Canvas of Dreams

october 31st, kind of started on the 30th, because in the evening a few of us went out for a chinese at ‘the chinese orchids’ or something like that, in cully. i had a sweet and sour hong kong style king prawns with egg-fried rice. it was good. after i finished mine i cleared most other people’s leftovers cause i was still a bit hungry.

part way through our meal, we began to notice we were the only ones in half of the restaraunt! i think it may have been because we were fairly loudish

after the main meal we were going to get dessert but then saw it was about £3.50 for ice cream, so we decided to get mcflurries instead, we then asked for the bill. £106.25 for 7 people. not thatt bad really.

so we went to mc donalds and had mc flurry.

we then headed back to one of our places with a few drinks for supply. certainly interesting driving through country lanes at night with a wet road and leaves. on one corner we skided, almost hit a stone driveway, and by avoiding that we ended up skidding to the other side of the road where there was a stone wall, and literally just missed it. i actually had a heart attack!

we then arrived at the house and well, shortened version is, we didnt get to sleep untill the early hours of halloween.

after a few hours sleep, i was due on a rugby pitch playing the local rival match against cully. i got a slight black eye, and a stud cut along my thigh, which i didnt realise until i got in the shower after which stang so so so much. we did win the match 35-27 in the end. and after a while at the rugby club i strolled home and began math work due for monday. i still have more to do tommorow.

then i ate a curry while watching x factor, and i can’t believe how people are treating the contestants this year, especially danyl. with headlines reffering to him as the most hated x factor contestant ever, and likening him to hitler! seriously! i personally think he is one of the more down to earth, honest people on the show and people seem to hate him? whats that about eh!?! well i don’t get it.

and now i’m here tumbling out my past day and a bit.

so thats about it for halloween 2009. not even a pumpkin. maybe next year?

and for those who find these kind of things interesting; where the word ‘halloween’ came from: the term halloween, originally spelled hallowe’en, is shortened from “all hallows’ even” – e’en is a shortening of even, which is a shortening of evening. this is ultimately derived from the old english Eallra Hālgena. it is now known as “eve of” all saints’ day, which is november 1st.

wedneday night i had a voicemail. from the manager at morrisons telling me i’m not doing my normal shift and i had to be in at 9 to be till trained…they gave me loads of notice, almost a whole 14 hours. great.

by 6 the next day, when my shift had finished i was completly drained. i genuinely hate working on the tills, having to deal with customers, many of whom are just waiting for you to make a mistake, so they have a reason to complain or moan. which is not the best thing if you have only been learning the set-out of the machine for a few hours.

and also, why me! i am a fruit and veg chap. why do i have to know how a till works, when i have to know when a pineapple is at it’s ripest or where it’s from or whatever.

so soon enough, i will make a formal complaint so i will never have to work on the tills again. i hope.

on a much brighter note though, i then went and met gemma to talk about driving to college, look through photos and talk about things etc.

at one point my phone began to ring, so i looked at it and was going to press the busy button, but gemma said ‘answer it, your going to be invited out tommorow night’ (or something along the lines of that) so i did answer. after the phone call ended i was a bit weirded out. i had been invited out somewhere the next evening. soon after me thinking she was psychic, she then explained she had seen a comment to me from that person on facebook asking then. so i wasn’t as weirded out as before, quite funny though.

and that was how the 29th of october 2009 went for me.

today was meant to be the day that i would get all of my work done. maths, physics, geography, the lot.

but……the surf looked really quite good. so i’m going to beach (:

goodbye homework. see you tommorow.

“if you buy into the notion that life is a journey, you might also have noticed that, not all travellers are created equal.

there are some who carry a heavy load, dealing with what they are dealt, dreaming of what they are not, all to avoid drowing in the stormy sea of desperation and dissapointment that seperates the truth from fanatasy.

then there are those whose effortless motion and confident action confront us all, causing our jaws to slacken and eyes to widen, and forcing the sharp intake of breath that we then hold while the spectacle unfolds. these people display bravery beyond question, and their actions reveal the limits that are, for them at least, imaginary.

for these extraordinary individuals, even gravity seems to pause a while and possibility floats as they do – a beguiling vision seemingly within reach of us all, if only for a moment. these masters follow their elegant arcs to a chorus of acclaim through 360, 720, 1080. it’s mastery by degree.

but then there are those of an altogether different order. in a realm beyond even the masters.”

-found while sifting through old files.

it began on tuesday. when a certain rob from my maths class came over bragging about how he was going to the beach tommorow, at which point i remebered i had only one lesson in the morning and i wasnt playing rugby that day, so i asked if i could come along.

wednesday began with me waking up late and frantically packing a bag of surf gear along with physics text books, then i strolled out the door to meet ben to get up to college. after an everlasting 1 hour 20 of jon (physics teacher) rabbiting on about something to do with space and gravity and blah blah, i headed to the LRC to find a PC so i could check the tide.

oh it was good. 10.5ft swell and an on-shore wave height of 6/7ft.

i’ll skip the car journey, not much happened apart from rob blaming our lateness on ed for going to the toilet, haha. also i ate a family four pack of pasties to myself, which i think is a personal achievement.

stopped in braunton to try and find a board to rent. (we couldn’t fit all 3 on the roof so we decided to take 2 and rent 1) but apparently a surfing town, does not rent out boards? perculiar. anyway we just carried on and decided to get one at the surf shop on the beach. our first sight of the sea since the webcam was over the cliffs by saunton. it looked quality! but we carried on to get the better wave. went on past croyde because it looked busy and went on to putsborough, where admittedly it was a tad smaller to start with, sort of 5ft, but it was such a clean cut wave.

after renting a board for £6, baragin, we headed down and claimed our spot in the sea. quite a few wipeouts, faceplants and good rides later we came out. rob had white feet, and white hands. and he was meant to be driving. so he practically put his feet in the heater.

on the way back, stopped off to pick up a set of chips each, which were so warm after being in the cold. watching rob driving with chips on his lap, wooden fork in one hand and trying to steer and change gear was certainly interesting!

soon enough i was home, and exhausted. i just collapsed into my bed and stayed there.

the next day. thursday.

today was the day of my driving test. 17 minutes past 9, precisley. so i met my instructer at 7-45 which felt a lot earlier than it actually was. 3 hours later, i’m a fully qualified driver. yey. 6 minors during the test which isnt too bad, 4 of them for being too cautious through residential estates…? but oh well. after my test my instructer then told me i had had the senior chief examiner! glad he told me that after rather than before.

and so thats about it so far. it’s been pretty good.

well. i’m in the process of writing a book. for some reason i have always always wanted to walk into a bookstore and see a book with the author’s name as ‘Matthew Wynn’. so anyway, i began writing it in the summer of last year, and this is my taster chapter. hope you enjoy! oh and i should probaly say its a sort of bond/bourne kind of story line.

Chapter 2 – 14 Years Ago, Eyes from the Sinister Darkness

It was bitter. Ice cold. A typical Russian night in Moscow.

The thudding of running feet and cries came from the depths of darkness. There was no way to tell which direction the voices were coming from. It could have been from any path. Then silently from the shrouds emerged a young man. He had dark short hair and a crafted, sharp featured face, his body was one of whom had trained long and hard. He was wearing black suit trousers and what was a white shirt, now almost completely red with blood.

He slowed from a run to a quick walk. He then stood on a street corner, hiding himself in the darkness. His breathing was fast and hard. From his pocket he took out a mobile phone. He flipped the lid up. Nothing happened, it was dead. The man lifted his head and released a deep sigh. He cursed under his breath. He continued to look from side to side. Though now, he was not looking for where the voices could be coming from, but a phone booth.

He began to walk, quickening his pace to a run as he dodged the streetlights, looking for cover, continuously searching for a phone booth down each street he passed. The cold was piercing, his teeth began to chatter. The running wasn’t keeping him warm. Then just as he was about to turn around and look along another street, a glowing caught his eye down one of the side streets. He stood at the end of the street, panting. Carefully he began to walk down towards the phone booth.

In the darkness his senses seemed to come alive soon his eyes will come to deceive him. With each step he would stop to listen for following footsteps, or if the cries of the Russians had got any closer. As he stepped towards the phone booth, he found it was near the middle of a Market Walk, in clear view of anyone. He had second thoughts about using this Booth, but decided he had to. He had to get contact with The Company.

He made a quick dash to it, and as he stepped inside he smashed the light so it would be slightly harder to see him. Still he was nervous about his situation. He began dialling The Company which was based in England. It began to ring. After a while it picked up. In a rushed, exhausted voice, almost shouting down the phone he spoke; “Hello. Hello, I need help; you’ve got to get me outta here. I need extraction.” He paused. “Yeah it’s Adam White, I’m in Moscow, I was assigned my first duty here, but its gone wron…” White stopped talking with a puzzled look upon his face. The line had gone dead.

He looked down at the phone box. He glanced around, and then from the darkness came a battered looking face, one that had been on the receiving end to many times. He spoke softly “Здравствуйте, мой друг. Мы ищем вас” A confused look set across White’s before motionless face. “Ahh, so they haven’t taught you Russian yet then? I am surprised. Well, some friends and I have been looking for you for sometime now. You’re a slippery one to get a hold of aren’t you?”

The Russian then made a move towards the door, and reached for the handle, White turned and kicked through the glass and ran for the shadows of an alley. He heard gun shots and shouting. They were shouting in Russian, he hadn’t a clue what they were saying.

White reached the shadows and quickly glanced over his shoulder to see four or more figures chasing him. While he ran a throbbing began in his leg. He didn’t dare stop to look; his guess was a shard of glass, or what he hoped was glass.

He had reached a wide open paved area which suddenly turned to grass, then mud. A sign that read ‘Moskva’ came into his view just as quickly as it vanished again.

The cold of the river hit him hard; it stole his breath away in an instant. The pain of the freezing temperature never ceased to end, even after his furious attempt to swim to the bank; he was still far too cold. In the pitch black there was no hope. After a couple of minutes he heard blurred voices talking above, on a bridge. He wasn’t able to focus on them well enough to hear what they were saying. The voices started to fade, along with all other noise, and his vision. All turned black.

so. everything has a start right? and i’m going to assume this is the beggining of ‘the blog’ for me, and i best fill you in on like the past 17, 11 months and 5 days of my life so far.

well. born in devon. grew up here too. lived in a grand total of 9 houses, which honestly gets less exciting as soon as you get past moving house twice.

began my education in heathcoats primary, which i really, really enjoyed. although my memory of it is very vague. next stop was tiverton high school. i’m gonna skip the first 3 years there because they weren’t my favourite. in the last stages of school i began to find myself and who i was. i made some of my best friends while there. after that i then went off to richard huish college and met a load of amazing people. while here i’m studying maths, physics, and geography. loads of fun yeah…? i used to do psychology, but that came to an end after the 1st year.

and apart from education, i do enjoy my sports. rugby inparticular, then when/if i get to uni i’ll probaly do rowing.

and so thats it really for now. admitedly skimming a lot of details, but oh well.

i’ll admit it. nothing lively is happening here just yet. but come back, definatly come back. and it will be worth your while. i promise.