Growing up.. not height wise unfortunately :(

I think I had possibly the best childhood anyone could ever have!

Coz I’m from a big family it was never boring and the house was never empty, I couldn’t imagine being an only child it must be so dull! I was quite lucky coz we got pretty much everything we could want and we lived in a tiny village called Bretherton which was lovely and adorable and a really nice place to grow up. Also it was good coz it was so small everyone knew eachother, Austin regularly escaped naked through the cat flap and he was always returned safe and sound… some things never change though, he was busted drunkenly mooning cars outside our house at 4am not so long ago.

Right by our house there was a big set of woods which were lovely (in the day) and filled with flowers and rabbits and sunshine and rainbows and unicorns and right in the depths theres this massive old manor house that semi burnt down like 100 years ago and it has these giant grounds, mama used to take us in spring to steal the daffodils and for picnics and stuff, was nice :). At night though it was really creepy and oll was walking through there alone for some reason and he said he swore he heard cows screaming… it’s debatable how reliable this information is though due to how stoned he was! But I like to think it’s true.

if you go down to the woods today de de de de deee de dee

yay for ben

Mum had the huge task of entertaining 5 kids every day which must have been quite intense lol but she did a good job. When we were little she used to take us loads of nice places and looked after us all day every day, she dedicated her whole life to us and she really is such a good mum and only ever wanted the best for us and I’m really grateful for everything :) I have so many happy memories with mama, one of my favourite times was when she used to make koeksisters for us. She grew up in Zambia in south Africa and its something they have there. Takes like 2 days to make them and there must be a 1000 calories in one but I don’t care they are possibly the most delicious sugary goodness treats in the world. Recently she took me and may on a girly trip to London which was such a good trip! May was at DTD in Nottingham working the APAT where Mr Ben Rhys Young won the first of his 2 apat champion titles so we stopped by there to pick her up and drove to London afterwards but it was like 3am and we ended up getting lost and driving round central London aimlessly for hours with the most annoying sat nav with English Tim constantly telling us to ‘make a U turn where possible’. Oh well made up for it coz we had the best lunch ever in harrods at a seafood place and I forget why but they gave us vip access in palm beach where there was a big poker tournament on so that was a cool place to stop in for a drink. An all round good trip :).





Also I was lucky growing up coz we used to go away quite a lot which is my favourite thing to do ever :D My grandma Brenda has something ridiculous like 20 grandkids and she made it her mission to teach all of them to ski so we did lots of lessons at Rossendale and when I was about 14 we went to Kitzbuhl in Austria. This was a highly eventful trip. I’m not absolutely retarded when it comes to skiing but im not guna lie, im not great… so when we were there we got put in ski school which I liked but me and my cousin alice got put with a bunch of kids. So one day our instructor Roland (a very sweet german guy) accidentally took us on the wrong run, we sat in the ski lift for agesss til we were in the clouds and got out on this terrifying black run with a drop that was literally as close to vertical as you can get. Me and alice weren’t having any of this but coz the kids in our group were so little they were fearless and just threw themselves off this cliff and went firing off in all directions at 200mph. Roland started to cry coz he knew he was getting fired and was soon to have to death of 10 5yr olds on his conscience. So he skied off to try round them up while me and alice sat on our bums and tried to edge our way down. As it started to get dark and we were still in the clouds it became apparent we weren’t guna make it any time soon but by this time we found roland and the kids again and a snow plow thing had come to pick them up. There was room for everyone except me :( so these 4 instructors tried making me ski it and I tried dead hard but every 2 seconds I almost broke a limb (even one of the pros was struggling so I didn’t feel like such an idiot then lol) but it was like pitch black now so one of the instructors just pointed to me and pointed to his back… I was like ‘eh! No chance!’ then they all got mad and started frantically pointing at this guys back so I was like sigh, took my skis off and climbed aboard. Was a nice ride actually, saw all the sights with none of the work lol, plus this was in my 'puppy fat' days so cant have been the lightest person! I had one guy carrying me, one skiing behind holding my skis, and one on either side protecting me ha. Fairly embarrassing gliding past the bar but at least it’s something to tell your kids/blog readers. That holiday was the first time max got drunk, was new years eve and he had almost 3 beers and was slizard! I had a pic of his first ever hangover (awwww) but cant find it so this is one of pre hangover.

far too young to be drinking! looks about 5! shocking.

sneaky pic i took of a guy on the beach coz it was hilare!

Over the years iv had some really good trips, went to spain a couple of times (once just went for lunch lol), barcelona is beautiful! Had a nice time in paris, spend xmas last year in gran canaria and been to Africa a couple of times which was amazing! Also had some really fun times in cornwall with my girlfriends just going camping and stuff, bumming it cheap can be so much fun sometimes :). But my favourite by far is a little village in Portugal in the Algarve called carvoeiro, we have gone there a few times a year since I was born so its like home from home and I absolutely love it! Its changed a lot over the years but the beaches are gorgeous as ever, lovely restaurants, its home to my most favourite hotel ‘tivoli almansor’, its just beautiful and I want everyone in the world to experience it so we are having a big trip there in august which will be lots of fun, more the merrier so if anyone would like to come let me know!

Anyway Africa, I was a bit sceptical at first coz we were going to the gambia which a tiny country in west Africa and its proper third world so I was like blehh. But I absolutely take it back, its such a different way of living but I love it, everyone looks out for eachother even if you don’t know them, they are like family and they all rub suncream on eachother before themselves and share all their meals and stuff like that, its so sweet. We were staying in a pretty hotel and I remember doing a bit of sunbathing by the pool and I opened my eyes and there were some eagles circling above me waiting for me to die so they could swoop in, basts. Well jokes on them, I got a tan and they had to move on to a very old lady that seemed more promising.

i LOVE this pic of austin with spider llamin and jack coz i dont think he could look any more white! ha



this was at the 'sacrifice pit' where we found some crocodiles, they seemed friendly enough...



Right outside the hotel there was a beautiful long sandy beach with a juice bar (I DO NOT recommend the baobab) and we befriended some people that owned it who became like our tour guides called llamin, jack (karamba) and spider. Its funny coz every first born male is called llamin and all the first born females are called Fatima so gets pretty confusing… this was crazy, one day we found 3 brothers and made them take us on a canoe ride through this swamp thing, anyway oldest was called llamin obvs but then the 2 other brothers were called steve or something, both of them! They said the first got called steve and it seemed to work pretty well so their mum and dad called the next one steve too! Africa is weird. So yeh when we went it was over xmas and the tradition there is in each village one guy dresses up like a devil and everyone chases them bashing sticks and pans and things, its mad! On xmas day like 10 of us sat and drank in this bar for hours, round after round and we came to pay the bill at the end and it was like 500 dalasi which is about 11 quid, not too shabby! We bought loads of toys and sweets and stuff and gave them to all the little kids which was very soul warming but max had one of them liquorice wheels and this scrawny little girl, only about 5 came up to him for some and he peeled off like about 2 inches for her and scoffed the rest down for himself! Tight little scrawb, but he got lots of abuse off us for it.

circumcision tree

On another day our guide guys took us into the jungle and all these wild monkeys turned up and we gave them some biscuits etc and they stole olls wallet from his pocket which he had to bribe to get back lol and there were these ant hills the size of a couch which we made max climb on and I bashed it try get the ants to come out har har har. Anyway we came to this ‘circumcision tree’ where it’s a tradition for all boys to come to become men, basically when they are like 12/13 they circumcise them in this tree and then they have to spent 3 nights in the jungle on their own fending for themselves and you come out a man on the other side… personally I think they should bring this tradition to England, damn lazy English boys just drifting their way into manhood. We came out the jungle on the other side, miles from any civilisation in 3^rd world africa and there was this amazing long white beach with a juice bar right at the end and there was a guy sat all alone wearing a preston north end shirt! I was like :o obviously a man with taste ;)

One night we decided it would be fun to go to Sana Gambia which is the ‘big’ city for a bit of a party but it was very traumatic. There was a few of us and we were going with llamin jack and spider and some of their friends, they were nice guys but we didn’t know them very well so you can never be 100% sure what people are like. We were driving and it happened that there wasn’t room in one of the cars for me and may so they boys got in one and us girls sat in another smushed between 2 giant African guys we didn’t know, safe to say we were fairly scared anyway. Then it was like a 30 min drive there and just as we got to this long, long, dark, empty road with trees either side and not a soul in sight the car breaks down :/ may was squeezing my hand really hard and I just looked at her and said ‘this is like the beginning of every horror movie iv ever seen’…tbh I thought we were gonners but it all worked out fine in the end and we had a really fun night!

Anyway that’s gambia, last year we went to Tunisia which was also really really good but a bit too touristy for my liking. Still we did some amazing stuff, my favourite was when we rode some camels into the sunset through the sahara and we went to the big arena where they filmed gladiator and went to this place where people live in caves and got a crystal from the bottom of the deepest salt lake in Africa. Good times.

So yeh basically I think iv been lucky in life so far, im a happy bean and growing up constantly surrounded by people has made me want to have a big family one day… don’t fancy doing all that birthing though, even though dave always tells me I have hips that could birth many men :( Who knows.