Me, in pictures

At the beginning of this month it was my 21st birthday and on Saturday my sister gave me my birthday present; a rather awesome canvas printed with pictures from my life. It really made me smile and got me thinking about pictures of me as a child so I turned to our stacks of photo albums.

Ok I'm not one of those people who gets embarrassed about their baby photos mostly because I was damn cute! (Shame that didn't last...). And so I've decided to give you the opportunity to laugh at me by showing you some of these pictures. So here is a guided tour of my life in pictures with your tour guide, me:

 Wasn't I adorable? Come on give me an aww...

However not everyone thought I was adorable:

Please note the terrified expression on my sisters face. (I'm the baby, my sister is the three year old). 

Speaking of my family. There is some things you should know. In our family it is perfectly normal to have a giraffe come to dinner:

Or to find yourself reading a story to a pink elephant: 

There is a good chance I could be under that pink elephant in that picture. It was very unlike me to miss out on story time. 

However this is not perfectly normal:

And I don't mean my sister getting starring role as Mary in the nativity scene! I mean the police officer that can be seen just in front of Mary and Joseph. Since when was there a police officer present at the birth of Jesus? And what is he doing? Looks like he could be arresting baby Jesus. For crimes of being plastic perhaps? 

Now to continue with the tour. Firstly I've always been stylish: 

Just look at that hat. Even as a baby I dressed impeccably!

And are those not the most amazing dungarees that you've ever seen?

Sporting the Yorkshire terrier hair do!

 However at certain age I lost my style and all pictures were better taken at this distance: 

It's ok, don't worry, I got my style back: 

Such up to date fashion!

Not only am I stylish, but I'm an awesome dancer:

TRAGEDY!! 

I also did more classical styles:

(I'm on the right in the ballet kit)

Now I love to boogie: 

Just look at those moves... 

(I'm the one in the dark purple dress that looks like it has a leafy pattern on it)

I also had other hobbies. I've been in guiding all my life:

Wonder if anyone told Rainbow me that my trefoil is all squiffy...

You can even hire Brownies out for weddings (well Guiders need to make their money somehow!) I'm the one on the far left of the picture. 

I've always been rather adventurous and brave:

 

I'm the kid who's head has been lopped off by the plant pot. And if you look closely you will note that I am managing to walk around the very high, and narrow, almost Bridge of Khazad Dum like wall without holding my mums hand whereas the boy just behind my sister is having to hold his fathers hand. And I was a whole month younger! 

From Khazad Dum my adventurous exploits progressed to jungle rope bridges:

 

I even rode wild animals:

There seems to be a bit of a giraffe theme.

I also trained for the Winter Olympics:

I also did a fair bit of extreme boating:

No I do not have my eyes closed in fear, the sun was shining in them. Clearly. 

Look at my feet - I'm even peddling despite my legs being miles from the peddles! 

Anyone for a bit of gorge walking: 

Aren't wetsuits flattering! (I'm on the right!) 

There was only one thing I was scared of:

Well not SuperTed but people dressed up in animal/ bear suits like that. It's just not natural. You see I'm not in that picture because I'd run 20 miles. Ok I am in that picture. I'm the kid on the right in turquoise who looks like the only reason they haven't fled for their life is the fact that their older sister is holding their hand in a vice like grip. 

I also had a few career options. I could have been a baker:

Unfortunately it's not a brilliant picture but they were biscuits decorated to represent the four seasons using mainly dessicated coconut, food colouring and playmobil figures. And look I won first prize!! And there were clearly other entries because I can see a plate in front of it! 

Or perhaps I could have been a nurse:

Every nurse needs a pair of fluffy blue slippers! Admit it, you'd want to be treated by that cute little thing, wouldn't you?! 

But my main ambition was to be a pirate:

I still think I'd be an awesome pirate:

So for a bit of a summery: I was an absolute doll when I was small!

And just a little bit crazy: I liked boxes.

But at least I wasn't as crazy as my sister. 

Ok everyone lets just point and laugh. 

Now it's time for me, your ultra cute tour guide, to bid you farewell. Until next time! 

An edible interlude

The promised Best Dinosaur in the World Story is nearly ready; the pictures have been drawn and scanned on to the computer and are being coloured as I type (well not literally as I type as I can't do two things at once, well I can just not everything). And will be posted, all being well, in the next couple of days. 

Anyway to keep my blog updated while its in preparation and because I have no other ideas since my time is mostly being devoted to watching the World Cup here is some edible treats for you to admire (or laugh at!) 

First off as my parents came to stay last weekend to celebrate my birthday I baked a cake:  

It's a plain sponge with cream cheese and white chocolate topping and filling. It's all filled with raspberry jam and decorated with fondant icing circles. It was very yummy and received a full seal of approval from the parents and the best friend. 

I also made a meal for them when they arrived which clearly needed a dessert. When I was growing up my favourite dessert that my mum used to make was Lemon Meringue Pie so I decided to try and recreate it. My mums recipe comes from somewhere bizarre and as I wanted to keep it a surprise I used Delia's recipe; can't go wrong with a bit of Delia! I think it's pretty good for my first attempt: 

Now I've made myself hungry so I'm going to feast upon some dessert myself.

I always though Hurling is what you do at the end of a night out not the start...

I return! After a weekend (and a bit more..) off from blogging. And I return having made a discovery.

Basically I have been away (as in away from my trusted sidekick Daisy the laptop) celebrating my birthday. First the parentals came to stay and they have a car so there was much Gower exploring to be done. And then Monday was  my 21st birthday and I went to see the Cardiff Doctor Who (maybe I'll do a Dr Who post tomorrow) exhibition with the best friend and then the evening was filled with drunken antics and discoveries and yesterday I was too hung over to blog about anything other than a desperate need for chips.

Anyway the discovery. Hurling. And no not the chucking up kind of hurling. I mean as in the crazy Irish sport. We sat in Walkabout downing large amounts of alcohol whilst watching the muted TV which made the game seem even more bizarre.

It seemed to be a mix of every sport and activity going. First of all here is the goal:

As you can see it incorporates both Rugby and Football into one set of goal posts. They seemed to score different amount of points for scoring it into either the football goal or managing to lob it over the rugby goal. It all seemed to resemble football in the fact they could kick the ball. It mirrored rugby and  sumo wrestling in the violent tackles. Hockey, tennis and baking in the bats they used:

Next to the stick you will see a picture of a wooden spatula commonly used in cooking. Notice the similarities? 

I also have a feeling there are some quidditch similarities for instance the Golden Snitch. There must have been one and they must have caught it when we weren't looking because it appeared that the team with the least points won! The scores seemed to be displayed to two decimal places so the game finished with Waterford (or Watford as we didn't find out what WAT stood for until the game ended) with 0.16 points and Clare (Clapham) with 1.13 points. Now after some deduction we decided that the points on the left hand side meant goals scored into the net and the score in the right meant goals scored in a rugby style (or indeed vice versa). You needed five football goals (or another number; five just sounded good) to get one rugby goal so therefore the score on the right was worth more hence why Watford was able to win the game despite seeming all behind like the cows tale. 

The game also ended resembling A and E after on a busy Saturday night. 

Now as for rules. Apparently there are some. But I choose to believe that once you've got past the scary pictures of the pitches and stuff all it says is there are no rules. As far as I can tell it was one big free for all using any method from any sport possible. I bet you could even get snooker and basketball in there somewhere as well. Or maybe you just need to have drunk 6 pints of Guiness to be able to understand!