Sunday, 14 August 2016
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Things to do when you can't sleep
I've had issues with sleeping for years now. As a teenager I'd lie awake reading or writing into the small hours of the morning. This was pre-internet so when you hit the end of a project or book there was no one to share that moment with.
Nowadays I don't really have any trouble falling asleep. It's the staying asleep that I struggle with. For the last couple of months I've fallen into a pattern of waking somewhere in the region of 2am and then falling asleep anywhere from two to four hours later.
For the most part, I'm okay with this (if slightly put out that this time it's just plain old insomnia and not pregnancy insomnia like last year). I might feel a little bit sleepy the following day, it just means I fall asleep sooner when I go to bed. Actually, if I stop up as late as possible, I'll often sleep until a more respectable time the following morning.
So here are some of the things I'm doing with this time, along with some photos of a sleepy labrador, since there aren't any photos of me sleeping!
Reading
I like to read. You may have noticed that.
It's easier to read at night if I'm reading on my Kindle, since I don't need to put the light on or fumble around with a torch in order to see my page. In the past we didn't have curtains which block the light out so this wasn't as much of an issue in the summer; now, ebooks are handy for early morning reading sessions.
Reading is a good strategy since it relaxes you and I always find it makes my eyes tired. Plus there are certain books (and authors) that are like literary sleeping pills.
Listening to music
Sometimes my eyes are tired and I don't feel like reading, but I'm still frustratingly awake. Now we've got internet access I can pull up playlights on Spotify which match my mood. Something gentle or relaxing is good.
Or you can try a touch of reverse psychology on yourself. Play something upbeat and jazzy, try and sing along to it (quietly if you're sharing your room or bed with someone else). A mini disco might not send you to sleep, but it'll keep you occupied.
Listening to white noise
I only tried this for the first time last night and I can't really say whether it helped. I downloaded one called 'Nature Sounds' last night, well, this morning, around 5am. The idea is you're given a selection of scenarios which you can select. They're things like 'Relaxing Ocean' and 'Waterfall' which play sounds you might expect to hear in that place. Mine gives you the option to add addition effects, like the wind blowing or a campfire crackling, depending on the one you pick.
Honestly, I'm not really sold on it. It took me a couple of goes to find one which didn't irritate the hell out of me. I thought the 'Calm Night' one would suit but there was some damn owl which kept hooting. In the end of went for something like 'Summer Forest'.
It gives you the option to set a timer so it automatically turns itself off once you've fallen asleep. I listened to it for about ten minutes in total but didn't feel any more relaxed or sleepy. But I did fall asleep about fifteen/twenty minutes after listening to it. I'm going to try this one again and report back.
Colouring In
I'm yet to try this one either. I'm a big fan of my colour book collection and I do find colouring in incredibly relaxing. The downside is that this would require me to leave my nice cosy bed and relocate to the living room in order to spread out all my books and pencils.
Of course, getting out of bed seems sort of counterproductive, after all, you need to be in bed to actually sleep. But sometimes I do wonder if getting out of bed would stop me from trying to sleep and so allow my body to relax or something. I feel like this is one to try at the weekends, rather than on a 'school night' so that if I need to crawl back into bed at 6am after creating a masterpiece, I don't have to worry about dozing off at my desk.
Imagination
This is a technique I've used to get to sleep for as long as I can remember and it ties into my lucid dreaming as well. Put simply, I tell myself stories as I lie there in the darkness.
As a child these were usually linked to whatever book or film I'd read or seen that day. Nowadays I'll play around with scenarios and characters in stories I'm working on. Going back twenty-three years it was like an early form of fan fiction; now it's like a way of playing around with different scenarios without committing to anything on paper.
I think this sends me to sleep simply because I've used it as a way of winding down in my sleep routine for so long. There are certain 'stories' which seem to send me to sleep quicker than others. The problem is, it gets a little boring going over the same things and often when I mix them up, they stop sending me to sleep because my tired little brain wants to know what's going to happen next in the story.
Just getting up
As with the colouring in scenario, this would require me to unsnuggle myself from the bed and get up. But again, it's an option.
If, like me, you live with someone else, you're kind of limited on just how much you can do if you decide to get up in the middle of the night. Mr Click's a fairly heavy sleeper, but if I decided to do some vacuuming or, I don't know, start doing woodwork or something, I think he'd probably notice. Watching a film on my laptop, blogging or taking the dog for a walk (if it's light enough) are all options.
Reading online I found a couple of sites that suggested that people often wake up between 2am and 4am because of a drop in blood sugar. And I thought this might be my reason for waking. So I have gotten out of bed to grab a snack (actually, I've taken to just keeping a pack of digestive biscuits on my side of the bed). I can't honestly say this has helped though, I like to fall asleep with the taste of toothpaste in my mouth; eating a digestive biscuit just means all I can taste is biscuit and it puts me off.
Sometimes I think that the reason I'm awake is simply because I'm done sleeping. Especially if I've gone to bed pretty early. Historically people used to wake and go out before returning to bed for their 'second sleep'. Maybe I should take a leaf out of their books and just go with the flow.
What do you do when you can't sleep?
Nowadays I don't really have any trouble falling asleep. It's the staying asleep that I struggle with. For the last couple of months I've fallen into a pattern of waking somewhere in the region of 2am and then falling asleep anywhere from two to four hours later.
For the most part, I'm okay with this (if slightly put out that this time it's just plain old insomnia and not pregnancy insomnia like last year). I might feel a little bit sleepy the following day, it just means I fall asleep sooner when I go to bed. Actually, if I stop up as late as possible, I'll often sleep until a more respectable time the following morning.
So here are some of the things I'm doing with this time, along with some photos of a sleepy labrador, since there aren't any photos of me sleeping!
Reading
I like to read. You may have noticed that.
It's easier to read at night if I'm reading on my Kindle, since I don't need to put the light on or fumble around with a torch in order to see my page. In the past we didn't have curtains which block the light out so this wasn't as much of an issue in the summer; now, ebooks are handy for early morning reading sessions.
Reading is a good strategy since it relaxes you and I always find it makes my eyes tired. Plus there are certain books (and authors) that are like literary sleeping pills.
Listening to music
Sometimes my eyes are tired and I don't feel like reading, but I'm still frustratingly awake. Now we've got internet access I can pull up playlights on Spotify which match my mood. Something gentle or relaxing is good.
Or you can try a touch of reverse psychology on yourself. Play something upbeat and jazzy, try and sing along to it (quietly if you're sharing your room or bed with someone else). A mini disco might not send you to sleep, but it'll keep you occupied.
Listening to white noise
I only tried this for the first time last night and I can't really say whether it helped. I downloaded one called 'Nature Sounds' last night, well, this morning, around 5am. The idea is you're given a selection of scenarios which you can select. They're things like 'Relaxing Ocean' and 'Waterfall' which play sounds you might expect to hear in that place. Mine gives you the option to add addition effects, like the wind blowing or a campfire crackling, depending on the one you pick.
Honestly, I'm not really sold on it. It took me a couple of goes to find one which didn't irritate the hell out of me. I thought the 'Calm Night' one would suit but there was some damn owl which kept hooting. In the end of went for something like 'Summer Forest'.
It gives you the option to set a timer so it automatically turns itself off once you've fallen asleep. I listened to it for about ten minutes in total but didn't feel any more relaxed or sleepy. But I did fall asleep about fifteen/twenty minutes after listening to it. I'm going to try this one again and report back.
Colouring In
I'm yet to try this one either. I'm a big fan of my colour book collection and I do find colouring in incredibly relaxing. The downside is that this would require me to leave my nice cosy bed and relocate to the living room in order to spread out all my books and pencils.
Of course, getting out of bed seems sort of counterproductive, after all, you need to be in bed to actually sleep. But sometimes I do wonder if getting out of bed would stop me from trying to sleep and so allow my body to relax or something. I feel like this is one to try at the weekends, rather than on a 'school night' so that if I need to crawl back into bed at 6am after creating a masterpiece, I don't have to worry about dozing off at my desk.
Imagination
This is a technique I've used to get to sleep for as long as I can remember and it ties into my lucid dreaming as well. Put simply, I tell myself stories as I lie there in the darkness.
As a child these were usually linked to whatever book or film I'd read or seen that day. Nowadays I'll play around with scenarios and characters in stories I'm working on. Going back twenty-three years it was like an early form of fan fiction; now it's like a way of playing around with different scenarios without committing to anything on paper.
I think this sends me to sleep simply because I've used it as a way of winding down in my sleep routine for so long. There are certain 'stories' which seem to send me to sleep quicker than others. The problem is, it gets a little boring going over the same things and often when I mix them up, they stop sending me to sleep because my tired little brain wants to know what's going to happen next in the story.
Just getting up
As with the colouring in scenario, this would require me to unsnuggle myself from the bed and get up. But again, it's an option.
If, like me, you live with someone else, you're kind of limited on just how much you can do if you decide to get up in the middle of the night. Mr Click's a fairly heavy sleeper, but if I decided to do some vacuuming or, I don't know, start doing woodwork or something, I think he'd probably notice. Watching a film on my laptop, blogging or taking the dog for a walk (if it's light enough) are all options.
Reading online I found a couple of sites that suggested that people often wake up between 2am and 4am because of a drop in blood sugar. And I thought this might be my reason for waking. So I have gotten out of bed to grab a snack (actually, I've taken to just keeping a pack of digestive biscuits on my side of the bed). I can't honestly say this has helped though, I like to fall asleep with the taste of toothpaste in my mouth; eating a digestive biscuit just means all I can taste is biscuit and it puts me off.
Sometimes I think that the reason I'm awake is simply because I'm done sleeping. Especially if I've gone to bed pretty early. Historically people used to wake and go out before returning to bed for their 'second sleep'. Maybe I should take a leaf out of their books and just go with the flow.
What do you do when you can't sleep?
Friday, 12 August 2016
Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 14
I did a recap on where we got up to last week, so let's jump straight into the next chapter.
It's Chapter 14: Family.
What Happens?
Bella gets to meet not only the werewolf pack, but also pack mum, Emily. The guys put together a plan to protect Bella and Charlie which also involves using Bella as bait for the vampire. There's absolutely nothing that can go wrong with this plan.
Thoughts as I read:
This chapter is called Family and I'm guessing that it's not going to be Bella's family we're meeting here. She's going to be getting to know Jacob's new family, Sam's gang. And I wonder how well this is going to go down.
It's Chapter 14: Family.
What Happens?
Bella gets to meet not only the werewolf pack, but also pack mum, Emily. The guys put together a plan to protect Bella and Charlie which also involves using Bella as bait for the vampire. There's absolutely nothing that can go wrong with this plan.
Thoughts as I read:
This chapter is called Family and I'm guessing that it's not going to be Bella's family we're meeting here. She's going to be getting to know Jacob's new family, Sam's gang. And I wonder how well this is going to go down.
I cowered into Jacob's side, my eyes scanning the forest for the other werewolves. When they appeared, striding out from between the trees, they weren't what I was expecting. I'd gotten the image of the wolves stuck in my head. These were just four really big half-naked boys.
And this is clearly why the films were so popular.
These guys look pretty similar and they're not pleased to see that Jacob has brought Bella with him. Sam is the most annoyed of all, though one of them does refer to Bella as 'the leech-lover' which is a really bad attempt at a derogatory name, Mudblood has way more impact as a put down.
One of the guys, Paul, is so angry that he completely loses control and pretty much turns into a wolf right there in front of Bella, leading to this awesome description:
Paul seemed to fall forward, vibrating violently. Halfway to the ground there was a loud ripping noise, and the boy exploded.
Umm. Cool.
Then Jacob does it to and protects Bella from Paul. Bella's really the ultimate damsel in distress.
Jacob and Paul have a full on dog fight so Sam orders the two other guys to take Bella to someone called Emily's house. These guys are Jared and Embry and they seem to find the situation quite amusing. It seems that Paul getting worked up enough to transform into a wolf happens fairly regularly and they think it's funny because he's torn up another set of clothes; Hulk-style. Being a werewolf is expensive business.
After a few minutes of this, they seem to realise that Bella is still there for all of thirty seconds, then they go back to debating who is going to win the fight. Paul's got experience on his side but Jake is faster, or something. They're nowhere near as worried about the pair as Bella is.
Actually, it's like Bella's not even there. They all get into the car and the boys are just talking about her as though it's just the two of them. That is, until they realise that Bella knows about them when there's an 'injunction' preventing Jacob from speaking about what they are. She lamely explains this away with her guessing the truth. You'd think they'd have some better way of concealing the secret, practically anyone could guess that.
And we finally find out who Emily is; she's Sam's fiancee. Bella's given the instruction not to stare at Emily. I wonder if that means that she's super hairy or something, some sort of wolfwoman. We get a little into the whole Vampire/Werewolf thing. Embry actually asks Bella whether Laurent was a friend of hers because they're not wanting to interfere with 'the treaty' which seems to be some sort of agreement that the werewolves don't attack the vampires unless the vampires attack a human. Seems fair enough to me.
Oh and the reason Bella's not to stare at Emily, we find that out when we get to her house:
The right side of her face was scarred from hairline to chin by three thick, red lines, livid in color though they were long healed. One line pulled down the corner of her dark, almond-shaped right eye, another twisted the right side of her mouth into a permanent grimace.
Bella's grateful for Embry giving her the heads up not to stare, because she's the sort of person who'll apparently eagle eye anyone who looks slightly different unless you tell her not to. Seriously?!
Despite this, Bella and Emily seem to hit it off right away, what with one being the 'wolf girl' and the other being the 'vampire girl'. I guess they can bond over their love of supernatural beings. About this time Emily uses the word 'brothers' to refer to the other guys in the pack, that ties in nicely to the title, doesn't it?
We also learn that Emily has scars all down her arm as well, which Bella puts down to a risk of hanging out with werewolves. I really hope that's not the case. If my boyfriend and his friends left me with seriously disfiguring scars, I'd be noping right out of there!
Sam, Jacob and Paul show up and everyone is friends again. Well, that's good, I suppose. I mean, at least they're not all at each other's throats any more. Not only that, Paul has a rapidly healing scratch on his arm. That's a wolf thing, it would seem.
Jacob fills everyone in attendance in on what Victoria is after, and why. Jared is thrilled about this because they can use Bella as bait to lure the vampire in and then get her. Bella doesn't get any say in this but she doesn't voice any immediate complaints either. She really does have a death wish, doesn't she.
Bella will be kept at La Push as much as possible, and they'll take care of Charlie as well so he's safe too. So Bella hangs out at Jacob's place and Billy invites Charlie over to join them. Charlie obviously seems to think that Bella and Jacob are an item now. I'm so glad they're not.
Jacob's actually looking forward to getting out hunting some vampire and he tells Bella as much as he sees her and Charlie off that evening.
Charlie, meanwhile, is a bit annoyed at Bella since not all that long ago she was complaining about Jacob falling out with her and joining a gang. Charlie also fills in that Emily was mauled by a bear, though Bella still seems pretty convinced that Sam was the culprit.
And we're into the traditional pattern in these books; the chapter ends with Bella falling asleep and dreaming about being in the woods with Emily. She uses the phrase 'waited anxiously for our werewolves to come home'. Jeez Bella, leave Jacob alone, look at how messed up Edward was after you hooked up with him!
I wonder if anyone's going to get hurt in this little plan.
Thursday, 11 August 2016
Introducing Bertie Bloomer
This is a long and picture-heavy post, but I'm not going to apologise because this guy was a monster of time and effort. He's less knitting project and more work of art!
The pattern is from the Knitted Clowns pattern book by Jean Greenhowe. I scored my copy for £1 in a charity shop in Ayr, thought he'd make a good birthday present for my father-in-law and pretty much started knitting him within a couple of days.
He took a little over two months to knit and wound up not being done in time for the birthday, so he was two weeks late, but finished in time for Father's Day (by less than about twelve hours)!
This is honestly the largest project that I've ever attempted. There are so many different parts to him that it really was a labour of love. I had all of the colours that I needed (though at one point I was running a little low on the light grey in the watering can). And I must've used about two bags of stuffing!
He stands 19" tall; 22" if you count to the top of his mushrooms. And it's the little details that really make him. His body knitted up very quickly and once he had his face he developed this wonderful character.
The pattern is so simple. If you can knit, purl, increase and decrease then you can knit this work of art. The sewing up took rather a long time, but I actually came to quite enjoy it. I loved watching him take shape.
I only made two modifications. The partly because of the pattern calling for twisted cords on the daisy chain and the string in Bertie's pocket. I cannot get the hang of making decent twisted cords so I just plaited it. A four-strand braid looks just the same as a twisted cord.
The other modification was the daisies themselves. The pattern called for a technique which just didn't turn out the way I wanted. It didn't look even enough for me, but luckily my Mum had sent me the Scarecrow Family pattern book. Sally Scarecrow has flowers on her hat so I adopted them for Bertie. They came out slightly larger than the ones in the original pattern, so I didn't need as many. They look great though.
Bertie stands up on his own two feet and my dad-in-law was thrilled with him. I'd thought that perhaps he could hang out in the greenhouse to keep him company out there, but my mum-in-law fell in love with him too and wouldn't hear of it. So he lives on the desk in the living room instead. It makes me smile every time I'm in there and they're determined that I should enter him in the local Horticultural Society Show.
And will I attempt another pattern from this book?
Definitely yes!
But maybe not for another year or so!
The pattern is from the Knitted Clowns pattern book by Jean Greenhowe. I scored my copy for £1 in a charity shop in Ayr, thought he'd make a good birthday present for my father-in-law and pretty much started knitting him within a couple of days.
He took a little over two months to knit and wound up not being done in time for the birthday, so he was two weeks late, but finished in time for Father's Day (by less than about twelve hours)!
This is honestly the largest project that I've ever attempted. There are so many different parts to him that it really was a labour of love. I had all of the colours that I needed (though at one point I was running a little low on the light grey in the watering can). And I must've used about two bags of stuffing!
He stands 19" tall; 22" if you count to the top of his mushrooms. And it's the little details that really make him. His body knitted up very quickly and once he had his face he developed this wonderful character.
The pattern is so simple. If you can knit, purl, increase and decrease then you can knit this work of art. The sewing up took rather a long time, but I actually came to quite enjoy it. I loved watching him take shape.
I only made two modifications. The partly because of the pattern calling for twisted cords on the daisy chain and the string in Bertie's pocket. I cannot get the hang of making decent twisted cords so I just plaited it. A four-strand braid looks just the same as a twisted cord.
The other modification was the daisies themselves. The pattern called for a technique which just didn't turn out the way I wanted. It didn't look even enough for me, but luckily my Mum had sent me the Scarecrow Family pattern book. Sally Scarecrow has flowers on her hat so I adopted them for Bertie. They came out slightly larger than the ones in the original pattern, so I didn't need as many. They look great though.
Bertie stands up on his own two feet and my dad-in-law was thrilled with him. I'd thought that perhaps he could hang out in the greenhouse to keep him company out there, but my mum-in-law fell in love with him too and wouldn't hear of it. So he lives on the desk in the living room instead. It makes me smile every time I'm in there and they're determined that I should enter him in the local Horticultural Society Show.
And will I attempt another pattern from this book?
Definitely yes!
But maybe not for another year or so!
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Currently...
So, what am I up to this week?
Well perhaps the most exciting this that cropped up this week was a visitor in our garden. I don't even know which heading to put this under so I'm just going to throw it right in here at the beginning.
Yesterday morning I opened the door and noticed something strange on my doorstep, kind of like a little stone, but squishier. For a minute I thought perhaps we'd had a pheasant in the garden or something, until I turned the corner round the back of our house and came face to face with this:
Yup. That's a chicken.
Tara completely ignored it so I did wonder if perhaps I was having some sort of early morning hallucination. But, nope, definitely a chicken.
It hung out in the garden all day yesterday and all night, finally vanishing at some point today. But I really enjoyed having a little visitor for the day, especially with that cute wonky beak.
Other than chicken-watching, Currently I'm...
Reading
Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a free book on my Kindle and it's one I've had for ages. Right now I'm working through some of the books that I downloaded back when I first got my Kindle about four years ago. This is one of them. I've enjoyed the other Robert Louis Stevenson books I've read in the past so this was an easy choice. It's a collection of essays and reminiscences. Different to what I'd normally read, but I'm liking it.
Working On
My Behind the Scenes story again. I've spent the last few weeks thinking about it and at the weekend I dug it out again. I typed up the whole first chapter/prologue and realised that it's awful, but also that there's a subtler theme going on in the story than I first realised. All of my main characters are hiding something about themselves or not being true to who they really are; so it's not just 'behind the scenes' on a film set, but it's 'behind the scenes' of the people themselves.
I'm not sure if analysing your own stories is a side effect of studying English Literature, but I'm quite impressed at my seventeen-year-old subconscious for squirreling that away in the story. I'm quite excited to carry on working on it to see what else I can uncover.
Wondering
What to put my £33 worth of vouchers that I won last week towards. I had a look through the list of shops I can spend them on and considered using them for Christmas gifts, until I found out I can spend them in Waterstones and WH Smith. And I'm off the island next week. And I'm considering treating myself to something that I wouldn't ordinarily buy myself. I just don't actually know what that is yet.
What've you been up to this week?
Well perhaps the most exciting this that cropped up this week was a visitor in our garden. I don't even know which heading to put this under so I'm just going to throw it right in here at the beginning.
Yesterday morning I opened the door and noticed something strange on my doorstep, kind of like a little stone, but squishier. For a minute I thought perhaps we'd had a pheasant in the garden or something, until I turned the corner round the back of our house and came face to face with this:
Yup. That's a chicken.
Tara completely ignored it so I did wonder if perhaps I was having some sort of early morning hallucination. But, nope, definitely a chicken.
It hung out in the garden all day yesterday and all night, finally vanishing at some point today. But I really enjoyed having a little visitor for the day, especially with that cute wonky beak.
Other than chicken-watching, Currently I'm...
Reading
Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a free book on my Kindle and it's one I've had for ages. Right now I'm working through some of the books that I downloaded back when I first got my Kindle about four years ago. This is one of them. I've enjoyed the other Robert Louis Stevenson books I've read in the past so this was an easy choice. It's a collection of essays and reminiscences. Different to what I'd normally read, but I'm liking it.
Working On
My Behind the Scenes story again. I've spent the last few weeks thinking about it and at the weekend I dug it out again. I typed up the whole first chapter/prologue and realised that it's awful, but also that there's a subtler theme going on in the story than I first realised. All of my main characters are hiding something about themselves or not being true to who they really are; so it's not just 'behind the scenes' on a film set, but it's 'behind the scenes' of the people themselves.
I'm not sure if analysing your own stories is a side effect of studying English Literature, but I'm quite impressed at my seventeen-year-old subconscious for squirreling that away in the story. I'm quite excited to carry on working on it to see what else I can uncover.
Wondering
What to put my £33 worth of vouchers that I won last week towards. I had a look through the list of shops I can spend them on and considered using them for Christmas gifts, until I found out I can spend them in Waterstones and WH Smith. And I'm off the island next week. And I'm considering treating myself to something that I wouldn't ordinarily buy myself. I just don't actually know what that is yet.
What've you been up to this week?
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Books 57 & 58 of 2015: The Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer & The Beautifull Cassandra by Jane Austen
Both of this week's books are from Penguin's 80th Anniversary Little Black Classics collection. I read these almost exactly a year ago and I'm guessing that I was looking for something quick to tide me over until the following week's challenge read began. These are less than 60 pages each so they're the perfect books to read in between bigger novels.
The Wife of Bath is one of the stories from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It gives a little glimpse into women of the period when it was written, and follows the story of a Knight who is to be punished for attacking a woman. Guinevere intercedes and saves him from death, but only on the condition that he must find out what women desire most.
I was actually rather surprised at some of the ideas expressed in this little book. It includes ideas about women being in charge in a relationship, which was not something that I expected from a book written in the 14th Century.
I also liked that it was written in verse. I would love to see it as it was in its original Middle English. I loved studying it during my linguistics course and it would be fun to decode it alongside the English translation. It was a surprisingly fun little read. I really enjoyed it.
At some point I would like to read the rest of The Canterbury Tales. I wonder if you can get a combination edition with both the original text and the translation. Actually, I might have a copy of The Canterbury Tales on my Kindle. I'll have to look into it.
I followed up The Wife of Bath with The Beautifull Cassandra by Jane Austen. And, yup, that's the actual title of it. It was written by a rather young Austen and preserves all of her spelling errors. It's a tale of a young woman who goes out into the world to make her fortune.
I'll admit, until last year's reading challenge, I'd never really read much Austen. I'd started reading Emma once, but never finished it, and I'd read Persuasion but that was about it. Then I read and fell in love with Emma and made it through Pride and Prejudice as well so this seemed like a logical choice for a quick read.
I really enjoyed this. It was interesting to get a glimpse into Jane Austen's writing as a teenager. In several points I felt like I could see hints of her style which would develop in her adult novels.
It was also funny because the stories in this book reminded me of the stories I would write in my youth (as well as other stories I've read which have been written by children and teenagers). The stories would always be heavily based on what I'd read or watched recently and it kind of makes me worry that some of those might be uncovered at some point in the future if I ever became a famous published author, hehe.
This book was rather implausible in places, though that's kind of to be expected considering it was written by someone with a rather limited would view. In places it was a bit tricky to follow as well. I thought it was quite sweet that they retained her (at times appalling) spelling and random capitalisation, though if it was me I would've found it terribly embarrassing to know that people were reading it.
I'd like to read the rest of the collection that this story was taken from. Yet another book to add to the list!
The Wife of Bath is one of the stories from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It gives a little glimpse into women of the period when it was written, and follows the story of a Knight who is to be punished for attacking a woman. Guinevere intercedes and saves him from death, but only on the condition that he must find out what women desire most.
I was actually rather surprised at some of the ideas expressed in this little book. It includes ideas about women being in charge in a relationship, which was not something that I expected from a book written in the 14th Century.
I also liked that it was written in verse. I would love to see it as it was in its original Middle English. I loved studying it during my linguistics course and it would be fun to decode it alongside the English translation. It was a surprisingly fun little read. I really enjoyed it.
At some point I would like to read the rest of The Canterbury Tales. I wonder if you can get a combination edition with both the original text and the translation. Actually, I might have a copy of The Canterbury Tales on my Kindle. I'll have to look into it.
I followed up The Wife of Bath with The Beautifull Cassandra by Jane Austen. And, yup, that's the actual title of it. It was written by a rather young Austen and preserves all of her spelling errors. It's a tale of a young woman who goes out into the world to make her fortune.
I'll admit, until last year's reading challenge, I'd never really read much Austen. I'd started reading Emma once, but never finished it, and I'd read Persuasion but that was about it. Then I read and fell in love with Emma and made it through Pride and Prejudice as well so this seemed like a logical choice for a quick read.
I really enjoyed this. It was interesting to get a glimpse into Jane Austen's writing as a teenager. In several points I felt like I could see hints of her style which would develop in her adult novels.
It was also funny because the stories in this book reminded me of the stories I would write in my youth (as well as other stories I've read which have been written by children and teenagers). The stories would always be heavily based on what I'd read or watched recently and it kind of makes me worry that some of those might be uncovered at some point in the future if I ever became a famous published author, hehe.
This book was rather implausible in places, though that's kind of to be expected considering it was written by someone with a rather limited would view. In places it was a bit tricky to follow as well. I thought it was quite sweet that they retained her (at times appalling) spelling and random capitalisation, though if it was me I would've found it terribly embarrassing to know that people were reading it.
I'd like to read the rest of the collection that this story was taken from. Yet another book to add to the list!
Monday, 8 August 2016
Swimming Success
One of Tara's favourite places to go is the beach. She's not fussy, any beach will do. It was one of the first places we took her back when we first got her; out to Ettrick Bay in the camervan.
But she's never really been one for the water, she'd go in and paddle but she was a little wary of it and we weren't always keen on letting a mad labrador get soaking wet and then into our clean car.
But these last couple of weeks we've had some nice sunny days on the weekends and my early finish Fridays so we've made an effort to take her to the beach. And around a week ago, Tara finally learnt to swim!
What's more, not only has she learnt to swim, she's also learnt to retrieve. Side note: my labrador retriever isn't so hot at the whole retriever part of her breed, she's very good at fetching and carrying but pretty awful at giving things to you once she's got them!
I'm fairly certain that it's because we coaxed her deeper into the water by saying "Look! Go get it!" and tossing stones into the water around the depth we were encouraging her into. She took this to mean "Look! Seaweed! Bring it to us!" so now she fearlessly enters the water, wagging and paddling the whole time, and grabs a mouthful of seaweed, then brings it back to us. Once her seaweed has been deposited at the sea's edge with us, she wades back in and does it again.
I think we could've spent a few hours sitting at the beach on Friday afternoon just letting her clear the sea of seaweed.
And we took her again for a brief jaunt on Saturday morning as well. This time the tide was too far out for her to go swimming but it didn't stop her from having a good old paddle session, and yep, seaweed hunting too!
 |
| Tara, circa 2012 |
But she's never really been one for the water, she'd go in and paddle but she was a little wary of it and we weren't always keen on letting a mad labrador get soaking wet and then into our clean car.
But these last couple of weeks we've had some nice sunny days on the weekends and my early finish Fridays so we've made an effort to take her to the beach. And around a week ago, Tara finally learnt to swim!
What's more, not only has she learnt to swim, she's also learnt to retrieve. Side note: my labrador retriever isn't so hot at the whole retriever part of her breed, she's very good at fetching and carrying but pretty awful at giving things to you once she's got them!
I'm fairly certain that it's because we coaxed her deeper into the water by saying "Look! Go get it!" and tossing stones into the water around the depth we were encouraging her into. She took this to mean "Look! Seaweed! Bring it to us!" so now she fearlessly enters the water, wagging and paddling the whole time, and grabs a mouthful of seaweed, then brings it back to us. Once her seaweed has been deposited at the sea's edge with us, she wades back in and does it again.
I think we could've spent a few hours sitting at the beach on Friday afternoon just letting her clear the sea of seaweed.
And we took her again for a brief jaunt on Saturday morning as well. This time the tide was too far out for her to go swimming but it didn't stop her from having a good old paddle session, and yep, seaweed hunting too!
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