a wee bit of a catch up...

Well, as you can see, I failed to write another entry on Wednesday, so I'm writing one today, which is still pretty good going - two entries in a week, considering my recent track record.

I thought if I write snippets through out the day, then it's much more doable to update you, than if I try to write one big blog entry. So, here comes an update of the last few weeks!!

The first exciting thing to mention is that I went to see the amazing Imogen Heap at the Colston Hall with the wonderful Maeve. She was amazing and wonderful. Maeve and her flatmates bought me 'Speak for Yourself', one of her albums for my birthday which is brilliant. She's just amazingly creative, and has a perspex piano!! If you follow the link it will take you to her myspace, where you can hear some of her tracks.

The next exciting event was Katy and Rachel paying me a visit for the first time since I've been in Bristol. It was so lovely to see my wonderful ladies. The only problem was, I got very sick on the first night they were here, and so by the next day I was way too weak to do anything other than rest. Although that was very rubbish, it was so good to see them, and another exciting thing happened while they were here. On their way back from the waterfront, they bumped into a very old friend of ours from Canterbury - a guy called David Bain. They arrived back at my flat and I heard them chatting to a guy, and I was somewhat bemused at the thought that they could have bumped into someone they knew in Bristol. So, it was such a lovely surprise to see that they'd very randomly found David Bain on their travels!! He's recently moved here, and is now started coming along to my church, which is very cool indeed!

Then it was Maeve's 21st birthday, and we went out for a wonderful dinner at The Primrose Cafe, which is a bistro in the evening. Her Dad had very kindly decided that he wanted to pay for us all, so we didn't have to worry about the average cost of mains being £15. We had a private room all to ourselves, beautifully adorned with fairy lights. That Sunday, we went to the Brecon Beacons - something that Maeve and I had planned to do last year for our birthdays, but never got around to organising it this year. It was SO good to get out to the countryside, and feel like we were in the middle of nowhere within 20 minutes of walking. There is something indescribably refreshing and life giving about standing on the peak of a hill. I revelled in the opportunity to take some photos of my lovely friends - something which I don't really do that often as it's not particularly feasible to carry my big ole camera around with me. I only took black and white ones, and haven't had a chance to develop them yet as the darkrooms are being revamped. Hopefully I'll find the time at some point to print them, scan them and upload them onto here. Don't be holding your breath though!!!

Then, along came my 22nd birthday - I spent the day of my actual birthday working hard on my dissertation in the library and then had a relatively relaxed afternoon. In the evening I had some friends over for dinner. We had planned to go out for a drink after dinner, but, in typical Hannah style, I decided that 10.30 was a far better time to go to bed than to go out for a drink, so we just stayed in and chatted - a far better option. The Saturday before my birthday, I went out for a meal to a lovely restaurant called Moreish with some friends from church. John was able to pop over from Bath for the evening, which was so lovely - I can't remember the last time I celebrated a birthday with him, which is quite shocking! I also had a seasonally themed birthday party with a chocolate fountain, which was very cool.

Since then, I have been working hard, feeling the impact of being in the third year. It's all going ok - I'm learning about amazingly interesting stuff, which you can feel free to ask me to tell you about, as I would happily talk about the sheer amazingness of God that I have seen more and more as I have learnt about aspects of child health, and how children learn to read and write. Truly remarkable, I must say.

This week saw Madeleins 2nd birthday, which is incredibly cool. She is way ahead of herself in the amount she can say - we have some fantastic conversations, and she's started engaging in pretend play, which is brilliant to watch. We went to the park the other day, and unfortunately everything was wet, so we searched for creatures, after Madeleine's keen eyes had spotted a tiny white insect which she called a ladybird, and then she actually did find a ladybird. Then we jumped in some puddles and then looked for cats on the way home. She got incredibly excited when she spotted a black cat, and I thought her conversation that she tried to pursue with the cat was very admirable - 'Hi cat, how you doing? You walking? Yeh.'
What a legend.

Right kiddlywinks, that's about it for now. It is way past my bedtime, so I'm going to do the sensible thing, and sleep. I will endeavour not to leave so long a gap between posts....