Monday, I played Father Christmas, and made my sister a Frank Hamilton calendar, (which she seemed to like when she opened it!) I also got together photos and planned up blogs, however, at about 3 in the afternoon, our power cut out. The wind and rain has been insanely bad where we live, gale force winds, and rain, we lost 8 fence panels that day, including the two me and my step-dad went out at 11.30pm to pull down because they were more of a danger being attached to the post. Luckily, we got the power back just after 7pm. Still, we survived!
Another interesting day Tuesday, Christmas Eve in fact! It started off wet, rain hammering down still mixed with ongoing pretty impressive wind. Visits from grandparents, work done etc. we didn't have any power for most of the day, and it came back on at 7ish?! We opened our Christmas Eve box, which had a chocolate bar for each of us, a hot chocolate for me and Misty, and a cd for Misty too, so we all enjoyed those! We then went for a walk to see the Christmas lights, which is a Christmas Eve tradition, however, it got cut short by the river up the road from us bursting it's banks and flooding surrounding areas. People got evacuated and it aws at the highest I've ever seen it, the field either side of the river, had joined forces with it and basically become one fast flowing water force. We got home and got lots of wrapping done, aaaaand the tree went up!
Christmas Day, was one to remember, I woke up and the house was cold, dark and quiet, there hadn't been any electricity since 2:40am, we slowly got up, and opened our presents from our pillowcases by candlelight, had breakfast, and slowly got up. We chilled out for quite a while, not doing much, sitting on the sofas watching Misty play with some things she got from her pillowcase. 3 things that stood out in my pillowcase, some burgundy and black vans style shoes, chamomile and maple tea (which I'm looking forward to trying!) aaand a stir-in hot chocolate, which looks like it'll be good too!
We gave in and decided it would be a while before we ate our Christmas dinner (if we'd get to eat it!) so we opened the majority of our presents from each other. I got a mix of CDs, t-shirts, iTunes giftcards and Wizard of Oz book collection (which'll take me a while to get through!) Misty got some DVDs, CDs, clothes and horse-riding gear. We played with a few of them etc. and then decided we wouldn't have Christmas dinner out because of lack of electricity etc. we then started getting some food together to have and guess what, the electricity came back on, so we rang the place back and sorted to go there still for dinner. It was seriously good! French onion soup with bread for starter, turkey with stuffing, yorkshire pudding, carrot and parsnip mash, roast potatoes, brussels and sausages, was pretty good! Pudding was hard to eat, because we were all pretty stuffed, but white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake is always gonna be too tempting! Nom.
We got home, through flooded roads etc. and opened the last few presents, Gran loved her jigsaw stuff and Misty and I got Disney Infinity, which is a great game!!
We watched a bit of TV and chilled for a bit, then headed to bed, pretty late!
Boxing Day, a late get up for me, I really wasn't feeling too well, too much food the day before me thinks! But once I did get up, my step-dad, sister and I headed off on some errands. I drove and did pretty well considering! Did lots of parking... which I nailed aha! Dropped off some Christmas cards - better late than never! - picked up some milk and cheese, dropped off some presents to the grandparents, saw family and then headed home again. We then had some nibbles for dinner, which were tasty :) Big Fat Quiz of the Year was watched and Match of the Day, then headed to bed!
Friday, normal time getting up, then editing my Kenya video (which is finally finished and uploaded!) I also started getting together photos from the past year to be put into my End of 2013 video... We had some visitors, so got to see more family and Misty was over the moon when our little cousin turned up as well! :) In the evening we watched the rest of Match of the Day, I drafted my end of year blog, and started planning the first few blogs for my new project next year (which will all be announced very soon!)
Saturday, got up at a reasonable time, Misty went horse-riding and went for a hack. The weather was a lot brighter than what it had been in the past few days, I type up some blogs and prepped them ready to be published. Got on with trying to put together a 2013 video, but I'll be honest, even though I've done quite a bit, I don't feel like I've done that much, don't get me wrong, I've been to Kenya, loads of music events and started driving etc. but last year was so full of different things it was easier to make a video showing a variety of things I'd done... Still, that'll be done in the next few days! :) We went round next door for a couple of hours, which was great, wasn't too many awkward pauses... I survived that without saying anything too random, although there were a few quiet moments near the end, that I had to put an end to by saying random mumbles! Then it was home to do more blog work and watch some TV, watched The Ukulele Orchestra at Sydney Opera House, which was pretty impressive.
Sunday, was a loooooong day, I ventured up to London with Lailana for a very very long day of walking, sight-seeing, handing out hats to the homeless and feeding them too, as well as waiting around to meet Alisa at Waterloo from Germany! As I said, it was a very long day, with a few hot chocolates (seriously recommend the white chocolate one from Costa - it's sooo good!) We went all round South Bank, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Regent Street, Picadilly Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue etc. which was great and we handed out some sandwiches that we'd made on the train up, to give to homeless people, as well as a couple of hats each to keep them warm! One guy refused them, but all the others seemed really grateful, which was nice to see! Got some great photos of Westminister, Big Ben and London Eye as the sun was setting, but was a bit dissapointed with Eros not being in a snow globe anymore? It was still really nice to see all the Christmas lights/decorations scattered all over London though! We had a Nandos at the O2, which was cool, because it was the same one that I had Nando's with Lauren for the EP Release back in October last year! But it was also great because Lai got to see the O2 for the first time, and she got to see it in lit up, which to me is the best time to see it! After that, we headed back to Waterloo and waited around for Alisa, and it was great to see her, weird but great! Then we headed home!
Music of the Week:
I got a fair few CDs for Christmas and iTunes cards, which always come in handy! So, this weeks songs are from there!
First up is the amazing London Grammar, I think they're great and I've been following them on the musical journey for quite a while, having listened to their album A LOT over the past few days, I've found it really hard to choose 'favourites' because they're genuinely all really good! It's definitely a CD I'd recommend if you like HAIM, CHVRCHES, Lorde or Aluna George...
I think I might have already put this on here? BUT it's reaaaally good! It was between this, 'Shyer' and 'Strong' so I suggest you check those out as well!
Next is a song from the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, which also great! Loads of variety on there, mix of artists and genres, and they're pretty much all great, I linked a song a week or so ago by Coldplay, which definitely wins out of them all, but I've enjoyed 'Who We Are' by Imagine Dragons, and some other tracks by artists I wouldn't usually listen to! A bit disappointed in Of Monsters and Men, I love their music and everything, but the track on there's a bit samey to their others, but 'Mirror' by Ellie Goulding really stands out! It's clearly written for the film/book, and fits it really well! (If you listen to the words and have seen/read the book/film - you'll know what I mean!)
I also got Lorde's 'Pure Heroine' album and 'The 1975' (two albums I'm surprised I didn't get earlier!) They're great as well! But I've got Bon Iver's albums via iTunes, which I'm really hapy about, I had a few singles before hand, which I listened to during the power cuts, which was great mixed with some Sigur Ros. I've found it really easy to chill whilst listening to Bon Iver recently, and again, it's really hard to pick out a track to put on here as I've been listening to so many on repeat. So I put my iPod on shuffle and have put the one that came up first! Their music's chilled and the videos on their Youtube channel for the tracks are so easy to watch and chill to as well.
Last up is a track from Harry Seaton, he's an insane singer/songwriter, this is an acoustic version of the song, but I really suggest you grab his EP, he's done some great tracks in the past and I'm pretty sure he'll make it big eventually! Enjoy!
ALSO! Here is the long awaited Kenya video from my trip back in October/November...
Photos...
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| 23rd December 2013: wrapping, decorating biscuits and power cuts. |
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| 24th December 2013: a flooded and cold christmas eve. |
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| 25th December 2013: a christmas to remember! |
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| 26th December 2013: lots of driving/parking and chilling. |
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| 27th December 2013: seeing family, editing and updating! |
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| 28th December 2013: chilling, editing, seeing people and a bit of driving. |
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| 29th December 2013: a long day in london. |
EXTRA PHOTOS:
Basically... There will be an end of year blog coming in the next two days, BUT I will add on Monday and Tuesday onto this blog, so by the end of this blog I'll have done a total of 150 posts... More exciting announcements happening over on the FB page :)
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| london eye shining. |
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| skateboard and shoe graveyard on the bridge. |
Basically... There will be an end of year blog coming in the next two days, BUT I will add on Monday and Tuesday onto this blog, so by the end of this blog I'll have done a total of 150 posts... More exciting announcements happening over on the FB page :)
Thanks for Reading!
Find me and my photos here: https://www.facebook.com/onedayatatimeevan
Also, if you enjoy reading this blog/like music then head to my other
blog, I'll be going full out on it next year, if things go to plan!
Find my other blog and updates here: http://musicintimeblog.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/MusicInTimeBlog
http://www.facebook.com/MusicInTimeBlog
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