The Ex-Factor

See what I did there?


As much as I am happy being a single girl, walking around this world as one isn’t always easy. You see no matter how much you try to shut them out of your mind, there are always going to be several of your exes that unfortunately are inhabiting valuable space in the same city, country and/or continent as you. They are always going to wake up in their beds and go about their days, breathing the same air as you, visiting the same Starbucks, using the same public toilets, drinking at the same pubs and walking the same streets, very selfishly not considering that they are making it very hard for you not to bump into them.

The worst thing is that it never seems to be on one of those rare days that your make up seemed to go perfectly and you’re wearing a new dress. A day where you casually turn the corner to see your ex, that just so happens to have had a really bad haircut and a stain on his jeans, because if that happened you could be all “Oh Hi, It’s been ages! How lovely to bump into you! I would love to stay and chat, but I have to be somewhere. You look... good. I’m really pleased”. Then you would be able to casually stroll away attracting all the men in a 10 metre radius to very obviously check you out, just so that he knew exactly what he had let go. But, no, that NEVER happens. And for this reason I advise you never to get together, and break up with someone who works at the gym where you are a member. There is simply no way you can look attractive doing the downward dog (pilates pose), getting your bag tangled in the turnstiles or slipping on the pool steps and banging your head on the side.

Aside from the many occasions I have unfortunately come face to face with Lifeguard boy, the last time I ran into an ex, I literally ran into him. It sounds tragic, and believe me it was. It was one of those occasions where it would have felt more comfortable to have my appendix burst again than it was trying to get actual human words out of my mouth.

I am not an attractive runner. Those women that look really athletic and cool in their skintight leggings? Yeah well, I’m not one of them. I have started avoiding mirrors when I get home from running, because I found that seeing what looks like a orange haired Troll Doll (because my hair sticks right up and I look really surprised/concerned), was putting me off running in public. For this reason my routes consist of mainly cut-throughs and large fields that only get the occasional dog walkers. The only problem is when you see someone you know it makes it very hard to make out you haven’t seen them in your sweaty mess. One day, I saw Saliva Boy as I was running and at that moment I realised there was no way I was getting out of that metre wide alleyway with my ego intact. I only had one hope, and that was that maybe someone had accidentally left the gate unlocked to the field that I could get to before I had to pass him. So I sped up, and tried the gate that is slightly hidden behind the bushes. Come on, this is my life, of course it wasn’t open. But as I stepped back out onto the path, knowing that I was going to have to face my ex, I ran smack bang into him. Not just a little bump, but a full throttle, sweaty smack.

I can’t exactly remember what I said, but I doubt anyone human would have been able to understand the noises that mostly came out of my nose. And after I realised I had been staring at his ear for longer than it is socially acceptable, I ran/hobbled off. I think the force of banging into him damaged some important ligaments. That’s a good enough excuse for never running in public again isn’t it?

Saliva Boy hasn’t been able to look at me without laughing since that terrible day.

I suppose the one good thing about deciding to be ‘friends’ with Australia Boy is that for a whole six months it’s going to be incredibly easy to not bump into him. However, I had overlooked the fact that when he comes back home he will be all cultured and what not, along with an incredible tan. Something which would never happen to me, as all I seem to eat abroad are chips and well... I’m ginger.

Hopefully, by also moving away it will mean not having to bump into any of my exes, but I know they will still find a way of making me think 'What did I ever see in him?'. At least with Actor Boy moving to London it makes it less likely that I will have to suffer those “You look well” texts after he has seen me in Boots, wearing joggers and buying tampons.



As this will be the last blog I will write in my bedroom at home, don’t be alarmed if in my next post I call a ‘Cob’ a ‘Bap’ and become all serious and proper journalist-y. Then again, the other day I couldn’t even spell ‘journalist’. This is going to be a hard three years.

Live. Laugh. Love

My Dad should be an inspirational speaker

My Dad may of just given me the most heart-warming bit of wisdom of my whole life: ‘‘The Dog doesn’t chase the Poo now does it? Or however the saying goes.’’ Thanks for that Dad. I’m not sure if that is even a saying, but it was inspirational to say the least.

I think my Dad had kind of guessed I was feeling a little bit heartbroken when I arrived home with a family sized box of Cereal and two huge bars of Milk Chocolate. You see thats what I do when a boy upsets me, I bake. In this case, all I was going to do was melt some Chocolate and fold in the ‘Rice Snaps’ (I am unemployed, don’t judge me because I have to buy economy) but I always find having to concentrate on my stomach rather than holding back my tears, makes me feel better almost every time. If it doesn’t it means I can lick chocolate from the bowl whilst I sit on my kitchen floor and sob. Because just sitting on my kitchen floor and sobbing on its own would be weird...

I suppose I should of been careful what I wished for and all that (I can tell this blog is going to be full of useful sayings already). Someone asked me the other day why I hadn’t written a blog in ages and I replied really honestly with ‘‘I really need a boy to treat me like crap’’. I know it was a rubbish excuse, but obviously it’s true. You see up until an hour ago, I had one of the most extreme cases of writers block I had ever suffered from. Then Australia Boy goes and pushes me that little bit to far and here I am, typing so fast and hitting the keys so hard that my fingers are starting to hurt. Like Henry Miller said “The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature”. Well, I wouldn’t call ‘I Would Rather Eat Chocolate’ literature, and the purpose of this little rant is not to get over him, but there is only so much hitting your head against the wall you can do before you have to find some other way of venting your frustration


Australia Boy. How do I even begin to explain Australia Boy?

Well, first of all, the reason behind the nickname is not because he is Australian (unfortunately) but because in just over two weeks time he moves to the country for six months. Seeing as I only met him two weeks ago, I wouldn’t blame you for calling me stupid. I feel pretty stupid right now. Here’s my logic: I also move away on the same day he does, but to go to University at a place an hour away from where I live now. You see in a few weeks time we both start new stages of our lives. Truth be told though, there is also a bit of an old romantic in me, because I have convinced myself that surely the fact we both leave on the same day, is a bit of a ‘sign’. For once in my life, I don’t have something in the back of my mind telling me that I will just get bored in two months time and we will start to argue and I will finish it, like every other kind of relationship I have ever been in. We both know, despite that fact we haven’t ever mentioned it, that in eighteen days time (I am counting the days because of University, not because I am soppy like that) we won’t see each other for at least half a year. That’s a long time. In a ‘normal’ six months, things change a lot, but in the six months that lay ahead of us both, theres no doubt that we will also change as people. As the people we are right now, we are enjoying taking the piss out of each other and having drunken phone calls at four in the morning. Is there any reason that should stop just because of the situation we find ourselves in?


If I’m going to completely lay my soul bare, I feel like we are on fast forward. A little bit under pressure to enjoy the tiny amount of time we have left living on the same continent as each other. There also seems to be a unwritten rule between us that we don’t talk about leaving. Whenever we talk about Australia or University, theres only so far I can go before I find myself changing the subject before we get to how we would keep in touch or if we even would carry on. I don’t even know if he wants to, which is totally unlike me, as I normally initiate the ‘What are we?’ conversation pretty soon into anything. It’s a bad habit of mine.

I thought I was being incredibly sensible and grown up, entering into this ‘thing’ (I say thing because it’s not official and what not), but as it turns out I have been a fool. Because in truth, despite it always being the plan; I’m not sure I want to give him up.

What Australia Boy did doesn’t actually warrant me to be this pissed off, but it just so happened he did it just after I had had a full blown argument with a man in Morrison’s car park for nearly running me over after pushing in front of me at the checkouts just minutes before. Also, I was going to make Rice Krispie cakes anyway, but I had planned on making them in a less ‘imagine this is his head’ sort of way when I was smashing the chocolate against the kitchen counter.

I have a lot to thank this blog for really and it’s not just that when Australia Boy reads this he might realise why I didn’t put any kisses on the end of that message (the ultimate tell tale sign of a girl being pissed off). In the past year it has helped me discover that I want to be a Journalist, made many of the ‘Boys’ say sorry to me and the ones that haven’t, have been left unable to look me in the eye. It has given me the control back of my life I was so severely lacking. The first blog I wrote was about how I wanted to give up on my A Levels after I had been ill, but this blog proved my savior, and I want you all to know how grateful I am to every one of you for reading, because without you I wouldn’t of had the inspiration to work my arse of to get my A, 2 B’S and a C (cue round of applause and shameless self praise) that I needed to do Broadcast Journalism.

Here’s to another year. Cheers.

I’m going to stop being soppy now, it really doesn’t suit me.




Live. Laugh. Love.

"I Can Speak For Myself, Thanks!"

Today has been a weird day. Not for any particular reason, but it just seems to have lasted about five years. The thing is, I am a self-confessed procrastinator. Give me something I am  meant to do, and I can find a million and one ways not to do it. This week instead of cleaning and tidying my own room, I have been doing my family’s ironing, cleaning the whole of the house (except my own room), making sure the windows are finger mark free, cooking proper food (not super noodles) and alphabetically ordering our DVD and cookbook collections. My Mother (bless her heart) finds it really hard not to have a go at me for having a hand made ‘floordrobe’ in the middle of my bedroom, because I have cleaned, tidied and ironed everything else for her.

Yet again, I got out of tidying my room today by taking my library books back and delivering a letter to the Radio station in order to get myself some work experience. I also went to observe court as I haven’t been in a while. For anyone who hasn’t been, observing court is one of the greatest forms of entertainment EVER. It’s even better than Judge Judy, apart from the fact you have to remain silent and straight faced.

This was the plan anyway, but for anyone who has spent even a day in my presence you will know that nothing that I ever intend goes to plan. You see already today I have had a mental breakdown, witnessed one of the sweetest moments of a married couples life, walked face first into a door, pretended to be Polish, pointed a foreign person in a random direction because I didn’t understand what he was saying, had my shoes accidentally cleaned by street cleaning vehicle and shouted at a drunk middle aged man.

My mental breakdown didn’t last long, just about the same amount of time as it took to finally find my B-Line lurking behind the Boots advantage card in my purse. I should mention that this was after I had emptied the entire contents of all of my handbags, drawers and organiser, which is now not so organised. After I finally stopped crying upon finding the sneaky B-Line, I ceremoniously cut up the Boots card in revenge that the scheme I had only signed up for for the free gift, had made me miss the bus I had woken up so early for. Another thing that contributed to my very loud sobbing and screaming was the incredibly inappropriate auto-correcting my word processor decided to do to my ‘I-will-do-anything-for-work-experience’ letter. If I hadn’t noticed the mistake in the spelling of ‘I don’t have any set times currently, but you can arrange them as you see appropriate’ the Head of regional radio really would have thought I was offering him something completely different than a trainee member of their News team. I mean come on, why would Microsoft Word think I meant to put a ‘x’ instead of a ‘t’? (There is a prize for the first person who guesses which word that got auto-corrected)

When I finally got into town I observed Court for a few hours and then whilst it was adjourned I went to return my books, drop off my catastrophic letter, and visit the Job Centre. However, what I didn’t know was that the Library is closed on Wednesdays meaning that I surreptitiously turned into that man from YouTube who shouts ‘WHY ARE YOU CLOSED?’ whilst banging on the glass door.( If you haven’t seen it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqRPOEa3P44 ). Also, the radio station only accepts online applications and the Job Centre's receptionist was on her lunch break. I am so desperate for a job I said to the woman on the intercom that if I had that job I wouldn’t take lunch breaks. She told me to come back later.

Feeling like a failure in spite of my good intentions I walked back towards the Courts as I thought that watching people getting cross-examined by the really sexy Lawyer I had previously been drooling over, would cheer me up. And also there’s nothing quite like watching someone being sent to prison to make you feel better about your own life.

Like every British City, Derby has its fair share of alcoholics who sit on benches, and pass comment as you walk by. Today I was not in the mood to deal with them. As I tried to avoid eye contact with the overly sweaty man, I realised I had unwillingly become his target. When he requested that I come over and talk to him I assured him that I was in a hurry, however he took this as an invitation to walk with me! Then he said the 4 words I think he will regret for the rest of his life; “Are you spoken for?”.

This would have been a great time to deploy a technique I have been trying to put into practice in recent months. It is called; ‘Oh bloody hell Rose, think before you speak!’. But unfortunately, the whole ‘thinking’ idea went out of the window and I shouted “No, I can speak for myself, thanks!”. He then assured me that he meant ‘Do you have a Boyfriend?’ to which I replied “Yes, I do!”. I don’t.

I don’t know what it was; the fact that a street cleaner had brushed my brand new shoes with his filthy truck, that I felt bad that a man who hardly spoke English was roaming the streets of Derby unaware a cruel Ginger girl had pointed him in the wrong direction, that the woman who owned the Polish supermarket didn’t believe I was Polish and therefore wouldn’t give me the job, or that my bag still weighed a ton from the three hard-backs on Serial Killing, DNA Evidence and Terrorism I hadn’t been able to return (They were for Extended Project I promise!). I just wanted the pathway to swallow me up right there and then.


Obviously it didn’t, I am sat here right now telling you about it and knocking back the Robinsons. Not the Beer, the fruit squash. I lived to tell the tale. That's the reality of it I suppose, everyone has bad days and good days and everything always gets better. Like after a long day of being an unemployed failure my Nana placed homemade chips in front of me as we watched Murder She Wrote. And like my Nana says ‘You have to take the good with the bad. Do you want some Apple Pie?’




Live. Laugh. Love

Burn Baby Burn

I have never really considered myself as a fearful person, as I don’t particularly suffer from any of the usual things people are commonly afraid of, such as heights, the dark, public speaking and even a lot of the time I’m OK with spiders. However, I have realised more and more as the weather has got warmer and people have invited me to bonfires that I am a little bit scared of fire. OK more than a little. I had always thought that it was probably me just being cautious and aware of safety when it comes to naked flames. But as it turns out, that time a boy in my science class leant over a bunsen burner and set fire to his fringe, has left more of a lasting impression on me than I had previously thought. 

The thing is, that although you might find something petrifying, another person will of course come along, find you stupid and then ultimately tease you about it. Just like a friend of mine who always finds it funny to set fire to planks of wood and just wave them around really close to me. To which my usual reaction is “Don’t you da.... I swear to Go.... Just stop it!’’. However, a few weeks ago when I went to a party where a girl spent the whole time upstairs because she was scared of balloon's, the first thing I wanted to do was throw hundreds of balloons in the room and shut her in it. Harsh I know.

The actual name for the fear of fire in Arsonphobia (for real, however I doubt Arson is many peoples favourite pastime) and the fear of either death of being hurt by fire is Pyrophobia. For me, I think my main fear about fire is its unpredictability, the fact that in a split second change of wind direction, it can become dangerous. Along with the realisation that after you thought you had successfully put out a fire, that orange glow you think is dying out, almost always lights up again when your’e not looking. Another thing is the embers, the things that a fire spits out at you when it crackles. Little bits that burn wholes in your clothes if you don’t pat them out quick enough, or in some situations can lead to a fire getting out of hand, and quite possibly setting a building on fire. 

Wouldn’t you say that that applies to life in general as well? A small spark that appears relatively harmless at first, can ignite a fire, that you weren’t altogether expecting or prepared for. A fire, that before you know it can cause destruction to many different aspects of your life which are then sometimes hard to get under control. What if you aren’t able to extinguish that fire? What happens then?

I suppose in the same way I am afraid of fire, I am sort of scared of falling in Love. For so many times, I have felt like I have had my fire under control, yet by turning my back for just a second, all of a sudden the flames have got taller than I could handle, and in an automatic reaction I have panicked and rushed to get rid of something I am not comfortable or experienced in. There are also those fires that after ignition seem to die down and fizzle out without you being able to save them, leaving you with no idea what happened. Like a candle, that you only realise has come to its end when there is a small trickle of smoke, and that undeniable smell. (Ironically, I quite like that smell)

What about those fires that well and truly get out of hand? Fire’s that a first keep you warm, but then without you being aware, start to spread. Before you know it, it starts to cause destruction, that can be seen from miles away. Billowing black smoke that makes it aware to everyone around you that you have got yourself into difficulty. Despite your best efforts to extinguish the fire, in the end all you can do is retreat to a safe distance and watch as everything burns to the ground until there is nothing left, and nothing more to carry the fire. Only then, once everything has been burnt away can you start again, with no restrictions. It may seem daunting at first, beginning again, but after a while of missing what you had, you start to realise what can be, now that nothing is standing in your way.

Something that I learnt from one of those really terrible educational videos we used to have to watch in Primary School when it was raining at Break times (can anyone else remember that it was called ‘Wet Play’?) was that Farmers often start fires to clear forest floors, which then makes them more fertile. So girls (and boys of course) now you can use that as an excuse to finish that lad you don’t like anymore, that you need to clear the floor, to make way for other fitter lads. The lad would probably think you were going a bit funny in the head, just like when I finished a boy the other day because of our political differences. I’m actually being serious.

I also learnt today that the best protection from fire, surprisingly is sometimes fire. Apparently if there's a forest fire that is out of control, and you burn away a bit of the ground in advance, that piece of ground will be safe to stand on. Even if the fire totally surrounds you, because you've already burnt away the bits the fire can spread to. So fight that out of control fire, with fire, preferably a much much hotter boy... Sorry I mean fire.

‘...But remember Kids, don’t play with fire.’

Live. Laugh. Love

Oh! Hello Sailor.

Okay, so the reason I have been absent from blogging/destroying mens ego’s for a while, is because my life and eventual career kind of depend on this month. Instead of blogging about the time I smiled at a gorgeous boy at the gym, subsequently missing the bottom step, and also the time when whilst singing my heart out I pulled up at the traffic lights, looked across at another car and saw my ex looking at me like an alien had just dropped out of the sky, I have been hitting my head against a brick wall. Or as it is commonly referred: revising.

I wouldn’t call revising my favourite pass time, it’s kind of on a par with waxing. It’s not vital, but you kind of have to do it if you want to get anywhere in life. Painful, but worth it when you see the results.

So according to a revision website I have been keeping as my bible for the past 3 weeks, there are 5 key tips for successful revision.

Number One: Make a set of revision cards.

Done. Much to my Dads annoyance they are cello-taped all over my bedroom walls. I told him not to worry because leaving sticky residue on my white walls will give me a better chance of leaving home in October. I have never seen my Dad's mood change so quickly.


Number Two: Create and stick to a revision time table, giving yourself regular breaks.

Done. That is if you consider half hourly toilet visits because of the amount I am drinking, and do-a-mind-map-have-a-biscuit a schedule.


Number Three: Find a quiet place to revise and make sure you’re comfy.

As I am not really comfortable in any other clothing than my gym wear, I have been constantly looking like I’m off for a run, and as for quiet, I’m afraid there is little chance of that happening in my house. I got up on Sunday morning and straight away got dressed (a strange thing for me at the Weekend) and sat at my desk and started making my notes, when I heard a very loud mmm-ing noise. Yes, the one time I have ever wanted to revise on a Sunday morning, my Dad decided to do a spot of hoovering. Then in the afternoon, as I was just getting stuck into a bit of 'Jane Eyre', my Dad turned on the TV in the opposite room and proceeded to watch Motorbike racing. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t a crime, but when he insists on watching it at 10 times the healthy volume whilst having the door swung completely open, I am sorry but I will not be held responsible for my actions.


Number Four: Revise with a friend, by taking it in turns to test each other.

I’m afraid when every single conversation you have with your friends in 100% sarcasm, it makes it hard to take them seriously enough to revise with them. Especially when one of them in particular is always breaking out into her own particularly special rendition of Wuthering Heights. She certainly gives Kate Bush a run for her money. Take note that my sarcasm stretches to when I talk about my friends, as well as too them.


Number Five: Create Anchors for yourself.

I had never heard of ‘Anchor’ being used in this kind of context before last week, but it’s mainly a term that refers to a memory technique for when you want to memorise something effectively. For example you link a word you need to remember with something well known to you, using the power of your imagination. The basis of a good ‘anchor’ is imagining an absurd, positive, funny or exaggerated situation that you can link with the given word. I actually owe one of my favourite ‘anchors’ to a really lovely girl in my class, who is the reason I will never ever forget Sigmund Freud’s theory on ‘Personality’. Basically because it involved weeing in public; always good for jogging my memory.

There is also another sub-heading for the term ‘Anchor’, and it refers to the things that remind us of memories and people. Like for me, whenever I see anyone wearing Abercrombie and Fitch is reminds me of when I was in New York and I thought I had walked into the mens changing rooms. As I found out there was actually a man standing there topless for the purposes of luring people into the store. All I can say is good call A&F. And, why, when I smell talcum powder, it reminds me of my next door neighbour, or whenever ‘She’s so lovely’ by Scouting for Girls comes on the radio I remember my first ever boyfriend. Not that he thought I was lovely after it ended.

‘Anchors’ are the reason getting over a relationship can be so hard. I can guarantee that anyone who has ever broken-up with someone will have experienced that phase where no matter what you do or where you go, everything seems to be a reminder of them. It feels like every shop you go in is playing that song he once sang to you really badly and that film you went to see on your first date has now come out on DVD and the adverts are plastered everywhere. (Maybe this one only applies to me, as the average length of time it takes for a film to go from cinema to disk is two months, and this is the length of nearly all of my relationships.)

Even after months and years, these anchors will still find a way of weighing you down. It only has to take being caught in the rain without an umbrella, running into Starbucks and hearing ‘Watch the Sun come up’ by Example to remind you of your summer romance. Believe me, I have had the woman behind the counter asking me if I’m okay, because, in her words I looked like ‘a lost foreigner’ that was upset because I hadn’t got an umbrella.

Whilst you’re being held down by these anchors, its hard to feel like your not drowning. All you want to do is swim away, forget all those things that make your stomach do somersaults. I’m not saying that you will be able to cut those ties easily or sometimes not at all, you may even find that after thinking you are finally free, you tangle your leg in the rope and it drags you right back down again.

But one thing you should always remember; there are plenty more fish in the Sea.



Live. Laugh. Love

Fancy a game of Poker?

I have always been incredibly competitive, and I blame that on my Mum. You see the thing with my Mother Goose is that she doesn’t let anyone win, at any sport, card or board game. Now, normally when you see a Mother and her 2 children sat round playing Connect 4 or Snakes and Ladders, you wouldn’t normally hear the shouts of ‘YES! I won! LOSERS’ coming from the Mum. Well in my family thats exactly what it's like. I can even remember the time when I played tennis with my Mum, Brother and Granddad. I was about 10 and even then they didn’t take it easy on me. I was fully expected to defend myself from the rapid serves coming my way, even though my Mum played at club level, my Granddad used to teach tennis to kids and my brother was already over six foot at the age of 14. At that point in my life, being absolutely shocking at Tennis, taking into account the constant taunts I received from my Brother, and being the only ginger in a family of dark haired people, I actually found myself wondering whether I was adopted.

Now I am older, my Mum still finds any opportunity possible to beat me at something. So much so that any time she see’s an air hockey table, she is drawn to it like a magnet. Even at the cinema she doesn’t see anything wrong in dumping her bags down and challenging me to a game so she can ‘‘Whip your ass’’ as she puts it.

However, in the past year I have started to beat her at things. I will always remember the first time I ever won her at mini golf; her face was such a picture. At that historical moment she turned into the toddler from that Vic’s First Defense advert. Okay, maybe not quite as bad as that, but for the rest of the day she did look as if she was about to cry. Almost as bad as the time when as a family were playing Scrabble and my Mum had a smug grin on her face because she had got a double word score for the word ‘Private’. Next up was my Brother and all he did was add an ‘S’ to the end a got himself a triple word score. I thought her head was going to explode from the amount of ‘But..Er..You can’t...Eh?’ she was doing.

Her response when we asked her why she never let us win as kids is ‘I didn’t want a pair of kids that got into the real world and became mardy when they lost at anything. I’m just preparing you. Be grateful’. Oh she is such a babe.

On occasions that my Nana and Granddad used to look after us, they would buy us Chocolate coins and we used to play card games and bet on it with them. How underweight I was as a child might be due to the fact I always used to lose all of my Chocolate.

This morning I was feeling a little melancholy and decided to look through a scrap book I made when I was younger, and there it was, one of the wrappers from a chocolate coin. Next to the attached gold foil I had written something about how I never won my Brother at card games, but that I was fine with that because it made him happy.

Reading that made me realise that I have always been the same. I have always been a person who is happy as long as others are happy. Thats another thing I get from my Mum. I go to whatever lengths, get myself hurt, just as long as that person I care about is happy, so that I can walk away knowing they don’t think badly of me. I find myself sometimes sacrificing my own happiness or enjoyment so that others aren’t getting hurt. This has become apparent to me now, more than ever, especially when it comes to Love.

Our lives are like a game of Poker. There are times when we are lucky, and seem to have all the cards to get us exactly what we want in life. But there are also times in life when no matter how much you may try, you seem to keep losing until you have nothing left to give.

When you have all the right cards in life, it is easy to get carried away. We start to feel invincible, like there is nothing in this world that could knock you from your stool at the Poker table, and no matter how many people raise you more chips, you either match or raise them even more. It now comes to the showdown. What if that hand you were once so confident about, lets you down? All that was resting on something that you thought was safe, has now been lost. You walk away feeling like you have lost everything, the adrenaline that once engulfed your body has - along with your losing cards - been put back into the pack as well as the chips into someone else’s pile.

Perhaps, the hand isn’t that great. You find yourself sitting at the Poker table wondering whether this is a good idea. Yeah, maybe you have put a small amount of chips in, but they don’t matter, you could manage without them. Here you are, having to make a decision; do you cut your losses? Maybe your head tells you to walk away, after all it is the sensible thing to do, you know the hand you have been dealt won’t get you anything that is worth the effort. Yet, you hang on that little too long, and end up losing more than you would if you had listened to your head.

I’m afraid we are all addicts. No matter how bad things go with Life and Love, we always think the next time will be better. Perhaps it will be. I don’t know, at the moment I find myself losing the will to bet.

But you know what, if all else fails, go out with your best friends, dance like no one is watching and sing ‘Summer Nights’ really badly on Karaoke with the people so great, they don’t mind when your chips are down.



As it turns out, I am terrible at Poker, as well as Love, but play me at Tekken, and your going down. Oh, the irony.




Live. Laugh. Love

You can ask me the question now, Noel

 Okay, I just woke up from a really weird dream where I was a contestant on the Game show, Deal or No Deal. I have had this same dream a few times over the past couple of weeks and it basically follows the same kind of gist as the Channel 4 show. I always find myself at the beginning of the show where several names are being flashed up on screen, and every time my name gets picked. Cue clapping and a frantic excited reaction from myself, I am on Deal or No Deal after all! Noel goes through all the questions and asks me to confirm that I picked this box from random, to which I agree. Everything seems very normal - when I look in front of me there is my box, number 14 and the screen with all the money totals on it, from 1p to £250,000 and 21 other contestants. Behind me there are all of my friends in the audience. The little jingle plays and then Noel asks me to pick my first box, which I decide is going to be number 12. The box belongs to a woman called Dawn and she breaks the seal, and then lifts the lid. However, that's when it starts to get a little strange. Instead of seeing a flash of a red or a blue value of money, out pops one of my ex's. The audience ruptures into applause and I get the idea that he must be a low amount (and from what I remember from the relationship he wasn’t worth very much). Even after having this dream several times, I am still shocked when he steps out of the box and tells me everything I ever did wrong in the time we were together. Dawn then kicks him in the back, so that he falls to his knees and then proceeds to drag him by his foot out of the studio. Then, as if it were completely normal I get asked to pick my second box and I go for number 3. I don’t remember the man’s name but he opens the box. However, this time I am aware that another of my ex's will spring out and give me a lecture about how I was a terrible girlfriend. This particular box holds a Policeman I went out with for about two months over Christmas, but unlike the previous box, he just starts to sob and starts to beg for me to come back. I then give the contestant the nod and he kicks him in the back and pulls him off by his eyebrows (I’m guessing the eyebrows because I always plucked his eyebrows for him).


This continues and box after box opens revealing yet more boys I have ever flirted with, had a date with or full blown relationship. Some of the boys I don’t even know, which take up most of the red boxes, thus proving I have a terrible dating history, yet hopefully it is going to improve. One boy in particular is absolutely gorgeous yet he comes out the £50 box, so if I ever come across him, I know not to get involved.

One of the things that always seems to be the same are the things that these boys say I have done wrong. Pretty high on the list is the fact that I either never, or take ages to text back. You see the problem with me is that I get pre-occupied, not just when it comes to texting back but in everyday life. I always remember the time I went upstairs to my room, with the intention of tidying it, but half an hour later my Mum opened the door to find me drawing a face on a balloon. Another thing is that I am always pretty adamant that the relationship isn’t going to last very long. If all of your relationships to date had only lasted at most a month, I don’t think you would have much faith either. Both of these things I know about, and it didn’t take this 5th repetition of the dream to figure it out. Something that every boy said was that my immediate reaction to things getting a little hard is to finish it. I’m not going to try and deny this, I do. The way I see it is that we are young, and what is the point in staying in a relationship we are unhappy in? Plenty more better tasting fish in the Sea. (The irony is, is that I am allergic to fish)

One of the boys that jumped out, jack-in-a-box style was Lifeguard boy, who unsurprisingly came out of the £1 box, quite a lot more than he is worth in my opinion, but I suppose he had an alright face. Then there was Doll Face boy at 1p, and someone who I will call Actor boy who was £250. I got a particularly huge smile on my face from seeing these three being kicked in the back, probably more happiness than I should. But there was a boy that I felt a little sad at from seeing him in the higher amounts, because I knew that I shouldn’t have let him slip away.

Consistent with the TV game show, in between the groups of boxes I had phone calls from the banker offering me things like Cats and bottles of wine but I never accepted any of them. ‘Thank you Mr Banker that is very generous of you to offer me 3 Cats, but No deal’.


Then I get to my final two boxes; the one I chose at the start of the show number 14, and number 19. The amounts I have left are £250,000 and 10p, all or nothing, or in boy terms; Nicholas Hoult or Kerry Katona’s ex husband. The banker makes me a final offer and the chance to swap which I refuse. Noel reaches for the seal and tears it off. The audience is silent and it’s all intense. The box is opened... And I wake up! After all that, I wake up! This has happened every time, so I never have any chance to see what I end up with; my prince charming or a charming idiot.

What have I learnt from this dream? Ah well, that Noel Edmund’s shirts really are terrible, that I need to text people back quicker and that if a ex starts to list all the things that annoy them about you, kick them in the back.


Although this is completely unrealistic, and will only ever happen in my dreams - I hope, I don’t think I could cope seeing that many ex boyfriends within the space of forty-five minutes - it reasserted some of the things that are said in the film I was watching when I fell asleep. All of these ex boyfriends that came out of the boxes I have either got over or will have to sometime in the future. Getting over some of them wasn’t easy, and I can almost predict that there will be break ups in the future that won’t be pretty. Unfortunately it is just the way we are programmed as humans and I am also a firm believer in that you won’t know how good you have it until you have had it bad.

One of the problems with getting over someone is that it doesn't matter how many different new ‘looks’ you get or shopping sprees you go on, or the amount of bottles of Wine you drink with your best friends. The chances are you will still go to bed every night and find yourself going over every little moment in the relationship, trying to work out what you did wrong. At some point you may even convince yourself that he will come to his senses and turn up at your door or ring you up begging for forgiveness. When you are ready, you will find yourself in a new place, somewhere where the people will make you feel worthwhile and eventually your heart will start to heal, and you will wonder why you ever wasted that much time fixating on every little mistake. The pain will start to fade.


Basically, all of the 1p and 10p boys of this world, who will hurt you and may even break your heart are not what you end up with. I promise you, that you will always get your £250,000 in the end. You may not be able to see him yet, and you may lose out on those smaller amounts, but as soon as you have that final relationship, you will feel so rich, those previous amounts won’t even matter.



Live. Laugh. Love