Seasons - Part 6

        Happy Friday! has your week been as busy as mine? If not, I hope it's been great anyway! As promised, here's part 6 of Seasons.

http://www.123rf.com/photo_9523817_picnic-blanket.html

        We mulled it over for hours. I went back to my house and took a picnic blanket from the back of my dad's wardrobes, and a length of rope from the garden shed. As I was on my way back out of the house, my sister came out of the dining room and cornered me, demanding to know what the rope was for.

      'We're going to try and make a swing.' She had her arms folded and her eyebrows raised and was staring at me incredulously. I gulped.

        'Whatever.' She rolled her eyes 'You can explain to dad where his rope went when he looks for it next time then.' She stomped back through the dining room and I heard her heavy footfalls moving back up the stairs to her bedroom.

         I ran back into the meadow where James was pacing, looking over his shoulder anxiously all the while. When he saw me, the thunder returned to his face.

         'What the fuck took you so long?' I was taken aback.

         'There's no need to swear. Say sorry.'

         'No, why were you gone so long? I could have been found by someone!'

         'By who? No-one ever comes through here.'

       'Why. Did. You. Take. So. Long?' His jaw was clenched and he stated each word deliberately and was clenching and unclenching his fists.

         'I saw my sister, she wanted to know what the rope was for.'

         'And did you tell her?'

        'Of course not, why the hell would I tell her?' My voice was rising too now, I couldn't believe he'd think I'd be stupid enough to tell my sister that we'd just killed someone.

        'Good. Because if you tell anyone, I'll be fetching a second blanket and some more rope, and you'll be tied up in the tree next to her. But wouldn't that be sweet? You and her together forever. How bloody poetic.' He said this with such malice in his voice and his eyes that I felt tears begin to burn behind my eyes. He'd stepped closer to me as he was saying this and I could feel his breaths coming in short bursts from his nostrils. 

          Eventually he stepped away from me and grabbed the blanket from my arms. He skulked over to her, and laid the blanket by her side. Then he lifted her and placed her onto the blanket. I watched as he put a hand tenderly to her face before taking the corner of the blanket and moving it to cover the length of her body.

                           Have a great weekend! See you Tuesday. Laura

                                                                                           xoxoxox

Busy, Busy, Busy!

       Hey, it's that time of the month week again, and I've been so, so busy for the last couple of week, hence there being no posts. I haven't seen anything or read anything new since the Conjuring. So I thought maybe I'd talk to you for a bit. If that doesn't suit you, come back on Friday when I'll be posting Part 6 of Seasons.

       Anyway. Last week, I thought I'd be industrious seeing as it was my last week at home before I came back to uni. I've been meaning to sort through my wardrobes for absolutely ages, because from a very early age, I have been keeping hold of everything. Because it might come in handy. Or because I cannot throw anything away. 

The half-way point.

        Last Monday, that habit changed. I started by clearing out underneath my desks. I thought that would be a nice quick task. It's only the underneath of two desks. (One for work/my laptop etc., the other has the TV on it.) It took A DAY. One whole day was spent on taking things out from under the desk, the smaller one was the worst, and putting them in rubbish bags. 'How, Laura?' you may ask. 'Exactly, friend' I reply. Tuesday I took some crates down that have been in my wardrobe pretty much since they were built, which I guess was about seven or eight years ago. I found things from all the way through secondary school, like old maths books, notebooks I used to write terrible songs and poems in, and a food technology book from year 7. Needless to say they're all in the burning bag. 

         Anyway. I filled up eight rubbish bags - which don't include any paper, because all of the paper went into four separate bags to be burned - and four bags for the charity shop. How in the hell can you fit all of that crap in your life, let alone in your wardrobe? 

          At the end of the week though, I do have actual empty spaces in my room, which I've not had for literally years. And I can actually get to the wardrobes at both ends of the room, which I have also not been able to do for years. I almost feel embarrassed saying all this, because they actually make documentaries about people like me. But I kind of feel like I had to tell the full story so you'd take me seriously when I say I could not get to the laptop to post last week. I couldn't move it either, because the bed was completely taken up by crap I'd taken from the floor, so that I could get to the cupboard. 

http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~eesthhm/

          Friday's post got lost in the madness of last week as well. By then I'd cleared out most of the junk, but I had to pack to come back to uni n Saturday. I did mean to post this on Sunday so I could get back to normal this week, but the first few days being back at uni are so busy. Over the last three days, I've walked for more than 240 minutes. That's four hours of my life walking between my house, the town centre and campus. Forget all the stuff we've done between the walks!

        Anyway. I'm back now :) 

       I'll be back on Friday I promise! Have a great week! If you're a new student, I hope you're having the best freshers' week! 

        Thanks for reading and for being patient! Laura

                                                                       xoxoxoxox

                                                  

Seasons - Part 5

        Oops, nearly forgot to do this! So this week's been pretty busy I guess. It's gone really fast and so it really doesn't feel like it should be Friday yet. Anyway, here's part 5 of Seasons, if you haven't read (or looked at the pictures from) previous parts, click here.

http://sallyandsam.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/ozark-mountain-daredevils-someday.html

          James lifted himself off of me, and I tentatively got to my feet. We looked at each other silently, fear beginning to rise in my belly, its icy tendrils lacing themselves around my organs, moving outwards to clutch my legs and arms. It was so hard for me to move, but I couldn't stop myself walking towards Amber on the ground; James seemed to be having a similar experience. We moved as one, slowly and deliberately as if pulled by unseen hands.

       Eventually we were at her side. The entire meadow was silent again, as if all the birds and squirrels were holding their breath and craning their necks to see if Amber would simply roll over and start rubbing her head. James crouched beside her and took hold of her shoulder. Her eyes were still open and her face was set in a look of anguish. There was a large dent in the side of her head which was full of matted hair and congealing blood. James snapped his head away, his eyes closed. He was pale and looked as though he was about to gag. A tear escaped from beneath his eye lids and he pulled her into a sitting position before holding her to himself and sobbing silently into her hair.

        I was about to stoop down to join him when I heard brisk footsteps and gentle panting. I span around in terror, the man was walking through the meadow with his dog. James looked up at me, terrified. I put my hand gently on his shoulder. He seemed to understand and took the girl into his arms again, gently rocking her. I forced a smile and jogged over to the man.

         'Good morning!' I said brightly and bent down to stroke his dog.

       'Mornin'' he grunted back. 'They okay?' he said, gesturing towards James and Amber. I looked over my shoulder as casually as I could, given the feeling of dread that was turning my stomach to lead.

        'Them? Yeah. Lover's tiff, you know.' I could feel sweat beginning to form on the back of my neck and my forehead. The man looked away from them and cast his eyes over me.

         'Don't look so great yourself, mate.' I looked down, my jumper was torn, my shirt untucked. I realised my face must be a travesty as well, after the beating I'd taken from James.

         'Yeah, well. Got involved didn't I? Told him he should be nice to her or I'd steal her away. He took it a bit too literally and it got a bit out of hand. They're just making up. We'll all be back to normal soon, get on with the day and all that.' There was a pause in which he paused, eyeing me cynically. He looked to them and then back at me.

        'Mmmm. There's blood on her dress.' I snapped my head back around. The blood was quite obvious.

           'Yeah, she gets nosebleeds when she's stressed. Poor girl.' I was expecting him to push me aside then, march over to James and pull Amber to her feet. Then he'd see she was dead and drag the three of us to the local police station. What he did next almost came as a shock. He shrugged and grunted. He then smiled at me, tipping his hat before looking down to his dog and saying;

          'Come on then, boy, let's get home before your mother starts to worry.' He turned his face back up to face me, and gestured to James by way of a nod – 'You make sure not to fight any more, any of you. It's not worth it. You never know what you could lose.'

        'You're so right.' I mumbled. He tipped his hat to me once again and made off across the meadow on his way home. I watched him go, his dog trotting faithfully along at his side. That dog reminded me of myself, the old man reminded me of a kind version of James.

            I waited until the man had left the meadow and turned the corner onto the main road before I went back over to James.

            'Is she -' I whispered.

            'Yes.' he said without looking up. I sat down beside them. He looked up at me. 'Thank you. You know, for taking care of him.' I was taken aback that he'd thanked me. In the thirteen years that James had lived on my street, been coming to my house, been my friend; he'd never once thanked me. I nodded.

             'So, what do we do now?'

           So that's it for this week, and just shy of Friday, too! Have a great weekend and I'll see you (probably. Maybe) on Tuesday!

                                              Lots of love! Laura

                                                                   xoxoxox

The Conjuring - Review

        I don't even know what happened last week. This was my thought process last Tuesday: 'I've not done anything this week, I don't have anything to review today. I'm going to see The Conjuring tomorrow though, I'll just post tomorrow!' That obviously didn't come to fruition though. 

                         http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1457767/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

        So, last Wednesday I went to see The Conjuring. I'm not going to lie, I saw the trailers when I saw Evil Dead all those months ago and since then I've wanted to see it but have also cowered at the mere mention of it. I'm THE jumpiest person in the world, and I actually scare pretty easily when it comes to ghost films/TV shows. Anyway, the poster is kind of creepy but doesn't give away that much about the film, but oh, dear lord I just noticed the shadow of the person underneath the noose, *shudder*. Anyway, if you haven't seen them, there are a couple of trailers, but this is the 'official main trailer';

       I still jump at the trailer. So, The Conjuring is directed by James Wan (Director of Saw and Insidious) and came out in UK cinemas on the 2nd of August. Before that, it was shown at the Edinburg film festival in June. (Its first showing was at 'Nocturna' - Madrid International Fantastic Film Festival on the 8th of June) It hasn't been released in cinemas everywhere yet, so if you're in one of the countries where this is the case, check here for your release date. 

       As far as horror films go, this is a pretty good one. The build up is great; as the audience we know that paranormal things are occurring, but they're not big enough instances that the family immediately jump to the conclusion that their house isn't entirely theirs. In the beginning, there are tiny things like clocks stopping, bad smells and cold rooms. These occurrences build up through a child sleep-walking in strange ways, games being joined by disembodied hands and something playing the old piano in the basement. 

       I wanted to include this trailer because although it starts off being all cute, it makes my blood run a little bit cold each time. It takes 25 seconds to actually start, so you might just want to skip a little bit:

    

       This game looks really fun, but since this film, I don't want to blindfold myself or clap, so I guess it's out of the question. Anyway. Something else which I particularly thought was good about this film, was that aside from meeting the family who are experiencing the phenomena, we're introduced to the paranormal investigators - Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, respectively) so that we kind of empathise with them, and not just the Perrons. (Lili Taylor played Mrs Carolyn Perron, while Ron Livingston played her husband, Roger Perron)

       In addition to this, some of Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigations were shown being carried out, in which they show a family that their 'supernatural' occurrences are merely creaky floorboards echoing through the pipes, and they state that most paranormal investigation turn out to be similarly simple to explain logically. I felt like this was something that really set this film apart from other horror films with this type of storyline, because so often, the screenwriters/directors/producers want to get going with the haunting so soon that we end up with a whole cast full of people ready to believe they are being haunted by something terrible because they hear a few noises or a door opens slightly.

     Something else I have to mention is how much I thought of the acting. Now, I am quite a fan of Vera Farmiga anyway after watching her in The Orphan, but I have to really hand it to the child actors in this - I usually really hate kids in films but I genuinely liked all of these kids, especially the youngest, April who was super cute, but also really believable and a great character, she was played by Kyla Deaver. The other girls were Andrea, (Shanley Caswell) Nancy, (Hayley McFarland) Christine, (Joey King) and Cindy (Mackenzie Foy).

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20399642_20717859_21360694,00.html

         I don't necessarily have any negative things to say about this film; normally I'd comment on how seeing the 'monster' ruins the effect a little bit, but honestly, this thing is pretty much as hideous and creepy looking as the hell it crawled out of. I liked the back story of why the place is haunted, and the explanations of different types of hauntings and spirits, etc. 

        As much as I enjoyed this film and don't really have any negatives, other than I watched most of the film from behind my fingers - (which I can't entirely blame on them, but it wasn't entirely something I could control either) I don't think I can actually give this the full five pandas. It's not something I can put my finger on and say 'this is why I'm taking away a panda', I just don't have the same kind of excitement about this as I have for other films, so purely based on that, I want to give this four pandas. 

        This film may not be scary to everyone, but it's certainly not for the faint-hearted!

              I'll be back on Friday with part (your guess is as good as mine) of Seasons. (Is it five? It feels like five.) Until then, have a really great week! 

                                                          Lots of love! Laura

                                                                               xoxoxox