Currently...

Getting ready...

... to write a little more on my NaNo project.

I took the day off work yesterday and got in a whopping 15,687 words. I was aiming for about 10,000 and it came through surprisingly easily so I kept going for 15,000.

I'm just aiming for 2,000 words today since I've been at work all day, but this is how my NaNo graph is looking at the moment:

Missing...

... my Hogwarts robes.

I actually found a simple pattern for wizarding robes. Now I'm wondering if I'm just quirky enough to be able to pull off wearing full blown wizard robes every day. I would totally do it, I don't think I've ever been so comfortable wearing a skirt.

I did wear my Ravenclaw scarf today and I'm thinking I need to get a matching hat on my needles.

Wanting...

... to get some colouring in done.

A couple of months ago Mr Click ordered me the two new Johanna Basford colouring books, Magical Jungle and Johanna's Christmas. They just arrived yesterday so I'm planning on dipping into the Christmas one very soon.

Stopping...

... writing this blog post right now.

Because I have 2,000 more words to write on my NaNo and they're not going to write themselves.

Are you NaNoing? How's it going?

Books 83 & 84 of 2015: New England Witch Chronicles by Chelsea Bellingeri & The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

By the beginning of December last year I was struggling to get caught up on the Reading Challenge as I'd fallen behind a little. It was about this point that I made the decision to just read what I felt like reading this year, I didn't like the pressure of having to find a book that ticked each of the criteria on the list and then feeling like I wasn't going to be able to complete it right at the end.

For Week 48 the book was one written by an author with your same initials. The obvious choice here was Charlotte Bronte. I have Jane Eyre sitting up on my bookshelf, but I wanted something shorter, less heavy going and I was determined to go for something off of my Kindle.

In the end I selected New England Witch Chronicles by Chelsea Bellingeri. I should add that the cover below does have the author's name down as Chelsea Luna, but my copy is under the name Chelsea Bellingeri.

I think that I pretty much picked this by sorting all my Kindle books into alphabetical order by author and scanning through all the authors whose surnames began with the letter B. In the end, out of all of the books on my device, I think there were two with the initials CB. I don't remember exactly how I picked this one to read; I suspect this was the shorter of the two, that's how I seemed to choose most of my Reading Challenge books last year.

This book is about a teenage girl, named Alex, whose seventeenth birthday brings some weird dreams at right about the same time a girl is murdered after apparently messing with witchcraft. It looks like there might be a witch hunter in Hazel Cove.

It clocks in at around 343 pages but I managed to get through it surprisingly quickly. Part of that was because it was a fairly easy read. It's aimed at teens and I was able to just switch off my brain and lose myself in it, which was exactly what I needed for my book of the week. I got through this in just four sittings.

On the whole I enjoyed it, though I couldn't help but be reminded of Twilight in places. I think it was inevitable with the supernatural elements; you can't help but draw parallels when these things crop up in teen fiction now. But also the Peter/Alex/James love triangle too.

Another, and rather surprising, comparison that I found myself drawing was between this book and the Kathy Reichs books. I think it was because for a large chunk of the book Alex is trying to figure out what was going on, then someone was out to get her which led to her being attacked during the last eighth of the book. It's the classic Tempe Brennan formula.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending. It builds up to a point and then breaks off to make way for the next book. It's a good hook but I would've liked a little more resolution, especially as I wasn't sure I was going to go on to read the next book (spoiler: I haven't yet).

I followed this up with Week 49's book: a play.

I had a lot of choice here. I've got plays left over from my various OU courses (should I have fancied a reread), I've got a couple on my Kindle, I've got some I've picked up in random bookshops and haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Once again, time and energy won out. I looked for the shortest recognisable (to me) play on my Kindle. I went with The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (because 127 pages). Interestingly, it was first published in the First Folio text, one of which currently resides not a million miles away from where I sit writing this review. Neat, right?

It's in a similar vein to Hamlet, but it's a sort of mix of tragedy and comedy. Leontes is convinced that his pregnant wife has been having an affair with Polixenes, leading to the latter escaping the country. Things generally go downhill from this point. But it's okay because it's kind of funny too.

I really enjoyed this. I always remember at school everyone groaned when we had to study Shakespeare, but I've always loved it. When I was fifteen, the only thing I wanted for my birthday was a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I carried that (massive) tome everywhere with me (including a school trip to M&Ds) and it still resides upstairs on my bookcase.

My greatest dread was always that moment when everyone would be assigned a 'role' in the text and we'd have to read it aloud. I was going to say that certain types of writing sound better when they're read aloud, but I think that's inaccurate. You could read the list of ingredients off the side of a cereal box and it could sound beautiful. It's about the way you say the words, the way you feel them in your mouth, how you play with the letters on your tongue. I think I have some synaesthesia thing going on with my relationship with words (and that's probably another blog post entirely).

In short, bored teenagers reading Shakespeare aloud, does nothing to make the text feel beautiful and exciting.

Which is why I've always much preferred reading these books alone.

Basically what I was getting at here is that I loved the language and I really didn't have any trouble following what was going on or was being said. Sure the language use is pretty archaic in places, but in others it's fairly unchanged all these years later.

I was reminded of The Duchess of Malfi and The Tempest in equal measure. The former because of Hermione, the woman who is powerless against the forces of the men in her life; the latter because of the abandonment of Perdita on the beach and her being raised by the shepherd. I'd love to see it performed on the stage to see if how I was picturing it is accurate to a performance.

Bits of it were quite funny. I especially enjoyed seeing the famous 'exit, pursued by bear' stage direction. I always like it when I get to see things which have become part of the cultural consciousness firsthand, it makes me feel like I'm in on the joke now too.

Happy Halloween (and NaNoWeen)!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This year I'm feeling really into Halloween, perhaps it's because I have an awesome costume (which I would wear every day if I could) or perhaps it's because I'm feeling pretty jazzed about starting NaNo at midnight and being able to take part in all the social aspects of it online.

Whatever the reason, I'm excited for Halloween this year.

Of course, traditionally Halloween is photo day at Hogwarts:

I've also put together a teeny tiny playlist on Spotify to entertain us while we wait for our Chinese delivery tonight. It's music with a Halloweeny feel, without being too creepy (except for Hedwig's Theme, that used to be in the CD player alarm clock we had and it's the creepiest music ever to wake up to).

Any tracks you can think of that I've missed? Are you doing anything for Halloween this year?

Silent Sunday: Sea

A Slightly Different Walk

Last Saturday Mr Click and I took a stroll around the estate with a slight difference.

It was a walk that we've done hundreds of times before. I call it 'the circuit' because you walk round in a big circle. When you leave the house you can go in one of two directions; heading down the hill, along the shore, back up the slope towards the back gate, along the road and back to the house. Or you can do the whole thing in reverse.

We picked the former.

And what was so different about it?

Well, halfway round I handed the camera to Mr Click. Hopefully he doesn't mind me sharing some of his snaps here.

I very rarely make it into photos these days. Most pictures of me are taken on a mobile phone which isn't always the most flattering sort of picture. They're grainy and the focus can look weird and they're generally posed.

I'm going to have to give him my camera more often because these photos are so much more natural. Like this:

My sock was falling off inside my welly boot so I had to fish it out! Don't get much more spontaneous than that.

All of these photos are entirely his, I just did some basic colour correction, resizing and cropping on them. Like this one below, he'd taken the picture straight on, but when I was resizing it I just adjusted the crop slightly:

When we went past this tree I told Mr Click he had to take a photo of the tree for me and what he got was probably not hugely different to the photo I would've taken myself. And as for this one:

Well, I could've taken that one myself.

I have a funny feeling that I might be handing over control of my camera to Mr Click a little more often from now on.

Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 22

I finished work early today and had big plans to walk Tara home from the front gate, spend a bit of time working on my Halloween costume, then get down to some seriously blogging.

Instead we ended up with a trip to the hospital, related to some after effects of the water issues we were experiencing last week. Mr Click had phoned to make an appointment at the health centre, was told he'd need to got to A&E for an appointment at 2:30pm where we ended up waiting until nearly 4pm for a five minute appointment.

It's bronchial irritation from whatever chemical was in the water and we just have to wait it out. Fun.

But let's move on to Chapter 22 of New Moon. This one's called Flight.

What Happens?

Bella, Edward and Alice travel home from Volterra. Along the way they meet Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper. And Charlie is very angry with Edward and Bella.

Thoughts as I read:

My guess from the title is that this is going to be about the return journey. It's a long chapter though, so I think it'll be an eventful journey. Or perhaps it won't be very eventful, it'll just be described in painfully dull detail.

Let's find out.

Now that they're all out of danger, Edward and the gang are instructed not to leave until after dark. Bella's not feeling so hot, presumably from the knowledge that they've just this second left the scene of a mass murder,

Bella's hearing a strange noise and Alice is making suggestions like 'Maybe you should slap her' this is because she believes Bella is having hysterics, but also perhaps because she's spent so much time around Bella she's just feeling the way the rest of us do. Turns out the weird noise is coming from Bella; she's wailing and sobbing and can't stop.

Edward ends up pulling her onto his lap to comfort her, while the receptionist, Gianna, asks if she can get them anything. Edward then reveals that Gianna is perfectly aware of what's going on down the corridor, but she's hoping that eventually she'll get to join the vampire crew. Bella seems surprisingly shocked by this considering that she's been begging to be turned into a vampire since virtually day one. Surely she must know that these are the urges she'll be having to fight if Edward does what she wants.

Then she decides that despite all the misery and awful stuff they've just been through, she's actually feeling pretty happy. Because she's with Edward again and everything else pales when you consider that. Or something.

Bella recognises that Edward is hungry but he decides against going off to feed. He's happy too and totally in control. That's what people always say right before they snap and totally lose control.

There's a bit of Bella musing about things, which is as I expected, and then Alice raises the question of what the vampire crew were on about when they mentioned 'La tua cantante'. This is their name for one like Bella, it's because her blood sings for Edward.

A bit of time passes, with the few gentle kisses and touches between Bella and Edward, then Alec shows up to tell them they're free to go but that they really shouldn't linger in the city. Then they head out, through a different exit to the way they came in. This one doesn't involve any sewers so it sounds much nicer.

As they head through the town Bella realises that they've lost Alice, but it's okay, she's gone off to grab Bella's bags. Bella is very grateful for the news that she'll be not only reunited with Edward today but also with her toothbrush. This would make me happy too. Probably a lot happier than having to spend time with Edward.

Alice shows up again, having stolen another car. She laments the loss of the 911 Turbo which leads to this:

She sighed. "I may have to acquire one of those legally. It was fabulous."

"I'll get you one for Christmas," Edward promised.

I do kind of enjoy those little exchanges, especially as Alice follows it up by specifying that, like the stolen one, it must be yellow.

Bella manages to resist the urge to sleep and fights to keep her eyes open the whole journey back from Volterra to the airport. There's a (mercifully short) flight from there to Rome and then a second one to Atlanta. Bella puts any thought of sleeping from Edward's mind when she tells him that if she closes her eyes she'll just see what they left behind in Volterra, so he doesn't argue with her.

She also has a host of questions and things to say to him but makes a plan to hold off asking them in the hopes of using the conversation to draw out some more time with Edward. We get nearly half a page of musing about how wonderful Edward is, how good he looks, the usual until they finally land in Atlanta.

Considering the chapter is called 'Flight', there's only been a page of actual flying. I'm guessing this is a more metaphorical flight, away from danger and risk and all that jazz.

When they touch down after the final flight of the journey they are met by Carlisle and Esme. Esme is thrilled that Bella saved Edward. Bella didn't really do very much. I'm pretty sure that someone could've found some way to stop Edward from going over there, just by proving that it wasn't actually Bella's funeral Charlie was going to. Probably would've been a lot simpler for all involved.

It's a full scale reunion when Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper are waiting for them in the car park. Bella and Edward have to ride with Rosalie and Emmett which is obviously going to be fun because there's still some bad blood between Rosalie and Edward. In order to fix this, it's decided that Rosalie, Emmett, Edward and Bella should all travel together in the one car. Nothing like a bunch of vampires in a small enclosed space to make them get along better.

But it works.

Rosalie utters a little apology to Bella and thanks her for saving Edward. Then Bella falls asleep.

And then things get interesting because the next thing we know Charlie is yelling for Bella. Charlie's very angry with Edward after what he did to Bella. He's also very angry at Bella as well. But we don't get to enjoy the fallout in this chapter because Bella's falling asleep as she gets into the house.

We'll have to wait until next chapter to find out just how grounded Bella will be.

Olaf & Elsa's Snowflake

When Mr Click and I celebrated our first Christmas together, around six weeks after we got engaged, I suggested making something a tradition which is equal parts one of my favourite things about Christmas and also the bane of my life at times.

As Christmas is hands down my favourite time of year, I thought it would be romantic to exchange a Christmas tree ornament each year. The idea is that each year you get a significant ornament and years in the future you can look at your tree and know that each ornament symbolises a year together and all those happy memories.

When we got married on Christmas Eve it was logical to make these tree ornaments our anniversary gifts to one another. I complicated things slightly by making them correspond to whatever the traditional anniversary gift would be for that year. This year, seven years, is wool. As you can imagine, I'm finding this one rather easier than leather and brass.

I always knew this was a tradition I wanted to continue when we started a family.

Last year, despite losing them at the end of November, we added a pair of snowflakes to the tree for Olaf and Elsa. Since they were our frozen embryos I always associated them with snowflakes and so after we lost them snowflakes came to represent them. We got a pair of blue and white ceramic snowflakes; one each.

This year I wasn't sure whether or not it would be 'right' to put an ornament on our tree for them. I've actually been swinging back and forth on this since the summer. I guess I was hesitant in case people viewed it as morbid, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that getting Olaf and Elsa an ornament for our tree was the right thing to do. They were with us for such a short time, but that had such a massive impact on our lives that it seems fitting to remember them in some little way, especially at my favourite time of year when I hoped to be introducing them to the magic of Christmas.

With that decided I knew I needed to find them the perfect ornament.

When I was looking for their decorations last year, I knew I had the right ones as soon as I found them on Etsy. This year, and all years from now on, they're going to share, so I knew I was only looking for one.

Last Saturday my perfect day had turned into a not-so-perfect day (thanks to a suspicious puddle) so I made myself feel better and pulling up snowflake ornaments on Etsy. This has been an on and off pastime for me most of this year.

And I found it.

As soon as I saw it I knew.

The ornaments we got last year are in white and blue, so this looked perfect. It looks like it's made of actual ice crystals. When I unwrapped it and held it in my hand I was surprised at how warm the crushed glass felt when I was expecting it to feel so cold.

And it's one of a kind. Which prompted a bit of a panic when I saw it on Saturday because what if someone else bought it before I had a chance to. Luckily Mr Click is sensible and suggested that I just go ahead and order it then and there if I was so sure it was the one.

It came from meltedglassbysteph on Etsy and I'd highly recommend her products, based on this transaction. I panic ordered it on Saturday night and by Wednesday it had been received. See that box above? It was in there with plenty of cushioning to keep it safe (I'm actually keeping the box to store it in when we take down the tree next year)

Hopefully by next year we'll have another little member of the Click family to get a decoration for, but I have a feeling Olaf and Elsa will still get an ornament too, and it may very well come from the same Etsy shop.