Free..

This is yet another blog i was meant to have written a week or so ago that was really important to me but of which i totally didn't get time to write. I do one of these every year and it never changes...i think...the amount of people i am going to send it to will be less..but still.
6 years ago on the 26th this amazing guy called Gweedo passed away whilst in a group of Young Americans who were touring at the time in the UK...and this story it still touches my heart in every single way...its why i write about it every year. If you want more details go read previous blogs written on the 26th...but basically this cast taught me strength, they taught me courage and they taught me hope...no matter how hard life gets...they helped me have hope.. It's weird because even though it was six years ago and now i have taken ten workshops including in Germany...the one with UK 2006 is the one i remember the most...still after all the time..and no matter what and where i go..when i walk into that workshop...i feel that cast, and Gweedo.  In the past three workshops i have taken the YA have sung part of the Beatles medley as an intro to the kids and every time it takes all of my not to cry...because that was in our show (like town kid part) way back then.  I always sing with them.
Anyway...I wanted to write a blog dedicated to him, and the one good thing about me writing it a little late is that i can honestly say Gweedo is still so greatly loved, admired and remembered.  I've seen so many messages over the past week that have brought tears to my eyes.
Whenever we learn if we hold on together at the end of the show... we are told that this song is sung, in every country, in every workshop and has been for something like 25 years i think it was. It's always, along with lion king, the time i remember that cast and the words of the director which still ring in my head as if they were spoken yesterday.
'now we could not have worked together has closely as we have for the past two and half days without some friendships forming, and some of these friendships, will last long after the applause dies from this hall, and maybe, just maybe, some friendships will last a lifetime. And need i say anymore this last song says it perfectly. 'If we hold on together'
i remember the tears and the emotion that went into that song and now whenever i take a workshop i remember that and make sure that on the line 'As high as souls can fly' i look upwards a send a kiss to heaven.  
Uk cast yet another year and you still change my life every single day...like little things you guys done will affect the things that lead to big things for me now.  
i am so happy i will get to see some of you again this year, it literally excites me so much... and the fact i get to see beautiful Rhonda makes me even more excited...although i'm certainly going to cry one HELL of a lot..
Please know i still admire you all, your strength and you courage you are all beautiful
Thank you  
xx


(This blog was for Gweedo)  

R.I.P Joe Shaw

Well this blog is a message i was meant to do a really long time ago...literally the second it happened i wanted to let it all out on here...but..i couldn't find the words..I feel I need to say something about it though. 
So when i was in school i went to school with this awesome guy called Joe... The other month i was sitting in my living room actually getting ready to go up to bed when i got a message from one of my friends telling me that Joe had died. I don't want to go into details of what happened and how he died because thats not for me to say on here..but what i can say..is that the second i heard...i felt my heart breaking..literally falling into little pieces. My first thought was hatred towards myself. Joe and I hung out together in the same group for five years...FIVE years...and they actually happened to be five of my hardest years, yet in all that time i never got to really know him...i never got to speak to him like i felt i should have done.....We hung out all together and he was forever making me laugh and feel better... he made everyone smile..he was such an amazing down to earth guy. Yes Joe was a friend of mine at school... but i would never ever say we were best friends...My second thought led me onto this blog that i'm writing now... I want to ask you all a question...and i don't want written answers..i want you to ask this to yourself. Think about all the people that you have ever met/become friends with in your life...and ii don't care if it was for a minute or a hundred years think about it. Imagine you just didn't talk to them as much as you should because you 'don't have time' or 'can't be bothered'. Well what would you do if you woke up one day to the news they were no longer on this earth? Because there is no second chance to tell them how you feel.  I made a stupid mistake of deleting nearly all my old school friends last year just because i didn't talk to them...i regret that now and i know 'forget regret or life is yours to miss' but its a thing that deep you can help but think about what could have happened different.  To be 100% i think i must have spoken to Joe about twice after we left school and that was just over Facebook...never in that time did i say how i loved him, how i valued him, how i was thankful for his friendship. Why should I? His young, healthy... not a best friend of mine so why do i need to go telling him all that stuff...well now i know why...because you never know...NEVER know, where the circle of life will take you.  
The thing that made me smile and also broke me inside was a few days after I had heard this news...and a group of us were meeting up in Romford to have a drink in memory of Joe...and you know....people walked in that door that i had not seen in four or so years...people who only had a connection to Joe via the took science with him, or said hi when passing in the halls. Peoples lives whom he had touched...it was just...AMAZING to see how many people turned up. We all passed a book around and wrote something in it. I think that...was the hardest part..the 'i need to try and say an actual goodbye'...
What i want to say from this is that i don't want his death to be in vain.. PLEASE.. he was only 19...you NEVER EVER know what is going to happen and when it is going to on....take this message and lock it in your heart........got it? good. Now go tell the people that you love that you love and care for them...before its to late before your left with regrets...DO NOT take their presence for granted. 
Thank you.  

(This blog is in loving memory of my wonderful friend Joe Shaw..Rest in peace buddy..enjoy the free beers!!!)

So sorry to all my blog readers

ok guys so I'm back, nearly two months but i'm back...
I really have kept meaning to get on and write but i never really got the chance... I'm gonna try and catch up all my blogs now but this could take a while so bear with me... I'm prob gonna forget a fair few things too haha.
The past month i have been very ill and struggling with myself, i still am..but i feel i need to get back in the swing of this thing, i feel bad for the people asking me to update my blog and i hate myself for not writing its what i do and i love to write...so
here it goes . :)