A different sort of September

Its an odd feeling right now in our house, but a great one! Its that time of the year when summer is definitely over, kids are back at school, autumn setting in, cooler nights and that palpable transition feeling in the air.  

In the past, I've both loved and really disliked this time time of year, with new busy routines and schedules and everything is go go GO! But now, at this moment, this week (and last), with Tryfan done with his A levels, having started now his Gap Year, and me having started my new venture business, we have these lovely gentle mornings.  I still get up earlyish, but I go for a beautiful dog walk to start the day rather than stressing about what I might be forgetting to do.  It is absolutely lovely. Long may it last!

Qi Jong mornings

On my daily morning walks with Annie Dog, I've started adding a little bit of exercise. I tend to walk a couple of different variations of a 30-45 minute loop that goes from our house into the woods, then across a meadow, up "Bear Pit Hill", and then some variation of crossing the open heathland to get to the ancient pale on the other side and back around through Jubilee Woods. I absolutely love how each day has different things to see, hear and smell. I guess it was last year when I was feeling particularly troubled and angsty before my workday at my previous employer started, and I would really savour these morning walks.What a gift that those troubles and angsty feelings are behind me! Now I have started taking a few moments to do some qi jong movements, which involve much flailing of arms.  I have a couple of favorite spots where no passers by can see me, and I do feel like Diana Prince in those moments when she twirls with dramatic flair and turns into Wonder Woman! It is a great way to start the day.  And it is particularly gorgeous right now with the maturing bracken rainbow hues alongside the blooming golden gorse and the exuberant heather.

Culture Day

 My college BHASVIC do this thing called Culture Day where they have students from every cultural background do a sort of fair thing to celebrate their culture. Each country had a stall with some information, pictures, some food and students from that background dressed in cultural attire. It was pretty fun, and Eva was a part of the Indian stall which was probably the biggest stall in the hall. Then there was a catwalk where each country paraded down, it was pretty fun and the hall was packed so the pictures aren't the best. From my memory there were stalls from most European countries, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran, Phillipines, Sudan, Nigeria and Ghana. There were definitely a lot more but those were the main one's I remember. 

Eva looked beautiful in her blue sari and here is a picture of her with my Geography teacher Suki, who is also of Indian descent. They both looked pretty sick. 

         

                   

            

Beautiful Eva

Eva was trialing different hair styles today for culture day, doesn't she look pretty? That was it, that's the post. 

Lookalike competition

 

It's A level season, so likely not too many posts from Febuarary onward from me but here is a lookalike competition between Eva and I in a study break. Looks just like her. 

Other than that been just locking in, rise and grind type shit. I think the drawing is pretty Quentin Blake esq to be honest, though Eva is not happy with me, or this post. Oh well

Locked in

 Every day is a revision day: since probably Christmas, unless there's something going on, I and every other year 13 (who cares about their education sorry Andy) has just been revising. The grind is continuous, and it's a balance of not pushing too hard - there's still 2 months to go till exams start - and burning out. But any free time really is spent studying so. This was today in the library with Sam, who along with Eva is probably my main study partner as we are in the same Geography class. 

Happy 1 year!

 Eva and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary! Fate smiled on us and the college cancelled school for that specific day only, for our teacher 1 on 1's which thankfully were all online! That meant Eva and I got to hang out and take the train down to Lancing for some Go Karting. Slightly unconventional date, and it was Eva's first time and she was shitting herself, but we both had fun in the end. After, we went to dinner in Brighton at an Italian place named Pinoccio's, where we'd had out first date. I love my girl and it was a great day that we could enjoy before returning to the A level grind. 

The only picture I could find is one of me with our free dessert. which we got because Eva found some plastic in her food so get in. 

Sam's talk

 My mate Sam was giving a talk today at Lindfield Village Hall about "The Mammals of Lindfield" so I went along to support him, along with some of our other friend. The talk was completelly full we actually had to stand at the back without seats. The talk was great and he included footage from his many forest trailcams, then after went for a curry at Tamasha the next door curry house. Luckily for us, or unluckily not sure, there happened to be an Elvis impersonator that particular night which was hilarious. 

Here's a video, obviously in the book this won't show but still. 

A wonderful Valentine's day

 

Eva and I had a lovely Valentine's - she took me to a sauna place in Brighton, which was roasting. They had a great setup, it was essentially someone's house and they'd added a sauna downstairs! They had a cold shower ouside you had to go in to wash off the sweat, as well as a cold plunge tub that I braved and Eva did not. After we went home, and I cooked us lovely steak and potatoes. 

Meanwhile, Mum and Dad (who rarely celebrate Valentine's) spent the day chilling and watching the Six Nations which to be honest sounds pretty nice as well.

 Happy Valentine's to all, and to all a good night!

Hosted a Galentines dinner!

                  Allyson, Ellie, Rhiannon          EJ (1 of the 5 roommates and Rhiannon)

We didn't get too many photos before the partyness started, so sadly I only got these two and some of the decorations.

 

Boozing in Lindfield

Friday night post revision, got the train to Haywards Heath and walked to Sam's house. Then we all went to The Bent Arms for most of the evening and got some Dominoes pizza delivered at some point. It was a good time and somehow the guys fake ID's worked so well in. 

Here is Oscar, Jacob, Sam, Lachie, myself and Massey from left to right. I think only Oscar and myself were 18 in this picture hah. 

Wicked sunset

 Not wicked as in green and singing, this sunset was so beautiful I actually took a photo. I've discovered that the best sunrises and sunsets come around February/ March time, end of winter start of spring type shit. Anyway, let us hope the photo does it justice. I made it extra large so it can really capture the mind you get me.

Weird guy on the train

Early this morning on our commute into Brighton, my buddy Violet and I noticed this guy on the train who was just walking up and down perpetually. He had no headphones in, wasn't saying anything and it was before 8am so there were plenty of seats. He walked back and forth, to the end of our carriage and then back to the end of the next carriage for the duration of the 20 minute journey. How bizarre indeed. I took a picture with him to commemorate the occasion, though I didn't get his consent, so sorry dude.

Opening night at the Sauna Marathon

 We safely arrived to the fabulous Ugandi Hotel in Otepaa (which is quite a small town) and had two rooms between the four of us, which was perfect. We checked in and then Cat and I walked down to the venue to check it out and see if other teams were also getting dressed up into costumes or what, and indeed they were so we did our official registration and made some new friends, then scampered back to the hotel to get Leigh and Emma revved up to make our debut. Here we are in the hotel lobby about to walk down to the kick off party.

It was only about a 15 minute walk, and we all had very sensible shoes on - comfy and cozy snow boots. We got down to the venue (which was the town square and also the starting line for tomorrow's main event), and there were 8 mobile saunas installed on the premises, along with some hot tubs and cold plunges.  Music was pumping, film crew were around, and we had a brilliant time meeting other teams in the saunas and enjoying the atmosphere.

 

One of our highlights of the night was hanging out in a hot tub with a team of four Estonian sheep farmers (really!) who were in their mid-20s. So cute!! The most chatty one was called Hades and we had such a brilliant time getting to know them.  In retrospect this was one of the highlights of the trip.  Since we were all wearing wigs and had striking, noticeable outfits, we got a lot of attention and people would later recognise us.  A great start!

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

 How generic can two teenage boys be? Very is the answer. We walked into college today to find Oscar and Andy had worn the exact same outfit, completely unplanned. They had the same shoes, jeans, jumper, headphones and they both have black hair so that counts as well. Here they are looking like brothers. Riveting post this one!

Latvia, here we come!

Finally the day has come and we are off on our adventure to the European Sauna Marathon in Otepaa, Estonia! We ended up booking flights from Gatwick to Riga, Latvia and then renting a car to get ourselves over to the event location. We wore so many layers on our travels, as we were sharing 2 suitcases between us and we had quite a few diffeent outfit changes in the days ahead of us!

As we flew into Riga, we could see that the river was frozen and when we got closer on our drive from the airport, we could see that people were out on the ice! Our hotel was an old convent in the middle of the city and under the dusting of snow it was soooo pretty.

We went exploring and found a place for dinner, then another place for rooftop drinks.

Then we went out on the frozen river ourselves and danced around. It was so joyous.

In fact, one of the places we went (our final destination before bedtime) was the Grand Hotel Kepinski where we had seen an advertisement in the airline magazine that featured a yummy looking cocktail. Quite exciting to go to this posh place in our Dry Robes.

Today (Friday) we checked out of the hotel and went to the Riga Market, then started our drive over to Otepaa, Estonia for the Friday night kick off event.

This is where we were waiting by the car in front of the convent.

Glitterati party

Last night at our friends house Clare and Frank down the road! Such fun. It was just me who went since Rhodri had other plans for the night, but it was a great night of dancing and chatting

Rugby team photo

 Its been awhile since we posted photos from the rugby world, but here is one from this past weekend. Can you spot Tryfan and Rhodri?

A new chapter gift

My bestest friend Annabel made this amazing and beautiful quilt for me to celebrate the start of my new chapter outside of SLB. I'm so touched by this gift... it has swirls and color and unexpected exuberance, which is just so intensely moving and dear. This photo doesn't do justice..

European Sauna Marathon Team!

Some of my homies and I entered a team into the annual European Sauna Marathon back in September, and we have had such a hoot preparing for this event. Its billed as sort of a mix of an orienteering event and a fancy dress (costume) party, so we came up with some crazy outfits and booked flights to Estonia!

Here are some of our preparation photos as we are now about a week away from the event.