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 staff to go on with me. It was so embarrassing floating past the queue for the ride with my no friends, and I felt so bad for the attendant when she said she forgot there were statues that squirt water throughout the ride. I mean, I’m sure it’s fun essentially getting paid to go on the rides, but I still felt bad. It wasn’t fun, even going down the big slide. I wanted to sink into the ground.

A few days later, I was off to Birmingham to go to Frank’s birthday party. I’m struggling to remember what happened, but I think Frank and his friend met me at the station and we went shopping. We got Frank a little propellor hat and giant lollipop for him to wear, and a shitload of booze. I met a lot of cool people at the party and I can’t wait to spend more time with them in September. Apparently I got very emotional about trans people. I vaguely remember the end of the night, at 3am, and Frank had put on minecraft youtube and I said I was going to put my pyjamas on and I fell asleep.

The only thing that would’ve been better is if a certain political incident that happened the next day had happened during the party instead. The vibes would’ve been incredible. 

The rest of the weekend involved recovering. Frank’s mums took us out for a Toby carvery which was very kind of them but the buffet gave me sunburn. I also hung out with Frank for a bit on Sunday before going home, which took longer than anticipated because a bunch of trains were cancelled.

The reason there was a delay in writing this is because, at the close of the month, my ass exploded. Well, that’s a little dramatic. I had an abscess, because I can’t start a year at uni without getting one. Anyway, I had an op to get it drained, and got to take some time off work, luckily since there’s very little to do there right now. I also have another operation in my future to get my ass lasered permanently to stop it happening again. Unfortunately, that could disrupt my uni course. Again. I spent a lot of the recovery time reading “Show us who you are” by Elle McNicholl, but since I finished that at the start of August, I’ll leave my review for next month.

What I read:

As usually happens, I start off the month finishing a whole bunch, go through what looks like a dry spell in the middle while I’m reading more books, then finish a bunch around the end of the month/start of the new month.

Annihilation – Jeff VanderMeer

I loved this book a lot! I can’t say I was particularly interested in the characters, but I want to know everything about Area X and what happened to everyone there. And the bit in the tower and the ruined village were really creepy.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger – Christopher Hitchens

This was explosive. Considering the book had 50 pages of introductions, preface, and foreword, this was really quick to get through. Maybe there wasn’t as much detail as I’d have liked, but it also felt like there wasn’t a word wasted. Kissinger did not deserve to die peacefully at age 100.

Best Loved Poems: A Treasury of Verse – Ana Sampson

A nice collection. Mostly just well-known poems it’s handy to have a copy of. Some I was already familiar with, and some were pretty bad. Some of the war poems were jingoistic shite, while others were really powerful.

Bad Magic: A Skulduggery Pleasant Graphic Novel – Derek Landy 

The concept of the monster in this one is really interesting. And relevant. Some of Valkyrie and Skulduggery’s banter was pure shite, though.

I like the confirmation of Valkyrie being bisexual. I haven’t read past book six yet so I don’t know if it comes up in the books themselves.

A Book of Delights – John Hadfield

This is a collection of poetry, prose, art and photography that the editor found interesting, or delightful. There’s something beautiful about two pieces of art, written hundreds of years apart about the same subject. Two people, one long dead before the other was born, were moved to write a poem about listening to birds. Someone hundreds of years ago wanted to write about dew on the grass first thing in the morning. 

The Titanic Pocketbook

I would recommend this to someone who wants to write a novel set on the Titanic. It goes into detail about the looks, materials and decoration of public and private rooms, and has examples of menus and opening times for different facilities like the swimming pool.