Life Update: What's been happening in my life?

Hi guys! Gosh, it's been a bit of a while, hasn't it? I never meant for this to be such a long extended break from the blog spree but suddenly, college was back and so was the heavy workload. But I'm back with another post! I thought, because it had been a while, it would be acceptable to fill you all in about what has been happening in my life these past two weeks or so.
Last week, quite a few things started to happen in my life again. This included lots of work and lots of cold weather and unattractive thermals and layers. Wednesday brought about my first 12 mile paddle of the year in my lovely kayak. My partner, Helen, and I managed to complete this route in two hours and five minutes which was an improvement of our time last year. Although exhausting, it was rather rewarding at the finish. The sense of satisfaction is brilliant.
Then, on Saturday, it was bonfire night which simply means lots of fireworks, warm bonfires and hearty food. I took some rather arty photos that night which I even impressed myself with especially with the bad lighting and cold, rainy weather.

This past week has been especially hectic for me. On Thursday, I went back to my old school to collect my GCSE certificate for basically getting at least one GCSE during my pre-college exams. Overall, it was a rather dull evening and it reminded me of how much happier I am at my new college over my old school but it was nice seeing so many people that I haven't seen for quite a few months.
Then, on Friday, I went into London for an art trip. We started the day by visiting the Victoria and Albert Musuem to take a free sketches of some of the figurative sculptures and then a look at a recent exhibition of Constable: The Making of a Master. Constable is a very famous landscape artist who uses a build of texture to produce stunning paintings of landscapes from his life. There are some really stunning pieces in that exhibition so if you are in London, I recommend you have a look. Well worth the visit.
We then moved onto the the Royal Academy of Art to look at the recent exhibition of Anselm Kiefer who is another Landscape artist who uses a variety of materials such as straw, paint and mud to create abstract landscape pieces. Another stunning exhibition that has a variety of thought- provoking pieces. Another must-check-out. Here's some of my photos from the day...

I have also been trying to produce some better photos recently by experimenting with how I take them and how I edit them. I took some photos early this morning on a iPad and then edited them on Photoshop Express so that I could have a play around with the landscapes from where I live. Some of these photos are below..

Emotionally, I feel like my life is starting to change and move in the right direction again. Maybe, somethings happen for a reason so that you become aware of the things that are around you and have been the whole time.
Over the next couple of days, I have the National Schools Kayaking Championship which is a race composing of a few sprints and one long distance paddle against schools from all over the country. I'm a bit apprehensive but excited for the racing season to start again. I also have an art exhibition and workshop with Landscape artist Mark Spray which should be really interesting and inspiring as well as my college parents evening, which I know will be just a bit dull but it's just part of life.
I should be posting a rather exciting post tomorrow so stay tuned for that.
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x