Spinning left me spinning.

Walking into the small, wooden floored room, I was met by staring eyes and unwelcome faces. Looks as if to say, ‘Well you obviously don’t belong here’. My stomach was nervous enough as it was without being made to feel like the biggest outsider ever! It was as though I’d entered a clique that was strictly blonde hair and designer bags only. Well in this case more perfectly toned bottoms and ironing boards stomachs were the key.

I’m not talking about the runway of social statuses that is a high school corridor but the doorway to my first ever spinning class.

For anyone who has ever experienced spinning, you will know that I was in for the shock of my life and that those forty-five minutes would be the most gruelling, sweaty minutes of my life. I had been warned but riding an exercise bike to music and disco lights sounded great fun to my friend and I. Boy were we wrong!

I had no idea that you weren’t there to just sit and pedal at your leisure as if you were following a cycle route in Devon. Every five minutes (and then more and more as the class advanced) you were expected to pedal standing up, increase your speed, increase your resistance, stay on the bike AND avoid passing out! As beginners we were free to follow as we pleased but when everyone else around you can follow exactly what our very own dictator was doing, you feel obliged to strain those legs once more to stand, and grimace as with every push on the pedals, your un-thought thong rides that bit higher (ouch!).

As you may be able to sense exercise is an enemy of mine. I hate it. I would definitely fall under the lazy category if I were asked how often I exercised. However I am lucky enough to have inherited a slim, tall figure from my mum that allows me to uphold this lazy behaviour and not suffer too much physically. But recently, encouraged by my perfect figure buddy and my weight-lifting boyfriend, I have re-thought the ‘sitting on my bum all-day’ habit of mine and decided I too would like a stomach like Jenifer Aniston and a toned, much smaller bottom!

So as I have some (actually I won’t kid myself) DAYS worth of spare time on my hands courtesy of my four month summer break, what better time to kick start my new regime? How, you ask? You see many of you would think I’m silly to not have taken this up sooner, let’s say about three years sooner when we bought a running machine. Yes that’s right I have my very own ‘gym’ in my house and you could blow the dust off poor Roger Black (his brand name not a pet name given to him I must emphasise!). We also have one of those big gym balls that are lots of fun to sit on but I’m sure they have a more useful meaning than my using it as a space hopper.

So as a beginner (seriously my fitness levels are diabolical) I aim to run for twenty minutes a day for now. Who am I kidding? I am on the machine for twenty minutes but fast power-walking for nineteen, with inclination may I add, and running for one!! This will be increased over time though! Once I can actually complete the full twenty minutes without my legs turning to jelly and my hair curling from the ridiculous amounts of sweat omitted.

But do you know what? As difficult as it is to tear myself away from my new love (sex and the city) and put on my shorts and trainers, I feel so good afterwards! They’re not lying when they say exercise releases endorphins. Now, I’m only two weeks into my new less-lazy self and impatient as I am, am expecting to see results already but that is not going to happen! Eventually I hope, providing I stick to it but not yet.

But my aim, aside from toning and shrinking my jiggly bottom, is to sign up again for spinning class in six months time and hope that the two skinny minnie twins who looked so far down their noses at my friend and I during our first class, are there once more so I can complete the exercise in full, standing pedalling and all and feel the accomplishment of a full forty-five minute workout. Hopefully without the need to stop, faint or be sick. And with much more sensibly thought out underwear on.

My name's Rebecca and I'm a 'Sex and the City' virgin.

(Images sourced from Google Images - Stylebakery.com)

As a known lover of fashion and writing, you will not believe these next few words that I’m about to tap away...I have never watched Sex and the City!
Well that was until recently. You see I’ve seen the film and my best buddy and I have booked to see the sequel this Saturday (cannot wait—two and a half hours of gossiping, fashion and handsome fellas!) but I had never ever watched an episode of the oh so adored series.

Enter the BT Vision Box and lots of empty, jobless days.

What with all the marvellous technology of the 21st Century you’d think it’s about time some genius invented a device that has unlimited programs actually programmed into it so that at a click of a button, you can watch re-runs of Gavin and Stacey, yesterdays Eastenders or even the golden oldies like Fawlty Towers all til your heart’s content. Well they’ve only gone and done it! Probably with poor students like myself in mind who spend the first few weeks of the summer desperately job hunting and rewarding each phone call with an episode of something or another.
My chosen program...you guessed it Sex and the City. And boy have I been missing out. Aside from the explicit nature of some (actually many) scenes, I LOVE this show!

My favourite part is how Carrie writes, always finding something for her column within the day to day occurrences of both hers, and her friend’s lives. She always finds deeper meanings to subjects and explores them well. I must say I’m now a little tired of hearing “...and I have to wonder...?” The girl does ask a lot of questions! But she always answers them in a moral abiding way to round off each episode, very One Tree Hill-esque.

As well as a great new pass-time, I have now found a source for inspiration. Seriously fellow writers if you are ever met by the dreaded ‘writer’s block’, watch Sex and the City. The issues surrounding women, femininity and relationships always brings several flashing light-bulb ideas that I think would be great for my own writing. So Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha, I thank you for that as nothing scares me more than a blank page and no ideas (well maybe spiders and daddy long legs).

Although I am well aware that Carrie Bradshaw is in fact fictional, I can’t help but idolise her. She has everything I want and more, including a few hundred pairs of gorgeously, flamboyant heels! Yes her fashion sense is a little too daring for my taste but I admire her confidence and how well she can pull it off too. I mean how many women can honestly raise their hand when asked ‘Who can pull off a bird feather skirt?’

But brushing aside her heightened sense/eye for fashion, I admire her career more than anything. Yes SJP herself has a much more dazzling career, and I’m sure bank balance than Bradshaw but it is Carrie’s vocation I envy the most. Beginning as a columnist is envious enough as you know from my blog profile, my current dream is to have my own successful column. But then she gets a book deal where she isn’t even required to sit and struggle with the hardship of writing a novel as it is just a compilation of each and every one of her columns. Not to mention Vogue!! Lucky moo!!

I know it is fictional and maybe because of that fact, no one is ever really that lucky to achieve what Miss. Bradshaw has, and have a killer wardrobe to match (literally!) but her great character makes you believe so, and helps future writers like me (fingers crossed!) have faith that one day we too will get our ‘Big’ break...cheesy I know but you have to have goals and aspirations and her career is mine!

Proof that heaven exists!

(Images taken myself from my own heavenly trip)

What is your idea of heaven?

Speaking in literal terms, is it a pearlesque vision of bright white gates and seriously handsome angels waiting to greet you?

Or metaphorically speaking, is it living in London’s Westfield Shopping Centre with an unlimited credit card amount? Or perhaps sipping wine and eating cheese all day in a French cafe like our good friend Monica?

Well I’m here to tell you that I’ve found it! Both in a literal and metaphorical sense. In fact I found it almost two years ago now and I’ve been harbouring this secret all to myself until now. I thought it was only fair to share it with you!

Now close your eyes...Imagine an island so small it just about houses a runway. As you set foot on-land you are immediately met by a hot yet somehow fresh heat that tells you, you are no longer in Kansas Dorothy. The view from your cliff-top residence is breathtaking. As far as you can see blue marine waters roll against the white, sandy coves, the scattered, off-shore islands and the craggy edges of the paradise’s frame. Greenery covers the dreamland so that your eye is either met by a vast, deep ocean or ongoing hills and valleys of trees. To bath in those enticingly blue waters is heavenly itself, feeling as though you are in a gigantic jacuzzi that is made just for you. With every blink that you take you melt into the island’s rapture and you forget that you’ve ever known anything different. Because this is the ultimate sanctuary.


You may think I have taken to writing for holiday brochures, aiming to sell a two-week all inclusive trip to a tired and bedraggled couple. But no, these aren’t unrealistically, pretentious words created to encourage a sale. What I am describing is from my very own experience and if you too are lucky enough to see this divine, much doubted but very real existence, you too will be convinced you’re in heaven.

Not only does the scenery take away all your cares and install faith that a place this beautiful can actually be, the way of life, the people, the food, the exploring all contribute to the magic that is Skiathos (AKA my heaven).

A week without media interference, a week basking in the sunshine and getting the best tan ever (no lie girls!), a week meeting the natives and sipping one of Harry’s infamous cocktails, a week taking the time to read a really great book and communicating face to face with friends and family opposed to through Facebook or texting, a week of grilled halloumi cheese, freshly made Greek meatballs, rice and potatoes and the most exquisite profiteroles you’ll ever taste made with real ice-cream that leave you wanting more, a week with huge, fresh peaches, eaten on a private beach or on a boat trip whilst dolphins swim by. A week that you wish could turn into forever.


Forget your desire for Louboutins, your want of a date with Channing Tatum (well try with that one, I completely understand your hardship!), forget the idea that heaven is a halfpipe...No I’m only joking with that one! Forget the idea that heaven is winning the lottery or even that heaven is non-existent! Because I have proof that it does exist and as much as it pains me to burst everyone’s bubble by saying, it doesn’t consist of golden gates, winged angels and Philadelphia cheese dip (yuck!), but of days lazing on a lounger, dipping in the sea and eating as much Feta cheese and Tzatziki dip as you wish (because in heaven calories are unheard of). Isn’t that much more appealing than bouncing on fluffy, white clouds and playing cupid with a bow and arrow? Well I think so.

And the best part is, you can visit there now! This heaven is open to anyone, anytime but I’d advise not between November and April as no-one will be there to greet you at those pearly gates that form Skiathos Airport exit. Another tip, visit Troulos the heaven of heaven! One more thing...enjoy, it’s truly amazing!


Ps. Honestly I don’t work for a travel company!

The rat race, or should I say chase.

(Images sourced from Google images - trapline.co.uk and bean-sprouts.blogspot.com)

Watching wildlife I must confess is NOT one of my pastimes. Shopping yes. Dinner out yes. But bird watching and the like, no definitely not.

Well I have recently discovered that sitting in the sun-lounge over-looking the garden can provide quite amusing entertainment.

Yet again I was at my grandparents who understandably rather enjoy sitting with a panoramic view of their garden, seeing the birds enjoy the left overs from last night’s dinner, the black birds having a punch up marking the territory as their own, and the pigeons getting a bit too up close and personal.

I was happily sitting in my chair, reading and occasionally gazing out the window when I noticed something move at lightning speed across my nan’s rockery. Perhaps it was a bird you ask? A scurrying squirrel? Well how wrong you are. It was a rat!

Now I know I’m not an expert on wildlife or a garden for that matter as previously mentioned but don’t rats live underground, usually in sewers and not in a garden by the sea?

“I’ve been trying to catch him for days”, my grandad groans, “but with no luck”.

My grandad is not one to give up until a job is done, as you all know from the blasted woofer! So each day he has been trying different foods in a rat trap (a humane one, don’t you worry animal lovers). But ratty has been far too clever. He’ll spot the food, sniff around the cage, and run away.

“Rats are highly intelligent”, informs my nan. But grandad was determined. After all he had managed to beat the seagulls who were dive bombing off the sun-lounge roof into the bird table and gobbling all the food before any other little tweeter had a chance to even browse the shelves. Now they were faced with sticks and meshing to get through and boy did they try! So far though they’re undefeated.

But ratty, he was a different story. He had now braved the grass and believe it or not, the bird table! Not only was grandad faced with seagulls and the occasional squirrel pinching all the food, now the little rat-meister had discovered that by climbing the pole to ‘Tescos for Tweeters’, he could almost reach food without having to risk the trap. However, as smart as he is, he couldn’t quite manage the distance between the top of the pole and the ledge of the table, so instead he just went up and down, up and down, clearly as determined as grandad.

Well you can guess what happened next. Yes the rat succeeded, God knows how! He was now able to run up the pole, jump up and around onto the table and grab what he could whilst the birds and ourselves looked on in disbelief!

“The little perisher!”

Not only had the trap failed, but my grandad was being made a fool of by a rat!

My nan and I looked on in hysterics, and I was surprised at just how entertaining these little creatures could be. The garden wildlife that is, not my grandparents!

In the end, once my weekend stay was over, grandad had taken to the bucket method which requires you to sit holding a rope that is attached to the bucket’s handle and feed it through a window to where you're sitting. With a small gap between the grass and the bucket rim, just enough for ratty to smell the food, it was very much a waiting game. However knowing my grandad, he’d be snoring not long after and the rat would seize his moment and once again, outsmart Mr Rat-Catcher.

And honestly if a 5 inch long, little rat could avoid a rat-trap himself but look on as numerous stupid blackbirds trapped themselves, succeed in reaching the top of a fairly high bird-table, and shun Charlie, the famous feline rat catcher, then undoubtedly he would overcome the bucket scam too. And guess what? He did!

This was almost a month ago now and little ratty is still parading in front of my grandparents, showing off his dexterity and victory in out-doing a human. He’s also taught all his babies how to climb the pole to Tescos too.

So, sorry grandad Ratty 3 VS You 0. But at least his keeping you occupied!

And so the end of a much loved era.

(Images sourced from Google Images - theTVaddict.com and fanpop.com)

I’ve grown up with up with them and ironically shared most of the same experiences, and last night they said goodbye. Well in so many words...

You see I’m referring to two very dear friends of mine, with sharp, witty humours, eventful lives and a bond so deep that chemicals and ions would be jealous. Their names...Rory and Lorelai Gilmore of course!

Mum and I (the real-life version of the infamous G Girls) have been watching the seasons back to back every weekend I’ve been home and last night we reached that heart-wrenching final episode. Similarly when you read a great book you just don’t want it to end, I never wanted this series to finish. How cruel of Amy Sherman to cut us off from the Stars Hollow existence that makes every viewer wish they were a neighbour of that extraordinarily close-knit community. And she had so much more to tell!!

What happens with Rory and Logan? Does he really just walk away for good and forget the girl that threw him the best English themed party ever? Not to mention how in love with her he was, enough to propose!? And Luke and Lorelai, do they finally grow up and get married? Does Rory reach her dream of working for the New York Times through her Presidential campaign work?? All these years of dedicated viewing, purchasing each and every season, even going all the way to New York to pick up the next one in my collection that wasn’t available in the UK yet (well, I picked it up whilst on a girly shopping break but still) and this is how Sherman repays me, leaving me high and dry with a cliff-hanger finale.

In spite of the square-ish opposed to well rounded ending, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and felt every emotional rollercoaster (little pun there for those dedicated fans like myself!) feeling that mother and daughter, even the whole town felt!

You see this show has and always will be special to me (sob!). As much as I love One Tree Hill, Friends and it pains me to say it but Glee, The Gilmore Girls is my ultimate, all-time, absolute favourite programme in the whole wide world! So you can see I’m just a teensy bit in love with it.

Mum and I started watching it about 8 years ago when we had good old Nickelodeon. Every Sunday night at 6 we’d sit down and watch it together and immediately fell in love. I’m not some crazy, obsessive stalker fan of the girls or anything, just the show itself as it sums up my relationship with my mum to a T. Their amazing connection mirrors that of mine and mum’s. Single parent situation, best friends before mother and daughter, tell each other everything and even mum dating my teacher scenario too. Except Lorelai’s version didn’t quite follow through and mum’s did! So minus the fab diner with LOTS of free food, the friendly neighbour that is Luke, the rich grandparents and throw in an annoying brother, a cat instead of Paul Anka and a non-Korean best buddy, mum and I are the real living Gilmore Girls!

I know that in America they get all the fabulous tv series first, and now, ten years on from when it first aired, our English channels have been graced with the presence of the fast-talking, witty women BUT...I am convinced I was the first teenage girl in the UK to discover this wonderful show!! (I know that this is probably unlikely and many other homes too had Nickelodeon in 2002 but at the time none of my friends had ever heard of it. Actually none of my friends even now watch it! They honestly don’t know what they’re missing!) So I believe I am one of the very few Brits that truly appreciate the girls enough to own every season and will Stars Hollow and its inhabitants to be real because I love the show that much!

In two years time, when I too am up on that podium in cap and gown collecting my honorary degree (in journalism by the way-same as Rory!!) mum and I will yet again be doing a Rory and Lorelai. Again though, minus Yale and replace it with Southampton, minus the marriage proposal (I’d only be 22!?!) and minus the rollercoaster summer trip they had planned...Italy all the way 

But if you too want to know how all those previously mentioned questions end for the girls, well contact me in 3 years time and I’ll let you know how the real Gilmore’s did it.

PS. sorry for the over-use of ‘love’ in this post!

I take thee...til death do us part...til next week??

Not living at home anymore means my subscription addiction suffers. Elle, Harpers, Tatler and even sometimes the forbidden (but adored) hybrids. Off they go to my homeland leaving me empty handed down in old Southy. I hear what you're saying...why don't you get them sent to uni? But I'd already subscribed before I moved and I would only end up lugging them home to fill my time in a world of glamour, accessories and fashion frivolities, so they're best kept at home.

The problem this poses, apart from the obvious lack of sufficient reading material, is that when I come to reading them, I have a pile taller than myself of glossies! Well maybe I exaggerated slightly there, but you get the jist...

It leaves me in a slight dilemma. Do you read them in date order, or perhaps whichever's on the top? Or by which images and story headlines grab your attention? The latter is usually the way I go.

Well, funnily enough my nan is the same. Not because she is parted from her weekly reads like myself but because her neighbour kindly donates all her magazines after having read them meaning my nan is met by a huge pile of paper once every week. Best, Woman's Weekly, Hello, OK and Woman's Own are more her cup of tea. Whilst eyeing through one this weekend she made a very valid point.

"In the first magazine I read it will show the beautiful wedding of a celebrity couple but by the time I've read the last one, they're divorcing!"

Which led me to think...she is SO right!!

Every year dedicated magazine followers like myself, are bombarded with over-the-top, celebrity wedding photographs that scream ‘Look at how much money we’ve got!’ Nobody forces me to buy the publications but there is something that draws me to that glossy cover.

Well I am no longer going to be part of that crowd after learning a valuable lesson that I wish to pass on to you. You see the truth is couples that are truly devoted to one another and who marry only for the love and commitment that they share, regardless of the fact that they are on everyone’s DVD shelf, wouldn’t openly invite millions of prying eyes to see their special day! It is purely a way to show off that no expenses are spared for their ultimate fairytale wedding. I mean, getting your husband-to-be to get hair extensions in order to look like prince charming isn’t really necessary is it Jordan?

But more fool them because the majority of celebs who showcase their wedding for all to see, eventually end up burning all those glossy photographs when a nasty divorce comes up and bites them. Take Jordan and Peter for example, Brad and Jen, Nick and Jessica, and most recently Cheryl and Ashley. The list goes on and on. So yes, as the buyers and most probably contributors to these lavish weddings, we lose out on 300 pennies and if you’re like me, feel some disappointment when yet another divorce statement is released. But that is nothing in comparison to the embarrassment that must be felt by those partakers who invited ‘Hello’ (and it’s millions of readers) to their wedding, and who ultimately declared to be with their spouse ‘until death do us part’, which then lasted a whopping 4 years or in some cases even a whole 55 hours! Yes Britney, I mean you.

So just think before you get sucked into the media frenzy behind the next big wedding of the year. I know it’s hard as a fellow mag obsessor but is all that drama, flash photography and OTT-ness worth the painstakingly embarrassing divorce that awaits these greedy celebs on the other side of the alter? I don’t think so, do you?

Undoubtedly it will be Simon Cowell who’s next to rent a church this year, or will it be a yacht, castle, even the moon?! However for him, I really hope he doesn't end up at the top of the celeb divorcee pile, because personally I love the guy!

PS. My promise of not being sucked into the celeb media frenzy anymore are words that I'll try my up most to keep but don't hold me to that! We all know gossiping was built into our bones!!

Bernard, can I borrow your watch?

Getting older...hmmm, I’m not sure I want to be part of that group. Sure the idea of having your own house, a career and a well earned income are all appealing but if getting older means sacrificing time then I’d rather stay twenty please.

When your parents say ‘Enjoy being young whilst you can’ they seriously meant it, but it’s so typical that you don’t realise the truth behind it until it’s too late. This may sound oh so dramatic but since turning seventeen I can honestly say I don’t know where the time has gone! I’m now twenty (soon to be the big 2 1) and I feel as though I’ve been asleep for the last 36 months. So much has happened in that amount of time yet I can vividly remember the days of wondering along the school corridor to my next class, spending Friday nights up the park with a few bottles of vino, and going on spontaneous “let’s go anywhere” drives when each of my friends passed their test as if it were yesterday. Cliché I know, but so true!

The biggest milestone in that three year period was leaving home and moving to Southampton to start university. The amount of nervous, scared and “I don’t want to go” conversations that mum and I had, the tears that were shed as I said the goodbyes and that horrible feeling of wanting to go home are forever sealed in my memory. But can you believe that was all of 9 months ago and tomorrow I am going home for the summer, officially having completed my first year?!

I know, I can’t either!

It just makes you think all that worrying about providing for yourself, making friends and cooking your own dinners was so unnecessary. I’m here, I’ve made it and I’ve come out the other side with some lovely new buddies, a better understanding of budgeting and a few nifty recipes under my belt. There’s also the plus that never again will I have to endure that sickening feeling where the day that you leave home is nearing and all the uncertainty that comes with it. Yes, after having spent four long months at home for the summer, it will be hard leaving again but I know what to expect, I know the routine, I know I have a lovely little flat to come back to with four beautiful girlies and most of all, I know I can actually cope by myself!

Despite all these positives and of course the degree that comes with going to uni and growing older, I still don’t like how you become seemingly stripped of your time of being young, before responsibility sets in. It scares me how quickly the first year has gone and now I am unofficially a second year (can’t believe I can say that now). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining as you can gather I’m very much a home girl so the fact that the academic year has flown by is quite comforting to me. But I am beginning to feel robbed by the clock and the calendar. There’s no need to rush you know, I’m not that eager to give up my 11am lay ins for a 9-5 job just yet!

I guess my point is that although there are benefits that come with each birthday, losing out I’m sure about 5 hours a day just isn’t a good enough exchange! Think of all the summer breaks you had when you were younger, didn’t those six weeks just last forever? Not to mention the decrease in the present pile as you rack up more birthdays! So really what do we gain from growing older? Bills, wrinkles, debt? You blink and you miss. Ooh look I think 2008 just rushed past my window!

My solution. Move house. Move country. Move worlds. Where to? Well you’ll find me in never never land. Who wants to join me?

What happens when the woofer goes wrong

An evening at my grandparents can often turn into one of hilarity and hysterics and this Saturday night was just that. After finishing a buffet of delicious mini pizzas, quiches and other party food bits that everyone loves due the connotations they hold of Christmas, my grandparents, mum, aunty and uncle and I retreated to the living room for drinks.

Whilst listening to ‘Magic’ and drinking hot chocolates, my grandad (despite being deaf and needing hearing aids) was insistent on the fact that he could not hear the woofer. ‘The woofer?’ I hear you ask...

Well two weeks prior to that evening my uncle had installed his old television set at my nan and grandad’s as he had moved in a newer, younger and much flatter model into his home. After the worries of whether or not this 36 inch Sony monstrosity would fit between the shelf and fire place in their bungalow, the set was erected, DVD player, video player and Digi-box, the whole shebang intact. Not to mention the six speakers that created surround sound for my nearing eighty year old grandparents whose television habits included the daily news and nature programmes! Can you imagine the deafening noises of birds and elephants trailing out their windows? And of course, there was the woofer.

I had heard of a speaker before and even a base but until Saturday a woofer was not in my knowledge of vocabulary. After establishing that in fact the woofer wasn’t working as no base noise could be heard nor vibrations felt, and my grandad being one that hates leaving something until it’s fixed, my uncle decided to settle the matter by playing the first ten minutes of ‘Gladiator’ which would enable him to tell if the woofer was in fact, functioning or not. However this wasn’t until we had heard the word woofer at least fifteen times within two minutes...

“Rose the woofer’s not working, I can’t hear the woofer.”
“What, the woofer’s not working?”
“I can’t hear it”
“Maybe the woofer’s not turned on.”
“But I wired it up all right. It was working the other day.”
(Grandad bends down to listen if the woofer is working, with bum above head)
“Well I think we’ll defiantly hear a woofer now!” (You see my beloved grandad is notorious for, ahem...woofing)
“Where’s the button to turn it on? I can’t find the blooming button.” (My uncle had yet again forgotten his glasses)
“It’s the one that says ‘Woofer’.”
“Is it working?” (Nan bends down to see if she can hear it)

And this continued for a full five minutes!

Once the right button had been pressed and we endured Russell Crowe on horseback and a headless man, we established that “YES, the woofer is working!” And at this point we had tears of laughter from how many ‘woofing’ times the word woofer had been used!

So I now know that a...forgive me... woofer is actually “a loud speaker driver designed to produce low frequency sounds”. What I’d now like to know is why an earth my grandparents needed a damn woofer in the first place?!