Ninth Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Champion Position - 15th
Currently Reading - The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

It's been two weeks since I've written a blog post, I've been relatively busy, but in actual fact, I'm perhaps being a little lazy. My writing project is stuck at around 2000 words, simply because there are a few logistical plot holes which I need to address before I continue (for example, how have the two characters got enough food to survive in the red room for the two weeks necessary?). Don't get me wrong at all, I'm loving encountering problems, it just adds to the depth which I'm trying to create.

Let's begin.

A few weeks ago, wile playing korfball, I managed to break my glasses. This was a massive inconvenience to me because we had our last league games the following weekend and I wouldn't be able to play in them (both the glasses and the games themselves). As a result, I booked an eye test and a contact lens appointment. The summary of this is that I can now wear contact lenses; this would be for sport and the odd night out. It's a pretty big thing for me because it means no more broken glasses and I can play sports which I might not have done because of glasses getting in the way. (Disclaimer - I will never play rugby.)

On Friday the third of March, I woke up as the street sweeping lorry was doing its rounds at 6am and began my day of travelling. I was going to Scotland to meet my brother Thomas for a weekend of excitement in Aberdeen.

The train journey took three hours to get from Aberystwyth to Birmingham. Following that, Flybe's propeller propelled service got me to Aberdeen (after an hour delay) in an hour and ten minutes. Being met at the airport was brilliant and then the weekend's whistlestop tour of Aberdeen could begin.

The Friday night was spend in various pubs, meeting my brother's friends before heading to a gig, 90's band 'The Dub Pistols' (one of their songs was on the PS2 game Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2). The night was brilliant and it set the weekend up really well. However, as the dancing and the drinking went on, dark storm clouds gathered overhead. The rain came down and didn't stop until Saturday evening. We did power through the rain and went to an incredibly seal colony on a place not far from Aberdeen called Balmedie Beach. There were at least two hundred of the animals at a distance of around 20 metres (seals carry a number of diseases so it's wise not to get close.) Despite the constant driving rain, it was one of the most incredible places that I've been to, it even had a shipwreck on the beach. Jumping back in the car with soaked through jeans, we passed one of Donald Trump's golf courses and drove back into Aberdeen and out the other side to a place called Stonehaven, a fishing town with a brilliant castle on the clifftops. We didn't stop too long here, getting a coffee, taking pictures and buying lunch to take back to my brother's flat (Fried haggis and chips). After surprising family members on FaceTime (it was left mostly as a secret for this very purpose), we left to watch the Aberdeen University versus Robert Gordon University Varsity boat race. If you imagine Oxford and Cambridge's boat race and then scale it down quite abit, that's what we witnessed. Aberdeen University won and as the rain clouds began to form once again, we headed to meet my brother's friends for food. The meal was lovely and it was a fantastic end to a brilliant weekend. I'd really like to visit when the weather is a little more predictable, maybe in the summer because I definitely felt that there were so many things left unseen in the wonderful city of Aberdeen.

I didn't use my camera very much, simply because of how heavy the rain was, however, here are a couple of pictures.

This photo was actually taken a couple of days before I left. Dew drops on the moss.

Wrecked.

This little guy followed us up and down the beach

Dunnottar Castle at Stonehaven

Robert the Bruce in front of the largest granite building in Europe.

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Eighth Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 13th
Currently Reading - The Rules of Perspective by Adam Thorpe

Monday has once again rolled around, I've just come home after my two hour lecture (it's a hard life being a student) and I thought I'd update you on the last few days, something that I realise I'm getting more and more slack about (tut tut).

Thursday 16th - Saturday 18th

It was a relatively early start for me. The night before, looking at my reading schedule, I realised I'd missed out a book for the next seminar on the module, "Re-imagining the World Wars". My panic was only relevant because I'd be spending the next couple of days in Birmingham which would mean I'd only be able to get hold of the text a day or two before the seminar, not ideal. I went to, in total, five charity shops (Oxfam books, Bernardos, Red Cross, Children's Hospice and The British Heart Foundation) before going to Waterstones, which still didn't have the book (Shuttlecock by Graham Swift). Giving up, I was heading home when I suddenly remembered the shop, Ystwyth books. The shop itself looks fairly standard upon entry, non fiction in one room and New fiction in another, it's only when you go upstairs to the "Classics" room, that there is ensuing carnage, wall to wall books. The room used to be a kitchen and there were books in the sink, overflowing onto the floor, it was wonderful. The owner found Waterland in the basement, I would have loved to have seen the litarary mayhem down there.

Later that day myself and Bex headed to Birmingham. We were booked to see comedian Jack Whitehall that night who was incredibly funny, a brilliant comedy show which had a great warm-up act - Stu Goldsmith.

The photos included in today's post were taken on the first day, Birmingham's Bullring seems to me to be both horrifically ugly and strangely beautiful at the same time, the constant symmetry of the reflective disks is something I love.

The Friday night was spent with yet more comedy, a comedy show at the Glee Club, after dinner at Pizza Express. Obviously not quite as polished as arena-filling Jack White Hall, the acts' gritty style made the two nights good contrasts and both were hard to fault.

Sunday 19th

Game day!

Each weekend through February we have been playing korfball in the Welsh league and yesterday (writing this on the 20th) was no different. We were playing Cardiff Cyclones, a Cardiff City team who were top of the table, and Cardiff Raptors thirds, another Cardiff city team. We started the day with a pretty shocking and a little bit panicked result, losing to Cyclones 26-7. They really showed us what it took to be top of the table. Our second game was against Raptor's third team which was an automatic win because they didn't have enough players, so had to fill the gaps with first team players (two Welsh internationals). We played brilliantly and despite losing 16-9, the forefeit meant we won 10-0.

It's always quite hard to emphasise how well we play when we lose games, however, we have no professional coaching so it's like guitar playing, I've self taught myself for 10 years, however I've picked up certain bad habits along the way, you might not notice it until my technique is compared to another player's. On this note, today, 20th February, the two Raptors players who were Welsh international have stayed overnight and are coming to our training later today to help us out and hopefully give us some key tips that will help in future games.

Bullring from afar

Bullring up close

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Seventh Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 13th
Currently Reading - Another World by Pat Barker (It's brilliant)

It's a Sunday, a day of rest, and after a day of playing korfball yesterday, that's exactly how I intend to use it.

Last Tuesday my tutor gave me some incredibly helpful and constructive feedback on my writing project, he helped fill in some of the gaps I was struggling to and he suggested some pretty key ideas which help move the narrative along nicely.  I was relieved to find that despite being put with a workshop group of sci-fi and fantasy fiction writers, everyone's ideas varied completely and weren't what I was expecting (as someone who doesn't read this genre, I expected it to be vampires and aliens. There were many dystopian pieces like mine and it seemed that everyone had great ideas, I'm really looking forward to seeing how they all turn out.

Usually, on Friday nights, around six thirty, I Facetime with my grandparents back in Kent. Last term it was as regular as clockwork and I'd never miss it. However, this term I have korfball from six until half 7, this isn't a problem at all, it's feasable to talk when I get home (despite being a sweaty mess) but this week was different, if you'll forgive this long-winded introduction, I'll explain.

I raced home from korfball at a pace which would be described a gentle plodding. The reason why I should have been racing home? My flat's landlord was paying for us to go out and have a meal. It was mentioned months ago but it was because myself and the boys I live with are such great tennants (apparently). It was such a lovely evening to spend time as a whole flat, having some brilliant food.

Friday night's meal was a brilliant start to the weekend and the next day, Saturday, I was representing the University in a sport that I love. The journey took us along the coast, all the way from the sleepy town of Aberystwyth, down along the coast to the busy and buzzing city of Cardiff (Made even more
busy and buzzing by the fact that England were playing Wales in the Six Nations at the Melennium Stadium).Our first game was against Cardiff Archers, one of the city teams who we had lost 16-6 to a few weeks previously. On this occasion, our team was strong and despite taking an early lead, we lost 10-7. The result was stinging but being told that I was playing directly against a Welsh international player soothed the pain significantly. Our second game was where the backs-to-the-wall pressure was on. It was against Cardiff University Second team and the scores were back and fourth so many times. We were winning, then a few points later they were winning, the game was in the balance and with two minutes to go, Cardiff led 9-8. In the dying seconds of the game, we got a penalty, a free shot and as the hall went silent, our captain delivered the goods, he scored the equalizer and because the game was so tough and we gave it 100% for the full hour, the draw truly felt like a win.

On the journey home we had Fivelive sports radio on in the car. The coverage of the second half of the England-Wales rugby union was really tense and much like Aberystwyth korfball, with backs against the wall, in the dying minutes of the game, England delivered the goods, doing what Aberystwyth korfball couldn't and getting the full winning points. Obviously after living in Wales for almost three years, I wouldn't want either of the two teams to lose but that's the way sport often goes.

Yesterday's positive sporting results increased when I found out that Ipswich had won 0-1 to Aston Villa and Tom's (my flatmate) university football team had won 2-0. Today is Hibernian's game against Hearts in the Edinburgh derby for the Scottish Cup and if Hibs can get the win, my weekend's sundae will have the metaphorical cherry on top.

Today's photos were taken this morning on a wander along the seafront. It was incredibly cold so the black and white reflects that.

Steps to Atlantis

The only bit of rough water I could find

Cold and thorny

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Sixth Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 16th
Currently Reading - Another World by Pat Barker

The rain is falling on this Monday afternoon. I'm stuck in limbo between lectures this morning and korfball practice at four. Mentioning korfball, we had great numbers at the session on Monday after Refreshers week, four new players which is brilliant, that's half a team! I'm not sure how much of the sport I'll get the opportunity to play after graduating but I know that I'll make the most of it while I'm in Wales. I did learn from one of our newbies, who's from the Netherlands, that korfball is mainly played in the more rural parts of the country because of its traditional roots. Maybe we should see korfball as the Dutch equivalent of Morris dancing, just with less black face, so maybe not.

Saturday was probably the most significant day this past week. Myself and some friends sat for most of the day in a pub watching the Six Nations action, Scotland v Ireland and England v France. Both Scotland and England won which means that as much of my family is Scottish and I'm English, I was happy both ways. The pub visit was cut short after a phone call with Bex, who had managed to cut the top of her finger off (nice). After dealing with the gore of a cooking injury, we went to the theatre to watch a student production of Titus Andronicus, which I was incredibly impressed by. I'd studied the play last year and the production by the company, 'Blood Sweat and Tea,' really did it justice.

The blog post wouldn't be complete without a mention of the Tractor Boys, who managed to get a point from third place Reading, with Welsh wonder-kid Tom Lawrence scoring twice. I didn't watch the game but it seemed like Ipswich's performance was a huge improvement on previous results.

Today's photos (all but one) were taken in my kitchen on Sunday morning. I love the way water is captured in photos, the individual droplets picked up by the flash are tiny microcosms. Constant beautiful carnage.

This is the water hitting a korfball badge, something given out at recruitment fayres

Done in our sink

And again

We have mirrored table mats, they came in handy.

This is my plastic coin for the trolleys at Tesco

The rusting top of the pier, there's a nightclub in there

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Fifth Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 17th
Currently Reading - Maus by Art Spiegelman

Right now, it's a Wednesday afternoon at 2PM, I've finished my lectures for the week, I have no contact hours with my lecturers for five days so I guess you could say the weekend has begun, but the reading never stops. (Not that that's a bad thing)

The past week term has been spluttering into first gear, with introductory seminars and a slow realisation that this is my final semester as a student in education, it's incredibly exciting but equally terrifying. Oh well, this quarter life crisis can be put on hold for now.

Last Saturday, at around 2PM, the mighty footballing titans of Aberystwyth University first team took on the equally formidable Pen-y-Bont in a clash that would go down in history, as a game that did indeed happen. My flatmate Tom was playing and it used to be quite a regular thing to see him play, last year, but what with work and general procrastinating, that hasn't happened so much recently. The match was a thrilling 2-0 win for Aberystwyth University but would it be equally as exciting as the Welsh korfball games that would be happening the day after? Hold your horses, I'm about to tell you.

Arriving early in the morning (early for a student), I was a little nervous, knowing we'd be up against two Cardiff University teams and one Cardiff City club, but I was happy to be playing korfball for the first time in just under two months.

Our three games ended sadly in defeats, our closest game was losing 4-6 against Cardiff University's third team. There was a small ray of light in the fact that we came away with the win in that game, but only because they admitted to fielding an illegible player, someone from the first team, not their fault, they just didn't have enough players.

The day of playing gave me a pretty achy condition for the next two days and it's only today that I've been able to get out of bed with out the accompanying groan.

This week has been dominated pretty wholeheartedly by korfball, with the recruitment fayre yesterday, whereby, despite it being a very quiet, we had a few people pretty keen to sign up and come to our session this Friday 6-7:30. On that note, if anyone's reading this looking to join a sport, I'd definitely recommend this one, through korfball I have made some of my closest friends, the sport keeps me active and the socials each week create a friendship group that are incredibly close both on and off the court. Tonight's social is Red, red, red, we are the Red Kites (Google it) and as a result, we're dressing head to toe in red and crawling (maybe literally) from one pub to another through the town.

Here are some photos taken from the last week (mainly korfball. Again, sorry.)

Tom styles it past the Pen-y-bont number nine

Wonder shot (Aberystwyth are in charcoal)

Another picture from the game

And another

And another

I thought it's just best to mention, Ipswich Town lost last night to Derby County 0-3, sliding three places, potentially more depending on who wins tonight, makes me a little worried for the next few games, I just hope we'll still be in the Championship next season.

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Fourth Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 14th
Currently Reading - The Penguin Book of Ghost stories

It's the Saturday right before term starts back up and its been a relatively sleepy kind of week. I've spaced out my reading so luckily I'm not trying to cram it all in at the last possible minute but even so, my book shelf is still full of books I've got to read, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

On Thursday night myself and Bex went to comedian Ross Noble's show up at the Arts centre. I'm not here with an aim to review it but it was brilliantly funny and also refreshing to watch a comedian who isn't just performing the same set night after night, Ross Noble seemed a little more spontaneous, although that could be the same spontaneity that he does up and down the country.

On a more academic note, now that term is about to begin, I thought I'd update you on my writing project, something that I've talked incessantly to some people and to others, not a word. My piece is set in a dystopian Britain (sadly not too far fetched from our own) whereby the Far Right politics seem to be continually rising and with that, inflation, to enormous levels, the tensions in politics spill over into international friction with recently nuclear capable Turkey, culminating in a strike on the U.K., more specifically shipping hub Southampton. While this rages in the background, my character, Cole, grows up being abused by a priest, Father Doyle, and as the world descends further into chaos (before the nuclear strike), Cole gets hold of his abuser's address and decides to kill him, as the murder takes place, the nuclear strike happens and because government advice is to stay in your homes for up to 14 days to allow the fallout radiation to at least settle, Cole is trapped inside the house, more specifically the room that the priest lies dead. Cole has to face his demons and it becomes a trauma novel.

Now, taking a step back, it seems incredibly far fetched and a little crazy, however all of the aspects lend themselves to research (which makes up a huge amount of the marks), I'll look through government legislation, how inflation actually works (before starting, I was pretty clueless) and the physics of a radioactive blast.

Hopefully I'll get to share the end result on here, I'm really enjoying writing it, despite its incredibly dark nature.

Talking of things with a dark nature, Ipswich play Preston this afternoon, by the next blog post, they should have moved at least one place up or down. (Hopefully upwards).

The photos for today were taken two nights ago on yet another walk along the seafront.

Too much craziness for one shopfront

Amusets

Wavey

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Third Post

Place of writing - Aberystwyth Ceredigion
Ipswich Town's Championship Position - 14th
Currently Reading - Atonement by Ian McEwen

Okay, so I realise I'm writing this in exactly the same place, Ipswich are still 14th and what I'm reading has also stayed the same but it just so happened that even though Ipswich lost, the teams behind the Tractor Boys did too, also, Atonement is a pretty heavy book to be reading side-by-side revision. With regards to being in Aberystwyth, I don't think that'll change too much. If you're feeling at all hard done by, the artist I'm listening to most is The Tallest Man on Earth, a folk musician whose name seems to be more than a little ironic.

Tomorrow (Monday 23rd) is my one and only exam and I'm feeling relatively relaxed, it's on Elizabethan drama (Henry V, Henry VI part 1 and Arden of Faversham) and I'm drowning in notes but I'm feeling pretty confident because of how much I've enjoyed this module, something that if I'm honest with myself wasn't happening in first year (medieval writing just doesn't do it for me).

This blog post could be seen as some pretty lengthy procrastination and you might be right in thinking that but yesterday I went on yet another wander and I'd love to tell you all about it.

After Ipswich crashed out of the FA cup, losing to Lincoln City, a team three leagues below them, my betting odds for putting them in an accumulator against Huddersfield went up dramatically, I thought they'd bounce back from the huge loss and give me a huge payout (thirty pounds from just one) but they didn't, they lost 2-0 and as I was watching the live commentary of us being backed into a corner, I decided it was no way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

There is an anomaly in Aberystwyth's bird population that seems to happen daily at sunset, nobody really knows why it happens but it's an amazing sight to see - The murmuration of starlings returning to the pier. They bunch together and then just at the point of colliding, they dart away, creating some incredible patterns on the skyline. And, much like that afternoon of nature's spectacle of mystery, another phenomenon was revealed to me, why I follow a team that seems to consistently break my heart and cause me to despair. To both happenings nobody knows the true answer but despite this, it'll continue to happen week-in, week-out.

Adjusting my camera's whitebalance to 8000 Kelvins showed the room being washed with warm light

Murmuration in action

I live in one of the most beautiful towns

Final quick note, I've set up a writer's page at a site called Booksie, just because I'd like to be sharing my actual writing with people who read my blog. The first post is a music magazine article I was asked to write as part of my course. Lena Ellingwood didn't exist. 

https://www.booksie.com/493764-lena-ellingwood-view-through-the-cellar-door

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