Author: Tom Rose

Week 38: Quiz Master

~ Tom Rose ~ 1 Comment

This week I took on the task of being Quiz Master for Little Common Ramblers Cricket Club.

This involved writing the quiz, all the way to delivering the quiz on the night. In true Tom Rose fashion, I left writing the quiz until the afternoon of the event, which did not give me much time to prepare. Thanks to my good friend Google and a little bit of help from colleagues I managed to put together a quiz of 7 rounds.

Throughout this part the rounds consisted of three main rules:
– A couple of easy questions (to keep people interested)
– A few hard questions
– A question that I would find funny
– All questions easy pronounceable for myself – I’m not embarrassing myself trying to prounouce anemone (Uh-nem-uh-nee) or anything similar

anemone-annemenemonemee-500x375c

Quiz prepared, it is time for the quiz itself. Having spent half an hour trying to make the speakers work, whilst hiding the quiz from contestants. I found myself running a bit late. Fortunately, I wasn’t responsible for any of the other parts of the quiz, I would have forgotten pens for a start!

Microphone, questions, Beer.. 3 ingredients of a quiz master
Microphone, questions, Beer.. 3 ingredients of a quiz master

It’s safe to say the power of being a quiz master went to my head. The two rules of the quiz were no cheating, and the quiz masters word is final. This is all well and good to begin with, but after my beer a round, to settle the nerves, my decisions became ropey as the night went on.

Hard at work
Hard at work

I didn’t do too bad I don’t think… Once the alcohol had settled and the nerves had gone. I soon started to enjoy the role. People really get into a quiz! Most importantly it helped raise hundreds of pounds for the local cricket club, close to my heart. Up the Ramblers!

Week 37: Moving Out

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At the age of 24, you could probably say this was weeks challenge (though probably more than a week) was way overdue.

This week, the time came to leave home and move out. Though I have moved out for the university years, moving out post university, is the real moving out for good. I finally found myself in a financial position to be able to pay some rent and move closer to work.

My move sees me move from Hastings to Brighton (Hove actually). The main reason for the change of location was to be closer to work. I swapped an hour and a half car journey to a two minute walk in the mornings. I mean it doesn’t get much better than what I’ve got now. I now live walking distance from work, in a city that has far much more going on than the Hastings.

That said, leaving Hastings is no easy task. Anyone outside of Hastings, will slate the place, but I will not let anyone but myself say a bad word on Hastings. 24 years of growing up in Hastings and loved the place. Okay, I’m only an hour away from Hastings if needed, but a part of me will really miss the place.

All ready to go...
All ready to go…

The move itself was a bit of a pain, mainly fitting all my clothes into my car. Who knew I had so much stuff? It’s taken a while to sort out my room how I like it, and not sure it’s there yet but time will tell. Living in the countryside and moving to the city, I will have to get used to shutting the curtains after getting out of the shower. Given a few surprises to a couple of pedestrians already!

The new room...
The new room…

The move is the start of the next chapter in my life I guess, having lived in Brighton two weeks at the time of writing this… I can safely say I’m going to enjoy it here. My liver might not, but my mind will.

Shout out to my parents for putting up with my for the last 24 years, no easy task. Shout out to Carl and Marc who will have the unfortunate task of having to live with me for the foreseeable future. I wish you all the luck in the world, you’ll need it.

The Boys
The Boys

Week 36: The Colour Run

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Dubbed the happiest 5k in the world, my first day living in Brighton, involved being covered in paint and dancing until the sunset.

3 flatmates
3 flatmates

There are only two rules for this event, dress in white and have fun. It’s pretty much impossible not to abide by these rules, as they atmosphere kind of takes over. Running with my new flatmates, we turned up in our white kit and ended up as multicoloured messes. In hindsight, I wish I wore running trainers instead of vans, but myself and my ankles managed to get through. In more hindsight, I wish I didn’t chuck my plain white tee in the wash with the paint covered t-shirt. Pink T-shirt anyone?

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The colour run is an event I hadn’t even heard of before doing it, but I must say, there is something about getting covered in paint that makes you lose all care in the world. Even if you can’t see or breath for the first few seconds after getting caked in paint. It’s not hard to see why they dub this the happiest 5k in the world.

The event was a timely reminder, however, of how unfit I am ,as I struggled through 5km in 29 minutes. It’s things like this though, that encourage participation from all walks and ages, that will get people active. Plus who doesn’t want a paint party to end?! I’d have probably been sitting on the sofa had I not being doing this.

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On the back of the colour run, and volunteering for the Brighton Marathon, I have entered myself into the 2016 Brighton Marathon. Ambitious I know after only just completing 5km. Oh well, wish me luck.

This video describes the event better than I could ever put into words…

 

Week 35: Sleeping Rough

~ Tom Rose ~ 3 Comments

This week I left the warmth of my four walls that I call a home, and swapped my double bed for a cardboard box for the night, as I attempted to sleep rough as a homeless person would.

My bed for the night
My bed for the night

I was originally given the idea from an old colleague of mine, James. At the time, I was really up for it, but speaking to my mother, she was concerned of my safety. Being the mummy’s boy I am, I didn’t want to frighten her. However, when told about The Seaview Project organising a big sleep out, I was all over the idea.

Homelessness is something that saddens me. I was once called on a night out a “run of the mill, middle class, white kid” by a nice gentleman. He probably wasn’t far off the mark. The truth is, I couldn’t even begin to imagine life without a home, warmth, friends, family and safety. I was hoping this sleep out with give me a tiny insight in the life of being homeless (In reality, it didn’t even touch the surface).

The sleep out took place in Hastings old town and would start at 10pm all the way through to 7.30am. I was fortunate enough to have 6 layers, gloves, a sleeping bag and an amazing hat, donated by my mate Jake… This is probably more than lots of homeless people would have.

Layered up!
Layered up!

The event was a brilliant event, a bit of live acoustic music before a bedtime story and taking on the cold for the evening. I took part in this event alone, but managed to make friends amongst the 70ish other people that took part. Anna, Katie and Laura were just along from me in our cardboard city, and made sure I didn’t feel alone for the night. We played the most random game of ‘Would you rather…’ up to about midnight… So random, I couldn’t give you a single example on here. (My mum reads these).

Bed time music
Bed time music

Once everything, settled down about midnight, I actually managed to get myself quite cosy and got a couple of hours sleep. However, once it got to about 2.30am… The temperature really dropped and the pins and needles kicked in. In fact, it was insufferably cold and uncomfortable all the way through to 7.30am. I didn’t get a wink of sleep through these hours. It’s well worth noting this was on a clear Septembers night without rain.

3am Selfie
3am Selfie

Whilst staring at the stars, I really did think just how hard this would be in reality. As I mentioned earlier, this event didn’t even touch the surface on what it would be like to homeless. Sleeping with 70 other people in a secure area couldn’t begin to represent what it’s like to be homeless. Just imagine not having a home to return too in the evening. Not knowing if you’re going to be safe at night. Not having a warm shower. Not even knowing where your next meal is coming from. Imagine people not even looking you in the eye because you’re homeless. It really got me thinking how lucky I am. I complain on a Monday morning because I have a working week ahead of me, I complain I can’t afford a holiday, I complain when there’s not enough milk in the fridge. I’m damn lucky and I this is a timely reminder of the fact. I’m told you’re only ever 4 things going wrong in your life away from becoming homeless and the in the UK there definitely is a problem. I don’t want this to become some self-righteous post about how we should treat homeless people, but I do feel more can be done and that begins with us as individuals.

Once I made it to the morning, I cleared up my cardboard home and got myself a bowl of porridge and walked to the beach. I did it and raised The Seaview Project £340 in the meantime. There was a real sense that everybody there that morning had achieved something and the event raising £21 000 for Seaview really confirmed this. I’ll read back on this post if I ever do need a reminder of how lucky I am, because for the few hours I was homeless, it was horrible.

If you wish to donate.. you still can HERE

Breakfast with a view
Breakfast with a view

Week 34: Country Walk

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You know what, I’m having an easier week this week. I don’t care what you’ve got to say, 33 weeks in this is getting real tough.

Here’s something I don’t do enough, go for walks. I’m not talking a walk to Tesco to get milk, I’m not talking walking to the car, I’m not talking walking to the fridge to get some more food to stuff my face with. I’m talking a good old fashioned walk in the country side.

Believe it or not, before this week, I hadn’t done this in a good 4 or 5 years. I’ve gotten comfortable in my work life style of driving to work, working, driving home, eating dinner, going to bed lifestyle and my weekend lifestyle of playing sport on a Saturday and being hungover on a Sunday, it’s something I never do.

Tilly
Tilly

Well having taken a bit of time off after Bestival, I took my dog, Tilly, for a walk in the countryside every other day. Bloody lovely. No more words needed.

Take time to relax your mind. The countryside is the perfect place to do so.

Week 33: Festivals

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This week I delved into the world of music festivals by visiting the Isle of Wight for Bestival.

4 nights, camping, middle of September. Good fun, no doubt.

A common theme of the weekend is fitting things into small spaces. (No sexual innuendo there). Clothes, tent, chair, blow up bed, pillow, endless amount of toiletries, crates of alcohol, food and all my fancy dress outfits into one manageable amount proved tough. Especially with me being as vain as I am, and deciding to take my whole wardrobe. Then fitting this into a car with three other people is the next challenge. Then fitting this car onto a ferry at 6am on a Thursday morning, with 80 000 other festival goers wanting to go. Then fitting 80 000 festival goers onto the small island of the Isle of Wight. You see where I’m going with this?

The journey was pretty smooth, however, it was only once you arrive at Bestival and you have to take the treck will all your stuff on your back to your camping location that things get hard. My bag, 90L big, was just killing my back. I’m not made out for lugging things from one place to another, especially in wellies.

Bestival 1

Picking a pop up tent, was one of my finest ideas. Chuck it out the bag an it’s up. Honestly, I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have these things?

So camp is set up, camping chair in place, sun is kind of out, first beer is opened. All is needed is to dress up as a hippie, in line with the Summer of Love theme, and you’re in the Bestival fantasy land.

Camp
Camp

I have to say, I was quite disappointed of the lineup this year… With rumours of Muse pre-event never coming true, I was left with Chemical Brothers and Mark Ronson as the only acts I wanted to see. What it did mean though, was there was time to see things/try things I’ve never done before. Here’s a quick list of what I managed to fit in at this music festival.

– Touched a bird of prey
– Hugged a Llama
– Had an oil massage
– Sat in a ‘front room’ of 6 people listening to acts I’ve never heard of play.
– Explored an ambient forest
– Found a ‘Secret party’
– Played Mini Golf
– Saw three blokes get married in an inflatable church
– Bought endless amounts of terrible fancy dress

Activities
Activities

It must be said for the four days, I did not have a care in the world. The atmosphere is about as friendly as I have ever been part of. There was not even a hint of any animosity during the weekend, it was the summer of love after all.

Mainstage
Mainstage

Despite my complaints of the lineup also, I had a belter of a time to the acts I saw, ‘The Cuban Brothers’, not Chemical, was a hell of a laugh that stands out in my mind. The Jacksons making you boogie, what’s not to love about that. Singing a long to a man playing piano in a secret party in a forest, what’s not to love about that. More pyrotechnics and lights than you can imagine at The Port, what’s not to love about that. A sofa where a guy just plays acoustic music, what’s not to love about that.

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Okay, the toilets can be pretty rank at times; The rain on the final night was borderline unbearable; Not being able to stand up in my tent drove me mad. Showering with cold water in front of thousands of other campers was painful; Never having phone signal was irritating. But as I walked past the 8ft Love robot and world’s largest disco ball, to treck up the now muddy hill back to the car, I could only think how I didn’t want to return to normality. Maybe the hippie life is for me. (On edit: Having re-intergrated to the real world and office lifestyle, you’ll be pleased to know I haven’t grown my hair and taking the hippie lifestyle).

Week 32: Cooking live lobster

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Quite a simple task this week, I was approached by our catering manager at work to come into the kitchen and try something for my blog.

I walked into the kitchen and could smell the fish from outside the door. I hate fish the little slimy buggers, so was thinking the worst. Once I opened the door, it was worse, a box full of live lobsters, in ice. The challenge was simply pick up a live lobster and help the chef cook it. Picking the lobster up was the worst thing, I was told they are aggressive things, and fortunately their pincers were taped up. Just the way the little monster wriggled around in the box was off putting enough for me.

I did however have to pick it up, it was using it’s legs to push me away like mad, but I held on all the same. I didn’t enjoy holding it all. The smell and the wriggling made the whole experience very unpleasant.

Live Lobster

Cooking lobsters alive is the way to cook lobsters apparently.. It reduces the chances of food poisoning I’m told. I couldn’t physically cook it myself, the thought of cooking the little monster alive, was too much for me. I’d happily eat a lobster I haven’t seen cooked, but I think there would be blood on my hands if I had to kill the creature myself. Note to self, you have no career as a chef.

Week 31: Painting

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Week 31 of my comfort zone challenge… this week I got my creative juices flowing as I received a painting lesson.

To say I’m not an artist would be a bit of an understatement, despite my mum, sister and uncle all being excellent artists, I got the art genes from my dad. A bit of my art background, during my year 7 art class, I was given a merit for my art drawing with the teacher telling me “I love that you’ve done some abstract art, if I wanted it to look like the object, I’d take a photo”… I did however, try and draw to look like the object. My other infamous piece of artwork as a child is my drawing of a goalkeeper aged 9 (see below). So it’s safe to say I wasn’t blessed with artistic ability.

Tom Rose - 26/12/2000
Tom Rose – 26/12/2000

I can’t remember ever really painting at school, so was keen to have a little lesson and try it out. I contacted Marcia from Creative Art Academy, and managed to arrange a good time to do it. So happy I did, as Marcia was one of the nicest women I’ve ever met. Originally from America, she moved over to England 20 years ago and hasn’t looked back since. Talk about doing something out of your comfort zone… Moving to another country. I had no idea what I wanted to paint really, so left it Marcia to find something suitable. Bless her, she knew I was an Oasis fan, so found me a suitable picture!

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So how was she going to make a terrible artist paint? Well we started off by reducing the picture into a grid, and drawing the shapes in each section of the grid on a piece of paper. Once we were happy with the outline, we turned over the piece of paper and coloured the whole back of it in with pencil. Then we put the paper over the canvas and went over the original lines to put it onto the canvas. Marcia was great at helping me find the correct colours, and they key to mixing in the colours was to not let it dry. We were doing a mix media painting, using water colours and oil paints (I think).

Progress
Progress

Conversation flowed whilst we’d work the magic, and the time just flew. I almost got in concentration when doing it, so much so I forgot to eat my ginger biscuits that were kindly offered! It was extremely therapeutic and I can totally understand why people paint regularly.

Wow..

I have to say, I never believed I would be able to do a job as I did on this. Marcia is one hell of a teacher. If you’re local to the Hastings area, I implore you to get in touch with Marcia and learn to paint with her. She does all sorts including ceramics and yoga! A lady of many talents!

Proud as punch

Just look what I did in two and a half hours with her. Genuinely surprised myself that I could do this, and I’m proud as punch of my painting. I’ve decided to put up my masterpiece on my bedroom wall!

Pride of place
Pride of place

Week 30: An over of 90mph cricket

~ Tom Rose ~ 1 Comment

This weeks challenge was inspired by Stuart Broad after his Ashes heroics of 8-15 in the 4thTest match at Trent Bridge, to seal England the Urn.

As a rough guide, I wanted to see what it would be like to face a test match bowler, bowling at 90mph. I’m fortunate enough to work at a cricket club that has a machine called ‘Truman’. This shows the outline of a bowler, as he runs up and then the machine flings the ball down at whatever pace you set it too. It replicates test match bowlers actions. This time, I took on a bit of Brett Lee.

I consider myself an okay cricketer. Despite being a batsman, that is usually happy that when he reaches double figures, I do call myself a batsman. You never really know as a club cricketer what kind of speeds you are facing compared to the professionals, so I thought this would be a good way to get an idea.

A rare occasion I scored runs
A rare occasion I scored runs

So to get my ‘eye in’ we started Truman off on 70mph. This was already too quick for me. I had a rough idea where it was going, but missed loads. Only 20mph to go. As we would go up the speed, I’d hit a few here and there, but spent the majority of my session wafting at the ball. By the time we got up to over 80mph I was way out of my depth.

We eventually cranked up to 90mph, where I had 6 balls to face. I always thought it would be too fast for me to even see. The weird thing was, my eyes saw the ball the whole way, but my body just didn’t move quick enough to react.  I had a rough idea where it was going to go but struggled to get near it… and when the ball whack me straight on the foot, it was just way too quick AND it hurt.

I still hold ambitions of playing for England in the Ashes despite this ropey net session, and now injured foot.

Skip to 7 minutes 49 seconds if you want to see me get hit!

Week 29: No Social Media

~ Tom Rose ~ 1 Comment

This week for my comfort zone challenge, I gave up my social media accounts, handing over all my passwords and what at the time felt like my life. I said goodbye to my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts as my good friend, Jake, changed my passwords.

Did you know the average smartphone user looks at their phone 1500 times a week? That’s roughly 215 times a day. I know I’m certainly guilty of this, and 200 times a day cant be far off how many times I look at my phone. The majority of which is probably to look at social media.

This was a weird kind of detox this challenge. The first few days were hard. I felt pathetic. I honestly couldn’t remember what I did half the time before social media existed. I felt almost lonely without my 700 Facebook friends, 500 Twitter followers and 200 Instagram followers. Without my virtual friends around me I felt detached from the world. How sad!

I work in marketing, and in turn, social media has become a big part of my work life also… It’s amazing the power of social media these days. Everything is instant at the touch of your fingers… . People are so time poor, rather than writing a letter of complaint, they will tweet a complaint, and usually get a hell of a quicker response. It’s meant that twitter has become a place to air opinions with ease, which in turn, makes it fairly entertaining just to scroll through. Social media is now the place to share everything, your complaint, the constant selfies, the team before a night out pics, the public break ups, celebrity trolling, the healthy dinner pictures, the unhealthy fast food pics, the cheeky Nando’s post, the “oh my god I can’t sleep post”, the wow I’m so tired this morning post, the screw Mondays posts, the TGIF posts, the holiday posts, the song lyric posts, the motivational quotes post (guilty), #gains with the protein shake! These can certainly wind me up, but it’s all part of what makes me love social media.

So for the first few days, without all this garbish to read, I was at a loose end in my spare time. By habit, I would keep trying to open the apps, only to greeted with the password screen. At first, other apps, Sky Sports worked overtime, but over the week my iPhone started becoming slightly less needed in my life. Pretty much all my apps don’t work without my Facebook login, including Spotify, meaning I had no access to my daily Oasis/Noel Gallagher.

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I started to watch TV again, which I never do anymore. Child Genius on Tuesday was a highlight of my week. I also began reading my colleague’s, Tony Cottey, autobiography which has been a very funny read so far. For me, reading a book is a somewhat a revelation. I did some overtime playing the guitar. Generally, I stopped wasting time refreshing my feeds. There were times on the way I wanted social media bad, or felt the need to post something. I kept a list of things I wanted to do on social media on the way:

Monday
– INSTAGRAM Follow Noel Gallagher on Instagram, having heard an interview of his, and realising he’s actually on there. (still yet to have done this, a good reminder for myself)
Tuesday
– TWITTER Congratulate Michael Yardy of Sussex Cricket on a great career (zzz cricket)
– TWITTER Tweet there should be a programme on Giovani’s Dad #childgenius (what a programme)
Wednesday
– TWITTER Question modern music after listening to a song called ‘Peanut butter jelly’ on Radio 1 (Give me back my spotify PLEASE)
– TWITTER Question being an old man because of the above, and wondering if I’m now a Radio 2 listener.
Thursday
-Nothing?! (Was I starting to Detox?!)
Friday
– TWITTER Congratulate Sussex CCC getting into the Quarter Finals (^No. zzzzz cricket)
Saturday
– TWITTER Lose it at my cricket team winning (honestly, get a life, Tom)
– TWITTER Drunk tweets (no doubt)
Sunday
– FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM – Hungover viewing of people/my pictures.

Reading that back… Why do I share this with the world? Who cares? It’s a strange world, the social media world.

Not for a minute would I ever want to give up social media, I think it’s pretty amazing at times. However, I do need to stop wasting time on it so much and really think about what I post. This challenge certainly reminded me off that…

Maybe I’ll set a reminder to read this back in a few months time, when I’m back into the routine of tweeting rubbish and spending my whole day refreshing my social media feeds…