Bonkers for Bridget

Being an English student I probably shouldn't admit to this as I should (stereo-typically) be reading Dickens and the like, but I am beyond excited for the new Bridget Jones book to be released. It is definitely my guilty pleasure! I just love how easy it is to relate to Bridget, which, along with the very British humour, makes for a very enjoyable read. It should be a nice break from Dombey and Son! (which I probably should start looking at the size of it!)
Only 37 days to go!
And maybe another film in the distant future?

life lesson.

I am going to keep this post short and simple. That is all it needs. My message is simple.
If I have learnt anything in my 19 years on this earth, it is the importance of friendship. Never let a true friend slip away. You will regret it. And always cherish the friends you have. After all, they are the family you have chosen (excuse the cliche).

bad press and beating the odds.

The news is filled with bad press against hospitals and the NHS at the moment. All everyone hears about is how hospitals are not doing their job properly! I recently read an article claiming that you are considerably more likely to die if admitted to hospital on a weekend, which seems completely absurd! I just want to take a minute to highlight all of the brilliant work that is performed everyday that, at the moment, appears to be overlooked. A few years ago my younger brother was involved in a serious car accident, in which he was hit by a car. He suffered from very serious injuries including multiple broken bones and swelling and bleeding in his brain. He was admitted to, what I consider to be one of the best hospitals in the country; Sheffield Children's Hospital. The doctors, surgeons, nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists all did a tremendous job! He was rushed into surgery where a third of his skull was removed to reduce the swelling and was later replaced with a metal plate. This kind of surgery is difficult and risky to perform on children and it went on with minimal complications. They also inserted a microchip and shunt as he was suffering from a condition call hydrocephalus, in which water builds around the brain. Three years on Dan is now a perfectly healthy teenager, getting up to all the mischief normal teenagers would. From appearances and talking to him no one would know what he has been though which shows how successful his treatment was. What I am really trying to say is cases like Dan's truly show how phenomenal the work of NHS professionals is and people need to always remember this. The odds were really against Dan and the surgeons did an incredible job treating Dan. You can this see from the picture below; you wouldn't think that was a child that had been in a very serious, life threatening accident a month earlier! The photo below that shows Dan and I more recently; he is really a normal teenager that, with the help of NHS professionals, beat all the odds.

Summer Style

I like to think of myself as quite fashion conscious so I thought I'd introduce it to my blog!
A month or so ago I bought a really cute floral crop top from New Look and have been looking for something to pair it with ever since! I tried pairing it with a pair of high waist denim shorts which looked... OK, but I felt like it showed WAY too much skin and was on the 'tarty' side; NEVER a good look! But today, when digging through my wardrobe I came across a denim skater skirt that I bought last year, just before Christmas. During the winter I had worn this with a print band tee and black tights and it has been hidden in the back of my wardrobe for months! When paired with this crop top it felt as if I was wearing a completely different skirt; the bright colours in the crop top made it seem a much lighter, summery colour. Paired with an old pair of gladiator sandals (and I mean old; about 5 years!) I had found my summer outfit; perfect for summer barbecues or even a night of the town if paired with cute heels and a statement necklace!

Outrageous!

Just need to have a little rant about the incident on the television program this morning, involving Katie Hopkins opinions on children's names. Can I first say that I found her attitude and outlook on this matter simply appalling. I simply cannot understand how, in today's world, people can have a view that is so old fashioned and out of date! Okay, I'm not a mother, and so don't have the same perspective as she has, but I am still able to recognize sheer prejudice that is completely uncalled for! What shocked me even more was how her argument was completely undermined by the fact her daughter was named India. Of course I'm not criticizing the child's name (personally I think the names she has chosen for her children are very beautiful; I am particularly fond of the name Poppy!). What I am saying is that she is so against the use of geographical locations used for names and uses this to support her argument, when her child has the same name as a continent. The contradictions in her argument make her almost laughable! What I am really trying to say in this post is that when I watched this particular clip on YouTube I was in awe of the snooty attitude this woman has and think that it is ridiculous to have this sort of attitude; an attitude that should have been left in the past!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZjdgU0asM

Meet Rory.

Meet Rory. The cheekiest, funniest dog I have ever met. When we got him six months ago I didn't realize how much joy and laughter that tiny creature was going to bring. He stormed into our lives like some crazy tornado!
The day we brought him home was an exciting one! I'd never had a dog before and had been bugging my parents to get one for literally year. Seems all that nagging had paid off as we got into the car to pick up our little puppy. 
The first night at our house Rory went through the usual behavior of crying and barking all night, but it wasn't long before he settled in to life in his new home. However, the more he settled in, the cheekier the little devil got! House training was never a problem, he picked that up in a matter of weeks, but like all puppies he'd have the odd accident. One particular afternoon his accident involved doing a poo on a rug in the living room. Well my dad really wasn't happy about this and gave him a good telling off. It was safe to say that Rory wouldn't be doing that again. However, there was a down side to this... Rory now became intent on showing my dad at how good he was at doing his business outside. So now and then, when my mum had put his poo bag on the floor for a second, he would pick it up in his mouth, trot inside to where my dad was, and drop the bag on my dad's lap as if to say 'Look! I did it outside this time!'. As happy as my dad was that he was house trained he didn't really want bags of his business dropped on his lap on frequent occasions!
Before we got Rory we knew Golden Retrievers love their food but didn't realize how much! Rory's life revolves around food. He can hear something drop off the dinner table from the next room! One of his worst habits is stealing food when we aren't looking. One day after my mum had been shopping, one of his greatest food thefts occurred... My mum had just returned from the supermarket and had bought some really nice bread rolls from Waitrose for sandwiches. She unpacked the shopping leaving the bread rolls out to use. Nipping out the room for one minute, she returned to find the bread rolls had 'mysteriously' disappeared. Of course there was no mystery to it, it was quite clear who the bread thief was. In the corner lay the evidence; the plastic wrapper the rolls came in. He had eaten the lot! You may be thinking; ' He ate some bread? So what!' The packet had 16 rolls! He had eaten 16 bread rolls in the space of two minutes. It is safe to say he didn't have a very happy tummy after that!
It isn't just food that finds its way into Rory's mouth. He will pick up literally anything in his path; we are constantly prying open his jaws to retrieve various objects; pegs, hair bands, iPhones! One particular day Rory came trotting in the room with something hanging out of his mouth; an e-cigarette of my brothers. I must say that I missed a prime photo opportunity there; whats better than a picture of a puppy with a fake cigarette in its mouth!?
So that's Rory.
Cheeky. Silly. Lovable.