Wacky Wednesday

Some people are insane, crazy and have slightly too much time on their hands. Oh, and did I mention they are awesome too?

For more images and information, click on any of the pictures above or this link.

Feeling Happy :)

I’ve just arrived back home from my sewing course. I started it several weeks ago and I absolutely love it. I’ve always wanted to be able to sew properly and this forces me to do all the steps (normally I’m a, ‘So what if its not quite straight, I’ll just bungle on anyway!’ kind of person) and actually make samples etc. Hopefully by June I should have made either a pair of trousers or a skirt. Probably a skirt knowing my dislike of clothing of the trouser variety.

And do you know what, I just feel so light, so happy. I’ve been feeling a bit down these past few days after I had a bit of a rubbish start to the day yesterday (was already late – don’t actually think I’ve been on time once this half term but I digress – then left my bus pass at home and had no money, walked home, had a bit of a meltdown and arrived at school – for my ONLY lesson- half an hour after it started) and I’ve just been getting a bit caught up in a pointlessness vibe. Being able to go and do something I find really relaxing (and the fact that its half term tomorrow YAY) has just pulled me right back out of that rut.

In a land far far away…

Creeaaaak!

*A short, plump figure pushes her way through a turquoise door, scratching herself on the brambles that had begun to grow up the around the archway*

Gosh, there does seem to be an awful lot of dust in here and that door could do with a little bit of grease. I’ll have to see if I can find some of my bubble magic to help sort it out.

*The figure starts to walk gingerly across the room until…*

Achooooooooooooooo!!!!!

*She sneezes dramatically (she has a dust allergy, the poor mite), lurching forward. As her eye level drops dramatically she notices something on the floor*

What’s this? A quill?

*Surprisingly enough, it is a long, feathery affair. It sways precariously, as she holds it up to see nib. The nibs not the thing worth looking at though. The feather is astonishing; an iridescent ray of pinks, purples, blues and greens.*

Amazing. It fits perfectly in my hand.

*She stands confused. Memories are coming back to her slowly. She wants to see the quill more clearly so she wanders towards the windows. They are round and set back from the wall. There is a little seat in one, with a cushion and a few discarded books.

Eugh! These windows are so disgustingly filthy. It’s so annoying I can’t see it out of the window properly.

*She wipes a shirt cuff on the window. It comes back black. But she can make out the rolling hills, the pink sky, the candyfloss clouds and lollipop trees of the beyond. Her heart begins to beat louder and faster. Her breath catches in her throat.*

Can it really be…? It looks so familiar. Just like one of the worlds from my imagination.

*She turns around. Dazed. And there it is. Her desk. She can’t understand how she missed it before. Its big and white. There is a design on the table legs which twist upwards in a complex and never ending patter. She is home.*

My desk. Ah, my lovely desk. I have missed you.

*She rushes forward, pulls out the neatly tucked in chair and half sits, half falls into it. She looks at her desk and bursts out laughing.*

As if I ever thought I could desert your dear book. Dear, scary white paper. Well, you’ve caught me up again now.

*She holds up the quill, dips it into the ink (which of course was sitting right where she needed it and begins to write….*

 

And hopefully won’t stop again soon. I’ve missed you blogland.

Please…

…put me out of my misery…

…Does anyone…

…ever…

….stay up late….

…like really late…

…like 6.30 am late (or early)…

…because…

…they are…

….READING….

Anyone? Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this? Not the only one who get so caught up in a book and characters that they literally can’t put it down. I was about to, at 2.30, but then a really big argument took place betweeen the two main characters and I had to know if it was resolved. Which it was, on the last page.

I’m not really insane. I just get caught up in a world and people that are so real I have to know what happpens. So, tell me – can you beat how late I stayed up reading?

This librarian was caught in bed with a book - for more info click on the image!!!

The Magic Book Fairy pops out out of your cerial box and says “you and your favourite character (from a book of course) can switch places!” Who are you going to swap with?

Gosh….this is a really tough one! I don’t think I’d be very good at being any of my heroines. A lot of the reason they are my heroines is because they are different from me. I’d love to be Keladry of Mindelan or Diane the Wildmage out of, respectively,The Protector of the Small series and The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce (one of my fave authors). Or maybe Meggie out of the InkWorld trilogy by Cornelia Funke.

Robin Hobb

I’ve fallen in love. Let me share that love with you.

Back in 2005, when I was a fresh faced 11 year old, I borrowed the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb from my school library; well, I borrowed the first one from the library and then the last two from a science teacher! I remember enjoying them but also finding them a tad difficult to understand at times.In retrospect, I was far too young to be gallavanting around with Robin Hobb. I then borrowed the Liveship Traders series. Again very good to read, interesting plot lines but still the relationships were a little over complicated at such an innocent age. And so ended my relationship with Robin Hobb, mainly due to the lack of fantasy at my local libraries (or at least, the lack of a whole series – anyone else find that their library normally has book number 2 and 5 only of a series?)

However, I recently borrowed the first book in the Tawny Man trilogy. I fell in love. It was so interesting, still with sometimes slightly confusing relations but oh so real. Unfortunately I am a lazy being and couldn’t be bothered to go to the library and borrow the rest. I tried my school library but they didn’t have anything. However when I popped into the library on tuesday, I remembered about Robin Hobb and decided to go and see if they had anything in the series. Book 3. Helpful. So I decided to borrow something else by her and borrowed number 1 and 2 in the Rain Wilds series. And yet again I fell in love.  But this time I am not letting go. I am going right back up to the library to borrow and re read the rest of her books. I went to bed at 5.30 last night, or should I say this morning, and 3.30 the night before devouring these two books. They are so real. So passionate. So vibrant. So different. The politics are real. The relationships are real. Sometimes I do miss the fact that in many other fantasy books, especially the YA ones (Hobb is adult by the way, not YA), I know that there will be a happy ending for those concearned. Robin Hobb is far too complicated for this though – I relish the complexity of her plots and characters. Her writing is superb and very readable – I know her world, yet she doesn’t give any info dumps.

My only disappointment is that this is her newest series and the next book doesn’t come out until 2012. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. Hurry up Robin Hobb or I’ll set a dragon on you!

If you’re a fantasy fan, I can’t recomment Robin hobb highly enough. Do go read. Her books are utterly fabulous.

It is the book blogger hop today as well. The question this week is:

“Share your favorite post from the last month and tell us why it’s close to your heart!”

Well, seeing as I haven’t been a very active blogger this month I haven’t got much to share, so I will take this to mean the last two months, which is as long as I have been blogging. I think my favourite post is this one about my dream house. I just really enjoyed writing it and finding images and generally immersing myself in prettiness and domesticity.

Black Books & Sleepovers…

Well, yesterday evening I went off for what every teenage girl knows and appreciates; The Sleepover. But this evening, we did not give in to temptation and crack open the nail varnish and face masks. Instead we, aka. four slightly crazy weird teenagers, sat down to watch all three series of Black Books. And it was FANTASTIC. I’d never watched them before, but so many jokes revolve around this series that I felt that I had to watch it. And I am so glad I did. A smoking, drinking cute Irish guy with a beautiful accent (aka. Bernard aka Dylan Moran), a brow beaten side kick (aka. Manny aka Bill Baily), a neurotic best friend thrown in for good measure (aka Fran aka Tasmin Greig) and a second hand book shop with unnamed creatures growing from the mold. What more could you possibly want?

This is genuinely one of the funniest tv program I have EVER watched. We were all cackling uproariously throughout, no doubt disturbing the neighbors and the cats but, well, you only live once! If you get a chance to watch if – please, please do. You won’t be disappointed, I promise. And just to give you a little taste:

Watch. After all, its so deliciously dirty!

Angels Unlimited!

Do you want to know something else that I was doing when I should have been revising? I read my way through 9 of the Angels Unlimited (or the snazzily renamed Agent Angel) series by Annie Dalton, only stopping because I never owned the last three. Yes, I raced through 9 books of a series I first read when I was about, hmmm, ten? Six years on, you would have thought I’d have grown out of it. But no, embarrassingly – or maybe not so embarrassingly, depending on how in touch you are with your inner angel, sorry child – I loved every minute of it. I loved the creation of a vibey, super cool heaven. I loved the missions they get sent on, from  saving Shakespeare to playing their way through a japanese computer to game to retrieve the soul of teenage pop star in meltdown. I pretty much loved the characters, especially Reuben a ‘pure’ (born in heaven) angel with little dreds and Michael, archangel turned headmaster, with soulful eyes.

I will admit that sometimes the childish, slightly repetative (well at least when you read 3 books in a row) language did get to me. But, I’m willing to set that aside, especially as Annie Dalton can hardly be considered a bad writer and just enjoy memories of my childhood. I was also surprised at some of the rather good advice to be found. Maybe its a bit wacky and off the wall but the phrase (ad libbed), ‘The universe desperately wants to help but how can it, if you won’t even ask’ really struck a chord. It just makes sense somehow – how can we get help if we don’t even ask (maybe that is the problem of religious free will solved right there!).

Anyway, I enjoyed the books immensely. In fact, I might just go to the library and try and find the last three in the series. After reading this far, I want to know what happens. I definitely recommend them to any little sisters or daughters anyone might have. Or maybe even for the not so littlies like me 🙂

It is also the Book Blogger Hop today.

I know I don’t do loads of bookish stuff yet but, from my dream house post, I think my love of books is probably quite clear. Anyway the question today is:

“What book-to-movie adaption have you most liked?  Which have you disliked?”

Good question! I think the To Kill A Mockingbird, black and white (50s?) adaptation is pretty good. I also preferred the Stardust film to the book. I’d watched the film before I read the book and, as I realise that they are actually pretty different stories, I just prefer the plotline of the film and I think it’s an incredibly well made, realistic, believable fantasy film. that is not to say I don’t like the book as well (talking of Neil Gaimon – anyone watch the doctor who episode he did – loved it!). I also loved the lord of the rings adaptation. As for the dislike, I think the Harry Potter series have been generally pretty bad, although that doesn’t stop me going to see them on the release day. hmmm….I can’t really think of anything else – I generally avoid film adaptations of things I know, as it ruins my inner characterisation!

Ahem….

*Shifty look around*

Anyone there?????

I was just getting off to good blogging start as well then bam easter struck. And then exam season came along faster than you can say inner psychological religion. And that, I am maintaining, is the reason that you have not heard hide nor hair from me for over a month (is it really that long?)! But, bar one measely little exam after half term (which is critical thinking, so I maintain that it does not really count) I am free as a bird. And I have two weeks off to boot, so expect a lot more loving off me and my little bubbly blog – at least, if any readers are willing to ignore a rather conspicuous absence.

So what have I really been up to? After all, I haven’t spent one whole, gigantic month revising. I think it would be fair to say that I have:

Developed an insanely mad amount of love for the guys over at Charm City Cakes and their absolutely off this world and fantasmaslogical cakes. I wanna learn how to make cakes like that sooooo bad!

Become very well acquainted with both the casual and expert modes of cooking dash:

Failing a level...

 Made cakes for a cake sale but them never managed to make it to the sale…although my mother was lovely and paid me a fiver for the priveledge of eating cakes made by her own ingredients 😛 (eaten before photographed unfortunately)

Next time the sale will look like this, I promise!

Decided that this was just the right time to go back on critique circle and start to think about writing again. After all I do have 23 critique tokens saved up from three years ago…well maybe one was from last week when I was supposed to be revising for history….

This will be me - if I even get that far!

And just a little bit of this (much too little I can assure you!):

Oh, and taken 7 exams as well:

So, what have you all been up to?

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten places I’d like to visit:

1. Edinburgh

2. India (As in just anywhere in India, where I can eat lots of curry and see the gorgous clothes)

3. New Zealand – I have family there and it just looks so beautiful (plus I can see where the Lord of the Rings films were made)

4. New England at Autumn

5. Paris, France. Kind of self explainitory really.

6. Pyramids in Egypt

7. Rome, Italy

8. Singapore – It just looks so unusual and amazing9. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – call me insane but I’d really like to get a look in one of the favelas (slums)

10. I’d love to go on Safari somewhere in Africa, maybe Kenya?

Where would you really like to visit?

Some inspiration

I’ve just spent the last hour (without realising how long it was at all) listening to this inteview of Stephanie and Christian Nielsen. Stephanie writes the blog nienie dialogues which I just came accross. It is genuinely one of the most inspiring things that I have heard in a long time. They were both in a horrendous plane crash and suffered extensive burns. Stephanie in particular, who received 80% burns, was talking about how they came together as a family (they have four young children) and coped with the tragedy from a faith perspective. But my words don’t do them any sort of justice – do please have a look at the blog – its increadibly powerful.