My Week In A Nutshell

Hello my lovely ladies and gentlemen.

Sorry I’m late with this post but my internet’s been down since Thursday (when I usually upload) so I shall upload Thursday’s post today. Here it is…

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I'm feeling a little drained today so I don't have a big exciting post lined up - though I hope to have some later in the week. So today shall be another lifestyle post about what I've got up to this week.

On Saturday my grandparents arrived from England for their holiday here on Arran. They'd began their journey at half four in the morning I believe, when they were driven to the train station. (Does that time even exist? It's so early!) This was so that they could arrive on Arran during the afternoon and it was a great time to arrive as it was a beautiful sunny day as it has been for a long time! I can't believe how fabulous the weather has been this year!

Sunday was the "weird day". That is quoting one of my bestfriends, Iona who I might add, began her day by trying to hitchhike the 8 1/2 miles home at 8:30 in the morning because she forgot the buses were different on a Sunday and needed to go home from a friend's before work. One of the many reasons we love her.

The reason it ended up being a "weird day" however, was mainly because of the evening. This is when me, Iona and Chummy (her real name is Kirsty but as we have two bestfriends called Kirsty so we call this one chummy to make life easier) met up after work as usual whilst we waited for our bus. During this time, Chummy wanted to look around one of the shops in the village - where she later purchased another one of at least ten trinket boxes for her room's storage - but me and Iona had ice-creams so we waited outside. After about 10 minutes we began to get a little bored and decided we'd run and hide for chummy to find us once she'd finished shopping. So off we toddled with our ice-creams like little kids to hide near the bank - convenient as I needed to get some money out. This was when I told Iona that I sometimes pay money to my parents for my living costs as I now work and earn enough to do so to which she replied, "What? You pay rent to live in your parents' house?" and I told her "No, I contribute to the house for how much I cost. I cost a lot you know.". We then finished our ice-creams and decided to pop into the co-op because chummy still hadn't made an appearance out of the shop.

Whilst in there, we went to the alcohol section for a while as Iona is now 18 and we felt that it was almost mandatory to do so. In this time chummy had still not turned up and just before we were about to go and rescue her from buying anymore trinket boxes we bumped into a lovely regular from our work who is notorious for hugging everyone who works there whenever she sees us. So after a cuddle we had a bit of a chat with her during which Iona, of course, became distracted and walked away only to return a few moments later with a chocolate cake to show me. After agreeing how nice it looked the ‘hugging lady’ said she was going to buy it for us and before we could say no she had put it through the till and handed it to us whilst we stood there motionless not sure how to cope with this sudden awkward but pleasant position we had just found ourselves in. Our way of coping seemed to be one of a hasty "thankyou" and exit as this is what we did. So out we walked back to pick up chummy and her new trinket box with our gift of a chocolate cake and a few funny looks from the people around us who must have thought that was our only intention of visiting the co - to get cake from nice, hug-giving old ladies.

Tuesday had a similar feel of weirdness as it was the first day in a long time that it properly rained. And I mean rained. I was working that day and within seconds of me arriving the lights in the cafe were flickering and the deep rumble of thunder was echoing. And then the rain started; the kind of rain that if you stood out in it for even a second you'd be drenched. It was so heavy and loud! The building I work in has a metal roof as well so it sounded quite scary. 

Not as scary however, as the sight of 18 damp lady golfers arriving for coffee to escape the rain all at the same time. I'll tell you now, trying to ask who's coffee it was in your hand with the rain hitting off the metal roof and 18 poshly dressed ladies shouting across to one another is not for the faint hearted. "Who's is the white coff- THE WHITE COFFEE!!"

Wednesday, I'm glad to say, was a much quieter day as it was my day off. It began with a much needed lie-in before my grandparents arrived to take me and my sisters out for the day. We had a stroll down to the village and had lunch at a cafe before getting some ice-cream from my mum's shop which is also in the village. (I had the lemon cheesecake ice-cream which was better than my words can express.) After that, we went to the apartment my grandparents are staying at to chill for a while before visiting the beach beside it.

Here me and my sisters worked together - for a change - to create a big heart of sand and some little masterpieces of our own.

My grandparents.

Today was my second and last day off until next week and so my initial plan was to just sit and do nothing. I had forgotten thought that I was meeting with an art gallery owner from the island to get some feedback and advice on my paintings from my Advanced Higher concerning how to go about selling them. It was very useful and he told me that my art, being abstract, may be quite difficult to sell which was a little disheartening but he then said that some of my biro work might be better suited to interior design. In other words having my floral designs on lamps and things. This was really exciting for me to hear as a goal of mine since about half-way through doing my art course was to one day make a business of my own where I sell cushions, aprons, curtains, mugs, you name it, with my art on them. This is why instead of selling my paintings on there own I am going to look into finding some way of getting my art onto the latter list of items beginning with cards. This I hope to do very soon and I will of course share these with you on a future post.

Another exciting thing that happened today (well, for a quiet day anyway) is that I have now ordered a decent camera for my film-making since I have saved up some money to do so! There are so many different budget cameras on the market these days which did not make mine and my dad's job easy as we searched through page after page of "the best budget cameras". I have found one I like though and cannot wait for it to arrive so I can try it out. I think I'll post a review on it as well once I've got a handle of it so that'll be coming up in the next few weeks as well as lots of videos hopefully! Yay!

That's pretty much everything of interest that happened this week. Not one to blow your socks off but still a good week. I have also decided this week that I will definitely be posting more than once a week so prepare to see me more than just every Thursday. *distant scream*.

So until my next post, I hope you have a lovely couple of days and make many happy memories, 

Mollie

♥

P.S. I almost forgot. Me and my mum have also spent today setting up and starting her new blog and I know she would love it if you would check it out HERE. Thanks <3

Lama Farmer

Hello everyone.

I hope you've had a lovely week and managed to have a peak at my bonus photo blog from yesterday of my high school Leavers Do.

Now something I don't think I've mentioned before is that me and my family own alpacas-around 13 I think. You know, the usual. Alpacas are small, cuter versions of lamas for those who maybe don't know and I am glad to say alpacas don't spit at humans like lamas do but if you're not careful you could get caught in the cross-fire between two of them. Ew. Speaking of lamas, one of the key reasons for my parents wanting to buy one or two alpacas was because my dad wanted to be able to call himself a "Lama Farmer". The Hodkinsons' purchasing priorities never cease to impress. 
Our alpacas live on our field and are quite sweet most of the time that is until it's time to shear them.... Each year at this time we need to shear them and my parents couldn't do it on their own so it ends up becoming a bit of a family event- again, the usual. I dread this time of year because it tends to be the perfect time for midgies and the idea of chasing, catching and holding down alpacas to be sheared just doesn't appeal to me (I know, shocking). We got through it though and managed to shear the five boy alpacas -just 8 more to go. Woo.
After shearing them however we do get some comic relief when we release them and see what a mess they are despite our best efforts. 

 Looking fabulous.

I think my face illustrates the level of fun I'm having... 

On the Monday it was one of my best friend's birthday. Iona turned 18! I can't believe that she's 18, I feel like an auntie or something who's feeling a little shocked that my little girl's growing up- despite the fact that I'm 4 months younger than her. 
On her birthday Iona was unfortunately working however everyone at work helped make her day special by presenting a little birthday strawberry tart complete with a candle and sang happy birthday to her. Our manager had also bought her some novelty glasses that had "Happy Birthday" on them and insisted Iona served a customer with them on. 
Shortly after, Iona left work and said "see you later" to me and little did she know that she would in fact see me later as me and some friends were going to meet at her house for a mini surprise party. We had all arranged to meet at Iona's at around 7 which was when I finished work so after glamorously getting dressed in a small bus terminal toilet me and my friend went up to Iona's house to find a lovely gazebo full of little nibbles and champagne as well as Iona's poor dad who was fighting off the thousands of midges. We all decided then that we should move the party inside and some champagne and strawberries later we sang happy birthday and had a good catch up.
It was a lovely evening and I think Iona really enjoyed it so successful mission.

After the party I went home for some sleep as I had work the next day and had to be up by 8. That was nothing compared to the time I got up yesterday though which was my day off - 6:30 am! Even the birds were still sleeping. One thing I love about getting up early though is seeing the sunrise; it's a beautiful reward for being awake at ridiculous times.
The reason I was up so early was because me and my family were going to the mainland and were catching the first ferry. Whilst there we did some errands and things and then went to see Despicable Me 2 at the cinema. Overall I was pretty impressed with the film and I loved that they brought in a new female character, Lucy, for Gru -she was so cool- and of course the touches of comedy were really great as in the first film. It was also interesting to watch as a wannabe film-maker because the level of detail in each scene, the use of colour, the life-like animation and the realism in the characters' movements and mannerisms are all fascinating to me to see in an animation.
After watching the film we then did some retail therapy where I think I was very sensible with my spending for a change which surprised even myself and I was very happy with my purchases when I returned home-some summery tops, summery shoes, jeans and the most important... cosy jammies.

That's the end of this week's update apart from mentioning this evening. I went out with Iona and some other friends for Iona's first purchase of alcohol in a pub. She stayed classy with a glass of wine whilst I was of course on the orange juice. We all sat down on the cosy couch in the corner together eating nachos and enjoying the live music playing. Me and my friend Alex got very into the music at one point with our air guitar etc. which led the singer to shout out to us to finish the line "I'm loving angels instead". We were horrifically out of tune but I think our jazzy moves more than made up for it. After that we began eyeing up the pool table and after waiting a loooong time in the line of people waiting to play, me and Iona began our assault of the game. We weren't the best players and everyone watching knew it so after a while it just got a little embarrassing. This is why we may have accidentally knocked one or two of the balls into the pockets when no one was looking. I'd like to add that I won the game though. I was pretty pleased.
The rest of the week I have spent working which for me isn't a bad thing. I'm still loving it there and today in fact a lovely customer out of the blue told me I had "amazing eyes". Aw shucks. It made my day.

Anyway, that is enough of my ramblings for this week. I'll see you next week with either another life post or a second installment of my series called "Mollie's Thoughts" that I'd like to begin to progress. We shall see. Until then,

Mollie

♥

School’s Out

Hello everyone.

Well, that’s me finished school now. Goodness me I can’t believe it. 6 years of my life has passed already, that’s really scary to me. As promised I will fill you in on my last school day shenanigans.

The day began with everyone signing each others shirts and sharing our prank plans for the day. It also involved everyone agreeing that as it was our last day we would not be required to go to class as no other year had. How wrong we were. I had double-art first thing and as we’d all finished our work and thought we would just be painting for the sake of it if we went there was a unanimous vote that we’d all stay in the common room with everyone else who were also missing classes. Besides, we thought that’s what teachers would expect on our last day but when the bell rang and everyone stayed soaking up our last day together we had a rude awakening by our head and class teacher telling us to get to class or we’d be sent home. Oops. So I spent the first two-hours of my day painting which isn’t so bad I guess, but plans for pranking were delayed.

To be honest we were all a little disappointed with ourselves at what little pranks we played. I was involved in a few petty ones including me and my best friend dressing up as our head teacher. We weren’t sure what his reaction would be or if anyone would realise who were imitating but we were definitely not expecting the reaction we got from him! He was flattered that we’d dressed as him and almost proud of us-I don’t think he grasped that we were taking the mick.

We also made a poster saying “S6 2013” and had everyone in our year sign it then we placed it in a hard-to-reach area in the hope it will stay there for a while.

The next prank involved me and my friends writing random comments such as “Hug a sloth” or “Tickle my pickle” (my contribution) on lots and lots of post-its and sticking them all over the walls of the downstairs corridor.

This plan didn’t work out quite as we’d hoped though because the janitors (who were amused by our attempts) simply took them all down before anyone in the school could see our master-piece. *sigh*

Next up we provided sticker moustaches for people in our year based on that of our head teachers’. Once again however, I think he felt we were simply creating a shrine to him. Then when lunch-time came, me and my friends very suspiciously walked out of the canteen and went up to the balcony above it and dropped a bin-bag’s worth of balloons over everyone in the canteen. They fell to the cheer of everyone below who seemed to like our colourful contribution to the day.

That was pretty much all me and my friends did as we were too busy trying to spend time together and saying “goodbye” and “thankyou” to teachers however the rest of our year’s pranks included: putting a plant, table and chair on a hill outside our school with a hoody and a balloon-face based on our head teacher, then two boys in my year ran around the school in morph-suits, leeks were then put on a teacher’s car and the best one, when one of the girls in my year managed to access our school’s tannoy system and made an announcement about our year in the style of our head-teacher.

So that’s that. School? Done. Next up is my gap-year, university and then who knows what else. Exciting times ahead and I’ll be sure to bring you along with me. Thankyou for your continuing support each week.

Mollie

♥