Buses are expensive in Bergamo!

There is possibly nothing more humiliating than standing outside a crowed train station being treated like a high priority criminal for not having a ticket for the bus. Now granted I had hopped on the bus without a ticket assuming I could buy one on the bus but alas this is Italia! That would be far too simple. Silly me, I feel I should know by now that everything in Italy is constructed in a way that makes sure you really do really really want or need what you are attempting to buy before you can actually physically own it. If you want to buy a drink at a bar for example you have to queue to pay for it, then you are given a receipt; with that receipt clutched tightly in your hand you then have to move 10 metres to your left to queue again before the drink becomes a physical entity in your hand that will help you forget all about the silly queuing system you have just endured. Not to mention the peculiar Italian notion of how to queue…. but I digress!

So, there I am outside Bergamo train station being asked for documentation.... I tell them I don't have anything, seems like a fair and truthful response. He simply looks at me slightly confused and asks again. He then starts pointing at my bag, as he asks me in Italian and then smirks as he walks me over to two other middle aged and slightly pop bellied miserable Italian men. He tells these men of the current dilemma, I don’t have my ticket (alert the media!) and, god forbid, I don’t have any documentation either. The man simply looks me up and down and, holding up three fingers says “30 euros...” After realising he hasn't in fact mistaken me for a prostitute in my hard rock cafe Firenze t-shirt and €10 jeans (what a find they were btw!) I instantly become offended. Ok, I said I don't understand why I need a document but that's because, strangely enough I’ve never put myself in this predicament before not because I'm an idiot that can't understand the word 30 without the correct amount of fingers being rudely shoved in my general direction. After a failed attempt at finding a ticket I knew I had bought a few days and forgot to stamp (genuine mistake) I get out my purse and tell the grumpy men I still don't understand why I'm being asked for documentation I blatantly don’t have, and more importantly why I am paying what I consider an extortionate €30. I dubiously take out my English provisional driving license and hold it out as what must be a pathetically helpless expression sweeps across my face, the man that has bought me over to the others grunts before snatching it (yes really) and writing my name on a piece of paper shortly before scribbling €30 and signing it. Oh great! Now my actual name is on a document that's going to be kept in some stuffy office and stop me from ever getting Italian citizenship! ... Perhaps that's  a touch melodramatic but alas it is what goes through one’s mind when they hand over 30 precious euros to the grumpy men who practical snatch it from my hands. I am handed a thin piece of yellow paper that will document forever this highly depressing event and I sheepishly walk off, trying to avoid eye contact with a semi attractive guy that has been watching the whole ordeal with a sympathetic eye. I shrug off into the station and go and buy my ticket to Milano. I've already missed the train I wanted to get so it annoys me that little bit more that I now have to pay an extra euro for my train ticket... Thank you atb! When the ticket is printed and I can regained some control over my facial expression which has turned into an involuntary scowl, I head to the platform to await my train. As I walk through to platform 6 I see the semi attractive boy again and he approaches me... Perhaps this is fate I think to myself; this is how I meet a new friend/ free Italian tutor/ boyfriend... But I was too riled at the way the grumpy bus men had treated me and this must have been written all over my face, still, for as he approached and smiled at me and we made eye contact, he quickly retreated, instead making eye contact with the seemingly fascinating clock to my right... Yup, another fine example of how not to live your life, thank you very much atb bus services! And really, don't feel obliged to meet me again!

Oops, I seem to have moved to Italy

Allora. 3 syllables, 6 letters, simple! Everytime I hear that word it makes me smile. Even now after 4 months in Italy I still smile whenever I hear the word. I can think of no better word to start a post about the joys of Italy and the joys I have had working for ACLE. It has literally been the most exciting and exhausting summer of my life and I have met so many wonderful people from all over the world and all over Italy. Words cannot describe how much I miss some of them and how much most of them made me laugh. My advice to you if you read this and are contemplating teaching abroad, look up ACLE, it will be the best decision of your life and I guarantee you that you won’t regret it!

So here is my summer with ACLE all down in black and white, from orientation to camps across the entirety of northern italia!

My summer started on the 5th of June when I arrived in the sunny San Remo for a week of Orientation. I had no idea at all what to expect and rocking up to a large building at 8.30am on Monday morning, having climbed up; definitely 1000 stairs; I find myself looking around at a room full of equally apprehensive faces all wondering "Did I make the right choice or am I going to immediately regret this decision." After all, everyone here had flown from somewhere across the world to this small seaside town with only an slight inkling as to what they had applied to spent their summer doing. Orientation after that initial moment of “uh-oh” is a bit of a blur for me, jam packed with crazy games and songs. I remember getting a little over excited about writing ACLE related lyrics to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” my most favoured line of genius being “Don’t stop repeating, hold on to that English. Watch, listen and repeat”…. What can I say…. Im amazing *cough*…. Anyway, orientation also involved taking part in a rather drunkard last night at Tahiti where I accidently flashed my bra to everyone from the ACLE office… what can I say…. I just wanted to be noticed….. (It really was a complete accident and not at all a ploy for attention) There is also somewhere in my brain the vague memory of a talent show where I played a rather poor magicians assistant who thought she was excellent…. And that was that, orientation was over and there I stood at the train station talking to Romina who was surrounded by boxes of juice and fruits for our journeys and awaiting a train that would take me to my first camp. A flustered Vince came rocking up after just taking a bunch of people to their platform to take us, his final group to our train and see us off safely. I remember looking around at the people who, just 5 days ago had been complete strangers yet now felt like good friends, all with big smiles on their faces that matched my own, listening to and telling jokes and funny stories. I wondered if they were as anxious as I was feeling, having had a slight panic about what was going to happen next. As we boarded our train to a place we had never heard of, just outside of a town we didn’t know I began to realise the crazy yet amazingly exciting nature of working for ACLE.

Meeting our first ever camp directors was a slight jolt to the system, they spoke very little English and didn’t often get to practice the English they did know. I remembered the tips from orientation. “Speak slowly, keep it simple, nobody wants to know your life story!” That first meeting was strange, awkward and a little bit overwhelming but after standing in front of a small group of 10 year old Italian children for 10 minutes shouting “Hello!” and “my name is….” I knew that this was going to be an amazing summer! The rest of that week now is a blur involving a rather timid; when compared with later events, water games afternoon and a show that involved spongebob squarepants. Now that I had successfully completed my first camp I felt good and ready to start all over again. There hadn’t been any major hiccups, save the sweet 10 year old girl that really didn’t have a clue. Let me paint the picture, camp has lasted 5 days and she has been answering questions the entire time with a whispered help from her friends. I sit her down to test her and start with what I believe to be a simple question. “Where were you born?” … I am met with blank stares and hazy eyes. Ok, rethink Hayley! What would make this easier? Oh of course… “Where do you come from? Where do you LIVE?” …… more blank stares. I start to replay the moment in my mind, I spoke slowly, very slowly and very clearly. I enunciated every. Single. Letter in a way that would make Michael proud…. I start to wonder if this girl paid any attention at all when I suddenly get an “OOOOOHHHH”…. Phew…. “Allora…” she says with a big smile. “Pizza….. Pasta……Erm….. No…. Pizza.” She sits there, pleased as punch with herself as I paste on my best Disney smile and tell her she can go before putting a small x next to her name.

That one incident became a running theme for me and the other tutors at each camp after that first camp of the summer. Each week, after the initial lesson when you walk into a classroom and do your introductions to the class, the first question asked at break was always “got any pizza pasta kids this week?” It was like a secret code that kept us all amused when we had a moment to breath. That, along with a constant stream of conversations about colours and random outbursts of songs involving baby sharks and other animals such as jellyfish, octopus and moose; not to mention bazooka bubblegum and questionable deep south accents, the summer was shaping up to be one of the best so far.

During the rest of the summer I came to meet so many amazing people, a large percentage of which I fully intend to stay in contact with and a select few very special people that I know will remain a friend for life. The brilliant thing about ACLE is that everyone has more or less the same outlook, even during my week off when I purely by accident ended up in Baiardo, I found that everyone around me was a fantastic human being. Everyone reads, everyone loves to travel and everyone loves to get a little bit tipsy on red wine and to be honest it would be cruel to say no to wine that is €3 for a bottle!

Whenever I think back over the summer I wont just remember the complete sense of achievement you get when an Italian child with a huge smile on their face completes an entire sentence in English, all alone. I will remember the host families that I loved so much. Especially the wonderful family I stayed with in Venice that have literally become like family to me and I miss immensely. I will also remember the other brilliant tutors, I was fortunate enough to be with amazing tutors at every camp during my summer and I have honestly never laughed so much and so often. Once, during a meeting with a camp director I laughed so hard that I broke my Venetian glass ring from Murano by banging my hand on the table a little too enthusiastically. There is also video evidence somewhere of me and a rather wonderful girl from Buffalo laughing so much we are actually crying during a pretty intense “Messy Games” day.

ACLE has given me friends in Australia, America and Canada (we all know how much I love the Canadians!) and made me really appreciate how much I love fellow brits. After spending summer away from home, surrounded by American’s and Canadians I didn’t realise how much I missed British sarcasm until I was placed at a 2 week camp with a fantastic bunch of fellow brits. I still feel sorry for the sweet Canadian girl that was at that camp with us because our conversations, though completely hilarious and not at all offensive to us, must have made her wish she was suddenly deaf to sarcastic and borderline inappropriate banter that we call the natural flow of conversation.

And so concludes my mismatched tales of my summer of fun and excitement. Getting paid to teach English to wonderful Italian children is one thing but being able to initiate afternoons of water games is something entirely different. Not to mention the excitement that comes from applying face paint to yourself and other tutors to ensure you look like the safari animal you are about to become; shortly before running away as an entire camp of children chase you around the playground because you are worth ten points to their Olympic team . Then there’s the fact that it becomes perfectly acceptable to paste nutella onto children’s faces, not to mention your own (for demonstration purposes only of course), whilst throwing cheerios at fellow tutors also covered in nutella, all in order to see which child’s face can hold the most cereal. And all of this is without mention of the thrill you get from running around covered in “war paints” during a game of capture the flag, makes ACLE, quite possibly my favourite way to spend the summer months!.... and that’s without even starting on the beautiful and purely stunning parts of Italy you get to explore…. All from the eyes of truly Italian people!

And so....I leave you with this..... singing NANANANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NANANANANANANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! 

Flying, Buzzing Hatred.

Itchy itchy, scratchy scratchy, oh I got one on my backy….. and now it must DIE! The one thing I can truly say without so much as a regretful moment is this: The one thing I really really do not like, even a little bit, about Italy is the incessant little cretins that go by the name of “mosquito” or if were being all Italian about it … zanzare!

Not only do you look like you need to take your medication when you are found, stern faced, clapping at random points in the space in front of you whilst muttering under your breath but the itching is completely intolerable and either ends in a body covered in self inflicted scratches that make you look like you’ve been run over by a rather determined steam roller or you appear to have suddenly contracted the previous thought of as extinct (is this the right word?!) disease known as small pox.

A dot to dot all over your body is slowly created and you find yourself wondering how on earth so many of the little flying creatures from hell have had the pleasure of sucking your blood. As the months pres on and the days get hotter,  your body seems to become a landing patch for other mosquitoes to come and visit as they suck at your flesh and notice their friend bobby the tiger mosquito has left an enormous tag just next to the one he is currently creating.

At one point during my own mosquito nightmare an acle camp director asked me if I was allergic to the critters as I appeared to be covered in bites and with much concern she plied me with ample amounts of anti-mosquito cream. After pointing out I had already completely covered myself in a deodorant style rolling anti-death fly cream I was presented with concerned views from all Italian mommas around me before insisting it looked worse than it was. This was mostly a lie as the itching is horrendous and consistently annoying but I didn’t want to cause hysteria so thought this the safest option. After surviving several weeks away from the mosquitoes favourite region to hang out and torture as many humans as possible my return to Milan saw my legs suffer with a total of 47 bites in one night, having applied extra mosquito spray and feeling like an anti mosquito beacon, it was at this moment I decided they were my new arch enemy.

As time went on I became rather good at catching and killing mosquitoes with my bare hands, and feeling a near euphoric sense of victory after each kill. This being a notion rather alien to my strict vegetarian, you can’t kill animals mentality, I decided it was perfectly acceptable as they were in fact, along with moths… the creatures from hell itself.

So mosquitoes, next time you are arrogantly buzzing around the room or in fact anywhere near my person, be warned, I am armed and I will attack. You have been warned!  

Actually I don't want a boyfriend...

Every morning as I potter around my one bed flat I feel a little bit more like an unfortunate version of Bridget Jones. Living alone has its perks, you can stay in bed for as long as you want and not have to justify it (if anyone asks you can always lie, who’s going to know that when you said you got up at 9am you meant 12pm and you didn’t get dressed until 4, and only because you realised you needed to go and buy some milk) you can eat and drink at whatever ridiculous time you choose and you don’t have to brush your hair. Perfection.

Sometimes however, as I sit down after overindulging myself by dancing around in my batman t-shirt, clutching a whiskey and singing along (much to the distress of my neighbours) at the top of my voice to everything from Glee to Pearl Jam; I wonder, would I be happier or at least a little less distressingly similar to Bridget Jones if I had a boyfriend?

The more I think about it the more I realise that actually, I don’t want a boyfriend at all…I just want a slave. I want a nice man, preferably tall and skinny with blonde floppy hair (see examples 1 and 2) to be my protector from moths, my chef, my chauffer and a vessel at which to spout everything and anything that’s on my mind. After talking with one of my closest friends, we both came to the conclusion that it would in fact be so much easier to have a slave and not a boyfriend (with the exception of a marriage proposal from the aforementioned sex gods which of course I would immediately accept after regaining the power of speech)

After all, if you have a boyfriend you’re expected to treat them well and tell them nice things about themselves – effort! Sometimes you’re going to have to cook and then of course clean up all the mess. Not to mention having to brush your hair AND get out of bed and into the shower at a decent time in order to entertain them! No, having a boyfriend is just… So. Much. Effort. At first it always starts out well, you actually have a reason to leave the house and socialise; so that’s exciting. You go for nice romantic walks to Sainsbury’s and grab a Starbucks and everything is peachy. Then you realise that you’d actually like it if you could have some time to yourself and just schedule them in to come and help you when you need it. A slave to do all the important man things like save you when there’s a giant and terrifying moth terrorising you as you try to sleep, or being your bright eyed and beautiful delivery man when you realise you forgot something at the shops.

It’s fair to assume most people tend to believe that if you are in a relationship your other half is solely responsible for your happiness and, if for some reason you’re not having the time of your life it’s all their fault and there is nothing they can say or do to correct their heinous misdemeanours. Enter slave. Their sole purpose being to supply you with whatever it is you need at that moment. Whether that means to keep you company when you want to rant about that horrible woman at work, or be the nice strong arms that hug you tightly as you get over emotional watching “Britains Got Talent” or “X-Factor”.

The best part of this new fangled arrangement? You don’t have to say that horrible phrase “No, I’m fine.” There is some unwritten rule of the universe that teaches everyone with at least one brain cell that “fine” means a thousand things, but never, in the history of the world has it ever meant that you are actually ok. You can skip over the bad parts of relationships like stupid arguments and fighting over who’s turn it is to take out the bins; even if, in my opinion that should be a job reserved solely for men. Instead you can just enjoy the fun moments of being saved and hugged and cooked for. Who needs a man to be happy in this age anyway? That’s what books are for… Pride and Prejudice was written solely to make women realise that no one will ever be as perfect as Mr.Darcy so why bother? Why go through the stress of moulding a man into your perfect slave personal Mr.Darcy when you can just go about getting a slave outright. I’m by no means saying “Come on girls lets burn our bras and stick it to the man!” but it’s something to think about. Perhaps I should give the idea time to settle, after all, it’s a life changing and incredibly ground breaking discovery that must be chewed upon.  Any takers? No?

How not to row a boat...

Picture the scene, a warm sunny day in Stratford; birth place of the one and only William Shakespeare. It just so happens that we’ve made our way here, purely coincidentally on Shakespeare’s birthday (23^rd April for those of you who live in a cave) not that you would be able to tell. There are no celebrations, no balloons or anything else to symbolise the day, I later find out from a friend who lives in Stratford that they are postponing the celebrations until next weekend, the weekend that just so happens to be the royal wedding… competition?

As I looked around the scene in my brand new sunglasses (somewhat of a novelty that much to the distress of my work friends I haven’t stopped talking about for weeks) it’s the usual postcard shot of a day in England when the sun decides to come out. Men automatically rip off their shirts and wear their shorts as low as possible whilst sauntering around in flip flops and giving in to the sudden urge to play Frisbee. It doesn’t matter if there is quite a cold breeze rippling through the trees, the sun is out! We British are very good at making the most of even the slightest opportunities!

My brother decides he really wants to go on a rowing boat in the wonderful murky waters of the river avon. Why not! I hear you cry, rowing isn’t difficult and look at all of those people currently rowing so easily up and down the river; this will be a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon. So there we were waiting for our turn on the rowing boat, as the queue got smaller I began to doubt myself on my abilities to row a boat. I had been quite good at kayaking that one time…. This is basically the same right? After handing over £7 to a guy who looked like he’d turned the wrong way on a Newquay beach and lost his surf board, said man helped us very gingerly into the boat. I grabbed hold of the two rather heavy and long oars and was told to be on my way. Excitedly I put them into the water, drawing them backwards before bringing them back out of the water to repeat the motion. This is brilliant! So easy! I don’t know why I doubted myself. It was only after a few attempts at this that I realised we were in fact still exactly where we started. Oh crikey! I don’t think I can row a boat and now there are several dozen people watching our progress as they sit in the sun waiting for their turn.

Putting on a brave face and flashing a fabulous smile to the newly formed crowd I tried again, my brother looking slightly worried I realised we were moving, I was so proud of myself! I looked around slowly at the ducks and swans swimming so peacefully past us and all was swell. Suddenly I was brought back to reality by my brother yelling “Hayley! Were about to hit a swan!”… What? Oh, yeah I knew that, I’m completely in control of the situation… as I surveyed my surroundings I realised perhaps I wasn’t so good at this. Yes indeed I had managed to manoeuvre the boat away from our starting point, however, whereas in my head we were at least a good stride away from the embankment we were in fact no more than a few meters to the left… in the shrubbery and disturbing a rather annoyed swan as it tried to go about its day in peace. Crap. At this stage we had several very helpful, if slightly annoying characters on the grass shouting out handy tips to get us out of this rather sorrowful situation. Gee thanks guys but all of you watching me is not helping me to concentrate! As I regained what little composure I had left I tried to work out the mechanics of rowing this chunk of wood away from said swan and the shrubbery the boat seemed to be so fond of. After several pitiless attempts I realised I was rather good at turning the boat. Great, so now we could go around in circles, perhaps if I did it fast enough I would start a whirlpool and really get the party started.

Realising my feeble attempts were getting us no closer to the safety of oncoming large canal barges I decided to hand over the controls of one ore to my little brother. Luckily after what felt like 2 hours but was actually perhaps a few minutes we were out of the shrubs and rowing into an oncoming boat. As I brushed my hair out of my eyes and checked that my sunglasses were still covering my face I took one last glance towards the audience that had got some light entertainment they weren’t expecting. There was a ripple of applause as one man cheered at my now entirely embarrassing ordeal and we swiftly rowed away, very inelegantly and hid around the corner from the now avid crowd of onlookers!

Deciding it would perhaps be best if we swapped positions and my little brother rowed the boat for the time we had left we tried to choreograph a wonderful and extra specially smooth change of seats. However, once again this didn’t go to plan and as the boat rocked violently from side to side I decided the best course of action was to man up and row the beast! This plan seemed to work for all of ten minutes before we were once again embedded in some shrubbery. I had got a little too over excited with the prospect of looking like a professional rower to passers by further down the river and hadn’t realised I was rowing us directly into the brick wall that made up the bank outside the RSC. To make matters worse, a handful of school friends who I had bumped into earlier after not seeing them for years chose this exact moment to peep their heads over the side of the wall to see what the small gathering of tourists were looking at. “Hi Hayley! Looking good” came the call from above us. Oh marvellous, now everyone knew my name! I smiled and waved as if I hadn’t a care in the world before going back to rowing in circles. After realising this was once again a fruitless act I looked around for another option. “Stick your ore on the wall and push!” came the helpful response of one of my friends, and so I did… once again we were off and heading towards the patch of grass where we had left from. As we came around the corner there was once again a slight “WOO” from the crowd. Thank you very much but I will not be stopping for a chat, I do not wish for you to remember my face as I am far too embarrassed to look at you!

Heading in the general direction of the embankment and after several haphazardly movements of the ores we were parked and ready to exit sharpish. After a not so elegant exit from my rather tall brother who more or less belly flopped onto the side of the grass, I decided to try an attempt at dignity one final time. I failed. Miserably. As I stepped onto the grass I lost my footing and was grabbed by the rather attractive looking surfer as mentioned earlier who pulled me to his side as I sheepishly said thanks and slunk away as fast as possible without running.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for trying everything once, not saying no and going for gold but note to self: if you know you probably won’t be able to do something and there are several 100 people in the close vicinity, you probably shouldn’t do it! Well not unless you want a standing ovation for closely avoiding a bite from a swan and a trip home covered in murky river water anyway!

Some rules of etiquette should always be followed.

(I apologise in advance for the crass nature of this post)

Etiquette, even the word itself is as pretentious as its meaning. I’d like to point out that I am by no means an expert at etiquette; I never know how to sit at a table properly at a restaurant without looking like I’m about to skip out on the bill, and it always makes me feel awkward when the barman pours half your bottled cider into the glass for you. I always smile politely as I think “Seriously Mr. I got myself to the bar, I ordered this drink and was fully functional enough to pay for it correctly…I’m sure I can handle pouring it into a glass without a mini demonstration…”

There is however, one rule of etiquette that I believe should always be followed just as a matter of human decency. What is that I hear you cry? The answer is the general public’s ridiculous and stomach churning need to constantly pick their nose. Whoever told these people that picking your nose, in public let alone in the comfort of your own home was acceptable?! It literally makes me feel a little dizzy when I think about it because everywhere you go; mostly when you least expect it… you will come face to face with a full frontal, no shame at all, nose picker.

I think the worst part of this horrendous public display of repulsiveness is that nobody else seems to a) notice or b) care. People, this is a serious matter, picking germs and mucus out of your actual nose as you walk down the street, stop at a traffic light or look at some clothes in a shop is not acceptable! It has to stop. I was walking into town from my flat the other day and I was persistently haunted by incessant nose pickers. Imagine the scene, when you’re watching a film and someone just found out they’re pregnant and they see babies everywhere? Now imagine that in real life, only its worse… because my montage of images are of grubby people sticking a podgy index finger up their nostrils and having a good route around. I mean seriously, that is not the correct function for either body parts, please remove your finger now and never come near me again.

It got to the point where I was starting to feel a little queasy when I saw not only men but a woman in her posh car stopping at a light having a quick shuffle before returning her hand to the wheel. Attention lady, you might have a flashy sports car and a nice business suit but if you’re wedging your finger into your face in public you might as well be an urchin! Perhaps I just get a little too wound up about it but seriously, seeing your smeared mucus in any number of undesirable locations or in any fashion is not on my list of exciting things to do before you die! So, if you nauseating nose pickers would be so kind as to retract your fingers it’d be much appreciated. Also, if you are a sneaky nose picker (don’t worry I’m not going to tell anyone), especially a public one. Next time, as you reach that hand up to lodge it up your nostril think twice; there is always going to be some unfortunate soul that has to witness your public display of disgust!

Walking 26 miles isn't as easy as it looks!

First things first… if someone asks you if you want to walk 26 miles, even if it is for charity; think long and hard about that decision. My advice is, when they say you should “train” before hand and do some stretches to warm up your muscles, please do not stand there shaking your head and exploding with a hard to contain guffaw. Do some training, or at least some stretches beforehand. You are not invincible, and yes you will feel like you’ve aged, just in your legs and feet by the end of it.

See now, me being the all knowing fountain of knowledge that I am didn’t think about any of this at all. My thoughts went something like this; 26 miles isn’t that far… not really I don’t think it will actually take all day HA! 10 hours after starting, complete with a few stops I collapse helplessly to the ground just past the finish line, still gripping my prize winning lindt chocolate with my medal around my neck. (I figure if I’m going to remain helpless to theft for at least a couple of minutes I want to ensure I still have some chocolate to get me through the pain after such an ordeal!)

After my rather melodramatic OMG! I compose myself to assess the damage this wonderful walk around Birmingham has done to my feet. As I claw off my purple vans it feels like my feet are expanding, much in the same way a bump onto a cartoon characters head does immediately after impact. As I assess the damage I notice that there are only a few blisters covering my feet, though I am quite impressed that blood has been drawn on a couple of my toes, now that  is dedication! As I sit, rather elegantly with my bare feet on display, legs crossed, hair in my face and feeling like I am emitting green gas in the same way a sim does when it needs a shower, I think back over the past 10 hours and the walking that has taken up the best part of the day. Overall, it wasn’t all that difficult! There were a few moments where I found myself becoming irrationally angry at passersby beeping their horns in encouragement at our charitable act of walking around the outskirts of our colourful city. Mostly I had been in high spirits, maybe it was the sugar overload.

When we had set off around 9am in the morning, as the first wonderful supporter in their comfortable car and sunglasses beeped their horn there was an enthusiastic “WOO!” from myself and the people around me, but as the day drew on you could tell how much pain people were in and how much further they had to go by their reaction to such a beep. This scaled from the excitable woo at the start of the day to the “SHUT UP and get out your car and join us MORONS!” that was peacefully spoken back to passing cars towards the end of the day. This coupled with the varying emotions of all of those around me made the day quite amusing! Within a few hours of starting out the order of business had been set. My sister and friend Jack had flew on ahead at a pace I can only describe as inhumanly fast and enthusiastic. One of my sisters friends began to lag behind after we had reached our first “rest stop” where she had ingesting a burger and chips almost all in one mouthful, and the remainder of my sisters friends and myself were somewhere in the middle trying to solider on and catch up with the super humans. This was done whilst taking it in turns to whinge about our feet and have random spouts of irrational anger where bottles were “accidently” thrown at people and everything became hilariously funny, thus making walking that little bit more difficult.

I was informed that the organisers of this 26 mile jaunt; BRMB had said you would go through every emotion and I guess that that is true. I definitely visited anger, anger at passersby, anger at having so far to go, anger at my feet and irrational anger for people in general. Not to mention anger at the signs being put up incorrectly and therefore miscalculating the miles; this I took as a personal attack of people plotting against me to make the task harder. Yes, anger was definitely there! But there was also the delirium; this was most probably my personal favourite. Whilst experiencing this I remembered the hypnosis in Zoolander and almost found myself seeing Will Ferrell handing me lollies whilst telling me to be happy… happppppy. It set in at intervals just after the half way point. We had sat down around 1.30 for some lunch and having had to stand up in stages and walking around like we had broken backs for a couple of minutes we set off again. At first this was in good spirits, 10 miles to go we were told. We began to walk up a slight hill when it all went wrong. Suddenly I had the uncontrollable urge to laugh, I didn’t understand it! There was nothing funny around, no one had fallen over and no one had said anything to stimulate such a reaction but there I was, laughing uncontrollably at the sentence “come on, jog for a bit, it makes your legs feel better” I looked around at my friend and my sister and her friends and found that they were all laughing also, we had no idea why. This went on for several minutes when Jack decided that it wasn’t for him and disappeared like speedy Gonzales never to be seen again!

As we got closer to the end the pace slowed and I found my legs having an argument with the rest of my body. My brain was telling them to get a move on and my legs were rather stubbornly telling me to politely get lost! As my body was having this inner argument I received a phone call from Jack to say he had just crossed the finish line, that I probably had about an hour and a half left and oh yeah, the last hill before the end was a killer. Well thank you very much kind sir, I’ll just crawl into a corner and die now if that’s ok with you! I gave him my congratulations through gritted teeth, don’t get me wrong I was genuinely happy he had finished… and in record time but I wanted to remind him that now was not a good time to talk about his superhuman abilities to put one foot in front of the other at such a speed.

As I battled through the last 2 miles, up the aforementioned ridiculously steep hill I found myself happier than I had ever felt in my life. I never thought it would feel so good to see the word “finish” on a big white sign in a dishevelled park on the outskirts of Birmingham! As my sister, her friend and I stumbled somewhat elegantly toward the finish line there were half hearted cheers from some of the sponsors on the side lines. Yes we were some of the last people to cross the line but we didn’t care. It was done, we had made it and all was glorious! As I fumbled across the finish in a daydream I had a medal placed around my neck by a nice lady who just smiled at me when I told her it was cold, but cold was nice. I moved slowly down the table to find some lindt chocolate in big boxes, the lady telling me that I could take a handful if I liked. Not wanting to look like a true fattie I took just 3 and stumbled in the direction of my sister. By now my feet and my legs were shouting at the rest of my body, demanding to sit down and please, not to get up again for a while. Finally I gave in and sat down with a graceful thump and drowned myself in water. I had done it! I was still in one piece and I had only had to use my inhaler once. Ok, so perhaps walkathons weren’t a scratch on an actual marathon but I had completed it, all in one piece with somewhat minimal damage to myself… It was only when I crawled into a hot bath about an hour later that I realised the true pain that was to come. As I sat absorbing the amazing feeling of the hot water against my legs I had a moment of panic where I thought I may have to stay there till morning as I couldn’t lift myself out. After realising that this was a ridiculous notion I gingerly found my seat on the sofa and found myself smiling inanely at the screen. I had done it, when even I thought I couldn’t. Now, I don’t care what anyone else thinks, that’s something that I feel I can be proud of! 

When Moths Attack

Hello, my name is Hayley and today my life hit an all time low.

I suppose you’re wondering what I mean, whether I’m just being melodramatic and if something serious actually occurred. Well, not really… but today I realised that, aged 23 knocking on 24’s door, living in my own flat and having a real life grown up job (just about) I still scream out loud and hide my face like a child seeing a clown for the first time, every single time I see a moth.

Now, my all consuming and unfathomable phobia of the fury villains of the night has been something I have had to suffer for many a year, but this specific tale of woe started a few weeks back. After having a “nothing to report” couple of days in sunny Wales I arrived back at my flat with my younger brother in tow. We were having a nice relaxing evening when a flying creature from the pit of hell (a moth smaller than the nail on my little toe) started flying arrogantly towards my face as I was sat on my sofa. Of course I dealt with the matter swiftly and in a manner that any sensible adult would; almost pouring my hot cup of coffee over my bare legs and hiding my face behind a cushion whilst asking my brother of 15 to do something about this terrifying situation. For the record, this is probably not the best way to solve such an issue of impending doom!

After regaining my composure and realising that the moth had smugly found a home on the wall to the side of me I slowly picked up a cushion and started to move it toward the horrendous creature, slowing my hand further as I got closer, just in case he figured out what was about to happen and escaped like Houdini but with a desperate flap of those disgusting wings! AHA! I had got it, the moth was now nothing more than a poof of powdery brown goo on my cushion and also on my wall… lovely! (note to self, cushion must now be immediately put into washing machine)

Feeling slightly like a murderer I convinced myself that my actions were justified as it was, after all, a creature from the depths of all evil and had no place in the world, especially not when that world consisted of the four walls of my wonderful flat which, up until this point had been flying vermin free!

The ordeal was over and I once again settled on my sofa, trying not to think about the event as it was close to bed time and my brain is a hub of overactive imagination at the best of times. However my trauma was not over, not even ten minutes later another moth, just as arrogant and sauntering as my previous attacker mysteriously appeared in my living room and at once made a b-line for my face. OH CHRIST! I had killed the mafia boss of Moths and now his crony was after me to seek revenge. I looked around feverishly for the now penned “death cushion” that had seen the last seconds of the previous winged beasts life and slowly tiptoed across the room. I waited, anxious and cold for the new addition to my living room to find a place to have a rest and when it did BOOM. Death cushion was in place and said moth was no more! Victory was mine and there was nothing they could do about it! Feeling extremely proud of myself I returned to the sofa and resumed previous activities. Reliving the story of my pure heroism with my little brother (also scared but not quite terrified of said creatures from hell)

Now, you might think that this is the end of my ordeal but no. No, no no! For several weeks after this incident more and more of the little critters have been making an appearance around my flat, death cushion has always taken their lives before they were able to attack but the event came to ahead just a few days ago.

I had been sat happily in bed, reading a new book that I had been extremely excited to start reading when not one but two of the egotistical little beasts decided they would once again make a play to destroy me by flying at my face. I am not proud to admit that I once again screamed like a small child and flung myself out of the bed and into the living room in a flash so fast I was almost impressed; had it not been for the return of impending danger I would have taken the time to congratulate myself on my swiftness, I’d have to save that for a later moment.

Having assessed the situation and planned a method of winning the battle I grabbed a hold of my trusty death pillow and, tiptoeing once again, went in for the kill. First one, down, dead! Winner. Then the other, in a swift motion fuelled by pure terror I had eradicated my attackers and gingerly got back into bed only to be haunted by moths throughout the night.

You will be pleased to know that since this horrendous and spine chilling ordeal I have invested in some aptly and somewhat unimaginative named “moth killer strips”, though granted they seem a little flimsy next to the sheer determination of the winged beasts to disturb my otherwise peaceful existence. Hopefully I have eradicated the remaining creatures with a combination of rigorous cleaning, rearranging and a few more hours than I’d like to admit of vacuuming and sweeping every nook and cranny of my humble abode. Alas, I feel I have done all that I can, short of moving out and letting them win the war (something that could never realistically happen for more reasons than pure stubbornness) and so ends my tale of horror and woe, and let this be a warning to all those who live in fear of suffering the same ordeal as myself. Remember, eventually you have to win, if not find a corner and sit down, back against the wall. Begin to rock slowly side to side, you may also find that sobbing quietly to yourself whilst darting your eyes around the room at intervals may somehow seem to help the situation. Good luck to all!