My brother on Christmas day.

Christmas in the loony bin. from Nicole Smith on Vimeo.

Blimey, you can hear how Northern our accents are can't you?

Eight things that the British truly suck at.

As a Yorkshire-ish and English person (I am NOT British, British implies the BNP, and I HATE the BNP) I have a fairly good perception of what a British person's vices are (though of course because I'm self-proclaimed Not-British, I have no vices. None. At all. Ever).

1. British people are crap at basketball. The guys? If they aren't on the school team they are terrible. The girls? They stop playing and have shrieking matches over who shoved who (seriously, Lauren head butted Bena today and was staggering around the court for ages after).

2. British people are stuck up. Love Actually was not exaggerating. Colin Frissell had the right idea about America all along.

3. British people are ugly people on the whole. That way, British music is actually good, because the musicians can't get rich from their looks, they actually have to work for it.

4. British people are damp. Yes. British people match the weather.

5. British people are orange. They are. They are addicted to sun beds. Like that woman in Pink's Stupid Girls video.

6. British people, particularly British people in the South of England, are shit at making tea. Only people in Northern England can make tea, beyond that, it's crap.

7. British people cannot take traditions seriously. They HAVE to commercialise everything. Valentine's Day and Christmas might have meant something other than tacky plastic decorations once, one never knows in this place.

8. British people are the worst excuse for a prosperous nation ever. My arse are they. Thanks to all the lovely kind people in London taking ludicrously large 'bonuses' every other week, we are all stuck in the midst of an economic crisis.

Thank you, Britain, thank you.

STOP!!! Man Down! MAN DOWN!

Because the people I live with are not so much a family as an assembly of tragic fools, I got no sleep last night and went to school exceptionally pig-eyed. I staggered into my mum's room and told her that she needed to write me a note excusing me from PE because I'd had a chest infection and had been adviced not to take part, wink wink nod nod.

Shocked and appalled to feel how cold it was outside but was later amazed to discover that the buses now have TELEVISIONS on them, and so I was watching silent and boring TV programs on the way to school. Lovely.

I was practically clawing at my face as I stood waiting to go into registration. Time was so s-l-o-w.

Physics first... Work, muchos work. It was very boring...

Then Anna and Ashley dropped Le Bomb. They got me a Christmas card. Shocked, I opened the black envelope...

It had a Christmassy dominatrix on the front. I almost choked.

PE was eventful... I didn't play of course, but I watched the girls playing basketball. Everytime Anna or Tilda played I nearly had a stroke. I was preparing myself for the moment where one of them would fall to the floor and I'd have to tear onto the court screaming 'STOP! STOP THE GAME! MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN! CALL THE MORGUE!'. Luckily the moment never came though Anna got into a little confrontation with Ellie Radford over who caught the ball first. The whole time I was muttering 'don't do it Anna. Do NOT get into a fight with Ellie, not if you value your life.' Izzie told me off for not having more faith in them, but how can I help it? Ellie is brutal.

English... Spent the whole time eating chocolate with Bena and willing myself not to do one of the following things...

1. Cry.

2. Claw my face off in impatience for the day to end.

3. Burst out laughing when Juliet has that little crying attack after Romeo dies.

Well, I managed not to do 1 or 2, but 3 was a lost cause.

I went hunting down exam papers after the lesson but couldn't find any so I went back to form and with me I brought crackers.

To sum up: Snap-bang-crack, Tilda and x's cracker, bad jokes, hats and a spuckload of stickers.

Got home and had a argument with mum over whether nativity plays are boring or not.

They SO are.

'I think the word house implies more legroom'

[Quote: Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer. It would be Twilight wouldn't it?]

What is with this house? Seriously. Yesterday a cupboard door fell on my foot and today I had to have a shower in the dark (though I'm not complaining, a lot goes unsaid for things like that). Also I had to pluck my eyebrows by candlelight because most of the lights have blown.

I mean, I knew I lived in a cave and that my family are cavemen ('Dad? Do you want a drink?' 'Nfff.'), but c'MON, this is insane.

I've been known to get my best ideas in the shower, and today was no exception. I figure I don't really want to be a doctor anymore. If this is the way my immune system reacts to pressure, a hospital is the best and worse place for me to be. And also sick people are fun to poke.

So what do I do now? I asked myself.

Well I'm perfectly happy to do something in the background, work in a music store or a bakery or something (a nice bakery, like Millie's Cookies or some place, not a crumby (haha! Crumby...) place like Woodheads where they practically spit into your pasty-to-go), but I like to be creative, and so I thought maybe something along the lines of writing as well. I have plenty of ideas for stories, and I sometimes spend whole days just typing away at things I've been dreaming about, but I don't have the time at the moment, which is always a flaw.

So writing in the future is a definite maybe (a 'definite maybe'... don't mull over that one too much, my brain hurts), which is good, that eases the pressure of living off somewhat.

This is definitely a good thing blogbugs, all of a sudden I have a little more bearing of what my life could be like.

But then again, I'm easily swayed, just look how much this groovy new thing called THE SEA distracted me...



Nicole.

*Quick! Nicole has something profound to say!*

Ha, you wish you were so lucky...

This could be a fail in the history of blog writing because I'm writing without any inspiration, and in a fit of inspirationless woopsie I thought perhaps I could turn that on it's head and use the fact I haven't got any inspiration to, like, inspire me, you know?

Yeah, I know, I don't understand me either.

Mhmm... So I don't know what I'm doing this weekend anymore. I'm not babysitting ze kids anymore because my brother has called in sick.

Would you believe that? I've been ill for the last three weeks, and then when I'm about to do something, SOMEONE ELSE tells me they are ill.

Oh, that's real considerate, go on, be ILL why don't you?!

I think my mum's going to force me back to school on monday. This isn't good blogbugs (I appear to have coined this phrase), I have a French oral exam on monday, and I'm no good at orals (don't even go there).

I suppose I *could* revise...

Holy mandrakes Batman! Did she just say that?!

Oh dear... Usually when I'm this bored I end up doing something that results in a reduction in my eyebrows (or what's left of them).

Stop me before I strike again.

Nicole.

It could only happen if I was involved.

Yes, blogbugs, it has happened.

I've killed the blogsphere forever.

The Urban Family are now on cyberspace.

The Urban Family Blog.

Be afraid.

It's just me and Matt at the moment. But I'm definite that there will be some input from the other guys.

Again, I'm incredibly sorry about this...

Nicole.

My niece's favourite question:

Why?

It's a perfectly good question. Why is the most asked question in all of history, but I think it's the question that gets answered the least too.

When my nieces ask me 'why' something does something, it's usually not out of real curiosity. Or more, it's out of curiosity to see when I'll crack.

Example:

Kelsi: Nicoooole?

Me: Hey hun, what's up?

Kelsi: It's raining.

Me: I know, it's a shame, we'll have to stay inside

Kelsi: Nicoooole? Why is is raining?

Me: Because of the clouds.

Kelsi: Why are there clouds?

Me: Because the water likes to fly when it gets warm.

Kelsi: Why does the water like to fly?

Me: Because water doesn't approve of the rising cost of plane tickets.

Kelsi: Why?

Me: Because water is masochistic. It preferred it when everything ran off steam.

Kelsi: *pause* Why?

Me: Because frozen cubes of urine fell from the sky and offered it a cigarette. Tag! You're it! *runs away*

----------

Kids are tough work, take it from me.

Or maybe Kelsi's just tough work. I love her insanely of course, but she's so unbelievably cocky. Her sister Eboni will hear what you say and leave it at that, then go off to play with her doctor's set (I bought her that... *super auntie*), but Kelsi sees RIGHT through you. She's loud, she answers back and she loves to push her luck, nothing gives her a greater buzz. She'd give Steven Hawking a run for his money.

Still, she's Kelsi, she's awesome. Don't feel you have to doubt that for a second.

(Seriously, don't, or Super Auntie [me] will kick your ass into the middle of next century)

Anyways.

The meaning of this post is that I was just (well, about half an hour ago now) thinking about why I blog, and I came up with this excuse reason.

When I go to write a blog, often I don't actually have a reason. I start out typing and each one is a thought-track (which is why I digress quite a bit). And so I can come out with some pretty random stuff because none of it is premeditated. Then I just safely store it away ('safely' turns into 'on the internet for everyone to see' somewhere along the line) to refer back to later.

So there is the explanation nobody ever asked for.

Fin.

Nicole.

My furry best friend.

No, I don't mean Matt.

I refer you to Zebbie, the family dog. He lives with my auntie and I've grown up with him, we are the same age.

I'm going to give you as many reasons as I can think of why this dog is the best dog in the world.

He's warm.

My brother - Paul - refers to Zebbie as a 'living hot water bottle' because he will (usually unwillingly) get in bed with you and keep you warm whilst growling because you've trapped him there. It's oddly soothing.

He's cranky.

He's fifteen now, so he's old in dog years. His back legs don't work so well, he's half deaf and half blind. He's a grumpy old man with a bad temper, and will growl at anything. This is kind of endearing as he never growls at me. He knows me.

He's childish.

He's juvenile and despite being a miserable old bugger he loves running around playing fetch, and then when he catches whatever you throw him, he utterly decimates it. He has us all on edge with his antics. It's similar to when my eighty-year-old great-uncle Ernest was racing up and down a field on a moped at seventy miles per hour at my uncle's wedding and we were all shrieking at him to slow down and take it easy.

He's a snob.

He acts like he owns EVERYTHING. He has breakfast cooked for him every morning, we all feel morally obliged to feed him under the table at family functions, he buries everyone's underwear, he poos wherever he sees fit and he'll shove past you if you aren't going somewhere fast enough.

Oh, and he'll drag you around for miles if you take him for a walk and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.

He's romantic.

He's not a shameless doggy lothario. He's a proper gentlemanly dog.

He's a toddler.

He still has a blanket which he sleeps with every night and woe betide anyone who dares to steal it.

He's a softy.

Especially with me. When my parents went to America and I was sleeping on my grandma's sofa, I was very upset and Zebbie picked up on that. He slept beside me on the sofa (very squished...) and kept me company all night long. He then had a hissy fit when my grandma hit me with a walking stick to wake me up the next morning.

(The flipside to this is that he actually held me hostage on the sofa. Everytime I moved he growled and then if I stopped stroking his head he nudged me awake.)

He's crap with children.

He hates it when Kelsi or Eboni swarm around him. He's become such a grumpy bastard. When we were young he was very protective over me. He'd sit with me in my grandma's garden and keep watch whilst I played, and he'd whine if I cried. He also let me sit on his back sometimes.

We're a couple of losers.

We've been known to sit in the drive at my grandma's house and complain about the world. Well, I do the complaining, he just barks at things.

He's a sheepdog.

I've never seen him around sheep but when we used to go for walks in the fields near my grandma's place, he used to run around in the hay and go ape-shit crazy.

And finally, he makes an awesome fairy.

When he was a puppy (ish...) I dressed him up in my fairy costume. He looked awesome. I have it on video somewhere...

----------

So three cheers for the Zeb-meister, for he is the most fantastical old bastard I've ever come across for sure.

Nicole.

End of an era.

I have decided that the days of 'Sie Erfasst Mein Herz' are over.

Fear/rejoice not! I don't mean I'm going to give up blogging and actually have a life, I merely mean I'm going to stop signing off with Sie Erfasst Mein Herz as I have done for the last year and a half (give or take a few months) and start using my real name.

It just seems more practical as most people know I'm called Nicole anyway and the Sie Erfasst Mein Herz guise was originally all about that fact that I actually cared if people knew who I was or not.

Not that I haven't enjoyed the air of [failed] mystery is presents, but it's so much easier to recount stories if I can just say my name.

And so I'll see you out there.

Nicole.