Lately

A gorgeous day on Skomer

Lately I've been

reading: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.  I've never read anything by her before and saw that this one was recommended as one of her best.  I'm about three-quarters of the way through and I'm definitely enjoying it, but after tearing through the first half I reached a bit of reader's block, so I put it down for a while and now I've resumed it once more.  It's interesting because I think a lot of us assume we know what Victorian life is like, but this shows a darker side to the usual 'posh person' or maid stereotypes. 

watching: too much! I'm at university now and am studiously ignoring the pile of books I've just got from the library.  At the moment it feels like all my favourites are back on - GBBO, Gogglebox, the Graham Norton Show - and so there's so much iPlayer and so little time.  I really enjoyed Victoria, despite the snottiness that surrounded it, and I'm going to watch the new series of Ordinary Lies (I hope they've still got the funky little theme tune).

Speaking of snotty, I went to see Bridget Jones's Baby the other day, and I really don't care what critics thought.  I laughed out loud, and had a really good time. Emma Thompson was a scene-stealing obstetrician, although I was slightly confused by a couple of cameos given to actors who really could have been given actual roles, such as Shazzer and Jude's partners. When it comes to upcoming films, I'm looking forward to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as Denial. 

listening to: Christine and the Queens, whom I saw on the aforementioned GN Show, and loved immediately. Check out It and Narcissus is Back.

eating: student food, woe is me!  In fact, I've been a bit better this time, and have been cooking actual meals as opposed to toast and pesto pasta.  One of my favourites things to cook is Sabrina Ghayour's lamb and sour cherry meatballs, but I've not had the patience or money to add every single ingredient and cook it for quite that long, so I've made my own simplified version. Of course, despite my best intentions, I've been snacking like mad on pretzels and amaretti biscuits.  Niche, I know. 

Lately

A recent dishy purchase

Lately I've been
reading: Diary of an Ordinary Woman by Margaret Forster.  This book totally hoodwinked me.  It's written as if the author, Margaret Forster, has been presented with a collection of diaries written by Millicent King, who was born in 1901 and kept a record of her life from 1914 until 1995.  The idea was that Forster was given the diaries to edit and perhaps publish.  What I didn't fully grasp was that Millicent King is a work of fiction, as is the entire book.  It's amazing because Millicent is such a believable character, as are so many others in the novel, and she has such a strong narrative voice.
Next I'm planning on reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosley.  After reading Brideshead Revisited I became quite interested in Evelyn Waugh and the others of his generation, and so I've read a couple of books about that sort of period (Bright Young People by D J Taylor, Paula Byrne's Mad World).

watching: TV-wise, The Secret Life of Four / Five / Six-Year-Olds.  Like Gogglebox, this was something that I thought sounded awful when I first heard about it, and then as soon as I watched it I fell in love with it. Some of the lines the kids come out with are absolute gems - who licked the cake? "A giant bird came down... a mini-beast!" They're also so insightful at times, like when a six-year-old explained the concept of a democracy.  Really addictive viewing.
Film-wise, I saw Spectre and really enjoyed it, thanks to the amazing cast (mainly Ben Whishaw, if I'm being honest), although I can't help but find 'Bond girls' a bit ridiculous in this day and age. The film I was more excited about, though, was Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I've seen it twice already - the first time being the midnight showing because I'm a cool cat - and loved it both times. No spoilers, but Han Solo and Leia have always been my number one favourite film couple.

listening to: mostly (slightly cheesy) 60s stuff, like this gem from the Shangri-Las, Leader of the Pack, and Da Doo Ron Ron by The Crystals.

eating: everything.

Summertime

Criss-cross! Everybody clap your hands...

Ughhh, look at that disgusting blue sky.  Honestly, I hate the fact that I always end up complaining about hot weather when we get it so infrequently here in the UK, but it really does take me a while to adjust.  I'm pale-skinned and don't tan easily at all, so my skin ends up burning and breaking out in a rash in the first few days of sun, and I still get nervous when leaving the house without a coat. #britishproblems

Rainbow food

One big bonus to warm weather is how much easier I find being healthy.  I often stick to stodgy, carb-filled meals during cold winter months but salads are so much more appealing when you can sit out in the garden to eat and soak up rays. Of course, these things are always nicer in theory - it's only once you've committed to being outside that you remember that the next-door-neighbour is having very loud work done on the house and that every buzzy insecty thing in the country is suddenly in your face.

I just can't get over how good these cherries look.  Sorry.

Before and after

Of course after extolling the virtues of healthy eating I had to go and bake a few trays of cookies, just to balance things out.  These are stem ginger cookies, the recipe for which I found online after developing an out-of-the-blue craving for ginger cookies.  While I was making these I was taken aback by how solid the mixture was, as I'd been expecting something much runnier, like cake mix.  Luckily, I cottoned on and things turned out OK.

New Year, new blog

Right. Here goes.
I'm determined to show off all my (lame, poor quality) Christmas photos somehow. Instagram is all very well, but I can't fully review and explain everything without writing essays through tags. So I'm going to restart this blog and see where it gets me.

Wish me luck!

The Various Stages of Insomnia and Lack of Sleep, or Moving Out of Halls

• I'll just snooze a bit - why is this bed so uncomfortable. My pillow is flat. I'm too hot, but if I stick my leg out of the duvet I'll be too cold and plus monsters will get me. My head hurts. My eyes hurt trying to sleep. Why am I not asleep. This is stupid. It's four o'clock and even if I get to sleep now I'll only have three hours' sleep. Sleep. Sleep. I'm drifting off, yes, I'm drifting off - and nope, I'm wide awake again. Damn it.
• It's twenty to six, might as well get up. God my eyes ache. But hey, I feel amazing! Who the hell needs sleep, anyway? Oh yeah! I am Supergirl. Just watch me leaping about after two hours' sleep. I am invincible. Eehhh, Macarena. God I'm going to be so freaking productive today. I'm ready and it's only six o'clock! Fabbo. I'm going to clear out my entire room. 

• It's half past six and I hate life. My arms are aching from lugging heavy boxes out of my room. I thought nobody would be up so I didn't brush my hair or put any make-up on. But no. There are people just chilling around halls looking as if sleep means nothing, and I have rats' tails for hair. Still, my room is nice and empty. I am a zombie, but I will carry on. I will not let this lack of sleep beat me.
• I think I'm getting travel sickness from the lift.  

• Oh my God people are going to steal all the stuff I've just carefully put in the car. Oh my God, they're going to break into the brand new car. Oh my God, I'm going to have to take all the boxes back out and take them back up two flights of stairs. Oh my God why did I think that would be a good idea? Maybe I should just stay in the car for five hours until it's time to leave halls. My mum will reassure me.

• Mum what am I going to do I did something really stupid and now I'm going to have to undo the past two hours' good work because it was actually bad work in disguise Mum help me and tell me what to do I know I'm legally an adult but I'm not mature enough for this Mum help me Mum Mum Mum
• Mum's reassurance does not reassure me and I think I'm going to start crying right here in the middle of halls' reception in front of the three boys who watched me take eleven heavy boxes and suitcases out to the car without offering to help. I can't do life properly and I want to cry and ugh ugh why couldn't I sleep last night I should still be in bed.
• Dad has reassured me and told me to pull myself together. What was all the fuss about, anyway? I'm totally cool. And tired. Except I packed my bedding away and there's not much left in my room except for a bag of plastic bags and an old Creme Egg packet. But whatever. I'm cool. 
• I need caffeine or I will die.
• I have caffeine, thanks to throwing myself through the doors of the nearest Costa. It's not working. Why isn't the coffee working? Maybe it's because I started drinking coffee aged seven and now I have an extremely high caffeine tolerance. Maybe I should have bought two coffees.
• Oh wait, I'm a student and I can't afford it. 

Things and Thoughts I Get Distracted By Whilst Attempting To Revise

• Wow, that drill in the building site outside my halls is really loud.
• How many marshmallows do I have left?
• I need to re-shape my eyebrows.
• Parks and Recreation has finished for the season and now I have nothing to watch.
• Hey, I bet the person who got this library book out before me was doing the same topic as me. Have they highlighted anything useful?
• God, this person's handwriting is lousy.
• Haha, that's a really fat pigeon on the scaffolding opposite my window. 
• I wonder if prolonged periods spent indoors alone will make me turn insane.
• Would anyone notice if I did?
• I need more sweets.
• People said The Wire was good. Maybe I should start watching it. Or Breaking Bad.
• I have over 2 weeks til my exam. I'll be fine.
• How is it nearly half-five already?
• My nail varnish is super-chipped. It'll look much better if I scratch half of it off and leave stubby scraps of polish on. 
• In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to start watching a TV series that already has 5 seasons for me to catch up on, right in exam season. 
• I know, I'll write a blog post about being distracted. That's productive. 

People I End Up Sitting Near In Lectures

• Girl who won't stop jiggling her knee and therefore making the entire row of seats shake. Obliviously, of course.
• Girl who makes weird inadvertent 'hm' noises at odd intervals.
• Guy behind me who keeps reaching the bottom of his page and poking his notebook into my shoulder.
• Scary-coughers.
• People who whinge about how 'boring' the lecture was when actually it was genuinely interesting. Go home then.
• Girl who sits behind me, jabs her foot into my back and then keeps it there, despite much passive-aggressive seat-shuffling on my behalf.
• Guy who texts solidly throughout the lecture.
• People who return after a five-minute break with a mound of hot food that smells really strong when I'm really hungry.
• Guy who asks incredibly awkward irrelevant questions that make everyone cringe.
• Smokers. Gaaaah...
• A group of self-styled 'lads' (kill me now - or rather, kill them) who like to share their hilarious 'banter' with everyone in the nearby vicinity.
• A very heavy mouth-breather whose breath I can actually feel on the back of my neck. Ughhh.
• Girl who takes intimidatingly detailed notes
• Someone very tall / with huge hair / with a huge hat in front of me who manages to block out everything important on PowerPoint, leaving me with the flinch-inducing Comic Sans titles and irritating ClipArt cartoons.

Snippets

All I've been listening to for the past week or so - recommended tracks You Stole The Sun From My Heart, Indian Summer and (It's Not War) Just The End Of Love among others.

Some classics, some not-so-classic...

Summer-winter mix, always an awkward time of year to dress.

Things I Have Learnt In Freshers' Week

• No matter how much stuff I think I have, I will always forget something. 
• Halls are not very soundproof - at all. Luckily the only unwanted noise I've had to endure (so far) has been bizarre music from down the corridor, and people singing about snakes. 
• I talk to myself way more than I thought, and it's only now that I know my next-door-neighbour can probably hear me that I've become aware of it.
• Ditto singing.
• Fire alarms at quarter past three in the morning are sheer hell.
• No question is too stupid for Google. Such as, 'how long does a tumble dryer take?', and 'how many calories are in a Greggs ham and cheese bake?'. Someone, somewhere, will have asked the same thing.
• Might be wise not to punch a freshers' rep, no matter how infuriating they might be.
• That club chain that I hated back at home? Yeah, it's exactly the same here, too. Avoid.
• Choosing a hall of residence right next to a building site has its advantages, such as hammers providing a useful alarm clock. 
• It's not a brilliant idea to forget vital stuff, such as your glasses. 
• Everything you found annoying about home will suddenly become incredibly endearing and sweet.
• Recipe books become a way of living vicariously, as you look at all the lovely things you could be eating if you had more than peanut butter and a potato.
• Mixer taps are so underrated, as are hot taps that don't go from lukewarm to scalding in the space of two seconds. 
• The choice between laundry-lurking and laundry-paranoia is a tricky one. 
• Watching stuff alone on a slowly-loading iPlayer is not really the same. 
• Being able to eat what you like, when you like, might be a very dangerous thing, but it is so good.

How To Survive A Hangover

(all purely hypothetical, of course)

• Be realistic. Don't force yourself to get up at some unearthly hour. If you have to stay in bed til the afternoon, do so. 
• Keep a bowl / bag / bucket close to hand. 
• WATER.
• Eat something, but slowly, in the company of aforementioned bowl. Just in case.
• Banish all memories of last night. Don't even consider them.
• Surround yourself with comforting people who were not witnesses to last night, such as sympathetic parents.
• Only stand up very, very slowly.
• Don't drape yourself over the coffee table and refuse to move.
• Have a long, relaxing shower.
• No, the shampoo does not smell like alcohol and no, touching your hair will not make your head fall off.
• Don't sit in the shower stall staring at nothing like Eva Green in Casino Royale. You are not a traumatised Bond girl, you are a prat with a hangover.
• Avoid anyone who is likely to smirk, 'How's the head today?' at you. 
• Er, try to stay off any social networking sites that may be slightly painful to look at. Just in case.
• Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself. Do stuff, just quietly.