A post to Brighton up your day

I cannot believe I'm actually getting around to writing this while it's still the weekend... I hope you're all doing fabulously and are enjoying the sunshine. We haven't had much of that this week - it's been raining quite a bit. In fact, yesterday it started to hail (again). I looked like a loser taking a photo of the hail but I did it anyway. :P 

So, on Friday, I got an email saying that one of the netball games were cancelled for Saturday so I wasn't needed which meant I got a whole weekend free. Or so I thought until I was told that I'd been recruited to help out at the prep school drama production of Alice in Wonderland for 5 hours on Saturday. But I was actually happy to go since I wanted to see the show anyway and this way I got a ride to the theatre and back. They were performing at a theatre in a town called East Grinstead about 20 minutes away. And our boss drove us to McDonald's for lunch on the way which was also a bonus. 

The production was really good! Some of the kids are so talented, and because it was a musical, many of them could sing amazingly as well. Especially the girl who played Alice. Incredible. Anyway, I helped out with painting faces and not much else really, so I stood on the side of the stage to watch, and here are a few pictures I took...

Before I forget... Apparently dinosaur bones were discovered at Ardingly not long ago. BBC was here the other day to film something about it. Here is a link if you want to read a bit about it. 

Anyway, so when drama was over, I headed back to the college with Jess and Josh who were also there helping out. We then, along with Joel, ordered Indian food and had a few drinks in our common room. We played a few drinking games like Jenga and spoons, and listened to music and just generally had a lot of fun. 

The next day (this morning), Josh left for the year 7 French trip for a week and Jess and I headed south to a seaside town called Brighton. We arrived at the train station late morning and headed towards the beach. It was absolutely freezing - I was wearing a dress and a coat and Jess wore a shirt and a jacket... But we have learnt our lesson: wear lots and lots of layers when in Brighton because the wind is crazy and very cold. 

Our first stop was this chocolate shop called Choccywoccydoodah which (apparently) is a really famous chocolate shop and it has a TV show and everything, but you can see why. Everything in there is absolutely incredible and intricate and edible (and expensive! Some things in there were four figures and up... and that's in pounds!). Below is a dog made out of chocolate. Pretty cool. 

We did some shopping as we walked to the sea, and we eventually made it...

The houses in Brighton are really weird - they're all quite small and really close together and most are painted a different colour. The photo above is just a street we walked down, and the beach is at the end. 

The beach was very different to the beautiful ones back home. For one, the water didn't look all that inviting to swim in... It was crazy choppy, and I wasn't game to test it, but the water looked absolutely freezing. And secondly, the soft golden sand I am used to was replaced with hard pebbles as you can see in the photos. 

On the beach, the wind was so strong.

 This is the old abandoned pier ^

So much wind!!! 

We made it to the Brighton Pier! It's a really long pier with food shops, a big arcade and an amusement park on the end. Above is me trying not to get blown away

Jess rescuing me... 

Here I am in the arcade - which was like heaven because it was soooooo warm - trying to win a Shaun the sheep toy. I didn't get one but later, I did win a Tigger stuffed toy from Winnie the Pooh. I was pretty stoked. 

After we had some fun in the arcade, we went and did the most touristy thing you can do in an English seaside town... We got fish and chips. It then looked as if a storm was rolling in, so we got off the pier and walked to find the shopping complex. Along the way we saw the Brighton Royal Pavillion - the former royal residence for George the Prince of Wales, back in the day. We didn't go inside but it looked cool from the outside, and we also saw some squirrels chasing each other which was beyond cute. (You can tell we are easily entertained). 

  

After shopping, we headed back to school. We only have five days left until half-term break (yay!) and two more sleeps until Jess and I go to London to watch the Taylor Swift concert. We're so excited. But this week will be quite busy since Joel, Jess and I have to cover for Josh's duties while he's away in France, but that's all good because we're so close to a nine day break!

I'm sorry it was so long today, but most of it is pictures so hopefully it wasn't too boring. Love you all, can't wait to tell you about my upcoming adventures. 

Maddi 

xoxo

Ardingflies

Bonjour my beloved family and friends, 

Another week has flown by at Ardingly - the time just goes so quickly it's ridiculous, I can't believe it's almost half-term. It feels like it was two weeks ago when I arrived and felt so overwhelmed by the huge school and all the names and jobs to learn. Ah, how far I've come :P

Since my last post, nothing too exciting has happened, although I'll tell you about my week anyway. 

As Friday rolled around, I was excited for the weekend, but on Friday morning, I was told that I had to work until 8:30 pm that night at the parent-teacher conference pouring tea and coffee. Ugh. But anyway, afterwards, Jess and I cooked popcorn and watched Finding Neverland while the boys went out in Haywards Heath. 

Saturday was particularly long... Normally I get half of Saturday off but I worked all day unfortunately. In the morning, some students had to sit entrance and scholarship exams (on a Saturday! How mean is that!) so Joel and I had to don our hi-vis vests and direct traffic in the cold. We got 'radios' though - walkie talkies - so that made up for it a little.
An hour later, I went up to my warm bed and watched tv for 2 hours (work is so hard heheh) before I was needed at netball. We hopped in the coach and drove for almost an hour to get to our match at a school called Christ's Hospital. This school is MASSIVE. And their school uniforms are really traditional, I'll post a photo to show you because I was shocked when I saw them.

I'd honestly hate to wear it, but apparently the school held a vote a couple of years ago to see if the students wanted to change their uniform and the majority said no, so they're keeping it. Crazy. Anyway, so it was freeeeeeezing when we got there, I joined in on the warm up so I wasn't so cold. In the first quarter, it started pouring, and me being the idiot foreigner I am, didn't bring any waterproofs so my big doona of a coat got soaked. They call doonas 'duvets' here, fun fact. Anyway and then it started to hail... Another example of beautiful English weather. The girls lost unfortunately, but it was a good game. Afterwards, we went to their dining hall for match tea and they have these huge old paintings in there. The biggest one took up most of the length of the hall and is apparently the longest painting in Europe.

We drove home and I got ready for my first gig running the bar. Jess and I were hired for the Ardingly Burns Night function (although we've yet to be paid...) and we had so much fun! Burns night is a Scottish thing, where the life of the bard(poet) Robert Burns is commemorated. The day also celebrates Burns' contribution to Scottish culture. His' best known work is "Auld Lang Syne". So we poured wine and beer and watched the guests get drunk and dance. The bagpipes were played and kilts and tarten were worn... I tried the Scottish delicacy, haggis ("Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach." I'm very very surprised I ate it... But it wasn't so bad actually) and danced to 'strip the willow'. I loved doing it, and our boss was so fun and lovely, she said she would ask for us next time she had a function here. And the head of catering thought we did such a good job, he gave us a bottle of Chardonnay on him! Apparently he's never done that before so, go us! Guess what we'll be drinking this weekend :P

We finished late and went to bed. On Sunday morning, I spoke to Bronte who is in Scotland and Katelyn on Skype which was so nice. I've missed them a lot. And then the gappers and I headed down to brunch (on Sunday, the school does brunch so we can sleep in!) and then caught a cab into Haywards Heath for some shopping. There's not a whole lot of shops in Haywards, but we hit up the 99 pence store which was awesome. We really wanted to watch the Wolf of Wall Street at the movies, but there is no cinema nearby and the buses don't run on Sundays into the town that has one. Very frustrating. We got home and watched another movie - The Holiday - and had a pretty lazy night. It was really nice.

Exciting news, we finally got our bank accounts so we've been paid! Hooray. 

The kids haven't been calling me 'Gapper' as much anymore. I took advice from Auntie Lee, who told me to give the kids two options that you can deal with so that they can feel somewhat in charge; I said, "You can either call me Miss Olsen or Miss Awesome - which sounds similar - it's your choice". The cool thing is, is that some of them actually do call me Miss Awesome... I love it.

The past couple of days have consisted of playing Flappy Bird, an extremely simple, yet difficult and frustrating game which I'm currently losing in... Josh and Joel are beating me so I've got to keep trying to beat my high score (which currently stands at 17...) 

And a very happy birthday to Mitch! Twenty one years old yesterday! I wish I could've been there, but Skyping him and mum and dad and Grannie and Pop was really nice.

I got a lovely package on Monday from Michael packed with Australian chocolate (oh how I've missed Caramello Koalas), Australian flags etc, a Polaroid camera and little printer to print off my photos, and some things from mum and dad (Vegemite, cards, photos, my sunnies, more food hehe) which just brightened my week, so thank you :) 

The wind reached 90 kmph last night which was pretty crazy. Still no snow though. And, that's about it for me.

I'm about to start head off to Pre-prep now, where I'll help out in the office, then with Reception (pre-Kindergarten equivalent I think), and then sit with the Nursery kids at lunch and make sure they use their cutlery and eat all their food, then supervise their lunch time, watch them swim for an hour, and then my netball team has a match, so I'll be umpiring that. Tonight I have boarding duty with Joel; Wednesdays is tuckshop night, the kids buy sweets and we play games like capture the flag and football after they do their 'prep' or homework. 

I promise this blog will get more interesting when I actually start some travelling.

Anyway, talk to you all later.


Much love,
Maddi xox