Magical Moments

Hello you, you there reading this, *waves*.

My summer this year has been pretty much the opposite of last year where I spent ages away from people and had to rush everything in the last 2 weeks before school.
This summer is a grand total of 12 weeks with still four of those left and I've been both able to relax and be busy and be involved.

I promised pictures and here they shall be with little bits of information because I want to try and preserve this weekend as best as possible and although these pixels cannot replace the honest great feeling of being there I feel I should try.

Friday was one of those silly early starts that we usually have to do if we want to get to London within a reasonable time (which we did arriving just before 12). The whole trip was a half family holiday half gathering so we went to Chalk Farm to drop off bags and through to by the London Eye.
It was pretty intimidating approaching such a large group of people when really Hazel and I didn't know anyone yet but we were waved over and made pretty awkward conversation with some Scottish people, I think one of the guys was "thatdyslexicguy", yep it was.
We got one of the publications which I think were a great idea and look beautiful.
I was amazed by how lively everyone was, there was even a guy juggling knives, which was actually pretty scary to be stood less than three meters from.

We went over to talk to Kristina because we saw her appear and there weren't many people around her and the second we came near her her bag broke and Hazel found a safety pin to give to her. Pretty much straight away she was swept off by other people and we were once again a bit lost.

Next thing a big group seemed to head over and I could see Alex in the middle and pretty much half of the people who were already gathered headed over to him and I was left in this sort of "do I wait till later till he's not so surrounded or head over now and be the fangirl I am inside" state.
I went for the happy medium and introduced myself as "Hey, I'm Parrot Stories Elizabeth" which in retrospect makes me sound like a bit of a tit.

We were soon split into groups to go on a "tour of London" and although I'm no where near what you call a local I have been to these places before so it was nice really to just wander even though the weather was all kinds of crazy!
The tour included the Tate Modern and a lot of walking in which our group went from "A team" to "merge with Jazza's".

It still seems surreal that I'm now friends with this boy.


I realise I plan to name every youtuber by their username (if I can) in this but seriously if you're reading my blog and don't know who nerimon is by now, shame on you.

I just braved falling of my silly high up bed to reach for the wire to plug my external hard drive in. I should really learn that leaning is probably NOT the best option and clambering down would probably be a bit more sensible.

Back to the telling of the tale.

Around 5 Hazel and I parted ways from the gathering so we could eat before going to the theatre to see OLIVER!
This my friends was just an amazing thing.
I was a bit worried it would be too over-the-top because of the influence of the tv in choosing Jodie for Nancy but it was actually great. Omid Djalili made Fagin both humorous and someone you cared for. Bill Sykes should have been played by Burn Gorman (Owen from Torchwood) but wasn't. Whoever it was who stood in was great too.
When reading the program we also discovered that the dude playing Sowerberry is the Ghost Maker from Torchwood and therefore Davros.
I saw Davros on stage singing about coffins.
This world is strange.

I'm going to skip to Saturday which started with a small trip to see an exhibition of Men's Suits at Chiltern Street Fire Station by Charles LeDray. They were pretty nifty with and the cute hangers and little ties and buttons.
We walked from there through to Hyde Park and to the gates where there was already quite a large amount of people gathered. Just before we headed into the park we met two really nice girls (who are also sisters) called Jen (182JenIsCool) and Rachel (Insanity182) who also had JohhnyDurham t-shirts on. Kudos for t-shirt bonding as they were the perfect companions for the majority of the weekend.



Following are photos of the amazing people we met over the entire of Saturday:



Liam (littleradge) was the first "big youtuber" we approached I think on Saturday after Johnny (who we didn't get a photo with 'til later and I'm doing these in order) he was also the only person we ended up getting to sign our "wall" in the publication because I didn't think if I was them I'd want to be signing away all day... It was funny though as the first pen I got to happened to be my sonic (promise I didn't stage it) and he was paranoid he'd be seen with it and mobbed. Ahh.



This here is Becky (YourTikken). She's so tall and thin and lovely. Not that I didn't expect any of these things, I'm just finding something to accompany the photo.



We wandered over (after the huge pass the parcel game and the strange postcard drawing thing) to get a photo with/meet Lex (tyrannosauruslexxx) and PJ (KickThePj) decided he would be in the photo too. I don't entirely know why my hair is so massively everywhere in this, I blame the wind.



Gosh I ruined this lovely photo with Kristina (italktosnakes) by being so squinty.



Gary and Cheeky from CheekTV were so great and funny the whole weekend.



Looking back at this picture now I can say that my hair (and Hazel's) is actually the same colour as Charlie's. This has to be one of my favourite photos, for one because of the t-shirt-ness and for once my smile didn't distort my face too much! Oh and because it's Charlie too. :D



Jazza (rhymingwithoranges) one of the best moments of the day was when we played "bang" huge style and he was beyond excited for doing well. Shame on Hazel for getting distracted.



Sorry guy on the far left (who may or may not be called Spencer) this photo was mainly for Dale (thegadgetdude) and Benjy.



Tom Milsom! Hexachordal is possibly one of the best humans in life. My Mum's reaction to this photo was great too "he has his arms round you!" Mum is a right Milsom fangirl. :)



Hazel and Connorwillvlog.



That is dan2shambles.



Gutted that Tino blinked. (Can you tell I'm a bit tired of typing?)



Haze and Dave (pixonu) she's well happy here.



Johnny (JohnyDurham19) was one of the people I was most nervous to meet he was the first 5ag I watched even though it was Todd who led me to the 5ags. When I realised Durham was location based I grew even more in love with his own videos too as I am also from Durham. I was so excited to meet him especially because his t-shirts are so lovely and although I didn't get to exactly talk to him it was :D.

There were plenty people we didn't get photos with like Kai or Tom (randomprodinc) or Dave (fromblueskies) but this was mainly because I didn't want to be permanently attached to my camera. This is also why there is a distinct lack of footage.

The huge game of Pass the Parcel was fantastic although it never stopped near us until the very end when Johnny technically won one of his own shirts though passed it too the girl next to him who was J0ames' friend. On my right was Haze and on her right another girl called Elizabeth.

Fun in the sun is pretty much the way to describe our day from 12-5ish. Discovering people are taller/shorter, bigger/smaller, louder/quieter IRL was just lovely.

At one point in the afternoon, before we tubed it over to Kilburn, we had a JD t-shirt photoshoot of which I cant wait to see the photos from!

On the tube to Kilburn a girl called Charlotte made the error of sucking at a pen to get it to work and filled her mouth with blue ink. Miles Dyer asks "who dared you to do that?" to which she had to admit she just made a mistake.
I have a bit of this on video but I dunno whether to post it, ever as you either go to a gathering with the intention of taking a lot of footage to natter about, or you don't and I came close to not even bothering.

Waiting around for the gig to start include Hazel and I eating some giant ass cakes from Woody's and chatting to some other people we'd not yet met. A blonde girl (who we also spent most of Sunday with and I forgot to get her name!) and a girl who's just moved back to her old London home (from when she was 4) from Saudi Arabia.

*interlude in typing while I EAT*
Oh and watch the tv adaptation of Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce which is very good so far.

Oh right, I was typing about the gig. The gig that tired me out but is in fact one of the best nights of my entire life. Before we went in Alex came over to tell me that Alan was thinking about getting DFTBA songs onto rockband and we ended up discussing Zelda, Pokémon, Henna Tattoos and dreams that convince you they're real.

As we went in I got the "Jack Daniels" stamp and he got the one that just said "thank-you" and while the ink was wet we transferred the backs of our hands so that we had both stamps, sort of. It was at this moment surrealism hit and I realised youtube people can be just as close as school people and I should try and break down that barrier that in my mind exists that still creates some form of separation.

Because we were first into the venue (yes I do realise I just started a sentence with because, pshhh) we went and sat on the step near the stage and people just started filling up behind us and sitting down in rows, it felt like some sort of assembly.
Behind me was a girl from Manchester and a guy from Leeds who thought they recognised me and Hazel which was (apart from when Haze was recognised by Pixonu) the first real "people might know who we are" moment. The atmosphere by this point was so welcoming.

Nothing will probably ever wipe the feeling of a room full of people singing along to Tom Milsom, ever. He's been one of my favourite youtube musicians for a rather long time and to belt out "brb, omg, lol, roflmao" and the chorus to Indigo is what life is all about.
Mhazz was equally brilliant even though I felt a bit shit for not really knowing any of the words as I've never really followed her too closely. Her guitar continues to be one of the most attractive instruments I've ever witnessed.

Star-struckness returned when I spent the entire of Greg Holden's set stood next to Charlie (of the issocoollike variety), we didn't speak because to be honest I'm still pretty shy and terrible at the striking up of conversation and also because Greg was fascinating and I was absorbed in the music. Bar on A was just indescribable.

Although I had to leave before Dave's set was over it was just an amazing end to an equally brilliant day though by the time we got to our hotel my feet were ready to drop off and by head was pounding.

Sunday was much more relaxed in Leicester Square after we went to see a room full of Blue Crystals. Sitting around singing along to guitars until Ed got told off by the park warden, eating noodles and frozen yoghurt. Around half 4 (I think) there was a conclusive decision to head over to the arcade on South Bank although as we didn't want to spend any more money we left pretty swiftly to meet the 'rents and go eat at Café Rouge. We decided on an early night after 3 days of being, not exactly active, but aware of myself. By 9 we were just sat watching Friends on the tv, it amazes me there are still episodes I've never seen although I like it this way. I've never made a conscious decision to watch from Ep.1 so through the rest of my life there will still probably be new episodes for me.

Monday, being there no more gathering to be done, was spent mooching, spending too much on clothes and having my photo taken splayed on a Fiat to see if I could win it for a weekend. Just a weekend mind. The train home was at 8pm so we got in the house at 11:30 and I then spent just under an hour cobbing together a video for 'thesexymacaroni'...

*end story*

I've just cobbled together a sort of diary/planner a bit smaller than my previous (and very messy) one and was colouring it in while on the phone.
It just made me realise that a lot of the next three years is going to be spent colouring in... Yey for being an Art student!

Alex was saying (and has said he'll make a video about) monitoring spending throughout September which sounds like quite a useful lesson that will be totally skewed for me seeing as it's my last month at home before I go away. I'll be going out more than I ever usually would especially when it gets to Freshers (which hits the very end of this month). I don't know whether I should therefore take part in this, it would be good to know and might be interesting to look back on. I dunno whether to count the money I spend on my phone either seeing as it's pay-as-you go. At least I have these free texts atm.

Anyhoo... I'm listening to Jon Richardson on iplayer because I was away on Sunday, again. I adore the music they play on there.

I promised myself I'd spend less time on the internet once I got back home but alas there went another day. I'm going off line now to try and spend my evening more productively by decorating a bag I bought yesterday.

Hell yes. I'm in perma-smile mode.