Where did the Summer go...

Can you believe that Autumn is setting in already? I had noticed the temperature slightly dropping but today I woke up to the leaves falling off the trees, rain pounding town and the realisation that I needed to put my winter duvet on my bed. So much for the late summer we were supposed to have!

However Autumn has presented me with another problem that I have every year but never seem to plan far enough ahead to rectify. I never seem to have warm enough clothes. I have looked at my winter wardrobe with the terrfying realisation that it appears to be much the same as my summer wardrobe suggesting that either I didn't notice the summer come and go or in winter I am never warm enough.

This will ultimately lead to a trip lane to get some cosy vintage knitwear but I have to say as much as I love shopping, it does not make up for the mediocre summer we have suffered so my hope is that the sun will make a late comeback and give us all some much deserved sun.

Someone once told me that if you want something bad enough the universe listens so here I go: Sun please come back and give us some warmth before winter sets in.

The Power of the E-Book

My holiday in Tuscany left me questioning how I ever coped before my e-book. My Kindle became a lifesaver on holiday as it uses no data and I was able to search a travel guide that I had already downloaded to find information quick and easily. My Kindle soon became a fixture of everyday and when we weren't sure we would stop off and check what the Kindle said. Now to be perfectly honest the travel guide wasn't the best and my Kindle would have been even more useful if I downloaded a better one but it left me pondering a very serious question: Is the traditional book on its way out?

I'm torn as having been a keen reader of English Literature I always pictured my house (when I own one) as having a study with bookshelves filled with books but now my Kindle fulfils that function and takes up virtually no space. I have all my Kindle books filed by genre so that its easy to find the book I want, making me wonder if the idea of a book filled study is just a waste of space and time?

The other problem for the traditional book is that the wave of iPad's, ebooks and smart phones is attracting more followers and leaving the paper book in their wake but is this necessarily a bad thing? For years we have been told that as a nation we don't read enough so is it not heartening that many of those iPad's, ebooks and smart phones are being used to read books, just not in the traditional way.

Perhaps then it is the publishing world that has to provide hard copies as well as digital copies, they have to forsee the need to have digital copies and give people the opportunity to buy it. Also a digital copy will never go out of print and there will never be the problem that not enough books were printed.

My Kindle is now a staple in my handbag along with phone, purse etc and I now wouldn't have it any other way. I guess its a perfect example of how we have evolved and made an Ipod for books!

I'm back

First things first, I must apologise for not writing since my paralmypic adventure but I have a good reason as I have been away in Tuscany and have only just got back. It also means that this post will have a flavour of Italy running through it.

My first step on Italian soil saw us being ushered onto a bus for a 2 second bus journey. It was the most ridiculous journey ever but I suppose in Britain we are quite organised and have solutions. For example, we were waiting for a train, watching copious amounts of people crossing live tracks and there was an announcement telling us that one of the trains was an hour delayed. As much as us Brits love to complain about the transport system, you have to admit that on a whole its pretty good. The other transport we took was a bus, now in most countries you buy a ticket for where you are going but not in Italy; in Italy you buy a ticket for how many kilometres you are travelling!

All that being said, there are a number of things that the Italians do extremely well like Gelato and also gluten-free cones. Now to most people a gluten-free cone doesn't sound that exciting but picture yourself at a tender young age having your first Flake 99,' well in many ways that memory you had probably a decade or longer ago I had just last week. It wasn't just the novelty of having an ice cream in a cone but the fact my ice cream cost the same as my travel companions. There was no extra charge just because it was gluten-free so that got my vote.

After dinner, my travel companion and I would often take a walk up and down the Arno river and stop off on for a glass of wine or an ice cream and it made me realise how little we use what we have around us. The Italian transport system is a reflection of their laid back approach to life and that extends to their evenings so I have decided that I am going to try and be more Italian and use my evenings to go out for walks and see the world in a different light.

Finally the day has arrived...

Today is the day that my running partner and I go the Paralympics. I am so excited to see the amazing athletes who are an inspiration. Some people are saying we shouldn't treat the Paralympians any different to the Olympians but I think that is quite short-sighted. As someone said to me a few days ago, the Paralympians are just a few seconds behind the Olympians, training as hard as the Olympians despite having to overcome lots of hurdles on their way to the Paralympics.

The Paralympians could have turned around and said 'I've had enough happen in my life that I don't want the stress and pressure of the Paralympics particularly on home turf' but they didn't. So maybe the Paralympics should be seen as Channel 4 are presenting it as an Olympics for superhumans because they truly are incredible human beings.

I always hated sport at school. I was never any good and always picked to be in the team playing the 1st team so of course we always lost. Dance, I was no good at that as I had no timing or coordination. Tennis, I got demoted to the low density balls. Hockey... I just ended up being tackled and giving the ball away every time. Netball,Rounders, Athletics... the list goes on. Every year I would get the same grade and comments: 'C- She tries hard and shows some signs of improvement.' Year after year, I swear they photocopied the same comments into my report so as any child would I became demotivated and stopped trying which was when I won the rounders improvement shield. Oh the irony!

The only event at school I enjoyed was Sports Day when I was House Captain as I didn't actually have to participate. My role was supporting the house and keeping up a good moral. However, I may jest about my school days but in reality they are nothing to what some people go through and I'm going to see some of those people on the athletics track today, winning Paralympic medals for their country.

If that's not inspiring I don't know what is!

Expect the unexpected

I warned you to expect the unexpected from this blog so I thought that today rather than talk about my day, because lets face it nothing interesting has happened, but share a poem that I wrote a long time ago.

It was one of the things I kept private and hidden away but its about friendship and I think all of us have had times in our life that let us relate to this poem. So here it is:


These People

As I sit crying these tears, feeling lost and alone, feeling like my world has ended; I see the faces of those I count so dear to me and as the tears begin to wane, I no longer see faces but people. There’s the one holding my hand not saying a word just offering comfort, there’s the one wiping away the tears that are stinging my eyes, there’s the one begging me to fight this and there’s the one holding me together.

I can see my light flickering as this monster chokes me. I see my body convulsing in front of me and those people don’t move. I want to shield their selfless eyes from the horror my body is inflicting on them. Instead they sit in a circle, holding hands, silenced by my cries of agony, forcing me to keep fighting and they’re pulling me back from the brink. Their power is guiding me back to a body I had left redundant. Their power puts the beat back in my heart.



Friendship is one of the most powerful things we have and I know I take my friends for granted so this is for you all.

Fire, Flames and Funrides

I have to admit that I slightly failed in my mission this weekend. I had the romantic notion of my inaugural run in the beautiful Sussex countryside with only sheep and cows as viewers of my first foray into exercise. It was all going well, both my running partner and I had our gym kits and were discussing our run until he realised he had left his trainers behind. Unfortunately, being a outsider I really did need my running guide. I feel awful to have let myself and you all down but I knew this running thing was never going to be easy so I made a point of wearing my trainers in and now they are ready...

Anyway enough of the trainers. I don't want to bore you all senseless with the travels of my trainers but instead I wanted to share my Sussex weekend with you. My running partner lives in Sussex so we went back to see his family and that weekend happily coincided with his local town's carnival. I was told that the carnival would be a spectacle that I had never seen before but having been to carnvial's before I took this with a pinch of salt. How wrong I was...

I didn't realise Sussex was so full of pyromaniacs! Hailing from Oxfordshire all our carnvials are classic cars and floats but this carnival was something to behold with a prayer from the local reverend and all local bonfire socieities parading through the town under their crests with flaming torches. Any Health and Safety nut's worst nightmare particularly when a car drove over a flaming torch!

It was a site that sent shivers down my spine as I felt transported back to a bygone age. It was something that I will never forget.