On Sunday morning I went to London to see my Aunt, Uncle and two baby cousins. It was pretty awesome, the weather was amazing, and it was the first time I’ve gone down there on my own. I had to take two trains and a tube to their place, and again to get back on Monday, but the timing was so perfect I didn’t really care.

I got on the first train at about 9:20am and finally arrived at their place at around 1:00. It was so hot that we decided to go to the hardware store for the air conditioning. We actually ended up buying an umbrella for the outside table and some plants.

When we got back we set up this weird floral sprinkler that goes crazy when you turn on the hose. It’s very intimidating. Shay and Zac ran through the water and it was all very fun.

That night we had a barbeque and ate burgers for dinner. I haven’t had a barbeque in ages, so that was cool. After everyone had gone to bed, Haydn (my uncle) and I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning playing 2 player Call of Duty 4 on the Wii (loving the ability to call for air strikes). That was awesome.

I was woken up at 7 the next morning by Shay and Zac. We had breakfast and played with some blocks for a bit. We ended up going to Wimbledon park and playing there for a bit. London has great footpaths for skating on.

At about 5:40pm I got on the train home and was back by 8. I had an awesome time.

I know I haven’t been blogging as regularly as I should, so to make up for it I’m writing more than I usually do.

I’ve actually been quite busy recently with jobs, Christmas and New Years. I’ve decided to jump into the world of work early to get an idea of what it’s like. Not bad…

I designed a website for a singer songwriter called Heather. She has a blog about women like herself and wished that she could have a better website. I thought this was a great opportunity to try out my web design skills, so I gave it a shot.

Heather is now the proud owner of LyricalVenus.com. She wanted it turquoisey so that’s how I made it. I personally preferred it a heavy dark green, but I’m £165 richer than I was a week ago so I shouldn’t complain.

Additionally, if anyone would like a cheap, hosted Wordpress blog I would be happy to design it for you. I charge £200, but out of that I pay for the hosting of your new website. A fresh set of graphics created with your input comes standard. If necessary, blogs and comments can be transferred from your old blog to the new.

I’ve also been messing around with coding. It’s difficult to say what I can do, but given half an hour I can solve most problems I’ve come across. Of course, as I get better at coding, I’ll be trying more advanced things and creating more complicated problems for me to fix.

My New Year’s resolution is to learn CSS to a point where I don’t need to constantly seek help. That’d be a pretty awesome thing to say I can do.

Christmas was good. I enjoyed Christmas. Mum and I were woken up by my Dad at 8am and opened presents which was fun. I did go to bed at 5am, but after a few cups of strong coffee I was fine.

I won’t list all my presents, but off the top of my head, my favourites were a MetroGnome, a Dark Knight t-shirt (from Hannah, my girlfriend), brushes for my drums and a cinema voucher (saving it for the premier of the remake of the first Hellraiser movie).

After a day of too much food, Sam (my dad’s friend and colleague) came over and we had a little jam session – Dad on his new keyboard, Sam on the guitar and me on the drums (with my new brushes bought by Sam). It was really fun and we had a great time.

Hannah came over too, but she couldn’t be convinced to sing or play her clarinet. Fair enough, we were a bit cringe-worthy for one to want to associate oneself with us (plus Hannah’s quite shy).

On New Year’s Eve we went to Juliet and Louise’s place for a night of card games and hilarity. Some of their friends came over and all was good.

Clutch also came round and taught us how to play Spoons, a brilliant game requiring only a mad hunger for cutlery and the fastest hands in Kings Heath. Mum is a naturally a competitive woman and thusly won a lot of the time. This is probably not because she has the fastest hands, but the sharpest nails.

I did win one game, but it was a hollow victory. Everyone was a really good loser (sportsmanship-wise) meaning I just got congratulated, not cursed at for my lightning speed hands, drummer’s timing and a cutlery hunger surpassing everyone else’s (that round anyway).

That was pretty much all we did that night, but I really enjoyed myself. Plus, it snowed! Real snow, covering the floor and cars and drunks. It looked amazing, but unfortunately it only snowed in Moseley and Kings Heath, not Hall Green. KHAN!!!

That’s pretty much all there is from me, until something interesting happens again. Some day…

The aftermath of my sixteenth birthday party was horrifying. Like, it wasn’t hugely messy (by my standards anyway) but the mess wasn’t clothes and cd’s.

It was soggy crisps, wads of cake and moist patches in the carpet. That’s just unhygienic. And gross…

The party was from about 8:30 PM until 3:00 AM. It was a mostly awesome party, but there were a few annoying things about it.

1.) Leah was meant to turn up as it was a joint party (joint with her), and she didn’t.

2.) The garage (where the party was held) was freezing.

3.) I now have a cold.

However, apart from these, the party was really, really good. We had pizzas, crisps and chocolate cake (which Sam made), a necessity when alcohol is being consumed. Whilst eating and drinking we talked a lot. That was pretty much the whole party. We just sat around and told jokes which was fun.

Cleaning up this morning wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had, but some people stayed and helped out which I guess was pretty cool of them. Setting my drum kit back up took a while.

Most enjoyable party I’ve ever been to? Maybe. I enjoyed hanging out with all my friends and having a laugh, but this cold really sucks.

What’s the best party you’ve ever been to? And most sucky sickness?

The three Germans assigned to be my partners were Martin, Micah and Samantha. Martin was 18, Micah and Sam were 17 and they were really cool. Normally I got assigned 12 year-olds, but I was the oldest ‘English’ person on the trip apart from the teachers, so I became a helper. I just had to do head counts and make sure people didn’t mess around. That’s what my partners were doing on the trip, so I was assigned them.

Throughout the week we went to the National Sealife Center, my school (we did karate workshops and a tour of the school), Black Country Living Museum and we went to the town hall and met the Lord Mayor. The current one is the third Pakistani Lord Mayor, so that was cool. We were given soda water, orange juice, tea and sandwiches. How very English of us.

At my place we had Indian takeaway for dinner and played cards until the early hours. It was a game my parents and I had never heard of, Micah had brought it along with her. It’s called Phase 10 and we liked it so much, we ordered it from Amazon immediately. Eventually we all got too tired to play properly so my parents, Juliet who was playing with us, and the girls went to bed. Martin and I went on the computer and watched Batman Begins. We fell asleep about half an hour from the end. Our plan was to watch that, then Donnie Darko, then Transformers and Forrest Gump. Wake everyone up at about 8, have breakfast and go to the airport. Oh well…

“It’s not beer though! Ginger beer has no alchohol!”

“PEANUT – NUT! GINGER BEER – BEER!”

I sat down triumphantly and waited for my food. Triumphant in the knowledge that peanuts aren’t nuts. They’re peas.