20 Things I'll Miss About Winchester.

There are a million and one things that I will miss about Winchester. I’m not even relocating far away - I’m just heading to Southampton which is the next city over. Winchester couldn’t be more different though, and it’ll be those differences that I notice when I wake up to a train going past rather than the bells of the cathedral. 

So, in my last week of being a fully fledged Winchesterite, I’m doing lots of reminiscing and waxing lyrical about the city I’ve spent the last four years of my life in. Here’s a short selection of the long ol’ list things that I will miss about Winchester; 

1. Winchester in the Summer.
   Winchester in the summer is so ridiculously picturesque, it’s almost annoying. Cathedrals and beautiful architecture book end every street and the people are so unique, it’s hard not to be inspired and intrigued by the people that flock into town for things like The Hat Fair.
   
   
2. Cathedral Grounds.
   Speaking of people flocking; the Cat Grounds seems to have some sort of magnetic force field which attracts anyone and everyone in a two mile radius, making them lay out on the grass and sun-worship. Families with small French Bulldogs called Gloria and a thousand foreign students, rocking their bright orange NCS T-shirts.
   
   
3. Locals.
   This sounds strange, but you do learn to recognise certain Winchester faces even though you may never interact with them. There’s the man who often sits outside either Costa or ASK Italian who set his feet on fire not too long ago. There’s the older gentleman who busks with his steel guitar, playing the most beautiful Ice Cream Truck melodies that fill the air of the high street. The blonde woman, that crosses my path every week day; no idea who she is, or what she does, but she’s always walking the opposite direction to me around 930 every morning and she always smiles.
   
   
4. Maya from Starbucks
   Beautiful Maya; she knows my coffee order and I sometimes get her free stuff from Lush. She’s always happy and smiling and only once have I ever seen her hungover and even then it was still somewhat endearing.
   
   
5. Jack from Costa
   There’s a guy who works at Costa who’s saving for an MA in Cognitive Neuroscience. How cool is that? He tried to talk to me once like I didn't know what ‘synesthesia’ meant or like I didn’t quite get what ‘cognitive’ meant, but aside from that he’s interesting and he’s always nice to me when making my Peach Ice Tea to go (with an extra pump of Peach Syrup).
   
   
6. Sainsburies on my doorstep
   Although this has become an expensive habit, the staff at Sainsburies regularly see me rushing across the round at 7:49pm to stock up on Monster, carbs and Italian meats before they close at 8pm. Will I ever learn to go before closing? Probably not. Do they still ID me? Never; which makes me feel hella old.
   
   
7. Sunday Markets
   Winchester is famous for it’s markets; there’s a huge billboard at Waterloo Station at Christmas advertising Winchester’s Nordicesque Christmas Market and the rest of the year, Winchester alternates between the weekly fresh fruit and food markets to the Sunday markets. Sunday Market’s alternate between Arts & Crafts markets where you can find amazing things, including none other than my person favourites Remnant Black and Noah’s Arts & Crafts, and Vintage & Antique Markets where I can always find something to convince myself I need.
   
   
8. My Bath Tub
   Working for Lush, it’s an occupational hazard that you may fall in love with your bath tub. I’m moving from my two bed in Winchester to a room in a Young professional house in Southampton where my house-full of things must go into one room and there are only two showers. No tub. I have made this decision because of purely financial reasons and unfortunately the bath became something I couldn’t keep. Friends with baths, I will be inviting myself to your house for bathing on a semi-regular basis, hope you’re all okay with this.
   
   
9. KKB Sundeck
   Although I only visited the deck a couple times, each time was wonderful. Good smoothies, always catches the last of the summer evening sunshine, and a great view of the uni and the trees beyond. You forget you in the centre of a city when you’re surrounded by so much green.
   
   
10. Wolvsey Castle Ruins
    Continuing on with the theme of green…
    Wolvsey Castle Ruins are the perfect place for a picnic especially when the Cat Grounds are full of freshers and small children who don’t understand that I just wanna soak up a little sun and talk with my friends. People seem to forget it’s there, which is quite nice when you remember, but also it’s another good spot for the last of the summer evening sunshine.
    
    
11. The Cathedral ‘Spot’
    Staying on the idea of finding your own spot in the sun, my friend Cassi introduced me to her Winchester Sun Spot recently; third bench in from the right behind the Cathedral (where the majority of the christmas market stall usually are erected) - it’s so warm there; it’s sheltered so you never get the chill of the breeze, and you’re in direct sunlight for the most of the day so it’s the perfect place to top up your tan with a book or grab a quick coffee and soak up your recommended daily allowance of vitamin D on your lunch break!
    
    
12. Fruit Market Lady
    I want to say her name is Jane, something like that; Jane, or Kate…something short and simple which coincidentally is a lot like her. She’s just a woman, no more than 5’5 who works on the fruit and veg stall in Winchester, but boy does she have some pipes on her. She’s got that “Two punnet’sa raspberries for a pand!” down perfectly - the Winchester high street soundtrack would be lost without her shouts peppering the street.
    
    
13. Yasmin from the Co Op
    Yasmin doesn’t even know my name and that is absolutely fine. Every day after work, I’d get off the train at Winchester station and head into the Co Op. She was always there; hair and make up always impeccable, but in an effortless way. We bonded over sarcastic eye rolls at crazy customers and we wallowed in misery about how the days seemed neverending.
    
    
14. Winchester Coffee Lifestyle
    I know this must sound strange, but because Winchester is so small and because there are so many coffee shops, it’s very easy to fall into what I call Winchester Coffee Lifestyle. Meeting friends for coffee becomes a regular, if not daily, occurrence because everyone is so busy but they’re more than happy to stop for 1/2 an hour for a coffee.
    
    
15. The White Company
    I’ll miss The White Company store in Winchester because I worked for TWC in London and the stores, the scents and the high thread count sheets remind me of a really good time in my life. Except the time that a bottle of Wild Thyme Room Spray ended me in A&E but that’s another story.
    
    
16. Bar Girl/Bar Owners
    I worked in four bars in my time in Winchester, which was again a really good time in my life. Whilst I wasn’t a massive fan of the hours, the people I met and the silliness that took place made up for that. Winchester has many many bars and pubs, but most of them are owned by the same people; Jane owns The Mucky Duck, The Corner House, The Green Man and I’m sure something else, at the time Colin owned The Exchange, Alfie’s, The William Walker and then of course, David has The Black Bottle, The Black Rat, The Black Boy and now The Black Hole. When you work in hospitality in Winchester, it is very likely that at some point you will end up working for one of the aforementioned. They all come with their own pro’s and con’s but bar work’ll bring you an interesting lifestyle you can’t quite decide if you like or not.
    
    
17. Knowing every third person on the street
    Having worked in hospitality in Winchester, your world becomes smaller.
    Having lived in the city centre, your world becomes even smaller.
    You begin to realise that you recognise faces of almost everyone around you, if not you know them personally. This is good on one hand, because you’re never too far from a friendly face, unfortunately on the other hand, this also means you're never too far from a not-so friendly face. I like knowing people and saying Hi in the street, but I’m not a fan of the Wessex Whisperers spreading my  business around.
    
    
18. University
    Winchester University has been my centre of education for the past four years, so it’s no wonder that I’m going to miss it. The buildings themselves all hold sensitive and scandalous memories  (that belong not just to me, but also my many house/course mates) it’ll be interesting to see how I feel about it in a few years. Not to mention of course the lecturers; crying on Vanessa, a near-miss car crash with an unnamed American Studies lecturer and of course two unforgettable weeks in Vegas as part of the American Studies course.
    
    
19. Prison, Hospital, Law Courts, Melbury Lodge
    I don’t know whether it’s because Winchester used to be the capital of England, or whether it’s because it’s not too far from London, or even simply just because it’s a well established city but Winchester is well equipped for everything. If you need inspiration for your Creative Writing degree, it’s all right there waiting on your doorstep. I’ll miss that about Winchester, but I’m sure I’ll find new inspiration.
    
    
20. The friends that have become family.
    Of course, this is going to sound a little soppy, but it’s true. I met some life long friends in Winchester, some I speak to everyday and some I don’t speak to for weeks but when I do, we pick up right where we left off. My Aunt always used to say to me ‘It’s the friends you meet at University that you keep for life, not those you meet at College…’ - and she couldn’t have been more right. People who I thought were my best friends in College, I haven’t heard from in years. The girls and guys I met in my years in Winchester will always be with me, even if geographically they couldn’t be further away. 

Being Honest - Boys & Girls Can Be Friends.

In this installment on WhatLexySaid, I’ll be taking the age-old and long-pondered question of whether the lads and the ladies can be, oh-so-simply, just friends.

Before I elaborate entirely, I should give a small disclaimer that yes, I do believe we can all be friends without wanting to jump each other’s bones. If you disagree, this is your stop on the train of this discussion. Time to hop off; you’re the reason that eleven year olds don’t think they can be friends with the girls in their class because of the ridicule and teasing that their mere friendship can bring.

Anyway, now that we’re left with all the open-minded folk, let’s get down to it. 

Since I started secondary school, earlier than that... since primary school, I’ve had a predominance of male friends. I remember far more of the boys names from primary school than I do the girls. Does that make seven year old me a little sauce-pot? No, it doesn’t. 

Obviously, in Secondary School there came a time when I realised maybe I wanted to spend a little more time with certain guys, but that didn’t mean that I had to feel like that about all of my male friends. I understood that, it’s the people who don’t who seem to be the problem.

My first year at University, I ended up living with a boy as well as four girls. Nothing romantic has ever happened between us, and we’re still good friends to this day. Gasp-shock-horror? What? How is that even possible? This is just the way it is.  As with most of my male friends, we never made the conscious decision to inform the other person that we weren’t attracted to each other, it was unspoken yet known. For the predominance of my third year at University, there were usually more men in my house than there were ladies and my one female housemate and I would often find ourselves coughing and spluttering in a cloud of testosterone and Lynx Africa, among other things.
We weren’t attracted to them and they weren’t either. It was that easy.

My friend Grace reminds me however “if there is a hint of something more on the table it can get messy...” and of course, in true Gracie-fashion, she’s right. But that’s okay too. As long as you’re honest with each other, there doesn’t have to be any drama. As soon as you bring sex and all those feelings into the equation, a million more questions pop up and sometimes, like Rachel says - it’s never off the table but it’s always best to keep communication lines open and talk about it.

Once I’ve been with someone romantically, can we go back to being purely-platonic friends again?
I’m going to go with yes, on this one. Yes you can go back to being friends. Whether you’ve moved on to dating someone new or not, if you want that other person in your life but not in a romantic sense then tell them. Make it happen as best you can, but don’t push it.
Obviously, I understand that if you’re coming out of serious relationship, flipping back into being good friends may be difficult; no one is saying you have to be friends immediately, if at all. Sometimes it’s too hard to get over that person and what they mean/meant to you.

What if I want something more/less than he/she does?
Respect is of utmost importance – to quote another song, you can’t make someone love you if they don’t. But you also can’t make someone not love you. Be respectful of the other person’s feelings if they differ from your own; you might be ready to be friends again, but they might need more time.
Or, if you’ve never been together romantically and one person wants to progress into that and the other doesn’t, then just be honest. Let them hide away for a week and lick their wounds, if that’s what they need, but remind them at the end of the day you’re still friends.

Does being jealous of my friend spending time with their other half mean that I’m attracted to them?
Not at all. You can miss someone’s company and their attention and not be attracted to them. If you used to get Pizza every two-for-Tuesday night, and now Tuesday night has been reallocated to their other half as date night, you’re allowed to miss that time together.

*

With 2015 just around the corner and hurtling towards us like a freight train, I encourage more people to take on the honesty philosophy...

If you want to see someone, tell them.
If you like someone, tell them.
What’s the worst that could happen?
 They don’t feel that way? At least you know.
If you miss someone, tell them.
If you want to call, call.
If you want to chat, then chat.
In the same sense...
If you don’t want to see someone, tell them.
If you don’t miss someone, don’t say it.

If I’ve learned anything recently, it’s to not say something if you don’t mean it.
Don’t say things for the sake of it, people will only get hurt and read into things that don’t mean what they want them to.

After graduating in October, it’s been hard enough entering the big bad world without picking and choosing who you’re going to be friends with based on their sex/sexual preferences. My friends all went back to their parent’s towns after University, I stayed in Winchester, so when it comes to new friends I’ve taken what I can and I’m ever-grateful for them all. I wouldn’t be without them.

Maybe I’m not the best person to be giving out relationship advice, but there’s so much chatter about how there is absolutely no possible way that people of the opposite sex could every be purely friends and it bugs me.

Rant over J the floor is now open to discussion...

Graduation; Long Live Class of 2014

“Enjoy your moment...” Jude Davies smiled to me, as I shuffled up next to him on the Cathedral stage.  Remember this moment, I said in the back of my mind; remember this moment and don’t trip.

Tuesday 14^th October was my Graduation day and let me tell you, it’s been a long time coming. Whilst I enjoyed my prom, back in Secondary school, and I had fun – Graduation was my prom. I was far more excited to go into the Cathedral that day than I was to take a bus ride to The Weald Of Kent golf club.

As a congregation, we stood with our shaking hands listening intently to the man whispering our instructions – where to go, how many steps to take, shake with your right hand, don’t forget to smile, don’t panic, don’t trip. With a group of more mature ladies before me in the graduation ceremony, I felt a little more at ease – I’d get to see them do it first so no excuses to screw up. My beautiful friend, who my boyfriend still refers to as Dolphin, was before me on the list too so the excitement within me bubbled for her as she walked to Jude and then as her name was called, to Professor Dame Mary Fagan (DCVO) at centre stage for a quick handshake before being then ushered off stage left to receive her Diploma packet.

Tentatively I stepped forward wincing as the gentleman at the stand called out my name, my full name; Alexandra Guinevere Brookman (pipe down). Right, left, right, left and I heard something I didn’t expect. A little cheer came from the back of the longest nave in the UK and I smiled – my parents, my grandmother and my partner were faces in the crowd that I couldn’t quite make out, but I knew they were there – I could hear them.

“It seems you brought your fan club with you.” Dame Mary Fagan said, shaking my hand.
“It seems so.” I nodded, positively glowing.

Having returned to my seat, my eyes welled up a little. As they read off our names, I couldn’t have been more proud. Proud of my friends for getting through everything that they did, proud of myself for giving the best that I could and proud of my family for supporting me and travelling all the miles to see me graduate.

Getting tickets for my family was a pain – I know some of you will roll your eyes at this, but my parents are divorced and both respectively remarried so that’s four parents before I even think about anyone else. I asked for four which was the maximum ticket allowance for my graduation slot, and told my Mum and Dad that they would be invited (given that I was guaranteed two). When four came in the mail a few weeks before grad, my heart sunk – I wanted my partner to be there, but what about my parents partners, or even my grandmother? Long story short, I sunk to a new level and emailed the graduation organisers playing the ‘divorced’ parents card to see if I could weedle any more tickets – eventually, after no reply, I decided that I was being silly. I’m sure there were other people who didn’t get as many tickets as I did, so I just needed to count myself lucky and make do – luckily both parents understood that I would invite my partner and my grandmother, along with my Mum and Dad to keep things happy and neutral in both camps.

After the ceremony and an emotional ‘clap-out’ from the staff and dignitaries in attendance, I managed to snap a few pictures with friends who graduated the same day, and then it was off to lunch. Returning to River Cottage for a post-graduation meal was the best choice I think I could have made, given the difference in tastes across my family. Having been to River Cottage in it’s opening week, I was pleased to return again but on this occasion with a new menu and at a different time – River Cottage feels different in the day time, in a really nice way. The atmosphere is still sophisticated, clean and happy but there’s a relaxing chilled-out vibe spreading across both floors. They were busy, but definitely not packed – possibly just a standard mid-week lunch time. I didn’t manage to catch our servers’ name, but she was delightfully laid back and more than happy to engage in banter with my Father who thinks he’s just hilarious.

If there was one thing less than brilliant at River Cottage, it would be that there bar was super-understocked. Maybe they just got hit with a big rush and hadn’t anticipated it, but it did create an awkward repetition of “Oh I’m sorry, we’re actually out of that” and “Oh, we’re also out of that too...” Still – River Cottage shines in all other aspects of hospitality.

Waiting three weeks for pictures to come through the post from Official Graduate Photographer Tempest is going to be the longest wait of my life, just because I know there are so many other family members who would love to see them and needless to says selfies with my friends probably just don’t cut it. It’s a week after graduation now and the pictures online have just about stopped surfacing, but then again it was Grad Ball on Friday so I’m in the midst of another surge of photos – some flattering, some not so. Another night of dancing like we knew our lives would never be the same. 

My friends and I have come so far in, what has turned out to be, three very short years. We’ve traded our BOP outfits for our Grad Hats and we threw them into the air with what can only be described as cliché happiness and panic that they might land in a puddle. Although it was raining on the day, that didn’t matter too much - it was annoying before hand, but after it was quite refreshing. The nerves and stress got to me so much, for some reason, that as soon as I was on my own and walking into the Cathedral the sight of my my ex-housemate Demi and my ex-coursemate Sarah turned me to jelly and I couldn’t stop the tears. I’m not even too sure what happened, but full blown ugly-tears happened and that was before the ceremony!
(Even in the term ex-housemate/coursemate makes me feel weird.)

As each person I knew took to the stage, received various screams and shouts from the audience, I couldn’t help but flick mentally through the pictures I had tacked on my university walls of my freshman halls and every room since then – so many different faces painted as so many different jungle animals, not to mention toy story characters as well as bloodied and beaten ‘emergency’ cases and multiple Halloweens to boot.  Over the three years my friends and I have forged a team of rebels and bohemians who can take on pretty much anything and I am so proud of us for coming out the other side of University a better group people. Now I get to look back at the photos surfacing online from this week of us in our glad rags holding our heads up like heroes for our parents to take our pictures.

I distinctly remember looking through the haze of people milling about in their post-graduation glow to my Gracie, who has achieved more than any of us this year, and hear her say to her proud Dad who was snapping away with this fancy DSLR “I just want to go and take pictures with my friends!” – I took this prompt as my cue to bomb her photo.

Speaking of parents, I was reintroduced to Demi’s parents who have always been so generous and lovely, to Sarah’s mother who smiled at me and shouted “Oh, the famous Lex!” and also Brett’s Mum who told me I was “a very brave girl, indeed” for choosing to wear the shoes that I did. The shoes were actually a last minute decision; black pair of lace heels that everyone told me were too high for the occasion – I stand by my decision and I rocked it.

As I draw this mammoth post to an end, I know this is going to be an incredibly morbid thought but it has to be said.  If the time comes when you and I aren’t close anymore, not like we are now, please know how important you all are to me.  Let’s tell our children about all the silly things we did with all the crazy people and show them the pictures to prove it. Thank you to all my friends, my family and everyone in between.

Although what we’ve had this week may have been the end of an era, it was the start of an age.

All the photos used in this blog are courtesy of my friends and I - particularly Sarah White, Katy Loveless, Demi Snape, Mr.Snape, Grace Latter, Mr.Latter and others.
Long Live (We Will Be Remembered) by Taylor Swift.  (Skip to 1:45)

First Writing Job Post-Uni - PANIC.

When I was a child I yearned to be an actress; stage, screen – you name it. And after much performance training and long ballet classes, as well as GCSE’s and a BTEC in Performing Arts I decided I wasn’t as competitive as the profession needed me to be (however, I do still belt out the Musical Theatre classics in the shower).  Acting and musicals were my childhood; my grandma and I used to spend Saturdays (and her pension) visiting West End Musicals and I still have a giant box of programs collected over the years. My adolescence was spent performing in college shows and enjoying Amateur Dramatics with Second To None Theatre Company, based in Kent, but when I came to University that all changed.

At Winchester University, I never took a dance class, I never joined the Performing Arts society – I started writing, editing and writing and editing, and writing and editing. It’s only now that I’ve realised, post-degree, that the writing-world is very similar to that of the acting/performance world. Everyone thinks they can do it, very few can. I am still yet to know if I can do the writing thing. However, I did take on my first freelance job last week. Not something I’d planned to do, but enjoyable and beneficial nonetheless.

A friend, Simon, runs a Television Studio company and he’s putting on an event in Boston this September. His PA is currently on holiday, and his ‘people’ surprised him by asking for their Health & Safety document, complete with schedule and risk assessment, three weeks too early. This is where I came in, Simon is a friend of a friend, and our mutual friend Cassi suggested me to help him out.

With no previous Health & Safety knowledge, I was incredibly dubious and nervous to even agree to help – I just didn’t want to let either Cassi or Simon down. However, I turned up eager and ready to work. A semi-stressful day and a half later and the work was finished and I was really happy with the work I’d put into the document.

Even though Health & Safety isn’t something that I want to do, and it’s not as ‘creative’ as I’d like to be writing, I am eternally grateful for the experience (and the pay, believe me!).  I am also so glad that there were people around who thought that I could do it, even when I thought I couldn’t.  Who am I to be writing about Health & Safety? I am perpetually smashing things and I’m always peppered by black and blue bruises. A bull in a china shop comes to mind, actually. A bull in a china shop, whilst copywriting. 

So, although it’s not my writing-world ‘big-break’ it’s certainly a step in the right direction. It’s inspired me to get on with my own stuff; to blog more regularly, to read more, to learn more – all so I have more to offer, more knowledge, more opinions and more practise under my belt. If something is true of both acting and writing worlds it’s that if you have a spare moment; practise. Practise doesn’t always make perfect, but it makes better than the time before. That’s pretty much all I can offer at this stage in the game, that I am better at life than I was yesterday, and here’s hoping that that’s good enough.

I’ve copied in some useful websites and things that keep me inspired and interested just because I know how shit it is to be ‘stuck’.

Ideas Tap is a completely free website that lists job opportunities, information and inspirational videos and articles to keep things fresh in your mind.

You The Designer is an awesome, slightly more visual, creative inspiration space that provides ideas on typography, graphic design as well as downloadable freebies.

And last, for today, Pinterest. Be it with interior design, quotes, fashion or recipes this website is awash with bright ideas and creative inspirations that keep me awake for hours when I really should be sleeping.

Lust for Learning.

Learning should never stop. I believe that with my whole heart. Just because you’re done with school (be it college, or a degree, or an MA or whatever...) I don’t think you should stop learning. I don’t think you should WANT to stop learning. If there comes a day where you don’t want to learn anymore – there’s a problem. I hope there isn’t a day that I don’t want to learn anything else, because that might mean that I think I know everything or that I know enough – I will never know enough.

Anyone who doesn’t understand, I sort of feel sorry for. Not in a mean way, I just think it might be quiet lonely to never want to know anything else about anything. I like that I get hungry to learn things; it’s a good thing. I’m sure there are people out there in the world, or even the near vicinity, who think that I’m a swot, or a bit nerdy, or just all-around lame but I honestly don’t care. Because one day, I will be able to hold my own in most conversations and feel confident about what I have learned and the opinions that I have formed from my own research and learning.

Recently, I have read two books that have taught me so much about areas that I could never have studied in a dedicated institution (school, college, university) because they aren’t part of the faculty that I put myself into by choosing to study what I did at University. I am so grateful for the fact that I find these books engaging and useful because, on a rather cliché note, I will be a better/more rounded person for reading them and exploring many other subjects that I haven’t studied.

THE SKELETON CUPBOARD: The Making of a Clinical Psychologist . (Prof. Tanya Byron)

“The Skeleton Cupboard is Professor Tanya Byron's account of her years of training as a clinical psychologist, when trainees find themselves in the toughest placements of their careers. Through the eyes of her naive and inexperienced younger self, Tanya shares remarkable stories inspired by the people she had the privilege to treat. Gripping, poignant and full of daring black humour, this book reveals the frightening and challenging induction faced by all mental health staff and highlights their incredible commitment to their patients.”

Featuring emotionally harrowing passages on child abuse, dealings with a physically abusive and psychotic patient, treating an older German-Jewish patient (who survived Auschwitz) now suffering from dementia who believes that in every shower she takes she is being exterminated. As well as exploring the lives of drug dependant patients, the fluctuations of T-Cells of HIV positive patients, and lastly a stand-out section on a young girl suffering from a malicious eating disorder.

Whilst all the above combined doesn’t sound like such a cheery book to read, it’s worth it. There are light moments; happiness within families brought closer together, congratulations on various remissions from disease and what seems to be an everlasting stream of hope for a better future running throughout.

Because Professor Tanya Byron is so academically decorated it makes reading the book very easy and enjoyable; believable, real and emotive. Whilst giving details of treatment procedures, the book also provides insight into the lives of various medical professionals that we as outsiders couldn’t ever fathom.

For someone who already had interest in the psychological world, I would majorly recommend this book. For someone who has no interest in the psychological world, I would recommend the book purely to learn about the human race and their feats.

DO NO HARM: Stories of life, death and brain surgery. (Dr. Henry Marsh, CBE and FRCS.)

I’m only a third or so through this book, but I’m already hooked. The chapters are split into medical diagnoses for example; Pineocytoma, Aneurysm, Haemangioblastoma etc and reading through the Aneurysm passage – I genuinely believe I could clip an Aneurysm if needed. Obviously, literally, I couldn’t but in theory I could.

"What is it like to be a brain surgeon?

How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut into the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason?

How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially life-saving operation when it all goes wrong?

In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to 'do no harm' holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, Henry Marsh must make agonising decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty.

If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practised by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candour, one of the country's leading neurosurgeons reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets and the moments of black humour that characterise a brain surgeon's life.

DO NO HARM is an unforgettable insight into the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern hospital. Above all, it is a lesson in the need for hope when faced with life's most difficult decisions."

The book illustrates the neuroses that brain surgeons themselves go through – the tension and pressure of holding a scalpel to the section of the brain that controls motor function; you could rid someone of their basic motor skills. Holding a scalpel to the temporal or frontal lobes? You rid someone of everything that makes them who they are and wipe away their memories as quick as condensation on your bathroom mirror.

 I don’t know if I could cope under the pressure of holding peoples’ lives in my hands – or worse than that, if you don’t actually end up killing someone, you could just remove their ability to move or talk or see or hear and surely that’s a fate worse than death – being an alive being trapped in a coffin of a lifeless body; unable to interact with the people you love.

Because I’m not quite finished with this book yet I can’t give it a definitive review but I get the feeling I will enjoy it and benefit from it as much as I did from Tanya Byron’s book. Henry Marsh became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1984, which is home in London and plays host to the fabulous Huntarian Museum which I visited with my boyfriend earlier on this year.  The museum holds a vast collection of weird and wonderful things and if you too have an obsession with the morbid and medical, I would absolutely recommend taking a trip when you’re next in London.

Overall, these are just two examples of books I have read this year that I have learned amazing things from. Of course I could just read all of the information online, but when people like Tanya Byron and Henry Marsh bother to make the information readily accessible and enjoyable – why not take advantage?

I will always yearn for more knowledge and to learn about things and I think you should too. Learn Russian. Learn the phonetic alphabet. Something. Anything. J

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

“Absolutely captivating.”
— Kirkus, starred review

“A funny and tender coming-of-age story that’s also the story of a writer finding her voice.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Rowell manages to capture both the wildly popular universe of fanfic and the inside of an 18-year-old’s head. Consider me a fangirl of this charming coming-of-age tale.”
— Entertainment Weekly

“As funny as it is embarrassing, and as charming as it is true-to-geek-life … Fangirl is a cute and poignant read for fangirls and fanboys of all ages.”
— Tor.com

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, published first in the US in 2013, is flying off the bookshelves. So much so, that after hearing about it for weeks from my course mates, I had to go to my two different local Waterstones twice before I managed to arrive on a day when they had one left in stock. Even the clerk in the shop loved it, she told me that her other half had taken her away for a romantic getaway weekend and she ignored him for half the trip just so she could finish the young adult book. 

I wrote fan fiction avidly, my whole way through secondary school, usually surrounding me and my favourite bands so when I read Rowell's book of a nerdy girl at University avidly writing her own fan fiction, on a series that sound stone loosely based on Harry Potter, I felt cool. My inner nerd shrivelled down a little and I felt cool; the nerdiness of fan fiction in Fangirl is turned into passion, talent and the unwillingness to let some of or favourite characters go.  

I enjoyed it immensely and even though my copy has gorgeous drawings by Noelle Stevenson, I couldn't help but imagine the main character Cather as the girl who first told me about the book. Her name is Grace and she reminds me entirely of Cather. In a wonderful way. 

The plot moved on quick enough so I didn't get bored and the characters are almost more loveable than my real life friends. Makes me wish I had a twin sister of my own, even if it was just to bounce ideas off. 

Next up, Paper Towns by John Green. I enjoyed The Fault In Or Stars, so I have high hopes for this one.

Collectables

They say that the word ‘now’ is a bomb that’s thrown through your window, whose wick you can watch fizz away into nothing. When I think about time, I think about how things come back into fashion; like leotards and high-waisted shorts, skinny jeans and Converse.

Time is a dressmaker whose speciality is alterations.

Time is who I was and who I am and all the things I know now.

Time is the new and the old and the difference in between.

The only thing that stops time is a photo. A moment caught on camera, captured for the world to see; what we were wearing, what we were doing, who we were friends with…

*

Manhattan, NYC. 2001.

 Jason’s grandmother had sadly passed away recently and she’d left him her house in Dallas. He was more interested in the vintage camera he’d found in the attic than anything else in the house. The moment he saw it, he knew he had to have it. There would have been so much history wrapped up in it, he just wanted to be a part of it. It was a camera that, he had decided, was probably from the early sixties. It had a dent in the side, but it was still worth the best part of $500, and that was today. Jason couldn’t imagine how much it would have cost in the sixties; let alone how much it must have meant to someone.

It was still early in the morning but the sun was already bright in the Manhattan sky. People in suits rushed up and down town to get where they had to be and no one noticed that the sky was unusually clear for early September.

Smartly dressed in his grey pinstripe suit, Jason left his apartment on 87^th and Lexington just like he did every morning. When every morning was the same, he could cruise through on autopilot. This morning was slightly different as he had to pop into Duane Reade on the corner to pick up some photos he’d had developed. His grandmother’s camera had at least fifty undeveloped pictures on it.

As he walked to the bus stop, packet of photos in hand, he thought about his family and mused about his life just as you do when you’re walking somewhere you know so well. His wife left for work the same as he did every morning, but she went the opposite way; she worked on the West Side.

His family life was hectic, but that faded from his head as he got to the bus stop.

Settling on the bus, Jason sat in the same seat he did every day. Second in from the right; it was the idyllic spot to watch his favourite city go by and to psyche himself up for the day ahead. He tucked his newspaper under his arm, and flipped open the lip on the packet of photos; he expected family photos, old family pictures of kids playing in the sun or maybe a school graduation.

 It was this fascination with the past that enthralled the man so much into parting with his money for some photos someone else would have just let rot in an attic.

*

Dallas, TX. 1963.

Bonnie and her friends practically ran to the corner of the street, squeezing through the masses of people and hubbub on the street, all trying to get to the same place.
One girl put her hands on Bonnie’s shoulders “This is the most exciting thing to happen all year!” A group of young girls had been given the day off work to see the President and his wife on their visit to Dallas; they lined the sidewalk all wanting the best view.

Outside the Texas Book Depository in Dealey Plaza the streets were a mass of people all moving at once. A whole range; young women just like the secretaries from the office down the street; old men who wanted to say they’d seen President Kennedy in the flesh before they died, little children who looked on in awe and laughed at the hordes of people hunting down their spot on the grass bank. Everyone wanted their glimpse of the Kennedy’s; he was a celebrity and she a fashion icon.

“Do you remember that little pink dress she wore in Vienna?” The youngest of the girls asked Bonnie. Ensuing a moment of clamouring fashion talk, all the girls talking over one another, smoothing down each other’s clothes and plucking at loose threads.

Bonnie swapped the camera in her hands back and forward; it was heavy and her hands were slightly clammy. She didn’t understand why she felt so nervous. Winding the handle that allowed the camera to capture moving images; Bonnie made sure she had enough recording time to see the President’s motorcade.

Having a camera at her age was a complete rarity. Bonnie knew this, she knew she didn’t earn very much herself and she knew people around her were looking, wondering how she had the means to a camera such as this one. Truth be told, it was a gift from her parents for her twenty first birthday this year. They both saved all year so she could have it and it meant so much to her. And now look, here she was. Standing on the edge of history; holding history, watching history. She was going to be a part of history.

“Oh gosh, I can hear them coming!”

The streets grew quiet as the sound of a car pulled along an adjoining street. The cheers made the tension in Dealey Plaza that much more exciting. The people of Texas collectively held their breath.

“Bonnie, get ready! He’s coming. He’s really coming.” Bonnie’s friend tittered in her ear as she smiled.  Bonnie took a shaky breath in and held her camera up to her face as the President’s motorcade got closer.

 ‘Maybe he’ll be wearing a grey suit’ Bonnie thought to herself, her excited eyes craning to see. ‘He always looks good in grey. And Jackie, maybe pink again? No. White, she’ll be wearing white I bet.’

The President’s motorcade seated the President in the back along with his wife Jackie accompanied by Governor Connelly and his wife in the front. As it slowly entered Dealey Plaza the cheering erupted; the shouting and the sight of handsome President Kennedy made Bonnie smile unawares. Her chest swelled with a rise of patriotism in her heart, there was no positive emotion that she wasn’t feeling; happiness and the excitement of standing at the edge of history.

President Kennedy was smiling and waving and as he pulled past Bonnie was adamant he looked right at her and smiled. She struggled to keep her camera up and steady from all the jostling around her.

Jackie Kennedy, America’s first lady, as beautiful and poised as ever sat next to her husband. She waved delicately out to the crowd and giggled happily at their smiling joyful faces; she held the flowers she’d been given upon arrival in Dallas on her lap, from where Bonnie was stood they looked like red roses. Governor Connelly and his wife were equally as present, smiling just as the Kennedy’s were but something was different.

‘He is the Governor of Texas, but he’s nowhere near as handsome as Mr. President’ Bonnie thought as her eyes followed the car, along with her camera. ‘They’re just not as glamorous.’

 “Mr. President, we love you!” Sandra from the office yelled as the car approached. Bonnie laughed; everyone in the office knew Sandra was a big fan. Sandra’s eyes had glazed over with glee; she wanted to commit this memory to her brain for life. The day she saw President and First Lady Kennedy, in her very own town, down the street from her own little office job.

An unexpected sound ripped across the forecourt of the plaza, making every single head turn, every hair on the back of every neck prickle up.

 “What was that!?” The girls grabbed onto each other, their frantic eyes scanned the crowds around them. Bonnie kept her camera up, confused. She saw people grasping their children close and collapsing flat on the grass as if to avoid gun shots or an explosion.
“Did the motorcade blow a tyre?”

Another bang.

And then one more.

“Oh my Gosh, Kennedy’s been shot. They shot the President!” Someone in the crowd cried as people fled from the streets in hysteria, some already in floods of tears.  Bonnie looked up from the viewfinder on her camera to see the right portion of her beloved President’s head get blown away into nothing, across Jackie’s white suit.

“No…They’ve shot the President!”

Bonnie’s hands fell out of the air, her limbs suddenly jelly. The camera landed harshly on its side.

*

Leaning his shoulder against the side of the bus made Jason’s seat rumbled as he watched Manhattan fly by his window; the tourists, the New-Yorkers, the jay walkers. His unopened pocket of his freshly developed photos sat on the seat next to him. The bus was fairly empty, even as it crawled down town.

As he was about to open the photos and leaf through what he was sure to just be pictures of his grandmother’s youth when he noticed a little boy playing a few seats in front of him. He smiled, the child could have been no older than seven or eight and he sat with his mother reading aloud all the street signs that they passed on their route.

“East seventy second street…”

The vibration on the man’s shoulder was stronger than usual, he knew because he took this bus on this route so often, sometimes twice a day.

“East sixty fifth street…”

He felt it in his legs, and eventually it crept up and grew in his chest too.

“East sixtieth street…”

The rumble kept growing, quietly for now but definitely getting bigger, getting faster.

“East fifty seventh street…” The child went on.

“Mommy...Mommy!” The child tugged on his mother’s coat sleeve.

“Look Mommy, a plane!” he said, his skinny little arm pointed up.

Jason, in his the grey pinstripe suit, looked up again from his blackberry and craned his neck to glance out of the dirty bus window.
The little boy was right, it was a plane.

All the man could think was “My God…’

The man’s eyes were transfixed on the large moving object in the sky above them.
He strained his eyes to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
He raised his phone to the window and he took a picture.

‘...that plane is flying awfully low.”

*

Newtown, CT. 2012.

Show and tell was Izzie’s favourite part of her teaching week. Friday morning, in her elementary school, meant that Miss Izzie Smith got to hear all about her student’s favourite new toy or something they’d done with their families over the past weekend. It was first grade she was teaching, which meant all of her students were only six or seven but seeing their faces light up when they talked about their older brother’s new car or the new family dog made Miss Smith’s week. 

Currently, Oscar James was snivelling at the back of the classroom because it wasn’t his turn to take Chocolate, the class hamster, home with him this weekend. Megan Rowe was doing a wonderful show-and-tell presentation about a camera her Uncle Jason had given her when she and her family went to visit him in New York City, or as Megan referred to it “…the place where the all lights are always on and no one ever tells you to turn them off…”

Her Uncle Jason had become very well known in the last ten years or so because he’d bought a vintage camera online, the camera Meg was telling class 4E about now, and he’d found pictures from 1963 when Kennedy was shot stored in the film. He eventually commissioned the photos into an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and gave the camera to Megan, as long as she promised to let her Mommy and Daddy take very good care of it.

“…and Uncle Jason says that if I held it up to my face like this…and look through this tiny whole here…” Miss Smith listened intently to Megan’s story “…that I can see history from all of America…”  She was interested, but also delighted in the progress Megan had made since she’d been in this class. That was the trouble with being an elementary school teacher, especially with younger children, you get so attached when you watch them grow up and then when they move up into the next grade, you end up missing their funny little ways.

Class started at 7.30am, because the younger ones don’t have homeroom, but about 9.35am Miss Smith heard what she thought sounded like popcorn loudly popping come over the classroom intercom.

Megan heard it too and stopped talking momentarily to look up at her teacher.

“It’s okay Megan, you carry on…” Izzie smiled, nodding enthusiastically to the little blonde girl.

Smoothing her grey pencil skirt down, Izzie headed over to the door of her classroom, looking back at her students for a second who were still all watching Megan. Izzie opened the door and stepped out slightly, she noticed Miss House from the classroom opposite doing the same.

“Did you hear the…” Izzie’s casual comment to Miss House was cut off by a door slamming at the end of the corridor their class rooms were on.

A man stood at the door way about 100ft away from the women and looked at them for what felt like eternity, before slowly, sadistically raising his right arm until it was parallel to the shiny grey tiles under his feet.

In his arms he cradled what the women knew to be a gun and yet a second passed before they registered.

“Run!” Izzie screamed at Miss House across the corridor and they both slammed themselves back into their classrooms as Adam Lanza, the man with the rifle, ran towards them.

Doors closed but not locked, both women rallied their children who were beginning to panic.

“What’s wrong Miss Smith?”

“Why are you running, we’re not allowed to run?”

*

They say that the word ‘now’ is a bomb that’s thrown in through your window, whose wick you can watch fizz away into nothing.

It turns out that time can stop, if only for a moment.  

Clocks stop ticking, phones stop ringing and dogs stop barking.

These are the moments we remember for the rest of our lives.