New activities and places #15: 180!

My flatmate Charlotte and I love the show called A League of Their Own, and we are quite influenced by the show. If Freddie Flintoff, Jack Whitehall and Jamie Redknapp like something, we think we’ll like it too.

One episode they played darts and watching the darts looked great fun. So when we saw it advertised a few months ago in the local paper, we decided to book some tickets. Yesterday we went with a group of friends, and there were 8 of us in total.

After a quick google of the rules I was all set for a night of darts. It was good fun; the compare sounded like Darth Vader occasionally, and after a few drinks the atmosphere started to build up. It would have been great if there was more music as it was quite quiet at times.

Being a tad too organised, I thought it would be fun for me and my mates to think of darts names for ourselves, and I brought along paper and pens to write them down.

We went to a local competition called Apocalypse 2 at Stevenage Arts & Leisure Centre. Maybe next stop Ally Pally?

New places and activities #13 and #14: I’m with the band

A couple of years ago I went to a music festival in Hitchin where I live called Rhythms of the World, and saw this great drumming band called Toque Tambor. They said that they hold classes and I thought that would be fun to do, but upon checking timings I wouldn't have been able to go as I was working in London at the time, and the commute meant I would miss the classes.

In September I heard about the band again and now could make classes, so I signed up to an 11 week introductory course. Toque Tambor is a Brazilian carnival drumming band, and a variety of different drums and percussion instruments are used to create the sound.

Over the first few weeks I decided to try each instrument; these included the Surdo which is a big bass drum. Although this drum is providing the back beat, it’s quite heavy to carry for a 90 minute class, and because the sound is so low and you’re the only person providing that beat, it’s easy to hear if you make a mistake! I then tried a Caixa which is a small snare drum, but making a beat with 2 sticks is more difficult then it seems. The Tamborim, the smallest but the loudest drum is the one that I settled on, and I picked up the rhythms to this instrument pretty quickly.

After the 11 weeks we joined the band (that’s the first new activity.) And yesterday I took part in my first parade (the second new activity) in Ware. It was part of a Dickensian festival, and even though the band and Dickens is a strange mix, the band said that people in Ware think it’s the highlight of the night.

Before the parade started I was a little nervous as the Tamborim players (of which there were 4 of us) are right at the front. Would I remember all the rhythms, would I stay in time? As soon as I heard the initial beat I was fine.

                               Me with Sue and Toni, some of the other newbies of the band.

Although it was freezing, the atmosphere was great and people in the street did start dancing and taking pictures. I've definitely got the bug now, here’s to the next parade!

Writing 29 pages of a screenplay per month: Where it all began

For any eagle eyed readers of the blog, you will notice that I haven’t put an entry about writing 29 pages of a screenplay for November. Well I'm afraid I didn't have time in November. Sometimes life gets in the way. So I'm going to roll over the pages. So in December I'm going to attempt to write 58 pages in December. That equals to nearly an hour of film; here’s hoping to being snowed in a few days this month!

So instead of writing about my progress, which there isn’t any, I thought I’d say about my background when it comes to screen-writing. From the age of 5-19 I went to drama club, and below are a couple of pictures of the first play I was in. It was Winnie the Pooh and yes I was Winnie the Pooh! Seeing scripts from an early age means they weren't a daunting thing. So when it came to school, taking part in plays was automatic, and I did GCSE and A Level Drama as well.

When I went to uni I made a decision to stop acting. I didn't get the usual ‘buzz’ from it that other people got, and saw it more as part of a weekly, sometimes daily routine. If I missed acting then I could join the drama society, but I didn't miss it.

I've always been into films and taking Media A Level heightened my interest. I learnt a great deal about the construction of film, in terms of structure, and how every film uses Propp's theory. For example, how there is always a hero and a villain, a princess and so on.

Around my penultimate semester of my journalism degree I realised journalism wasn't for me. I signed up for a 4 day intensive course about screen-writing, and it was here my interest ignited. I started having ideas for screenplays, but when life happens the ideas take a back burner.

A couple of years ago I went to a Raindance film school for a day course and this was a great opportunity to learn about different techniques for screen-writing. Once again my interest in screen-writing reignited.

The ideas for screenplays have been flowing ever since. Now it’s just about making time in my daily routine to write them.

New foods #8 #9 #10: An apple a day does not keep the doctor away in Rome

Fun fact for you, you can’t find apple juice in Rome, at least not in the hotel or shops we went in. Considering my favourite drink is appletiser and I like apple juice to go with my breakfast, I was wondering where I could get one of my five fruit and veg a day. (Yes appletiser does count as one of my five fruit and veg a day, it says so on the label!)

So Salvidor our trusty barman recommended peach juice, and I loved it. Although its probably got a day’s worth of sugar in it! I also tried grapefruit juice. I'm expert on the stuff, well grapefruit as I served a lot of it when I was a breakfast helper at an old people’s home. Grapefruit juice has a weird taste to begin with, and it was okay afterwards. I’ll stick to my apple juice though, apart from when I'm in Rome.

On our last night I also tried clams, but there was a lot going on with the meal, as you can see below. There’s tagliatelle, mushrooms, truffle, and clams. Clams, well the edible part of it, not the shell is tiny so if you’re eating it with pasta it could be quite well hidden. Eating it on its own is nice, not too salty as some seafood can be. It would be great to try again in a risotto.

New places and activities #12: Ho Ho Ho- Run Run Run!

I’m not a stranger to running, having done a Tough Mudder, but running in fancy dress is a new one for me. In particular running in a santa suit! Myself and my colleague Fabiana and lots of others took part in a santa fun run at work this lunchtime.

The main challenge wasn’t the running the 2.5km, but keeping the santa suit on, as it was quite baggy. I thought I’d be running with the red trousers round my ankles!

I think we completed the run in about 20 minutes which isn’t too bad, although the office was a lot quieter this afternoon!

As it’s the season for giving, if you want to donate for the charity we ran for, then here’s the link; https://www.justgiving.com/TheSilentKnights/

Meet new people #2-9: Don’t be a stranger

Going on holiday is probably one of the easiest ways to meet new people, and even though there was a language barrier; Rome is a place that most people can speak a bit of English.

My partner in crime Linsey is the same as me in the fact we’ll talk to anyone, and we meet a guy called Stefano while trying to find out hotel (see previous post about getting lost!) Not only did he give us directions, he actually walked us to the hotel himself which was 10 minutes out of his way. We were a bit wary at first, but he was harmless and took a shine to Linsey.

The next person we met, became our new best friend; the hotel barman Salvidor! He was the nicest guy, got to know us well and even gave us free drinks on the first night, and on the afternoon we were leaving. He gave us great recommendations, such as going up the dome at St Peter’s church. And at a fountain we posed by we did wonder why people were drinking the water, was it sacred? Salivdor’s view on this, no they are crazy, I hope you didn't drink it!

Mario at the hotel reception was the third person we got to know and he also had great local knowledge, even though he lived in New York for the past 10 years. Now I thought that this only happened in films, but Mario was quite weary of the mafia, he’d whisper the word if it was in conversation. Both Salivdor and Mario both asked when we'd be coming back to Rome halfway through our stay!

Our second night was when we met 4 people, and all were British. Going out to the restaurant opposite the hotel (our feet were very achy), we ended up sitting next to two guys from Southampton called Mike and Russ. Unlike us having a girlie weekend in Rome, they were off to the football. It was great to compare views on Rome.

After dinner Linsey and I went to see our good friend Salvidor at the bar on the roof terrace. In an inspired move Linsey had bought a selfie stick, and upon hearing the couples behind us talk about them, she promptly pushed it in front of the couples. What a way to enter a conversation! One of the couples were American, but we didn't catch their names. However we ended up chatting to Darren and Kelly from Kent. The best part of the conversation was the American guy thought I was posh. If you’ve ever heard me speak you’d think otherwise!

The last person we met was a guy called Martin on our train back. He was from Vienna and loved Rome, visiting regularly. He was great to talk to as he gave us recommendations as to which cities we should visit next, and why we should go to Vienna.

Our hotel features a lot in this blog post, and for anyone interested in stayed at the Marcella Royal Hotel, and I highly recommend staying there. Good breakfast, great views and friendly staff, what more could you ask for. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of any of the people we met, so you'll have to make do with more pictures of me at the roof terrace.

New places and activities #11: When in Rome

On Friday evening my friend Linsey (who features on the blog regularly) and I went on a long weekend to Rome. I've never been to the city before or Italy, so couldn't wait to get to warmer climates, even it was only for a couple of days.

The city didn't disappoint and we packed a lot in over a couple of days. We started off the Italian way by having pizza and gelato on Friday night. Our hotel we stayed at had a bar on the roof terrace and we even got free drinks from the barman!

Saturday was our main sight-seeing day, and we went on one of those hop on hop off tour buses, which was a great way to see the city and get our bearings. We saw from a distance the colosseum but quite a bit of it was covered up with scaffolding.

The main area we had a look around was Vatican city; we walked the 500 steps of St Peter's Basilica and we at the top we saw great views all around. The Sistine chapel was amazing, really hard to believe that it was painted in 4 years!

On Sunday we took it easy and just browsed the shops which we found while lost on Saturday afternoon. In fact getting lost was a bit of a theme, but the great thing about getting lost is you get to see more of the city.

I’ll be doing a few more posts on Rome as it covers quite a few things on the 29 challenge. But I highly recommend visiting. It’s a great city to explore and it’s made me want to go back to Italy and see the different cities.