A Refreshing Change

After a few negative blog posts (if I’m being honest, I think they are all pretty negative) I have decided to compile a list of things that I like/that make me happy/that I appreciate. I hope I can sustain the list for an adequate amount of time as I am aware of how easy I found it to compose a list of things I do not like…

• Inevitably, it must begin with the cold side of the pillow
• When my fridge at uni has food in it (which is rare)
• When there is money in my bank account (also rare)
• When it’s my birthday and I get presents
• Home and away (and sometimes Neighbours)
• James the giant panda
• 99 ice creams (before they started to cost more than 99p)
• Submitting essays (getting them back should be added to my negative list)
• Falling on the sofa just after the cushions have been plumped up
• The smell of chlorine
• A full tank of petrol (if I haven’t had to pay for it)
• The Wit & Wisdom column in The Week (and obviously all the educational bits too)
• Waking up in the middle of the night and realizing you still have loads of sleeping time before morning
• My youngest sister, Gemma (added on request)
• When my bread isn’t moldy
• When my hair smells nice
• Bananas
• My other sister, Belinda (for good measure)
• Drinking my tea when it’s the perfect temperature
• Looking at everyone else’s faces in the cinema
• Funny youtube videos
• Getting complimented for cooking/just generally getting complimented
• When I understand something in my Latin grammar class (rare)
• Completing a crossword
• Coca cola when I’m hung-over
• Every day that I am not hung-over
• Getting texts
• My potato masher (a JosephJoseph potato smasher – can do no wrong)
• Finishing a book
• Gold fish
• (And talking about myself, evidently)

The Train Journey

There are many reasons why I don't like trains. Here is a handful.

Buying tickets is painfully expensive, even with a railcard. I once forgot my railcard and it was cheaper to buy another one than it was to top up my ticket price. Fortunately I get so scared of missing my train, I generally arrive at the station a solid hour in advance of the expected departure time, so I had ample time to spend £6 (what an annoying number) on passport photos and £30 on a laminated bit of card, made more frustrating by the fact that I knew I had both at home. Usually though, I do not have anything to do in my hour-long wait. I get a coffee from an un-named coffee house and then sit/perch/lean on whatever I can find on the platform. The last train I got was running 27 minutes late. That means I was sitting on the platform for 1 hour and 27 minutes. As a general rule, when the train pulls into the station, human empathy is dismissed and I now know the true meaning of “it’s a dog eat dog world”. I try my best to avoid the kafuffle of suitcases/prams/babies/people ramming themselves into a carriage all at once (type ‘Japanese train station during rush hour’ into youtube). Stress continues for a short while as the seat reservations are invariably out of order, there is no space whatsoever in the luggage racks and even walking down the aisle seems to parody that funny youtube video of a cat getting stuck in a jumper sleeve. I am one of the lucky/sensible ones, who always books a seat. And you’d think that once you were sitting down the stress would be over. Well, it’s generally not. I always seem to end up sitting next to that inconsiderate commuter who eats egg sandwiches and doritos whilst drinking coffee and talking very loudly into their snazzy phone and tapping away at a stupid little mini-computer – whose screen can hardly even be seen – or worse, an iPad. Normally I end up in a backwards facing seat. A noisy child is never far away. Sometimes they have siblings. I am also constantly terrified that I will miss my stop and am sometimes too scared to listen to music in case I fall asleep, despite the fact that my train journey is about 4 hours long. I am also scared I will miss my connection. When I don’t miss my connection (which is always, as I have never actually missed it), I get scared I will get a train going in the opposite direction to Bath, and always have to say a little prayer that I am on the right train. Nervous anticipation ensues. So far though, I have never got on the wrong train, and have always made it home in some manner or other, even if I did once get a lift with a stranger. But that will be a story for another day because I should probably get back to my revision.

Things that I really don't like

• Opening milk bottles
• Busy supermarkets
• Being bored
• Being told that only boring people get bored
• Forgetting to take my washing out of the washing machine so it smells like wet dog and I have to wash it again
• Not having any money
• Needy people
• When you don’t wash up your cereal bowl straight away and then when it comes to washing it a day later, the cereal is caked on like limpets in a rock pool
• BBM – a never ending challenge to pretend to care about someone other than yourself
• When I run out of clean mugs
• When my boiled egg pops and it sprouts a lock of white eggy hair (see recent twitter post)
• Twitter?
• When the wind blows my hair into my eyes/mouth/face/other people’s faces
• Train journeys
• When we ceremoniously sit down to watch a television programme and then talk through 82% of it
• Eating spaghetti or beans
• Damp hands
• Clammy hands
• Saving the best bit of a meal until the end and then being too full to eat it
• The fact that I thought this would be quite a succinct list but that actually I feel I could go on for a while yet…