Hi everyone!
Liking the new design? (web viewers!) You can tell I've been busy with the last few days of my summer;)

Anyways - this post is going to be another little photography one like my Ely Cathedral one I did a few months back, not a lot of typing and a few images for you to look at.

I went for a walk with my dog and decided to bring out the camera again to take some pictures on the way. I felt that I needed the walk to clear my head and get out of the house basically! Whilst walking, I was thinking about how we all need to appreciate the little things in life (not quoting from Zombieland...) and that this woodland walk that we always take my dog on may not last forever. In current events, most countryside areas and woodlands are being taken over by housing estates and it wouldn't surprise me if it happened to this area where we always walk. Deep I know, but I felt like it was nice to actually get out and appreciate what's literally outside my door as things like that won't last forever - hence the pictures that you're about to see!

See you in the next blog post,

Hi everyone!

I'm currently laying in bed, full of cold, feeling sorry for myself and being absolutely un productive with my day (a girl deserves a day off sometimes right?!) So instead of sitting here and watching countless poor shows on CBBC (yep, its come to that) I thought I would fill you all in with my NCS experience this year. Sit back, relax (cliché) and maybe grab something to drink - as I feel like this might be a long one!

Might as well begin this whole post letting you know what on actual earth I'm on about;

NCS (National Citizen Service) is a voluntary programme aimed at 15-17 year olds where all participants are given challenges and targets to improve their social skills and help them overcome personal goals. Pretty good definition that I remember off by heart on their website (sort of.) So as I said its a completely voluntary programme and it consists of 3 or 4 weeks of one persons summer (but it also takes place in the holidays over the school year.) The weeks consist of at least 3 different weeks - week one is activity week, week two is residential stay at a local university and week three to four is for your group and yourself to plan a social action project to help someone in the community out. After you have completed all the weeks - you receive UCAS points for university along with memories for a lifetime!

The cost of the programme (for me) was £50* which covers you for the whole 3-4 weeks that you're there (I was there for 4 weeks.)

*It depends how you choose to sign up for the programme - I did it off my own back, where as other did it through their school or college.

So if you've stuck around for the year that I've been blogging (thanks!) you will know that I travelled to Canada last year in my super long summer to visit my family out there. Since then - I've become extremely keen with doing something with my summers (or what I have left of them)  and I also really wanted to meet some new faces! So shall I do a run down of the different weeks for you?

Thats right - our first week was going back to ever year 4 school trip, Kingswood. Kingswood is a physical activity centre/park where you do things like climbing, abseiling, zip wire and team building activity - sounds amazing right?

Well not so much for me... I hate heights, I feel like I'm not in control of my surroundings when I'm up there and my mind goes to the worst places at times - so understandably I was not taking part in the height orientated activities. Which was a bummer as most of the daily activities were height based so I didn't want to take part. However, other than solo activities like this where you earn points for your team there was also activities that took part (on the ground) that you did with your group - team building essentially. So thats what we had to do during the days and to fuel us up we had our meals on site...they weren't exactly the nicest things I've ever eaten (lets put it this way, the first night made most people get food poisoning :)) 

It was very poorly organised in all honesty - our team leaders didn't seem to have a clue what was going on half the time and the activities I was promised to do weren't involved at all in our schedule. For example: if something said you were doing water rafting what would you expect? You and your team in a lake building a life-size raft for you all to race on? Not tying two water bottles together with pieces of string and paper to put down some piping tubes? Well we did exactly that - very disappointing! To change this - we finally got to do some water orientated activity - we went dragon boat racing! That was quite enjoyable as my team and I had gotten past the awkward phase of not knowing one another and worked as a team and we actually won some races!

So the first week was over within a matter of days - it wasn't as enjoyable as I wished but I think my team for the next 3 weeks made it all the better:

For our second week we had to stay in accommodation at a local university. This week was to teach us how to fend for ourselves by living by ourselves, cooking and cleaning...oh did I mention for 17 people? 

So in the Kingswood week, we had to put together a shopping list under a £200 budget (something like that!) This shopping list was food to last us the week and make 17 portions of 3 meals a day. That meant a lot of bread, pasta and cheese in our case! Each day a different team of 3 would cook and clean after every meal (my team was toasties and pasta - which went down quite well and didn't take up too much of our time, besides a few pieces of burnt toast...) During this week we had different life experience lessons which taught us many different skills like what different bank accounts are available and how much tax you need to pay to how to write a "proper good CV" and what to include on personal statements. 

As well as learning these valuable life skills - one of our days consisted of us visiting Sky studios! I was extremely excited to go here, since as you keen readers will know its my dream to work in an industry that Sky provides. We arrived and we were introduced to a day programme called Sky Academy. This is where as a whole group (my team and 3 other teams) had to make a fake new report. We were all given separate studios with a high quality camera (much better than my DSLR - and this was their lowest quality of camera they had at the studios, I think they did cost a few grand as well!) in front of a green screen and a editing suite on the side. 

Before we went into the studios - we all chose roles to contribute to our teams final film. I thought it was right to be the editor for the group, I have no idea why... Anyways, our reports all became a final show that lasts about 5 minutes and it was extremely funny to watch back as a group and see everyone else's work! 

As well as taking part in the academy section of the studios - we were also given a tour of the actual sets of some of the programmes that Sky produce including their sports newsroom. It was so interesting to see this type of thing in the 'flesh' instead of online - to think one day I could be in an industry like this is just amazing!

As well as learning valuable life lessons and experiencing a dream job location - me and Aimee ran our official salon in one of the kitchens, where we had our first trainee nail painters and where we put makeup on some of the boys, clearly spent our time wisely! (I'll save the embarrassment for the boys by not sharing their photos on here;))

So I don't know if you'll remember a few weeks back I shared this post with you - asking for donations and awareness for a charity?

Well you can read all about the final 2 weeks here to save you some reading time :)

Anyways, so we held our Queerz night on the Tuesday evening and it was an amazing turnout! We had no room to fit anyone in the end it was crazy!  But everyone got involved in the night, we were selling bracelets and doing bucket collection whilst everyone was taking part - during this time we hit this goal on our official donating website:

AND on top of that - our Queerz night raised around £500 which adds up to £1,000 in total of funds raised for this very worthy charity! I am still so so proud of the team for bringing this much money together for a charity that really deserves it! Here's a little video of our week fundraising in about 2 minutes:

If you've read this whole thing - congratulations and thank you! 

My final overview of NCS for teens who aren't sure if they should do it or not: just go out and do it! Its just 4 weeks of your ENTIRE life and you will not regret it! Honestly, I hated the first week and was dreading the rest of the weeks - but it turns out to be so much better, perseverance is key!

If you're worried about what your friends will think or that they're not doing it, you will meet the most wonderful and inspirational people there and you will find at least one person who shares the same interest as you! You will feel so rewarded at the end of it.

See you in the next blog post!

Hi everyone!

Yes I'm back finally, after 5 weeks of not being active on the blog - I'm back. SO much has happened in the last 5 weeks and I need to update you with all thats happened in my life this summer - starting with the Isle of Wight.

The last time I visited the island was back in 2008 and I loved it then as much as I do now. It's such a quaint little island where everyone is really lovely and theres lots of things to see and do! Before we went we had so much planned to do but ended up just taking every day as it came.

So we stayed on this little caravan park in East Cowes called Waverly Park - it was the perfect place to have a base for the week. East Cowes is a weird part of the island as it's away from West Cowes where most things happen and you have to get a small boat (or chain ferry) across to get there (which takes like 5 minutes to cross) but if you don't take the boat, you have to go the long way round in the car which takes around half an hour! 

We visited multiple sites - including the Needles park, Isle Of Wight Pearl and the Garlic Farm (more exciting than you think!) It was a break away filled with lots of food (more specifically ice creams) and lots of laughs. The weather wasn't always brilliant but that didn't stop us going out on different trips or using the out door pool offered to us at the caravan park!

I'll leave you with the video I made of the whole thing as well as a few pictures - next week I'll be posting about my NCS experience in a bit of detail (get ready for a long post!)

See you in the next blog post,

Hi everyone!

I'm finally back from my little break from here - but there will be more information on my holiday and the whole NCS experience next week (promise!)

As a part of NCS - we have to do a social action project and have to either support a local charity or do a community project in a local area. So - what exactly is my group and I doing?

We are supporting a charity called SexYOUality (based in Cambridge) who aim to support young LGBT* adults in making a smooth transition into adulthood. Our group feel strongly about this charity as we all have either been effected or know someone who has been effected by prejudice due to something that is completely natural.

So this is where I need YOUR help! We're aiming to raise awareness and a little bit of money for this small charity. I feel as if charities like this don't get enough recognition - therefore people don't get the support they may need. If you guys could either like or follow our social network pages (links will be below) and donate as little as £1 to our Local Giving page - that would mean a lot to all of us as a team!

Facebook page: NCS SexYOUality Fundraiser
Twitter: @sexYOUalityFR
Local Giving: https://localgiving.com/fundraising/ncssexyouality

If you really would like to get involved - you could come join us on our 'Queerz' night (aka quiz night) at Hot Numbers Café in Cambridge on 11th August (I'll leave the full address below) where there will obviously be a quiz night along with some performances during the evening too - £1 per entry where all funds will go to SexYOUality.

Hot Numbers Coffee
Dale's Brewery Gwydir St. CB1 2LJ 
CAMBRIDGE 

Thank you all so much in advance for helping out where you can! I'll be back on the normal blogging schedule soon (one more week without me!)

See you in the next blog post,