadly excited about.

Back in Sheffield

I'm back in Sheffield now. Sat in the room I grew up in, the walls still decorated with the blue and white paint I chose when I was 10, along with the border of ships and planes that I thought was great 16 years ago. But there the similarity to the room I grew up in ends. It's now more of a store room with a bed and my Mum and Dad's computer in it than anything else. And I'm having to use that computer since my powerbook won't connect to their aol service and if you try and do more than one thing on it at a time, it crashes. Which made one of my friends comment that it is obviously a bloke! If this is true, then maybe I finally understand what you women have to put with from us, since this is now the third time I've tried to write this entry and each time I tried to coax a bit more life out of it, it crashed. If this is what it's like to try and cope with a bloke, I can only apologise.

The trip from Edinburgh to Sheffield went fine. Alastiar kindly drove me and my small amount of possessions in the Granton Minibus and Sam and Hannah kindly kept us company on our road trip. It was all good, if tinged with the usual boredom of long distance driving, which was relieved with a bizarre game where we listened to Hannah's ipod and had to mime to the others the lyrics of the song so they could try and guess what it was, especially funny when Hannah tried it!

It's very strange suddenly having absolutely nothing to do. No essays (hurrah!), no clubs, no meetings, no work, nothing. All I have to do is lie in and catch up with friends, so it's obviously going to be a hard three weeks! The boredom is of course put off since I get to talk to some wonderful people, both here and in the strange world of msn.

Last night I got to go out with two of those wonderful people, Tina and Zoe. We went to the forum, which I love, for some Salsa dancing, which I in no way love. Don't get me wrong, I love the music, I just have an ineptness at dancing that is surprising considering the great sense of rhythm I have when it has nothing to do with dancing. Luckily though, Zoe wasn't particularly excited about the dancing, and Tina, whose idea it was, was still too tired from her previous night out to do anything but sit, drink and chat. Which we did, and had great fun. I won't recount the conversation, but I will give you my favourite (anonymous) quote of the night:
"I always used to hear my parents having sex, just not with each other!"

A Middle, End and Beginning

Yesterday it felt like we were in the middle of something.
And when I say we, I mean we in one of the wider senses of the word. I mean we as in 'we are the world'. As I walked with 200'000 people round the streets of Edinburgh, as I got home and watched live8 unfold on the television, as I listened to Kofi Annan look out across Hyde Park and say simply 'this is the true United Nations, thank you', as I watched two of my heroes, U2 and Paul McCartney sing together and heard U2 again sing 'One' like a prayer, a statement, a judgement and a vision of the future. As I experienced all those things, I knew that there were millions of people around the world who were feeling the same thing. And what we were feeling was that we were in the middle of something. We were in the middle of history. We were in the middle of a unique situation where 'we the people' were, in Will Smith's words, recognising that we needed to be interdependent and were taking responsibility for what goes on in the world. I don't know how much yesterday wil change what happens. But if democracy is truly the leaders following the will of the people, admittedly idealistic I know, but if that is true, then the people have spoken. Let's hope Blair, Bush, Putin, Martin, Chirac, Schroeder, Berlusconi and Koizumi were listening.

Today was the end of my two year residence in Granton. It's been a weird kind of day. Helped with the end of term bbq at club where I spent my time dj-ing from my laptop, spent all afternoon packing then went to my 'surprise' fair well that had been so well put together by my friends. They gave me a t-shirt that had a photoshopped Spiderman 2 poster where they'd replaced half of my face with Toby Maguire's on the ripped half of the mask (I'll try and get a photo). Felt sad to be leaving today. Still have some great friends here and I still care about the work that's going on in Granton very much. I don't regret my decision but I felt sadder at the end of today than I thought I would, despite a great evening.

Tomorrow's a new beginning though. It's almost like I'm starting from zero again. Sure I'm moving back with friends, but they've all moved on in the past couple of years and yes they're still my friends but it's going to be a new dynamic, especially now so many of them are married. Going to spend a great 3 weeks in Sheffield first though, catching up with friends and having a proper summertime like in the 6th form days, even if everyone else will be working! So the next few weeks are all about new beginnings and old friends.