Irelynn Vs World

As I am typing this, I am sitting in an airplane somewhere over the North Sea, the horizon a lovely rainbow of colours due to the sunset. I got a bit of a shock when I expected to fly out over the sea within a few minutes of departure and that didn’t happen, but then I realised eventually that actually, I’m not flying to Ireland. Holland is the other way, and does involve flying over a bit of land before reaching the sea. Duh. I’m glad to finally see the tiny little ships with their little lights now though.

I’ve always loved flying. I remember my first flight as a twelve year old, from Amsterdam to Newark, and that funny feeling in your stomach when the plane is racing down the runway, trying to get off the ground. It won’t be long before I’ll be making that flight to Newark again, only this time I will probably leave from London rather than Amsterdam! My aunt in Pennsylvania has invited my mum, brother, sister and I over for Christmas and New Year’s Eve, probably because her husband just left her for another woman and she doesn’t want to spend Christmas alone with her 3 young children. So, we have decided to accept her invitation, and so I will be flying to the States again in a few months. Even though I swore I would never fly to the States again when they decided they want to take all my sensitive personal information. I suppose family does come before the stress of trying to enter a country that doesn’t seem to want to have me there.

But hey, we have all heard that a million times before, haven’t we? And I mean, I can totally see why they would be reluctant to let me into the country. I did threaten to take over the world once, you know. And the CIA still haven’t given me those sunglasses I so desperately wanted. I’d be scared of me too if I were them.

(Note to any CIA people: No, I’m not a terrorist. Please don’t torture me. Or, actually… )

And why am I off to Holland, you ask? Well, there is this tradition in my family. Once a year, we all gather at a camping site and spend the week there together, doing our best camping thing with a Mother Tent, the Camping Elder and a yearly bike race between my brother and my favourite aunt. Due to a number of pregnancies and squealy new babies we haven’t been camping for two or three years now, but this year we’re finally giving it a go again. There will be many changes and I don’t think it will be anywhere as spectacular as previous years  (once, we even made it into the local newspaper). For one, we now have tiny little children with us, so there’ll be a lot less late-night singing. For another, my least favourite aunt and uncle have decided to come along for the first time, and I really don’t like them. Plus they’re not nearly as crazy as the rest of my family, so I very much doubt we’ll do as many silly things this year.

Still. I don’t get to see my family (you know, the extended one) nearly as often as I would like, so it’ll be good to see many of them again and spend some time with them. But as I’m sure you have already gathered, it also means I will be offline again for a few days. I therefore wish you all a good weekend, and please try and keep the rain away, won’t you?

The summer holidays, for many are coming to a close. I still have a month’s holiday left before I have to present myself at uni for my last year on this course, but the fact that it will be September in two days is starting to hit home for me too! Luckily, with the end of the summery months also comes the end of a lot of uncertainty for me as many loose ends start to tie themselves together. Most important of all of these is finding myself a new house, for which I finally signed two days ago. Even though all the moving will still have to be done and by all means, might prove to be bloody expensive (I’ve never used a moving company before so I have no idea how much something like that would cost), at least I no longer have the uncertainty of whether it was going to fall through or not.

Moving house, as one might expect, also comes with many opportunities to Think Kinky. No, I didn’t select my new place on the amount of noise that filters through from the neighbours. But I did have a lot of fun walking around DFS (a sofa store, for those of you who aren’t in the UK) squeezing all the arm rests on the sofas to find one that is comfortable for bending over. Thus, I will soon be the proud owner of two spanking-friendly sofas and a storage footstool that even the salesman suggested cheekily I use as a naughty chair. I have decided, however, that it can’t be used for that purpose when I am involved. It only counts as a naughty chair when somebody else is being naughty.

Furthermore, when I went to my new house to show it to my current house mate, Eva, she presented me with a housewarming present. Officially the first thing to move into my house, so I think, given the nature of the object, that this house is going to be full of kinky things, right? And given that Eva’s not kinky herself, I think she’s taken to being a kinky person’s house mate pretty well, don’t you think?

Apparently she had it shipped over from Sweden, where she’s originally from. She won’t say where exactly she got it, but according to her it’s hand-made and real leather. Despite it being fairly lightweight, I’m already convinced it could be an interesting implement when used properly. Which is not to say I’m inviting anyone to use it on me, of course, but I’d gladly try it out on any volunteers so that they can tell me what it feels like before I let anyone try it out on me.

While trying to master the infinitely complicated process also known as photoshopping pictures, I came across this photo from a double bondage shoot I did with a local girl called Nadine. I thought those of you who are also into bondage might like to see it.

Now let’s hope Photobucket won’t find this image disturbing and delete it.

While going through the photos from my recent holiday in Wales, I came across this photo:

It was taken on board a little train that was supposed to bring us round the lake. It never even crossed my mind at the time to think of that leather strap hanging from the door as being for anything other than to close the door, but looking at it now makes it seem extremely kinky to me.

I can just imagine the scene. A gentleman took his daughters for what was supposed to be a leisurely train ride around the lake. During the scheduled stop at the lakeside, the young girls decided to stretch their legs. Unfortunately, the girls’ squabbles about which of the sisters the handsome stable hand would be more interested in ended in one of the girls pushing her sister into the lake. Their father, thoroughly embarrassed at such a shameless display, would  order them back into the train compartment. There, from the door he took the thick leather strap and bid the girls bend over. He would not make them expose themselves in plain view of the other passengers, but the hard strapping that he gave them over their summer dresses was enough to reduce both girls to tears. Surely their train journey back to their starting point on the hard wooden benches would have been rather uncomfortable!

Or at least, that’s my interpretation of events. What’s yours?

Over the past couple of months I have discovered something. I don’t know if it is general knowledge within Spanking World, but it seems to me that the first minute or two of a spanking always hurt far more than they should, in a very stingy and – in my opinion – rather unpleasant way. I have only started to realise this recently as it’s not so long ago that I first started being spanked fairly regularly, but the clues were already there in the beginning. There was that time, for instance, when I was still very new and this guy named Abel tried to spank me, and I decided after only six or seven smacks that it hurt enough to roll off his lap. Which I of course went on to actually do. I think Abel was rather surprised at this because he didn’t even try to get me back over his knee. Victory was mine, that time.

But where I previously would have just stayed silent and put up with it, I’m starting to notice that I don’t mind complaining about spankings quite as much as I used to. I think it probably has something to do with becoming more experienced and comfortable with letting people know that something hurts, but these days I have absolutely nothing against calling people mean and telling them to be nice to me when they’re spanking me. And that generally tends to happen before a spanking even starts, especially if I feel a bit sore from an earlier spanking. Because the first couple of minutes hurt. And not in any way I can appreciate. It’s only when I’m well and truly warmed up and the smacks don’t sting so much anymore that I actually start to enjoy it. The only problem then is that sometimes spankings don’t hurt enough, and whacking me harder would probably result in fewer spankings in total because I do get sore afterwards.

In any case, this revolutionary finding has led me to conclude two things:

One, I must retract my previous statement that there is no real difference between a cold caning and a caning after a warm-up because if a top gives you a warm-up he’ll just whack you harder. This last bit may or may not be true, but I think I can take a caning a lot better when that initial stingyperiod has already passed.

Secondly, I have started to wonder what the point is in prolonging a punishment spanking if it’s the first bit that hurts the most. Not that I would let anyone spank me in an actual disciplinary way but hypothetically, it doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, it might be that the general consensus is that spankings get worse the longer they go on and that I’m the exception to the rule. But it does make one wonder.

In true Irelynn fashion, I have decided to postpone having to study for my exam on Tuesday by writing a blog post. In true Irelynn fashion, I am also writing said blog post while drinking sugary drinks and eating sugary things. I must therefore warn each and every one of you that I shall not be held responsible for anything I write on here, because I am currently on a sugar high. Plus I slept on a tiny little self-inflating mat, next to a loudly snoring mother for the best part of last week, so I’m also sleep-deprived. I will therefore repeat: I will not be held accountable for anything I write.

First off, I want a proper spanking.

Secondly, I would quite like a caning.

Thirdly, I will never admit this to my family but my cats are absolutely, exclusively and thoroughly mad.

Oh, and I really hate David Cameron’s hair. Seriously, the guy needs a good haircut.

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Ahh, this not-being-held-accountable-for-anything-I-say thing is quite liberating. But now that I have said all that, I shall move on to more important things, such as posting photos and trying not to fall asleep and such.

So yes. I spent this past week in Wales with my mum, brother and sister for our first family holiday in, well, several years I think. Of course it started and ended in traditional fashion with my mum getting annoyed with people not packing things the way she wanted them packed, but in between we had a good couple of hours where we all got along nicely. During these friendly periods, we did such things as visiting castles and stalling in the middle of roundabouts because my dear mother found driving on the wrong side of the road such a daunting experience that she regularly tried to drive away in third gear rather than first. Uphill, too.

Did you know I can fly, by the way?

I bet you didn’t! But it is one of my many talents, all of which are equally useless and include such things as getting lost and killing plants. I don’t remember the name of that particular castle by the way but I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s quite boring. Or at least, I like castles and houses that look old or cosy from the inside. This one looked far too modern with brand new wallpaper and really ugly curtains. The only thing it had going for it were all the paintings, but even they were a bit boring because they were all portraits of not-very-interesting people and Queen Victoria, who I think most people will agree is one of the ugliest queens England has ever seen.

We did see one very cool ruin close to the Snowdon mountain though.

There wasn’t much left of this building but what was left was very impressive. Plus, you get to stick your head out of lots of little windows and take pictures. Being allowed to be a bit physical with old buildings is always so much more fun than not being allowed to touch anything, in my opinion.

So let’s see, what else did we do… Oh yes, we went to the Dolgoch Falls. If you’re ever near there, I would definitely recommend going to see them! You’d need some good walking shoes but the water falls are absolutely beautiful, especially when you get there after the rain, like we did.

We spent most of our nights in the pub near our campsite, especially because the weather wasn’t all that great (we had such a good storm one night that the wind ripped parts of one of our tents off so we had to throw it away and my sister and brother had to sleep in the car!). I even took the Royal Pig along for the ride. Those of you who used to read Freshly Spanked may remember the Royal Pig. I can now definitely tell you that the Royal Pig likes his beer. But for some reason he only drinks Carling.

So yes. I think that pretty much sums up our holiday. My procrastination-methods have also worked because I’m now tired enough to be allowed to leave the studying until tomorrow. I think procrastinating could be another one of my useless talents. In any case, I will now go back to thinking about spanking and reading what the rest of the blog-o-sphere has come up with while I was gone. I therefore wish you all a pleasant evening/morning/afternoon (whenever you read this) and hope you all get spanked, just because I can’t. Tee hee!

Tomorrow, I’ll be going on holiday with my family. My mum, brother and sister are flying over from the Netherlands so that we can hire a car and drive around Wales for a week. I don’t think I’ll come back rested and ready to face the world again (I don’t think family holidays are supposed to make you feel calm!) but I’m sure we’ll have a pretty good time together. We have bravely decided to go camping, at least if it doesn’t rain too much. We have gone camping in the rain before but that was in the Netherlands, where everything is flat and there is no danger in putting up your tent at the bottom of a hill in bad weather. Though to be fair, the weather has been lovely here for the past couple of days, so hopefully it’ll stay nice for at least a couple more days. Because if it does rain, it’s not like I’ll have my umbrella or anything. My cat is hogging it.

Of course, going camping in the wilderness that is Wales, I won’t have any internet access for a week. No internet access means no blog posts, and no blog posts mean… well, I don’t know. Not the end of the world in any case! Even so, I didn’t want to just disappear without any warning. You may therefore consider yourselves warned now.

See you when I get back minions! I hope you have a good week!

I was always told that making rash decisions is a bad thing. Thus I have spent the best part of my life deliberating over everything, from whether to buy that cool but expensive shirt to how to answer a difficult letter. Today, though, I did something drastic. I cut off about 12 inches of my hair and got a fringe!

My hair now smells very nice after all the hair products my hairdresser dumped in it. I think I shall never wash my hair again. Ever. Or at least, until the smell has worn off!

As some of you may know, I do some part-time work in the customer service department of an airline. It’s a good job for a student as I get paid about twice as much as students normally would, and the work itself isn’t too bad. I grew up telling myself that the one thing I would never do was work in customer relations, and where am I now?  But like I said,  a lot of the time the job isn’t bad at all. Even if I now do have the urge to tell everyone I know about the importance of keeping receipts and creating damage reports immediately after you discover that your baggage is damaged or you won’t be paid anything for the damage. You know, that stuff just comes with the job.

Some days, though, you have to deal with truly obnoxious customers. I’m not even talking about the ones that really did have an awful experience and rightly complain about it; they’re usually alright to deal with, even if they are angry. But sometimes you get customers whose flight has been delayed for about 20 minutes and they immediately start WRITING VERY ANGRILY!!!!! and generally giving you the feeling that YOU’RE BEING YELLED AT. Believe me people, you’re a lot more likely to get somebody’s sympathy (and thus their extra effort to compensate you in some way) with an honest description of the facts and calmly stating that you felt stressed and upset. Yelling at  the people in the customer relations department who ultimately have a lot of discretion over if, and how much, you’re going to get paid is a bad idea.

I’m also very amused by the people who try to impress us by naming all sorts of Conventions and Regulations that they only have a basic knowledge of, without realising that we have spent weeks being trained in reading and applying said Conventions and Regulations in our job. Even funnier are the lawyers of all the angry people, who do actually know what they’re talking about but probably already know as they’re writing the letter that their client is not going to get anything. And then there are those people who are adamant that they are going to write in to the press and destroy our airline’s reputation. So far, I am already going to be featured in Which? magazine in the UK and several public TV programmes in the Netherlands. You know, just in case all the Very Important Press should be interested in reading how our airline refused to compensate them 3000 pounds for their weather-related 30 minute delay.

Now, I deal with both Dutch and English complaints for the airline I work for. It has generally been acknowledged within our department that the Dutch, along with the Italians, are among the worst complainers in the whole bloody world. I generally try to deal with it all in good humour and be sympathetic towards people’s complaints. Today, though, I got a reply to a previous letter I had sent to the customer that really made me angry. Unfortunately I can’t tell you what it said (data protection sucks) but generally, the customer did their best to insult me and my colleague in every way they could think of, questioning both our competency and our general morals and values as human beings.

Now I get that people sometimes get angry with other people. Especially when they are asking for things that they feel they should rightly get and that they are then denied. But I think that a lot of people, and this person in particular, forget that at the end of the day, there is a person at the other end of your letter. Complaining about the treatment you received from the airline is fair enough. Singling out and picking on the one person who is being employed to deal with your complaint and making things personal is, in my opinion, below the belt.

I got some kind of revenge at this particular customer when I wrote back to them and corrected them on all the Conventions and Regulations they used to try and make me look ignorant, but where I can usually go home after a day at work and feel perfectly happy and content, I notice that I’m still angry about this particular letter. So, in order to try and do some good for this world today, I beg you all to please be nice to any customer service agents you have to deal with in the future. We’re not perfect, we do make mistakes and a lot of the time, when you are feeling frustrated by all the bureaucracy and the general unfairness of it all, you can safely bet that the person on the other end is just as unhappy about the situation as you are. Unfortunately, we still have to do what our boss’s lawyers say we should do. So don’t take it personally. Okay?

Well, I’m back from Eliane’s birthday party. It was not quite as wild as her last party but even so, plenty of interesting things happened! Eliane has put a summary of the events up on her blog – do go and read it.

For my part, I managed to avoid being spanked for the best part of the evening. That is not to say that people didn’t try to get me spanked! Sarah in particular was very enthusiastic about getting as many people spanked as she possibly could, including me. I’m happy to say though that most of her attempts failed miserably. It was not until much later in the evening that that pesky Stephen Lewis guy managed to drag me upstairs for a spanking. Unfortunately, it was a very nice spanking so I can’t complain loudly and make him out to be some kind of monster this time. Although he did manage to bruise me quite a lot with just the one spanking!

Edit: Sorry! I lost the photo. Not much chance of me finding it again, so you’ll have to believe me when I say I was quite bruised.

I can tell you that I was spanked by hand, hairbrush, strap and cane. Now which of those implements do you think is responsible for those bruises?