Home from home

After a rather stressful start, Saturday was quite a lovely day. Getting everything ready to go away for a week, especially when that week is a ‘special’ one is quite the task, as we found out. My father’s hardly organised when it comes to life so that didn’t really help. Honestly, he nearly left my canary behind!

Anyway, we eventually all got out the door and went on down to deliver presents to my siblings and their respective families. Because my mother and I set off later than my father, having been left to pack the final things alone, I only got to see Rebecca, my youngest sister, and her sons Ashton and Jenson. It was those two I was most eager to see though so I’m alright with that. As normal, it took Ashton a good while to get used to me and not to act in a shy way and Jenson, having aged considerably since I saw him last, was more than willing to copy his brother’s behaviour. I got some lovely hugs and Jenson cried when we left so I’m not too offended that they ran away to start with!!

You'll never guess the name of the place we were staying! ;-)

 Then it was onto our little holiday cottage which is basically in the middle of no-where. We had a sheet of directions to follow although the owner informed us that one of the key points to look for, a horse riding mounting block, was destroyed in a car crash a couple of weeks ago. We weren’t really looking forward to this bit, my mother dreading it, considering she’s not keen on driving down little lanes. In the end, it ended up getting dark even earlier than expected due to an incoming storm which broke just as we were getting to the lanes with grass in the middle. Looking back, it was quite the adventure but I must admit that we all breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when we arrived!

The cottage itself is really sweet. Part of a unit of barn conversions it’s got real charm and is actually deceptively large. The owner was delightful and, when we walked in, we were greeted by crackers, mulled wine, and a Christmas tree. I think we’ll have a great time here.

I must say that I quite like the way that the cottage's
owner attacked this tree with tinsel!

The rest of the evening has been spent curled up on the sofas as a family, watching Harry Potter or, in my father’s case, sleeping. It’s strange because, looking back on the last couple of years, I think this is one of the first times we’ve been able to just relax as a family. I guess that life has been so strange for so long what with death threats and extreme bullying to flooding and illness that I’d almost forgotten what normality is. I’ve really missed this.

When I wrote this post, I was without an internet connection. It’s been uploaded onto t’interweb since!

Youtube news!

About four years ago I first started to subtitle Elisabeth. It was about a week before my birthday and, having discovered the magic of this musical I decided I wanted to share it with my friends who were coming round to celebrate my birthday (although, of course, it wasn't finished in time). Thus I decided to use a dictionary to translate my favourite musical. 

As you may well know, I had never intended to upload 'Elisabeth' onto youtube but in early 2010 my computer got a virus and, so that I didn't loose my work completely with the death of the computer, I uploaded them onto youtube. The response was instant and more positive than I could have believed. I decided to continue to upload the videos, as I made them.

Suddenly the project of a fourteen year old became something bigger and had more influence on my life than I could ever have imagined.

In the end, my friends never watched 'Elisabeth' with me, but people from all around the globe have shared it with me. I have had some amazing conversations with people because of Elisabeth, met some amazing people and, most importantly, I met three of my closest friends (Helena, Aleks, and Natascha) as a direct result of the show. 

Not only this, but I realised something... languages weren't that inaccessible to me. Sure, I struggled with French like mad but German, well I was learning that by accident. Because of the translating I became more confident and continued my French studies, picked up Japanese, and will be studying German and Hungarian at university next year.

But why am I writing this now?

Today, almost exactly four years after I subtitled my first video, my youtube channel hit 1000 subscribers.

So this is a thank you blog, really. If you are reading this then it's probably because you've been looking at my subtitles in some form, at some point over the years. Your messages, your views, everything, has encouraged me in so many ways. Yes, every creative member of 'Elisabeth', 'Rebecca', and 'Marie Antoinette' has had an influence too but it's been you, the people who have supported me, who have changed my life and for that I thank you.