An A-Z Of Beverages

Hey, OK. Well, stealing an idea from Emily I thought I'd ask for help with this; I wrote this a couple of years ago with help from a couple of friends (and the Crouts). This is an alphabet of drinks; it's not complete and I need help finishing it. But darling, it's fabulous!

A is for Alcohol

B is for Beverage, Booze, Baccardi, Beer, Bloody Mary, Bitter

C is for Champagne, Caraçao, Cocktail, Crystal Meths, Cider

D is for Drinkies

E is for Eggnog

F is for Fruit Juice

G is for Gin and Tonic, Ginger Beer

H is for Harvey Wallbanger

I is for Ice Cream Sundae, (Smirnoff) Ice

J is for Joooouice

K is for Koala?

L is for Lemon, Lime, Lager

M is for Martini, Malibu, Meths, Mulled Wine,

N is for 

O is for Orange Juice

P is for Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Pint, Punch, Perry

Q is for Quocodile?

R is for Red Wine

S is for Sambuca, Sex on the Beach, Sunrise, Slice of Lemon

T is for Tequila

U is for Umbrella (in the top of the drinkie)

V is for Vodka

W is for WKD, Wine, White Wine Spritzer, Whiskey

X is for

Y is for

Z is for

Birthdays

Today is Eduin's Birthday, so it is fairly obvious that I am pondering Birthdays. (duh, that's what the post title is...) Anyway, Birthdays are a quite ridiculous invention. I mean, a day to celebrate having been born x number of years ago. It's not like you've actually planned for it to happen, it just did. Well, obviously someone probably planned it, or at least allowed it, so it's not totally random. But you see my point.

So, why do we have all these traditions for Birthdays? Parties, for example. As a child (and still now) the party was the best bit of having a Birthday for me. It meant I could get all my friends together, who didn't necessarily know eachother, or who hadn't seen eachother for a long time, and we got to do something awesome for a couple of hours. Like caving, or swimming, or just playing pass the parcel (a totally normal 16th Birthday party - it surpassed the passing of any past parcel which had been passed in the past!) and the fact that it was your Birthday Party, that everyone was there to see you, made it even better. But why do we have parties to celebrate Birthdays? Why not have a special meal with family and/or friends, like we do at Christmas? Or decorate trees? Or have hunts around the garden (or park or whatever) for tiny chocolates? Obviously, depending on your inclination, you could do any of these things (except perhaps the tree) on your Birthday, but why isn't there something universal, like there are for other celebrations?

And what about presents? This has never made sense to me. Not that I'm complaining, everyone likes presents, but they don't really mean anything, do they? At Christmas, we give eachother presents to represent two things; firstly, God's gift of His son into the world and secondly the giving of the gifts from the Wise Men to Jesus. (N.B. If you're an atheist/non-Christian believer and you give presents at Christmas, it just makes you as nice person.) So why Birthdays? Is it meant to be a sort of prize? Congratulations on not having died since this time last year? Or is it an incentive to carry on living? It doesn't really represent anything, except for the fact that your birth is being celebrated several years too late by those who love you (or at least like you a bit).

Finally, cards. Whilst they are pretty and are given at many, many occasions (which I cannot be bothered to list here) they do appear to be a little bit silly. regardless of what pictures they have on them, or silly messages they have inside or whatever they are still a little piece of folded up paper containing a sentiment which would be more genuine if it was said out loud anyway.

I may never understand the logistics of Birthdays, but hopefully I shall continue to live to celebrate many more, not only of my own, but also everyone else, because you're all awesome people too.

As always, any comments (not too rude) are welcome and you can still follow me on Twitter - @EmPernilla (although why you would want to, I don't know)
:-)

Ice Cream Guy

By popular demand, I have been pondering Ice Cream Guy recently. This was the guy at Butlin's, whose name was Aiden, who was serving ice cream in the restaurant.

On the first night of Jesus Camp, three of us (Lois, Louise and I) went to get pudding together. Being the old fashioned person I am, I had proper pudding, with custard, but Lois and Louise got ice cream. This led to a short, polite conversation with the Ice Cream Guy, in which I also became involved. After we went back to our table, the other girl who went to Jesus Camp with us (Adele), went up to get her ice cream and presently started a conversation with Ice Cream Guy, which she related to us as:
Adele: Did you see my friends just now?
Ice Cream Guy: The three lasses? Yeah, some of them were fit.
A: Which ones?
ICG: The one with the glasses, and the other one.
A: How old are you?
ICG: Seventeen.
A: The girl with the glasses is thirteen.
*awkward pause* Adele walks off.

We then spent a lot of time talking about this and Adele went up for ice cream at least six more times to talk to Aiden. On the last time I went with her, to stop her from doing anything stupid. She then asked Aiden "What about her?", pointing at me, to which he replied "No, I prefer the other one". Thanks. It's not like I'm a PERSON with EARS or anything... (Although, I'm neither surprised nor bothered, I don't like rude people.)

The next day, when we went to get pudding, Aiden was there again. Louise started an argument with him about how inappropriate it was for him to comment on her cousin in such a way. She was standing in what i have come to call the "fight position", legs apart, hands on hips, leaning slightly forward. I, jokingly, said "Lou, it doesn't help your point if you stand like this *copying her*", Aiden replied with "It does if she leans forward".

...

That's not even remotely funny. Plus Louise has a boyfriend. (Hi Craig!!)


Although, Aiden had one redeeming quality. He referred to Adele as "the pain". This made us laugh. A lot. We did have other encounters with aiden, but they weren't as funny, or worth writing about. Oh, except that time he followed us...

Jesus Camp (Spring Harvest) 2012

My pondering for the last week has pretty much all been about "Jesus Camp", which is what we nicknamed Spring Harvest. For those of you who have never heard of Jesus Camp, it's a gathering of roughly 7000 Christians, all together at Butlin's for one fun filled week. They run four of these throughout the Easter Holidays, three at Minehead and one at Skegness, so I was at the Skegness one, which was EPIC.

I have many things to say about this. Firstly, ONESIE!!!!!!!! This guy was a God. He wore the most AMAZING Onesie on several days of Jesus Camp, which led me to leaning out of our window of our apartment and shouting "Excuse me sir! In the Onesie! You look Excellent!" and my friend Adele yelling "Like a sexy baby grow!!" We thought, as any normal person would, that this would make him incredibly embarrassed and that he'd think we were freaks. But NO! This was Jesus Camp, therefore, we became friends with Onesie (who's actually called Will), who said we had actually helped him convince his friends that the Onesie (which wasn't his) had been a good idea. What a nice man...

Secondly, the amazing feeling that you got from the whole experience; everyone there was Christian (obviously) , which meant that you could talk openly about your faith and ask questions that my parents would complain about me asking at home, such as "What does a religious Experience actually feel like?" It also meant that you could trust everyone; if you left your bag somewhere, you could be pretty certain that it would still be there, complete with contents, when you returned. The other religious aspect of this was personal; I was able to truly find and know God through group prayer and other activities. I'm sorry for those of you who are non-believers, but I have come back from Skegness believing more strongly than ever that, even if the Bible isn't quite right all the time, there has to be a God who loves us and, in some way, created us and this Universe.

As many of you know, I have a thing for tents. Over the last week at Jesus Camp, I have discovered the Tabernacle. It is like the mother of all tents; bigger than a yurt and without the yaks. There are about six chapters of the book of Exodus designated to giving Moses the exact measurements and design for this tent of worship, including what the lamps should be made of and the size of the offertory box.

Finally, there are so many stories of Ice Cream men, Power Balls, Crazy Golf, hats, Ant and Dec and beehives that I can't even begin to tell you. Although I will quickly mention the Free Hugs, with which we somehow managed to raise more than £50 for children in Haiti. this was an excellent scheme and we made everyone feel better for it (especially when I shouted "You sir, you look like a man who likes a cuddle!" at an Emo). For anyone Christian who hasn't yet had this wonderful experience, or for those of you who are curious agnostics, I highly recommend, in fact I almost demand, that you go to Spring Harvest / Jesus Camp next year! It's a beautiful thing :)