Back From The Dead

Hey,

So I haven’t been posting about the last few months because an extortionate amount of things have happened recently. I felt so overwhelmed by everything – good and bad that I didn’t find time to also blog about it!

So, what has happened recently?

1. I am consistently getting Bs and even As in some of my classes in tests! I know this sounds silly but considering how awful my results were, it cheers me up somewhat to know I might be able to fix it.
2. My UCAS application has officially been sent off! I might hear from universities in the new year and the prospect of that is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Like what do I do if I don’t get an offer from any university?! What do I do if I do?! It’s all this bit daunting future that makes me crave my younger years rather a lot. Seems safer in a way but more boring too.
3. We’re getting a puppy! That’s right, December 21st the Stapleton-Bray household are receiving a small pomeranian cross puppy called Comet. In a way it’s rather my fault we’re getting him as a result of some bad stuff that i’ll talk about further on. My Mum started looking at puppy photos to send me to cheer me up and ended up with her looking at actual puppies… and that’s how Comet living with us came to be! We’re very excited and the owner even gave us an advent calendar with ‘Count down to Comet’ written on it, which I think is super sweet.
4. I got work experience in a neonatal baby unit! In October I got to work in the Trevor Mann Baby Unit in Brighton as part of my health and social course work. The entire work was entirely observational as i’m not qualified really to do any serious work (although I did get to hold a baby’s head as she was having a brain scan!) and the staff were lovely too! I learnt so much from the experience such as what causes Jaundice, what the different symbols on the monitors mean and how to treat different diseases. It was easily a highlight of my whole year and definitely went on my personal statement.
5. I saw Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil live in Brighton! On Halloween a friend and I went to go see their tour while we were dressed up as zombies. It was an amazing experience filled with singing, nerdy references and serious laughs. I wish I could relive that whole night again!
6. I also got a Christmas Job! I had an interview on the phone with a lovely lady about a job as a stock room assistant at Debenhams in Worthing. I passed that interview, had an interview in person and have currently have had five shifts and loved all of it! It’s actually quite fun to do ‘picks’ and ‘access’ and the staff are also nice too (even if I got told the children’s section was haunted and that I managed to faceplant in front of customers today!)
7. Comic Con was a thing that happened! In October, he and I went to London Mcm Comic Con and spent the day buying merchandise, meeting cool people such as Tomska and his creators and we saw a ton of cosplayers. I bought many weird and wonderful things from Pop Vinyl’s to a plushie blue alpaca. However, the ride home was less fun as He had a panic attack causing us to miss many trains (not that i’m blaming him!) This caused our parents to think we’d died as we didn’t message straight away and caused this mass hysteria. Luckily, it was resolved pretty quickly.
8. We decorated the house for Christmas! Everything is covered in tinsel and covered in tacky Christmas stuff and I love it. Makes me feel so festive. I even made Christmas cookies with my little sister today in the shape of festive jumpers and bells. The music is also a constant in this house too! Yes, I also have bought presents and given out Christmas cards too.
9. I was nominated for a psychology award! Despite not doing too well in one of the psych exams, my college has decided that I am worthy of an award for it! I’m actually really happy as i’ve been putting in a ton of work recently. We got a new teacher recently as the last one left on maternity leave and he seems to be having a positive effect on our whole class… hopefully it continues!
10. That brings me onto the less great news…. the same day I passed my phone interview I was ecstatic and decided to celebrate by changing into PJs and watching a happy movie. However, this was cut short after He arrived at my house and broke up with me seemingly out of the blue. I mean, I had an inkling it would happen after accidentally reading some unsavoury messages he’d written to friends about another girl and myself… it was this huge mess that caused me to cry myself to sleep. It was awful – everyone was so kind and considerate but I was in serious pain. My Mother being the sweetheart she is, went out and bought me a ton of white chocolate, a milkshake and flowers as if it was her fault. That helped somewhat. Within a few hours of the breakup I started getting messages from Him asking to talk and that he was sorry… It was this huge mess I couldn’t deal with. Talking to him helped but also didn’t. However, I heard him out and decided to forgive him and give him another change (against the advice of practically everyone, ranging from my Mother to random boys at college. In a twisted way, it’s kind of fun to think about). Things are hard at the moment and he’s still talking to the other girl but i’m doing my best to try and let it go and fix things. It’s tough work and i’ve had 0 sleep but on the bright side, i’ve not cried recently. We’ll see how it goes – my friends are adamant i’m going to regret saying yes to him once again but who knows, maybe it’ll work out for the better.

Well, those are the main things that has happened to me recently!

Until next time,

Megan Stapleton

College Commences!

Hey,

So the summer holidays has officially ended now! It ended on a high, with my Dad, brother and I going down to Cornwall for four days to visit relatives. Those four days consisted of beach side walks, eating icecream, visiting an Arcade, a massive family barbecue and playing Cards Against Humanity with my Dad, Uncle, Aunt and cousins (it was equally hilarious and horrifying!)

My Mum also took me to go to my late birthday present at the end of September – going to go see Michael Mcintyre live at Brighton! We went to Eds Diner before hand after turning up far too early and ate burgers and had the best Oreo milkshake we’d ever had. It was so good we ordered a second one! We mooched around Brighton a bit to kill time before the show and visited lots of shops. This gave me lots of Christmas ideas though! The actual show was great, Michael was hilarious and his hair was so out of control he had to borrow a hair clip from an audience member. I’m pretty sure he never gave it back and the best part was the whole show was recorded! It was definitely a great night out for the pair of us. We even saw a double rainbow on the way there.

Now that school has actually started though and i’m in year 13, it’s time to knuckle down once more and get seriously. My remarks have been sent off, my classes have commenced and I already have so much work to do it is unbelievable. On the bright side, my teachers are super supportive. This makes everything a lot easier and means I have a few people I can talk to if I need some extra help.

Well, until next time,

Megan Stapleton

Results

Hey,

I got my results for my AS levels and I have to say, the results are very mixed. If I could have predicted my grades based on past papers and mocks i’d predict i’d get a B in both psychology and sociology, with a D in biology.

However, this didn’t quite work out that way. My actual results were an A in sociology (Which is above what I thought i’d get i’m so happy) and then… two Es. I was shocked mostly at psychology. I’m hoping to get psychology and one bio paper remarked to at least bring the grades up to Ds or even Cs but who knows. My Mum managed to cheer me up by buying me ice cream and cake so it’s all good.

Yesterday was my four year old sisters birthday party. It was held in the Findon town hall and was actually a lot of fun. My Mum hired three people to entertain – The Fairy Luna (she’s from the moon), a Pixie named Teaspoon and a pirate called Seaweed (he was looking for his lost crew apparently). The entertainers were absolutely manic and had all the kids jumping and laughing. All the children took part in the games and seemed to have a lot of fun (even if they terrified me slightly!)

The food spread was impressive. My Mum spent weeks planning and plotting over it all and made it all up the day before. The spread included pizza hearts, Macaroni cheese cupcakes, soft cheese with celery and carrots, sandwiches in the shape of a snake, popcorn, chocolate covered strawberries, various crisps and lots more. My sister had a great birthday where she was ridiculously spoiled and an even better birthday party.

However, on our way home yesterday we heard about the plane crash at Shoreham airport. During a stunt, one of the planes went wrong and crashed on the A27, killing 7 people with 14 injured including the pilot. You hear about these events happening but you never expect them to happen so close to you – luckily nobody I knew was in the crash but I still hope everyone who is in hospital recovers. The entire road apparently needs replacing and there is talk of closing the air show at Shoreham airport completely.

It’s kind of scary.

Well until next time!

Megan Stapleton

Beatlemania

Hey,

So in July I was invited to go see the Bootleg Beatles live for free with my boyfriend and his parents. The only issue with this is – i’ve never really listened to the Beatles music. I accepted anyway and listened to a few songs before I had to leave, finding some of them pretty decent. We had lunch at Harry Ramsdens and then headed off to go wait for the concert to start.

We arrived early and marvelled at the stage, which was apparently almost identical to the set up that the Beatles had in most of their concerts years ago. The impersonators finally came onto stage and the concert started… honestly I enjoyed the whole thing hugely! As mentioned i’d never really listened to the original bands music but I found myself dancing and singing along to the songs I did know, just like the rest of the audience. The impersonations of each of the Beatles was spot on and they even told jokes and made fun of what they were doing throughout the concert, which just made the whole thing more fun.

As they had an orchestra playing with them, they could play a lot of the songs that the original Beatles couldn’t play live due to the sheer number of instruments in the songs which was even more impressive! Everyone seemed to have a great time and the great atmosphere just made the whole thing even more fun. The first person to start dancing surprisingly was a young boy who couldn’t have been older than eight. He ran up to the stage after the first few songs and started dancing, before being joined by what I presume to be his siblings and family. One man even placed him on stage towards the end of the concert but had to be taken down due to the health and safety risk – the actual band didn’t seem to mind and even seemed to be encouraging it! Shows that they have an appreciation for their fans I suppose.

As the concert ended, everyone slowly streamed out. Him, His parents and I all walked back to his house. However, the whole set up was kind of beautiful as it was a literal moonlight beach walk along the pier, with fairy lights and the faint sound of music from a fair of some kind. I then slept over at his for the night (have to say, it’s weird sleeping in a boys room!). The day after, He and I strolled into Worthing town where we had Thorntons Icecream (which is delicious, I ended up with an extra scoop for free by accident too!), did some window shopping, sat in the park and even saw Inside Out! I loved the film as it was highly engaging and was an interesting concept – even if it did get really dark in places throughout the film!

This month I also took part in volunteering between my local family center and a nursery. I took part in activities that ranged from assisting in the daycare, designing posters, helping in weighing clinic, helping to run Play and Learn sessions, laminating, helping to make ‘scanning passports’, assisting in events outside of the nursery to raise awareness of school transitions and the stresses it brings and helping in a Bumps and Babies session. The whole two weeks were highly enjoyable although also very tiring due to the running around after children! I got some really good experience I can talk about on my Personal Statement and even have made connections with the community, which I can use as a reference for future work! I’m glad I took part and am tempted to even do it again some time!

A Busy July

Hey,

So a lot has happened recently! July has been such a busy month I haven’t been able to post as much as usual so i’ll do it all in one big update post!

I had a health and social care summer school at the start of this month, where I spent three days exploring different health and social care professions, eating far too much food and getting to know the different Brighton University campuses. I had a blast and have decided I am definitely applying to Brighton Uni – I loved the campus, the food was great and the teachers were interesting and engaging! Highlights of my time at the summer school included a game of rounders up in the downs, a quiz complete with lots of food and friends, a medical simulation with a robot who had diabetes who hadn’t taken their meds and a trip into Brighton where we had a meal at Donatello’s with friends. The entire experience was interesting and engaging and even included activities such as student finance sessions and personal statement writing lectures. We graduates wearing actual graduation gowns from the uni and holding our certificates.

The next big activity that’s happened this month was Activities Week. This happened last week and was five days filled with activities designed to ‘encourage the interaction of different year groups and help the community’. One of the activities we took part in was tyre painting. The tyres would then be filled with soil and flowers planted in them, so they could decorate our college. However, the tyres had been left all the way down three flights of stairs and naturally the department that needed them was on the top floor. Myself and several other sixth formers had to be ‘trained’ to lift tyres so we could assist in the transporting the tyres. Another day we took part in litter picking at our local beach – although beneficial to our community it was rather boring and cold. However, i’m glad I took part as the beach looked significantly more clean after we had visited. On Wednesday we took part in a nine mile walk along the Downs to fundraise for a new basketball court with our entire chapter. The actual walk was super fun as I made friends with different year groups and had a hilarious conversation with some younger years about dogs. However, my legs were killing by the end of the day and my skin was seriously sunburnt. On Thursday we took part in ‘International day’ where we spent the day learning about immigration, human rights and about a trip to Uganda and how different cultures live. It was a hugely interesting day and highly engaging with races, trying African foods and learning about new cultures. The Friday was spent at Lancing College, where we visited the working farm there and met the animals, watched a ram escape it’s cage, had a picnic, had a treasure hunt and spent the rest of the day relaxing in the sun. All in all, activities week was chock full of things to do that benefited both the pupils and the community – however, it wasn’t half exhausting though!

This last week was the last day at college before breaking up for summer and included PSHCE day where we spent the day creating UCAS applications and reworking our personal statements and Sports Day, where the sixth form mostly just spectated. Wednesday, however was my birthday.

My birthday started early – my sister was stomping around on a form of war path at around 6:30. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I spent the next half an hour in bed reading Harry Potter and being all snuggled up in bed. I finally got out of bed at 7am, where I came downstairs to boiled egg and dib dibs (our way of saying boiled eggs and soldiers) which is one of my favourite breakfasts. After eating, I opened all my cards and opened two little presents. The presents were two Lush products – a face mask that smells like cupcakes and a sea salt body scrub! Both smell amazing and I couldn’t wait to use them both. After I ran upstairs to get ready, we headed to school for my half day. I had some smaller presents from friends – mainly chocolate at college. One friend even turned up at break despite going to a different college to print me Dominoes cookies and a book as presents. Like, how sweet is that? I was even awarded a five pound Amazon gift voucher for having over 100 green cards (our reward system) which I plan to use to cut my book spending bill! The rest of the school day was a blur of small parties, laughing at an inflated dinosaur and a leaving assembly full of music and many speeches.

I stayed behind after the assembly to say goodbye to my tutor, who has now left. My tutor has supported me hugely the past three years and I even felt myself getting teary at her leaving. It’s really sad that she has left but hopefully now I have an opportunity to build new relationships with other teachers.

After college, I got a lift back to my house, where I was promptly informed I could not open any of my presents until six O’clock as we’re going to do that after our party food dinner at home. I have to admit, I got a bit grumpy at this and headed up to my room where I tried to kill time by reading books, tidying my room and playing on my 3DS. I started to feel desperately bored – He wasn’t even going to be able to come over as his parents had him doing chores all day and he couldn’t get away. Mum suddenly told me that plans had changed and that instead of party food we were going over to my Nan’s house for a barbecue and presents. This cheered me up as I love my Nan’s house, however time still dragged on.

Six O’clock finally arrived and we all grabbed our things, then hopped into the car. I felt excited as finally I could see all my family and celebrate my birthday properly! However, Mum then slowed the car in Worthing and said we had to make a slight detour as she had to make a quick delivery. We all hopped out the car and she grabbed a white box and indicated where we all needed to head. We walked slowly to the destination and the only thing was when food was going to be ready as I was hungry. I was so distracted by internal struggle for food and not wanting to seem ungrateful that I didn’t notice my Aunt, Uncle and Him crossing the road quickly just ahead of us.

We stopped outside a mexican restaurant called Tex Mex where I was promptly informed that ‘You are the delivery!’ and my family and Him were all revealed to me! There was a lot of hugging and yelling ‘surprise!’ that I was completely blown away. We finally headed into the venue, where we were seated at a ten seater table and told to sit still while our waitress grabs menus. There is no other way to describe it – Tex Mex was busy! The walls were covered in glass bottle clocks, odd posters and paintings, lizards stuck to the wall and even a chalk board with ‘Happy birthday Megan!’ written on it. I was completely over stimulated and a bit in shock still. My Nan arrived just before the waitress appeared and did the obligatory happy birthday comment. We ordered drinks and suddenly my Dad arrived, looking a bit wind swept and sat next to me. Turns out he’d driven for three hours to come see me on my birthday! That’s adorable.

With everyone here, we ordered starters and drinks – I had a Havana Banana (non alcoholic cocktail that tasted more like a fancy banana milkshake to be honest), nachos as my starter and a spicy chicken burrito. Oh my gosh, the food was delicious! There was so much spice in the food that your nose burned every time the waitress brought more food through and it was all so filling! In between eating and chatting with everyone, I opened my presents. The highlights included MCM October Comic Con tickets, pretty jewellry and lots of books i’d been after!

After food had been eaten and our plates were taken away, a waitress gave us the dessert menu. My Mum quickly grabbed them all back and handed them back to her, then whispering something to her. I didn’t think much of this at the time as I was too busy telling the story about the inflatable dinosaur at my college. Moments later, a huge cake is carried through by the members of staff, with the whole restaurant singing ‘Happy birthday’ to me. I started laughing so much from a mixture of shock and embarrassment that I started crying (how ridiculous, right?). The cake was shaped like a huge book, with a miniature version of myself sat on top of it, leaning against a mug of green tea. I blew out the candles and a chorus of whistles and ‘Yaaaay’s echoed throughout the restaurant.

We then all dug in and honestly, it was delicious. However, I was too full from all the food i’d eaten that day to truly appreciate my slice of cake, so I couldn’t finish it.

A final surprise for the evening was that He was sleeping over! We paid our bill and carried all the presents into the back of my Dad’s car and spent the evening cuddled up in PJs and watching Guardians of the Galaxy. I was so exhausted by the end of the evening that I crashed almost instantly once I was comfortable. My whole birthday was amazing – I was spoiled rotten by my family and friends and got to see everyone who was important to me!

The morning after, He and I spent our time eating Macarons, chilling out in bed and chatting. It was really a nice way to wake up in the morning – no big rush until about 1 where I had a BBQ with a bunch of friends. Once he’d been dropped off back at his house, Mum and I stopped off into Onestop to grab some food for dinner and to contribute to the BBQ and then headed on our way.

However, then a car came out of nowhere and we crashed. It was rather terrifying – we could have been badly hurt considering the speed the other car was going! Luckily, besides my Mum’s hurt shoulder nobody was seriously injured. Even the cars weren’t too badly damaged – just a few dents and scratches on both parties. Once the issue of the crash was sorted and the insurance details were sorted, I was dropped off at my friend’s house.

I arrived at her house with hands full of two bags of Doritos and shaking slightly, however I got over it pretty quickly once i’d sat down and relaxed. I was given some more presents-  two bars of Cadbury’s chocolate, a time turner necklace and a hot air balloon model, which was really sweet! We then spent the afternoon eating food, playing dorky board games involving Logos, Charades and modelling with clay and relaxing in the sun. It was a really fun afternoon!

Just before we were going to start the next game, a few of my friends whom I hadn’t even realised had run off had reappeared, carrying a giant Jammy Dodger cake/biscuit. She didn’t have any proper candles so was just holding a smaller candle which I blew out. I was once again, blown away. The Jammy Dodger was delicious and totally filling – i’m stuffed beyond belief and don’t think i’ll need to be eating for a while now!

All in all, this month so far has been hugely positive. I’ve made new friends, helped the community, had a surprise party with all my family and then even got another meet up with some of my closest friends! It sounds cheesy, but i’ve really learnt how truly spoilt I am for friends and amazing people now. Hopefully, the rest of this month is just as positive!

Well, i’m dying my hair blue tomorrow, and I start volunteering next week! Busy as ever…

Until next time!

-Megan

Natural History Museum (AKA The Dinosaur Museum)

Hey,

So recently my three year old sister has been completely obsessed with the ‘Dinosaur Museum’ after she heard about it on tv a while back. She talked about it fairly non-stop and was bringing it up at every opportunity. She was absolutely delighted when my Mum said we could go to the ‘Dinosaur Museum’ in the Easter holidays.

We went yesterday and honestly it was a lot of fun! We had a fairly stress free morning and left when we felt ready. We arrived at the station with just enough time to buy our tickets and jump on our train straight to London Victoria straight away with little delay. My sister had never been on a train before so she was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement until she settled to just watch everything pass by in a blur. The journey there also passed in a blur of reading, playing with my sister and chatting with my Mum and brother.

Once we got to London we asked a guard for help and got directed to the Kensington train that drops you off pretty much outside the museum. We arrived at the platform and the tube train was there straight away, meaning we had to all hurry on. My sister was still as fascinated by train but was perfectly behaved the entire way there.

We quickly reached our destination after two stops and had to walk through this tunnel decorated with advertisements on the walls and a man singing with his guitar. My sister was nodding along to the music as we passed him.

Outside the tunnel was the museum pathway. The queue was huge! Seems like everyone else had the same idea we did. Fortunately, the queue moved quickly enough so it wasn’t too bad.  My sister was in awe of the building that stood in front of her – it was probably the biggest building shes ever seen. She kept pointing out things on the building such as stone lion heads and patterned walls.

Once inside the museum we headed to the cafe to have our lunch then headed to the ‘blue’ section to go look at the marine animals, human biology and dinosaurs section. However, we struggled to find the dinosaur section so we walked around the other exhibits at a leisurely pace. The highlights involved a huge blue whale hanging from the ceiling, going into the human biology section and actually knowing all the information and comparing our weight to various animals on this set of scales.

We finally found our way to the dinosaur exhibit but the queue had swelled to fill up most of the main entrance. This meant we stood in a queue for at least half an hour. By this point, our legs were starting to ache from all the walking.

We finally got inside the exhibit just to find we had to queue up even more to walk up over this bridge that overlooked all the dinosaur exhibitions. This took at least another ten minutes but everyone seemed entranced by all the dinosaur models. Lot of people were trying to pronounce the names of these various dinosaurs and were comparing their size to them.

Once over the bridge you walk past this large animatronic tyrannosaurus rex that roared and seemed to stare at everyone that walked past. I think that was one of my sisters favourite parts as she actually squealed with delight and ran up to the side of the barrier, waving furiously.

Once outside of the T-rex section we could go walk around the exhibits on the floor at our own pace. There were different sections talking about things such as how dinosaurs bred, the plants around at that time period, how various scientists think the dinosaurs became extinct and why and the archaeological process in discovering bones. Honestly, although it wasn’t my  favourite exhibit in the museum it was very interesting to see.

By this point it was getting somewhat late. After a quick trip to the gift shop we headed outside to have an ice-cream and a drink before heading back to the station.

Once we were off the tube and back at Victoria, we arrived at the station with literally minutes before the train we needed to get on was due to leave. This meant we all had to run like crazy to try and reach the train before it departed (the next train wasn’t for another twenty minutes and we needed to get home to put dinner in the oven). My sister ran as fast as she could, still clutching the rubbish she had in her hand. She even ran faster than my nearly fifteen year old brother!

Luckily we got onto the train just in time and all collapsed into our seats, all absolutely exhausted. We met this lovely older couple who were sat opposite us who commented on my sister and how bright she was. My Mum was practically radiating pride off of her.

We finally arrived back at Lancing station. My Mum reached into her pockets to grab her keys just to find… they weren’t there. Panic set in and led to Mum tipping the entire contents of her bag onto the side of the platform, to no avail. It wasn’t there. We ran to the train station office to see if the keys had been handed in… and they had. By the lady who served us and printed out our tickets that same morning. Apparently they had been found outside the station! My Mum was so thankful and would have hugged the man who gave the keys to her if the barrier wasn’t in the way.

How lucky. The timings on the train were just about perfect, we found all the exhibits we wanted to look at and we retrieved lost keys. What a day!

Well, until next time,

-Megan

Stress, exams and…blue hair?

Hey,

So it’s just over a week until we break up for Easter and… oh my goodness I am scared. Not because of the actual two weeks. If anything i’m looking forward to those. The part that is freaking me out quietly is the fact that my exams start so quickly afterwards. Even then, once we’re back once my actual exams start, five out of six As level exams are over in two weeks. That’s terrifying.

I’m probably gonna start revising every day of the Easter half term for at least an hour, if not more. I may even start staying after school at college once we’re back to try and get more work in. It’s just so much information I have to cram into my little brain – so many details. It’s going to be interesting to see how I cope with this considering I was awful during GCSE (but I DID have sixteen exams. I now I have six. If all goes well, next year i’ll have four!)

This is the plan, anyway. Hopefully I stick to it. When it gets to exam period and the stress really hits (54 days until my first one) I can’t think of anything but revision. I even feel guilty when I take a day off of revision or even just have a free moment if i’m not solidly working. I just about survived the madness the last two years…

On to more general life, things are about to get really busy. Thursday is the experiment for my actual biology ISA experiment and then i’m going to go see Hairspray with the school. The following week I have my parents evening, His birthday, our three years and potentially seeing relatives to all cram in to the space of a few days.

I can’t see Him on His actual birthday as he has an interview for his ideal college that lasts several hours as it involves some form of examination and then on our anniversary i’m potentially going to be in Selsey visiting family. God knows how that’ll work. I still need to work on His present, now I think about it…

My family life is where everything goes a bit chaotic. My Mum and sister’s father are constantly arguing and it’s making life more miserable for everyone. Furthermore, my Dad hates his job and wants to quit but isn’t sure about where he’ll get the financial stability though. I never really mention my parents in this but it’s just adding stress from worrying about what’s going to happen in the future. The funny thing is, they get along better now than they ever did married. It’s strange.

In other, less dramatic news, I am going to hopefully dye my hair bubblegum blue in the summer! It’ll only be temporary dye as i’m scared to dye my hair but hey it’s going to be a change for a little while. That’ll probably happen in the Summer holidays… so not for a while yet.

Well, this is going to get hectic.

Until next time,

-Megan!

What a Wicked day

Hey,

So as a late, joint birthday present, my Aunt bought tickets to the musical Wicked for my mother and I. And yesterday we actually went to see the show! I’ve always wanted to see Wicked live and it was even better than I thought it would be!

The day started out with an hour long car journey to South Hampton with my Mum, Aunt, Nan and I. It was cramped, but I was with some of my favourite people so the time flew by.

Once we’d parked up and made the appropriate jokes about being parked in 2B (or not 2B, that is the question) we strolled into this ginormous mall. The show wasn’t on until 2PM, so we had some time to kill. We spent an hour and a half exploring this maze of a mall, buying books, trying on silly hats and masks, taking selfies, and eating heart sweets my Nan had bought for us all. It was fun. I was even gifted a new blue travel mug by my Mum, which I was very pleased about! (she’d broken my last one before i’d gotten to use it. I had not been amused,)

For lunch, my Nan took us to the restaurant my aunt had recommended – Yo! Sushi. None of us besides my aunt had never been there before and with the question ‘who doesn’t love food on a conveyer belt?’ replaying in our heads, we took the plunge. It was literally Japanese food on a conveyer belt on coloured plates, The colours correlated with different prices – for example food on green plates were just under two pound each whereas a pink plate was closer to six pounds. We were all a bit anxious about picking the first meal off of the conveyer belt but once we had we couldn’t stop! We could also see the food being made from where we sat, which was interesting. The whole experience was bizarrely quite fun. the food was delicious and I definitely wanted to go again. My favourite meal I tried was either the pumpkin karroke or the chocolate mochi. Plus how can you go wrong with free refills of traditionally made green tea?

I did accidentally pick up something off the conveyer belt which contained fish, which was not very nice. Ah well.

After a slight detour to the Cath Kidston shop, we finally left to walk to the Mayflower theatre. It was raining quite heavily so we half ran half held onto each other – it’s a miracle nobody slipped over!

We arrived at the theatre, bought a programme and sat at our seats. Que more selfies and excited chatter. My aunt then produces these premade tubs of pick and mix sweets and hands them out to us, prettily decorated. They contained a mix of M&Ms, smarties, Malteasers, and jelly babies. It was really very delicious and sweet. The lights then dimmed and the show commenced.

Honestly there was nothing I could fault about Wicked. The songs were catchy, the costumes dazzling, the storyline was emotional but also entertaining and engaging and it really showed the characters in a different light. It even explained the back stories of the tin man, the lion and the scarecrow. I loved every second of it and would happily watch it again.

On the way back to the car, it was still raining heavily. I managed to convince my relatives to let me explore the local Disney store, which I loved. Classic Disney songs played, I fell in love with a Stitch plush from Lilo and Stitch (one of my favourite Disney films ever), I nerded out with a Disney employee over their film display… it was great. My aunt even bought me a Nutella hot chocolate from a smoothie joint in the mall, which was absolutely delicious.

In the car journey home, I realised that even with travel sickness, I did not want the day to end. It had been a great day and not one i’m going to forget any time soon.

Well, that has been the end of my very Wicked day! I enjoyed every second of it and i’m proud I now understand the references my musical-obsessed friends are making!

I get my GCSE certificates on Tuesday. I’m actually pretty excited.

I even went to the fireworks with a group of friends and Him on bonfire night! We went on far too many rides, ate too much cotton candy and felt our feet turn numb as the evening progressed but it was a great evening spent with friends.

My Mother, aunt and I just before Wicked started!

My Nan and Mum just outside the mall.

Until next time,

Megan Stapleton

Ill over Easter

Hey,

So if you hadn’t guessed from the title, I was ill over Easter. Only for twenty four hours – but my goodness it sucked. 

I woke up at ten to six in the morning, and was very confused as to why I woke up so early. Then, I felt I was going to be sick, and bolted out of my bedroom and puked into the bathroom. I was sick 6-10 times over the progression of the day, and it was definitely not fun. My mum needed to go work and couldn’t get off of it, so I was home alone with my brother for several hours during the day. I spent most of the day on Netflix, sleeping or drinking bottle after bottle of water. I tried to eat some food but threw basically everything up. It was only as dinner came around I was feeling hungry. I managed to keep down some homemade vegetable soup and in three parts, ate one portion. I also managed to eat two satsumas. 

By the end of the day, I felt a lot better. I could move around, I was keeping food down and I wasn’t hot and cold at the same time. 

However, I unwittingly managed to pass my illness onto the people around me, even though I only came downstairs for food. My brother got it after me, then my half sister, then her father, and finally my mum over the course of several days. However, we’re all healthy (ish) now. 

I spent Easter day eating little chocolate, not wanting to possibly set of my stomach. I  can eat as much as I want now – even if it’s not productive to my healthy-eating diet. Ah well. 

To celebrate Easter, I spent today at His house, watching movies. We watched Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and almost all of World War Z. It was a really relaxed afternoon/evening. I also had dinner at his house, and had mushroom rice and these meatball things in a really nice sauce, with carrots. For afters, we had some of our Easter presents to each other. He got me a Smarties easter egg. Me, like the organised person I am, completely forgot to get him anything until it was too late, and once I realised, I had no money. I had to beg my Mum to give me some money, so I could run up to the local corner shop and go buy him a replacement (massive bag of Malteasers and one bag of Tangfastics). I really enjoy going over to his house. It’s cosy – however, it’s weird being in a boys bedroom. It’s almost like watching a National Geographic documentary, where you watch the animals in their natural habitat. He was a perfect gentleman and even insisted on carrying my drinks for me, and my dinner. 

School tomorrow, and exams are looming ever closer. Aaaaah. I’m so worried about exams – revising for an hour doesn’t seem like enough really. I might do two hours a day now, as it’s closer.

Until next time!

-Megan

 

 

Camping in the New Forest

Hi,

So Friday afternoon, my brother, father and I packed up our Motorhome (Maisie) and headed off to the New Forest. I haven’t been to the New Forest in years – last time I went I must have been about 8-9. 

Only problem with the New Forest? 

Horses. Horses EVERYWHERE. That is something someone with a very mild/fear of horses does not appreciate. Luckily, none were at the camp we were staying at. They were down the road a bit. 

The actual trip was really relaxing. We got to the camp site after about an hour (I revised on the way) and quickly set up at our chosen pitch. However, we had to move as we had unknowingly parked in an area that was off limits. We repacked the van and moved the van. The campsite itself was massive – very grassy and with trees dotted around the place. The first half a day was more a chance to relax. We set up, had a barbeque and amused ourselves until bed (my brother made a very big point of asking for Dad to pay for internet access for the few days we were there. Only problem was, one person could use it at a time – so we had to alternate between an hour per person.

The second day, we woke up, got ready and drove into the closest town for an explore. We went for a family walk around this forest-y area and explored a bit. Only a few horses were spotted and they didn’t approach us, so all was fine. We walked for about half an hour, realised we hadn’t a clue where we were going and doubled back, and headed to the closest pub for a pub lunch. 

After a really nice pub lunch (I had pasta with garlic bread), we had a look around the main town. There were four shops relating to witches, two pubs, a bicycle rental shop, an icecream stall and a model car shop. It was rather peculiar. It was rather fun to have a poke round the weird witchy-related shops. There were so many as a white witch apparently used to live in the vicinity, but after gaining unwanted media attention, she moved to the USA. 

We had an ice-cream each then headed back to Maisie and went back to the site. We did get a little lost on the way back, though. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the camp site, at the park, reading and revising. We had another barbeque for dinner that went slightly pear shaped as the cool box that had all of the meat in it had actually been on heat mode, so a lot of it was unusable. 

We headed back home today around midday in no great rush. It took us an extra hour to get home due to traffic, but nobody really minded. 

While it wasn’t the most exhilarating holiday i’ve ever been on, our weekend trip to the New Forest, while boring at some points due to a lack of things to do, was certainly relaxing…. even if a lot of it was spent revising. 

Until next time!

-Megan