Easter Weekend: BCA Nationals and the Bluebell Wood

Life recently seems to be always busy. Blink once and before you know it, it's three months later and you're not quite sure where the time went. This very phenomenon happened to me in regards to Easter weekend. I blinked and the four glorious days of holiday were over, blinked again and here we are - two weeks further on and I'm only just putting fingers to keys.

Easter weekend kicked off with a cheer comp - myself and my team, Sparks All Stars, were off to British Cheerleading Association Nationals in Telford. Which, as it turns out, is a large town quite near Birmingham but also quite near Wales. My friends and I stayed in a little village called Ironbridge, home to the world's first  (rather pretty) major bridge made out of cast iron which also happened to be just over the road from our pub hotel. However, we didn't have much time to enjoy the scenery as it was early to bed in preparation for an early wake up call the next day.

The following day, our alarms went off at a painful 6am. Then, it was on with  our make-up, up with our hair and out with our uniforms on, ready to perform on the mat! We were all quite nervous as this competition historically was one we don't perform all that well at, but we were going to give it our best shot!

After much waiting around, we took to  the mat and smashed out our routine with all the energy we could muster.

Then, it was all over and we were back to waiting for results....

Finally, it was time for awards! We nervously waited, our anticipation heightened by the fact that awards were delayed! Bu then, suddenly, with barely any warning, the judges were announcing our category. We came second!!

Although this wasn't first place, we were super super happy as we hadn't been expecting to place at all!

Happy but tired after our long days, we eventually headed home to our waiting beds.

Sunday morning, I was up early again to head to my childhood home for a couple of days of relaxation, tasty food and being spoilt. Oh and Easter eggs (finally!). My boyfriend also joined us, just in time to devour a home cooked dinner of leg of lamb!

The final day of the holiday (after golden chocolate eggs for breakfast) was spent visiting the Bluebell Wood, a wood near my home which, come spring, is carpeted in bluebells as far as the eye can see!

It's really a rather spectacular sight!

Hundreds and hundreds of beautiful blue (purple-y?) flowers everywhere!

After our walk, we retired to the village pub where we basked in the beautiful sunshine....

...before heading home for a late lunch outside under blossom in the garden.

An exciting weekend finished off with some well needed relaxation!

Twycross Zoo

Last week, my university cheerleading squad and I visited Twycross Zoo as part of our Cheer Week celebrations which is basically a week of fun things to celebrate the end of exams, done together as a squad.

Now I love zoos. When I was little, I was definitely one of those kids whose face was pressed up against the glass, trying to get that little bit closer to the animals inside the pens. I'd run excitedly from pen to pen, fascinated by all the creatures with their colourful fur or camouflaged scales . I wish I could say I've grown up a little, but that simply wouldn't be true. Needless to say, I was very excited when we arrived at the zoo...

Twycross had pretty much all the animals you could wish for (except big cats- we only found a cheetah and a snow leopard which were beautiful, but weren't quiet as exciting as maybe lions or tigers), and, maybe slightly oddly, an absolute abundance of monkeys. Seriously, they had more monkeys than I think I've ever seen before. All different shapes and sizes, from the apes and orangutans to tiny little monkeys that chattered excitedly amongst themselves! The zoo's banana budget must be through the roof!

The penguins were hilarious, placing them second in my 'top three animals' ranking. (The elephants came in third (the baby one was adorable!) and the flamingos came in first. Mainly because what could be better than giant pink birds?!) They came right up to the edge of their enclosure and pottered around, craning their little necks to see the people crowed around them. I later realised this was because they were anticipating the arrival of a large bucket of fish, which was fed to them as part of the penguin parade. Here, the smart little birds waddled out of their enclosure to eagerly snap up the fish being thrown to them, while the zoo keeper told us about them and the effect of our pollution on their environment.

But for me, the flamingos stole the show. There was a large pond full of them, each ruffling their bright pink plumage and shaking their tail feathers, determined to outdo each other. Personally, I found them mesmerising- I could have watched them all day!

However, before long, it was time to go. So with one last wave to the monkeys (and with my inner-child sulking at being dragged away) we headed home.

Robin Hood Marathon, Nottingham

A couple of weeks ago, some of the girls from my cheerleading squad and I were asked to cheer on those running in the Robin Hood Marathon. Therefore in the early hours Sunday morning we put on our pinkest lipstick, tied our bows in our hair and crawled sleepily into cars which drove us down to Nottingham.

Once there, we were given little cute outfits (with pompoms!) and were placed up and down the route. We then got ready to cheer our hearts out and encourage the brave runners on to glory.

Our first placement was quite near the start of the race so we got to see many of the runners, still with their happy smiles firmly in place, power past us. However our second placement was much closer to the end of the route and by this point, only the hardiest had survived. It was amazing to see the amount of effort people put into the marathon- some runners looked as if they could keel over where they stood but still they pushed on, whether at a jog or a walk. It was an impressive sight to behold indeed! What made it rather special however was seeing how a little encouragement could spark people back to life. We'd see a runner looking as if they were about to stop but after a big cheer from us and other spectators, they all managed to pick up their feet and push on forwards.

Around 4pm the last runner made it across the finish line to huge applause from the remaining spectators. The look on his face was one of relief and happiness and it struck me then that the runners were a good metaphor for life. On your own, there may become a point where it's just too hard to push on. But with a little encouragement from others, you'll have the support to get to the end.

A huge congratulations to everyone who ran in the marathon on Sunday and an especially big well done to all those who didn't just do it for themselves, but for charity! You were all truly inspirational.

How to Make Cheer Bows

I've noticed that it's surprisingly expensive to buy cheer bows, which I find odd since they're literally just a bit of ribbon. Therefore I had a go at making my own!

Here's what you'll need:
50cm of 38mm ribbon
a short length of 16mm contrasting ribbon
Cable ties
Hair bands
a square of cardboard
Super glue

Start by cutting yourself a template from your square of cardboard (mine was about 20cm wide) by cutting a slit up the middle of the cardboard.

Next, fold your ribbon around the template and pinch it in the middle, securing a cable tie around the pinch. Before tightening the tie, adjust your ribbon so it's even.

Use a second cable tie to secure the hairband to the bow. This will ensure it's on nice and tightly. Then, cut a short length of ribbon to wrap around the cable tie and hairband (I used about 4cm) and secure it with superglue. Voilà!

 I then went on to add a couple of hotfix gems which jazzed them up a bit! As an extra little tip, if you like your bows to be extra stiff, spray them with hairspray.

Future Cheer!

One of the best things you can do at university is get involved with a society- I play lacrosse and more recently, I've taken up cheer!

We've all seen the movies- the inescapable mix of catty girls, death defying stunts and romances with a quarter back. I have to say my experience with cheer hasn't quite been this. The girls have been amongst some of the nicest I've met, the stunts are definitely tricky but when you fall, someone (nearly) always catches you and well, there's been some mingling with the American Football lot but there's definitely no obligation to bag yourself a player!

(Sorry this isn't the best of pictures!)

As you may or may not know, cheerleading isn't a widely practiced sport in the UK. The majority of people in my squad (myself included) had never done it before and so were very excited to try it out when we realised we could take it up at university (although we all admitted the super cute uniform was what attracted us in the first place).

Most universities have a squad and compete in competitions, which is exactly what mine did this weekend. Luckily for me, my squad doesn't conduct tryouts so anyone can join but other universities however aren't always quite so nice!

Anyway, at 5am on Sunday morning we all met in our uniform and dragged ourselves onto the coach to Loughborough so we could compete at Future Cheer. We were all pretty nervous but very excited- this was the first time the sqaud had ever competed in this particular competition and for many of us, our first competition ever!

We were competing at level two, which means we could only put certain moves into our routine as befitting our standard. We had to perform twice which was exhausting and absolutely terrifying. Despite this, getting out on to the floor and cheering for a room packed with spectators and other squads was totally and utterly exhilarating.

Our hours of practice (we'd been cheering for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week over the last two weeks!)  pulled off and our performance ranked 19th over all. Although not the most amazing placing ever, we were all very proud at being in the top 20 (especially since we'd been convinced we'd be last when we saw all the other much more polished squads perform!) and are already looking forwards to coming back next year!

Us about to perform!

I'd definitely recommend giving cheer a go- it's great for confidence and personally, I have met some fantastic people and have loved every minute of it!