Gogledd Cymru

I'm going out tomorrow so I'm writing this post today so it will appear tomorrow so to you it will appear today and I will have written this yesterday.

I am going for a walk in the moutains with a lovely friend in Snowdonia somewhere. We have the most wonderful days in the hills. We love a good walk with a bit of a scramble and although we normally plan a nice sensible walk we always end up going on a bit of an adventure. A few weeks ago we planned to go for tea in Conwy and ended up doing a several hour walk on the hills behind the town. We planned to walk to a little ruin above Penmaenmawr once and ended up doing an epic trek through the snow and wind to the top of Drum.

Wales is so beautiful and exciting. I even love the drive along the North Wales coast on the A55. You pass places with the most wonderful names: Penmaenmawr, Llanfairfechan, Dwygyfylchi, Ffynonngroyw, Rhostrehwfa and of course Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch.

That's enough for today. I'm off to my friends for tea now...in Rhosllanerchrugog.

Story time

I've been at work experience this week with a judge. Of course court is terrifying to those who are there for a hearing but I absolutely love the atmosphere and protocols and tension surrounding a court room as an onlooker.

The judge I do work experience with is a fantastic story-teller and I thought I would repeat for you a few of his stories.

A defendant, claiming that his diary contained evidence of his alibi, when asked to produce it for the court presented a diary for the year completely blank apart from the day in question when he 'went shopping'. "It wasn't a very busy year for you was it?", queried the cross-examiner!

In another case, a diary used as evidence was a much more meticulously filled-in book which did seem to show that the defendant was not where the criminal in question was on the day in question. Later on in the case, as the judge absent-mindedly flicked through the diary his eyes came across the words 'Went to rob them today but had no luck. Will try again next week'! The defendant's pleas were quickly altered.

A recent case in another town involved a man who tried to deny murdering and burying his lover until the police found the spot where the body was buried saved, under favourites, in his Sat Nav!

A tasty snack

It was always a bit of a mystery to me why Sam and I are friends as he is a far more interesting and civilized person than I am, but it has become apparent to me recently that he humours me in the hope of hearing the next embarrassing saga from the life of Carolyn.

There is a kid at the church we both used to go to who takes great delight in telling one particular story about me, or at least bringing it up so I have to attempt to explain myself to the people around. “Carolyn eats socks” he shouts and then runs away: let me explain.

A number of years ago I was camping with friends. Someone put a Custard Cream on the barbeque and then someone put a tiny bit of someone’s sock on the Custard Cream. Someone else bet I wouldn’t eat it. I did. But these things happen and we learn from our mistakes, you might think. The problem is that they don't to most people and I didn’t.

Fast forward two years...and I am leading a kids camp. One night the other leaders of this camp, who had heard the aforementioned sock-eating story, presented me with a sock (which they had been baking in the oven all day) and challenged me to eat it…in front of about 50 intrigued/bemused/delighted children.

I ate a few bites of said baked-sock…and threw it up 5 minutes later. I don’t think a scientific name for this particular eating disorder has been assigned yet but I imagine when it is there will only be one person they could possibly name it after.

And that, I think, is why Sam is my friend.

I go to a gig

I don't really like music. I don't really dislike it either. I guess you'd say I'm indifferent to the whole thing. I could be in a room with music playing for hours and not really be aware of it.

I do, however, enjoy other people's enthusiasm for music and every now and again I will catch a bit of this. This happened to me with Dave Matthews Band. And on Sunday night I went with a friend to see them live.

The drummer was out of this world - he did several drum solos one of which lasted a good ten minutes, which on physical fitness alone is incredible, but the fact that I managed to not get bored of 10 minutes of a man hitting things is truly amazing.
There was an enormous black man - dressed all in black who looked like someone from security that had sneaked on stage - with an amazing voice and who played the trumpet superbly.
There was a massive, tall, buff guy with dreadlocks who played the violin unlike I have heard or seen it played before.
And then there was Dave Matthews and his phenomenaly talented friend Tim Reynolds on guitar playing like they were bang smack in the middle of the eighties.

But the best bit? They were having an insane amount of fun up there. It was like being invited to watch a load of super-enthusiastic teenagers jam in their Dad's garage, but in a big theatre with lots of flashy lights and they are all well beyond teenagerdom. I felt like I became a geeky music fan for the night...and I loved it.

Meet the babysitter.

Hello. May I introduce myself? My name is Carolyn and I am a friend of ALBOWIEB’s. I started blogging a few weeks ago with a bit of encouragement from Sam. Next thing I know I’m babysitting his blog. I want to write about things that I don’t think Sam would. Sadly this means, because of his post on Saturday, my fascinating anecdote about sock sorting is out of bounds.

But the subject of being outside – and happy at the same time - is very much safe. Sam doesn’t like going outside. A few of us took him for a little walk there once and he still moans about it to this day. I love being outside whether it’s walking, climbing, swimming, sunbathing, working, drinking tea... whatever I do, I’m much happier if I’m outside breathing fresh air. However, being a law student, I have spent the last few weeks cooped up studying for exams.

So, it was with great delight that I spent a day on the beach in the sun on Saturday. We even had a barbeque and I managed to get slightly sunburnt. I think a wonderful part of being British is our insistence on pretending it’s a glorious summer’s day when it is most definitely not.

I enjoy it a lot. Sam would not.

I go away for a few days.

I'm off tomorrow. Until Saturday. Like, not here. I'm doing something really fun as well, but I'm not going to tell you about it. Radio silence.

I think I've arranged for a replacement, but I'm not quite sure.

So post-a-day - finished. My steam has run out by this point anyway - January was great, February was fun, but March just isn't coping. In order to write about stuff, you need to do some stuff. I'm off to do some stuff this week, which oddly enough revolves around the world of writing about stuff anyway.

So be kind to the locum and rest easy, chums. There's more wisdom in this box yet.

It's Saturday (still).

I was just in bed and realised that I'd nothing for today. I'm going to sneak this one in under the line. The most interesting things that happened to me today? I made a rice pudding (secret: plenty of grated nutmeg, a pinch of cinnamon and a snifter of chilli flakes just to wake the palette up) and sorted my socks out. I hate sorting my socks out, it's a pain. You have to go through each one and match it up with any one of the other socks until you've whittled them all down and you have a load left that don't belong anywhere and you hide them in a cupboard. I'd put this off for so long I've just stuffed 42 pairs of socks in my drawer.

Fun times. Who says Saturdays need to be boring, eh?

Anna gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had some great videos this year.

Those naughty podcasting boys have been harassing Anna from IKEA (especially Ben, who I think must fancy her a bit, they've been spending an awful lot of time together), so I thought I would get in touch just to smooth things over with her, make sure she was alright.

Sam: I just wanted to apologise for Ben. And Angry. And Cliff.

Anna: If you want affordable solutions for better living, you are at the right place.

Sam: They're terribly funny and they mean well, but I do fear that people could get hurt in their unstoppable podcast juggernaut. Fame goes to your head, like.

Anna: All of IKEA's products are made to the highest standards, including myself.

Sam: I don't know what you're trying to tell me there.

Anna: Please describe to me your query about IKEA products and/or services?

Sam: I just wanted to know if we were OK, you know? You weren't offended by their antics? I can see that you're a woman who takes her job seriously - home furnishings are no laughing matter.

Anna: I'm fine, thank you for asking.

Sam: Oh, good. Do you have any tealights?

Anna: Here you will find the Scented Candles Subcategory.

Sam: Fairly useless, but I also wanted to know what IKEA put in those meatballs?

Anna: Welcome to the IKEA Swedish Shop! Here you can pick up some of our world-famous meatballs!

Sam: Yes, but what are they made of?

Anna: For which product would you like to know what kind of materials it is made from?

Sam: Meatballs.

Anna: Welcome to the IKEA Swedish Shop! Here you can pick up some of our world-famous meatballs!

Sam: FFS. Are they made of people? I have theories.

Anna: For which product would you like to know what kind of materials it is made from?

Sam: Alright, I take it back. Those boys can do whatever they like to you.

Anna: I'm fine, thank you for asking.

Sam: I didn't.

Defcon Blah.

Isn't it exciting to see the sun? It might still be chuffing cold outside, but to feel the warmth of the sun's rays melting away the last grips of winter on your soul. Having said that it will probably snow again next week. I think my soul might manage another frost, but any more than that and my petals will wilt.

I think there's only so far I can go with this analogy. I don't think I come out of it altogether well.

But I am still in the same state as yesterday - a good sleep didn't cure the problem, so we're up to Defcon 2. What does defcon even mean? The Americans love their stupid acronyms for stuff. Like NORAD, or FAQ or USA. Interesting Wikipedia does it again - perhaps I'm naive, but it gets the basics across for me. Defcon stands for Defence Readiness Condition. So it should be DefRedCon, but then it starts to sound more and more like people who are fans of both Def Leppard and Simply Red and have no place to show their affection but a small hotel function room in Las Vegas where they all wear bizarre fancy dress and have name badges. Apparently Defcon 1 has never been reached and Defcon 2 hasn't been reached since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obviously Jack Kennedy couldn't defeat the level boss and get to the end of the game. The last time Defcon 3 was reached was during September 11 - this is heady stuff. I think it's easy to get blasé about mounting Defcons when you watch as much action television as I do.

Anyway. I started that last paragraph intending to say simply that I shall have to improve my readiness and carry a notepad at all times. This is how we are going to defeat the Big Bad Block.

Stuck. For. Words.

So I'm like yeah all up in your face and that. I'm really stuck for things to write about, you know. I can hardly think of anything witty to put into 140 characters, let alone the several hundred words that one might be need to string together in order to form a coherent blog post. Although coherent is mainly aspirational these days.

I've lost my mojo, wherever it came from. This, this now, this thing that I'm doing, this post - it's like torture. It's like pulling teeth. It's not coming out, where a post just writes itself, I see something and then I write about it. Maybe I'm not seeing enough, or I'm seeing things and not really seeing them. Whatever, the juices, they floweth not.

I had a good run there through January and February - some good stuff if I do say so myself. In all humility I put some cracking material out there into the cybernetical ether. Maybe I should have hung back, kept some for myself - posted every other day. Is this it for the rest of my life? I just started working for a Swedish furniture giant. Part-time job, get some cashflow flowing. Should that be my thing now? Oh Lord, won't you get me a job testing a Mercedes-Benz (in order to review and then publish said piece, non?)...

Mind those fingers.

Feed me
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB