The "Sorrows" of Young Werther

So it's my first proper week back at uni, and one of the modules we are doing is called "Romanticism". Basically, it was a movement late 1700s-1800s whereby writers focused on nature, the country folk, and sensibility, aka an awareness of personal feelings.
So we studied this book called "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by this famous German writer called Goethe. The gist of the book is there is a man named Werther, who meets a girl called Lotte and falls in "love". Lotte is already engaged and doesn't want Werther, so Werther goes all creepy stalker on her, tries to be as involved in her life as possible, becoming her fiance's BFF, and being super weird with her little brothers and sisters, making the youngest cry and then acting like it's the best thing that ever happened to him. Lotte then talks real to him, rejects him flat out and tells him to back off. Werther responds by shooting himself in the head, kind of fails and spends 12 hours bleeding out, dying slowly and painfully in front of Lotte and her family. The novel ends with Lotte stricken with grief and guilt, and considering taking her own life.
Now, those who know me closely enough know that I am no stranger to attempted suicide, and there are a few things with this novel that kind of bug me. Supposedly, Goethe was struggling with rejection-caused depression when he wrote the novel, but clearly he did not suffer in the same way I did. It was a long time ago, and I'm not looking for any attention by writing about it, but I felt it's enough of an issue for me to write about it.
Let's face it - the majority of people have someone in their lives that they care deeply for and would never want to hurt. Parents, friends, spouses, siblings, there is almost always someone. For me, it was Alex, and for Werther, it was Lotte.
When considering suicide, I felt guilty. I knew it would hurt Alex, but at the same time I truly believed he would be better off without me. This meant that I spent weeks planning what I believed would have the least impact on him. So I decided to take a whole bunch of pills whilst in the shower, and then go to bed. The plan was that I would just never wake up.
I planned the whole thing around my care for Alex. I would never have wanted to hurt him by him finding me in a pool of blood, or seeing me after having hanged myself. I knew that would destroy him. I wrote a note explaining that it was not his fault at all, and that it was my own feelings I couldn't cope with.
Werther writes in his suicide note that he wants Lotte to tell her younger siblings why he has killed himself. This means he essentially wants her to tell them that she is to blame for his death, after all he says himself that the reason he is doing it is because she doesn't want to be with him. I feel as though, if Werther really loved Lotte, he would not want her to go through the trauma of A) finding him lying in a pool of his own blood, and watching him die and B) of believing that she was the person solely responsible for his death. There is a total lack of empathy there, and I believe that the whole "it's your fault I killed myself" attitude is not associated with depression, but with a different form of mental illness. It's another way to get her attention, and a way for people to go "poor Werther, what a tragic hero". But that belief is a complicated one.
Why is it complicated? Well, there are two things that you absolutely cannot say about a person with depression/who has attempted suicide.
Number one: Selfish. You absolutely cannot say they are selfish. The belief in depression is that you are doing everyone a favour by essentially disappearing. You believe that you are a burden on your loved ones, and on society, and you feel that the best thing for everyone would be your demise. On the other hand, Werther did not believe that, and thought that through killing himself, he could have Lotte's heart, by forcing her into grief. While depression is not selfish, Werther's motives were.
Number Two: Attention-seeking. This one is my personal, absolute bugbear. People really think that by trying to kill yourself, you're going "look at me, look at me!" No. The point is, you want to disappear completely, and for people to move on and forget about you. There is a "cry for help", which is STILL not attention-seeking, and should still be treated in the same manner as a suicide attempt.
When giving evidence in Court several months ago, against a man who sexually assaulted me, the defence lawyer attempted to use my history of depression against me. He tried to claim to the magistrates that, because Alex had been absent at the time, I had fabricated the story of sexual assault in order to get his attention. He used my history of self-harm and depression as a means of justification, claiming that I was a compulsive attention-seeker. I explained that I stayed in a public place as I did not want to be alone, for fear of hurting myself, and the lawyer claimed it was really because I wanted the attention of my assailant, and enjoyed it. Naturally, as in so many cases, the man was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence, and I was left reeling from the awful experience, and was offered no support afterwards. How, in this day and age, it is still okay to use things like that as a defence to a crime committed, I am not sure, but there was nothing to be done other than to move on with my life and try to get over it.
Suicide is not about attention seeking, however, in Werther's case, it does appear to be. He wants a way to immortalise his "love" (otherwise known as unhealthy obsession) for Lotte, and a way to ensure he has her attention, and she never moves on from him. And it upsets me to believe that someone would commit suicide for selfish and attention-seeking reasons, but then again, I don't believe Werther suffered from depression at all.
I see it as more likely that Werther suffered from some kind of delusion, and that he had a God-complex. He believes Lotte should be with him because he's more like her, he deserves her more. His frequent mention of The Odyssey and Ossian shows that he has an obsession with Gods. He is also incredibly vain, and believes himself to be awfully intelligent; in other words, he has a huge ego. He wallows in self-pity, and believes that inanimate objects contain a part of a person. He acts like a child, and his attraction to Lotte is related to her mothering nature. No, Werther is not a mentally stable character. But he doesn't have depression.
Immediately, when someone commits suicide, we immediately think that they are depressed. However, I've watched enough Criminal Minds to know that this isn't the case, and that suicide can be just as much about ego (think suicide by cop). Werther certainly had a huge ego, and by rejecting him, essentially Lotte stamped on it. From a Criminal Minds perspective, it was going to go one of two ways. Werther was either going to become a serial killer, killing women as substitutes for Lotte, or killing himself, as a sadistic way to torture Lotte for the rest of her life. It also meant he went out with a bang, so to speak (apologies for the crude analogy). People would remember him as a tragic hero, rather than that nutter who stalked the bailiff's daughter.
Depression is clearly a big part of romanticism, and of literature in general. The wallowing, the tragic hero, the never ending misery that seems to compel us as readers more than a happy ending. But I don't believe that "The Sorrows of Young Werther" is really about his sorrows at all. I see it as more a story of sadistic behaviour, and a deeply disturbed individual.
Yes, I know it's a fictional novel, and I know that people display illness in different ways. However, I can't understand how anything that Werther does reflects depression at all. Blaming someone for your suicide, making them live with the guilt, making yourself a martyr in the process is not something an individual with depression would do.
As an ending to my own story, my plan didn't work out how I intended. Rather than put me to sleep, the medication I had taken instead meant that I was wide awake, yet not consciously. I began moving objects around the bedroom, genuinely believing I was serving people cappuccinos at work. Alex naturally realised what had happened, and I was taken to hospital, ripped around 3 cannulas out of my vein from fighting the staff. I believed Alex was my best friend Trish, and I thought that my step-dad was around the corner as I believed the hospital was the swimming pool I volunteered at. Essentially, I was as high as a fucking kite. I was put on a drip, the staff wished that they could have tied me to the bed, and though I was seriously poorly, I recovered, and got the help I needed, and was encouraged to remove the toxic influences from my life. I don't remember anything at all from a 3 day period, and I am at the point where it was so long ago that Alex and I can talk about it openly, as something that we both went through, and a stage of my life that is over. I encourage anyone out there who suffers from the kind of feelings I have discussed to seek help, because while it may not seem possible, help is out there, and it's possible to get better. It may seem hopeless now, but I promise, it's never hopeless.

A Big Fat Vent

So maybe I've gone completely mad.

I'm sat here with everything I've ever wanted with my life but I literally cannot - and I mean CANNOT - sleep, like whatsoever.

It also seems that my first blog post in, hmmmm, forever, is going to be pretty much a huge vent.

I'm pretty sure venting was the reason I created this thing in the first place. I never really intended for anyone to read it. And if I'm honest, I'm sort of hoping no one does. This is all for me.

So, this time last year I was kind of skinny. Well...really really skinny. And I've put on weight this year. I'm guessing that there's less stress now than before, and I've got over the starvation as a means of self-harm (I didn't even realise I did that until I stopped?) So naturally my thighs have got a bit bigger, so have my boobs. But I keep looking back on photos of myself and missing the way I looked back then.

It's dumb, I know. I played jump rope with the 18.9 and the 19.1 on the BMI scale. But damn, I looked good in shorts.

Don't get me wrong, the relationship I currently have with food is great. I love it. I love cooking it, and I eat all of it. I never used to do that.

And thank God I have boobs. Looking at those photos, I just didn't have any at all. And my collarbone looks less sharp. That's pretty nice as well.

Another thing that's been bugging me is my guitar.

It's been sat in the cupboard since we moved here. And I don't think it will ever come out.

I had an accident just after we moved, and I severed 3 tendons in my fingers on my left hand. GREAT, because I'm right handed. Not so great, because that was my fretting hand.

I had an emergency operation to fix it, put under general anaesthetic. Missed my first module at university. Alex had to stop going to college to look after me as I kept getting frustrated. My whole arm was out of use for months.

And then, when I was told it was all great, turns out I have something called tendon adhesion and I can't move my middle finger properly. And it constantly hurts. They'll have to operate again, but I want some time first.

So if this doesn't get better, I might never use that guitar again. All because I cut my finger. Which just sounds like a joke. Which is what I thought it was when they told me I needed an operation. A big fat joke.

So I'm lying here, next to my sleeping husband who has no idea that I haven't been sleeping. I don't think he'd wake up if I threw some sort of party in here. He probably wouldn't even if the building collapsed.

I get my new laptop from the university people on Tuesday, so I don't have to type anymore. Because of my fucked hand, as well as dislocating wrists. Not sure how I'd feel saying this stuff out loud. I'll probably still type it.

But it's exciting, I'm getting my first ever brand new boxed laptop. And it's a modern one and a really good one. And lightweight. Can you tell I'm excited??

I'm going to try and sleep now, more because my headphones are running out than anything.

Girl with Five Colours in Her Hair

On my sixth form leavers day, this was the title of the award that I won.

Interesting, isn't it? That someone can win am award for having colourful hair. But you may be thinking, what is it that makes her hair so colourful...?

Good question! Now let me explain....

I really enjoy dying my hair interesting colours. This all started around 18 months ago when I dyed the middle layer of my hair turquoise. It was amazingly pretty and I stuck with this for a good few months.

Between you and me, the main reason I did it was to piss my mother off...but I loved it all the same.

In the summer, I bleached it all and dyed it all blue. It didn't quite work out, so I tried the whole silver hair thing and that worked pretty well. I kept it for a couple of months.

And then I went ginger. And it actually suited.

So again, I kept the ginger hair for like 6 months and a few months ago I dyed it brown with blonde ombre and then started dying the ends crazy colours.

First was pink, then red, then purple and blue, then turquoise, then violet and then blue.

So you can see where the award was generated from.

I've got quite good at dying hair now, I feel quite proud of it. I've just dyed it all over red and it's quite shocking but I think I like it.

I even managed to convince Alex to let me dye his hair a couple of times. But he sort of ended up looking like Sonic the Hedgehog and I wasn't popular for a good few days.

It's probably not healthy to dye hair so many times, but most the time I avoid chemical dyes so never really does any harm (:

The new L'Oreal colorista range is pretty good, in case anyone out there wants to experiment for a bit. And for something a lot more permanent, Directions is literally a blessing.

I've got university in a few months and I'm determined to kind of reinvent myself a bit before September. Alex is fully supportive of this, he's helping me pay for a motorcycle and a license (as I literally suck so bad at driving a car). This will mean I don't have to be a bus wanker anymore!

I've tried my driving test twice now and messed it up both times by being far too nervous. There's no way of fixing nerves. I'd just have to try again and again and again until it was sorted and frankly, it's gonna be expensive. With a bike, at least they have to pass me at some point. So that's a bonus.

He's also helping me pay for a tattoo to cover my scars. To be honest, it kinda terrifies me but I figure a pretty tattoo is a lot more explainable than a whole bunch of ugly marks all up my arm. Loads of people have them. Just because I know my parents wouldn't approve, why should I be afraid to get one too?

So yeah, two years later and I'm back to trying to reinvent myself xD will I ever change? The only thing I'm ever really certain about is that I love writing, and so that's what I'm doing at university.

Finally, I can start on something I can enjoy and find myself, and my freedom.

The Leap of Faith

So in recent months it has come to my attention that I have made the leap from being a child to being a fully-fledged adult.

When I say leap, I more mean a kind of dramatic fall, landing in an awkward position and breaking at least 6 bones on the way down.

But hey. I'm 18 now, I can legally go out drinking.

My first ever attempt at heavy drinking did not at all go well. Age 17 (just!), school trip in Rome, legal drinking age 16, cheap vodka...oh no.

As I was in the room of a group of my friends rather than my own room, I was hidden in the closet while teachers instructed lights out. Upon returning to my own room, with a head that was spinning as though I was in a washing machine, I needed to throw up. I didn't want to trip over on the way to the bathroom and wake everyone up....so I vomited out of the window.

I know, I know. Classy, right?

But that's not a patch on Alex's 21st birthday.

I'm not really a big drinker, I tend to prefer staying sober and even if I do drink a lot, I still tend to stay sober.

Alex on the other hand....while he denys it like crazy, is sort of a lightweight. We were at the pub, he was drinking beer and was already pretty out of it when his alleged "mates" started calling shots.
Being the sensible one, I tried to point out this was not the best idea.

Naturally, I was completely ignored.

Fifteen minutes before the bus home, I went to pick up Alex's birthday cards from his parents. That's when it all went tits up.

Apparently, Alex's "mate" James started mouthing off about how controlling I am (for recommending he not do shots...hmmm), which led to Alex getting pretty wound up and throwing his kebab at a phone box before chasing him down the road. Being early November, the pavements were slippery with wet leaves. Alex went down like a sack of potatoes, bounced his head on the concrete and was out cold for a good 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, 200 metres down the road I realised that Alex wasn't on the bus, didn't get on it myself and started panicking. A few minutes later, James sprints down the road at an alarming pace and refuses to slow down or stop to tell me where Alex was.

A few minutes later, two girls who had been down the pub came running down the road and informed me Alex had been in an accident, whacked his head and gone AWOL. This marked the start of a wild goose chase, with Alex running away and being aggressive, his mate Tristan punching him in the head to get him to stop, Alex losing half an hours worth of memories and believing that his injuries were a result of being punched.

Eventually, a paramedic came as we were worried Alex had done some serious damage with the way he was rambling on and obviously had lost a few brain cells on the way down. But in the end, he was okay, just had to have a CAT scan.

I can't say the parties I've been to have ended fantastically. One ended up with someone being bottled, another someone mixed two things that ought not be mixed and started having fits, during another someone punched a hole in a fence.

Exciting, right? But with uni coming up in just a few months I expect this will become the norm.

A Summer Adventure

So a year's gone by since my sad and sorry realisation that sixth form isn't exactly what I'd expected, and after a tiring, demanding and physically draining year, I was fit and ready for the summer holidays.

Lucky for me, having a boyfriend who has an apartment slap bang in the centre of a seaside town, I was able to spend it with my number one favourite person in a beautiful sunny place.

Six weeks of total freedom. How awesome does that sound?

So naturally there were a number of adventures Alex and I got up to, from days at the beach, where he'd pick me up to throw me in the water only for a wave to wash over his trainers in an act of karma, to day trips to London, waking up at 4 in the morning just to maximise our time there, powered by several cans of Monster and a bag of pick 'n' mix.

My favourite has to be our trip to the boot fair.

Don't ask me why I found that so fascinating, it was just such a nice day. Despite my complaining, waking up early made the day last so much longer, and cycling 8 miles at 7am, despite being hot and sweaty, really gave me a sense of achievement.

I mean, it's about the most exercise I've done in months!

But when we got there, I was amazed at all the things on offer, from microwaves and vacuum cleaners to books and jewellery and electrical devices. Alex's greatest find was a guitar hero kit for the Wii in its original packaging.

Mine was a DS Lite, same as I had as a kid, with an R4 card which meant after downloading ROMS online for free, I could play any game I liked. I found that pretty awesome. It's great, being able to relive my childhood by playing all my favourite games.

I also got a couple of nice dresses, and a really neat green coat.

It was a good day out, and call me sad but it was interesting seeing all these people with things they no longer needed, selling them to people who would find better use.

Another of my favourite days was Alex's work barbecue.

It ended up being less of a barbecue and more of a hog roast, and while we mostly kept ourselves to ourselves rather than socialising, we had a great time.

What we learned is that no matter how good he is at it on the Wii, I slaughter Alex at basketball. He managed to embarrass himself, the 6 foot plus tall guy, pretty well built, getting bested by his 5ft5, dress -wearing girlfriend.

Thankfully, he did redeem himself by battering me to near oblivion on the inflatable "It's a Knockout", whacking me wherever he could: my ear, my eye, my stomach, my legs. Anyway, he won fair and square, his masculinity was restored and his boss got to watch him beat the shit out of his girlfriend with an inflatable cylinder. Everyone wins.

Naturally, living with your s/o isn't all fun and games. There are constantly chores to be negotiated, and we never really got the hang of negotiating. Washing up was something in particular that always resulted in a disagreement. However, cooking quickly became my job, not only because I love doing it, but because Alex's choice of "warm beans, or cold beans" didn't always sound too mouthwatering. Though to his credit, he did once cook me a lovely dinner which I ruined because my train was cancelled and I got home an hour late. I felt pretty bad about that.

Another reason cooking became my thing was because of Alex's ability to forget. He put a pie in the oven, and as the instructions said, he went to leave it for 55 minutes.

After 10 minutes he began to notice a smell. I don't really pick up on smells, which he knows, but he decided to wait it out. Fast forward another ten minutes, pandemonium. The fire alarm is going off, I'm bricking it, and a very much burnt pie was pulled from the oven. After a bit of scraping it was perfectly edible but how the both of us managed to sit there, with the room going blue with smoke, and not bat an eyelid, is something I'll wonder for many years to come.

So all in all, a successful summer. I was able to relax for once, excluding the trauma I was put through to every time Alex got impatient and dashed across a busy road. It was great being able to cuddle up on the sofa and watch movies, and I have lots of memories to cherish.

Sadly, I'm in year 13 now, and probably won't even have the time to think about them.

Help.

Nostalgia, Pot Noodle and the Issues of Multilingualism

It's occurred to me that in a matter of weeks I'll have been writing this blog for a whole year....

What?!!

A WHOLE YEAR?!?!

That's right.

In a way, I feel like this thing is kind of like a diary for me. I look back on some on my earlier entries and I have a bit of a nostalgic giggle.

Even then, I was naive. I read the very anti-alcohol one and remember the time around 6 weeks ago I drank too much cheap vodka and threw up out of a window.

I know, I know, Classy, right?

It's a shame, I used to keep written diaries and realised this afternoon they accidentally got thrown away. It feels like 5 years of my life just got thrown away.

My favourite memory in them is the year my nan sent me 3 birthday cards because, thanks to her dementia, she'd forgotten she'd already sent one. I'd put all the cards in my diary.

My dad says that as long as I keep my memories locked up in my head, it doesn't matter that the diaries are gone. But reading words written when my biggest issue was whether I was going to be able to go to the cinema to see Harry Potter or not that weekend is sort of relaxing and made me smile.

So here's to many years to come on this blog, with years worth of memories to cherish, all here, on my own little website,

This will be something to one day show the next generations of mini-me's :)

Anyway, today I discovered something absolutely horrifying at school.

After weeks of near-starvation due to a combination of my poorness and my refusal to bring sandwiches to school, I decided to bring a pot noodle to school and get it filled up at the common room cafe.

This was only to discover that the school is by law, not allowed to fill up a pot noodle.

Naturally, I was fuming...not allowed to fill up a pot noodle?? What is this rule???

Apparently, it's a Government policy, so that students can't sue schools.

So the first thing I did was bring up the contact line for David Cameron and start angrily writing an email before i figured out a loophole....

I decided to buy a mug of hot water for 20p and then just poured it into my pot noodle,

Winner.

Dad's found me a mini flask for hot water for tomorrow, but the dilemma is actually whether I want to bring water, or mocha.

I hated coffee a week ago and now I'm hooked on mixing coffee with hot chocolate. It's actually so nice, to the point I smell coffee and start craving it badly.

It's a downhill spiral from here, I'm sure.

Talking of downhill, my German speaking AS exam is fast approaching and I am bricking it.

It's such an angry, yet adorable language at the same time.

Like the word for glove is a "Handschuh". A hand shoe. Isn't that just the cutest?

But then science.

French: Science
Spanish: Ciencia
Italian: Scienza
German: NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN!!!

Or... NATURWISS for short.

So while for the others I generally get somewhere with guessing...German...naaaaaaah.

What generally happens is I'm speaking and then I'm like "damn, what's the word for 'something'".

And I'll be sat there and suddenly "QUELQUE CHOSE" pops in to my head.

But, shit. That's French,

So I'm sat there and all that's going through my head is "quelque chose quelque chose quelque chose quelque chose"

And I'm sat there with my mouth hanging open, catching flies while the teacher is desperately trying to coax me to talk again.

"What word are you stuck on, Robyn?"

And by that point I can't even remember the English word any more, all I've got is "quelque chose"

And so I just have to say the French word and hope the teacher catches on.

You think I'm kidding but this is an experience I had during a mock speaking back in like October or something.

Turns out the word I wanted was "etwas".

So yup. If that happens in my AS I am pretty much screwed.

So wish me luck!

It's got to the wonderful point again where I'm going to be cheeky and ask for a bit of feedback. I've even added a poll to the bottom of this blog page so yeah, just click on what you think...

Make my day, or crush my hopes and dreams. It's entirely up to you.

But yeah, any comments, votes on my poll or +1s would be greatly appreciated

Thanks guys! Hope you enjoyed!

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The late-night adventures of Robyn and Alex

So, Tuesday night was probably the most eventful night of my entire life.

Not in a sexual way, before you even try and interpret that. You dirty, dirty little pervert. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I mean in an all-night adventure which started with me waking up next to my boyfriend in literal agony.

And there I am writhing around, crying and screaming that I want to die, Alex is pinning me down and trying to get me to take my medication and it's all a huge, scary mess.

So I force co-codamol down my throat and lie there hoping to die. But the pain doesn't stop and I can't stop twisting and turning and crying and Alex is getting irritated as he doesn't know what to do, he's trying to hug me to calm me down but I keep moving and pulling away.

So I decide to phone 111, the NHS helpline to see what they say.

I'm explaining my issue through floods of tears and the guy on the other end says "do you think you could get up and make yourself a cup of tea?"

I reply "but I don't like tea."

Apparently it was a figurative question, I wasn't meant to take it seriously. 10/10 to me.

Then we're standing on the pavement outside the house waiting for the ambulance the 111 guy called, Alex wrapped up in the duvet and me constantly moving and hyperventilating.

He's trying to grab me, wrap me in the duvet with him and comfort me but I'm just wriggling out, sitting on the pavement, leaning against the car, trying to shake it off like some kind of spastic but it just won't go away.

The ambulance shows up and it's this little car. The lady asks if we can go inside. We say no because everyone is asleep and we don't want to wake them. She seems kind of pissed off about that one. But then it is like 3am, I'd be pissed off too if I had to work at that time.

I have all these things measured, my oxygen levels and heart rate, blood pressure, my blood sugar level (which is very low) and my temperature (which is very high).

So it gets decided that I need to go to the hospital. As I've had a recent urinary tract infection, it's discussed that it may have spread to my kidneys and caused the amount of pain I'm in.

The blood sugar is due to me having had a bottle of cider. Good God, the party animal in me is beginning to destroy my health.

The only issue with going to hospital is there's only one seat in the car. And there's no chance in hell I'm going anywhere without Alex.

There's also the issue of emergency equipment needed. So a big ambulance gets called.

When it arrives some 15 minutes later, I get taken inside the ambulance and sit on a chair, my problems are told to the new paramedics. One's a bloke and one's a lady who seems quite cheerful and funny.

Then I'm given a breathing thingy, which I'm told is laughing gas, and it won't have a lasting effect.

Alex gets sooooo jealous at that. Look how the tables have turned - now I'm the badass.

I'm then handed a little bottle of sickly sweet gel and told to eat it. It's for blood sugar. It's meant to be forest fruits flavour but just tastes of sugar.

As I'm under 18, we have to go to Margate, to QEQM. To the paediatric ward.

Fml.

Blood sugar back up again and we arrive in Margate, I'm helped out of the ambulance, donned in pyjama bottoms, Alex's sweatshirt and a denim jacket, with my tatty pink blanket wrapped over my shoulders.

Alex is stood near me, wearing his classic hoodie, and a pair of baggy blue trackies, wearing trainers with no socks. His hair's all ruffled and he's got his sleepy face on.

We're shown to the waiting room, where we buy coffee, Coke and watch the BBC news about female circumcision. By this point, the painkillers have kicked in and I'm feeling slightly better.

There's a couple in there, a man and a woman. The woman declares loudly that she likes my hair as soon as we walk in the room. I'm quite taken aback but manage to have a discussion about hair dye.

While I'm in the toilet, Alex has a chat with the bloke. Apparently they'd met that night and were planning on eloping together as soon as they'd left the hospital.

All I find out is that they'd been escorted here by the police.

Well you meet some interesting folk in Marga... I mean, the hospital.

After ages, I'm called into the consultation room. Nothing gets said much, I'm just given a tube to fill with my pee.

Back in the waiting room and Alex and I curl up together and try to sleep on the many chairs we have at our disposal. We also buy some food to eat out of the vending machine.

An age later, we're called by a doctor, who sits us down and takes away my pee. Good riddance. We're quickly moved to the paediatric ward, which only has one light on as I'm the only child in the hospital.

I lie on the bed, get poked and prodded a bit and am told that I have still a mild UTI. Then I'm given hardcore painkillers and antibiotics and sent on my merry way.

We ask the chap how far the train station is.

He replies "Oooh, is far. Is very very far."

Greaaaaaat.

So we walk to Westwood Cross at 6am, as one does, still dressed in pyjamas, Alex with my blanket tightly wrapped around him. He pretends to be irritated in the fact I dragged him to hospital at 3am but he later admits he'd never ever leave me in a situation where I needed him.

We make it to McDonalds at 6:20am. We explain to the guy at the till that we've been in hospital. I must look fucking rough because the guy offers me a free drink and hash brown.

We manage to get 2 buses and a train home, and 8am just crash.

So basically, I got fobbed off with more painkillers and no real solution to the problem.

Alex wants us to go back to hospital to actually find out why I'm hurting so bad but I just wanna sleep. So much.

But anyway, it was definitely an adventure!

Such exciting things happen to ones like me.