Writing Challenge Day 2

Why hello there. Today has been a rather lazy day, I’ve done cooked some good food and lazed around the house (not sure why that sentence started out all hillbilly-ish but I’ll leave it that way) I had some online training to do and some forms to fill out for this Deliveroo job, I’m really looking forward to starting it as the thought of getting paid to ride my bike vs the other job prospects around seems fantastic even if it is Baltic out there at the moment. I was also filling out loads of paperwork as I’m applying for housing benefits so that I can actually have a chance of paying my rent in January. This is something I was a bit apprehensive about but I figure I’ve paid my fair share of tax for over a decade now so I don’t feel too guilty taking from a pot that I’ve contributed to, hopefully my application will be approved. On a different note, I made an awesome lunch, the photo might not do it justice but it was sooo damn tasty. It was fried rice with Linda McCartney sausages, red onions, scotch bonnets, black olives, peas, sweetcorn, soy sauce, Encona Hot Pepper Sauce (because I can’t live without it!) and some smoked paprika because it’s just the best. I’ve been trying to find ways to make rice interesting as it’s pretty much my least favourite carb and yeah I nailed it on this one, all vegan too which is a bonus. I can’t wait to make it again at some point.

This evening, I made a couple of phone calls and caught up with my Grandma and my dad which was nice, hopefully I’ll see them both at the weekend. I also went for a cruise around Gloucester on the skateboard, I was hoping to see some weird/sketchy stuff going down so I could write about it but nothing eventful happened other than me getting lost on the way to Aldi, yeah actually that wasn’t eventful. It was a nice evening though, very cold but that just means you can work harder before breaking a sweat so I’m down with that. It hadn’t been raining but the floor was quite damp, due to the low temperature I think. The dampness made it pretty slippy so I had to take it steady and pay attention, I love it when it’s like that it forces me to get in that zone of concentration and makes me mindful of my actions and environment, it really helps to push everything else out of your mind which I feel is good to do. As I was making my way back home I thought I would try and do some dumpster diving but had no luck in the ones I checked, one day I’ll get that pot of gold! As I was doing this the bells from the cathedral started up so I decided to make a detour and see what was going on there. Turns out not a lot, I guess they must have been practising but the doors were sealed so no way in, it was ridiculously loud though and I felt bad for all the people that live in the square around it. I tried to take a good photo but this one will have to do instead. So yeah, not the most eventful day but at least I haven’t flaked out on the blog yet. I’ve got college tomorrow so maybe some exciting stuff will go down there. Night X

Writing Challenge Day 1

So here we go, day one of my 66 days of blogging. Today has been quite a productive and enjoyable day but I have some thinking to do. As I said yesterday I had two interviews today, the one in the cinema was like an assessment day which lasted about two hours and was actually really enjoyable, we had to do various numeracy and literacy tests, also some group work and some solo oratory stuff. All of which is well within my comfort zone and I feel I came across well, I have just checked and have an email from them asking me to give them a call so I’m assuming they are offering me a job, I’ll call them tomorrow, however if that’s not the case I’ll end up looking like a right tit now, but oh well. I also had a voicemail from Subway offering me a job, which is also a good option but the real gem of the day was the trial shift I had with Deliveroo. I think out of the three this is the one that I want the most, the trial shift went well, it was only an hour and was actually just spent talking over details of what the job entails rather than doing the job itself, that comes later I’m told. My trial shift was with a lovely girl called Zoe who is also studying animal welfare at Hartpury, I can’t remember her job title but she’s essentially the team leader for Deliveroo Gloucester and seems like a great person to work with. I met her outside Cafe Tucci in Gloucester Quays and we cycled over to Coffee #1, en route we witnessed what we thought was a mugging, there were two guys acting a bit crazy and running down the street while an equally crazy girls was yelling as she gave chase, Zoe was even lucky enough to take a punch from one of the suspected wrongdoers as we cycled passed, she said she was fine though and didn’t seem too phased so I took her word for it and we carried on our way, we saw some police just up the road so stopped off to report it, it seems like this isn’t too rare round these ways. All I need to do is get my background check sorted and fingers crossed, I’m in. Realistically I need to weigh up my options and consider what’s going to be best for me but you know what, I think work is such an important part of life and we spend so much time there I’m inclined just to say fuck it and just go with my heart. I’ll sleep on it and see how I feel. In general it’s been a good day, I’ve smashed out plenty of press ups and flutter kicks, planked my ass off and eaten super healthy foods. I made an awesome satay sauce from scratch and managed to find some scotch bonnets to go in it so it packed a punch, I paired it up with some cauliflower couscous and some courgetti that I found reduced in Sainsbury’s and made enough for lunch tomorrow as well. I cooked rice in the slow cooker for the first time and only burnt a tiny bit of it so I consider that a success, I’m looking forward to doing some kind of fried rice thing for breakfast, stand by for updates. If I can I’ll get some photos up tomorrow. I say if I can, I actually have no plans for tomorrow so I’m sure I can fit something interesting in. So that’s day 1, I hope as I progress through this challenge I’ll find more interesting things to write about and I hope this will motivate and inspire me to do more interesting things in general but we’ll have to wait and see. Night X

Nov 2016

So I got home safe and sound from my trip and have spent the last few months shaking things up and reworking different aspects of my life so here’s a brief overview. I got a new job in Reading as a cycle mechanic and worked here until I started college in September, initially I tried to live between Hartpury and Reading, studying and camping 3 days a week in Hartpury and working the rest of the time in Reading, turns out this wasn’t all that feasible and by October it was getting a bit too chilly to be living outside, don’t get me wrong camping in winter is great fun but it’s a different story when you don’t have a warm home to go back to. So I quit the job in Reading and moved to Gloucester. I also broke up with my girlfriend which wasn’t an easy thing to do as I still really care about her and it’s never nice to hurt someone you care about. I feel it would be wrong to give any details out here but  I wish her all the best and hope she finds someone that can make her very happy because she genuinely deserves it, unfortunately I’m just not that man. Before we broke up we had a little trip through Italy(Venice & Trieste) and into Slovenia where we stayed in Ljubljana and visited Lake Bled and the Vintgar Gorge, I cannot recommend Slovenia enough and I can’t wait to go back. So here I am in Gloucester, in a shared house with 4 other guys who are all pretty chilled out & easy going dudes which suites me just fine. I’ve been working hard to finding work here but it seems the job market here is a lot more saturated than in Reading. I’ve always said that it’s easy to find work as long as you don’t care what you do however I now realise I was fortunate enough to live in a place where work was readily available and I think I took that for granted. I have been working in a night club for the last few weeks but made the decision to quit last week as the hours were terrible and the whole place stank of vomit, the people were all cool but it was a very isolating experience being surrounded by drunk people dancing to music that I’m not so into. I have two interviews tomorrow, one with Deliveroo and one in a cinema so with a bit of luck I may be able to earn enough money to pay my rent in January and even get some nice Christmas presents for the family. The main reason I’ve decided to start blogging again is because I’m craving that next step, that next level, I’m going to set myself some challenges, I’m wanting to go fully vegan and to step up the exercise, I’m trying to be more mindful and more creative, so these challenges will focus on diet, exercise, meditation, playing music and writing. In order to succeed I want to make myself accountable, accountable to you. Apparently it takes 66 days for something to become a habit and for that habit to stick so I’m going to set myself 66 day challenges in the hope that I can continue to grow and explore myself. The first challenge I’m going to set is to blog for 66 days in a row, starting tomorrow. So here we go wish me luck.