Merry Crimbo! (but not if your're a turkey)

Oh yes, how could I forget, it was Christmas the other day!

So a Merry Christmas to anyone who reads my blog (she types hopefully)!

Roll on 2008!

Back to reality with a bump

I'm back.

Twas amazing.

Am depressed.

We had a fantastic experience in the Seychelles and truly relaxed. It really does look as gorgeous as the pictures. In fact, here is how it looked:



So now you know why I'm depressed. It's because I'm back here:



The pace of life over there really is magnificently slower than in London. I don't think I could ever live over there, my body probably would never adjust! But I wouldn't say no to a few months of pure relaxation every now and then. Here are a few of my highlights...

- Visiting another island in a dinky plane.
- Sitting on the shore with little fish swimming around my legs.
- Exploring rock pools and discovering the crabs and other sealife that live in them.
- Seeing the giant Aldabra tortoises and how fast they actually move!
- Swimming by reef with tropical fish and sea cucumbers.
- Being serenaded by a famous Creole musician (didn't know he was famous at the time...)
- Trekking (I use the term loosely) to a waterfall.

And the lowlights...

- Finding a lizard in our fridge!
- Being eaten alive my mosquitos.
- Getting a horrid stomach bug on the last day.
- Leaving.

The pros definitely out weigh the cons. If you ever get the opportunity - GO! You'll love it.

"We're all going on a Creole holiday..."

This time next week I'll be in the sunny Seychelles, hopefully sipping a long tall drink of some sort and feeling the white sand in between my toes.

I. Can't. Wait.

I'm so excited right now - I can hardly believe we're going!! Apparently Mahe is so small that we can do a round trip in a day. There's going to be so much to explore, and hopefully we'll manage to fit in as much as possible.

I definitely want to go snorkelling. I can swim, but I've never done any diving...or in fact ever swam properly in the sea. Although, come to the think of it, I've never been to a beach where the waters are calm enough to swim in (for weak swimmer like myself). The most exotic destination that I've visted to date has been Goa. I imagine that the Seychelles will be very similar - and perhaps even more interesting as there are different islands that we can hop to.

Just checked, and it's 31 degrees over there at the mo. 31 degrees!! It's 9 degrees in London. WOO!!

SIX DAYS AND COUNTING!!!

En Pointe

So this is my most recent painting. It's pretty different from usual style of bold sunsets and contrasting colours - but I wanted to try out something different.

The background actually shimmers as I was experimenting with a pearlescent paint. It gives the whole picture a glowing, velvety kind of feel - but of course, it doesn't show up on the photo at all.

I'm not overly excited about this painting, but at least I tried out something new!

I'm off on holiday to the Seychelles next weekend, so maybe I'll get some new inspiration whilst there...

Anyone up for boycotting the tube?

WARNING: TUBE RANT AHEAD

I had to trek to Cardiff today for a conference. This involved waking up at the crack of dawn - no wait, BEFORE the crack of dawn - to get the tube to Paddington, and then jump on a train to Wales (for which we had lovely first class tickets!)

The train journey from London to Cardiff took roughly two hours. The tube journey from West London to Paddington took one hour. ONE HOUR. It should have taken 30 mins. I'm not a mathematician, but something doesn't quite add up here!

And the cause? Was it:

a) A person under the train?
b) A signal failure?
c) A passenger alarm?
d) A suspect package at another station?
e) TFL being its usual inept self?

Answers on a postcard please.

The first class train tickets made up for this blip in my otherwise pleasant trip to Cardiff. And I managed to finish off The God Delusion and start reading a new book - Carry Me Down. The God Delusion is a rather meaty book which deserves a post of its own...I'm sure I will get round to it soon (!) As for Carry Me Down, I've only read the first few pages, but I'm already sucked in. Actually, I'm almost looking forward to my tube journey into work tomorrow so I have some ample reading time...hmm, so there are silver linings after all...

Random Ramblings

Eek, it's been nearly a month since I've had a chance to blog. But I have some good excuses/reasons!

1. I started a new job.
2. I've been working on my next painting.
3. I've been house hunting.
4. The new season of Scrubs started.

1. I started a new job

I'm still working in London, 10 minutes away from where I was before in fact! And there I was worrying that I'd have to give up my lovely long commute into work whenever I changed jobs. No chance. Although I have recently discovered the customer complaint forms on the TFL website. You can fill these out when your tube journey has been delayed by 15 minutes or more and you will get refunded back your money - hooray! And rightly so, humph.

TFL makes these forms rather tricky to find (the sneaky bastads). To save you time, here they are: TUBE REFUNDS

2. I've been working on my next painting

I've finished my next painting. I tried out something a bit different this time and experimented with opalescent paint and ballerinas. I used to do ballet from a very young age right up until I went to uni. I really miss it actually, it's a great way to stay in shape and keep fit. Alas, I have hung my ballet shoes up for the time being and am now scarily unfit. I did buy a brand new bike this time last year with the aim of getting fitter and sporting healthy rosy cheeks. So far I've taken it out twice. Ah well, there's always eBay!

Anyways, I'll post my painting soon.

3. I've been house hunting

I was hoping to move out and rent somewhere a bit closer to London to cut down on my travelling time. But then if I did that, what would I have to complain about?! This plan has now been put on hold till next year.

4. The new season of Scrubs started (yay)

Ah Scrubs, how I love it.

And in the meantime, I still haven't finished reading The God Delusion. Although I am very near the end...I plan to finish it tomorrow as I'm heading off to Wales for a conference (either that or I will take my macbook and watch Sex and the City on the train - dilemmas dilemmas).

What I've read so far has been brilliant. Thought-provoking and enlightening to say the least. I think everyone should read it, whether you're an atheist, agnostic or theist. I'll be sure to blog about it soon. And once I'm done with that, maybe I'll read The Dawkins Delusion which my mother rushed off to buy as soon as she caught sight of me reading The God Delusion!

Apocalyptic Sunset

This year I decided to get back into painting. Well...I say 'get back into'...the last time I painted anything was in my first year of 6th form when I was taking AS Level Art. And I wasn't technically 'into' art - I just did it at school. But I guess that's the thing about studying, it can take the fun out of your passion!

So I've found that it's something I love doing whenever I get a spare couple of hours. It's definitely a great outlet for me to be creative in any way I want to be. So far I've painted three painting this year, and I'm hoping to add to this collection asap! Here's my second one that I finished last week:



I find it really satisfying painting sunsets and blending a mish mash of colours. My sister said it looks like the End Of The World. An Apocalyptic Sunset, if you will. And I'm quite liking that dramatic description I have to say!

I've nearly finished my third painting. It's a lot more subtle than the one above, but hopefully still quite atmospheric. Shall post it soon.

The Atonement

So...to be honest I hadn't even heard of this book until the movie came out - yup, I've been living under a literary rock. Took me quite a while to get into it, but once I did, I couldn't put it down! I even found myself getting strangely annoyed whenever I reached my stop on the tube - a first.

At first I thought it sounded a bit too much like a period drama, which is generally not my cup of tea. But then, out of the blue, you're suddenley presented with the 'C' word - IN CAPS. Average period drama yawn fest this is not!

It's a love story, written from three different perspectives to give you the all round picture. We've got Cecilia and Robbie, our lovers, and Briony (Cecilia's younger sister) who, in a terrible act of childish naivity, commits a crime that will effect all three of their lives in ways she could not have foreseen. It's set in the 1930s and continues through the second world war, right up until 1999 when we're greeted with an aging Briony, still striving for atonement.

The most touching and emotional parts of the novel were, for me, Robbie's desperate journey from France back to England. The vivid descriptions of the war torn country really hit home for me. I felt as though McEwan stripped back all the layers and left us with the raw and tender wounds of the war, right there on the page. Those wounds are not only of the war, they also symbolise the anguish and gut-wrenching pain experienced in their (Robbie and Cecilia) personal lives.

And the ending! One of those bitter sweet endings. Hope and grief, regret and nostalgia, contentment and loss...a perfect recipe which leaves you still wanting more.

The National Year of Reading is coming!

Did you know the National Year of Reading is next year? Nearly a decade since the last National Year of Reading, the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency is aiming to put reading high up on the agenda once more. Their intention is to get more people aware of the benefits of reading for pleasure and purpose.

I think this is great news, reading has so many benefits that many people aren't even aware of. A lot of people think it's quite nerdy or boring. I went out on a double date about a month ago - shock horror (I'm quite wary of these kinds of things!) My best friend and our respective other halfs went out for drinks and dinner and got onto the subject of reading. My friend's boyfriend is really into working out, bulking up and looking good - he would never step foot in a library. Which is fair enough; I'm not particularly keen on the gym myself, although I have tried it and made my mind up for myself! He would probably quite correctly label me as a 'book worm', and I would probably quite correctly label him as a 'meat head' - as a mutal agreement of course!

Anyway, he is totally against reading for pleasure and just doesn't understand it. My friend has tried to get him interested as she likes a good book every now and then herself - but it's just not happening. Everyone has their own interests, and there are loads of people out there who hate reading - but that doesn't mean you should knock it!

I personally think reading for pleasure is a fantastic way to open your mind and start thinking about issues that effect all of us in one way or another. A thought-provoking book can help you to form your own opinions and shape the way you think about things - that's quite a powerful tool. And a powerful book can get turned into a powerful movie (although as we all know, that's sometimes not quite the case!) allowing it to reach even more people.

Not to mention the escapism. I hadn't read a good book for so long after a left university. I've just realised how much I've missed it and how much my state of mind benefits from it. I have an incredibly busy mind and find it quite hard to switch off at the best of times. So finding a book that captures my imagination and entertains my mind is brilliant - and necessary! I guess everyone needs a form of escapism, whether that be through reading, watching a good film, listening to music or switching off at the gym.

My mother started reading to me from a very young age, and I'll definitely do the same with my children - the house will be filled with books! There's a whole multiude of wonderful things to be gained from reading, so I think it's wonderful that the whole of 2008 will be dedicated to it. Click here to find out more about The National Year of Reading.

Book Club Meeting: Number 1

Ok so one month later I finally get a chance to blog about the first book club meeting I went to - there really are not enough hours in the day!

We went out for a glass of Rose and picked our first book, The Atonement by Ian McEwan. It was really nice to get to know some other people in our company - and no, we didn't just sit around talking about books for an hour and compare reading glasses! It's a great way to meet some new faces so I'd definitely recommend it.

I think everyone was keen to read The Atonement thanks to the movie that's just been released. To be honest, I hadn't even heard about The Atonement until the film was released - I've definitely been out of the literary loop for far too long. Had it not been for the book club, or indeed the film, I doubt I would have picked up this novel any time soon - and that would have been a shame because it's absolutely brilliant!

The next book club meeting will be in November sometime - ages away. I might have forgotten about all those little details that make a novel a novel by then. Is everyone really so busy these days that we need to give ourselves 2 months to read a book?! Actually, probably YES.

When we decided to meet in Novemeber I was strangely relieved - it's so hard to find time to just sit back and get stuck into a book. I guess that's the curse of working life, especially when you've got a mammoth commute and other things going on when you get home - like building work, family commitments, cooking, friends dramas, laundry and fun stuff like that going on (it's been a tough couple of months!) On the plus side, the mammoth commute does mean I can sit back on the tube and get absorbed in my book - in the hope that I've managed to get a seat of course. In fact today was the first day in well over a week that I listened to my iPod instead of reading! Hooray, I'm getting there...

Over the weekend I picked up The God Delusion - time to see what all the fuss is about.

Book Clubs: good or bad?

Someone at work has decided to set up a book club.

Members meet every 8 weeks to chat about the book that was chosen at the last meeting over a glass of wine. How very civilised!

I know a couple of people who've joined book clubs in the past, so I've always been slightly intrigued. I decided to join - it seems like a good way to branch out and read books that you otherwise might not normally pick.

For the first meeting we have to each pick a book, write the title on a slip of paper and throw them into a hat. The one that's picked out of the hat is the one we read.

Actually it's made me a bit nervous. I don't know what types of books the other members like to read, what if I pick something that they'll all really hate?! But I guess that's the whole point in a way - to try something new and different.

Well I'll keep you posted!

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

By Kim Edwards

I've just come back from a short trip to Prague, and on my way there I picked up this book at the airport. The Memory Keeper's Daughter is one of the few books that has illicited such an emotional response from me in a long time. In between the site seeing, shopping and more site seeing - I just couldn't put the book down!

In a nutshell, the novel explores the consequences of a man's decision to give away one of his twins at birth - she is born with Downs Syndrome*. He entrusts her to the care of a nurse and tells his wife that the baby died. As the novel unfolds, so do the lives of those connected to this single split decision, made with the intention of sparing loved ones pain and anguish.

Edwards weaves a complex web of lives that are entwined and yet separated in so many ways. There are numerous parallels between the characters which really helps to explain decisions made and types of behaviour. We are after all moulded by our history and shaped by those people who touch our lives in profound ways.

What I found most fascinating about this novel was Edwards' exploration of relationships (with husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings, lovers, strangers, friends, acquaintances...). She exposed the tragic truths about many relationships - the distance we can put between ourselves and others, both emotionally and physically, and the consequences of these actions (whether subconscious or not) to those around us. At times it was just heart-wrenching to read. Edwards strips away the niceties and gives us a stark portrayal of this, particularly in the relationship between David and Norah. Although it's fiction, these realities can be seen all around us.

Did anyone else notice the daffodil motif laced throughout the novel? Throughout several key moments they're mentioned, used as a tool to draw characters together, overlapping them just as their lives do. I'm not quite sure what the daffodis are meant to represent, a false sense of security? Happiness? Contentment? Longing?

Although I loved this book, it's not a particularly happy one. There's no resolve, much like life. The painful longing felt by each character is tangible. But it's not all grim - those broken relationships are set against many touching moments and loving relationships. Even though the novel concludes with no conclusion in particular, I definitely felt a glimmer of hope - but I'm sure there are many people who felt otherwise.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter is thought-provoking and intriguing, a brilliant read, beautifully written by Kim Edwards. I think Literary Feline sums it up perfectly:

"I could see the bad decisions before they were made, felt the disappointment and loss, and shared in the hope or improvement and change: Norah in her grief, Paul in his need for approval, Caroline in her struggle to do what is right, Phoebe for her innocence, and even David, with his guilt and heavy burden of maintaining a secret heavier than he could bear...Kim Edwards carefully spins her tale, dropping a stone in the pond and following the ripples to where ever they lead."

Click here to read an extract from The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

*I read in the London Lite (ah yes, the trusty London Lite I hear you say) today that it was revealed that Arthur Miller had a son born with Downs Syndrome, whom he gave away a week after he was born. Miller never spoke of him and only got in touch with shortly before he died. Life is art and art is life.

Tuesdays With Morrie

"an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson"

By Mitch Albom

My cousin in Canada gave me his copy of Tuesdays With Morrie when I was 13. Ten years later, I've read it only twice. The first time I was 13 and couldn't really appreciate it, the second time I was 22 and it was a lot more meaningful.

This truly is an inspirational read. By the end of the book, I really felt like I had gotten to know Morrie through his final journey. Albom jumps between the past and the present which provides a great contrast, and also a sense of continuity.

Although he shares numerous intimate details with the reader, some things are still witheld - such as Morrie's relationship with his wife. This out of respect for Charlotte, who, as Morrie says, is quite a private person. I don't know if anyone else found this, but that omitted information only made me realise even more how precious their marriage was.

Tuesdays With Morrie is one of those books that will get you thinking about your own life, every part of it - your family, friends, partner, job, children...and encourage you to re-assess how you're doing.

It will definitely make you smile, and who knows, it might even make you shed a tear.

First Chapter

I really miss reading. Last year I graduated from university and off I went into the real world with my BA English and Sociology - only to find that the real world doesn't care too much about about degrees. They want what most of us graduates don't have much of - experience. The real world sucks.

Anyway, since I've started working, I haven't had much time to do a lot of reading - a big change for an English student. At first it was a nice relief, I could read whatever I wanted! Heat, OK, New!, Now - the trashier the better. But as time goes on I've found that I just don't have as much time as I would like to get stuck into a good book. Sometimes it's a lot easier to plug myself into my iPod, shut my eyes and pretend I'm not jammed into someone else's armpit in rush hour on the tube. Nice.

So I've decided to write a blog about the most interesting and thought-provoking books I've read so far. Who knows, maybe someone will actually read it and even post a comment. Wouldn't that be nice. Fingers crossed.

Here goes.