The idea was that I was arranging a team trip to the cinema to see Fame. One of those occasions where you mention it and everyone’s like ‘Yeah!!’ and then the excuses come in when it actually comes to it. (I’m totally usually one of those people!) So Saturday Me and Keel went to Chelmsford. It was crazy!! I forgot how much I hate town centres on a Saturday anyway, but there were loads of weird and wonderful things going on. Photos here: Street Diversions show a little bit of some of the things. There were some builders performing outside the old Woolworths which was quite good fun. So we wandered round a bit, I went to O2 to try and get my phone sorted, got a coffee from Costa (poor girl wasn’t having a good day!) and spent much of the afternoon in the park watching a sculpture which breathed fire and water! Went to see Fame at the cinema in the evening…hmmm. I was so excited, but actually left disappointed. I really enjoyed the film while it was happening…but when it finished I realised that nothing had actually happened, and they didn’t even do the song!

Sunday I went to LWCC again with Tricia, and really enjoyed it. They have custard creams at the end of the service…always a good thing! We had roast dinner and plum crumble…can’t remember the last time I had a roast and crumble, good times! By this point I had spent much of my time texting round people to try and organise some sort of gathering. So i headed off to Lake Meadows in Billericay, met Keel, Becca and Ben and we spent a couple of hours in the park. Ben climbed a tree…that was about the height of excitement. Then he went home and the three of us went for cranberry juice/J2O/Orange and Lemonade/Chips/Chocolate Fudge Cake/Pepsi/Coffee at Wetherspoons!

So overall I enjoyed my weekend. Now for rehearsals and preparations for Grantham. And we’re off bowling on Tuesday night.

www.85design.co.uk is now up and running. Very exciting!

It’s been a time of eventfulness since my last post!

Saturday 12th was the commissioning/celebration in London. We arrived early and set up in good time. It was really good to see SammyJ, Matt and Ollie again as well as some of the other Optimum Volunteers from last year. The service itself went well and everyone worked really well together on our first event!

Sunday I went to church with Tricia, first time of being at her church – LWCC. It was really good!! A really relaxed atmosphere, everyone was really friendly and I loved the fact that the children were allowed to run around, play instruments and make noise during the singing…basically allowed to be children! I felt free to worship and enjoyed the lady who spoke. Hopefully be able to go back again soon! Then we had a ‘last year’s touring team’ meal at the Toby Carvery in Brentwood. Unfortunately SammyJ and Ollie weren’t able to make it…but Matt was there! We had a good time together. Then myself and Keel got the train to Chelmsford, met Dan and Jeni and went to CGC in Chelmsford. Really enjoyed the worship and they had visiting missionaries from Brazil which was interesting! We went out to the pub after and then I got the train back to Braintree, met Ian from the days of getting the 352 to school…was good to catch up!

Monday was a rather difficult day. I don’t need to go into details but Lewis and I broke up.  It’s all amicable and everything, I guess we just both need some space for a bit.

The rest of the week was hard. I found it really difficult to concentrate and focus on what needed to be done. It was a week of rehearsing, training, meetings and lots of chatting and drinking coffee with people! Wednesday was a good relaxing day…Me and Becca went and got our hair cut while the boys went to PMT in Southend (Music Shop!) and then got their hair cut. We spent the afternoon putting blond in Jack’s hair and watching DVDs of Andy and Joy back in the day’s of Double Check. Some pretty hilarious outfits/hairstyles! Then dinner as a team at Andy and Joy’s house which was amazing! Friday we spent some time with Den, going through Abi and him giving directing advice which was brilliant. We only had 3 hours so only got through 5 scenes but could have spent so much longer!

My weekend was good. Saturday I met Becca for coffee in the morning, then Lois in Chelmsford for lunch (Boots Meal Deal in the Park…oh yes!) and good girlie chat! Also a bit of shopping…£3 DVDs in HMV is such a bad thing! And I bought the jumper dress I’ve been eyeing up in Peacocks for a while! Watched Strictly Come Dancing in the evening…it just annoyed me. Such a waste of 2hours. I love the dancing, its all the rubbish around it I can’t stand. Perhaps I’ll Sky+ it and then I can ffw all that stuff and it’ll be over in 20mins!

Sunday – Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary Mummy and Daddy!!!!!
Went to Shotgate Baptist in the morning as Lois was doing an interview about her time in Peru with fellow team member Matt. Russell and Becci and co picked me up from there and we went to the Green Dragon, Gt Leighs meeting up with the rest of the family to celebrate Mum and Dad’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary. We had a really lovely time, good food! Back to Mum and Dad’s for champagne, then Russell and Co dropped me back in Wickford on their way home!

This week is more rehearsing, training and meetings and our photoshoot on Wednesday!

We had a Bible Study today looking at Matthew 5: 17-20, a rather difficult passage. The study was led by Pete Hillman, part of the Legacy Team in Essex. It was a really brilliant study, so much stuff in it, so challenging and inspiring. One thing stood out for me.

You know how a stick of rock from Southend says ‘Southend on Sea’ all the way through?

‘If someone cut you in half, would you say ‘Jesus’ all the way through?’

I don’t really want to say any more about it, just really made me think!

Sunday was a sofa day. I thought I was better…but then i felt a bit more poorly. Lewis came to look after me, he brought me a goody bag of grapes, smoothie, Ribena (yay for cosy juice!) and chocolate for when i’m fully better! So I was better in that I had migrated from bed to sofa…but still couldn’t be upright for too long. Thank goodness for Sky +. Watched some of the Girls Aloud Show from the O2 and then on Comedy Central it’s Sofa Sunday, with Scrubs all day. I watched Scrubs from 1pm-6pm, and then they started to repeat the episodes…what’s that about! Then watched Saturday’s X Factor and then bed. Wasn’t really up for eating much although I knew I should have been.

10 and a half hours sleep is amazing. Straight through. So I had been told not to go into work but knew I would go nuts! So I watched Jeremy Kyle in the morning, got ready and went into work for 1pm. Despite the ‘What are you doing here?! Go home!’s I felt very welcome. 1pm-2pm: Lunch Break; 2pm-3pm: Staff Meeting; 3.15pm-4.45pm: Meeting with Dan over Coffee in the Bistro; 5pm: Hometime! A nice relaxing intro back! The evening I spent catching up on Neighbours and Home and Away and worked on ‘All About Abi’.

Now it’s Tuesday and we have much sickness in the team…please pray for us!!! Ben has Shingles and a Cold (which we have decided is flu, purely so we can say he has Flingles), Andy has been at the Doctors this morning with stomach pains, Claira has been signed off work for another month and I’m still recovering. We would muchly appreciate your prayers as we continue to rehearse!

I’m stuck in bed. Everytime I get out of bed I throw up. Its very frustrating! So I’m listening to Radio 1, where they play basically the same songs every 3 hours and you hear the same plugs. Pretty boring. Feeling ok enough to be on my laptop for a bit, but basically I’ve been snuggling under the duvet and snoozing a little bit. The last time I threw up was about 3.15pm and I used the 5mins of feeling betterness to shower and change into some clean pjs. My sister is poorly too so we’ve been comparing notes!

Here’s the irony…
Yesterday I was chatting to Andy and Joy and said ‘on day 4 of the first week last year I was really ill. Kept throwing up and had to go home’. Then a bit later on I was chatting to Becca, Jack and Ben about illness on tour and being sensible and how you will end up being ill on your days off because you can’t afford to be ill when you’re working.

So Tricia is looking after me, she’s a nurse, making sure I’m drinking lots (apparently real Coca Cola is good, has the right balance of sugar and salt) and forcing me to eat some dry toast.

About time to get a chick flick out i think.

Thank you to the wonderful people who have been texting and ringing me to keep me smiley: Mum, Sarah, Lewis, La Roche, Becca and Keel. You have kept me from going insane! x