A Unicycle Story

When I was 15 (about 3 years ago) my mum brought home a unicycle for me which she had acquired from a college who no longer wanted it. I had been saying to her I would like to learn to ride one before hand so it seemed quite lucky that someone she new then was selling one cheaply. I was ecstatic when she gave it to me and as soon as I could I was out at the park and in the garden trying to get good on it. 

After a week or so learning I could just about ride with out holding not o anything (I was really proud). Then, just as I thought i was getting it I fell off backwards with my left arm stretched out behind me taking my weight as I hit the ground. I remember the pain was horrible and straight away my dad, who was in the garden with me, knew I had broken it. I had broken my arm twice previously so he knew what it looked like, the last two times were a bit different in that I went completely silent where as this time I couldn't stop screaming/crying. I remember getting funny looks from people in A&E, as if I shouldn't be making so much noise, and thinking "I can't help that you all came here for a cold nose and some of us have actually been injured". When the nurses saw me they gave me some tablets which made me laugh, it was weird because my arm still hurt but in a kind of funny bone way. I was x-rayed and given a bed, eventually the doctors came to tell me what was what, I was expecting them to just put a cast on it and let me leave like they had the last two times so was surprised when they told me I would be having an operation during which they would put a metal "wire" in my arm to fix the bone back in place and I would have to stay over night so they could do the operation in the morning.  Later I discovered, when I had my cast changed that the "wire" they put in my arm was more like a lamppost/captain hook's hook. The worst part was probably when they pulled the "wire" out of my arm as I was given no anaesthetic and my bones had apparently healed a bit too well. It felt like the nurse was trying to rip my bones out of my arm. 

So anyway, after this incident my dad chained up my unicycle so I couldn't use it and until this year I never rode again. Luckily my mum and I agreed that the unicycle I had was the wrong kind for me as it was a mountain unicycle (yes- people actually do that). We decided that what I needed was a smaller unicycle to learn on which my parents kindly bought me for christmas 2013. 

I have recently been spending as much as I can on my beautiful new unicycle and have now named him Ulysses after the greek and roman stories. It has taken a lot more than I expected to gain confidence again after my fall and probably am not quite there yet but it's going well and I'm sure over the summer I will become nearly an expert… maybe. At least this time i'm wearing full protective gear, wrist guards, elbow and knee pads and a wonderful toucan helmet.

Geographical Association Conference 2014

On Wednesday 16th April I went to the University of Surrey for the annual Geography Association (GA) conference, organised by the president of the GA, Bob Digby. I was't really sure what to expect, to be honest I had signed up to go purely because I saw the word "Geography" in the title.  I managed to arrive late because, despite having a Gold DofE award, I got lost on my way. This meant I arrived to hear the tail end of Professor Terry Callaghan from the University of Sheffield talking about the Arctic and the effects of climate change  on its environment. He made a good point that those who say climate change isn't real have no alternative theory so they have no argument to disprove the climate change theory. He also said that we can tell the planet's changing temperature is due to human activities because if it were due to outside influences, the stratosphere would be warming as well and, in fact, the stratosphere is cooling whilst the planet warms. I would have liked to have seen the whole of his talk.

Later in the day Dan Raven-Ellison, a Guerrilla Geographer, came to talk to us about what he does. I had never heard of Guerrilla Geography beforehand but am so glad I've heard about it now! Dan described Guerrilla Geography as a geography version of Banksy (the street artist), it seems to me that it is a form of protesting and aims to make people more aware of various issue in the world, for example; showing people how much land in the UK would be need to be used to support London's food consumption if production was moved from the various countries it is currently produced in to the UK. Dan also talked to  us about his new movement to get London to be made a National Park. Most people would not think of London as an appropriate place for a National Park due to its constant need to develop and build and and idea of the city having a lack of green space however, I think if London were to become a National Park people would start to look at and think about the city in a different way  and it could potentially persuade companies and individuals to act in a more sustainable way. Also the map below shows just how much green space there is in the capital city:

From attending this conference I have heard some wonderful new ideas and am thinking I would love a career in Guerrilla geography or at least to do it as a hobby. 

Here is a link to the Greater London National Park website http://www.greaterlondonnationalpark.org.uk  Sign the petition!

RED

This story starts with my friend Milly messaging me on an ordinary tuesday evening. I was relaxing, watching TV whilst sort of doing work when a message saying "Hannah would you like to do me the honour of coming to see Taylor Swift with me on Sunday?". Now before this I had actually asked Milly if she would like to go to the concert but we both decided against it as it was too expensive. So it was of great surprise to me when she asked, I can't begin to explain the excitement that built up in me as I read her message. At first I didn't believe it, I thought it was a cruel trick but as Milly assured me this was a genuine request I couldn't contain the feelings, Milly rung me so we could scream together.

On the day of the concert my dad took me to Milly's house (the most beautiful house ever), we drank tea and then her dad drove us to the train station. There was a big kerfuffle because the trains were't running properly so the times of arrival had changed, also Milly needed a new railcard so had to fill in a form but we couldn't find a pen or any other writing instrument. Eventually we found something after minutes of searching. We missed the first train (it arrived and left earlier than expected) so we waited for the next one.

Once on the train Milly and I listened to music, a favourite past time of ours is to show each other music we like. We wished we had brought biscuits with us because the girls next to us had loads. The train wasn't very long but once we got of it we had to get on the tube after working out which were the correct lines to get. Milly worked it out because she's good at tubes. On the tube Milly danced to the beat of the train and received various looks, many saying "I'm so sorry you're mentally ill" with their eyes. I occasionally joined in with the dancing but I'm not quite as crazy as Milly. We ended up getting on the wrong line the first time round, I think the map was wrong but any who we got to the right place eventually.

We left the underground and met a man standing outside trying to look scary, he stopped us and told us about a scary London tour thing. We told him we were poor because we are students (even though that is not strictly true), he replied telling us he also was a student so he understood and would give us half price on the tour, I must mention that this man did not look like a student, more like a 50 year old, I suppose he still could have been a student but its not the same. We both decided not to take the tour and made our way towards the Tate gallery.

We were disorientated and weren't sure which way to walk, we found a sign and thought it was point ing to over the bridge so we started walking in that direction. When we were half was across the bridge I looked around and saw the Tate on the side of the river we had started on so we turned back and walked along the river towards it. At the Tate we visited the Paul Klee exhibition (we got in for free with my dads membership card). The exhibition was really good, Milly really enjoys looking for the meaning in the paintings, her favourite was one of some flowers on a dark background because she thought it symbolised putting the bad stuff in life behind you and the happy stuff in front ( I think that was what she thought anyway). My favourite are you funny paintings, I laugh more than most.

After the Tate we journeyed on over to the O2 arena, on the way passing a busker to whom I offered a ginger nut cookie to, he refused it which made me sad. We got back on the tube and did some more underground dancing. When we arrived at the O2 there were loads of Taylor Swift fans with cat ears and Red banners, at first we were jealous of how well prepared they were and then decided we didn't want cat ears anyway. Before the concert we were meeting Milly's boyfriend Seb, I had never met him before but Milly said we would love each other and I had heard so much about him we may as well have been best friends. Seb told us to meet him at Starbucks which would be on our right when we walked out of the tube station. It wasn't. Unfortunately Seb did not have a phone so we had no way of telling him that there was no Starbucks and to meet somewhere else so we spent a while wandering around trying to find a Starbucks and eventually decided maybe there used to be one but it had been knocked down and the best way to find Seb would be to sit outside the station.

We sat on the floor and ate veggie percy pigs for a while until we got bored. I went to the cafe nero inside the station and asked whether there was a Starbucks anywhere and the told me there was one inside the O2 so we went to look their. WE FOUND HIM. Seb stood in a long coat with green paint all down his back and in his hair, Milly asked why and he told us he had been on set and lent on a freshly painted green wall. However this did not just happen earlier that day as we assumed, but happened the day before.

Seb said he wanted a drink so we went to
a bar inside the O2, we sat and talked whilst listening to the Taylor Swift that was being played continuously in the bar. We thought it was strange because most of the people in the bar did not look like Swiftys but we enjoyed it anyway. Seb had no idea who Taylor Swift is because he likes to be different and not a part of the whole consumerism world or something like that.

Finally we found our seats in the arena, we were at the front of the back but had quite a good view actually. The show was amazing, i particularly enjoyed her slower songs such as; "All too well" because they were relaxing and I was able to sit down for them, of course the more up-beat songs were fantastic swell, "22" is a favourite of mine. During the show Taylor Swift brought out her surprise guest, I have to say I was hoping for Ed Sheeran so was disappointed when she introduced Sam Smith who, at the time, I had never heard of. He was surprisingly good so I want to thank Taylor to introducing me to music I would have never listened to my self.

Finally I must thank the wonderful Milly Kidner for taking me to the concert as a birthday present, it was the best present I could ever be given.

Interrailing

My friends and I have decided to go inter railing this summer (if you dont know what inter railing is its where you travel around Europe on trains). Im really excited about going because i LOVE travelling and my aim in life is to visit every country in the world. Many people have told me this is not possible but once upon a time they thought the Earth was flat so I have no intention of listening to them. So anyway we all spent ages deciding which countries we want to go to but as we are a big group ( there are 15 of us) there was a lot of disagreement and eventually some people started saying they would rather not go inter railing and simply go on a 'normal' holiday instead, to one country. A few of us stuck our ground and insisted we go inter railing.

Eventually we decided that a couple of us needed to make a plan or else we would never get anywhere so it was decided that Jenni and I would be the planners. We spent a whole saturday making this plan and we were so proud of it! Jenni even made this beautiful spreadsheet with how long we would spend in each place ( 3 nights in Amsterdam, 3 nights in Berlin, 3 nights in Prague, 2 nights in Milan and 3 nights in Rome), which hostels we would stay in and how much everything would cost (I picked the colours). 

This is the general idea of the spreadsheet

We showed the plan to everyone in the group on monday thinking that everyone would be extremely excited which some were but a few were not happy, saying that 16 days is to long and they want to take 2 days off and they were worried about potential dangers especially in prague. The problem is that me and Jenni are very much the kind of people who like travelling and dont mind roughing it a bit where as, others in our group are used to the 5 star hotel kind of thing. Jenni and I accepted the idea of taking two days off thinking we could take a day off the start and end and have been trying to prove that we will not die on the trip. Then suddenly… people started wanting 3 days off! We were confused, a little angry and not feeling like cooperating.

Although everyone seemed ungrateful we still love them and we wanted to spend the holiday with them so we have now agreed they can make changes as long as it is not us making them. Sowm has researched trains and discovered that the trains we were originally taking run at the same time everyday so there is no problem there, I'm not sure if anyone has checked whether the hostels are available on the new days. I hope they are. 

Now that the disagreements are over i am super excited for the trip and can't wait to write about the different places we visit. I just need to persuade everyone that Trangias in the park cooking pasta is the way forwards!