Magic and Macaroons

On the phone to my friend last night I was told to update my blog. So Janine, this is for you.

I blame the latest lapse in posts to the fact that after spending an entire day staring at a computer screen I don't tend to want to do the same when I get home. Lately I can go 2-3 days without turning my laptop on, which is actually quite refreshing! Today though, I had the day off work, which was pretty exciting. The only thing about having a day off in the week is that everyone else still has to go to work, so I needed to find things to occupy myself. I decided that I would spend the first part of the day watching a bit of daytime tv whilst I thought about what to do with the rest of my day. Naturally, as it was the morning, I watched This Morning. On the programme today was a woman you could deem as ‘morbidly obese’ telling Eamonn and Ruth how she spends her evenings sitting on her bed eating cakes whilst on webcam. Not only that, but men can watch her doing this as the way she eats cakes is so ‘sexy’ that some men see it as a kind of porn... All very strange and just the kind of thing I watch This Morning for.

After all the excitement of This Morning I decided I would do some baking. Only after I had watched Neighbours, of course. I was distraught upon watching Neighbours to discover that Susan and Karl have split up, again. I’m hoping they’ll be back together by the next time I watch it because if Susan and Karl can’t make it then what hope is there for the rest of us?!

Anyway, I ended up baking some macaroons whilst listening to Magic. (Will anyone ever find out who the third Magic's Mystery Voice belongs to?!) As the photos show my macaroons aren't quite as pretty and delicate as the ones that can be found pretty much any where else, (even France) but I'm pretty proud of my first attempt. Though I don't think I'll be signing up for The Great British Bake Off any time soon...

I wonder if the This Morning cake eating woman also enjoys macaroons...

I was also baking until 11.30 last night trying to make a 'congratulations' cake for my sister. However, it went a bit wrong and all I ended up with was an apricot sponge and icing all over my arms. I’m beginning to think that when I have a house of my own I will be one of those people who always has something baking on the off-chance that someone will pop in. By 'one of those people' I mean a grandma. 

Icing sugar on my skirt, just to prove I made them myself. 

I'll post again soon and hopefully about something a little less bake-y and a little more interesting! 

Autumn

Autumn is one of my favourite seasons (second only to Spring). It might be the season of perpetual drizzle, grey mornings and the 'do I need to wear a coat?' dilemma, but it is also the season of knitted jumper wearing, good television programmes and the excuse to stay in and watch said programmes! 

Without wanting to sound like Pollyanna, here are some of the things that are currently bringing a smile to my face this Autumn:

• Having a newly qualified hairdresser sister – hello, free haircuts for life;
• Finally seeing a genuine famous person on the tube – it doesn’t matter if he’s now in Holby City, he was once in Harry Potter, Lost in Austen AND Spooks!;
• Long phone calls with faraway friends;
• Photographing everything, you can never have enough photos of Tower Bridge;
• Writing - I’m not very good at sleeping so instead I write, doesn't really solve the being tired problem though...;
• Typewriters;
• Being greeted most mornings with ‘hello baby’ from a drunken old Irish man in Stockwell;
• ‘One Day’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘The Help’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ all being turned into films;
• Making grand travelling plans that will most likely never happen;
•           Detecting - I like to think of myself as filling the void between Nancy Drew and Miss Marple. I am yet to unearth any major crimes but just give it time...;
• The ‘Instagram’ app - good for making photos look pretty and cheaper than buying film for Polaroid cameras;
• And, this poem by Kitkat Pecson:  "I think of you in the in-between spaces. In the pause before the next heartbeat. In the clench of my chest before I exhale. In the swell of courage before I say hello. And perhaps one day, our lives will occupy one space. Touched shoulders. Clasped hands. Shared secrets."

'Instagram' magic.

Trains and Tribulations

Yet another lapse in posts. No excuse other than that I've not had much to write about. Even this is scraping the barrel. 

I've recently started an internship in London, which involves around 3 hours of commuting a day. This is probably a lot less than many people but having spent my 3 years in Reading having to walk for no more than 15 minutes to get to lectures it has come as quite a shock to the system! I seem to spend much of these three hours thinking about how tired I am, reading the Metro, avoiding awkward eye-contact with other passengers, watching as they scramble for seats and marvelling at how much of a rush they all seem to be in. These suited and booted, briefcase wielding fellow commuters walk faster than I can run, and yet it seems so effortless. I have yet to master this art, with my morning power walk to the station tending to leave me looking far less cool and with a massive stitch. It's my aim, in time, to get from the train to the tube in 4 minutes flat, with not a hair out of place and still possessing the ability to breathe.

One of the sights to be seen on public transport.

The downsides of using public transport are well documented but it is excellent for people watching, a luxury you don't get if you're driving. So far in the past week I've seen various lookalikes, including Matthew Kelly, my dissertation supervisor and Don Gilet. Another of my favourite activities is guessing people's professions: today I saw a Youth Worker (grown man wearing a back to front baseball cap) and Mancini's right-hand man (a fairly large man wearing a MCFC jacket). Both of which I feel are almost certainly correct. I'm hoping one day I see an actual celebrity or at least something interesting but in the meantime I'll stick to entertaining myself with these pointless activities. Or, maybe I'll actually remember my book in future!

Probably recommended by Richard and/or Judy.

London's Burning

Warning: the following post is my attempt at being an actual journalist. Feel free to stop reading now!

In Croydon, the mayhem of Monday night has been replaced by a strange silence. People are gathering by police cordons looking on at the rubble that were once buildings. The normally bustling streets are now empty of cars and shoppers, instead occupied by police and road sweepers, debris still littering the pavements. At Reeves Corner, the scene of the fire whose image has become synonymous with the riots, forensic officers are hard at work and behind the cordons cameras from the country’s media stand in a line.

Smoke could be seen from our road. 

The source of all the smoke.

On the tram home from my little excursion one passenger regaled the rest of the carriage with stories of looting, including how she saw a boy run down the street with a flat screen TV under each arm, bump into a lamppost and fall over, smashing the TVs. Karma?! But this sharing of stories shows that most people here, decent people, cannot understand the mindless criminality that took place in our town on Monday night. Obviously Croydon has a reputation for being a bit stabby and both my dad and I remarked earlier that day that it wouldn’t be long before Croydon got in on the act. However, I don't think anyone could have predicted that it would be to such a great extent. All a bit scary, really! Anyway, the clean up of Croydon has now begun, but it'll take a long time for the damage to be repaired. I'm hoping that the repairs miraculously turn the town into a place of beauty. Doubtful. So, instead I'll be trying to persuade my parents to move, preferably to Dorset where they can set up a little tea room - an idea inspired by a recent visit to the area with friends. 

The landlord of this pub was on Sky News and now has an appreciation society on Facebook. I think he's the man in blue.

In other news, today, when not pretending to be a journalist, I made a cheesecake! The recipe told me to put 900g of cream cheese in it, but that much cheese scared me so I made up my own recipe. Fortunately, it turned out nicely (surprisingly) and went down well at the weekly Buckley family dinner!

Slice of cheesecake - in case it wasn't already clear...

Hopefully my next post won't be quite as riot-y!

Careers, Crafts and Cakes!

This week I had my first interview for a proper grown-up job. Unfortunately the interview was different from what I had expected, lasting an hour and consisting of psychoanalysis tests and a numerical and verbal reasoning test. Seeing as I often do word games for fun it shouldn’t have been too difficult, however, it was. I think it’s probably safe to say that the job hunt continues. So, to save myself from spiralling out of control and into a pit of drinking, gambling and unsuitable men, which is apparently what happens to the unemployed (see Jeremy Kyle), I have been keeping myself busy with baking and making stuff in the hope that I stumble across something that I’m actually good at and can make a career out of. I've not yet found what that thing is but I'm confident it's only a matter of time...

Wall hangings: easily mistaken for the works of a 10 year old.

Luckily July is quite a big one for family birthdays so the cakes I've been making haven't been a complete waste. They have also prompted my sister to ask me to make her wedding cake. It's quite a compliment but I'm thinking that as it gets closer to the time she'll change her mind.

 An attempt at some manly looking blue cakes.

Anyway, fingers crossed I find a job soon because at this rate it won't be long till I'm obese.

Graduation

Since my last post I have moved home, decorated my room, embraced the daytime t.v watching lifestyle of an unemployed person and, most recently, graduated! If I’m honest graduation wasn’t really something I’d ever thought about until recently, which was maybe a bit stupid seeing as it was the whole point of going to University. Anyway, I can honestly say that Wednesday was one of the top 10 days of my life so far, at least. In the run up to the day I decided that in order to avoid nerves I’d treat it as though I was going to somebody’s wedding, which worked surprisingly well. All in all it was a lovely day and it was really nice to see friends again and to have all my family together, as I realised that the only time the 6 of us go out together nowadays tends to be for weddings and funerals...

Definitely adding Painter/Decorator Extraordinaire to my CV.

Even though the day marked the end of my formal education, I realised that the day was an education in itself. 

Things I learnt from Graduation Day:

• Throwing a mortarboard in the air is more fun than you’d imagine;
• My sisters are massive stalkers shown by their impressive knowledge of who everyone was without ever having met them;
• My sisters are shorter than they look in photos (according to one Mr Low);
• It is possible to get through a day without falling over or hurting myself in some way (I recently had a spate of kitchen related injuries, including potato peeler-ing my nail...);
• Not everyone appreciates being serenaded with ‘Lady in Red’;
• Along with ‘proud-parents’ there is such a thing as a ‘proud-friend’, i.e: me watching my friends go up and shake hands with the important looking man;
• Always take a younger sibling around to act as your own personal photographer - who needs Mario Testino?!
• Some of my lecturers still have no idea who I am;
• Smiling all day results in an achy jaw;
• With about 10 cameras taking photos at once it’s hard to decide where to look and somehow I never manage to look at the right one;
•  I’m never going to become a Doctor or Professor, purely because the outfit is ridiculous;
• There’s something about a middle-aged man wandering around in the rain that reminds me of Heathcliff wandering the moors;
• Applying for a job in Rochester based purely on the hope of meeting a Mr Rochester figure (minus the disfigurement) is not the best idea;
• Everything is much more exciting when you look like you’ve just stepped out of Hogwarts;
• And, It’s o.k to like Jim from The Apprentice again!

Out in force for Graduation.

 

Reading

I’m currently sitting in my room, having spent my last evening in Reading with my best friend; seeing as we met on the very first day of University (a story she delights in telling people after a drink or two) it seemed only right. Much of today has involved taking things off walls and packing away clothes whilst wondering how on Earth I’ve managed to accumulate so much junk in the past 9 months! But, being the sentimental idiot that I am, I can’t seem to throw any of it away. Should be fun getting it all in the car! Unable to just get on with the task in hand I thought this was the perfect opportunity for a stock take, the findings of which were that I have 38 dresses and 21 cardigans –  which might explain where my Student Loan disappeared to. Although I still have a lot left to pack I decided it is much more important to do one last post from Reading. I’m clearly very good at prioritising.

Considering I had my heart set on going to University in Brighton I wasn’t really looking forward to starting at Reading. Despite this, I can honestly say that my four years here have been more than I could have ever hoped for. Tomorrow (well, technically today), I won’t only be leaving Reading with a 2:1 in French and English (yay!) but I’ll also go with some wonderful friends and amazing memories. Given the chance I don’t think I’d really change anything from the past four years – apart from I maybe would tell my Second Year self that Port Challenge is never a good idea...  Either way, as this post suggests I’m a little sad to leave; looks like now I’m actually going to have to start being a proper adult. Bit scary, really!

Campus during spring and daffodil watch. Surprisingly they are now dead. 

22 Going On 70

Since finishing my degree I seem to have jumped straight from being a student to acting like an OAP. I feel like I now have a pretty good idea of what retirement will be like, that’s if I actually find a job from which to retire! Today, I have trawled a charity shop for books, done a few crosswords and baked some meringues. I may have to lie down in a bit to recover from all the excitement!

Meringues - the ones that tuned out nicely. Decoration added by Jess! 

When I’ve not been acting like an old person I have been looking for jobs but at the moment nobody seems willing to employ me, something I fear will only get worse once I’ve got my results - which happens to be in the next few days, eek! I’ve been careful not to disclose when they come out, mainly because I’m not entirely sure myself, it all seems fairly disorganised! Once again I’ve been having the familiar pre-results nightmares, one of which saw me crying and eating Weetabix in the Union shop. Strange. These fears were not allayed yesterday when I saw my tutor and she asked if I wanted a meeting about my results; considering I don’t yet know what they are I’m thinking this could be a cause for concern. However, I am still holding out hope that I will eventually find a job, I’ve been toying with the idea of applying to teach English in a faraway land, although this is likely to be another of my plans which never actually happens. I’m also researching to see if there are any jobs which involve the making or solving of anagrams. Apparently there aren’t many of them around! Ultimately, I think as long as I get a decent-ish job, in which I don’t have to wear a tabard, I’ll be happy. Hopefully I can then start saving for my cottage, yay!

Freedom

Sorry about the gap between posts, life has been pretty busy since exams finished! Right now I’m back in Croydon for a few days of home comforts before returning to Reading for the final week or two. I quite like coming home as I can always rely on nothing having changed no matter how stressful the past few weeks of revision and exams have been. True to form, in the last few days my parents have been trying to fatten me up for Christmas, stocking up the fridge with 8 different types of cheese, a crate of Diet Coke and ridiculous amounts of chocolate, and keeping me up-to-date with any recent neighbourhood developments. At the moment there are a few electricity company vans stationed down the road and despite much not-so-covert surveillance on my dad’s part we are still unsure what they’re doing here. It seems that the requirements to live in our area are that you either have to be over 80 years of age or a compulsive dog walker, therefore the sudden appearance of 5 (yes, 5!) vans and a digger is quite exciting! It’s also one of the reasons that I have decided that moving out as soon as possible is probably a good idea...

In other news, after finishing exams I went to see QI being filmed in London. I was fairly hungover but after eating what felt like an entire loaf of bread for lunch I began to feel much more human and so Janine and I joined the queue for QI. Although the queue was fairly lengthy we were too excited to really care, the pique of excitement being when we saw what looked like Joan Collins pass by in a car. We don’t know whether or not it was in fact her, however we are maintaining that it was. Anyway, the actual filming of the programme was really fun and we got to see Sean Lock, Bill Bailey and Nina Conti, a fairly unknown ventriloquist who was actually quite good. Of course, Stephen Fry was there, along with Alan Davies, who was the main reason I wanted to go really, as I've loved him ever since the age of 8, when I first set eyes on him in Jonathan Creek. Probably not something I should really admit to but I'm sure my loyal readers (Janine and Jess) already know this. So, all in all it was a good day out, one that I’d recommend, so much so that I’ve applied for more tickets, although I feel like I might be pushing my luck a bit on this one!

Stamp, just to prove that we did go.

Lyon Memories

It's 51 weeks today since I left Lyon and ended my year abroad. As this time last year I was getting ready for a trip to Rome and enjoying my last days as an Erasmus student I can't help but compare it to my life at the moment which consists of revision and the odd trip to the gym.

So, in honour of my year abroad I thought I would share my top 5 Erasmus moments! I don't think photos can really do it justice but I'll give it a try:

The day we met Jesus at Fourvière.

Fête des lumières and celebrating surviving a trip on the Ferris Wheel of Death.

A night of broken chairs, show-tunes and shots.

Last night out with everyone. 

Trip to Rome!

Nostalgia beats revision every time! 

Le Week-End

I am now over half-way through my exams, so last night to celebrate I went to the cinema to see ‘Something Borrowed’, an activity I’ve had planned for the past three weeks, highlighting yet again that I really do need to get a life. Fortunately, it seems it was worth all the build up and I thoroughly enjoyed it, partly because of John Krasinski but also because of the lack of thinking involved, something that I have been doing way too much of lately. The cinema was also accompanied by wine and ice-cream, a move that I regretted this morning, particularly as I managed to drop the majority of my chocolate ice-cream on my brand new cream scarf.

As I now have a bit of a break between exams, and weekends in Reading can be quite boring, I decided to go to Liverpool for the weekend to get my fix of chips and gravy, cheap clothes shops and to see family, of course. However, just in time I realised that my surprise visit would coincide with a wedding to which I am not invited. Whilst I quite like the idea of crashing a wedding I wasn’t sure the bride would, especially as the last time I 'crashed' a wedding I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt having just jumped out of a paddling pool – I was about 5 years old. So, as my plan didn’t quite come together I’m having to think of other things to do in order to put off revision for my last two exams. One of the ‘fun’ activities I've come up with is writing a ‘Things to do Before I’m Thirty’ list, which is likely to include such gems as: building a tree-house; getting a dog and naming it Derek; creating my own library complete with a slide-y ladder and opening a tea room. Hopefully over the course of the weekend I’ll think of other, slightly more exciting things to add to it. But seeing as I’ve got less than eight years in which to achieve all these things I should probably get a move on!  

The family pet, unfortunately not named Derek. (Photography courtesy of Lottie Buckley)

Muggate

This week sees the start of my final year exams. Eek. However, I am trying to forget this fact, so instead I will focus on the curious case of the missing mugs, more commonly known (by me) as Muggate.

My story starts in October when I moved back to Reading to start my 4th year of studying French and English. I remember move in day well, I had come straight to Reading from Aberdeen, bringing with me, amongst other things, two mugs, one bearing my name and the other one being a present that had been sent all the way to Lyon. For a month or so everything was going quite well and I enjoyed many cups of tea, sometimes a hot chocolate, happily alternating between the two mugs. Then suddenly they both disappeared! I searched the entire kitchen, friends searched the kitchen and I even inquired at reception, yet there was no sign of either mug. Thus I consigned myself to a life without them and in time I learnt to love my new mugs. Then last night, whilst making a revision break cuppa, I looked in my cupboard and as if by magic the mugs were there!  

The mugs at the centre of the Muggate scandal. 

How they got there nobody knows. While it all remains shrouded in mystery I am just pleased that a bit of variation can now be added to tea-breaks! Perhaps the fact that I am so excited by this is a sign that I should probably get out a bit more, but for now I am just enjoying this reunion of a girl and her mugs. With this Osama Bin Laden business it’s unlikely Muggate will make even the local news, so if anybody has any ideas as to the whereabouts of the mugs between November and May, then please do let me know. I’m hoping I’ve watched enough Poirot and Miss Marple to solve this mystery. 

Easter

Yesterday, I finally printed my dissertation; an activity that I thought blog worthy! I’m so relieved that after 2 whole years I can finally forget about it, although now that I can’t actually change anything I’m more worried than ever, a major concern being that it is in fact rubbish.  In the past week I have also set myself to reading 6 novels, which unsurprisingly hasn’t gone too well, so far I’ve managed 3 and a half... And despite many exam related nightmares and sudden panics that I’m going to fail, I still don’t seem to be able to sit down and concentrate for any longer than 20 minutes at a time!

Anyway, besides revision I’ve not really been doing very much, hence the fairly lengthy gap between posts. Highlights of the last week have been: watching Arsenal vs Liverpool at the pub (my favourite bit being when Kenny Dalglish swore at Arsène Wenger), drinking wine at regular intervals, listening to ‘every number 1 of the 90s’, seeing a man who looked a lot like Ian Beale and going to see Red Riding Hood. I’m extremely grateful that the film version of the story wasn’t the one that I was told as a child! I have also continued with cooking as a means of procrastination, this week making a couple of quiches. The next thing I plan on baking is a chocolate and Diet Coke cake, which sounds so wrong but as they are two of my favourite things I’m seeing this marriage in cake form as being only a good thing. However, as it is still Lent I can’t actually make the cake yet. So, come Sunday morning, in between Easter egg hunts (yep, I am 22 and we still do this) and eating as much chocolate as is humanly possible, I will be baking this (hopefully) delicious cake. I’m assuming nobody else in my family will even be willing to try it, so I will no doubt be taking the rest back to Reading for my extremely lucky friends to try. Something for them to look forward to!

Books and Chocolate. Still not sure why my mum bought 12 Easter eggs.

A Productive Afternoon

Sometimes the lengths to which I go to put off doing work surprise even me.  I do such pointless things that require so much more effort than it would take to just sit down and do some revision. With this in mind I thought it the opportune moment to share some of my top time wasting tips:

1) Spend stupid amounts of time on Wikipedia. I am now an authority on Kevin Bacon, Ally McCoist, Angela Lansbury, Stephen Fry and colour blindness.

2) Look for holidays, even if you have no intention of going anywhere. I've taken to looking for ‘UK getaways’.

3) Go for a daily stroll to the shop, even if you don’t actually need anything. I came back with 2 x 4 pints of milk the other day... Apparently we drink a lot of tea.

4) Cook. Doesn't even matter if you’re not hungry. I find that you get a great sense of achievement from baking a nice cake, so if you’ve not achieved anything revision-wise at least you've got that to fall back on!

5) Make elaborate post-exams plans. So far I’m making a gunge tank, going back to Lyon, visiting all the places in Reading I've always wanted to go to but never have i.e: the casino, Great Expectations and The Granby, and reading all the books on the BBC's ‘The Big Read' book list – only 75 to go.

And if all else fails, start writing a blog! Genius.

Bird's-eye view of my desk. Just to prove that I have, in fact, been doing some work.

The Bennets, the Brontës and the Buckleys

With exams fast approaching I thought it about time I gave into peer pressure and jumped on the blogging band wagon. After all, I do love a bit of procrastination. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be writing about as, to be honest, not much happens in my life, but seeing as I’ll probably have a grand total of about 4 readers I think it’ll be ok...

As it’s the Easter holidays I’m back home in sunny Croydon, which means I’ve being seeing quite a bit of my family. We had a family dinner this week – cooked by me, with the review: ‘ooh, there are lots of different flavours... It’s certainly not bland, anyway.’ Thanks, Dad. So, during this dinner my mum pointed out an article that she had read that day saying that families in which there are four daughters are the most trying. And for those of you that don’t know, that is in fact my family. Anyway, my parents and my eldest sister (not entirely sure when she became an authority on this) agreed emphatically with the article, which got me thinking.

When I tell people that I’ve got three sisters I normally get one of two reactions, the first being that of sympathy for my father and the second, more common, the impression that our childhood was one never ending sleepover. To the first reaction, I’d say that I suppose I feel a little sorry for my dad too, and to the second, I can assure you, this was not the case and at times we fought like cats and dogs; there was even, on one occasion, an incident of knife crime! (Not as bad as it sounds, but we did grow up in Croydon after all!) But, despite these things there were so many good times, good times that I often neglect to reflect on. Some of my favourite memories are of us building dens out of furniture, throwing water bombs and doing three-legged races in the garden during summer, excitedly waking each other up on Christmas morning with cries of 'he's been!', midnight Pizza Hut orders and car journeys singing about Cecil the caterpillar. We’re all pretty much grown up now though, ( I say pretty much, when in actual fact  what I mean is a lot grown up: one is married and another engaged) and although from time to time we still bicker, I find it amazing how easily we all come back together and fall back into our roles as sisters.

So, despite what this article said and my parents agreeing with it (really, they’ve only got themselves to blame!), I wouldn’t change things for the world. And, although I spend a lot of my time complaining about them (especially ‘the baby’), my sisters are some of my closest friends, they know just what to say to make me laugh, to make me cry,  to make me see sense and, most importantly, to annoy me...

Right, I’ve rambled on long enough for my first post. Just so you know, future posts won’t be anywhere near as sentimental as this, thankfully! But I’m sure now I’ve finally got a blog I’ll be chatting on about rubbish on a fairly regular basis.