Saturday 7 November 2009

For Patrick

Oh, hi! After months of neglect I have decided to put a post on my blog. To anybody following this, please direct your thanks towards Patrick Silla, as it was he who prompted me to update this thing. Now, where do I begin? I suppose I had better fill you in on what's happened over the last two or three months... A lot has changed but, in a way, a lot hasn't.


I'll start with the changes! It's nearly winter again, and nearly a year since I started this whole blog thing. So I suppose now is an appropriate time to reflect on what's been going on in my world of late. The most obvious change would have to be the fact that a few more of my good friends have left for university. Aside from Annabelle (who is now starting her second year), Dixon, Christy, Duncan, Emma, Joel, Enda and Patrick have also left the endz to further their academic careers. I'll fill you in a little more on where and when they went, but for now I'll just say I miss them a hell of a lot.
It's not all bad though; the majority of 'the group' are still here. And, to be honest, we've been chilling with a few more people from the endz, such as Ruben, T Bone, Matt, Jessy, Luke and Richard. I'll try and stick a photo of these guys in here somewhere!
Other than that, not much has changed... We're still going to parties, gigs, off on random adventures, and of course, doing a whole lot of chilling! I'm looking for a new job at the moment, which is prooving a little annoying but I'm getting there. And I'm also hoping to go to University next year, so we'll see what happens there! Anyway, I suppose I had better fill you in on what I remember of the past few months. My memory is far from perfect so if I've forgotten bits and pieces just let me know!



After I got back from Barcelona, Duncan had a free house for a little while. It was nice to get back home and have a free house to chill at where I could catch up with the whole group! Also the guys had recently returned from Thailand so we had a nice venue to celebrate! There were a couple of really fun nights at Dunk's, with pretty much everyone managing to get really wasted one way or another! I remember Caleb getting a hardback book dropped onto his head from a vast height whilst he slept was pretty entertaining, and also Fern's impressive driving skills being nothing short of amazing. Ehem! So a big thanks to Dunk for all the fun that he, and his house, provided..!



After returning from Duncan's gathering, the first thing that comes to mind is Big K's free house. Big K's free houses are no ordinary 'free yard' affair... With people over almost 24/7, beds everywhere, a giant cactus, the Doom soundtrack, huge rice crispy cakes, and a series of challenges to complete in the week, it turned out to be a really sick week! K's free house soon became known as 'The Bakery' (work it out!). Here's a video of the centurion challenge...

Sadly, I missed out on that challenege because I went on a family trip to Suffolk for a couple of days. It was pretty nice to get away for a bit, and I got a train back in time to experience the rest of the Bakery fun! I'll try and stick a photo of me having fun in Suffolk up on here...!



Well, after K's free yard, the next big event was Reading '09! This was at the end of August and proved to be one of the best weekends of my life. A few of us drove up on the Thursday and met everyone else who had already set up camp the day before. We had a pretty chilling spot in the Purple zone, which was a nice distance from the main stage. There must have been about fifteen of us camping in our area, making it almost like a small village of tents, with a fire made from bottles/plastic/chairs/other people's possessions in the middle. I brought a brand new two-man tent all to myself, with an airbed for extra comfort, so I was living comfortably for the next few days! Over the bank holiday weekend we saw some amazing music from the likes of The Kings Of Leon, The Arctic Monkeys, The Prodigy, Bloc Party, Vampire Weekend, Little Boots, La Roux, and many, many more. My favourite performance had to be Radiohead's on Sunday evening, the last night. They provided an eclectic finale to the whole Reading experience, and left everyone speechless. Amazing! Of course, music was only half of the fun. We kept ourselves entertained with boat rides, adventures around the town, partying in our camp, partying in other camps, getting very very crunk, and other illicit antics. It was such a mental weekend and I think it's safe to say that everyone who went will never forget it.


All good good things come to an end though, and with Reading out of the way we entered September, the month where people left for uni. We said goodbye to Enda, Christy, Joel, Patrick, Emma, Dixon and Dunk in the tried and tested format of a series of goodbye meals. I couldn't find photos from any of these, but here's a video of DIXON VERY DRUNK on his and Dunk's meal! Enjoy. The guys are hugely missed, but they'll be back at Christmas which isn't too far away now. There's light at the end of the tunnel!
However, what September lacked in quantities of friends, it more than made up for in music. I went to two really good gigs in September; these being Hockey and Massive Attack. They were both very different but equally sick. Massive attack played at the Brixton Academy in London, and were nothing short of epic. They put on an amazing laser show, and played really really well. Hockey played at the Academy in Oxford, and I didn't go there with high expectations. After about five minutes my opinion had completely changed! They were so good live, and I found myself not wanting the gig to end. Yay!


The nights started drawing in and we were soon met by the cold onset of October. Last month was actually really good though! There has definitely been a renaissance when it comes to skateboarding at the moment, with Caleb, Freshie and I skating a lot more than usual. This was illustrated by our trip down to Bristol for the premiere of the Motive video 'Dimensions' at the start of last month. I hadn't seen a lot of the Exeter/Bristol crew since Barcelona, so this was a great chance to see the guys, and to have a good night out. It turned out to be quite a fun adventure, even though we did manage to get lost in Swindon. The video was amazing, and I saw a lot of old friends there which was really really good! It was sick to see a few of my mates getting coverage in this vid, big respect to Sean, Jack, and Barney... Their parts were all sick! Here's a photo of a few of us at the prem.



Half-term was a couple of weeks later, and turned out to be very very expensive. Jason, Lois, Arthur, Aaron, myself, and a few others got invited to a party in Nottingham on the Monday. A couple of us drove up there, and after losing our way a couple of times we finally found the place. The party turned out to be in a huge mansion, with the courtyard and barn area converted into a party as well. We got drunk as quickly as possible and ended up having a really good night. The people there were so safe, and one of the girls even cooked me some scrambled eggs! Amazing. After a hard night partying, we all found places to sleep. The best thing about parties in huge houses is there's always places to sleep! It turned out the girl who's party it was had a whole cottage to herself at the end of the garden, so I had an 'eventful' nights sleep in there...!

I woke up after having a couple of hours sleep, and feeling very shit. The drive was absolutely awful, but as soon as we got back to Aylesbury Jason and I got invited to another party that night at Arthur's house. We got there half asleep, and after being pestered by girls for an hour or so we decided to leave. I slept like a log after that!


We chilled for a couple of days until Friday. Emily Craft and Emily Simpson had a party that night at the Golf Club in Princes Risborough, so we rolled up to that with a good crew. The party was alright, but it ended in a standard "Bruv, allow it" type fight, where nobody actually fought each other. I managed to steal a sick magnifying glass though!
The following night was Halloween. I felt pretty shit after the night before so I didn't really end up doing much. A few people went to Gus's after we chilled at Edel's for a bit. But I just had to get some sleep!



All that was last week, and now it's November. Over the last few days we've been having bonfire/firework style fun, even though it's been stupidly cold! Last night Edel, Jessie, Jason and myself went and watched some fireworks in Bedgrove. They were really good and it was such a nice night out. After that we just went back to Edel's and chilled with some drinking games. And that brings me up to the present... Phew! I feel as though I've just written an essay! I hope you're satisfied now Patrick! I'll try and update this a bit more often, but I always say that so we'll just have to see what happens...! BLESS X

Also, how weird is this?

99p from Tesco... Sick!