End of second year
I finished my exams on the 28th May, and what a HUGE relief. They were bloody awful, and took it out of me in a big way. Workwise, I've hated this second semester, having had to deal with personal problems, dad having various scary complications or procedures to do with the fact he's got Leukaemia, a decrease in my interest for my course, though an increase in my interest to go kayaking, and the realisation that my best mates for the last three years will be finishing this year and going their separate ways while I stay at university for another two years.
My exams went okay on the whole, apart from one which I felt I was prepared for, but it turned out much much harder than I expected. My first four exams were my hardest four, and were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the first week. By Thursday I was a wreck, but it felt like such a relief as I left my Dynamic Systems exam, so I did what any responsible student would do...got very pissed and then went kayaking three days in a row. I was near enough ready for my last exam the following Tuesday and it went pretty smoothly.
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| The Mystery Machine showed up to the Tryweryn. Jinkies! |
As most others still had exams, it took a couple days before Summer started taking off, but since then, it's not stopped!...
My Birthday, a wedding, and a trip to Anglesey.
My Birthday was on the 31st May, though with a weekend away to prepare for and a wedding to shoot that day, I pretty much forgot! We had a spontaneous night out on the Thursday, and on friday morning I was very much still drunk. I had a quick docs appointment, then me and Gareth went to collect the minibus and to pick up a couple of demo boats from Runcorn. We were both definitely still over the limit, but we'll not mention that. A stop at Subway (inside a Spar?!) and we came home, dropped me off at home to get suited and booted, then Gareth drove me to St Georges Hall in town.
Mark and Maria's wedding was real nice, and Mark made a moving speech about Maria's parents not being able to be there, and everyone thanked me for the amount of effort I put into my work. Here's one of my favourite pics from the day. Mark and Maria were thrilled with the pictures and enjoyed a fortunately sunny honeymoon in Cornwall.
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| Maria really enjoys the confetti after the ceremony. Mark slightly less-so! |
After the wedding, and still in smarts, I walked up to the canoe club sheds where everyone was loading the minibus, helped load, and off we went...still in smarts! A writeup of the Anglesey trip from a club point of view is here. I took the Pyranha Jed along for the weekend, and my love continues to grow for that boat. After the summer's over, I'm pretty sure that's going to be my next [stupid] financial venture to chase!!
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| Games of French Cricket on the beach in Anglesey. |
Post exam celebrations, Birthday celebrations and celebrations for the sake of celebrations!
The next few days we had some amazing weather, which meant pretty much every day was spent sat in Sefton Park. I spend monday BBQing with my favourites at Sefton, then ended up heading to town at 1am on my own to meet a handful of the kayakers for a really great spontaneous night at Heebies.
Tuesday was spent sunning with the kayakers from the night before playing frisbee at Sefton Park, then came back for lads curry night. Jed and Harry arranged a joint birthday night with 17 of the boys heading into town for a curry, and then while I came home to get a shower before a house party we'd arranged to go to, the others ended up at X in the City for what sounds like possibly the funniest experience ever. Harry was bought a dance by everyone which basically involved five dancing girls beating the crap out of him, tying him up, twisting his nipples (he didn't enjoy that bit), walking him like a dog, and making him do 'muff sit ups', slapping him back down every time he sat up into a facefull of gloriness. Harry described it as the most intimidating but thrilling 15 minutes of his life.
Eventually everyone came home and a handful of us went to a CRAMMED house party at "The Kennel" house on Smithdown road. It was incredible, though in the main DJ room, it was so hot you could physically touch the heat pocket bulging from the door. The floor felt like it was going to go through, there were huge queues up and down the stairs, and people struggling to perch on any flat surface possible in the chillout rooms.
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| The only photo I took of the Kennel Party. Quite difficult to see through the sweat, smoke, champagne and flashing lights. |
The following day was another day at the park, then the main event. The guys at Arundel had arranged a huge end of uni party at theirs, with Pause DJs joining, and loads of people coming along. The party was massive, and the second time the police turned up, everyone left at 4:30am. Afterwards, the main guys all come back to ours and we ended a huge night the only way possible: by watching Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition. I barely even managed to see Gandalf's arrival in Hobbiton before KO'ing, though Harry managed to watch the whole thing, and said it was the best time he's ever seen it.
Visiting Home
This weekend I decided to come home, instead of going to Parklife, as originally planned. Firstly, I can't really afford to be going to another festival with all my plans for this year, but more importantly, it was more than likely this weekend will be my last chance to see Mum and Dad before I set off on my travels. I came home on Friday evening after selling my ticket last minute to a chap off my course. Arriving home, I was picked up by Mom from the train station, and in the short journey home we'd already made arrangements to go for a meal with Karen and Laura, which ended up being a face-stuffingly good Carvery.
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| Drooling just looking at this photo of the carvery we had. Nom |
I had spoke to Vicci Sims about maybe meeting up that night after my meal, and sure enough, I ended up at Brighouse's finest establishment, The Calder. After many many beverages and shouting over the stupidly loud music, me, Chris, Sam and Vicci headed back to hers for more drinks, and I dozed off while Sam and Vicci argued about the theory behind falling in love. I headed home at something like 5am, and went to bed.
The following day was a recovery and sorting-stuff-out-day (watching films with mom, basically), but that night I saw that West Yorkshire Canoe Club were holding a kayaking event up at the Washburn near Harrogate. I enquired and in the morning, me and mum headed over, the intention to get mum out of the house, and for me to get my whitewater fix. The weather was perfect and after finding a place to tie the dog up, me and mum went whitewater rafting.
I've never actually tried rafting, mostly because on the river they're a kayakers nemesis (other than trees, trees suck). However, I was obviously completely relaxed as I knew the course had nothing particularly dangerous on it. Mum was really nervous, so we asked to have a 'sensible' run down, with a young girl and her gran. The raft guide was clearly insane, but he agreed he'd take it easy. He spoke words of comfort to the party, mentioning that he's never known a raft to flip on the Washburn, and that he'll just blast down and not stop and play etc. We got on, and he led down, making it slightly interesting by having the raft spin quickly off the opposing banks, bumping into rocks and trees to give a little bit of excitement. We came round the corner to the main drop on the washburn and plopped down it without any fuss whatsoever, and everyone let their guard down. What the raft guide didn't really pay any attention to was the small pourover just after the main drop, which we went over sideways. Sure enough, mum and the young girl slipped down into me and the girls gran, and we were all thrown into the freezing cold water (dam release, so it's still bloody cold in winter!). We all got back on board okay eventually and chased everyones paddles down, and the only injury was a scrape on mum's knuckles, and scratch on my new helmet I'd bought just that day. We continued on, and as I kept putting in kayaking strokes, the raft guide made me swap with him and I had a go at guiding the raft down, which was pretty fun!
After the shuttle to the top, mum got changed and warmed up while I borrowed someone from WYCCs boat and paddles, and then we headed home. I think mum'll never forgive me for making her do that, but secretly I bet she actually really loved it.
Today has just been a day of being productive. I've wrote all this out for one thing, which makes me think it's way too long to add any more! I head off back to Liverpool tonight, but have arranged to make a stop at Manchester for a couple hours to go for a drink with Ste. I'm excited...it's been over a year since I saw him, and he's practically a brother of mine!!!
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