Hello at 12.20am

So i've not posted for a couple of days, i'm sitting up in bed listening to my boyfriend sleep talking which is quite cute. It's quite late and i'm feeling a little reflective. The past few nights i've been having nightmares about my trip to America and it's mainly revolving around the airport. I've only ever flown 3 times in my life once to Greece, once to Gran Canaria and once to Majorca. Each of these times I have always been surrounded by my family, letting my dad lead the way through customs and basically showing us the way to go. I know it does seem silly but I am actually incredibly anxious about flying on my own. I'm a worrier, I always have been. I'm 22 and I know everything will be fine but you cant help but expect the worst sometimes.

The dreams I've had involved my mom driving me to Manchester Airport so I could catch my flight. On arrival I realised I had left both my passport and tickets at home. I literally only had about 30 mins before take off and needed my dad to drive all the way from Telford to Manchester in the space of that time haha and of course it didn't happen :(....luckily I woke up at that point fairly releaved but felt a bit disgruntled because of it.

If anything the dream has definitely made me more prepared for my trip. I'm usually a terrible last minute packer. For instance my family and I were booked to go on a Mediterranean Cruise and because we were leaving the house super early to catch our morning flight, I just decided to go out partying with my friends, not go to bed when I got in and packed before we left. On reflection that probably wasn't the greatest of idea's in terms of preparation but it sure was a lot of fun having a great night out coming home packing my suitcase and flying out the next morning! :)

I am so excited to just get out there and experience America and of course spend some quality time with my lovely friend Shana. I just need to push all the worries to the back of my head about flying alone. People do it every single day, it can't be that hard to mess up?

2 months today...

I will be getting up at 5am, catching the US Airways 735 from Manchester at 11.15am and travelling all the way to the States. I will stop off in Philadelphia then straight through to North Carolina where I will be reunited with my American BFF Shana Alexandra. I seriously cannot wait! I'm not gonna lie, I am absolutely peeing my pants at the thought of flying alone, but at the same time I can hardly contain my excitement. It's gonna be such a massive experience and will hopefully be the beginning of many more trips to the USA :)

My trip will consist of:

2 days in Shana's home town North Carolina. Where she will show me around her block and I will get to see her University!



2 days at Myrtle Beach South Carolina. Where I will lye on the beach and get a tan :)



2 days in Georgia for a bit of historical sight seeing.



And finally to finish off my mini adventure- 4 days at Disney Land Florida, where we will stay with Shana's siser (who just so happens to work at Disney) at her apartment with free access to the theme park!



I'm already feeling sad at the thought of coming home and leaving Shana and i've not even left yet haha. Either way, I know i'm going to have the BEST TIME EVER!

Lily

So today at work was pretty darn lovely! My colleague Dan brought his new puppy in today. Her name is Lily and she's 4 weeks old :) He brought her in wrapped in a blanket and she was the sweetest little dog I've held for a long time! She was just totally chilled out and just plain adorable. We also got a little spoilt with some pancakes Dan the Chef brought down from the Restaurant for us which was a nice little treat.

Festivals.

Today is a day I look forward to and dread every year and have done so for the past 5 years. I've booked my festival tickets...only just thanks to a friend who managed to get through. The first time I ever booked for V Festival was in 2006. I was 17 and managed to get some tickets off Lastmin.com almost straight away and I tell you what, it wasn't half as stressful as it is now.
After my first experience of a weekend at V my sister and I instantly got the "Festival bug" and I can't actually imagine a summer without going to a Festival now. I had an absolutely amazing time with a great group of people who I have attended Festivals every year with since. I love the atmosphere, everyone is so care-free, it doesn't matter if you havn't washed your hair in two days there's only one thing everyone's interested in.... HAVING A BLOODY GOOD TIME!

It really frustrates the hell out of me how pretentious and arrogant some people can be when it come's to festivals. I LOVE music of all genre's and have always prided myself on how diverse my music taste is. What I can't get my head around is people who consistently bash V Festival because of it's 'commercial' appeal. I attended Reading Festival in 2009 and it's a great one to go to if you enjoy alternative,rock,indie music. I had an absolute blast and saw a lot of bands I've never had the opportunity to see and really enjoyed my weekend there. However one of the little thing's that niggled at me during my time there was the lack of warmth I got in comparison to the reaction I get when I attend V Festival.

When I say 'warmth' I mean the people. It just didn't have the same kind of easy going atmosphere I feel V Festival offers. Other's may disagree but that's just my opinion. This year's headliners for V are Eminem and Artic Monkey's. Artic's are great but I was expecting them to be somewhere in the line up. I think the shocker for everyone this year is Eminem. I for one am too excited about getting see him live. I admire him as artist and think he is a very talented writer, but this of course has provoked mixed reactions from everyone.

The fact is everyone has there own tastes and opinions when it comes to music. What I don't appreciate is people shouting there mouth off putting those down for attending certain festival's they don't rate themselves. At the end of the day if you have fun and leave that weekend feeling like you've had the time of your life then you can't fault it. V Festival caters for everyone, it's not pop-teeny bopper, it's diverse. It doesn't stick to one genre therefore it open's up opportunities for everyone to attend. I'm so excited about this year's line up, in-particular the female performances, from the like's of Ellie Goulding, Jessie J & Rihanna! I'm just excited about the whole weekend, the camping, the drinking, the laughing, the music but most importantly having an awsome time! and when that's all a mere 15 minutes drive away from your home....it'd be rude to say no really :)

Presentations & Surprises

Well once again I found myself having a really lovely weekend. Mart's been off work because of the School being on half term all week and I managed to wangle a Friday off work so off to Wolves we went for a little shopping trip to find something to wear for Martin's brother's football presentation on the Saturday. I got myself a really nice black with poker dot dress and some black heels whilst Mart got a nice shirt and tie we then headed over to Chiquito's for some yummy mexican food which finished the day off quite nicely.



Saturday came round and during the evening I went along with Martin and his family to his brother's football presentation. It was a really lovely night consisting of a 3 course meal, an Irish band and Mart's younger brother scooping the most improved player of the year trophy!



Finally to finish what was already an awesome night my best friend Ky surprised me by coming back to Telford for the weekend and coming on a night out to Planet with us. I was soooo excited to see him and we had such a laugh. So all in all a very enjoyable weekend :)

I really love

It's the most amazing stuff to put on your legs when you've just got out the shower. I used to work at The Body Shop when I was about 16, my aunty was the manager and it was the most chilled out job ever. I Used to love going around the shop sampling everything particularly the Body Butters :) I'm feeling good today, my mother and I spent pretty much all day chucking out loads of stuff I have collected over the years. It brought back a lot of good memories and it was really sad having to let go of a few things. I've kept a few important things but most of the stuff will be lying on top of rubbish tip tomorrow afternoon. I guess in a way it's time to say goodbye to my teenage years and embark on the new stage of my life....the twenties! Kinda scary thinking i'm gonna be 23 this year. Even hearing me say it out loud in my head freaks me out a little. Oh well still a while off yet and I've got plenty to look forward to between now and then.

The Weekend

Was a lot of fun :) VIP's in Babylon, guest list at Planet, drank sooo much and danced lots and didn't even have much of a hangover the next day. Sunday was lovely too, went back to Wolves in the evening to watch my besties concert at The Arena Theatre. Was a really fun and entertaining night.