Review 1

Hi,

As it's now the final week of 2010, its time to reflect on the first half of the year.

Comparatively, the year hasn't been great for me. A bit like 2006 wasn't great. But there's still been some really nice things within it.

The first main event of the year was a trip to Stoke for the game against York City... a game which promised a lot, but was actually pretty dull and absolutely freezing, especially standing around for ages waiting to get in. Apart from that, it was a laugh though and a day out in Stoke lol. City lost 3-1 and despite very briefly taking the lead, never really looked like winning.

I came runner-up in my first ever poetry competition - on-line ones don't count - The Husthwiate poetry contest does (yes, its a tiny village). A job interview at Azlan came and went.

More and more snow fell, which made me feel really warm ironically. One of my favourite memories was walking down Micklegate in the snowiest, most surreal scenes I've ever encountered - it was beyond beautiful - going into an amusingly sludge-floored Sainsbury's.. laughing hysterically at the surrealness of it all, meeting a girl who was also laughing and then walking through the city with her. Funny how little things stand out, but I'll never forget the beauty of the city that day.

That inspired me to buy a digital camera, which I've happily used throughout the year including photography expeditions... I've never been so fascinated by photography as this year... and have been learning techniques and looking for opportunities to take beautiful photos.

Got to see Adam's band - who are really good - called The Hung - and recently supported The Pigeon Detectives. Wow. Tuesday nights became a regular night at The Habit pub. I did some side-work at home for a translation business - yeah that was pretty random - checking over documents for a bit of extra cash. Saw Stewart Lee at the Theatre Royal -- he was hilarious - love him! Saw an amazing York City win at home to Wimbledon., a trip to castle howard, anda trip to Crewe. (lol)

If there's one thing this year has sucked massively at - it's my career....

It all started in January at the Meat Hygiene Service.... Having been there 3 years, I decided to leave.. I really enjoyed my time there and had a really amazing job there which I loved.... I honestly never thought I'd end up with a job choosing and supplying abattoir equipment as a living - a job where a typical day involved trying on gloves and other clothing, meeting with suppliers about products, and generally covering my desk with all kinds of unusual abattoir equipment.

I left because I found it really difficult to work with the guy I worked closely with - even though we'd had a good laugh for 8 months or so - It was probably as much my fault as his, but I decided the job wasn't worth saving.... One of the main reasons (apart from his moodynes towards me) was the fact he was so obsessed with the job - it was his entire life. It meant that even if things were ironed out (which by the way they are now), it still wouldn't have made for a great job. He would talk about the job all day long, even the minute details of it.

But that wasn't the only reason I left. Also - big one - I was still temporary there, and it was hard to see the job being extended (as it turned out, with the coalition cuts, my job would not have been extended anyway!).. what this meant was that I felt I didn't have much to lose by handing in my notice... and so I thought it through and given that it was really getting me down and flattening me at the time, I thought it was the best thing.

Also, my boss was so kind that she would have offered me an alternative role within the company, but I decided even if she did, that I didn't want that either... and that being a progressive person, after 3 years there, I wanted to move on. She understood - my boss.

The last month there wasn't easy. Including told off severely in a meeting for loads of things I didn't do... my boss however, did decide on her own accord before the end of my time there that I was being bullied and the situation was wrong. It didn't matter though, I was all set to leave.

I made some good friends there and people were really lovely to me when I left - and got me things including a digital photo frame with a slideshow of photos of me from my time there - my highlights being travelling round the country to conferences, chairing meetings - and erm dressing up as a woman for children in need (actually, i really hated that!) lol... but i did it as a challenge in my first year there.

Looking back, I am not really sure whether I made the right decision to leave or not.

The snow kept falling in January - it was very snowy and then.. very icy. Amusingly, I had no downstairs heating through most of it.. and a guy who kept returning making excuses about it.

Before handing in my notice, I had a day out at an abattoir in Bridlington with Becs and Robbie. An amazing experience... Wondering round the different parts of an abattoir - like lost sheep. Well no, that's a stupid comparison.

Absolutely fascinating - and the processes they use make it seem so.... well normal. A bit shocking when you see the moment when it happens - but after that, your brain associates with the carcass being meat rather than animal.

Phil Morris, my friend from Preston came up one night, and we had a big night out ending in the Gallery. Used to do that all the time!!! It was funny with it being so rare, but a very cool night!

Matt Wilson, one of my best childhood friends came back... having formed his own company, now virtually a millionaire, with offices all around the world... and living in the Phillipines. Amazing the routes which people take - he always wanted to be that person.

Having had about a 2 or 3 month break from being on hospital radio while our studios were re-furbished, I returned into the Sunday morning slot. Our new studios incidentally are better than Radio York and Minster FM, so its been a massively different experience to how it used to be presenting.

My Sunday morning slot continued with its trend of spiritual-ness, calming-ness, and local special guests.

I have only been to London 4 times this year - and only filmed three of those times. All through my own choice and the fact I've been doing other things on weekends mostly.

BT, my musician idol, released These Hopeful Machines - his 6th album - which (no surprises really) became my favourite record of the year... and also features my favourite song of the year, which is The Unbreakable.

I did a bit of stand-up poetry at Space109 and then at Oxfam Bookshop - but it was a bit pointless really - still it was raising money for Haiti, which was something I felt really affected by. I've kind of parked the stand-up poetry, but am still proud of the 3 events I've done with Adam... though nothing matches the one we did at Selby Town Hall!!

I got a new job - at the Crown Prosecution Service - which lasted 8 months - and turned out to be the dullest job and situation i've had by a million miles. I never actually knew it was possible for a job to be that dull, and was relieved when they told me that all temps had to go because of cutbacks. I try and learn from everything, but honestly, I learnt very little from that time, and sadly that's the main reason why 2010 hasn't been the best year in comparison to other years.

I started running again, interviewed new radio members, did an A to Z of the 80's show (wow that was fun), started a trend of having meals out with my Mum (that's been a nice idea!), a lovely meal and gift exchange with Ruth, some Samaritans afternoons and nights out drinking, time walking at The White Horse (not the pub!) and Neil's 30th birthday (ok, that one was the pub). Actually, did lots of great walking this year!

My first major challenge of the year was The Three Peaks Challenge - Oh my God, was this a challenge!!! The biggest challenge of this event turned out to be, having to stop half-way there on the car journey cos i felt travel-sick, and facing the very real possibility that (in order to not delay the others), I would have to be abandoned at a random point in the Skipton countryside (like literally in the middle of nowhere!!!!) somehow figure my own way back and miss out on the whole day. I honestly genuinely thought that was what was gonna happen. Thankfully, it didn't!!!

11.5 hours of up-and-down feel walking... a real real endurance challenge - incredible - and i did it!!!

After spending a long time on the application form, I was rewarded with 2 weeks' work experience at Radio York - which I bravely took as unpaid leave from my new (dull) job.

With my big dream/ambition to work in radio full-time, it was an important step for me. Or so I thought. Career-wise however, it wasn't.

The job itself was very journalism-oriented, which in some ways proved a steep learning curve (with me not being a journalist) - I still regret the huge struggle I had to find a giant rabbit breeder!!

Still, the two weeks was fascinating and a great experience - the highlights were taking weekly vox pops (short interviews) with members of the public, schoolteachers, parents, schoolkids (wow, that was fun) - basically in relation to whatever the main news story was!

The ultimate highlight though - and perhaps my highlight of the year - was taking the BBC Mic to Bootham Crescent for the York City game - which incidentally despite massive efforts to protect it, fell beneath all the jumping bodies when Brodie scored late on (for a 1-0 win in the play-off semi) ... Anyway, so the highlight was interviewing Richard Brodie, the hero, after the game. Especially brilliant as he rarely gives interviews so it was a brilliant capture.

My other highlight was creating and editing a short piece for Julia Booth's show where I visited a new vintage shop - House Of Avalon - opening in the city. I was really proud of that and really surprised myself on a creative level.

They didn't keep me on - which was a shame - but also, well, it wasn't surprising - with me being relatively new to journalism - having no qualification - or driving licence for that matter.

It stunted my radio dream a little, but not too much :-) And it was so much fun working on the stories (and wondering around with a BBC mic, watching people's reactions and feeling important)

As usual, I went to and enjoyed most race meetings at York this year - and also, had some luck!!! Over the year, I made a profit! - wow that never happens :-) Going to York Races is something I always always enjoy :-)

Had a night drinking with Mike Burns (colin off the brittas empire) who is a friend of mine, though i havent seen him for ages - he's been busy with edinburgh etc.... still, a little claim to fame.

York City reached Wembley for the second year in succession, which meant I went down for the second year in succession. Sadly, the play-off final and our chance to get back into the league went pear-shaped. Oxford beat us convincingly. The day was okay though, we still had a laugh.. Just such a shame that we could have been back in the Football League.

One of the more bizarre things I was invited to this year, was to be a judge in the hospital's "Nurse Factor" .. yes a copy of X-Factor with nurses.... haha needless to say that was a great laugh... being simon cowell for the evening!!! (only slightly geekier!)

A day that stands out in May was doing the Robin Hood's Bay walk from Whitby to erm Robin Hoods Bay ... along the clifftop... I did this with James - it was a truely wonderful walk - and one of real sharing of truths which I will remember for a long while.

Unusually, only one significant NEW person/friend came into my life this year, and that's Ali - hi if you're reading :-) -- a friend who I met on-line - Canadian and after a brief spell in London, arriving in York to start a fresh life. I found this story fascinating, so it was great getting to know her, build up a nice friendship and help her settle into her new way of life here in York :-)

The World Cup came around - possbily my favourite thing in the entire world - and also got me back into footy, cos it seemed to have been drifting out of my life....

I was soon crazily excited about it all - and of course fancied England's chances as always. Watching the games this year was great - especially with the support of Christian, Elaine, Zumo and others with the same passion about it all as me - there is absolutely nothing like it.

Given that, it was really cool that my 30th birthday fell on an England game date!!! Incredibly lucky really. I've never had a load of people integrated for my birthday before, but managed to do that with a lot of my friends that day - which made it pretty special. 30 has certainly been a big age for me - a real point that's got me thinking about where i'm heading, who i am etc. 30 is a big age.

Add to the mix, large amounts of snooker, Canadian day, stalking someone in Leeds and hurricane obsessions... and that just about concludes the first half of 2010 :-)