I'm aliiiiiive!

I've long given up feeling like I have to apologise whenever I'm absent from this blog for an extended period of time - it is what it is, and I know that it's here for me to return to whenever I see fit. Usually when I want to talk about books or music or something cool I found on the internet.

My friend Sophie had her hen-do a couple of weekends ago and we went to Alton Towers, which was fun, but it did reaffirm the fact that I am not a roller-coaster person, as much as I'd like to be. The last time I was there I did go on Oblivion and decided never again, but the Smiler wasn't there last time. I took one look at it and said "nope." Which was a good thing, really, because Soph said it was, and I quote, "vomit-inducing."

Park aside, we got to stay in the most adorable little lodges, ate tapas (and drank copious amounts of sangria) at a local pub where we were served by the friendliest staff I have ever come across, and got to have afternoon tea the following day at the Alton Towers hotel. There was also a spa trip but I forgot my swimming costume, it didn't even occur to me to take it, I'm not sure why. This is clearly a very 'me' thing to do because when I was telling my mum about it afterwards, she said "Oh Emma" in a very mum-like way. I didn't mean to. But anyway, in lieu of the spa, I went back into the park with a couple of others and had a wander around and went to the aquarium. And anyone who knows me knows that I love a good aquarium. What a lovely weekend, can't wait for the wedding now.

On Saturday, it was my brother's 30th birthday, which I'm struggling to get my head around. He's in America, so I didn't get to see him, but I did post this picture on his Facebook wall, just so he knows I care, and to remind him of the days when he was nice to me and not annoying me from thousands of miles away. (It should be noted that I don't actually know how many miles away he is. I was going to say millions, but that seems excessive. It feels far, anyhow.)

So yeah, Saturday was James's birthday. But that is not all it was. Saturday was also Eurovision day, that wonderfully weird event that comes but once a year.

Eurovision is incredibly difficult to describe to the uninitiated. I think it's the kind of thing you have to experience to understand. I have a sort of morbid fascination with Eurovision - I never really mean to watch it, but somehow I nearly always end up doing just that. It's like a trainwreck, I just can't look away. Although I will say that this year was relatively tame on the whole, compared to previous years.

I felt a bit bad for the British boys, who ended up coming third from last (I think? Can't quite remember), when their song was actually objectively one of the better ones. But I suppose it's par for the course and we never do all that well. It's all good fun and I hope they didn't take it to heart.

My personal favourite was the entry from France, it was super catchy and I'm disappointed he didn't win.

C'est la vie.

Currently reading: I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak. Loving it so far.

Song of the Day: Australia by The Shins (You'll be damned to pining through the windowpanes/ You know you'd trade your life for any ordinary Joe/ Well do it now or grow old/ Your nightmares only need a year or two to unfold)

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How I like to spend Sundays

As far as Sundays go, yesterday was a pretty good one.

I jolted awake super early and disorientated (perhaps I had been dreaming), and Jack - still asleep mind you - laughed and said, "Yes." He talks in his sleep sometimes. I get a real kick out of it.

Anyway, I went back to sleep and woke up at 10.30am, much more refreshed. Downstairs, Jack made me a cup of tea and then we had pain au chocolats for breakfast (because we're fancy), and after watching Nigella, I went to have a shower and then changed into a fresh pair of pyjama bottoms and an old baggy t-shirt. Sunday is a day of REST, okay? I had no choice.

Back downstairs, I removed my super dark purple nail polish and replaced it with a slightly lighter shade of purple nail polish whilst watching Christmas cooking shows on the Food Network channel. After that, I lit a candle and we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas followed by The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, because they are Christmassy without being overtly Christmassy, if you know what I mean. I don't like to crack out things like Elf or The Grinch until December is upon us. 

We ate leftover lasagna for tea, and then I caught up with Sophie who made me get Whatsapp and introduced me to the 21st Century. We chilled out for a bit before Jack went home, and then I wrote 2,000 words for NaNoWriMo whilst listening to Third Eye Blind (who have reinstated themselves as one of my favourite bands).

Yeah. A good day. I like to remember the good days.

Song of the Day: The Background by Third Eye Blind (The plans I make still have you in them 'cause you come swimming into view/And I'm hanging on your words like I always used to do/ The words they use so lightly I only feel for you/ I only know because I carry you around in the background)

Currently reading: The Invisible Library still. I keep stopping and starting.

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New hobbies

I have a headache. Which probably isn't being helped by staring at a computer screen, but hey-ho. Here we are.

February came and went with the blink of an eye as it always does because it is so short, but I find that March seems quite short too. Mostly because by the time your mind processes that it is not February anymore, it has already been March for a good few days. In theory it should be warming up now, but although the nights are getting lighter it feels like we've fallen back into the depths of winter. It reminds me of this comic. After January, winter just becomes a bit of a burden because there's no Christmas to look forward to. Bring on summer, I want to sit outside.

I've started drawing. Although I'm not a jealous person by nature, I have always envied people who seem to be artistically gifted. I've had a change of heart though. Whilst I still think that there are people who have a natural flair for drawing, it actually takes a lot of work and all those people just try a lot harder than the rest of us who say that we're not very good at art. Last week I decided that I wanted to get better at drawing so I just started practicing. I think the coolest thing about sketching is that you start out with some circles and lines on a page but you build them up and they become something, and it's really rewarding when your finished product actually resembles what you wanted it to. It's hard though, and it takes time. Patience is a great virtue, but it's never been one of mine, so it's good for me to start taking more time over things. When I told Jack that I'd started doodling he said, "Are you going to draw me like one of your French girls?" because he is oh so hilarious (I'm assuming everyone will get the reference). So far I've pretty much been drawing some of my favourite cartoon characters, but you've got to start somewhere and it's really fun.

Speaking of cartoons, here's some awesome ones that you should definitely watch if you don't already:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: Legend of Korra
Over The Garden Wall
Adventure Time (obviously - everyone knows how much I love it)
Bob's Burgers

Watch them. Thank me later.

Song of the Day: Like I Can by Sam Smith

Currently reading: Death Cure by James Dashner

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Lately...

I've been a little absent recently. It's been a mixture of enjoying the nice weather we've been having, and also feeling a bit... lethargic? Sometimes you have those days when you feel like what's the point in showering; you're only going to have to shower again in the future (don't worry, I have still been showering!) But anyway, here's a little update, just in case you've missed me.

Lately I've been...

Reading: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. I couldn't really remember what happened in it and wanted to remind myself before the next movie comes out later this year. I've also just started reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

Watching: A lot of The Walking Dead. It's so gripping, I have difficulty just watching one episode at a time. Jack and I watched 5 episode in a row on Saturday night, oops! Also I've obviously been watching the new series of Game of Thrones.

Listening to: Justin Timberlake, Blur, John Legend, and anything that sounds summery. 

Looking forward to: Rome! And my birthday in a couple of weeks.

Wearing: Comfy trousers! The kind that my Dad would definitely think are pyjamas.

Cardigan: ASOS

Top: Topshop

Trousers: Topshop

Shoes: Dorothy Perkins

Really light and perfect for summer. Even if they do look like PJs.

And that's me pretty much up to date!

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Lately...

Want to know what I've been up to? Of course you do.

Reading:
Not a lot to be honest, except for blogs. I stopped reading Linger for a bit. I was going to start it again last night but my Kindle needed recharging so I went to sleep instead.

Watching:
Game of Thrones. I finished series 2 last night and now I'm really mad that I don't have Sky Atlantic to watch series 3. I'm super excited that the second series of New Girl has started on E4 now as well, I love that show. I've also seen a few new (to me) films; What To Expect When You're Expecting (pretty funny), The Social Network (which I liked much more than I thought I would), Adventureland (I unexpectedly hated it, despite loving the cast), Breaking Dawn Part 2 (which was obviously shit), and The Woman In Black (which was ok, but it's one of those films where you're constantly having to watch the background for the spooky stuff - it's still pretty jumpy though. Unfortunately it was hard to find Daniel Radcliffe believable as a Dad. Plus he's Harry Potter.)

Listening To:
Tegan and Sara, Bastille, Frank Turner, Justin Timberlake and Jamie T.

Planning:
A holiday to be booked soon I hope. Also, deciding on what to do for my birthday in June and hopefully going to visit my friend at some point. Also, looking forward to warmer weather (which seems to be on its way) so that I can just sit around in the garden and do nothing.

Lately...

My blog schedule is kind of coming together. I know that I'm going to be posting on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. Friday is going to be photograph based, and I'm going to call it Photo Friday because it's pretty much alliteration and therefore sounds good. I haven't thought of anything specific to do on Mondays and Wednesdays, but rest assured, I'll be delivering some sort of content on those days! But anyway, for today, here's a little, 'what I've been doing lately' to keep you going.

Reading: 
Honestly? Christmas magazines, recipe books, blogs, but not a lot else. Which is ridiculous because I am supposed to be doing a book challenge (that I set for myself, might I add). I don't know what it is but lately I just haven't really felt like reading which is a shame because I really do love to read. I think part of the reason is that there are books that I quite want to read which aren't on my list, and I know that reading them will make me feel guilty, and that's making me resent my list of books still to read. I think the first thing I need to do is finish We Need To Talk About Kevin and then I'll see how I feel after that. I'm stuck in a reading rut and I need to get out of it.

Watching:
Game of Thrones. I feel like I'm kind of late to the party with this one, but a friend got me onto it and I am hooked. I haven't read any of the books (now there's a surprise) and honestly I don't think I'll bother, I'm just enjoying watching it. I've also been watching Nigellissima, Nigella Lawson's current show on the BBC. I used to love Nigella, I love the hilarious phrases she uses to describe what she's doing and how things taste. Plus her hair is always so perfect. But on this latest series she suddenly seems so incredibly smug. Not that she hasn't always been smug because she has, but now she's even smuggier (that's totally a word). It still hasn't stopped me watching though, I'm a sucker for cookery shows. Oh, and last night the new series of Tool Academy started so I'll be watching that. It's so bad but I just can't look away.

Movie-wise, I've seen a couple of new to me films. I finally watched Princess Mononoke the whole way through. I love it, it's so fantastically weird. I also watched Leon: The Professional for the first time, that's pretty good. 

Listening to:
There's a song from one of the Google Chrome adverts which I'd been wanting to purchase for a while but didn't know what it was. Then I remembered I have Shazam on my iPhone and so that pretty much solved my problem. So anyway, the song was Velvet Elvis by Alex Winston, and it's awesome, but I bought the whole album (King Con) because it is so good. I've also been listening to The Civil Wars a lot.

Looking forward to:
Christmas. ChristmasChristmasChristmasChristmas.

Making:
Lists and plans and cookies.

Lately I've been...

Reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This was one of the books I was most looking forward to reading out of my 30 books, and so far I haven't been disappointed. It's been a bit slow-going so far (I'm not even halfway yet, oh dear), but when I started it I didn't get a chance to read it much because I wasn't at home, and since then I've only been able to read a chapter or two a night, but I'm going to crack on with it this week.


Watching: Channel 5 have picked up that American show Once Upon A Time and so I started watching that the other night. Initially I wasn't too sure because it just seemed a tad ridiculous, but I persevered and now I'm a little bit in love with it. There's just something so endearing about it, even if it is a bit cheesy/cringeworthy at times. And hey, Robert Carlyle makes a pretty creepy Rumpelstiltskin. 

[source]

Other than Once Upon A Time, Daf and I are still slowly making our way through Prison Break and The Office (the American version). I love Jim and Pam, they've got to be one of the best written TV couples ever.


Oh, and also, I went to see The Avengers on Tuesday and it is fantastic. Well, it is if you like superheroes, aliens, explosions and stuff. And I do.


Listening to: Nothing obscure, a lot of Blur and The Kooks at the moment. Oooh, and also Two Door Cinema Club, I really love them.


Laughing at: The tumblr blog Sims Gone Wrong. It's basically full of screenshots of glitches in the game that cause some hilarious and also terrifying sims. Check it out for more, but here are some of my favourites.

demon cat

demon lady

demon baby

Frightening stuff.


Looking forward to: My birthday next month, because the Harry Potter studio tour tickets arrived in the post the other day which got me SUPER excited. I hope there is a gift shop so I can buy Harry Potter merchandise.


Song of the Day: Mr Maker by The Kooks


Currently reading: The Book Thief