Autumn Nights

I’m walking along the pavement, my trainers crunching slightly against the concrete. It’s dusted with the barest hint of a sparkle; the tell-tale sign that a morning frost is inevitable. My breath is visible, curling plumes of steam against the cold, dark air, and it’s night-time. The air has that unmistakable smoky scent. My rucksack is heavy on my back and my heart is heavy in my chest, for I know the night would be perfect, if there wasn’t one vital thing missing.

The artificial turf pitch is lit up by floodlights, and choruses of joyful shouts rise from the men playing football as one scores a particularly impressive goal, and they share a victorious huddle. As I pass through the path that leads to the halls, a couple walk past, engrossed in each other, hand in hand, and it reminds me of what – rather, who – I am missing right now.

Even now, whilst I’m sitting in my flat on what should be a perfect evening – a bottle of cider by my side, my guitar close at hand and a good 6,000 words written today, as well as some university work completed – there is still something seriously missing.

I’m not great at describing things. I’m even worse at telling you what love is, or trying to explain what it feels like to be in love, but I think I can pretty accurately describe how it feels to miss the person you love. It’s like a part of you isn’t there – the people around you are urging you to go out and have a good time, but you’re not in the mood. You’d prefer your own company, but more than anything, you long for the company of that one person.

That’s pretty much how I feel right now, and I know that one person is reading my blog – so I just want you to know that I love you, I always will, and I can’t wait until my Autumn nights truly are complete because I’ll be spending them with you.

Remember Me?

Sorry I’ve neglected this blog so much recently. I knew exams were going to be mad but I had no idea how much. College has been an epic fail thanks to this illness so I’ve been revising like mad to make sure I have a chance of getting into uni! Add that with trying to have a social life, and yeah – it’s been crazy, and I think I’m starting to burn out. All this revision is catching up with me, I’ve ended up with one hell of a cold which, combined with having awful pains in my back every time I sneeze,  isn’t fantastic. Really hoping things will get sorted soon, or that if they don’t I can maybe apply for special consideration because of how ill I’ve been.

On a brighter note, it’s sunny outside! Yeah, I’m inside revising but I’ve got a t shirt and shorts on and it’s lovely and warm and bright outside, which cheers me up a bit and makes revision a bit more bearable. I just hope that by the time my exams are over we’ll still have such nice weather, so that I can actually enjoy it – especially on holiday for my birthday in July!

I think the wait until August is going to be a really nervewracking one – before I was so confident for my exams, but now I’m terrified because although I know I am prepared because of the amount of revision I’m doing, I still feel somehow like I should be doing more (not sure what else I can do, really, other than go to college, which doesn’t really feel like an option the way I feel at the minute!). So expect either no posts at all as I spend all day, every day rocking backwards and forwards in a gibbering heap because I’m so nervous, or lots of frightened “ohmygosh I’m gonna fail” posts. Normal service will be resumed in September.

All Change!

So, with the arrival of my new friend (her name is Lucy The Slut and she is beautiful), I will hopefully be updating my blog more frequently because I won’t have to wait for the family computer to be available! It also means I should be able to get some more writing done, I’m finally starting to see some real improvement in how I feel – I spent today with a group of knights in Harlech castle (I’m not hallucinating from the codeine, it actually happened!) and it was great, if very cold and windy!

It’s been a few days since I blogged (in fact, I haven’t blogged since my epic rant about not being allowed to have an opinion these days), but that’s really because…well, not an awful lot has happened. I moved a few things around in my bedroom and tidied up a bit, but I didn’t think that was really worthy of a whole blog post. Maybe one day, but I don’t think the world is ready for that just yet. I haven’t really done anything of note… playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and going to the doctors has taken up the bulk of my time since the 1st.

Still, got some good times to come – going to spend Monday with my boyfriend, seeing as it’s a bank holiday and I don’t have college and he doesn’t have work, so that’ll be nice. Might be going to see preparations for planes during the Jubilee and the Olympics but I’m not sure when it is, but I’m looking forwards to it (even though I’m from a Navy family, I can’t deny there’s something beautiful about planes). Hopefully being stewards for the Hope House pyjama walk next week, and then getting on with some training for our sponsored walk in June (you can sponsor us here ). We’re going on holiday for my 18th birthday in July, and I absolutely can’t wait! And it’s nearly exam time, which isn’t such a great thing on the surface… but it means the end of college and the start of summer (and, hopefully, starting university!) is drawing ever closer!

Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend, however you spend it 🙂

Maddy x

A “Favourite” Kind Of Day….

Today is a favourite kind of day. More specifically, it’s MY favourite kind of day. The sun is shining brightly, and I don’t care how cold it may be outside (although, to be honest, I’m hoping it’ll be fairly warm – I think we deserve it after the almost constant cold snap we’ve suffered since December!). It’s a lazy kind of morning, the one where you don’t have to wake up at any particular time – you can get up as early as you want and watch the day begin, or sleep in and enjoy the last day of free slumber until the week begins again (but lets not think about the dreaded Monday just yet, eh? There’s a whole day of Sunday to appreciate first!). 

It’s the sort of Sunday where you sit, idly blogging away with a cup of tea, wondering what you’re going to do today. For me, the day will consist of a little more lazing around, a walk on the beach and then I’m going to see where the day takes me. That’s why I love today – you don’t need to make plans. Just go with the flow and do what you want to. 

I’ve got a cup of tea, the man I love beside me and the sun is shining down on the sea and the sand-dunes, which I can see perfectly from my bedroom window. It’s going to be a lovely day. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYi7uEvEEmk

Progress – or the lack of it!

Sorry, it’s been a few days since I last gave you an update, but that’s really because there’s been very little progress. I’ve got new ideas for new projects niggling at my mind, so I’m trying to push on with it and get on with editing book one and writing book two, but it’s hard – especially when I’ve got coursework and homework and projects coming out of my ears at the moment. I’ve not done very much editing at all – I’ve deleted a couple of sentences and that’s it, which really isn’t good. As for writing – I’ve written half of chapter one and nearly all of chapter two (I should NEVER write two chapters concurrently – I get so distracted and forget what I’m writing in one or the other) of book two, and I’m quite excited. I’ve got plans, I know where the series is going and where it will end, and I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to do afterwards, but that won’t be for quite a while to be honest. Got a lot still to do before I get to that point!

As for life… it’s going well 🙂 I seem to be up to date and doing quite well at college, even if I don’t enjoy it much, and even though it’s freezing cold outside, it’s actually relatively warm in my bedroom. I do wish I could shift this cough and cold, but it seems to be on its way out – I actually sang this evening! – and that these symptoms I’ve been having would go away, but I’ve had a lot of them since last year so I’m not expecting any miracles, especially as it seems to be getting worse 😦

Oh well – the show must go on, and I certainly intend to!

Writing when ill…

Normally, when I’m ill, I get my best writing done. I mean, when you’re stuck in bed all day with a bad cold, or coughing your lungs up, there’s not really much more you can do than watch television, grab the old laptop and amuse yourself by writing. Today, however, I’m off college because I’m ill – but this isn’t the sort of illness where you can actually make use of the fact that you feel like crap by churning out a couple of thousand words in between eating copious amounts of chicken soup and watching Jeremy Kyle/other equally amusing-yet-horrifying “let’s deal with your relationship problems live on air” TV shows – or am I the only one who does that when I have a cold?

Nope, today I’ve encountered the horrible problem of BRAIN FOG. *horror chords*. Yep, as well as the fatigue, joint pains, muscle pains, headache and sore throat, my head feels like it’s been stuck in a blender and I could very well pass for a zombie out of Shaun Of The Dead (or one of the Romero “_____ of the Dead” movies if you’ve never seen the brilliant Simon Pegg parody) this morning, and I’m FED UP! I want to write, because I know what I want to write – but thanks to this brain fog, I don’t think the messages will actually reach my hands before my hands have gone “I can’t be bothered waiting for these words, let’s play on Bejewelled Blitz/stalk people on Facebook instead”.

I can’t even write my coursework! I’d actually like to get my coursework done and dusted, but it’s proving impossible because I’m looking at these words I’ve written down in my plan (it’s a comparison of the presentation of the theme of marriage in Much Ado About Nothing, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof) and I don’t think I even remember writing them. Plus my teacher has made notes that are nearly impossible to decipher when my head’s like this. Even as I’m writing this, it’s going slowly and I can feel my fingers edging nearer and nearer to the mousepad to click on the tab with Facebook on it. Must – resist – must – keep – writing – curses, foiled again. Oh well. Facebook it is!