Summer Ball 2014

Our Summer Ball day began with food in Bryn-Y-Mor, a pub at the bottom of the hill we'll all be living on next year. All seven of us went and it was such a good start to the day. I was so excited, I ended up not being able to finish the side of chips I'd ordered as my main meal. You can see them pushed towards Tom in the photo below. Typical me!

When we got back to the house, we all sat in Tom's room debating when to get ready. We settled on 3pm but that left us an hour and a half or so until we needed to start moving. I'm not sure why but I really really love what we all decided to do next - all seven of us (me and Samuel in his room, everyone else in Rag's room) cwtched up and watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones. The episode may have broken my heart (I have no idea why I'm still watching this show, I stopped reading the book 2 years ago because it was too sad) but I still love that this was part of the start of our day.

Everyone started getting dressed after that and once I was ready, I met the boys in Tom's room. I was instantly reminded of why I love the Summer Ball so much... Suits will never, ever be a bad thing. Ever. We just had to wait for the guys to figure out their ties and we were ready for photos!

It's only taken us 2 years but we finally have photos of the seven of us, and just the seven of us! I can't even explain how much I love this photo of us all. Look how professional it looks! And we're all smiling! It's the lock screen on my phone and it makes me happy every time I see it. I got really really lucky when I met these guys. I love the "silly" photo as well, mainly because it looks so planned but all McPake did was shout "Silly photo!" and we all panicked and did the same thing.

Since we already had three chairs outside for the photo anyway, we decided to bring the rest of them and our tables outside and drink in the sunshine. It was a classic case of 'why haven't we been doing this all along?' - even with an overgrown, messy garden that has a stolen toilet next to all the weeds, sitting out in the sunshine felt lush.

The next few hours were spent drinking, playing cards and taking photos, with a lot a lot a lot of laughing. Meryn, Anna and Dan turned up after a while and soon all you could hear was laughter and our music from the kitchen. I almost didn't want to leave for the Ball I was having so much fun.

We did leave though and at 6pm (after I walked into the lamppost outside our house) we were making our way to the Uni. Before we got to the gates to the Ball, we stopped in front of the library for some photos. I've had so much fun comparing these to the photos we all took last year in front of Preseli/Fulton. I think the most fun was comparing how much closer we all are now rather than how different we look physically. Plus, we can even take nice photos despite being drunk... Achievement or what?

The Summer Ball itself is one big happy blur of movement, people, and lots and lots of fun. Getting from one place to another was a huge challenge simply because we couldn't move without someone bumping in to someone else that they knew. I loved seeing so many people but it did mean that nothing was done quickly! I even managed to bump in to this cutie and have a photo with him. Considering he had had more than 15 cans of Fosters by this point (for a while I worried he might actually be dead), we managed to get a really nice photo!

The only music act I managed to see was Scouting For Girls. I've wanted to see them since I was about 15/16 so I made sure I was in the crowd, shouting the lyrics out with everyone else. It did get way too crowded for me but Meryn and Anna were there to save the day so we moved and carried on dancing at the edge of the crowd. I wasn't squished and I could see the stage better than before... when will I learn!?

I didn't go on any of the rides since I wasn't sure my no-eating-but-drunk body could handle the motion but that didn't ruin my fun since it meant that I could just stand and laugh at poor Tom on the cage ride. It looked awful (I hated it when I went on it a few years ago) but Anna and I had fun spotting everyone else as it spun round.

I made sure to go on the dodgems again, since I had so much fun last year. This year was no different. I went on them with Tom the first time and sat next to McPake the second time and they both had me laughing until my sides hurt and I couldn't breathe. Drunken dodgems were hands down the funniest part of the whole day.

When the ball ended at 12, we all set off for home. McPake and I ordered our traditional post-Ball dominos and hoped we'd reach the house before the pizza, and before my phone (18%) ran out of battery. What ensued was a hilarious walk home. McPake had hurt his foot two nights before so he was limping as fast as he could. We were 5 minutes away from the house when disaster: I got a call from our Domino's driver (11%). I tried to explain as best I could where we lived (he was lost and became the second driver to drive past our house because he thought it was deserted/not lived in) while lying through my teeth about how close we were. As soon as the call ended I started running, with McPake desperately trying to limp-run/keep up behind me. Thankfully the driver was ace, he met us at the end of the road and didn't seem to mind that I'd lied or was late.

Too tired and hungry to walk the 100 feet to our house, we flopped down on the steps outside the bike shop and started to eat our pizza. We have had some good ideas in our two years of knowing each other but Summer-Ball-Domino's is definitely one of our best.

I have no idea why I look worried about eating Domino's on the street, I was really quite happy about it

The day ended with all of our sat around the stairs talking before moving in to Tom's room after Meryn and Anna left. Anna was leaving for London the next day so this was our last goodbye before she went back to Italy for the Summer. Distance really is the worst downside to University. After goodbyes, we all sat in Tom's room talking. I loved it but eventually, tiredness got the best of me and I went upstairs to fall in to bed.

I always hate when things are over but Summer Ball really is the best way to end a University year. Having all nine of us together for the whole evening was just what I needed and was the perfect end to our second year. 4 months without these guys is going to be unbearably hard but at least we were all together for one huge day of fun before we left. I really do love these guys. How did I get so lucky?