Posts

Monthly Blog - October 2024

Another busy month! I’ve been so inspired to write! Not just by having all these ideas for my uni assignments, but I’ve been getting back into all my writing projects in general. The only thing I’ve not been writing are these blogs, but that’s okay. These are for writing when I’m not inspired, just to keep writing something. I still want to write these, though. So at the start of the month, my mum and our friend visited Birmingham for the weekend. I met them at Moor Street Station, and when mum left the station the first thing she saw was the selfridges building, to which she exclaimed “What the fuck is that?” She’d also had an incident on the train where she’d dropped her tote bag in the quiet carriage and all her cans of gin spilled out. She then struggled to retrieve her train gin due to being doubled over laughing. I got them to their hotel and let them settle in, then met Franc and his mums for dinner in Chinatown and drinks at the gay village. I think they ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monthly Blog - September 2024

There had been a lot of big happenings that month, hence why I’m writing this in November. For starters, my niece was born! She’s so small, but already so aware of everything. She’s surprisingly tiny! I mean, she’s around 7 pounds, so about average, but considering my brother was 10 pounds when he was born, she could’ve been a lot bigger. She tried feeding from my brother while he was holding her and when he didn’t have milk she threw up on him in disgust. I held her for a bit too, and she didn’t start crying until I’d been holding her a while, so I count that as a win. My nephew’s been trying to chat to her and show her things but she can’t really acknowledge him yet. It’s also really heartwarming seeing how affectionate my brother is with her. He’s not exactly the warmest person, except with his girlfriend and son, so it’s nice seeing him so happy with this tiny, precious baby. I also moved out! Sorta. I’ve moved into student accommodation to do my Master’s, with pl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monthly Blog – August 2024

August was a hectic month. As well as recovering from my operation, I’ve been busy preparing for uni. There’s so much bullshit admin and applying for things, and the uni itself doesn’t help. It just keeps spamming useless emails that don’t tell me anything and make it harder to find the emails I need. But I’m in Birmingham now, and while there’s still loads of stuff to do, I’m feeling energised by my fresh start. I’ve needed to go to the doctor’s every day for most of the month, including my birthday, to get my dressings changed. The walk hasn’t done me any harm, and it was nice travelling along the canal every day. The canal’s so full of fish, and some are fairly big. There’s herons too, including a few that were in my path and I had to scoot around. Sometimes there were cats too. One of my neighbours also got a new cat, and he hangs out in my garden sometimes. He’s a little bitey, but very playful and silly. I also got into stargazing after reading some astron...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monthly Blog - July 2024

July was a lot of fun too! More days out with my nephew, more trips to Birmingham, and more books read! Then, with a few days to go, disaster struck. We took Nephew to Legoland around the start of July. He had a great time! We all did, actually. I eventually wandered off on my own to go on some of the bigger rides. It’s frustrating that that always happens at Legoland: we arrive around 11, wait in Miniland for everyone to show up, wander around Miniland, have lunch there, a bunch of people wander off to go toilet, we go to Duploland and the kids go on all the baby rides, then suddenly it’s like 3pm, the park closes in two hours, and I haven’t been on a single ride. One of my favourites there is Pirate Falls, the log flume ride. I knew from experience that I couldn’t go on it on my own, but I assumed the ride attendants would put me with a duo or another single person. That’s what usually happens. Except this time, for some reason, their solution was for a member of...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monthly Blog – June 2024

Image
Oh boy, this is really late. But it’s also my blog and, like, 2 people read these. Anyway, I had a fun month! There were a few family days out, mostly centred around my nephew. The first of these was to a railway centre. There’ll be a lot of trains this month. The railway centre was pretty spread out, with a main centre, museum, mini railway and steam train for short trips, about five minutes long. I love old trains. There’s just something magical about sitting in a little compartment with your loved ones, watching the world go by and pretending you’re going on an adventure. The mini railway was fun too! It’s like sitting on a little bench, riding through a little garden full of toys and statues, and pointing them out to my nephew. I also love a train museum. Trains are my friends and I feel so calm around them. A few weeks later, we went to the zoo. We got to see a bunch of the animals close up, including the lions. We were the only people in the observation area for a while, just fol...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monthly Blog – May 2024

What I did: For most of the month I did fuck all, then for one week everything happened. My uncle came over from Australia, so we spent a lot of time with him. That week was also full of birthdays and other family events, including my mum’s birthday, and my grandad’s 90th. So there was a big party at my aunt’s house and I got to hang out with a bunch of my cousins. My brother and his girlfriend also went, so everyone got to meet her and my nephew. He loved it there, especially since there were friendly dogs and lots of chocolate. This kid was grabbing fistfuls of Maltesers while his mum tried to pull him away. I was also playing fetch with one of the dogs and accidentally threw the toy on top of the hedge and he was so upset with me. I kept trying to get him to play with other toys, but he wasn’t interested. I’d go to pet him, and he’d just move away and look pointedly at the hedge. Eventually, my uncle got a ladder and got the toy down. Everyone laughed at me, understandably. At the s...
Post a Comment
Read more

I read 100 books in a year; don’t read 100 books in a year – Part 2

Image
Read Part 1 here! And we’re back, diving into the world of short, oftentimes mediocre books I read to hit an arbitrary target.  51. Titanic and Her Sisters: A Postcard History – Janette McCutcheon, Campbell McCutcheon I love the Titanic, I love ships and I love postcards. I loved the pictures in these books, but the text accompanying them often felt unedited. Points were repeated constantly and the writing was just flat. 52. 100 Queer Poems – Mary Jean Chan, Andrew McMillan I actually can’t remember most of the poems from this collection, because I read it so long ago. I’m glad the collection exists, though, and I’d love to revisit it and check out any poets whose work caught my eye. 53. You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight – Kalynn Bayron Fun, with enjoyable characters that I didn’t want to die. Maybe it would have worked better for me if I was familiar with these kinds of slashers, but on the whole it was good, atmospheric, and the tension builds nic...
Post a Comment
Read more