HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR.
Wow I am already so far behind the times but worry not!! I am going to
be ALL ABOUT THE BLOGGING this year. By which I mean I will probably blog like
crazy for a few weeks and then go back to my usual failings but whatever – the
intention is there. Anyhow. I’m going to talk at you a little bit about the
back end of last year and the start of this one, and maybe a little bit about
what I hope my 2018 might look like. A little bit of a catch-up if you will.
So. WHAT NEWS. Christmas was lovely. I spent it with my
favourites: my best friend and my family and it was full of fun times and
giggles and then I went on holiday on Boxing Day for just over a week. I did
the same a couple of years sgo and I really am such a fan of it because that
week between Christmas and New Year is always such a weird week and I’m not a
fan of New Year’s Eve as a thing anyway so getting away from it all nad having
some QT in the mountains is the absolute best for me. I had a horrible early
morning flight which was not my favourite at all – so not a morning person -
but which gave me the chance to get to know the Christmas present I got myself
because, drumroll please, I used part
of my Christmas bonus (which probs I should have put to one side for when I have
to pay my tax bill at the end of this month but whatever you only live once) to
BUY A NEW KINDLE. #successfulmoneymanagement
I won’t lie: this felt like a necessity more than a treat
truth be told (holy first world problems, batman, I know) because I didn’t
really want a new Kindle. I love my
trusty Kindle Keyboard with all my bookish heart but it’s absolutely on its
last legs. Every time I use it I am on tenterhooks expecting it to die and it
felt like it made sense to buy a new one whilst I had the cash (and my best guy
has been on at me to get one ever since it out and out refused to work when we were on holiday in the summer
and who can blame him because who wants to be stuck in a foreign country with a
me with nothing to read? NOBODY. He was probably dreading what this ski trip
would look like if it happened again and I had no reading material) and so I
used Christmas as an excuse and I ordered me a Paperwhite.
I love it, actually. I even loaded some books to it all on
my own, which was easier than I expected it to be actually because wow I am a
technophobe but magically it came linked to my Amazon account and all the books
were there just waiting to be downloaded and it was so easy. We’re just getting to know each other but so far it’s
going well. I think we’re going to be just fine. Welcome to my world,
Paperwhite.
So there was the new Kindle and the ski trip and a New Year
road trip and generally a rather lovely end to 2017 and a delicious start t
2018, even though my holiday didn’t involve as much reading as I thought it
might. Funny how I always forget that in between hurtling down the mountain and
drinking vin chaud there’s not much time for curling up with a book. I still
managed 63 books last year though *self five* and in December, as well
as my annual read of Little Women (I
am all about my own little traditions) I also finished The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue which is so perfectly up
my street you don’t even know. I loved it.
L O V E D I T. If you’re looking for a book that is just easy to read
and the most fun ever then this could be it folks. Go forth and get involved. I
also Christmas book-ed it up in December with Nina Stibbe’s An Almost Perfect Christmas which is
like a little pocket sized festive edition of Love, Nina and which made me laugh out loud in recognition, and a
short story collection of cute little YA stories from a bunch of authors I
already knew. It was cute and perfectly festive. Oh and Rachel Joyce’s A Snow Garden – another short story
collection. I am loving those at the moment. I love Rachel Joyce’s writing but
I’m not going to lie, she hurts my soul.
There’s a lot I want
to read this year; my TBR is ridic, and I’m planning to do a much better split
of ARCS and books I’ve bought/own because sometimes I suck at that. I mean, can
you believe I haven’t read The Book of
Dust yet? I KNOW and I might come back and talk about my proposed 2018 in
books a bit later, we’ll see. I’m definitely going to be back in a few days
with a list of some books published this year that I have grabby hands for.
WATCH THIS SPACE. Right now I’m reading the new novel from Joanna Cannon, she
of the gorgeous The Trouble With Goats
and Sheep. It’s called Three Things
About Elsie, it’s a story told by 84 year old Florence who is living in
sheltered accommodation with her BFF Elsie,
and it’s out tomorrow. It’s gorgeous and I feel like its going to make me
feel things in the same way that Goats
and Sheep did (read that book, if you haven’t already, it’s a gem) and not
only because my Granny is also in her eighties and also called Florence. I
shall hopefully finish it in the next couple of days and come back to chat
about it properly. After that I think I’m going to read The Essex Serpent because it’s the book club book for a book club
that I’ve been trying to join bit a: their meetings keep clashing with other
things and b: I am scared of people I don’t know. If I read the book though,
I’m partway there, right?!
As for the year in general, I want 2018 to be a year. A year in which I am actual
honest to God content, for the most part. I don’t want anything super exciting,
I just want to read the books and see the places and be around the people.
I want contentment. That’s the aim.
I’ve never been one for resolutions because wow HOW MUCH PRESSURE
although I won’t lie: I, like most people start the year all ‘I will drink more
water and do more exercise and stop eating so many fries’ and I do hope to do
all that, but more than that I honestly genuinely just want to do the things
that make me feel like me, with the people that make me feel like me. I think
that’s a pretty good place to start. I started the year pretty well, in a bar
in Germany with My Best Guy and I have theatre trips and weekends away and
coffee dates a plenty with all my faves already planned; I have tentative
holiday outlines which I hope will begin to take shape soon, and a day
pencilled in with Helen in which we may very well do absolutely nothing. I’m
excited for 2018, in a way I haven’t been excited about a new year in a while.
Bring it on.
