a soundtrack to life

so yesterday i was incredibly tired. i think it's because i'm so super excited about going back to england this weekend, i'm just finding it impossible to turn my brain off at night and go to sleep. That, along with having several early mornings all in a row last week, meant i was tired enough to go for a little siesta when i got in from church yesterday morning. Or maybe a four hour siesta... it was just lovely though, with my little ikea lamp on and a fabulous playlist of delirious' oldschool quieter tunes like, not forgotten, find me in the river, kiss your feet, jesus' blood, all the way, august 30th, metamorphis, oh lead me, obsession, investigate... to name but a few. classics. (and even though i'm not such a big fan of them as i used to be, i am a little gutted to be missing their farewell tour going on at the moment... they're not coming to belgium :()

anyhow, it got me thinking how there are different CDs and songs that really remind us of different times and events and places we've lived... for me, the places we've lived is probably the most prominent.

in case i've never told you before, (it doesn't come up much these days), my Dad became the pastor of a church on the south coast of devon just over 6 years ago, when I was 14. I'd lived in Lincolnshire all my life until that point, in the same house since I was 5, so needless to say it was quite a big thing for me. In fact, if someone were to ask me now if coming to Belgium was the hardest thing I'd ever done, I'd have to say no, because I did want to come here. And I really didn't want to move to Dawlish.

Partly my own fault though, I was at a school in year 7 and 8 which... for various reasons... I ended up not liking very much and after much distress, moved to another school where there were some of my friends from primary school. For the first time in ages I felt really happy and satisified at school and din't dread the thought of going. However. Whilst I'd been at the other school, my parents had talked about Dad looking at becoming a Pastor somewhere, and so in the meantime, I changed schools in September of year 9, and found in November Dad was going to preach in Devon, and in January he'd been asked to become the Pastor. I was fairly gutted.

But in the long run, I've seen how God was sovereign in it all, a million and one things could have or might never have happened if we hadn't moved there. I learnt a lot, and made new friends. But hang on... there is a point to this ramble...

We moved at the end of August 2003, so I could start year 10 at a new school with everyone else. This meant moving befor our house contract was all done and dusted, so Dawlish being on the south coast and what not... we took a car load of stuff, put everything else into storage, and stayed in a one-bedroom holiday flat for what we thought would be two weeks.

I dont think I'm exaggerating to say I pretty much hated everything. lol. I resented having to move, I didn't like the school which was twice as big as the one I'd been at in year 9... everything was soooooooo different. I'd ring my best friend every day from the pay phone in the corridor of this holiday block place, and then cry. and cry and cry... quite a lot of crying went on....

It was then that we found our old house had subsidence, there were a million complications with transferring the insurance to the people who still amazingly wanted to buy our house. The house we wanted to buy here fell through... etc etc. To cut what is already becoming a very long story short... we didn't have a house in Dawlish for 18 months and moved... if i have calculated correctly... 13 times, from flats, to caravans, to chalets, and eventually to apartments and houses... until finally everything was sorted and we got a different, and bigger, better, more suitable for us house, in December 2004.

So, there's a little life story, I wanted to talk about music though actually.

Delirious i discovered thanks to my brother with the Deeper album.. whilst we were still in Billinghay. I've discovered quite a lot of my favourite music through him actually (cheers bruv!) I've gradually added to my delirious collection and now have over 100 songs and like... 5 albums and 3 dvds of them...

The first house we moved into after all of our flat and caravan hopping,was just before Christmas 2003 and was this AMAZING place in holcombe, between dawlish and teignmouth. Down a tiny road, with a fantastic view of the sea and it was just brilliant. (photo is of the beachy bit literally, 2 minutes at the bottom of the road) Although it did have many downfalls... for example, odd heating with giant gas canisters that cost megabucks, a BIDET that turned itself on one day when we were at church and flooded upstairs and leaked through the ceiling a little, and the icing on the cake.... rats that ran up and down the stairs at night. (and if you know my mum... this was a veeeeeeeeeryy big deal) So what should have been a 6 month contract turned into maybe 2 months? I'm not sure how long it was really, but anyhow. There was a really nice atmosphere about the house and i LOVED it, and it smelt really nice too! :) And so there;s an album I got while we were there that always reminds me of it now... or rather, one of those christian sampler albums. It was the first time I heard tracks from the "new" delirious album 'world service', and also introduced me to casting crowns, martyn layzell, nicole c mullen, and another guy who had this really cool song about rushing around and going to work and stuff... i've actually lost the CD now, but if i hear any of those songs, it reminds me of being there. with candles. and finally having our own computer again. and watching pirates of the caribbean EVERY day for like two weeks after i bought it!

switchfoot were a discovery i made thanks to WYnet! whilst in a pink apartment, which was brilliant! in dawlish, from maybe april to july 2004, it was definitely over my 15th birthday. it was when winmx was all the rage, and i, in my naivety, didn't realise what winmx was lol... got myself pretty much every switchfoot song ever made. there are actually too many to list my favourites... they're pretty much all amazing. Maybe, learning to breathe, chem6a, 24 used to be, but i think i've overplayed it, and had it as my alarm clock for a while which is obviously not a great way to fall more in love with a song lol! also: on fire,this is your life, new way to be human, life and love and why, AHHHH so so so many. I didn;t realise there was a new switchfoot album out until i got an email about it the other day and ordered it toute de suite to pick up when i get home on thursday!! :D

After the pink apartment, was a minituare looking house on dawlish's big oaklands estate, lots of white houses with brown window frames. Very nice. I had a veeeeeery small room, but then every room in that house was titchy... and got Zero7's album "when it falls" this SO reminds me of getting ready to go on my first ever beach mission, and that whole crazy summer of doing 3 beachmissions when i'd only booked originally to do one, and then going from from llandudno to billinghay, to camp, to castlefields houseparty, to the aber conference, to broadstairs... it was HECTIC.

Finally, when we eventually signed the contract for our house, (which sadly no longer has trees at the front.. :()... it had loads of stuff to be done to it. Like a lift for a wheel chair that went from the dining room, into my room!! Once all the stuff like that had been taken out, it was time to redecorate! I used to get my Dad to take me round at night, with my cd player, and he'd help my wallpaper to start with, and then i painted on my own. Giant purple and green chequerboard "feature" wall... lol we definitely watched too many house and redecorating tv prgrammes during this period... and listened to Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething, non-stop. Which my friend Sam had copied for me, and he used to come over sometimes too, or maybe just one time, to help wall paper or paint. FUN TIMES.

So really. I realise this blog is very long, very self-interested, and probs not so interesting for anyone who might read. But I enjoy reminiscing... especially with the music. :)