Chinese babies

Every so often, I ask my mam if we can adopt a Chinese baby. She always, unsurprisingly, says no. I'm not sure where I got the idea from, or why it pops into my head occasionally. Obviously I'm not being serious, not now. But I'm pretty sure I want to adopt, you know, when I'm a grown up. I don't really know where from.
Anyway, blah blah blah, what I mean to say in this blog, is that a few weeks ago I was at the library with my mam and she found this book and pointed it out to me, and I got it out.
It was called "Wuhu diary"

It was ace, it was all about an American lady named Emily who adopted a baby named Lulu from China, obviously heh. When Lulu was almost 5 they both went back to the town she came from. They wanted to get into the orphanage that she had spent the first 7 months of her life, to find records and hunt for any scraps of information about Lulu they could find, and generally just have a poke about and see the place I guess. Anyway, it was a really brilliant book, really interesting, about the journey, the place and the people, the country, politics, everything really.

I couldn't put it down, I took it everywhere with me, read it at bus stops, on the bus, other peoples places, in the bath! Yeah, so if you're ever in the library, or you see this book in a charity shop or a flea market, ya know, get it! Its proper good.

Donkey

I was sitting at home last night, when I got a text message, it was from a number I didn't have saved in my phone, or otherwise know. It said

"donkey says hello. I have named him Jean Pierre-Francois x"

And it had this picture of a donkey attached -

This made me very happy, and very amused. However it has since became a bit of a mystery. At first I thought it was probably one of my friends with some obscure reference to something that I didn't quite get. Basically, here's the text conversation I've had with the person since-

me- I like your donkey, but who are you?

?- Erm what?

me- I just got a message from this number, a picture of a donkey called jean pierre francois?

?- Not from this number you didn't

me- Um I can guarantee I did, how else would I know your number? I can send it back to you if you'd like?

[no response until 7am today, who the hell texts at 7am?!]

?- Who is this?

me- I'm Bianca. Who are you? I'm honestly not messing you about, I really did get a message from this number

?- And what did they say?

me - It said something about a donkey with a french name, and a picture of said donkey attached. I'll forward it to you now.

[forwards message]

?- But I have no idea who you are or where your number has come from

me - Ditto haha. All I know is that I got that message at 9.40 last night from the same number I'm texting you on now. I guess the network just screwed up. I'm t-mobile, are you with them too?

?- No I'm not

me - Oh well, I guess it was just some weird mistake then

? - Oh right ok

And that's the end of that. I couldn't be arsed texting back any more. I thought I might be meeting a new and exciting person via the medium of mixed up texts, but this person was obviously just some boring dickhead. Stupid too, judging by how much they seemed to struggle with my quite clear responses. It definitely all came from the same number though. So I have no idea, was this the text version of crossed lines? Was it a genuine mistake by the network? Did someone jack this persons phone and they were too stupid to realise? Or was it that person all along who was just messing me about for shits and giggles?
I just don't understand how it could have been from someone else altogether not in the equation, but be from this morons phone number. I'm not bothered by it, It was a dead good accidental text to get. I'm just disappointed that I'll never get to talk to, providing it all was just some weird network screw up, the person on the other end, who shares my love of french things, and donkeys. And who lives somewhere nice enough to have a thatched cottage.
Sigh.
Anyone has any answers, please lemme know.

Horses

So! Last Friday I went horse riding for the first time. It was kind of out of the blue, my friend's friend who I had only ever met once before, a few weeks ago, so it was really nice of her to say I could come with.
For some reason, when I was first asked, I jumped at the chance. I just thought "haha ace, I bet that's pretty good!". I surprised myself a little bit, thinking that, because for as long as I could remember, I had maintained that I was quite scared of horses. But I guess I just thought, screw it.

As we pulled into the stables car park, I suddenly got a small hit of fear. By the time I got out of the car, I had forgotten all about it.
Anyway it was proper good. I can see why so many girls do horse riding, (if you know what I mean... Giggidy). My horse was called Buster. As a side note, one of the horses was called Kevin which I thought was a totally hilarious name for a horse (also there was one, and I swear it had a curly moustache). It was at a riding school in Saltburn, and we all went down to the beach. There was about 10 of us in the group, and 4 people from the riding school were with us. For some reason, maybe cause I said I'd never ridden before and had no idea about any of it, or maybe just because I was one of the first to get assigned and put on a horse, I was at the front. The girl who helped me on was dead nice though, and told me that basically all you need to do is pull the left reign left and the horse will go left, the same with right, and to stop it moving, just pull both. Simples. After a little while, my horse started to very slowly wander forwards. "stop moving!" I squeaked and pulled the reigns. He stopped. The system worked! So we just stood there for about 10 minutes while everyone else got on their horses. In the not so distant distance, another horse whinnied, and then from deep inside the guts of my horse, he whinnied back. Bit scary, but quite funny. I didn't realise a whinny was such a hearty thing.

Anyway, an older woman who I think was the boss, came along, put a lead on my horse and guided us all over the road, down some paths and eventually to the beach. She said to me, about halfway there "oh you've got your balance very quickly there". Everyone likes praise, I was beaming. Though I don't know if she just said it cause I was a total novice, and just wanted to boost my confidence. The hill down to the beach was quite steep, but I figured it must be fine for the horses seeing as they go every day, but the bottom few yards of it was proper steep and I was a little worried. Buster was a little champion though, and did not tip me off.

I think I did pretty good though, they even had us doing a little bit of trotting, which is a lot harder than it looks, also bruised my arse a lot, something which didn't take effect until I dismounted Buster afterwards. Trotting is exciting, but scary. I started getting a hang of it though, its like you've just got to match the rhythm of the horse, otherwise you just end up jiggling about a lot on top, trying not to fall off. Which is mainly how I did, but I did seem to get it right a couple of times. On the way back we had to stop and wait at the rail tracks, Buster took this opportunity to have a nibble of the hedge, nearly toppling me off, and then I couldn't get him back up. Greedy horse.
Anyway that about covers it, it was dead good, I enjoyed it loads. I had total saddle sore at the end, something which I didn't feel at all during the ride, but kicks in as soon as you get off. My aching thighs and bum only just recovered a couple of days ago. I didn't take any pictures, so this will be a pictureless blog.

Morning Wood, pidgeon

A week or so ago I was woken up by the familiar sound of "koo-coo...koo" you know the noise, I'm sure everyone does.
There is a satellite dish just outside my bedroom window, its been there since we moved in but doesn't work. But for couple of days in a row, a wood pigeon would come and land on it, and it'd wake me up, cooing. I thought ohh its gonna be a regular thing. It stopped for a little while but this morning it woke me up again at 7.30. I groggily got up and looked out of the window, it sort of tilted its head to look back at me, then flew off. Then it came back a bit later. I really like the thought of having a wild animal so close, and I guess its a really nice thing. But I really fucking hate being woken up early. One time in the beginning it woke me up at about 5.30am. So the second time this morning, as much as I wanted to be its friend, I thought "urhg no I'm too tired" and tapped on the window gently with my foot. I didn't hear it fly off, but the annoying cooing stopped so I guess it either shut up or went.

In conclusion, I'm a mixed bag when it comes to my feathery friend. I think its proper ace to have something right outside my window, but it always comes and wakes me up. I always thought I was a heavy sleeper, so I'm dead surprised that it even wakes me up at all. On the other hand though, its cooing is surprisingly loud, it is right outside my window after all, and we aren't double glazed. It just goes on forever though, coo-cooing for fucking ages.

Also I'm confused as to why its chosen my unused satellite dish to come to, its really weird, anyone got an explanation? I managed to get a photo of it one day, from the landing (thank you camera zoom) and as you can see, my pigeon doesn't even fit on it properly, so im baffled about why it insists on squeezing its arse in.
Oh well, I guess I do like it really. I'm going to do some research on google about it, I don't know why I haven't thought of that before now. I am slow.
I wonder if s/he'll come back tomorrow.

Attic

When my laptop died a few weeks ago, I decided to find the restore disc and fix it that way. Only when I hunted high and low throughout the house, I could only conclude that A- my mam had thrown out the laptop box and all its important contents, or B- the only place it could possibly be now is in the attic.
So into the attic I clamoured. Our ladders are at someone else's house, so the only way to get up there was to push my mams wardrobe under the hatch, climb onto the wardrobe with the help of a kitchen stool, et voila. I'd poked my head into the attic once before, not long after we'd moved in, and I saw that it was pretty much full of junk such as empty cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Also I was scared of spiders and didn't stay there too long.

This time though, I was different- confident, nay, cocky. After about 10 minutes poking around with a broom and finding some vaguely interesting things, I thought 'fuck it', and climbed all the way in. I love our attic, its massive, I want to get it converted and have my bedroom up there. The two main reasons I was too scared to get in before were firstly, massive hairy spiders that might land on my face/head, and slight panic that the floorboards wouldn't hold my weight. That was mainly my mam scaring me though and saying you're not really meant to walk about in the attic.

So I blocked out the thought of spiders, and decided the floor would easily take my puny 7 stone weight, people must walk about in their attics all the time.

I had a fairly good mooch in there, the torch was on its last legs though, it weren't too bright so that wasn't much help. I took loads of photo's, cause the spider threat was still hanging over my head, despite how brave I was trying to be, and I thought I'd get a better look at things if I took pictures to paw over once I'd got out.

I found some ace old clothes though, not loads but they were pretty cool. So I was chuffed about that. There was a brown old leather satchel but I didn't dare move it incase there was crawlies in it. There was also, strangely, loads of pairs of old workmen style boots. A chair, a cup and saucer, a massive beam of wood, and old suitcase with the contents spilling out, loads and loads of spare wood, old staircase spindles, a few kids toys. There was a mass of junk and stuff in the centre, but I couldn't get at it.

That was as far as my bravery went. Next time I'm planning on taking some sort of spider repellent like citrus spray or something, and proper lighting, lanterns or something, or even better one of those miners torches that you wear on your head, iv always wanted to have one of those and this is the perfect excuse!

So that's my attic. Here's the clothes I found therein.

I think this might be my favourite one, you can't tell from the picture but its got cute little pockets. I'm planning on turning into a nice little strapless dress. Hopefully.

This spotty one is kind of hideous, I know, But I'm kind of having a thing recently where I really like ugly clothes. No idea what I'm gonna do with this one yet. Feel free to make suggestions.

When I first found this in the attic, it was a crumpled heap of fabric, infact it was the first one I found. I was really excited cause I thought it might be a tweed jacket, so I was a bit disappointed when it wasn't. But I like it a lot anyway, I'm hoping to turn this into a nice miniskirt.

The blue jumper I think I didn't like much at first, but I reckon will look quite cute on, I've not tried it on yet, but I might wear it tomorrow. The shirt I like too, but its really really dirty, we've only washed it once, hopefully the dirt and marks will come out after a couple more washes and it can be salvaged. I guess its kind of shapeless, but the detail around the collar and sleeves are so pretty.

Maybe this old sailor dress is my favourite find, I can't really decide. I thought it was so cool when I found it. Its ginormous obviously, though the tag reads size 12, sizes must have been different then. Anyway, its kind of huge and shapeless in general, but the addition of a belt makes it look tons better already. I have no idea how I'm going to tackle this one, maybe I'll get it made to my size professionally, maybe I'll just hack at it myself. Either way, I reckon it'll end up looking ace. Its got massive shoulder pads as well haha. I am a lucky girl.

Anyway, that'll do. Im going to the beach in the morning, well if the weather is nice. Im looking forward to it. And now im sick of writing, adios.

Back again, briefly, or maybe not

Sup.

Obviously, I'm back again. Not that I went anywhere interesting. (though in the interest of my blog I should probably say I was away travelling in space, eating my own weight in waffles and squirty cream, and volunteering at a home for Pugs)

Got the laptop fixed, I did about 1% of this myself, thanks to locating the restore disk, not sure how I managed to get it up and running, cause at the 2 hour point of trying to get it to restore I was about to give up, but then it worked. I then handed the lappy over to my computer genius friend Leon who kindly sorted out the rest (thanks a million if you're reading!) the resolution was all funny, or as I technically put it "everything has gone big?!" So yes, fixed, he even fiddled about with it so that I could stealy steal unsecured networks in my road, which is how I'm writing this here blog, because Virgin are massive bastards and keep cutting us off and not letting us leave. So its all good, I guess!

I have been staying away from looking at anything to do with Leeds festival, in order to save heartache.

Last weekend I went to Bowes Museum with my auntie, look it up if yr unfamiliar with it. Its this massive stately home place, relatively close to us. Back in the day a man called John Bowes had it built as a wedding gift to his french wife Josephine. How perfect is that? Things were so much more romantic in those days, I kind of went weak at the knees when I found that out. I hope the man I marry will build me a fucking huge stately home when he marries me.

Bowes museum is in a town called Barnard Castle, most things were shut on account of it being Easter Sunday, but there was a second hand bookshop that we went in, it had some ace books that I wanted to buy, but I, as ever, had no money left (7 fiddy to get into that museum y'know)

But its a nice little town, I reckon we'll go back soon, I hope so cause I wanna buy old cool books!

Today I went to Stuart park in Middles'bro cause there was a fair on, a very tiny fair. The animal part was cool though, loads of goats, I would quite like a little pet goat. Here's some picturez
The goats were actually kind of ignorant, they wouldn't come over to me for a stroke.

This one spent about 5 minutes scratching its ass on this post

Look at the look of satisfaction on its face haha. I also took a picture of a big cock. (fnar fnar) I've been dying to say that.

In other news, Saturday was the most beautiful day of the year so far, I reckon. It was hot and bright and sunny and the sky was dead blue. I wore a summery dress, it was lovely. Today was a bit colder unfortunately. I planted some of my sunflower seeds at my aunties, that I harvested from my sunnies last year, though I don't think yr meant to sow them till may but oh well, might as well give em a crack.

I've been playing with the macro on my digital camera recently, I just realized macro photos are ace. Here's some from when I very first had a go at them, on an apple that still had a little leaf on that I thought was cool, a fake flower in my room, and some from Saturday that I took of a daffodil.

Also on Saturday, man Saturday was a good day, I didn't realize! On Saturday I got a flower press from a charity shop. Its a bit weird cause I'm not sure it'd have entered my mind to want one before, but as soon as I seen it, its like I knew instantly that its the kind of thing that actually I would totally love. And it was only a pound! At the moment I'm just pressing a few daisies, I would love a Daff but I can't bring myself to pick one! So I'll give the daisies a week and see how they turn out. Buzzin.

Okay, before I started this, there were a lot of thoughts in my mind, but now they've all gone, I've probably forgot things I was gonna add but ah well, I can't remember.
Next time I will recount tails of my adventure into my attic, and a trip to the flea market.
Bye.

Bang

That is the sound of many blood vessels in my brain simultaneously exploding.
So, in other news I'm a massive doyle and broke my laptop. I don't know quite what I did, just that I clicked some things I shouldn't have (messed up the settings basically) and now it hates me. So yeah, anyway, I'm out of the loop, its been a while, I'm sat on a library PC, ha.
In conclusion, I just remembered that the end of March the time when Leeds fest lineup is announced and the tickets sell out almost straight away. So I just remembered all that 'cuz I seen people talking about it on facebook (ergh, I hate talking about facebook in my blog, it makes me feel lame) So I googled it, and then my brain vessels popped.
I didn't think I would be so bothered about it, but that was before I found out Modest Mouse are playing, and now it feels like my body is turning inside out at the mere prospect of missing them.
My best friend, (and I don't have many friends!) has moved to an island off the coast of Cornwall, she got an amazing job on basically a tropical island health spa where rich people go. So aside from me being incredibly jealous of her, She's gone until November meaning I have nodbody to do fun things with any more. Including going to Leeds festival. Ohh Modest Mouse, why did I have to discover you? Is musical ignorance bliss? Goddamn it.
Also I found Arcade Fire are playing. My friend told me a few weeks ago that he'd heard rumours that they'd be playing, and I jokingly said that if that was true, I would sell my spleen and go to Leeds alone. Maybe I should follow through on that?! I seen the 'fire at Leeds when they played before, it was pretty much my highlight, (a combo of headliners being them, Interpol and Smashing Pumpkins. If I were a boy, I would have had a serious boner over that) I remember how excited I was to see them, and it was ace. Ahhh. Poop.
So yeah, in conclusion, I dont know what the conclusion is. I want to go to leeds and see modest mouse and arcade fire. I swear if the add Bon Iver, I will explode. And quite possibly sell my soul to the devil to fund a solo trip there.
Urgh anyway, I needed to get the mixture of extreme excitement and extreme disappointment out of my system. So im done. Its a gloomy day outside, its only 11am and the library computer keeps telling me I have 30 minutes left.
Time to go home and, I dunno, eat some Ice cream to make me feel better, and then hibernate in bed until September.
Yep.
Adios