The Year After The Night Before

365 days ago on a dark and stormy night in a foreign land, I found myself forlorn and alone, stranded and wounded. Fearing for my life after a horrific accident that would change the rest of my life, seeing months squandered in a painstaking recovery both physically and psychologically...
 

Who am I kidding?!

It was a mild night in at the beginning of the summer, just as the temperature is maturing from spring and I had met up with accompanied a good friend from my Koh Rong days, Dennis, to one of his friends birthday parties.on the promise to myself of not showing him up, I vowed not to drink too much. But then my hand outstretched at the bar and a beer-too-many accidentally fell into my mouth, which later resulted in a slip of footing and a battle with the cobbled streets of Graz, Austria. Curb 1-0 Becca. After much conversation to and fro , everyone decided it'd be best for me to end my evening there and get an ambulance to hospital (much against my wishes... For both ending my night and going to hospital). Once safely strapped in, and with the blue lights flashing, Dennis and I proceeded to take some selfies in the ambulance, joke around with the doctors, then he joyrode a wheelchair whilst I got my diagnosis....a fracture tibia. 

"At least I haven't broken my leg!" I thought. Swiftly being corrected and learning that a fracture is a break. A fracture tibia means I broke my leg. The fun and games ended a few days later when I realized the difficulty showering, making myself a cuppa, the sheer drop that comes with missing a step on the stairs...and that I'd have to move back in with my Mum and Dad for the first time in years...but hey- if it's not a good time it's a good story. Right? And it certainly wasn't a night to forget...if only I could remember most of it.

 

   Needless to say it was a defining moment of my year at least on those (wonky) streets in Austria.

 

The next few months saw me return to La Case de Old Lady y Baldy, after an entertaining conversation with my Mum on the phone which said in a more explicit tone "You're ever so silly, Rebecca. I wonder what thought would've skipped through your mind for you to wonder so carefree around those streets. Your vision must've been clouded through the slight inebriation of one tickle of larger too many" which I did receive a heads up text from my Dad about saying;

"told her not to be to tough wiv u x"

I'm glad I got the heads up, I would've been more glad if my mother had listened that advice. 

 

My active lifestyle of snowboarding, via ferrata, hiking (does dancing on tables count as a sport?) was very quickly reduced to a daily climb up the stairs, a hobble to the toilet, and a hop to the kitchen once an hour. Entertainment I normally source from a social with friends, an excursion to grab a coffee, or a stroll around the outdoors was rapidly reduced to whatever I could find on Netflix, solitaire on my laptop, or the ever-dreadful-but-addictive SCROLL. Eventually I strained my eyes from watching screens all day (and I even convinced myself I had an eyefloater taking over the entirety of my left side vision and a brain tumor...thanks for that one google). It was just a temporary lifestyle change for me, luckily. But it doesn't change how dramatic that shift was.

 

Eight weeks after that initial hangover, my cast was off and leg was free to face the world again. Now resembling a flakey, undercooked, and rolled-on-the-floor-and-covered-in-hair crossiant. 

 

Oh, btw, I went to Budapest, and Vienna (and other photos)

Amster-damnn

The 11th of February has put me in a place I never thought I'd be two years ago, 6 months ago, 2 weeks ago or even yesterday... still in the grey confides of my bedroom in Crawley. Alas, I am still here and awaiting a winter placement (if one ever shows up).

But it has meant that I've finally (almost) cleared everything from my family home, got to spend some quality time with the family, pop over to the Netherlands for the weekend and see my old favourite band play a venue about 20 times the capacity that I'm used to.


My phone call that is my ticket to slopes, snowboarding, and scenery still hasn't come through. So me and my Dad went to watch some football together. Fair to say he was more excited about the game than I was (Psst, we won 5-0) but I was just happy for the social. And helping Dad to not fall in the road after a couple of 7.5% ciders ;)

After getting home on Saturday night I realised it was my first birthday since my 18th (6 years ago!) that I've spent in the UK so needed to change that so convinced Mama to book a last minute day off work and come on a 3 day break to Amsterdam with me, leaving home at 6am the next day.

So that we did, packed our overnight bags, booked a Botel (it's a hotel on a converted boat, geddit??) and attempted to catch our flight...only to realise I'd actually booked it for November 2019. Well it's always been on my bucketlist to show up at the airport and book the next flight...

We ended up doing a fair bit when we were over there, my personal favourite was my birthday unlimited-pancake cruise. But after walking every ounce of them over the weekend (not weekend) we covered the whole city (in the sleet) by foot, we met up with a Koh Rong friend, Ilana, on her native territory and she showed us the best food place ever. The pictures speak for themselves. 

 

 

mum sized car


Other ventures out of my house this week have seen me and my, uglier, sibling discover my new favourite band in London (and a few bevvies with Natalie Webb) with Estrons and seeing my old fav band Don Broco finally headlining Wembley (and getting in for free... score!) 

 

Home, Sweet Home.

December 18th saw a shock and a very messy bedroom to the family household as I decided to make the pilgrimage back to the UK for the Christmas season!

A quick nip up to the ever-so-sunny Blackpool, Glasgow and down the Coast to Cornwall. A smooth flight over to Poland and now awaiting my flight to my next adventure. Hitting the Alps for Round 2. 2019 style!

Highlight include;

• The big family reunion! And having some decent food, and a fridge full of it! 
• And coffee and cocktail catch ups with everyone from the past few years I haven't seen. 
• Dancing the evening away to Madness in Brighton. Family bonding over some ciders and ska.
• Christmas and New Year. Even the quiet ones are never really that quiet in my family.
• Going to Blackpool and hitting the arcades, missing out on the infamous illuminations, apparently switched off for my arrival and the closed piers. 
• Spending a few nights with my Scottish family, (massive shout out for putting me up K.B, Gwen, David and Jenna. And helping me out with my Veganuary). Getting pished, almost getting knocked out by Jenna when she was flossing through the Panto, eating a whole tube of salt and vinegar pringles (okay, that's not a highlight for sure haha) 
• Condiment Chaos in Cornwall
• My bus driver getting knocked out on the way home.
• Reuniting with Karma from Koh Rong in Warsaw. Making the most of the cheap alcohol and pretending to speak wayyy more languages than I do.
• Having to evacuate my train and rejoin a new one.

A few snaps from this time, and my last trip through Thailand.

being normal at madness

snowboard squad 2016

80's night with drunk juliette

-11 at the somber Birkenau

cheers to getting pished

apparently not the eiffel tower

head first into scottish culture with some dragon soop

did someone say "flaming absynth"?

catch ups with lucy lou