2010: The year that I forgot… To blog about…

That’s right, I’ve finally taken the plunge and started blogging again. I’d probably ask you not to read my last blog some 15 months ago, as in it I listed out all my new years resolutions for 2010. Suffice to say I aimed a little high last year and failed pretty much every new years resolution I made, which included: not drinking in January (I think I last 12 days), Getting fitter than I’ve ever been (succeeded by about July, only to become as unfit as I’ve ever been by Christmas – reasons for which I may go into later), have a holiday somewhere different (I went to France. I’ve been to France about 20 times previously), and… Yep, blog more reguarly. So you might think 2010 was a bit of a disaster for me.

Not entirely. Firstly, New Years resolutions are rubbish – it clearly can’t be that important if it means you’ve wait for New Years to decide you need to pull your finger out of your ar$e and get it done. Also, I have now officially played National League hockey. Debut came in the 09/10 season; a dead rubber game against already relegated Plymouth Marjons. I got on for the last 10 minutes and we were 7-1 up, the coach figuring there was only so much damage I could do (the game finished 8-2). My first (and to date only) full game in the EHL  came this season, away at Whitchurch, which we drew 1-1. It might not have been the most enthralling game of hockey, but it is certainly one I will always remember.

All good on the hockey front then! Well, again, not quite. I’ve probably played as many games for the 1s this season (4 games, two goals against, you do the maths) as times I have trained with them. It was a huge blow to turn up at the first stick and ball session of the season to be informed I was welcome to stay for that particular training session, but after that, I wouldn’t be needed, because a younger keeper, who is “The Future” would be training in my place, despite not actually playing for the club. That hurt. A lot. And it also left me feeling conflicted when I was asked repeatedly in pre-season and at the start of the season to step in and keep goal, despite feeling utterly under prepared and very low on confidence. But then I suppose when you are told at 24 you are effectively obsolete, very little is probably expected of you. I wanted to play. Of course I did, I moved to Guildford to play National League standard hockey. But I also moved there to train with a National League, knowing that time between the sticks was always going to be limited. And if I’m honest, in those first few months, part of me felt like telling the coach where he could shove it, and see how they managed with one of the other outfield players in goal. I’m glad to say, I was the bigger man, and that didn’t happen.

So, hockey was a mixed bag. I Captained the 2nd XI for a second season and we survived again, stringing together an impressive string of results in the second half of the season to ensure safety and wave goodbye to Richmond (consistently the weakest team in our league) and East Grinstead (consistently the team mostly likely to cheat in our league). But with the season at an end, I’ve now stepped down as skipper, and am working out what to next season. The truth is, I want to play 1st XI hockey. If I’m not good enough to that at Guildford, so be it. I know I am no Simon Mason. But then who is? Simon is an awesome bloke, and I have learnt a lot from him. A lot of people have said in the past, “Well if you’re going to be second best it might as well be to him.” This was true for a time, but at 25, now is the time to show what I can do for a clubs premier team. The difficulty is, finding 1st XI hockey on the same level or better than London Prem! To be continued, and I think a lot of people already know where my heart lies…

But what about women you ask? Yes, the eternal enigma. A blog is not the place I wish to discuss my conquests, or lack thereof, but I will draw a line under this particular chapter fo my life in the last 15 months with:

• Come on!
• S#!t.
• Interesting.
• Really?
• Game on.
• You sir, are a dick.
• Worse things have happened.

And that my friends is my love life in a nutshell!

But what else is there, surely it can’t be all hockey, women and fast cars (Oh yes, Maxi Taxi Mk 1 is no more!)? Well no, I do work and it’s going well, in that I haven’t been fired! But seriously, been here nearly 21 months, and doing just fine. I’m now Account Exec rather than Junior Account Exec, so bully for me!

I think that will do for now on an update on my life, There have been a million and one things in the news I want to comment on, but if I do it all in one go, I won’t do it for another few months and then we’re back where we were!

I am off to Spain though in less than two weeks, to do some repping at Lloretfest, which I imagine will be something like Tour when I was at uni, but without actually being attached to any one team. I’ll be moderating my drinking of course…

Until next time (I promise, not another 15 months, and it will be a rather less hurried/rambling affair than this).

A foot on the property ladder? Yes please!

Now, I would have written about this a lot earlier, but what with a few teething issues I didn’t want to count my chickens before they’d hatched.

But, after a few weeks of wrangling, I should be exchanging on my new flat in the next week or so, and moving in a few weeks after that. Je suis trez excited, and have already had a root round around Ikea and have a pretty good idea of how I’m going to kit out my bachelor pad. To say I’m excited is the worlds biggest understatement.

MY OWN PLACE!!!!

I mean, look at the fuss women make about child birth. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't smart a bit, but if blokes did it, I reckon you'd be looking at, what, give birth, have a couple of Paracetamol, maybe a bit of a nap and then back to work within the hour.

My, myself, I and, oh yes, hopefully a kindred spirit in the form of a flatmate. Someone to have a beer with after work, someone to watch the football with, someone to chat about how good ‘her off the telly’s boobs are’. I’ve envisaged it being something like Men Behaving Badly, only with a slightly less disgusting sofa. I’m also hoping my flat mate might pay rent on the odd occasion – as much fun as I’m sure he would be, I could do without a Tony!

But if Leslie Ash wants to pop down for a cup of sugar she’s more then welcome, and I imagine Caroline Quentin’s quite a lot of fun. Not sure Stella will be the lager of choice mind.

Of course I’m not ruling out living with a woman, but… well it’s complicated isn’t it. What happens if something happens and you end up ‘just using the one bedroom’, can you still charge her rent? And what if she has a boyfriend who is a bit of a cock, but always round your gaff, rubbing your nose in ‘how fit his missus is’. I say this, because a couple of weeks ago I watch the entire first season of How Not To Live Your Life. Very very funny, plus it has the STUNNING Sinead Moynihan with said cock for boyfriend.

Smug twat who's doing →, Ridiculously hot flatmate, Me

Of course Sinead winding up on my doorstep is something of a pipe dream, but I’m keeping my fingers very tightly crossed. Although she can leave Quentin Wellsbury-Smyth at home.

Away from house hunting and work, since the last time I blogged, I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple more hockey tours before proper hockey starts. At Purley I was a mess. Four words – Cake in the face! Then at Southgate, I literally won tour. I think a big contributing factor in both was my fancy dress. Remember i mentioned iNam? Well, I brought the rain.

Alas, the fancy dress is going back into the box for another year, as now it’s time to knuckle down to some proper hockey. I should probably ease off the booze as well, as I’ve put away quite a bit over the summer!

And finally, since we last spoke (I appreciate we don’t speak, I write, you read, it’s mostly a one way dialogue, save for the occasional bit of verbal feedback, but you get the point), job is still going well, although was a bit miffed I had to cut short my attendance at first proper ITPR night out because of training. I promise I will be in full attendance at the next one.

Until next time…

You don’t know man… you weren’t there…

Ok, so I probably should have written something yesterday about how super freekin’ sweet tour was.  Unfortunately, Andy Murray took so long to win his match, that there wasn’t really much time for anything else.

Before we get to the fun stuff, I should probably tell you that yesterday’s second interview at ITPR went very well, and they want to see me again on Thursday. Third time is serious, right? Well I hope so, looks like the kind of place I’d fit in well.

And so it is we come to, the weekends activities.  Now, given that Anybody could be reading this (including prospective employers), details, will be sparse.  Suffice to say, much was drunk, a little hockey was played (less so by me, after smashing my hip into a rock hard grass pitch in the first game) and games were a plenty – no more so than every serious tourists favourite, 20+1.  Everyone who was there knows what went down, and for everyone else?

“Sonning, you don’t know man… you weren’t there…”

And the iFunnel T-shirts, courtesy of Mr. Kerry James were simply class, and the first in a long line of ‘iHCUK’ merchandise that is likely to follow.

Sonning was always going to be a warm up Tour for the summer.  With Yateley, Ladyboys and Hornament already penciled into the diary, it would be the test bed of new ideas and allow discussions surrounding what we’d do for future tours.

Now, Yateley and LadyBoys are already themed, so, little room for creativity there, however, many hours were spent discussing the merits of a few ideas for Hornament up at Southgate.  And for me, by far and away the clear winner, was iNam (that’s right, we’re pretty much just going to stick an ‘i’ before anything we do because that’s what Apple do, and is therefore hip and cool).

So I’ve spent most of today looking for Vietnam War era stash, M1 Helmets, M-65 flak jackets, that sort of thing.  You see, so many people going on tour do army, but they don’t do it well.  I don’t want to give too much away, but if all goes according to plan, this will be our tour!  Last year, we were very bitter about not even being in the top four most tour teams at the Hornament because we missed a game due to one of our team members being rushed to hospital.  Sorry Southgate, we’ll try not to die on you next time, and fulfill all our hockey obligations (when did hockey tour become all about the hockey??).

Before I go, I had a friend ask me the other day if they could get a mention in my blog.  This was shortly after she told me that I wrote a lot more intelligently than I came across in person.  So Zoe, here’s your mention, and thank you very much for the backhanded complement!