Feet in the Sand

I had a dream last night that I was in a completely new place. Somewhere I had never heard of & never seen anything about. It was completely alien to me, but it was beautiful. The people were welcoming and the weather gorgeous. I looked down to see my feet half buried in beautiful sand. The whole experience was blissful. I could even feel the wind in my hair. It felt so real that I didn't want to believe it when I heard my alarm - I'm sure many people have had this moment.

I can only imagine that my dream stems from a longing to travel. I do love travelling. In our industry of music and entertainment, my favourite thing is the journey. The journey from one town I've only visited once in my life to another that I have never seen. Even places that become more and more familiar like Leeds, Liverpool and Brighton still aren't my home town and there's always something new to see there. My bands have taken me to many many major cities throughout the UK and Ireland, as well as many smaller towns and cities. Last year I visited completely new places, and the year before even more. I can only hope that this year brings new experiences, new towns, new roads and rivers, new festivals, new sights, smells, sounds and new people. For me, this is where life gets it's excitement and variety. Though home is a constant that you can come back to, it's nice to feel the adventure far away from your home. There are mini adventures in every day life, but to travel around the country, continent or world is a real adventure! Whether with work or on holiday!

My dream may have been mainly based on a beach but I do not long for a simple beach holiday... I found this article on the web today of 100 great photos from 2012, it felt like a continuation of my dream. There are some incredible landscapes and places photographed here which made my ambition of adventure stronger still!

Gasadalur Village in the Faroe Islands

Bern, Switzerland

Taipei

Just a few of the epic photos from the blog post I found. Check it out at http://twistedsifter.com/2012/10/top-75-pictures-of-the-day-for-2012/ - it's a mixture of incredible photos not just landscapes.

I hope 2013 brings a new, exciting adventure to everyone!





**Photos not taken by me, all credits are on the page above**

Sunday Funday

Sunday means different things to different people. Family days, work, church, relaxing or preparing for the week ahead. For some it means eat as much roast dinner as possible!!

Mine generally, like many other men round the world, revolve around sport. Many Sundays involve traveling to my nearby uncles to watch formula 1, eating everything under the sun and drinking a plenty. I think for me Sunday always means family where possible. If there's anything on family wise and I can get there I will.

Today my plan revolves around Sky Sports Super Sunday. Then I will be heading to the gym myself for my own exercise! However others around me are doing many different things. Back at home my step dad is at work. My mother is doing her usual Sunday routine of cleaning and food shopping. Many have been playing sports themselves including my trusty manager joe.

What does Sunday involve for you? What's your favourite thing to do on this, the quietest day of the week?

If you're anything like my brother you're probably just trying to recover from a huge hangover ;).

Snow Drive to Glastonbury

Playing a show in Glastonbury today and there was a littttttle bit of snow on the way here!

Some photos of the snow and the show!

Sorry for the lack of words, not much else has crossed my mind today other than this show, coffee (latte to be precise) and how cold my feet are.

Happy Saturday everyone.

Chicken Nugget Challenge

Today I had the pleasure of being cameraman for Sam and Lewis doing the chicken nugget challenge.

This challenge is to eat 60 nuggets in 20 minutes. They made it even harder for themselves by only being allowed strawberry milkshake instead of water to wash it down.

It was quite a watch.

I won't tell you the results as it would be a waste of what may be a fun video!! What I can tell you is that Sam is currently passed out, and has been since the challenge finished about an hour ago.

Here's a video of some idiots trying to do the same thing!

Photos of Ben's Day

Today I walked a few miles of London. I walked around Oxford Street, Soho, Picadilly, Trafalgar Square, Embankment and then popped to Camden on the tube. All in all I was generally wandering the streets, taking photos and popping in to book shops, HMV's and similar. It was freezing, but extremely pleasant! Here are a few photos of my day!

I'm sure many Londoner's see this little space invader all the time but I love him.

Buses as far as the eye can see.

 

Mini-Panorama.

Lonely bird.

View from the bridge.

Sky over Westminster.

I love the little men painted on the Camden Lock sign here.

For the most part once I got to Camden I was too distracted by the smells and sights of various trinkets and toys, coffees and world food to take many photos. But I did spot these awesome hanging wind decoration things (I have no idea what they are called) and took a mini sequence of the shapes they were busting in the wind:

Camden Market.

Hope you enjoyed the small window of my day, I enjoyed the real thing very much.

Can you make this day yours?

I read something recently which followed along the lines of this:

"No matter who or where you are, you can take this day and make it yours. You can take this life and make it yours."

These kinds of phrases stick with me, or at least I try to make them stick with me. I like having little mantras and phrases to live by to remind me of things like this, and the phrase above is right, right?

Maybe we just don't harness the power we really have to make something of every day. Granted I am speaking from personal experience here and know nothing of what you or anyone else do with their mind each day, but I can relate here...

To wake up with a positive mental attitude, no matter what is planned for the day ahead, is something I strive to do buuuuut I don't always succeed. The days I do are fantastic. The days I fail, I bum out hard! No matter whether living in this house with the band, working full time in hospital or even back in 6th form, this has always applied to me. If something ahead in my day filled me with fear, dread or anger, then it was almost guaranteed to suck more when I got there. If I woke up with positivity in mind, that I was happy and grateful to be here and take whatever challenge (or lovely day) life threw at me, then you can flip that guarantee on it's head. My days are almost always good when I think this way, when I fully throw myself into this mindset.

I'm human and I forget these things and let negativity take over on bad days, but I'm striving for the positive, every day. Practicing gratitude. That's why I love stumbling across people with these thoughts and lovely phrases to remind me on this wonderful world wide web (thats wwww, a whole extra W). This particular phrase will stick with me for days, weeks, months and hopefully become part of me.

So can we wake up every day, no matter what is ahead with the view that we are grateful for this day and whatever this day brings, and make every day our day? I like trying!

'Nuff Said

So I've achieved a full week writing things on here? No way. An alright start with one or two posts of some substance. I'm currently racking my brains of things to write about, think about, share. But as I have drawn a blank this evening after my first 24 hours back in London I shall simply post this:

'Nuff said.