In the recent weeks of my newly gained adulthood I have finally started driving lessons, had my nose pierced and dyed my hair BRIGHT orange (or rather, I got Jake to dye my hair BRIGHT orange). I couldn’t find orange hair dye, so Jake and I had to improvise by mixing red with a yellow that according to the tub ‘glows under a blacklight’…that fact does not surprise me. I have also been revising for the upcoming exams. Luckily only two this time and they’re pretty far apart.

I’ve been LOVING the recent snow, although unfortunately it’s now all been washed away by the rain. I think England looks best in the snow…well, when you’re not by a main road squelching through the grey sludge, or stuck in traffic, or waiting for buses, or having a driving lesson…well, um, my road looked nice anyway. I also had a fantastic view from my Psychology class room of a sunrise over the huge snowy fields at the back of my college (yes, a sunrise, that’s how early my college starts and how dark British winter mornings are!). For christmas my family and I went to stay with my aunt and uncle in Yorkshire where the snow was about 6 or 7 inches deep. On boxing day we walked to Fountains Abbey which is lovely at the best of times, but in the snow it looked amazing!

I finally received my official christmas present from my parents yesterday, a soldering iron with seven different attachments for various jewellery making needs (yep, that’s what I asked for). I don’t actually have any solder yet, or anything to solder, but I’m hoping to use the hot knife attachment to cut old vinyl records into pretty shapes.

I didn’t have a huge 18th birthday party, but I’ve been doing lots of smaller things instead. I went out for the night before my birthday with a group of friends. Sheen and Liah made me a cake before we went out too. It was pretty much pure chocolate…it was so goooood! Bobbie (Jake’s mum) held an afternoon tea party for me, it was fantastic! We all had lots of yummy food (and I mean LOTS of YUMMY food!) and a generally awesome afternoon! On my actual birthday I was woken up with breakfast in bed by Jake, and I went out for a family meal. Most of my family (that live in England) were there, and it was great to have them all around me on my birthday. The coming Friday I’m also going down to Leicester to see Kirsten and go out for the night with her flat mates, which I’m very much looking forward to!

…I also took my house further backwards from the 21st century by asking for a record player for my birthday…I LOVE IT! My mum has an awesome yet unused vinyl collection pretty much made up of classic rock with a hint of Kate Bush, Cat Stevens and other such things that I like. (my Dad has a collection too, but it’s made up of Abba and John Denver…’fraid I’m not a big fan) To save me having to download great music when we already have it, and because vinyl is just the best, a record player seemed like a logical (and conveniently fashionably retro) idea! My parents ordered it online, and I had to sign for it a few days later because no one else was in that day…luckily I’d been part of the choosing process anyway so I knew what it was, but it was so hard not to just rip the box open and
put on a record!

Here it is…

Yippeeeee for birthdays!

Anyway, this is some of the stuff Green Day had:

Pyrotechnics (of course!)
Toilet roll guns
Hose pipes
Water pistols
Fancy dress hats
T-shirt cannons
Audience participation (and LOADS of it!)
Tres Cool in a red bra
The Benny Hill theme tune

…what more could you want!

I returned from the college art trip to Paris a few days ago, we were only there for three nights, but ohhhhhohoh boy what a time we had! We visited 4 art galleries, went to the top of the Eiffel tower, went to the Pompidou centre, had a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, went on a sight seeing tour (passing the Arch de Triomphe and the Moulin Rouge), visited Monmartre to see the street artists, played Pool in an Irish pub, and still had time to do some rushed gift shopping for our dear friend’s and family who missed out on the best trip everrrr!

We got to Paris by coach and ferry. We made great time on the way to Dover, so we got an earlier ferry. We therefore had several extra hours to fill once we arrived in France, so the coach driver took us to stop off at a few extra sights he knew.

When we arrived at out hotel we seperated into our room groups, took our keys, put our bags in our rooms and went restaurant hunting. Pretty much all 56 people on the trip ended up in the nearby Italian restaurant (Ah, what a taste of French culture) and I tried escargots (snails). They were a little rubbery and they were completely filled with garlic butter so they just tasted like garlic. As I like garlic, I liked the taste. I did burp a few hours later though and it tasted like soil.

On the first full day we truly realised quite how expensive Paris was going to be, it’s around a pound to a euro at the moment, so we ended up paying £4.30 for a normal sized can of Ice Tea…but once we had quenched our thirst we just got on with the day and enjoyed ourselves anyway. With it being an art trip and all, naturally one of our first stops was the Louvre, and of course we all ran off to see the Mona Lisa. We went to a LOT of art galleries and saw a LOT of amazing work, which did eventually got a bit tiring, but it was fantastic to see so many wonderful artists crammed into each building. Everyone was going crazy with first hand research for their A-level projects too. Well, everyone except me, my project is on Alice in Wonderland, and Picasso, Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci just didn’t seem to have the same interests.

At the end of the second day, again crammed with art and sight seeing, we spent the evening in Monmartre looking round the work of the street artists. After a while, all 56 of us once again had the same idea about where to eat, and crammed into a nearby restaraunt. As it was the last night of the trip the atmosphere was even more bouncy than the last two nights, and after the meal we spent the coach journey back to the hotel singing along loudly to Black Eyed Peas.

I can’t put into a blog post what an amazing time I had, it’s kinda one of those things where you just had to be there, but everyone on the trip agreed that it was one of the best trips they’d ever been on EVER! We even made it it’s own facebook group, and everyone’s been sharing the thousands of photographs we all took.

Last weekend I hopped on a train to Leicester to visit Kirsten at her uni for the day. I was given a tour of the town centre and then we went back to Kirsten’s flat to meet up with some of her friends. Everyone was incredibly friendly and had a great sense of humour, it was well and truly a fantastic and hilarious day. It was also great to see a bit of what uni life is like before I go myself!

I’ve dyed my hair again, It’s a darker shade of brown, with blonde and horizontally striped bits underneath. I used four bottles of dye in two days, and I would say I won’t dye it again…but I think I’ve said that at least twice before. Luckily all four bottles came with bottles of intensive after care conditioner.

A few weeks ago I also went to Shambala festival with Jake, our friend Ethan, Jake’s parents and some of their friends. I went last year with my friend Roisin and LOVED it. This year it was in the same place, but the experience was still very different, and still awesome! It’s definitely a festival for chilling out at, yet there’s always something going on, and the partying starts in the afternoon and goes on all through the night to the early hours, so you still manage to fit in a surprising amount and really feel like you’ve made the most of it at the end. There is never boredom at Shambala, only making the most of not having to do anything…

In other news, a couple of days ago I had a hair cut. It’s shorter and more ’square’ as my hair dresser described it. I like it but despite dramatic changes in the colour of my hair over the last year, I haven’t had a new style for a while so I’m still getting used to it. It’s going to take a bit of styling in the mornings which I’m in no way used to either, so I’m going to get a new hat for early college mornings when I put my alarm on snooze a few too many times.

As of yesterday I have started learning to play Magic the Gathering, with Jake as my teacher. I never really got into card games like this, as it just looked too complicated. I’m still quite slow, but now I’ve started playing it’s a lot easier than I thought, and really good fun too!

I’ve also been making things, i do this quite a lot! I’ve made a few more brooches, and a new venture, an ornamental fabric birdcage and bird : ) There’s a few things I want to improve for next time, but it’s my own design and my first attempt so I’m quite fond of Mr Tweets and his home!

It’s not all fun, games and handicrafts though as today is the AS level results day. I don’t normally get nervous about things until right before, and today was no exception. I needn’t have worried though as I did pretty much as I expected…and no, you can’t be nosey! I’m not telling you what I got!

It was Jake’s suggestion that I get a website, and as much as I loved the idea, I’d never really thought of myself as someone to be entrusted with one. I can barely keep on top of my facebook notifications (I’m not popular, I’m just lazy).

The idea of my own website, and having to be interesting was also really daunting to me. However, eventually Jake managed to persuade me to admit that actually it would be a really good idea, and two days later, due to Jake’s web design skills, thisishannah.com had already begun taking it’s brightly coloured form!

Coming up I have results day, Shambala festival (which I went to last year and veeeeery much enjoyed!), a trip to Paris with the art dept at my college and I have tickets to Greenday and Muse gigs. There is also just the general random life of me and those who surround me, so all in all, hopefully some pretty good posts to come!

I love it!