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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Second Post

Place of Writing - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion

Ipswich Town's Championship position - 14th

Currently reading - Atonement Ian McEwen

Aberystwyth lies at the end of an Arriva trains railway line, one of the furthest places away from where I live in Kent that I can possibly be in Britain, so why did I choose to come here to study? The place is incredibly good looking, it stood out from a crowd of five by the way it presented itself, a glorious sunshine town with a huge amount packed in and that's exactly what I found when I got here.

Luckily enough, my wonderful girlfriend lives a couple of towns over and is willing to make room in her car for me and so she had the pleasure of my company for six hours. Lucky her. Our journey took us right through Hereford to visit her Grandparents and by making good time, we were able to be back before the sun went down.

The following couple of days were spent pretty lazily, I unpacked and settled back down to my revision (exam in 3 days at the time of writing this) and took it easy. 

The following photos were taken on walks around the town, I'm hoping to get out more with my camera.

Built in 1795, The Old College still plays host to lectures and seminars for certain subjects.

The view towards the ruined castle.

 The last train out of Aberystwyth.

 Closing time.

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First Post

Place of Writing - Walmer, Kent.
Ipswich Town's Championship position - 15th.
Currently reading - Regeneration, Pat Barker.

Let me firstly say that this, despite its appearance, this blog will not be a football blog. However it just so happens that I think standing in the freezing cold, watching one set of people kick a ball into a net multiple times is exciting.

Instead, this blog is going to document my life. I have done several in the past but as a third year English and Creative Writing Student at Aberystwyth University I'm coming up to a pretty major part of my life where the decisions I make will shape my future (scary, right?). I want to go and have wonderful adventures in whichever part of the country or even world I choose and take pictures along the way.

My New Years resolution, if I'd actually made one (I didn't) would be to use my camera more. I had a blog that ran for 365 days where I took a photo every day, that kind of enthusiasm is something that I'm trying to chase down and regain.

With the reasons out of the way, let's talk about yesterday and how brilliant it was.

Listening to music on a rolling train can feel special, it's like you're in a music video and everything you see is shaped by the audio filling your ears. Got some Damien Rice on? Everything becomes a little more greyscale, with Jack Johnson the colours seem to shine brighter. If you take the train relatively frequently the surroundings seem to evolve each time you go past, buildings shoot up and it can almost feel cinematic. The metaphorical IMAX in question was Folkestone (perhaps realistically more like a Cineworld), a town I was incredibly familiar with after spending huge swathes of my life there.

My lovely girlfriend met me in her sporty looking Skoda and we headed into town for a pre-arranged coffee at, 'Steep Street Café,' an independent little spot on what's known as The Old Highstreet (so called because yes, you guessed it, it used to hold most of the town's major shops). I left my camera in Bex's car so I wasn't able to get a great shot of the inside but the place was essentially a library, old books almost acting as insulation for the room. I had myself a Baileys hot chocolate and a Latté afterwards, both drinks pepping me up two different ways.

Yours truly in Steep Street Café

After the coffee we headed down to the harbour to take some photos, this time, with my DSLR (Nikon D7000 with various lenses), the light was great, piercing through thick cloud creating the following photos.

There were plenty of ropes used for fishing, this however was wrapped around a fence post.

This dog was chasing anything that moved, the ball its owner threw, people, other dogs, anything.

Mad dog ft. my girlfriend photobombing

This was seemingly the name of the red telephone box that sat proudly on the waterfront.

The afternoon was spent with my Nan and Grandad. Since around 2005, my Nan has researched our family tree, going back as far as the late 18th century. It was my job yesterday to organise each branch of the family into their own poly pockets, as well as collating the data into an easy to read family tree, something that I really enjoyed. It was brilliant to spend an afternoon with them and I'll be seeing them on Saturday before I head back up to Wales.

These posts won't be every day or every week, they won't be regular but I will post as often as I can.

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