Going senile...

I seem to be forgetting quite important things these past few days! Yesterday I forgot I was babysitting until half an hour before which meant a lot of rushing a bringing a packed dinner with me (cuppa soup and sandwich with stale bread!). Today was a disaster... but its amused my family so I thought I'd share with you lovely people.

I was supposed to work 12-4, but finished at half 3 because every Monday I do a Maths evening class at 4.30 and I needed to get there. I left home a bit late, and there was a lot of traffic on the road and slow vehicles meaning I was running quite late. I thought I'd take the quick route to the college but it turned out I couldn't turn right off the dual carriage way, so I had to go along the bypass and cut back through the town, doubling the distance as I was going back on myself. Argh. And I'm fairly sure I went the wrong way down a one way street. Oops.

Anyway, I got the college about 10 minutes late, parked up and realised I hadn't actually bought my maths papers and notepad with me, which wasn't essential for the lesson but I was still annoyed.

I noticed there weren't many people around but I figured that was because I was later than usual and everyone must have gone home. It wasn't until I walked into the college and up to the normal classroom and saw it all in darkness that I realised IT'S HALF TERM. I'd travelled half an hour stressing because I was late and forgotten things and IT WASN'T EVEN ON! What a bloomin' fool!

Daisy (my car) benefited because I topped her tank up where the petrol was cheap, and I got some snacks because I hadn't actually had any lunch! I stopped on the way home to eat these at a more scenic spot.. what do you think? Apologies for the poor photo quality.

Please tell me I'm not alone in these slightly geriatric moments...

Winter is coming...

I'm currently sat in the living room at the house where I'm babysitting, and I'm rather chilly! I have no idea where or what heating is on... there's a real fire in front of me but I don't want to light it. So I'm chilly. I've got a jumper and a hoody on but my nose and fingertips are definitely c o l d.

Next to me is a cat curled up on the sofa and a dog curled up on the floor, both are asleep and don't seem bothered by the cold at all.

I've just read a blog post on the wonderful delights of Autumn and my pinterest is full of golden leaves, toffee apples, blankets and pumpkin pie. I'm trying to remind myself Autumn really is great... especially after playing hockey last night in the remnants of Hurricane Gonzalo, hail and all!

The other day I had my first ever Pumpkin Spiced Latte. I would have had one last year but I didn't like coffee then (as my brother said - #firstworldproblems). Starbucks has just opened in Aberystwyth, my nearest civilisation. This is a big deal. They've not long had an escalator (Chris Moyles went on it) so this is huge.

The weather has been amazing. I love it when it gets a bit wild. Mark and I parked up and watched an amazing lightening storm over cardigan bay the other night. The showery weather has produced some awesome billowy clouds which makes sunsets all the more dramatic. I was so excited to dig out my warm tartan scarf that I got last year! It is most definitely winter woolies weather now.

Talking of winter woolies - its fluffy socks season! Here's my pinterest Cosy board for all things warm, fluffy and toasty! I have a seperate board for woolly jumpers.

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What do you love or hate about autumn? Hopefully the positives outweigh the negatives!

Looking up! #EducatingHannah

Since I was about 15 I've considered Speech & Language Therapy as a career. I did my degree in Linguistics to get a taster for what's involved (academically) and to give me more time to decide if it is really what I want to do. Now having looked at various courses - I'm applying! There are masters courses available but they are a lot more competitive and intense so I will apply for one on the off chance, but I'm also applying for 3-4 year undergraduate courses.

For some of these courses I'll need a B in GCSE Maths. I currently have a C so (after putting it off for 6 years) I am finally taking a course to re-sit and hopefully up my grade! This is all good in theory but now looking at the material I have no idea what I'm doing or how to do it... but we'll see how it goes! Bring on BBC Bitesize!

I've registered for a few open days which I'm quite excited about! I went to loads when I originally applied after leaving school.. its a great way to explore the cities aswell as the universities..

Today I started filling in my UCAS application... I can't believe I'm doing it all over again! And there's no guarentee I'll even get any offers and I'll be back to square one. I've got to get references and write the dreaded personal statement..argh! I keep thinking is it all really worth it, but IF YOU NEVER TRY YOU'LL NEVER KNOW.

Friday Five

Here's a little round up of what I've been loving this week :) The picture is sunset in my boyfriend's village - not bad! 

1. Jess's post on why 16 & 17 year olds should vote is really powerful and she offers up some good debates! It's a bit different from your average #ootd blog post- well worth a read! 

2. Kirsty's post on moving out of her flat - I've read Kirsty's blog for a long time now and I love her writing style, definitely check out her blog if you haven't already.

3. I've just started my new job which I'm really excited about - it's not exactly a graduate job but it's in retail which is a sector I've wanted to work in for a few years now so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes :)

4. Tomorrow I'm off to Manchester to see my friend Ruth, there'll be lots of catching up and shopping to do aaaand we're off to Chester Zoo on Monday - I can't wait! 

5. On Tuesday I walked nearly 5 miles - I wanted to see if I'll be capable of completing Cardiff Half Marathon in a couple of weeks. I entered months ago but didn't really train properly even though I was running regularly in July. I worked in a pub for 2 weeks in August which made me too busy and tired to train and it aggravated an old knee injury so I'm just seeing how my body copes with exercise. The 5 miles I walked was mainly along the beach which was quite hard going on uneven sand but I wasn't in too much pain, so it's an achievement!

What have you been up to?

How NOT to have a clear out - ebay fail!

source via pinterest

What with all the beautiful A/W clothes in the shops I decided to have a clear out so I could fit in some new clothes (and scrape a few pennies together on eBay to afford them). This was a brilliant plan. In theory.

I sorted all my the clothes in my drawers into keep, get rid of, and not sure piles. I put all the stuff in the keep piles back away and sorted the not sure pile into keep and get rid of. Now, the get rid of pile... this was my downfall.

I selected a few nice pieces, took some photos and put them on eBay. I set the auction to end a week from that day.

In the next few days, I gathered together my get rid of stuff and took it to the local charity shop. When I got home I got a notifcation on the eBay app to say someone had bid on one of my items  - a pair of pink jeans. My heart sunk - you can guess what happened!

I checked my room anyway and of course  the pink jeans were nowhere to be seen - they'd been taken to the charity shop!

Although they only had a 99p bid on them, it was still really complicated to try and end the auction as it was less than 12 hours til it ended. I went to the charity shop ready to buy them back but unfortunately they'd already been snapped up. Panic!

Then genius struck - I asked my mum to bid on them for me! I was all for her going on ebay just before the auction ended, but then my boyfriend's dad suggested she put a really high max bid so no-one would bid higher, because who's going to pay £30 for some old jeans? This thankfully worked, and I managed to set the payment options to cash on collection, and the postage to collect in person, so no money was actually exchanged.

I didn't have to send an awkward message to some poor unsuspecting bidder, the charity shop made some money, and I only lose out by having to pay seller fees to eBay, which is only a few pence.

Moral of the story - sort your get rid of pile carefully - remember what you've put on eBay!

A Spiky Selection

So Mark and I have a rather large - and growing - collection of cacti (or cactuseses, whichever). It started with a trip to Ikea a few years ago because we wanted to brighten up our flat, and then there was a trip to a local garden centre a bit later... then a special trip to Wilkos just for a cactus (its an hour away) and finally the latest additions were adopting the babies of my friend's rather large cactus. Unfortunately the orginal prickled member of our collection died. Yes, it is possile to kill a cactus. I think we watered it too much - but we have learned from our mistakes and now we have a thriving little brood.

Now, at the moment they are all in the rather boring little brown pots that they came in. I attempted to make a new pot at pottery for them but it was far too shallow - it was more of a dish really. I'm in the process of making a replacement, but this is them in their temporary accomodation.

 Yes I know the one on the top right is a succulent, not a cactus. As you can see some of them are getting a little a lot too big for their tiny pots, so the sooner I can get their new pot finished the better - hopefully it will turn out well!

I like cactuseses (its more fun too say than cacti) because they look really interesting and they're so easy to care for (if you ignore the fact we killed one). I'm really excited to put them into their new home!

Book Review - Amy & Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson

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I found this book after reading something somewhere along the lines of "If you liked Paper Towns by John Green you might also like..." so I downloaded it onto my kindle after reading the blurb and reviews. It tells the story of Amy and Roger (funnily enough)  who need to get Amy's mother's car from Los Angeles to Connecticut (the width of the USA, I had to look at a map). The two start the book as pretty much strangers, but as you can tell by the cover, they end up together. Although this turn of events is glaringly obvious the whole way through the book, its still a good read, and its not the main focus of the story.

I know its a cliche but the characters embark on a personal journey as well as a literal one - Amy more so than Roger, which makes sense as it is told from her point of view. From quite close to the beginning I guessed the general gist of the big secret that Amy is holding back, as clues are given, but it doesn't come as a surprise when she finally reveals it to Roger later in the story.

A touch I liked is that for each chapter there is a playlist for that section of their trip - I only knew a couple of bands but I'd like to investigate the rest! Its a shame I read it on my kindle rather than as a physical book because its a lot harder to go back and find the pages with the playlists on. A quick search on spotify has found some kind soul has compiled the playlist! Brilliant.

This is my first book review since I was in primary school so I'm not really sure if I've covered all the bases - I hope that the general impression I give is favourable because I really enjoyed it. If anything it makes me want to explore America a bit! I'm very intrigued about Frozen Custard for starters....