Petrol, Pasties and Chocolate

Wagwanin my good peeps.
Apologies for the absence, due to being on placement and still having uni work to do my contribution on blogger has reduced significantly, but fear not!
I have not disappeared from your webpages forever, it's just my posts wont be as frequent now!

I know that my lovely followers rely on me to enrich there lives with my fantabulous stories about poop and cupcakes but panic not, I'm still here :D

Have you guys been panic buying petrol??! If you have, come closer so I can SMACK YOU!

Go Boi

Here's a little rule I live by, NEVER believe the hype! 


For those of you unfamiliar with this nonsense, I'll fill you in:
Basically, fuel drivers stated that they wanted to strike over their poor working conditions, rights and pay etc.  On news of this, the government panic, and the STUPID prime minister and the rest of the tori party advised everyone to go out and fill their tanks with petrol and to fill any jerry cans the have as well, leading the country to believe that there will be an indefinite strike, meaning that petrol pumps will run out of petrol and no fuel drivers will be on hand to deliver petrol anywhere.


So what do the silly sheep in england do? Go and queue outside petrol pumps and run the bloody places dry! Thankfully I didn't notice much of this around my area, but on the news they where showing some people in hysterics, with some petrol pumps rationing petrol!! 


To be fair, these poor fools are only following the advise of their dimwitted PM.  Mr Cameron, wouldn't it make sense to first find out when the strike is going to take place before sending the nation in to a state of panic?  


The union representing the drivers annouced that strike will not take place before the easter period, SO WHY THE FLYING F**K ARE YOU TELLING PEOPLE TO FILL JERRY CANS FULL OF PETROL?
Why are you not advising that ambulances, fire trucks and people who rely on cars to get from a to b have priority? I mean really, all us healthy, able people won't die if we have to walk or catch the bus to the bloody shops, will we? 


Idiot. 

Robin Hood? Oh wait...no

A woman in yorkshire yesterday ended up having 40% burns; after filling two jerry cans full of petrol, she was giving some to her daughter, in a glass jar (who puts petrol in a gas jar?!) in her kitchen, and somehow, her cooker was on or something, and the petrol and gas mixed somehow and the poor lady got burnt.
Moral: don't distribute petrol in your kitchen......Although I'm sure 99.9% of you didn't need me to tell you that.


So George Osbourne also proposed a 'Pasty Tax'!!


Yes, you heard me right.... Pasty tax.  WHO TAXES A BLOODY PASTY!?!?


They want to add VAT to the price of all food sold at "above ambient temperature".
wuh?  
They're only gunna charge 20% more if you buy the food hot?  What if it's baked hot, but cool by the time you buy it? WHY DO THIS YOU MORON!?!

How dare they do this to our pasties and pies!!  
Cheese and onion pasties and steak and kidney pies are the little rays of sunlight in my work oppressed life right now :(  

leave my pasties alone :(

I had pie and chips last night as an individual form of protest. With gravy, of course.

Now some good news!

Meet the latest addition to Meow Meow

Meet Bobo <3

Remember in the last post I told you my mate Janey at work makes sock monkeys and other sock animals? She made me a little one :D

I feel like he's my childddddd! I couldn't stop cuddling and cooing over him all day!
Scarily, I was even speaking to it in a baby voice, you know the kind you do when you talk to little children or cute doggies or kitties :D

Now Janey already had a few pre-prepared, and made me CHOO CHOO CHOOOSE between them!!

Now this is horrible for me, as since I was a kid (you're gunna think i'm a freak after this) I treated all my dolls, toys and teddies as if they all had feelings, and could NEVER just play with one toy, as for some reason, I felt the other toys would feel rejected and upset, so I played with them ALL!
....erm...I still kinda feel like that....even till this day!!

So I told Janey I COULDN'T choose between them if I saw them, so I told her to just choose one for me.
What did she go and do?
BRING THEM ALL IN!

Bobo with his brother and sister :D

Now they are all beautiful! But I just immediately fell for Bobo :)

It was like love at first sight, and it was really tough to choose! But ultimately, I chose him because  he has an orange stripe over his eyes, so he looks like a mutant ninja turtle!!!! :D

The other two look like they have monobrows, which I find endearing about them, but I love mutant ninja turtle/monkeys more :)

Now a few times I've seen blogs/videos of people taking pictures of themselves or other objects in different places, so I decided that I would LOVE to do this with Bobo!  From now on he will be in my bag at all times, travelling with me wherever I go! 

So Bobos first trip was the the Ramsbottom Chocolate festival :D

The festival was AMAZING!  It's been running for 2 years now, was literally just stalls full of all things sweet and chocolaty running through Ramsbottom town centre!!

We had lunch at the Chocolate Cafe, and then had a good prowl through the festival.  

Bobo and ze menu

My Egg Mayo sandwich
was SO good! The softest bread with the hardest crust I've ever eaten.  Divine <3

unfinished chocolate sculpture, It was gunna be an athlete doing the javelin or discus.  Olympics themed.  

Bobo smug with his cranberry and nut, dark chilli chocolate and strawberry and cream chocs

Oreo Cupcake 

This ones for you, diabetics

Reet guys, hope you enjoyed my random rant!

I shall be back on the web in a moment to catch up with your lovely blogs, but right now my dad has brought home PIZZA!

xo

Where does the time go?

My days the time does fly rather quickly doesn't it?

true say

So I'm back on placement for 5 weeks at the hospital.  I love being back on placement, my colleagues are amazing!  They're the funniest bunch of people I've ever worked with, and to be honest are the main motivation for me to actually turn up to work in the morning!

My body clock is so out of sync at the moment.  Working means that I have to get up at 6am (I leave the house at 7am to get to work for 8am) and then I finish work at 6pm so get home for 7ish.  By the time I get home my brain feels like mush, which is a bit pants as it's not long till our dissertations due in :O
I've also been getting my days mixed up.  I keep thinking everyday is friday....but it's not :(

 

BUT on the upside, I only work 4 crazy long days, and get one weekday plus the weekend off so I have some time to do something semi-productive!

Being back on placement has been a bit of a shock to my system, not just because I have to get up at crazy O'clock, but my bloomin' poo cycle is ruined aswell :(

'Too much information!!' I hear some of you protest.  Scroll down now if you are one of them....
I think one of the signs of a good friendship is how comfortably you can talk about poo poo.
If you've ever had an in-depth conversation with me about poo, then congrats, you're in my inner circle (don't panic if we haven't yet, there is still time......)

the closest thing to the Whatsapp happy poo I could find

But yeah, I usually have a set time that I poop, and since I've been back on placement, the time I usually poop falls into the time that I'm working.  This is a problem because I can not poop in public toilets.  I just can't do it, for many reasons.

So I end up holding it in and feeling rubbish and poopy all day until I get home and can relieve my self.

Enough about shit.
There's usually enough crazy stuff going on around the Audiology department to keep my mind of my poo troubles.

Hello Friend

Janey at work makes these adorable sock monkeys and I asked her to bring some in for me to check out as think they're so bloody cute and want one :)

I requested a 'socktopus' but Janey refused because she said she wouldn't have fun making it.  She would be a terrible business woman in that sense, as she makes things that make her happy as opposed to what makes the customer happy.

I love her for that <3

Racoon, another one of my good mates at work entertained us at lunch on friday by discussing this whole Mayan calendar theory thing that the world will end in 2012!


He was talking about how he would actually like to be alive when the world ends, just to see what happens.  The rest of us looked at him like he was a freak.


I for one would not want to be alive when the world crumbles to pieces and life as we know it is violently destroyed!! (that's how it will go according to some theories anyhoo!).  The worlds shitty enough now with all the violence and injustice.  if it's gunna get worse then I for one do not want to be present to witness the further deterioration of our civilisation!

What's your take? Would you like to be around when the world ends?  

My day off from work was Thursday.  I went to the dentist in the morning, who, as usual, told me to brush harder and gave me a toothbrush as a birthday gift after I told him I was 22 the previous Saturday.


Good shit.


Then me, mother, M-dawg, Fiz and Choti went on a boat cruise around Manchester where we where served a three course meal whilst admiring the views of Manchesters canal scene!


The weather was soooo nice and we ended up having a really good time.  

Some of the Rosie and Jim style boats at the canal

Our boat :D

Media City, Salford

Media City

Salford Quays 

There was so much amazing graffiti on the walls we passed as well, but it was all on the other side of the boat so couldn't get any proper pics.

Fiz, M-dawg, Tee, Jay and I went out for a meal in Liverpool in the evening also.
We ventured to East Z East, which was right next to the Liverpool eye and by the docks, so the atmosphere and setting was beautiful!

The food was yummy too but the next day my tummy felt terrible and I was quite poorly.  Not sure if it was the food or just me.

Today me and the mum went to watch Chicago in the theatre.  We went to lunch before as well and had a lovely day :D


Chicago was raunchier than I expected it to be actually! But the songs where great and the dancers/singers/actors/actresses where brilliant and they sang my favourite 'Mr Cellophane'!! :D

Hope you guys have had or are having a good weekend.
Don't forget to put the clocks forward tonight!!


xo

Spring, St Paddys and Mums

Happy Belated St Patricks day to all those who celebrate it.

I've always felt an affinity with the Irish, simply because the 17th of March is my birthday as well as being St Paddy's day :)

So I turned 22 yesterday!
Don't panic, I'm not one of those people who are all like:

"OMG I'm 22, my life is OVERRRRRRR!!"

In all honesty, I don't really give a monkeys.

That's the problem with birthdays though, they're always a bit over-hyped.

Don't get me wrong, I love my birthday! I still enjoy hearing people wish me a happy birthday and all that jazz, but there's always those landmark ages that card shops so happily advocate, that make you feel if you're anywhere in between, it's not owt major. 

So once you've had your sweet 16, reached the big 18 and the adult defining 21st, the next thing you've got to look forward to is 30 really isn't it!? or 40, 50 60 etc.

I'd like to do something big for my 25th I think, only because I'll be a quarter of a century old :O

So at 12am on the 17th of March, the birthday texts began to arrive. 

My reaction when I read the first text from M-dawg was 

'Oh shit, It's my birthday!  

I Forgot that it was my bloomin' birthday! 

Bad times brain.  You shouldn't be failing me just yet.

I'm not senile, don't panic. It was only because on the Friday, we threw a surprise party for my chum Choti, so I was still so occupied with her party that I forgot that mine was the next day!

So it was a nice little surprise of my own when I remembered it was my birthday :) 

Choti is urdu for 'little', as Choti is only 5ft 1 or something :D 

(Quick break: we did an 'arabian nights' themed surprise party for Choti.  She's getting married in July, so her mum and sister wanted her to have the best birthday ever before she got betrothed and became the perfect little housewife (how sweet of them :D) Anyway, it went well, and she was so surprised that she cried tears of joy! Mission accomplished).

So yes. 

You lot who've been following me for some time will know what birthdays mean in my household.....

Mu'Fuckin CUPCAKES.

You guys should brace yourselves, these cupcakes are NEXT LEVEL!

COOOKIIEEEEE MONSTERRRR

*sigh*

are they not amazing? 

If Cookie Monster was real, I would marry him. 

But the treats do not stop there.

My family only went and got me an iPad 3 didn't they!?!

I is in love.

It's so pretty :D

Gosh they spoilt me this year :)

Thanks famo!

Ohhhh they got me some beautiful flowers as well :D

Which brings me to Spring

Ladybird 

*sniff* 

Better start taking my hayfever tablets.  

Which is a bit of a bitch, 

cuz I loves flowers.

So the weathers started to brighten up a little, and the first thing I think about when the sun is shining is my friends :D

Who better to enjoy the lovely warmth with.

But 2012 has been a year of neglect friend wise.

To sum it up;

Uni work+ no monies= lonely aysh 

Ok...I'm not this lonely, but still...Awww!

4th year of uni has been very demanding, and a lot of my friends graduated uni last year, so are either working or doing something semi-productive with their lives.

So it's pretty hard to find a suitable time for us all to get together and have a proper chill!

I mean this kind of thing is inevitable.  Eventually we all have to grow up and get on with our lives, which means we become busier with certain things, therefore having less time for others.  

I'm usually pretty good at ringing or texting my mates and keeping in touch, but with so many deadlines to meet at uni, my mind has been focused on doing the best I can with the work I'm doing, so I've not had much time to 'do the rounds' and meet up with my chums.

It's a bit of an eye opener, as it's busy times like these that show me which of my friends are still thinking about me enough to text and asked where I've disappeared to, and which aren't really as arsed and still expect me to initiate all the convos. 

Is a wee bit frustrating, but again, thats life really isn't it.  

Oh, finally, quickly wanna share this:

"Verily, Heaven lies under the feet of your Mother" 

(Prophet Mohammed (saw))

If you follow my blog, you know me and my mummy are besties, and just wanted to quickly wish her, and all the other mummies out there a happy mothers day :D 

So you have a flavour of what my mums like, this is what she'll probably be like when I have kids:

 Minus the saggy boobs ;)

Ohhhh and I'll leave you on a yummy note (in case the cooke monster cupcakes where not enough)

Chotis birthday cake from her surprise party:

Wish it wasn't a cake

xo

How do you solve a problem like.....A US soldier going on a killing spree an Afghan village

Not an easy question to answer is it?

Today I read that the US soldier who went on a killing spree in Zangabad village in Afghanistan was flown back to the US today.

He shot dead 16 civilians, 9 who are children (according to this guardian article, the numbers vary between articles you read).
The eye-witness reports state that it happened at night when people where sleeping.  Some bodies were found burnt, with bullet holes in the foreheads/faces etc.

I'll spare you the rest of the gory details, I'm sure you've all seen/read/heard about it via the news on your TV/radio/internet or word of mouth of whatever.

Firstly, I'll make clear to point out that my feelings towards this individual do not represent how I feel about all US soldiers.
I know that it is not fair to paint a group of people with the same brush, especially in a case like this.

But this is not the first time we've heard about US soldiers acting undutifully (e.g. the pics/videos of soldiers peeing on dead Taliban members http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkYY0rseWgg.  Fair enough they're not the nicest guys in the world, but seriously? have some respect).

The article linked above states:

"It is not the first time that US soldiers have intentionally killed Afghan civilians but the toll is unprecedented for a single soldier. The soldier, who was reported to be a staff sergeant and father of three who has done three tours of duty in Iraq, was arrested after the assault. He appears to have made no attempt to cover up the shootings."

There is never a good time to go on a random village killing spree, but when tensions are already high after it was discovered that US troops burnt copies of the Qur'an at a military base, then this just adds to the massive pile of poop that is the resentment and anger felt between the troops and the afghan people.

Afghans have vowed to get revenge for these unjust deaths.  I Sincerely hope that they can find some kind of peaceful way to protest or get their point across to the world.
Responding with violence will just add to this painful never ending circle.

Now this soldier who committed this horrible crime, is being flown back to the US, obviously for his own safety and blah blah.

But since the crimes where committed on Afghan soil, shouldn't the problem be resolved officially, like by NATO in Hague or wherever the official place of carrying out the trial would be by whoever should deal with it?

More importantly, doesn't this tell the American government that it's time to pull their troops out of this bullshit war and send them home, where they belong.

If it's getting to the point where soldiers who are supposed to 'serve and protect' can't distinguish real life threats from innocent civilian, then it's really saying something about the frame of mind and mental health of these soldiers.

Please don't get me wrong.  I am not undermining the work that these brave people do.  I mean I can't imagine putting myself in the position that these people do.  But seriously, the government need to start asking themselves what we've been asking ourselves these last 11 years,

'What the flying f**k is the point anymore?'

Fair do's.  International intervention by the US, UK and other countries have limited the Taliban and there ridiculously strict rule, but even the most liberal of Afghanis are resenting the occupation of their country.

The deep rooted cultural problems that are present in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq etc. are not going to disappear and magically resolve with the presence of US and UK military.  

It's a problem that can only be resolved by the Afghan people themselves.  

And I quickly want to highlight the differences between culture and religion.

Half of the stuff the Taliban and other extremist Islamic groups implement are NOT islamic.  

Islam does not forbid women from leaving the house/working

it does not force women to hide their faces behind veils, this is something that is optional and is something a woman can do if she chooses to do so, but it is not obligatory. 

I could go on for ages but that's a whole other post for another time.

Anyway!

Back to the point....which was......hmmmm

Ah, yes.  I think this is clear evidence that it is time for the US and UK to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.  I'm pretty sure the family of these soldiers want them home safe and sound, and seriously, it cannot be good for these soldiers mental health to be living on edge 24/7.  

That's just my opinion anyway.

I don't fully get why troops went in the first place, but oh well.  What's done is done now.

This kind of leads me to the show 'Homeland' that's on C4 at the moment.

you guys been watching it? I think it's been aired in the states a while back, right?

It's only been aired in the UK recently, I think the 4th episode was this week.

It is sooooooo good! Very interesting.  I'm not really a big drama fan, but the story is very unusual and so makes for good viewing.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, It's about a US soldier who has just been released as a prisoner of war after 8 years by some extremist islamic group (I think they're based in Afghanistan), and a CIA agent played by Claire Danes suspects him of being 'turned' whilst in captivity, as she got some inside info when she spend some time in Baghdad.  

So the series is based on her unravelling whether he really has turned and is an enemy of the state, which, by the way the show is going, looks to be true!  So she goes to all lengths and measures, breaking rules and laws to prove that this guy is a terrorist like she suspects.  

Like I've said, I've only seen up to the 4th episode (or 5th maybe?), but I'm guessing he is a terrorist but before he goes through with his plan of blowing up the white house or whatever, his love for his country and what he stands for returns, and he doesn't go through with it or something.   

Too predictable? ah well, I'll have to wait and see :D

'Going nowhere fast, we've reached our climax'

describes the presence of soldiers in Afghanistan?

eh, either way, good tune. 

 

xo

Jerusalem (continued)

Reet, to continue where I left off....

I just realised glancing over the last post, I didn't mention the museums we visited in the New City.

Tuesday afternoon/evening

Originally the plan was to visit The Israel Museum, Rockefeller Archeological Museum, and The L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum of Islamic Art.  Every person we spoke to advised us to avoid these museums, branding them as wastes of money and disappointments.
Now I thought most people just felt like this about museums, and where just hating on us Museum lovers! So we chose just two museums to visit (because of the price of the taxi's getting there!) and decided on the Museum of Islamic Art (I was very excited about this) and The Israel Museum.

Now in my head I envisioned the Museum of Islamic Art being extremely grand and filled with beautiful Islamic calligraphy  from all over the world! To our disappointment, it was just a two story building with pictures, a few coins and some little bits and bobs from different muslim countries around the world :/

It was completely underwhelming.  I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside, but to be honest, it's not like you lot are missing anything.  There wasn't really much to take pics of :(

BUT!!!! I discovered I can get student discount outside of the UK :D 

So university students who are planning to go israel, make sure u pack your student card! 

So then we where gunna pop to the Israel Museum, but the taxi driver told us if we were not impressed with this museum, then going to the other museum would just be a waste of time for us, so we just headed back to the Old City to our hotel and got some food and chilled in our room.

The taxi drivers were right about the museums, they where pants. And I think in the UK we are very lucky to have a variety of amazing museums that are actually free to visit! E.g. The Museum of Manchester and the Museum of Science in Industry in Manchester (I'm assuming they're still free) And the V&A and amazing Natural History Museum!! <<< This is seriously the best museum I have ever visited in my life! I would love to get married in here!!

Reception room of Natural History Museum.  Who wouldn't want to get married around a Dinosaur!!?

Wednesday

 Now in our naivety, we had so many things planned for wednesday! We definitely wanted to visit the west bank, and originally planned to go to Bethlehem, Ramala, Hebron and Jericho, but due to the location of them all from each other, we had to narrow it down.

We ended up just going to Jericho due to timings and other things (cash being one of them, Jerusalem is expensive!!) 

So the history around Jericho:

Jericho is thought to be the oldest constantly inhabited city in the world! And the lowest inhabited city on earth!

It's in the west bank of Palestine, and is located near the  salty Dead Sea.  you can see Jordan from some parts of Jericho, as they are neighbouring in location.  It is a 30-40 min drive from Jerusalem to Jericho in clear traffic.  

The Tomb of Moses is located in the outskirts of Jericho (The tomb of Abraham is located in Hebron), and in Judeo-Christian tradition, Jericho is the place of the Israelites return from slavery by the Egyptians.

Jericho is also home to a Monastery in the mountains know as the Mount of Temptation. This is where Jesus, known in arabic as Isa (pronounced ee-sa) (AS) came to fast for 40 days and nights to avoid temptation from the devil. A Monastery was built around the cave in the mountains he was thought to have taken shelter in.

There is also Hisham's Palace (Khirbat al-Mafjar), The archaelogical remains of a palace buolt by Al-Walid ibn Yazid, Caliphate of the Umayyed empire, built in 743-744 CE.

Considering when it was built, the remains look absolutely amazing! The palace was a winter home, and was destroyed by an earthquake some years after being built (I'm not sure how long after). The palace contained a courtyard, bath house, mosque, plant and animal enclosure and still has the sophisticated underground pipes that where constructed to provide hot water to the palace! Some bloody places don't even have that now! Let alone back in 800CE!

Halal Sweets :O

View of Jericho from cable car

Monastery of Temptation 

View of Jericho from Mountain

Stairs to Monastery.
The LONGEST climb of my life

STILL climbing....

View from the top

FINALLY THERE! But I donts speak greek :(

Wowsers.
The Mountains on the right are Jordan!

Inside the Monastery 

Where Isa A.S. (Jesus) is thought to have fasted for 40 days/nights :O

Down time

Another shot of the Monastery in the Mountain 

Hishams Palace

What the palace was thought to have looked like before it was destroyed.

Dead Sea!

Again

Another dead Sea pic.
You can see Jordan on the other side.
There is NO WAY you's ever see a pic of me floating! And it would be rude to put pics of random people floating about, but you really do float! 

Church of Maria Magdalene 

Church of All Nations

Chicken and Chips...Jerusalem style!

Al-Aqsa (left) and Dome of the Rock (right)

 Now this last pic is the wall that is built surrounding the west bank from Jerusalem and the rest of Isreal.  It is very very difficult, near impossible actually for people from the west bank to pass an Israeli check point and visit friends, family, or holy sites in other parts of their country :( 

Apartheid in the 21st Century.

So thursday was back to reality! We visited the Al-Aqsa mosque one more time before we left and headed back to Tel Aviv to come back to Manchester :D

We had an amazing time, and had such a wonderful experience.

If you are thinking of going, ignore what people say about it being dangerous and blah blah.

yes there is tension and confrontation their, but theres trouble everywhere you go! 

The people are wonderful, the whole city is beautiful and drenched in so much History!

I honestly think that even an un-religious person would feel how spiritually charged this place is!

It's not everywhere you can see a Mosque, a Church and a Synagogue on the same street :)

I was so happy to come home to my own bed though!! I can never sleep as well anywhere as well as I do at home <3

Hope you enjoyed the pics gang and if anyone hopes to go in the near future let me know! I'll pass on useful information on taxi rates and other less obvious places to see etc. 

xo