I'm feeling a little tired and un-eloquent today. Struggling to find words and write - not in an emotional way, just in an 'it's Monday' kind of way. So please excuse me if this just dribbles out my fingers and everything sounds a bit bland. This English student is clearly not ready to go back!
Southport Airshow
Last Sunday, Sammy and I, along with Sam's Dad went along to the Southport Airshow. Living on the coast, with Warton BAE and Blackpool airshow on my doorstep I've grown up with fighter planes whizzing over all hours of the day and night but in all my life I've never actually been to any of the airshows. This was a first. I really was not expecting it to be so exciting. It was a real thrill when the red arrows first emerged from behind us as we sat on the hill and they soared right over our heads.
The commentary was really interesting and my mind was well and truly blown when I realised that they were radioing down some of the commentary from the actual planes themselves as the leader of the arrows gave the commands and instructions to the other planes. It's amazing how they can fly so close to one another in such a tight flawless formation.
I'm not entirely sure of all the names of the planes that we saw, but it was quite exciting to watch a mock up sea rescue up close and it was also fun to watch the paratroopers sky dive onto the beach - it brought back memories of when I did my dive over three whole years ago. Sam took all of these pictures, because my camera phone is cack.
I got really cold and started to feel a bit unwell after a couple of hours so we didn't get to see all of the show and we missed the 'beach bombing' finale which was disappointing but I still had a really good day. I'm not sure if it was the cold making me feel so unwell or if it was just 'me'.
Back to uni
I was in work on Monday and Tuesday as usual and then on Tuesday night straight from work, I headed back to uni, with only a couple of bags in my car! I didn't bring a great deal back home with me when I came back to work for the summer, just a few shirts and jumpers that I thought might be useful to wear at work so I didn't really have very much to take back other than electronics like my laptops, chargers and some stationary that I had bought for back to uni. I wasn't actually in uni last week but I took the opportunity to see the girls and get some dissertation reading done.
On Thursday Irwin, Meggy B and I had a girly shopping trip to Liverpool which was really nice. We had a mooch and I treated myself to some new sports leggings for the gym, a cheap necklace from Primark and I also bought some presents for a certain upcoming birthday that I will be travelling back down south again for! Sam and I are very excited for this!
On Thursday night the girls had planned to go out to one of the freshers events - the paint party - but obviously got jealous of mine and Sam's pyjama and duvet party and we all stayed in and had a cosy night watching Mean Girls.
Another excellent film for Netflickers to check out is 'Oz The Great and Powerful' which Irwin and I watched in bed completely captivated on Wednesday night. It's a prequel to the Wizard of Oz starring the extremely beautiful James Franco [swoon] and I highly recommend it. Even though it's on Netflix, I think I am going to have to buy a copy for my DVD shelf!
It was good to be back with the girls, because I've missed them quite a lot and it just felt like a mad (but great) sort of normality was coming back to my life. It's our last year together, which we don't really like to think about so we have to make the most of it. I know we are all going to find it very difficult to move away from each other after we've spent the best part of three years, and also many of our term holidays together. We're all very close which is good because it's given my time at uni a good deal of stability since we've all been together since the start. This has definitely made my university experience a good deal easier in terms of the social aspects of living with stripes.
The Sharks
I don't really know how to give justice to the enormity of this part of the post. Many of you will know that I love sharks. I mean I really really love sharks. If everyone has a 'geeky' interest - mine is sharks. I think my love of sharks came about in the same way as the rest of the wacky items on my wish list (such as my wish to sky dive, completed in 2012) - from watching 'Jack Osbourne: Adrenaline Junkie' when I was bed bound and too sick to do anything except watch TV and think about all the things I'd want to do one day. The interest started with devouring all the shark Youtube videos, progressed to collecting National Geographic, shark week and David Attenborough books and DVDs, then I joined the Sharks trust, adopted a basking shark and then set my mind to it that I would swim with them. It was the one thing that was right at the top. If I had an end goal in mind, besides learning to walk again and being able to go to college/university and live independently it always came back to getting up and close with a shark.
I think the first time I left the house in maybe 6 months or more was with Laura to Blue Planet aquarium. That was the first step towards the dream. It was always Blue Planet that I was going to go to first - it was the most important thing to me if I was going to go anywhere and as soon as I was ready, Laura was ready to take me! We were probably about 15 years old and Laura took me in my wheelchair. I remember sitting by the massive window for absolutely ages just watching the huge sand-tiger sharks swim across the front. I knew you could dive with them at Blue Planet and it would have been so exciting to see someone get in with them that day but we didn't. The story that we always like to tell about our trip to Blue Planet (unrelated to the sharks) is when we went through the shark tunnel. You can walk through on the path (like sensible people) or you can go on the conveyor belt (like people unsensible people with a wheelchair). Now I think about it, I have absolutely no idea how Laura got me onto the conveyor belt, because that part of the story has been completely neglected thanks to how it ended. Basically, there is a red barrier, where you get off... or get sucked under the floor to meet your doom. 15 year old, 5 foot small Laura could not get my wheelchair off the conveyor belt as we got nearer and nearer the barrier which caused me to dive bomb out of it and the wheelchair ended up going through the red barrier. We also got stuck inside a rollercoaster simulator that day. So it was an interesting first trip out!
Anyway, that day was pretty big and pretty exciting and I ticked off seeing really big ones up close (I'd never seen Sand Tigers or any sharks that big before). It was amazing!
Earlier in the year Becca, Irwin and I went to the Sea Life Centre in Blackpool and we noticed that they were advertising a snorkelling with sharks experience and I was really excited! I decided that I would definitely be doing this!
In July, on my birthday Sam gave me a wonderful box of presents and I opened all my lovely gifts. At the end he handed me a final rather light parcel. I unwrapped it and was rather puzzled to find a bag of brown pellets. As Sam does he just stares me out and gives me absolutely no explanation for ages. Eventually he explained that we would be going to feed the sharks at the Sea Life Centre and I was absolutely ECSTATIC! I found out that Sam had enquired about snorkelling with the sharks and found a list of cans and cants - he found that my feeding tube/stoma fell into a bit of a grey area on what was considered a 'wound'. He sent an email and was given the response that I couldn't do it. When he told me this, I sent my own email just to doubley, trippley check that there was definitely no chance of me getting in with them. With my TPN at Salford on the horizon I know that it will soon be a clear categorical NO for swimming with them so I was desperate to find out really soon if there was any chance that I could snorkel but unfortunately I didn't have a response and so Sam and I just went ahead and booked a feed because I knew that either way, feeding them would be an absolute dream!
So, Saturday was the big day and we booked in to give them their afternoon feed! There was only me and Sam feeding them and we met up with a really cool 'shark man' called Steve who was awesome throughout the whole feed. He showed us some of the fish in the breeding programmes as we passed through the back to the shark enclosure and in one of the tubs was a baby ZEBRA SHARK of all things! This was obviously the icing on my cake and it was such a cute little thing swimming about the tank. She was probably about 30-40cm in length but Steve said that she would eventually grow to 3 metres! I can't wait to go and see her when she gets big enough to go in the shark enclosure - she will definitely be the star attraction!
Steve fed his favourite fish, Napoleon the Humphead Wrasse which was so cool to watch and then passed me a fish and let me hand feed the enormous Gary the Grouper fish! He was massive and it was only after that Steve told me that Gary once took hold of his entire arm when he was hand feeding him - he clarified that yes, it hurt. Gary was very lovely though and showed no interest in my arm.
After that we took some big poles and put some fish on the end and we got to feed the black tip (Boris), white tips (Willy and Wonka - Wonka has a wonky fin) and the nurse sharks. Some of the sharks were quite rough on the pole as they tried to take their fish - at times I thought I might inadvertently get to swim with them after all. Down below the enclosure in the tunnel, we waved at all the spectators and felt dead special whilst a talk was given on the sharks and their feeding regime. Steve was so awesome all the way through and really made sure we had a wicked time and got to see and do everything that we possibly could - I think he might have liked sharks more than I do because he seemed so excited to show us everything which made our experience really special. Sam told him about how much I wanted to swim with the sharks and Steve offered to make his own enquiries to see if he could take me in the snorkelling net himself. He said he couldn't make any promises but I'm keeping everything crossed that I can get to do this before I go in for TPN!
It was definitely the best experience I have had to date and I cannot believe how close I was to the sharks! They were absolutely amazing and as corny as it sounds this was definitely a dream come true!
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| You can't him see here, but I'm actually hand feeding Gary the Grouper! |
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| Steve feeding Napoleon |
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| Feeding the nurse shark (one was called Spot and I can't remember the name of the other one) and Boris the black tip! |
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| Sammy waiting for a shark to take his fish |
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| Sammy treated me to this cute shark mug from the gift shop at the end of the day and I have been enjoying my tea from it! |
On Friday night, we went to Morrisons to buy some food for our Harvest Festival and church. It seems weird to say that shopping for Harvest was fun and I could have just kept on going through the shop chucking things into the trolley. Shopping for myself is so much effort. First it has to be liquid or possible to liquidise, then it has to be free from all my allergens. It's usually boring and most things I pick up have to go back on the shelf. When I shop for food for Sam, he usually chooses it, so that isn't the same. This time I picked things up, chose them myself and put them in the trolley! The only restriction was that it had to be non-perishable.
Harvest Festival was wonderful and I haven't done it since I was maybe 11, so it was lovely to get involved again and see a church full of people bringing their goodies and being so selfless. All the food that was collected went to Southport Foodbank which is obviously an excellent cause. It's so wrong that there are people going hungry so close to home (it's wrong that anyone should go hungry, near or far). I have a physical impairment which makes eating food tricky, but when I'm not getting enough nutrition, help is readily available and it can be given through my tube or in hospital. Due to my condition, my nutrition is so closely monitored and is readily available for me in a bag and yet there are healthy people going hungry right around the corner. It was really good to be able to give some food to the cause and I hope that someone enjoys the goodies that Sam and I chose for our box. Coincidently our box was an empty Nutricia box (what my feed comes in) so I like to think that I was literally passing the food parcel along!
That brings us up to date now. I just have tomorrow in work, and then I'm leaving work to get to Uni for 5pm for third year introduction and refreshments!
Hope you all had a lovely Harvest and good luck to all the freshers starting university as well as those who are going into their second year (it all counts now guys!) and third and final year! Especially good luck to those who are doing dissertations - may your creative juices now flow!
Lots of love to all x
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