Who would have thought it ay?

With guns, knives, terrorists and made men in Cumbria, who would have thought the latest threat to us all would be a fox? A fox trotting into our homes!

When I heard about this story this morning I couldn’t help but laugh. Don’t get me wrong, please God don’t get me wrong; a death or injury made public is always felt by all news readers, and of course my heart goes out to the poor family of the victims, but how ridiculous does it all sound?!

Who on earth would have thought that a fox would be the next culprit to come into our homes in the dead of night and hurt our children?
Quite frankly, it’s bloody petrifying. It’s shocking, awful and worrying. However, I thought we closed, shut, locked and bolted our homes before we went to sleep each night? I thought we did this to protect from our very worst nightmares i.e. someone sneaking into our houses and viciously attacking our children? I was under the impression we did this because we thought someONE could do this to our families; without even considering someTHING doing it?
It might just be me, but I’m from a home that does lock ourselves safely away at night, and does not leave our children exposed to dangers while we’re preoccupied. Hasn’t the Madeline Mcann case taught us this much? It seems surreal to me, that parents would leave the back door open to allow a breeze into the house to keep their children cool. Please, buy a fan- there is enough danger exposed to our children even with our protection, so don’t expose them even more by leaving the door to their world open for all to attack in the middle of the night…..

So, I’ve been away for my last week in Bournemouth before coming home for my placement year. My boyfriend, Jay, came and stayed the week with me too and this meant catching the Megabus down to me; due to having a poorly vehicle.
During my first year at Uni I used the Megabus all the time; their fares were cheap and their staff were friendly, with a big bellied bloke driving the buses and chit-chattering all the way. However, since they stopped the service from Oxford to Bournemouth, I never thought to use the comany anymore. But when we were brainstorming the cheapest ways to get to Bournemouth, I instantly thought of the Megabus, as I knew they still ran to Southampton. So, with his £7.50 tickets booked, Jay was ready at the bus stop in WaterEaton eagerly awaiting his bus which was due to arrive at 11.55am…

And so he continued to wait for some time…

At 12.30pm, with fake tan in one hand and hairdryer in the other, I recieved the text I knew I would do sooner or later…”I’m still waiting for the bus babe”… I knew this would come eventually, with Jay hoping to stress me out for a laugh and wind me up before arriving ‘early’ and saying “Babe! I was joooking!”…
However, turns out he wasn’t joking. After ringing the Megabus company to find out where the bus was, we were told “all buses are running on time” by some “computer says no” style employee, despite this one being 40 minutes late….
I then called the company myself, and was once again informed that all buses are on time today, after being on hold for 13 minutes. By now I’m convinced someone is seriously trying to tick me off.
We then made a third call almost an hour after the bus was scheduled to arrive, to then be told that the bus had left Oxford on time, but from Gloucester Green, not WaterEaton. “Sorry”.
Errrm, sorry?! WHAT THEN? BUSES DON’T JUST LEAVE FROM ANOTHER STOP? HOW NOW?? WHAAAAATT??
“Sorry, yup, the bus has gone, wanna book on the next one? 10.30pm tonight?”
By now, I’m fuming, I’ve literally got smoke coming out my ears, I’m pretty sure Jay could hear the ‘bull’ noises ragging from my house in Bournemouth all the way in Oxford.
So, the only thing left to do was to book onto the next one. In a man’s mind….I’ve other ideas…
I then got Jay to book onto the next train to Bournemouth, and keep tightly hold of his tickets as we would be billing the Megabus for their shocking service! Eventually when he arrived in Bournemouth, Jay suggests writing a letter…Oh don’t you worry, I’VE ALREADY WRITEN IT!!
So two Megabus tickets, a £5 phone charge and a £35 train ticket later, the Megabus are being billed big time!
My frustration doesn’t just lie with the fact the bus went from another stop, but the fact that we were not told in any way shape or form, that we had to phone three times before being told what had actually happened, aaaannddd that the service was so appalling!

The Megabus is now a Mega-no-go for me!

I had my finance exam today. FML.

I thought last year’s finance exam was bad. How very, very, VERY wrong I was too. I’ve never got my head around “financial appraisal for business”…and it doesn’t help having a lecturer, who no offence to him: is called Brian, looks like the image below, wears a red rucksack which sits nicely on his shoulders and is on virtually every level mentally challenged with the inability to talk any sense whatsoever. Can you even begin to imagine not understanding financial forecasts but on top of that have a lecturer who actually gets corrected by the students on spelling mistakes and numerical errors in the text book we use written by him! Christ- it’s appauling.

So anyway, I get into the exam and open the first page and laughed. Usually a huge sigh occurs at a difficult exam paper, but today was an actual laugh. A laugh out loud. I don’t think I’ve ever sat through an entire exam and physically not been able to answer any of the questions.

Finance is just not a friend of mine. One of those subjects I simply can’t get my head around. The exam included drawing up a ‘capital investment appraisal’ and ‘varience analysis’ and defining five financial terms which my eight year old sister would probably have more luck with. Conclusions from todays fail are 1- Invest in a personal finance tutor like when we were in year 9 doing out SATS and 2- Resit the exam in August.

Anyway who can offer any help- please god do not hesitate!

I haven’t really blogged about anything very serious since I’ve adopted this new hobby. I don’t really know where the line is, and what business it is of mine to write about frightening and worrying news stories. However, the story in the press at the moment about the mother and father and their two children in Madrid has really got me asking so many questions and actually wanting to shout out at the state of the world.
Two children have been found dead, murdered in a hotel room in Spain earlier this week, and it is their mother who is being held for questioning; having suspectedly suffocated the 11 month old boy and 5 year old girl. This alone is horrific, shocking and touches the heart, however what I find even more breath-taking and quite frankly utterly sickening is that their father is a peodophile. The man was also arrested earlier this week when he was found in Madrid after years of searching for him. He is currently being held for 13 charges of child related offences. So it begs me to say, how absolutely awful that these two young innocent children should loose their lives just as their monster of a father is brought to justice. I can’t help but wonder; did the mother commit what she did for their own sake? To protect them from any further harm? Did she think it was best? Did their father ever even hurt them? Or is their mother simply a monster too?
Such stories, as a young woman, petrify me. Just how unsafe today’s society is, and how some people out there literally cannot even trust or rely on their own mother and father. It really does make me grateful for everyday, and all the loving family I have around me.
I admitedly didn’t pay a hell of a lot of attention to this year’s election, nor did I vote; maybe I should have done. I can only hope that the new Government will take it upon themselves to at least make our country a better, and safer place.
Damn you Pandora for opening that bloody box!

I’ve never really got excited about many TV programs, in the sense that I religiously watch them every night, and have to make sure I am in, sofa bound, tea in hand with a ‘do not disturb’ sign stuck to my forehead. When the British Soap Awards was on last night, I simply thought ‘yeh, ok, lets watch it’ but no excitement was coming from me…
I used to watch Coronation Street and Emmerdale ALL the time when I was at school; these programs would be on just before bed, and would extend ‘awake time’ if I snuggled into mum to watch them. Tell a lie, I am quite a strict following of Eastenders, because, well, who isn’t?
So when the Soap Awards was on last night, I didn’t really recognise the major storylines, or some of the actors or even some shows-Doctors?!- Who? Where? What’s this?… (However, after being glued to the screen the entire time it was on I now feel the need to watch ALL soaps again as I seem to have missed out on some serious action!)
A few were familiar; Bradley jumping off the Queen Vic, Syed (enough said), Sarah’s parachute horrendously hurtling to earth in Hollyoaks and Aaron’s gay confession in Emmerdale. I think that those that won deserved to, as they were the only story lines I had seen or remembered (ha!) However, one award which has made me decide to actually vote in this shin-dig next year is the ‘Best Actress’ award.
So bravo Stace you did it again!- Or maybe not- did anyone see this girls sour, ungrateful, ‘I’d rather be at home watching myself on screen’ face she was wearing? I know it must be a drag to win best actress over and over again (pffftt) but at least show a little respect to the fans and show how grateful you are- com-is-er-bloody-ations to those who didn’t get it?? People actually spent the time to vote for her, and are literally praising her for her acting talents year after year, so why did she looked so p**ssed off that she’d won again? Walk in the park was it love? Someone else could deserve that award! Grrrr…

But anyway, congratulations Eastenders on ‘Soap of the Year’ again, I for one think you deserved it! 🙂

I have lived in Bournemouth for two years now, and have had my car there with me for most of that, but it’s just recently that I have started to notice the lack of petrol stations? I live in Winton, probably an 8 minute drive from Bournemouth town centre; partly because of the traffic and the umpteen billion traffic lights and speed cameras. So this distance, despite being relatively short, means when I need petrol, I really need petrol; right away?
Back home in Oxfordshire, I can have less than a teaspoon amount of petrol in my tank and by confident that this will get me to a petrol station, because although I only live in a small town there is a BP, Tesco, Sainsburies and a Shell all within about 30 seconds away! Throughout Oxfordshire, now I come to think about it, there are petrol stations at every corner?

So it bares the question why are there so little petrol stations in a huge place like Bournemouth? Well actually, I correct myself, its not that they are short numbered, its the distance from anywhere you have to take to get to them. And then surprise surprise, when you find one, you’ve stumbled across about ten…
I’d really like it if someone could correct this problem, and put a bloody petrol station in Winton! That is all…

I have always been the girl my friends turn to when they need a hair re-vamp-colour style! When I have blonde hair (lol) I use a £4.00 box of bleach, yank my hair through a cap and slap it on! And regardless of the size of my hair (lol again) I have always been complimented on its colour.
So just last night I highlighted my buddies hair- firstly with a £3 ‘Nice and Easy sachet’ and then added a few highlights with my good old ‘Wella’ bleach. And she looked b-e-a-u-tiful! Just as I knew she would….providing the hair cap is pulled mega tight to the head, the roots are hit and the colour looks professionally done.

So, my question is, why do hair dressers charge so much? I understand they use a better quality of hair dye, and you are paying for the labour; however I do not understand how anyone can justify spending around £70 on a head of highlights and a blow dry….every 6 weeks, when you can just do it yourself for less than £5! If you’ve got the right nack for it-you can touch the roots and section highlights evenly; so I for one will NEVER go into a hairdresser and pay those horrendous prices!

Look what I found….

How amazingly cool?!?! I saw these ipod/phone hoodys in a gadget shop in Milton Keynes a few weeks back, and I really want one! My phone desperately needs a makeover, and the Blackberry silicone cases are no good for me as I seem to chew them to pieces?- don’t ask. I don’t have the answer…

I live in hooded jumpers and think this bit of mobile dress up would be perfect…can someone buy me one please:)

Anyone who knows me will agree I am more than a fan of taking photographs. Even if only of myself, I have to have a camera with me wherever I go. I was so disappointed when I purchased my Blackberry Curve only to find the camera on it was absolutely shocking. And to add to this, every single digital camera I have ever owned has broke on me. Whether the zoom lens decides it doesn’t want to, or the power button thinks ‘No’; they have all packed in and given up.
Digital cameras, as amazing as they are, are always hassle for me. Even when I have captured the moments I want to; the people around me, the food I’m eating or even the sky that day, it is then a problem in itself getting the images off the camera asap….
You have to find a computer which doesn’t run so slowly you want to throw it through the nearest window, or a ‘Boots’ store where you can print for 5p a photo.
The Polaroid camera was discontinued in 2008. Why? Who’s decision was this?! I was just thinking yesterday how fantastic it would be to own one, and when I ‘googled’ it, discovered they were no longer being made. However, Fujifilm have decided to make the new ‘Instax Mini 7’. Despite this camera having awful reviews and a general response that the Polaroid should rest peacefully in its grave, I am hoping that it will be the start of the return.

This particular model is criticised for only producing photos the size of a credit card, but I strongly believe this is only because the designers are trying to keep in form with the pocket size camera we all carry with us today. However, if someone were to build a larger model, which produced excellent, larger photos, I also believe this will be a success, and I for one will be buying one as soon as they are made!

I read today that Cheryl Cole and Fergie are set to do a musical duet?

Am I the only one thinking this is going to be completely pointless? In my opinion, Cheryl should stop singing altogether; not join other people! I am not a fan of Cheryl’s music; if you couldn’t already tell, and I also don’t believe Fergie can sing. Have you ever listened to this woman perform live? Actually, have you ever listened to either of them live?

I’m not being funny, but it’s certainly not something I want to listen to, or a sound which any other creature with a voice-box can’t produce…

Both artists are absolutely nothing without Will.I.Am; he even wrote the song they are set to record together, so how about the 3 of them just make a band and Cheryl and Fergie just dance, or even stand near Will.I.Am? I’m sure this will be far more pleasing for all of us.

Please, somebody stop the ‘duet’ from happening…..!!!