Pen Palling

Yesterday's Wordless Wednesday post leads on quite nicely to today's post, since I've recently become involved in letter writing.

When I was younger I used to email a few people that I 'met' online through 'e-pal' groups. A couple of those did progress into actual letter writing friendships but they never really lasted because for the most part we were teenagers and we just didn't have that kind of sticking power.

Now I'm a boring grown up, I only ever seem to get boring mail and I've often longed for a pen pal or two who I could write to about the random things I get up to. I enjoy writing and there's nothing quite so fun as getting home to find a letter waiting for you.

But I didn't really know where to actually begin looking for letter-writing friends. After all, you're putting your address out there in a public forum, you want to be sure that you're not handing over your details to crazy stalker axe-murderers. I found Postcrossing but couldn't seem to get into it, I wanted more than just postcards; I wanted letters.

At the beginning of the year I got into Bullet Journalling which introduced me to a whole interweb full of clever, crafty, organised people when I joined a couple of Bullet Journal groups on Social Media. On Facebook there are a whole host of Bullet Journal-themed spin-off groups, one of which was the Pen Pal group.

It's very well organised and I quickly wrote two letters and fired them off to a couple of people. That was back in February, I went to Wales, wrote another handful of letters on my way home, found at least one waiting for me when I returned, and things have sort of snowballed from there.

I'm writing to people not just in the UK (there's about three people in England I've exchanged at least one or two letters with), but also Canada (I think I've written to two people there) and also Pennsylvania, Virginia and California in America. And remember how I said that Postcrossing wasn't for me, because I wanted more than postcards? Well, I've exchanged postcards with several people as well!

I spend most of my day at work staring at a computer screen so it's nice to do something else when I get home, be that knitting, colouring in, or decorating plain lined paper with washi tape and stickers and pouring out my thoughts on the day to someone in another part of the world. It's very relaxing and there's nothing nicer than coming home at the end of a long day to a nice envelope on your doormat. Mr Click observed last week that I get more mail than him now!

Plus it's encouraging me to work on my handwriting, which I've improved from a tiny printed scrawl to something which might not be an elegant cursive, but which is certainly a little easier on the eyes. Perhaps I'll share a snapshot of it some time.

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Do you have any pen pals?

Wordless Wednesday: Mail

Books 41 & 42 of 2015: Terrifying Tales by Edgar Allan Poe & Beyond the Deepwoods by Paul Stuart & Chris Riddell

Last year's reading challenge suggested that for Week 22 I read 'a book that scares you'. This was a tricky one for me since I couldn't think of a book off the top of my head that really scares me. There are a couple of the early Jack Nightingale books which creeped me out a little, but I don't really read horror stories and I really didn't fancy reading something that was going to give me nightmares.

In the end I had a skim through some of my free Kindle books and selected Terrifying Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, knowing that his stories are typically of the scary variety. This is a short collection of some of Poe's best known stories.

Although this wasn't a book I'd read before, so I didn't know whether or not it would scare me, I figured I was probably on the right track reading something with 'terrifying' right there in the title. I was also a little late starting the challenge on Week 22 so I deliberately went with something a little shorter so I wouldn't fall further behind. This one was only around about 100 pages so it ticked that box nicely.

The first stories were definitely creepy; they really weren't the sort of stories you want to be reading late at night. The later ones in the book didn't phase me as much as the earlier ones. I was familiar with several of the stories, such as 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Pit and the Pendulum' but hadn't ever actually read them before so it was good from that perspective just to read them.

There were a couple of C. Augustus Dupin stories and I found them interesting. They definitely weren't my favourites but it was interesting to read them as a comparison to Conan Doyle's Holmes stories. Dupin was basically the precursor to Holmes, in fact, without him there may have been no Holmes at all, so it was fun from a literary point of view to read.

Mr Click has a massive illustrated collection of Poe's works which he was given a few years ago. He started reading it but didn't get along very well with it and set it to one side. I may have to dig it out at some point to give it another go.

When I finished my week's Challenge book, I headed over to my Children's Bookcase in search of new reading material. You will not believe the stress I had in trying to organise the Edge Chronicles on this book case. The series is written by Paul Stewart and illustrated by Chris Riddell, It originally consisted of three trilogies (though a fourth is now in progress) and, a little like Star Wars, books four, five and six were released first, with a prequel trilogy following them, then a sequel trilogy (the books that have been published since 2014 are a sequel sequel trilogy).

So began the agonising decision of where to start. I carried around the first book (book 4) and the first book (book 1) for a whole day before eventually deciding to crack them open in order of publication (which meant starting with Beyond The Deepwoods rather than The Curse of the Gloamglozer).

Beyond The Deepwoods introduces the character of Twig, who has been raised as a Woodtroll but learns that he's not actually one of them. He sets out into the Deepwoods to meet a cousin, only to stray from the path and get terribly lost. In doing so he meets the weird and wonderful inhabitants of the Deepwoods, courting danger at every turn, until he learns just where his destiny is.

These books were a firm favourite with my brother growing up; he had a cuddly dog named Twig for the longest time, Twig's tag is still slipped in between the pages 228 and 229 as a bookmark. I acquired my copies of these books from him, though he only had six of them (the original trilogy and then three other books from the prequel and sequel). I keep on looking out for the other books on my travels but I always forget which ones I have so I think I'll just wait til I'm ready to read them and I'll buy them then.

A few years ago I picked up Walter Moers's Rumo and received the other Zamonia books shortly afterwards; Beyond the Deepwoods strongly reminded me of Moers's books. Although Beyond the Deepwoods is obviously geared for younger readers (and the Zamonia books are decidedly older), the similarities are striking. Both have an engaging mix of text and illustration; both feature fish out of water characters in fantasy worlds; both introduce a different adventure and new characters in each chapter. I'd go so far as to say that a reader who has enjoyed The Edge Chronicles will probably happily progress onto the Zamonia stories.

It's been almost a year since I read Beyond the Deepwoods and just thinking about it is making me want to grab The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.

Because of the structure of the book (each chapter is another complete adventure for Twig) I think this would make a really good bedtime story book or book to share as a class/group of children. The chapters follow along from one another but they're also self-contained, so there's no need to end it in the middle of the action.

I'd definitely recommend this one for adults and children to share together; or for adults to indulge in for themselves.

Walking Progress

It's been a while since I updated my walking progress. As I've mentioned before, inspired by the Eowyn Challenge I have spent the year so far trying to 'walk' from Hobbiton to Rivendell in Middle-earth.

My progress has slowed down somewhat in the last week, after an awesome week the week before, as you can see above. There wasn't anything serious last week, I was just feeling rather under the weather, so I'm hoping to bounce back this week and try and get at least five 10,000 step days in over the coming seven days.

As for my progress across Middle-earth?

As of Sunday, I was on Day 10 of the Hobbits' progress towards Rivendell. I have now met up with Strider, left Bree and my current location is coming out of the Chetwood. I'm on one of those stretches where you go quite some distance without any real change in Middle-earth scenery and part of me was sorely tempted to join my friends on their 19 mile walk they went on yesterday. The other part of me argued that Sunday morning was the first day that I didn't feel totally rotten so I'd probably be best off taking it nice and easy.

As you can see above, I'm doing really well towards my goal. I'm especially pleased that I'm ahead of target at the moment. I think I'm due to finish somewhere around about Christmas time at the moment, which gives me a nice little buffer of a week or so in case I fall behind.

I'm really looking forward to crossing that 200 mile mark, but first I have to get past the Midgewater Marshes, at 173 miles. Luckily, living in Scotland, I have plenty of experience of midges!

Weekly Rundown: Shopping. Again.

Well, we needed food, and so a trip to the mainland was in order and then the inevitable kind of happened.

Mr Click and up were up at our usual time yesterday, in other words, entirely too early for a Saturday. Luckily for us the boats are running back to Wemyss Bay now, rather than Gourock, which means that the journey to the mainland is back to being a little over 30 minutes (rather than a little over an hour).

And I had one thing on my mind. Stationery!

I will admit now, I do have rather something of a problem in this department. It's like I can't help myself. The plus side is that I am actually using it all. Back when I first got my massive stash of washi tape it took a lot of effort to use it, knowing that once I'd used up a roll there was no guarantee that I would ever get the same roll again.

But now I've got so much that I'm happy to use it. And if I run out of my favourite stuff, it's no great shame, because I've got plenty and another will just have to be my favourite instead. Using it is just an excuse to buy more.

I've recently gotten into writing letters to people. I've got a whole host of pen pals now, most evenings are spent penning replies to my latest 'happy mail'. Some of them I exchange little washi tape samples with (some I'm always on the look out for something cute in my collection that I can send on), and others I use plain lined paper which I jazz up with tape and stickers.

So while Mr Click was wandering round Lidl and Tesco looking for essential stuff like dog food and loo roll, I was looking at all the bits and pieces in the hopes of finding new pretties.

And I did!

First in Lidl where I scored six sheets of stickers. I have a bit of a thing for butterfly stickers and although you can't see it above, there's a sheet of butterflies on the other side of the dragonflies. Also, I'm totally organised for next Easter with all those Easter Eggs!

Mr Click had a discount voucher for Tesco so I also picked up some (more) new pens in Tesco as well as the only washi tape they had in the store (pink and green and pretty good value for money). Mr Click got the latest Pet Shop Boys album so he was happy too.

I talked him into stopping in Greenock for a trip to WH Smith, only to find it wasn't there anymore. I'd had my hopes set on buying a set of their brush pens so to temper my disappointment I got a preowned copy of Scribblenauts Unlimited in Game instead to make up for it.

Oh, and Tara didn't go untreated either.

We got her a nice and shiny new collar for her at Christmas and it's been looking a bit worn out recently, so we stopped at Pets at Home. We debated replacing it with a regular red one again, before spotting a very smart 'luxury' brown leather one. And it was only £1 more than the other, so I decided to spoil her.

The only one who didn't get a treat all of his own was Yoda. But we had chicken nuggets for tea which he seemed pretty happy with.

Film Review: The Battle of the Five Armies, Part 4

We have almost reached the end of the final Hobbit film, The Battle of the Five Armies. Last week the battle really picked up with giant wereworms showing up at roughly the same time as Thorin's cousin, Dain.

This week, Thorin realises that they really can't be doing without him and perhaps the time has come to lend a hand.

150. Back on the battlefield, Dain's doing a fair job.

151. It's now snowing and Dale is on fire.

152. Bard is a bit daft if he thinks that Alfrid is actually going to see the women and children to the Great Hall and then go back to fight himself.

153. "Out of my way! Abandon the cripples!" That's the spirit, Alfrid.

154. Poor reindeer.

155. Now Thranduil has to get his hands dirty.

156. You know it's a serious battle because the music gets louder and the sound of the battle gets quiet while we get a battle montage.

157. And now it's Dain's piggle's turn to get taken out.

158. And Dain doesn't know where Thorin is, uh, hiding in his mountain, mate.

159. Now for some clips of dead people and dying Elves. Just so you know how bad things are. We see Gandalf fighting, but what about Bilbo?

160. Back to the Mountain.

161. Thorin's making no plans to go anywhere, even though Dwalin is practically begging him to let them go out and join the battle.

162. Thorin's not having any of it, he's all about the gold now.

163. Dwalin basically tells Thorin that he's not his king anymore. Thorin reacts in a sensible, rational manner; Dwalin's pretty much expelled from Erebor. Let's face it, that's kind of what he wanted anyway.

164. And Thorin's in the golden hall where they attacked the dragon. He's hearing voices and hallucinating a dragon swimming beneath the gold.

165. Then he gets swallowed up by the gold. This is obviously his important turning point.

166. Back to the battle. Dain's not doing so well.

167. Azog's pretty certain he's got this wrapped up.

168. The Dwarves are still moping about in the Mountain. If I was them, and that desperate for battle, I think I'd just leave by now.

169. Poor Kili, he's obviously rehearsed this speech and now Thorin's just strolling out being all kingly and noble again.

170. Looks like they're going out to fight then.

171. Better try and find Bilbo so you can apologise to him as well, especially as not that long ago you were trying to kill him.

172. The Dwarves outside are pretty much backed up against a wall.

173. It's really lucky that they don't kill any of Dain's Dwarves when they knock down the wall that they made.

174. I love that the battle was being lost, but now these thirteen Dwarves have charged out and now the tables are turning. Thorin must be some guy.

175. I quite like the little scenes they've added of Thorin's guys fighting. They're nice little nods to the characters we've come to know.

176. Travelling axe!

177. A blind troll with metal limbs does not seem like a safe weapon or mode of transport.

178. Bofur seems to have realised this also.

179. Looks like he's getting the hang of it now.

180. And in Dale the battle continues.

181. The woman who shouted at Alfrid earlier is rallying the women, children and old men to fight as well.

182. Alfrid is brave because he's wearing a corset. And he's found some gold, so he clearly has a new plan.

183. I like the little conversation between Dain and Thorin while they fight. Especially the way that they don't even break stride.

184. Apparently no one other than Thorin had the idea of kill Azog to end the battle.

185. At least he's not going it alone. He's taking his best men with him (which we only get to see in the Extended Edition, in the theatrical version they just ride up there on goats, now we see how they got the goats up there).

186. Turns out that goat pulled carts don't do so well on ice, especially when it's being smashed up by an angry troll.

187. Luckily Bofur's there with his troll to take out the other one, until his sinks.

188. The cart has the Middle-earth equivalent of a machine gun on it, except it's made of wood and fires arrows.

189. Oh dear, they've lost a goat.

190. And Dwalin's realised they're too heavy to get away.

191. Balin's getting his Big Hero moment as he tells them to go on without him, and take the goats.

192. I love that as he's shooting the wargs he says "I. Am. Too. Old. For. This."

193. Alfrid's still in his woman's outfit, though he's rather more well-endowed than before, though his corset's spilling gold.

194. Bard doesn't care that he gave up the chance of being Master, because he has his kids, aww.

195. Gandalf's not having much luck with his new staff. Hopefully he'll be able to get it tuned up in case he ever needs to, I don't know, do battle against a Balrog or something.

196. Alfrid's found himself in a catapult and his own greed is his undoing. What a way to go, being choked on by a troll.

197. Bilbo's shown up again, just in time to see Thorin and his back up riding up Ravenhill.

198. Azog's spotted the goat riders and I suspect that this is what he's been waiting for Thorin to do.

199. And their not on goat-back any more. Time for some hand-to-hand combat.

200. Legolas and Tauriel have shown up, and they haven't got good news. Bolg is coming.

201. And they're heading for Ravenhill. Great, they'll be able to take out most of the Dwarf royal family.

202. Kili thinks Azog has fled. That's just what he wants you to think.

203. Thorin's sending Fili and Kili to their deaths. I mean, to scout out the area.

204. Time for Thranduil to look pained about the number of his fallen fighters.

205. He's had enough. He's off.

206. Bilbo's volunteering for the suicide mission up to Ravenhill to warn the others. That's actually one thing I'm glad that they did change from the book, I always wanted to know what was going on in the battle when Bilbo was unconscious after being bopped on the head.

207. I do kind of like Tauriel standing up to Thranduil. He's clearly needed someone to stand up to him for once.

208. Thranduil doesn't really take kindly to someone standing up to him though.


209. Luckily Legolas is willing to stand up to his dad.

And we'll leave the two of them posturing until next week when things get very, very sad. Get your tissues ready.

Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 13

We're now roughly halfway through New Moon and I guess things are getting interesting. Bella has discovered that Jacob is a werewolf and that her father (plus a large number of their neighbours) are off to kill off the wolves that have been terrorising visitors to the woods.

And there's still no sign of Edward.

This week it's Chapter 13: Killer.

What Happens?

Bella meets with Jacob and learns that it's not actually his pack that has been killing the tourists. She also learns that Laurent is no longer a cause for concern but that Victoria is. Jacob's happy though because Bella has plenty of insider knowledge about vampires which is going to help the pack, so he arranges a meeting with them and takes her along.

Thoughts as I read:

Bella's on her way to La Push to try and save Jacob. She's feeling conflicted:

I couldn't condone what Jacob and his friends, his pack, were doing. I understood now what he'd said last night – that I might not want to see him again – and I could have called him as he'd suggested, but that felt cowardly. I owed him a face-to-face conversation, at least. I would tell him to his face that I just couldn't overlook what was going on. I couldn't be friends with a killer and say nothing, let the killing continue… That would make me a monster too.

There's a comment I could make here about her going out with a vampire, one who occasionally struggled to control himself around her.

When Bella arrives at Jacob's house, Billy calls her into the house but claims that he has no idea where his son it. Bella's not got time to mess around so she tells him straight out that Charlie's out hunting wolves with half the town. This seems to shake Billy a little, though he hides it well, before admitting that Jacob's not up yet; he's been out late.

Jacob's still fast asleep (and his room is tiny, so I don't understand why he has a double bed in it rather than a single, so he'd have room for some actual furniture). Bella decides against waking him up and instead heads to the beach, planning to catch him later.

So that's where she goes. And we have about a page of Bella sitting at the beach where she first met Jacob and they chatted about how some people in his community are apparently descended from wolves. Then Jacob shows up. He seems to have had a bit of a personality transplant since he started turning into a wolf because he's annoyed that Bella didn't just phone instead of coming round like this.

Seriously, a few hours ago the guy was trying to be secret friends with her, now they're out in public and he's back to being a jerk. Personally I think I'd just leave him right now and let him deal with all the heavily armed townspeople by himself. Jacob claims that he already knew about it anyway, and they're confident that they'll be able to deal with it.

Bella's still begging for Jacob to talk to her and goes to that classic question:

"Could you… well, try to not be a… werewolf?" I suggested in a whisper.
He threw his hands up in the air. "Like I have a choice about it!" he shouted.

Jacob reveals that he's kind of pissed because Bella is clearly frightened of him. He's annoyed because she wasn't particularly scared of Edward. Bella isn't getting this until Jacob pretty much spells it out for her. So Bella finally reveals what bothers her so much about his werewolf status; it's the fact that he's been out murdering people with his pack.

In her head, Bella's hearing Edward's voice telling her to tread carefully. For once Bella listens and the next thing she knows Jacob is laughing his head off. I think it's safe to assume that Jacob and his gang are not in fact the ones out killing tourists. My money's still on it being Laurent or Victoria.

Suddenly the whole thing seems very funny to the pair of them, after all the guys call themselves 'Protectors'. They're not out there killing the tourists; they're out in the forest trying to stop whatever it is that's killing the tourists. And then Bella figures out that it's Laurent.

But it's okay, they got rid of him. Jacob quite enjoyed killing him as well. Bella doesn't seem too bothered about her friend killing someone quite calmly, instead she's really relieved that he's dead and she can stop worry about she and her dad being eaten. Apparently there's been a bit of miscommunication. When Jacob was warning Bella she thought he was warning her about Laurent but instead Jacob was warning Bella that if he gets angry he can lose control. And turn into a wolf.

"You don't need a full moon?"
He rolled his eyes. "Hollywood's version doesn't get much right."

Just like the whole sparkly vampire thing, it would seem.

But then it's revealed that despite getting rid of Laurent, the killings have continued. Looks like Victoria's still hanging around then. Bella doesn't take this news well, so she faints.

When she's feeling slightly more composed, she explains the whole James-wanted-to-eat-me,-Edward-killed-James,-Victoria-wants-revenge thing. So Jacob has to call a meeting and tell them all what's going on. And he's off, just leaving Bella behind, alone, on the beach, when there's a vampire on the loose wanting to kill her. Nice one, mate.

Bella immediately begins to panic. But it's not long before Jacob gets back and Bella tells him that she's now more worried about the wolves attacking the vampire and losing. Jacob now reveals that when he's in his wolf form he can communicate telepathically with the other wolves. He admits that it's kind of embarrassing when that happens, presumably they know everything about one another. It's a little like the way that Edward is able to read other people's thoughts too.

It's also revealed that as Sam is the pack's Alpha, if he tells one of the guys that they can't do something, they can't do it; no matter how much they want to. That's the real reason why Jacob couldn't tell Bella just what he was the night before. This leads to this brilliant exchange:

"Weird," I muttered.
"Very," he agreed. "It's kind of a wolf thing."
"Huh" was the best response I could think of.

We get a little bit of information about the way wolf things work, which I'm glad of because it took ages to get to this sort of information in the last book. When Jacob transformed for the first time it was awful for him but he help in the form of voices in his head which told him what was going on; Sam on the other hand just had it happen all by himself with no help.

Now Jacob seems to be planning to use Bella as a bit of a spy, considering she has all this insider knowledge of what vampires are like and the way they work. Bella's not sure she wants this, especially as that means that Jacob might be the one to kill Victoria and that's a fight which could go both ways.

But right now, Bella doesn't want to talk about any of this. And it's fine because the guys have shown up and it's time to get this show on the road.

But that's for the next chapter.