Apologies, Puppies and Penguins

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blogginess... it's been nearly 2 weeks!! :O It does seem that my usual irregular blogging pattern has become increasingly more irregular since BEDA! But basically, I have either forgotten about it due to something else I was doing, probably some crappy school stuff, or I was stressing over crappy school stuff... which is always nice. Stupid English.

Last blog you may remember me mentioning some exciting news, well I think I can mention it now, as I've been telling everyone at school anyway... WE'RE GETTING A PUPPY!! How exciting is that? Maybe not very exciting to you but I am pretty damn excited. We have spoken about it many times in the past, but I never really thought it would happen... but Zoe has managed to persuade everyone, so we're all now very excited!

We have been to see them for the past 3 weekends and they are soooo cute! I will post pictures another time, probably once we actually have her. Yes, we're getting a girl :) 

Names? Well... at the moment we are all liking Ella, so Ella it is for now. Everyone seems to like the name Maisy but we are getting a Golden Retriever and I just don't think it suits a bit dog, but maybe that's just me! Any suggestions are welcome in the comments...

I also just thought that I would share this link because I thought it was absolutely brilliant!!It just made me smile and have a little bit of a giggle about it!

Curly Wurly Spaghetti

I'm sure you are all familiar spaghetti, and equally familiar with curly wurlys (the chocolate bar.) But, I ask you, are you familiar with them together? 

No? Well why not! 

You're now probably sitting there at your computer, or whatever other devices you are using to read this (I am incredibly jealous of all those read off of an iPad, but that's not the point) thinking that I have gone completely and utterly mad. Ballistic. Craaazy!

Well, maybe I have a little but then I suppose that happened a long while ago! Anyway, onto the real subject of today's blog...

As some of you may know, I have a friend (yes, a friend), called Maddy, who makes Youtube videos. Since she started out making the videos I have been trying to convince her to eat a bowl of spaghetti using a curly wurly for her cutlery. Up until now she has refused to do it, even though she was tempted. 

Just over 2 weeks ago now, she made THIS video about her challenge series, which she is starting up. In it she mentions how she wouldn't do my challenge... UNLESS I commented about it and it got lots of thumbs up (by lots, she means about 20.)

Well, it seems that Maddy finally budged and took up my AWESOME challenge! She uploaded it to Youtube the other day and it was absolutely hilarious!! Click HERE for a link to the video, and have a look at her other ones too! It's so funny, and I feel proud of my challenge! 

I apologise in advance for her chav-tastic way that Maddy says "spaghetti"... or rather "spaghe'i"

I do have some other EXTREMELY exciting news... but I will wait until it is official until I announce it!!

It's Official!!!

What's official? You want to know? Well... I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST!!! Woooooo!!! I'm soooo pleased! I really wasn't sure this morning whether I would pass or not, but I did... that's all that matters! 

The last few nights I have been dreaming about driving and it has be driving (ha ha) me mad!! On Friday I dreamt that my sister's friend was driving my mum's car. She was texting at the same time, which made her go off road, run over a rabbit and crash the car. Nice. No one died though - all good! Saturday Night was incredibly annoying as it was stopping me sleeping, so it took me AGES to actually drift off and then I kept waking up throughout the night! Last night, it took me a while to drift off again but I don't think I woke up really! 

I'm glad it's over now because I have been getting really nervous about it - but it really wasn't that bad to be honest. My driving instructor advised me to have a good breakfast and preferably eat a banana, as it is supposed to calm nerves! I did both, and I actually think it works... honestly! 

I had an hour and a bit of driving before my test, which also helped to calm my nerves and clear up a few things too! Then we went to the test centre... dun dun daaaaah!! 

After signing the little thing I needed to, I answered my 2 show me/tell me questions and then got in the car... show time!! Eeek! 

Overall, the drive was pretty good! I nearly did make a major booboo but managed to sort it out just in time, phew!!!! I had to do reverse left on a wide bend for my manoeuvre, which went well. We had practised that just before the test so that was good! I also had to do the emergency stop... now this, I was nervous about because I had pressed the wrong pedal first twice before and I so desperately wanted to get it right! Thank God I did!!! We then went back to the test centre and he told me I had passed, with 6 minors, and gave me the test sheet and my certificate. He then told me where I went wrong. I knew where they were but I didn't care too much because I had passed and I was far too preoccupied with thinking about that! 

The examiner was nice, so that was good. He was a little too chatty for my liking though, as I was really trying to concentrate! But I suppose that is better than sitting in complete silence, because that would be so nerve racking! He was telling me weird stuff, like his daughter dressing up as a dinosaur for her children... and also about a so-called paedophile that we saw while driving! Weird! 

Once I got home I really didn't feel any rush to get back to school so I got the phone and called a few people... only one of which answered (my Mum). She knew I would be phoning and answered the phone with a very questioning 'hello?' rather than 'hello this is Karina talking from blah blah blah' whatever she says. 

I decided to answer with a very quiet, sad sounding, 'hello' to which my mum replied 'are you ok?' and I said 'err yeah... I PASSED' and then of course she said something like 'aaah yaaay well done, I'm so proud of you' and all that jazz!! After I finished my chat with her and failed to get hold of anyone else I phoned, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, Moritz, congratulating me, which was lovely! 

I then wrote a text and then sent it to a fairly big group of people and of course posted the news on facebook! Then I fed the cat and went to get the bus. When I got into town I was thirsty so I wasted more time in going to Tesco to buy a drink. I got into school at 11.30am in the end, which was about the time I thought I would get there anyway!

Most people had already heard that I had passed my test by the time I got to school, so there was no need for me to shout it out, I wouldn't have anyway! Mel said 'OMG Steph you passed your test, well done!' and I said 'how do you know' and she said '... you posted it on facebook' - I had completely forgotten!!

After lunch the day was a bit crap... did my maths test (hard) and then had an after school French exam which was just ridiculously hard!!!  Anyway... I don't care, I passed my frikin driving test and I'm so so so so pleased!!!!

It's Friday Friday!

Don't worry... I haven't gone mad! I do know it isn't Friday but I'm going to write about Friday anyway as I didn't have time to on Friday evening... I was tired!

I had been looking forward to Friday all week as my friends and I had arranged to go out for a meal as a little catch up. Unfortunately 3 of the people that were invited couldn't come so we had 6 people instead, still a good number, but it would have been nice to see the others, as I haven't really seen them since they left my school! 

We had decided to chose and all you can eat buffet because they do such good food and we (especially Katie) like to eat a lot! Katie most definitely got her money's worth at the end of it and even had a food baby to show for it! And Keely... well she had a 8 month food baby going on!! 

Imogen decided that she would be different and ate ice cream to start off with then went on for starters, main and then more ice cream! I suppose we're all different! 

I think Rumour, Dani and I ate a normal amount compared to the others! I was stuffed by the end of what I had and then there was Katie going up for more food!! It really isn't surprising though! 

Is seemed that we weren't the only ones out that night either! Jack was there with his family and then later on Ross came in with his family! Ross said that he ate 5 plates of food!!!! Wow! I wasn't sure whether Katie had matched that or not! 

Afterwards we went outside the restaurant and took pictures while we waited for our parents to pick us up! Imy and Katie chickened out of asking the big door guy to take a group photo of us so we searched for the timing option instead! 

Keely eventually found it, and after we smiled for the first photo for about 20 seconds before Keely realised she hadn't pressed the shutter... we eventually got a picture! Tada...

Dani had refused to show her teeth in any more photos after she realised that the whiteness made her look more orange! Anyway, I think it is a goo photo of us! A good end to a good evening! 

This was the last photo that we took because I then had to go as my mum was round the corner so Katie came with me as she was getting picked up from there too and the others went into town... I think. 

I was joking with Katie that my mum wouldn't let me drive home if my sister was in the car because she wouldn't want me to kill her... not that I would! But... I was allowed. Zoe was convinced she was going to die, even though I am a good driver.

Driving Fun

I know I still don't have to blog every day, but I still found myself at different points during the day thinking about what I would blog about. I then reminded myself that I didn't actually have to blog because BEDA has finished and I'm not going to turn it in to BEDM because it doesn't have the same ring to it, and I'm not going to change it because that would be silly! 

As you probably know, I am learning to drive. Well, it is my brother's birthday tomorrow and sometime this week he wanted to go and see my dad because we haven't seen him in a while and at the moment my Dad doesn't have a car because of some idiots! Anyway, my mum asked my brother if he would like to go on her insurance for the week, as a little extra for his birthday? He obviously said yes and mum rang up the insurance company and it turned out that it would cheaper if I was also on the insurance... weird! You'd think it would be the other way around, especially as I am still a learner! 

So from today, until next Sunday, I am insured on my mum's car! This afternoon we went out to Tesco garage and bought some L-plates and then we pulled up in the car park and swapped places and mum put the L-plates on! Exciting stuff driving a car... with sole responsibility of the pedals!

After taking a few minutes to get used to the car, we were on our way... yay! However, once we got onto a 60mph road I saw the front L-plate fly back over the windscreen and over the back of the car... oh dear! We were near Sainsbury's at that point so we went in the garage there but they don't sell them! Back to Tesco we go... 

On the way there I looked out for the L-plate (mum was driving at that point) but there was no sign of it! After getting another L-plate, I jumped back in the driving seat! My mum is a pretty good instructor... very calm but she has always found decision making difficult in many circumstances, so it was quite funny when I asked her where she wanted me to go at the round about, because she said 'ooh, errr, I don't know!' 

A while ago, with my instructor, he asked me to do the emergency stop and I had mental block and put the clutch pedal down first and immediately knew it was wrong - so annoying! We did a mock test the other day and I had to do the emergency stop. In my mind I was saying 'break first, break first, break first' but I think I may have slipped when doing the break pedal, meaning that I hit the clutch first. But I was quick to put my break on so we still stopped very quickly! It was either that, or I put them both at the same time, but the clutch slightly before! I knew as soon as I did it and said 'AH CRAP' and my instructor said 'don't worry about it, just concentrate on the last bit'... so I did but I was SO annoyed with myself!

I was trying so hard to get it right and I didn't! Honestly, I can't tell you how annoyed I was and it did affect the rest of the drive, even though I know I shouldn't have let it! 

I told my mum before we went out driving that before the emergency stop she has to look around and check it's all clear but I said I wasn't being rude but I didn't want to do an emergency stop! But we were driving along a road and my mum said 'go on Steph, do an emergency stop' and I said 'err no' and she said 'go on, just do it, it's fine!'... so I did! And I got it right and it was fine... yay! So it wasn't as bad as I thought!

It was amusing and I really enjoyed it! Thank you Mum! Hopefully we will go out again sometime again this week! Maybe I'll persuade her to take me tomorrow for an hour or so or something! It also means that once I have passed my test that I could go on my mum's insurance occasionally if I need/want to and it wouldn't cost too much!