Latimer: As a nineties kid, I always felt like we had the best cartoons – all the Marvel cartoons, Gargoyles, Animals of Farthing Wood, Mummy’s Alive, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Batman… the list goes on!
Those cartoons had proper, involved story-lines.
But somewhere in the late nineties cartoons got fixed on this one episode, one story, structure, that I never liked. I always missed the ‘larger picture’, the big story arcs.
Then, around this time, I more or less stopped watching cartoons – so they remained, in my mind, fixed in that ‘one episode, one unconnected story’ structure.
In slightly later life, I swapped Western cartoons for Eastern ones. This would be around the time my obsession with anime kicked in. In anime, big story-lines never went out of style!!
I noticed early in the naughties Western cartoons started to taken on this East-meets-West style; an almost ‘anime but not quite, style’. I think it was due to the popularity of anime at the time.
That was probably what brought me slightly back to Western cartoons.
I think out of all those new ‘East-meets-West’ cartoon series, Avatar, has got to be one of the best.
Forget that terrible movie version. The cartoon is where it’s at!
Avatar is a great show. I was late to the game – I haven’t seen all of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but am a pretty big follower of Avatar: Legend of Korra.
I love the style, music and feel of Avatar… It’s a well-thought out story-line, with interesting characters, with interesting ethnic backgrounds. Basically the story is focused on a world where people have the power of controlling (bending) elements; water, fire, earth and air. The avatar is the one person in the world that can do all four and is sort of the, near as I can tell, spiritual and bending guide of the people. A big figure-head basically.
When the avatar dies, the next avatar is born and so on….
So, when the new Avatar Korra takes centre-stage, you know that the previous Avatar, Aang, is dead.
Which is pretty sad actually, given that the last time we see him is as this chipper 12 year old kid who saved the world. We don’t really get time to grieve over that, we just have to accept it, which is… yeah kind of rough!
But there’s lots of cool, funny characters in Legend of Korra too (and Korra is a very strong female lead, so that’s pretty cool!)
My favourite characters are Bolin and his little red panda Pabu – Bolin is just brilliant…
Okay, so maybe the best cartoons didn’t end with the 90s, maybe there are lots more to come! 🙂
Ridley: I’m so behind!! Everyone has been facebooking, tweeting, blogging and talking about the end of Breaking Bad, and where am I? I’ve just started season 2, having stayed put at around episode 5 in season 1 for weeks and weeks. It’s not like I didn’t know it was good, it’s been recommended to me over and over by various people since around season two/three, but I was watching other programmes like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. Now I feel like I’ve missed out and it’s going to take me months to catch up, by that time even the hard core Breaking Bad people will have gotten over their withdrawal symptoms and found something else to obsess over. That something else will become big, then I’ll end up being behind in that too, with more sprinting to catch up, it’s like a never ending, vicious – rather pathetic, have I nothing else to worry about- circle!! Haha.
Usually, I love giving recommendations to my friends and family if I find something good to read or watch, but I’ve been perpetually disappointed the last few months when every single person I’ve spoken to has either gone ‘I’ve seen that’ or ‘oh yeah I heard about that’ (hear the escaping wind as Ridley deflates in disappointment). Damn you internet and your wise, Ridley stealing, recommendations. I don’t think I’ve been ahead of the posse in anything since I was 12, where I predicted sticker collecting and the Power Rangers were going to be big, low and behold they were. (Latimer has heard this story at least a dozen times)
Well, stickers were massive in my school anyway, I don’t know about nationwide or anything.
Oh and pogs, remember those? I knew people would love them, mainly cause I did, they were so much fun! Ah the 90s were great. I wonder where all my pogs are now…hmm…
There was a time (we all know this isn’t true but I’ve convinced myself otherwise) that I had my finger on the pulse of what was cool and up-and-coming. Now I’ve to go cap in hand to my younger brother and see if he’ll throw me a few recommendation crumbs before the masses catch on. When I ask him how he knows, he just shrugs, ‘sure everyone knows that’s a good show’. Fine, keep your mysterious sources.*jealous glare*
I’m just living in hope that one day my predicting skills return, so far I remain predictionless, and so behind my television watching! First world problems, eh? ;D
(also considering my last post was about reality television, I’m pretty sure people now think I’m like Jabba the Hutt vegetating on the couch watching endless episodes of Breaking Bad, Duck Dynasty, and all the rest…of course, you’d be right! Haha. No not really…)
Ridley: I wouldn’t watch much television to be honest. When I say this, I do watch shows, but it would be more on netflix when I have nothing else pressing, rather than just randomly sitting down in front of the television every night. However, Sundays can often be my day to watch what I call ‘car crash television’, I get sucked into watching reality shows that teach me nothing, in fact my precious (and rapidly dwindling by the year) brain cells probably slowly decay the longer I sit there. It can’t be helped though, sometimes it’s like I can’t look away, or close my gaping mouth. I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one, as these shows are still on and seem extremely popular. So I said I’d share some of my favourites (as you do).
Deadliest Catch
Basically this show follows fishermen on the Bering Sea catching king crabs. Most of my friends and family think each episode looks identical to the next one. There’s the sea, crabs and a boat, and they keep catching the crabs or they don’t. But to be honest, I find this show quite addictive. I have favourite Captains and I love how the camera skips from boat to boat, seeing how they’re each getting on with their haul, it’s quite unpredictable (and dangerous), you never know what the sea is going to do.
Ducks Dynasty
Of all the mad shows I watch, this is my all time favourite. It’s about this Louisiana bayo family who have made it big, they’re millionaires from making duck calls for hunters. It’s the ultimate rags-to-riches story, where their business was started in the family shed. They are the most unconventional company ever, where the whole extended family, and most of their neighbourhood, has been employed by the business. The antics and the madness they get up to often have me in stitches. Uncle Si is my favourite of the family, the lines that randomly come out of him are just classic.
All the Inks, from L.A Ink, Miami Ink, London Ink, NY ink.
I watch all the ink shows, basically its a reality show where people get tattoos from absolutely epic artists. I’ve always wished I looked like Kat Von D, she’s very cool.
I love the display of artistic talent and the unusual images that people decide to get. I also come away with a massive desire to get a tattoo myself, but I can never decide on an image, that, and I usually like to avoid pain – I’m not a fan.
Ice Road Truckers
This is another show a bit like Deadliest Catch, where the job is really dangerous. I think I like these as I can’t imagine myself ever having enough courage to be able to this type of work myself, or how you’d mentally be able to go about doing it. Night time driving, blizzards, freezing temperatures and roads literally made of ice, not to mention the massive expensive tons of gear you’re huge truck is transporting from one town to the next. Anything can happen, and does!
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (which is an off shoot of Toddlers & Tiaras)
These shows, I just watch them with my mouth hanging open and I randomly shake my head. Toddlers and Tiaras is basically all these kids who do pageants and try to win titles by dressing up to the nines with make up, glitzy dresses, swim wear and costumes.
I was originally going to say we don’t really have these sort of events in Ireland, but actually the first ever one was held last weekend. Mind, it’s not nearly as popular here as it is in the U.S.
Now, as one of the kids who was a star in T&T, Honey Boo Boo obviously caught a producers eye somewhere along the way with her sassiness, so she and her family got their own spin off show.
I think most of her relatives (and herself) are all hyped up on sugar (actually more than likely as they drink this juice, called Go Go Juice, which is made up of Mountain Dew and Red Bull! My heart is just racing thinking about it). It’s just mental to watch them.
Now you know what Ridley does when she’s feeling bored and rebelling against doing any actual work. You know you all do it! 😀 Amazing that I managed to do a blog post about the things that almost prevented me from doing the post in the first place! Teehee.
Ridley: This is basically a post about all the stupid things I do in my car, of which there are many, so I thought I’d generously share a few and have you wondering once again about my sanity. I have to say I love driving, which is hilarious considering it took me three goes to pass my test. Personally I think it made me a much better driver, to this day I know what all my traffic signs mean and I can do a mean three point turn!
The thing about being in your own car though, is it’s like a protective bubble, I tend to forget that other people can see in. I’ve heard it said that psychologically people think of their cars as an extension of their houses, so they do things in them that they’d do at home, they don’t consider them a public place. Now I’m not as bad as some, I still haven’t resorted to putting my make-up on in traffic, but I have brushed my hair, put lip balm on and sipped my coffee from my favourite mug while waiting for the lights to change.
Once, to my utter shame, I also had a bowl of cornflakes. I’ve never repeated that experience, not when as I was spooning it into my mouth as quickly as I could before the lights changed, I looked over mid-chew into the people carrier beside me to find a whole family of four watching me with wide eyes.
The other thing I do, for which I get caught regularly, is people watch. I stare out, fascinated by what pedestrians are doing or wearing, of course it always takes me a moment to realise when they start looking back in at me, and frowning. I startled and look away, pretending to dust my steering wheel. Each and every time, I’m always surprised they can see into my protective bubble car-home.
The main thing I love doing while driving, however, is listening to my music. The problem is sometimes my music can be a bit embarrassing, and more than often quite loud. It’s fine if I’m zooming down the motorway and no one can hear me warbling along with my songs. It’s a completely different story when I pull up at traffic lights and suddenly everyone can hear me singing, ‘Pokemon-mon, the jouuurrrrneys just begun!’ or “A spaceman came travelling on ship from afar…” in the middle of June.
If I’m not listening to music, I tend to think a lot while driving, it can be a quiet, contemplative time, particularly on the longish stretch home on the motorway.
Unfortunately, I usually start remembering all the really embarrassing things I’ve said and done over the years. You know, those horrible, bur-like moments that still haunt you. This used to happen a lot when I studied for exams as well, I’d look away from the text book, off into the distance and after a few minutes I’d end up knocking my head against my desk or cringing and squeezing my eye shut as I shouted, ‘why, whyyyy!’ However, while I still have these sorts of reactions, they’re really not a good idea while you’re driving, especially the closing eyes part, thankfully it’s only happened once or twice, after which I’ve severely berated myself.
I’m sure there are numerous other quirks and strange things I do in the car that I’m not even aware of. Maybe it’s only me, but does no one else do these crazy things…? Just me then…? Ah well…. 😀
Ridley: This was originally going to be a post about the Flight Festival that took place in Dublin today. That’s what I told Latimer I was thinking of doing, but I got word that a family member had a bad fall and bruised themselves, so I went home instead of watching planes. Alls good and everything, but I now know where I get all my clumsiness from, one day they’ll find clutsy is genetically passed on I think! 🙂
I had so many falls, sprains and breaks when I was younger, I’ve nearly lost count, and it’s not like I’m a particularly sporty type! I never had one of those epic tales like; I was skiing in the Alps in a cool one piece suit with fashionable goggles and while doing numerous tricks and zooming down the snowy hillside, I accidentally ploughed into my handsome skiing instructor and broke my leg. Where I then laughed about it with him over hot chocolate in a chalet beside a roaring log fire wearing a leg cast signed by numerous people.
Oh no, they’re all rather pathetic stories. In my time I’ve managed to break my left arm, fracture both my middle fingers, knock out my two front baby teeth, sprained my ankle over fifteen times and injured myself in such a way that I tore the muscles away from the bone in my right foot (which is unbelievably sore).
Actually, most of my major injuries happened between the ages of about five and seven. I don’t know maybe that was a wild time for me. I used to love running around the playground, particularly hanging upside down on the metal bar like a monkey, you could also do flips over it. Then one day I slipped, smacked face first into the sand beneath it and bye bye front teeth. I remember it being really near to Christmas as well, as “All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth”, was sung at me on a continuous basis for weeks.
When I was six, I was playing cops and robbers with my uncle (which actually just involved me running around the house over and over again, while he stayed in the one place and barely tried to act as a cop and stop me) and managed to break my arm by tripping on a root sticking out of a hedge in the front garden and I banged my left arm down on hard dirt and well, Bobs your uncle. I might add, at the exact same time, my younger brother was half way up a large tree and my uncle was lazily advising him to come down.
Now, if you’d freeze framed the whole moment and asked a panel of experts who was about to break something, who do you think they’d have picked? Yeah.
A year later, I fractured both my middle fingers. I became ill in school and I was sent out by the school nurse to sit on the swings in the yard. Feeling bored, I put my fingers in between the small chain links of the swing. Not the best idea just before you faint.
The next thing I remember I’m hanging backwards having slid off the robber seat, my arms in the air and my fingers still stuck in the chains, looking up at the nurse and my teacher.
My final biggish injury was years later, I was twelve and I got Rollerblades for Christmas, I did just great on them in the house, rolling along on the carpet, with numerous things to grab (chairs, tables, people) when it looked like I was about to fall over. Then they let me outside, literally two days after I got them I somehow managed to fall half on and half off a high footpath in front of a (really really slow moving) car, I landed really awkwardly on my leg.
For a week, everyone, including the doctors, thought it was a horrifically bad sprain, but having had numerous sprains already by this age, I knew it was something different. Eventually, I ended up in a full leg cast after the doctors realised I’d torn the ligaments away from my foot. It all took ages to heal.
Now, it’s all been suspiciously quiet of late, suspiciously, and I’ve recently started trampolining classes (sooo much fun!) but even with a few years of a gap of any bumps or scraps, my family still felt the need to warn me not to kill myself while I’m off bouncing.
One of the things we do in the fitness class is run along the trampolines, and I got cocky last week, which never ends well. I found myself sprinting way too fast, my momentum built and built and with widening eyes I realised I was no longer in any sort of control of my legs and that I couldn’t stop. I had a split second thought that I was about to go flying so I tucked my arms in and I managed to do a barrel roll over three trampolines and a mat, before I stopped moving. I then hopped up and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened at all. I thought I’d succeeded but then the fitness instructor with her large microphone, and what felt like a giant long arm, pointed at me and shouted, “Fantastic recovery! And don’t worry, no one saw you!” *sigh*
So, while I dance (and bounce) with fate, I can only hope that, fingers crossed, I’ll continue to beat my clumsy genes! 😀
Latimer: This week Ridley gets grilled with questions with too many caveats!
Ridley: My grilling…do I smell something burning!? Well here goes…!
1.Let’s break the ice (because it will get so involved later!)
A favourite book – why?Pride and Prejudice, just because no matter how many books come and go, and how many I’ve become obsessed over and loved, nothing really every reaches P&P’s pedestal to knock it off. Though Persuasion has always been a close second. A favourite movie – why?Technically I have two favourite movies, Hot Fuzz and Zoolander, no matter how many times I’ve watched them, and it’s been a lot, I still laugh at all the same jokes. If you quote anything from either of these movies, or you get my random mutterings of things like ‘Mer-man,*cough* Mer-man’, then I’m pretty certain we could instantly become great friends. 😀 Surely I’m not the only person who absolutely loves these? Also, I (am ashamed to admit) have not seen The World’s End yet, I’ve heard it’s good, so it could possibly become another top contender. Stay tuned!
Comfort food that you love: Chocolate, particularly Cadbury’s and anything with caramel, oh and I adore Reese’s peanut butter cups. I will readily say I’m probably addicted to the sugary goodness, add in a hot cup of tea and it’s heaven! Though, the last few weeks, I’ve banned myself from eating anything sugary (or basically fun), which includes Cadbury’s. Sad times. 😀
Currently what are you’re listening to:Hmm, right at this moment? Phantom radio on the television, it has a good oldie playing! Anyone remember this one? Loved this song when I was younger.
After that, this song has really caught my attention.I think it’s more the video, I sit there trying to work it out. I know it’s based on Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, but the ending confusts me something awful. Explanations are most welcome (though I suppose I could google it!).
Current/recent obsession:Not so much an obsession, but my new show is (or was) Orange is the New Black, I watched the whole series, I finished it Friday night with mixed thoughts. An interesting take on prison, really loved seeing why and how each of the characters ended up in jail. For some of them, it was really purely just wrong place and wrong time, or just one small wrong decision, other times it was wandering down a dark road from where there was really no return. I did start to really not like the main character, Piper, by the end of it though. Despite starting out looking like she was angelic and good and just didn’t belong in prison compared to the hardened criminals in there, the character developments were so fantastic we ended up seeing that a lot of the other inmates had far more good in them, were less selfish and more caring than she turned out to be. Looks can be deceiving! But that’s just my take! I look forward to season two to see what happens. (Netflix really has revolutionised my life, how could you ever be bored with it? (or get any work done with it!))
2. What was the very first profession you wanted to be when you were a wee nipper?
Ridley: Like you Lat, I wanted to be an archaeologist for the longest time, but I think when Jurassic Park came out it switched to ‘dinosaur digging up’ (a palaeontologist). Then I become obsessed with Egypt and I settled on becoming an Egyptologist. After a time I realised though if I did become one there’d be a lot crawling around in dirty spaces, hot sand, hot sun, sunburn, blistering, dust, dry throat, scorpions, beetles…and very low likelihood of ever finding anything, so one or two of those things might have turned me off the idea. Now I just feed the small Egyptologist-wannabe in me by watching the Discovery channel, with this guy, Zahi Hawass presenting
(he turns up in everything and anything to do with Egypt…it could have been me you know, he obviously just had less of a fear of bugs…*sigh*) 3. You are shipped to a desert island with no internet – you must stay for 2 months – you have food and clothes and all the necessaries, but you can only take two items to really pass the time – what do you take?
Ridley: A notepad and a pencil. I was going to say a pen, but could you imagine how frustrating that would be running out of ink half way through the first month!? I’d have to go fishing for a squid and try and steal some of its ink or something. But with a notepad and pencil, you can draw, you can write (imagine all the work you’d get done), you can start a little diary, with the paper you could make origami friends to keep you company and then play little paper games (of some type, I’m sure before I go to the island, I’ll have looked up all the games there are to play with a piece of paper). Though…do I have a little knife to sharpen my pencil if it breaks? O_O ….I’m sure I do, she does say ‘all necessaries’, that leaves a lot of things open, maybe I can bring my phone as well, though somehow I don’t think there’d be any sockets for charging it in the palm trees. 😦
4. I can tell you for 100% that one of the following is real, which one do you want to be real (and why)?
Werewolves and shapeshifters(Ridley: I’m thinking this one is my choice, mainly (and being selfish here) as all the rest, even if they’re real, I can’t really become part of the world-unless that’s part of it becoming real, can i suddenly be one of these things??- anyway assuming that’s not the case, at least if shapeshifters and werewolves were real, I could join them- werewolf love bite anyone? Haha…)
Hogwarts and magic(Ridley: ah…if only, but if it was real, I still wouldn’t be apart of it, I’m too old for my letter. I’m possibly a Squib though! 😀 )
The Doctor and all that world(Ridley: Be so hard to pin him down, it would become a very unhealthy search for him on my part. So probably best not…)
Angels and Demons, and demon and angel hunters(Ridley: So cool. I imagine they’d wear cool boots and leather jackets. And moody striking frowns. They’d never want me tagging along asking questions and grinning like a fool.)
Superheroes, mutants, X-men and Batman etc.(Ridley: All special people in groups of which I would not be a member, see option B for further explanations. Though if I thought I could become a superhero if this world was real…then possibly this one…god this question is too hard, and now I’m not playing the game right, changing and adding rules, Latimer is going to rap me on my knuckles. RUN! :D)
5. Well, it’s ghosts that are real for this question. Now, you have a choice… hehe…(Ridley: I dread seeing that ‘hehe’ it sends shivers of horror and unease through me…)
Spend 1.5 months in a one bed, really filthy hotel, with no internet access and a shared toilet that has never been cleaned and will never be cleaned. The location of the hotel is nowhere exciting, and you have to stay there too. You can’t get internet anywhere in the town
Spend 1 week in Mary King’s Close and 1 week in the Vaults. The alleged ghosts are definitely real (but they can’t physically hurt you). You will have blankets and you can choose where to sleep – but it must be in both places, you can’t hang around the visitor stairwells or anything!
You can leave both places at 9AM everyday but must return at 7PM.
Ridley: I think it would have to be ‘B’, you know me too well, that last line in ‘A’ got me. It was a hard choice, don’t like the idea of not sleep for a week due to all the bumps in the night I’d end up hearing. I was actually verging on picking ‘A’ but then no internet anywhere in town either? So cruel, that was the final straw – oh no, not the horrible bathroom, no no, it was limiting of my computers ability to check facebook, email and google…good to know I’ve my priorities right!! 😀
That was part 1, part 2 will come along….eventually!! By the by, join in if you want, we’d love to hear your answers!!
Latimer: Hope you guys liked Ridley’s grilling – hehe 🙂
Latimer: I think my first real obsession was with My Little Pony. I adored them.
Recently, My Little Ponies have made an amazing comeback in the form of a cartoon; My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
There was a cartoon in the 90’s too, that I used to watch. There were a few different ones. The one I remember most is the My Little Pony Tales, which is possibly what the new cartoon is based on?
Seriously though… how are those Ponies grabbing anything! They have no fingers!
The return of the Ponies is a complete shock to me, because they disappeared years ago without a trace. They were popular in the early 90’s, and then they just vanished – cartoons and toys.
When the toys came back, very briefly, I bought them, but I was getting older and I couldn’t squeeze myself back into the fangirl suit I used to own. But I tried… lord I tried.
I tried but couldn’t love them again!
They didn’t stay around long.
I’m going to hit the nostalgia button now and bring you back to my My Little Ponies…
Yeah, I still have them. It’s because of all my old toys, these meant the most. I couldn’t toss them out or give them away.
Taking them out of the bag was weird because I remember actually getting a lot of them. My birthdays always involved getting a My Little Pony.
They are chunky, clunky beasts, but they have this beautiful old familiar weight to them. The more I took out the more I remembered.
The bride Pony (with a cake, her veil is missing but I remember she had one, I think I gave it to Barbie) – with no bridegroom!
Poor girl, you have no one to marry!!
The ballerina young Ponies. They were novel because you could move their legs. We were very impressed at the time!
I had two teacher Ponies (Pony groups came in sets of 4 generally). I still have their school bags and their combs (all Pony groups had specific combs).
The Beach Ponies where my very first set. I remembered that their hair was all matted and could never be brushed out, because of the carpets we used to have in my old playroom in the garage (I used to drag them over the carpet).
Memories!
I got this beauty Pony after being in hospital for an operation during Halloween one year.
This Pony smelt like sweets (that was her ‘thing’) – and she still does.
These were tiny baby Ponies, so cute (they have massive heads and are weirdly-distorted).
This is a funny one – maternity Pony. You flick the heart…
and her babies drop out.
Yup…
This baby Pony was an interesting one; not because it did anything, but because of what my sister used to say it could do.
The Pony came with a baby’s plate. My sister would put crackers and coffee grains in the little sections, then she’d tell me;
“I can get your Pony to eat these.”
I was wide-eyed, “Really?”
She’d nod; “But you have to wait outside.”
So out I went (happy, believing) and I’d come back in and the food was gone – except the coffee grains.
“The Pony didn’t like them.”
I was astounded at the time. I wondered why I couldn’t make my Pony eat like my sister could.
The way I packed away the Ponies was also kind of sweet. I packed up all the combs in little bags and the accessories in another. It was like I fully expected to play with them again someday.
I vividly remember thinking, “What do grown-ups do without toys? What do they do all day?” Thankfully you realize people never grow up and toys of childhood morph into those of adulthood and it’s a relief.
I’m happy to see my old obsession has reinvented itself and flown off to another generation 🙂
Latimer: As summer draws to an end (NOO :(!), I’m plagued by the last remaining wasps. And I hate wasps!
I mean I really hate them.
But my hate is based on fear, pure fear. If a wasp is in the area I warn people with; ‘Listen, listen guys, there’s a wasp over there, now I might jump up and run away screaming and kicking at the air, but don’t mind me!’ This warning more often than not becomes reality.
I run based on what might happen to me, because, I have never in my life been stung. Well, up until last weekend that is…
I was moving bags of clothes from downstairs to upstairs and I got a sudden pain in my foot and thought initially – ‘argh a splinter’ but then the pain got worse and I lifted my foot and screamed…
– ‘Oh JAYSUS!’
There was a wasp stuck to my foot! Still I am screaming, because now one part of me is thinking, ‘oh no I have to touch it to get it off! NO! I don’t want to touch it!’ and the other part is just shrieking.
Now, my hatred-fear of wasps is complete. It is warranted. I don’t want to be stung. But wasps are angry, vicious creatures (hence the term ‘waspish’). I don’t bat at them, I just run away, because batting them makes them angrier and they come at you!
Sharing my experience resulted in people telling me all sorts of stories about their experiences of wasps.
First there was the boy…
He told me a story about when he was a young carefree lad, he used to play in the bushes at the back of his house – where randomly, mid-way through this wasp story he drops; ‘the bushes were Ian Paisley told me off for being one time’ ha.
The bushes had been cut and piles of leaves had been left on the ground. The young boy got excited and raced over to the piles and started playing. Then a swarm of wasps crawled up his chest out of the pile of leaves (he’d stood on a hive).
– Poor Boy!!
Naturally he ran shrieking to his mother (covered in wasps). His clothes were ripped off, and a wasp flew out of his underpants. Yep, the wasps got him everywhere.
– …everywhere…
The boy then tells us how he was staying with a friend once and one morning the friend decides, ‘today will be the one day of the year I will be a real man and cut the hedges’. The friend was then confronted by…
– ‘I’m gonna get you bub!’
– ‘And I got ALOT of friends!!’
And he runs into the house screaming; ‘get me vinegar!’ And in front of everyone in the house, the friend starts ripping off his clothes, getting naked and running into the bathroom, still screaming for vinegar. He got stung a lot.
We then hear how the boy and his friends were outside one day, enjoying the sun and having some drinks, when the sky went black as a swarm of bees descended on them; ‘hundreds of thousands, they eclipsed the sun briefly’ he said. They all ran into the house, screaming; ‘CLOSE THE WINDOWS! CLOSE THE WINDOWS!’
– ‘Close the window, the boy’s getting flashbacks!!’
Now my story of being stung is so boring! But give me time, I feel like another story is on the horizon for me! The last few weeks I’ve been plagued by wasps; now I’m even more afraid – I’m under-siege!
Ridley: Does anyone else believe in ghosts? Do you also fear to see the reflection of things popping up behind you in the blank screen of a television? Or scurry by the dark rectangle opening of the attic with your eyes scrunched closed (and hear that Grudge woman throat rattle in your ears)? For me, if there is a bump in the night, I don’t reason it off with ‘it’s just the cat”, instead I sit up in my bed, clutch my blanket to my face and sweep my eyes across the room just waiting to see a white face staring back at me (kinda freaking myself out just thinking about it, and it’s broad daylight!). I bring up the ghosties, as we had a recent trip to Edinburgh, where we went down into the Blair street vaults!
They were dark, eerie and creepy. We braved the pouring rain (the weather in Scotland is just so like Ireland it’s laughable) and we went on a Mercat tour that basically let you wander through the different rooms by yourself, with just a map, flash light and a camera. I think perhaps the camera was nearly a mistake.
As we wandered through the vaults and I was taking snaps, the focus started trying to fix on things that weren’t there. With high pitched meeps, I’d dart away after Latimer, who found it all quite hilarious, but she did admit it certainly wasn’t somewhere you’d want to accidentally get locked into for a night.
The rooms all felt dead, with muffled sound and dry air, we found the smell and the dust caught at the back of the throat and it was difficult to breath. In one room in particular, my breath came out as white on the air and I’m pretty certain there were orbs floating about. Latimer just shrugged, ignoring my pointing at the white puffs and little round lights and I became convinced she didn’t watch enough Most Haunted. When she started letting out fake groans and moans and laughing, I backed away from her, leaving around a safe ten feet between us, as everyone knows (and this is especially so in films) the disbeliever and mocker of the ghosties is going to be the very first one that meets the grisly end. That’s all I’m saying.
Eventually, convinced I was going to see apparitions popping up, I stopped looking at the digital stills I was taking (plus I decided the bright light from the camera screen could potentially be annoying the spirits…maybe…well, I wasn’t taking any chances! 😀 ).It wasn’t until we were safely ensconced with hot teas in Starbucks (and free wifi-huzzah!) that I could look at the pictures I’d taken.
I have either possibly capture images of something paranormal or my camera was acting up. I’m sure you can guess which version of events I’ve decided on. 😀
Anyone else believe in ghosts, the paranormal? Are you even a little superstitious, or is just all a load of codswallop?
I ain’t afriad of no ghost…. (actually I am, nooo run away!!)
Carwicky 