Seriously but not serious at all fun times!

Ok, so you may or may not know that a very good friend of mine lives in a castle. Oh yeah, and not a namby pamby one either, it's a legit castle.

So we had this concert, right? It was cute, and by candlelight, and it was John's birthday. Castle Man John. 18 and all of that jazz! So, what do the kids from choir do?

CELEBRATE CHEZ SAID CASTLE DE JOHN!

Finish the concert, nip to Tesco for party supplies like pizza&pop, and get layered up. This castle was chozzen (that's VERY cold, like 4 degrees, the temperature of your FRIDGE man). I travelled with Rachael, Liz and parents, but only Rachael and I got out of the car at the castle gates. Oh , this even sounds fun, does it not? IT'S A FREAKING CASTLE!!!!!!!!!!

We got there, safe and ready for cold conditions, dumped our bags in the ballroom and set up a badminton net and staging. As you do. Musical escapades ensued, lovely, funny conversations, huddling together, talking to new people from choir, everyone together. Brilliant! Badminton, pizza transportage, cold hands, sleeping bags, boys wearing sports bras, impressions of our conductors...

Then once the food and beverages were demolished and many people were complaining of numbness in their limbs due to the cold, we decided to head upstairs into the living quarters bit of John's house, where there was heat, more food, more beverages, and not very much space, well, in the kitchen for the 20 of us anyway. 5 people left, and it soon became 2 a.m.

No problem for me, I am hardcore. A few energy beverages (I am fond of that term) inside me, caffine, happy feelings kicking around my body, I was having a great time. A few people had snuggled up next to the wood burner, and I don't blame them.

When the clock struck 3:30 am, the boys and a few of the girls decided to go on a walk to wake them up some more. They were gone for...ooh, at least an hour, and three of them, about 2 hours. Apparently, they managed to get to this ice cave that smelled like decay and would be the perfect place for hiding bodies etc. Creepy! Anyway, the other three (boys, duh) decided to go SLEDGING. AT 4 AM.

GOOD. BOYS. INDEED.

John smashed a sledge in half because, get this, they were sledging on an iced over GOLF COURSE. Yes, that's right, living on the edge. So each of them returned injured, bruised, but full of cheer, absolutely. More people had curled up in sleeping bags and coats by now, because Pippa and I had laid out cushions for a sweet little lay down in the middle of the kitchen, where it was warm and lovely. Conversations flowed, 5 am came and went, rice with butter was served, pizzas were found and eaten (more, obviously), Eleanor ate MAYONNAISE with her rice. I think we can *all* see that as just plain wrong. Anywhoo, we put Shrek 2 on, and it got to 6 am and I was restless as were Lewis and John so we talked some more and Lewis finally got changed out of his concert uniform, after having been SLEDGING in it! We then pottered off downstairs to play some badminton to stay awake.

I absolutely THRASHED them ladies and gents. So much so that Lewis actually split his pants trying to dive to hit my slam shot. LITERALLY RIPPED THE CROTCH OF HIS JEANS DOWN ONE SIDE, TO HIS KNEE. His knee! It's fair to say I was absolutely bent double with laughter at this point, with a splinter in my foot which I successfully removed safely and effectively later. When we decided we were awake enough, we went back upstairs and John and Lewis found a stuffed pheasant. They put it next to Lav so that when he woke up he just stared at it and smelled it, and looked disappointed. We were expecting him to hug or cradle it or something!

Anyway, Shrek 2 finished, it was loud and people were fidgety, so John made tea and put West Side Story on, and before I knew it, his parents were up making us a cooked breakfast and I had lost my shoes and Lav was fast asleep, and Robert Bass was sleeping in my sleeping bag looking like the most adorable little man ever, and emerged looking like a vole. It was SO CUTE, I do adore Robert! He's 13 and so lovely, awww what a lovely boy! Rachael somehow STILL slept though this, and Conor managed to wake up, people gathered blankets and layers of clothing, Charles had a freshening shower and we began to make our ways home.

I gave John a musical box card that played Happy Birthday, and he said it was the highlight of his day. He had not witnessed the ripping of Lewis' trousers or his high-speed golf course terrain manouvering on ice yet, but it was lovely to see him so pleased!

I'd like to thank his family for being so welcoming and caring, and here's to many more years John!

I was one of the hardcore 4 who hadn't slept a bare wink ALL DAY, and managed to from 9:00am to 11:20, I was very pleased. Congratulations to Eleanor, myself, John and Charles.

Elitist Castle Party Goers.

Anyway, I should probably catch up on this insane loss of sleep right now, yes?

I shall go and do that.

Oh, and I've *really* lost my voice. It started on Saturday at *that* concert, and yesterday/this morning totally erased it. Gone, poof. It sounds like I'm choking on gravel and gasping for air when I speak. It's also quite painful.

Tatty bye,

Haze

Overused word will be overused in this post

SO!

I have this huge blogging guilt. I've started like three accounts of things that have happened recently, and then I got really sad all of a sudden and couldn't finish writing it. Then, I started another document, and left the computer station at school and came home, terminating that little writing session. I'll dump that story here and now:

The 25^th November, is officially a snow day. Here, in Durham, we have about 4/6 inches of snow. Yet, I’m still in school. Technically, I have nothing to do in this lesson, so I decided I’d finally write something for you lot to read. If you still do of course. We’re discussing how rubbish Twilight is, and the pathetic nature of Bella as a protagonist. GO KATNISS AND HERMIONE!!!!!! Now it’s Christmas. I’m getting really excited; my Textiles teacher for theory is a super supporter of the Christmas spirit, especially in light of this flurry of snow.

On Tuesday, something really funny but also quite terrifying happened to me. I went to Reading Group (normal, perfectly) but didn’t have any time to get to the toilets or anything, so I ran to tutor, dumped my bags and went to the toilets under the stairs in the languages block. As I walked into the toilets, I saw a lot of flour on the floor. This was weird, even though I know Year 8 Girls hang around in there and eat food (super minging). Yet, they're still messy, and had spilled a whole bag of flour down a toilet and all over the floor. I did a little wretch and went into the disabled toilet at the end, because it's the only one that ever has toilet paper. I heard someone open the door and say "there's flour everywhere" and then the door closed. I came out of the cubicle, washed my hands and went over to the drier, avoiding the flour patch. After laughing to myself and my little head-made reference to Barbershopera III (innefective hand-driers), I made my way to the door. Grasping the handle, I pulled it towards myself with adequate force to open it and let myself out of the flour pit. Alas, the door did not swing, not even an inch. (An inch is quite a lot actually). Repeating the door opening movement, I repositioned my feet, and tugged at the handle some more. Locked. In. The. Floury. Toilets. FOREVER. I looked through the frosted glass of the door and thumped on it. "HELP! I'M IN HERE!" I shouted, really rather lamely all things considered. Thankfully, our technician walked down the stairs and heard me banging against the door. "Thankyou!" I cried, mercifully wanting to say "YOU HAVE SAVED ME, WHATEVER CAN I DO TO THANK YOU ENOUGH?", but I just left it at that. Mel (the technician) tried to kick the door down for me. I shouted back "It's locked man! Don't try!" and he escaped to go and get someone with a key. It turned out that Mr.Dodds had locked them up, and what with him being a member of male staff and all, didn't go in to check if anyone was still in there, and just LOCKED THE DOOR ANYWAY. I left the floury-pit feeling a little shaken, and only told two people about my strange adventure, feeling quite shocked really.

(Just as a little note, it has taken me so long to write this blog during today, that the sun has naturally set and I was plunged into darkness, a sign that my work really does need to be done soon. So, being me, I continue to write the blog...)

As I sit here, my feet are getting considerably colder, and I'm at my little work station. That is, I've closed the lid on my electric piano, and plonked the laptop on it so that I have a desk area rather than a bed where I am liable to just stick videos on and snooze. Failing that, whack an awesome Spotify hour or so on and get in a right musical trance. A jazz trance.

I apologise, I'm sitting and watching little snippets of the wonderful "Mighty Boosh" just because it is purely amazing, and it's making me feel really happy. I'm surrounded by wonderful music, and the snow is starting to thaw. I'll probably be at school tomorrow, so seeing human faces (other than my parents) will either cheer me up or make me more morose. Today has felt like I have been on the edge of a certain feeling all day. When I woke up, I was just moody, and then watched the episode of Hollyoaks with Steph's funeral and CRIED SO MUCH. I can't believe she just... stood in the fire and was like "I'm ready to die". I don't watch it anymore, but gosh, there are so many new characters and relationships and FUNERALS going on, it was really difficult watching. I then progressed into my bedroom, did some drawing which was rubbish and I'm not going to include in my project, listened to some fairly normal music and got bored of its... well average ability to not make me go "Wow this is beautiful music", so I felt sad about contemporary music's failings there. I ate some lunch with family, watched a programme about extreme fishing and laughed a fair bit, had some tea, played some piano which made me really happy, and then set up my little work station. Music since then has made me sink into a little bubble of content. That's about it really.

I hope everything is well wherever you are, I have an horrendous tickly chest cough which makes it difficult to laugh and consequently breathe, but there's nothing like braving the Arctic conditions outiside to get to school next week to cure it! Right?

Tatty bye,

Haze