Things That I Have Seen and Liked

So, this is a post I am going to title ‘things that I have seen and liked’ (and who knows, I might make it a semi-regular feature, because I could do with some of those) and in it I’m going to talk to you about, well, about things that I have seen and liked. It’s pretty self-explanatory really: over-complicating things is not something I am fond of. 

Basically ,this is totally just an excuse for me to get stupid excited about books and albums and TV shows and pretty shoes and other such things that have caught my eye. It’s a small glimpse I guess into what makes me tick.IT'S ALL ABOUT THINGS I LIKE.

So, where else would I start than with books?

I treated myself last week to Sarah Pinborough’s Poison.

I read Sarah’s The Death House earlier in the year and I loved it and you know when that happens, when you find a new author and just want to devour every word they’ve ever written, shopping lists and all? Yep, that happened here, so I checked out Sarah’s book list and then did some kind of crazy flappy dance because GUESS WHAT: REIMAGINED FAIRYTALES. I LOVE a fairytale, I especially love a twist on a fairytale and that’s exactly what this book – Poison – is. It’s Snow White’s story, but it’s told from a different angle and it sounds like all kinds of excellent and it’s also really freaking pretty. Hurrah.

I’m dreaming of Book 2 in Cathrynne Valente’s Fairyland series. I’ll come back at some point and talk about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making soon but til then you need to know only that Jen made me read it, and not since Harry Potter, or His Dark Materials have I fallen like this for a series of books. So, I need the second one. Stat. (I amuse myself when I get to use phrases like that. Ha) I tried to buy it in Watersones at the Trafford Centre last night but alas, they only had books 3 and 4. Instead I bought these pretties for my 2015 book challenge. 

I’m not going to buy another book now til April, which is a shame for Fairyland but very good for my bank balance.

However, and this may come as a total shock, but, I don’t only read books. sometimes I watch things on Netflix, oftentimes on my iPad in bed because I love my bed, I love it a lot. Right now I’m watching The Vampire Diaries because we lost track of it a while back due to a Sky+ fail and it’s all there being shiny and pretty on Netflix and I have like, a series and a half of Damon Salvatore to catch up on so WOOP WOOP for that. Oh, Ian Somerhalder you are an attractive being.

I’m also crazy excited because Netflix has just added Once Upon a Time to it’s catalogue (see above re my love for fairytales) which Channel 5 cancelled and I feared I would never see again until this weekend when I opened the app for said Salvatore fix and THERE IT WAS!! All the episodes I missed plus the latest season updated weekend. I did a happy dance, from the comfort of my bed. More of a head bob than a dance really, but the feeling was there. Once is so good and it has the added bonus of Robert Carlyle. I have had a crush on Robert Carlyle for 20 years omg.

 

On the commute to work I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989, which holy excellent album batman. I kind of love Taylor unashamedly. I do. Gimme all the catchy pop songs on my drive please.

So yep, I’m listening to that and also to The Overtones and also to an old Bon Jovi album I found whilst tidying up. If you’re new here then here’s a thing about me: I have pretty much loved Jon Bon Jovi my whole entire life. All of it. Forever. I have always loved him and I will always love him because THAT ASS. And also because of other reasons that do not involve my objectification of his being such as I’ll…I’ll come back to you.

And, just to tie this post up nicely, other random things that I have seen and liked:

I am in desperate need of these two t-shirts, this one, which tell me about it, stud. Why would I not need that in my life?

and also this one because The BFG is right up there with Matilda and Danny as my fave Roald Dahl book of all time. 

I feel I would be much happier, generally, if these were nicely folded in my t-shirt drawer. I really want a t-shirt with ONJ’s face on it ok? I just really do.

Also, cowboy boots. I spend so much of my life lusting after pretty cowboy boots. There’s a pair of tan ankle ones that I am totally going to get a pair of for the spring, but what I really want is some of of the amazing Corral or Durango ones (that I should have bought when I saw them in NYC 7 years ago dammit. Regrets, I have them.) I’m clearly not getting any because wow the price tag on those babies but still, SO MUCH PRETTY.

I want (need, want, who knows the difference) a new bag. I also know exactly what it looks like. The closes I have seen to the bag that lives in my head was in Debenham’s last night. It was £115.

River Island has this though, which is cute:

And lastly, I'm on a storage box hunt because people (me) need storage and I’ve seen all these ‘shabby chic’ trunks that are just so old and beautiful and perfect so I’m all about those right now too. How many books I wonder, could one get in a trunk..and I wonder if my Dad still has one in the cubby hole at their house? Oooh, there’s a thought…..

So, talk to me: what are you reading/watching/listening to right now? What pretty things are you spending your pennies on? What things have you seen and liked?

March, already? Seriously, how did that happen? I can't believe we're at the end of week 9. I'll be retiring before I know it - a girl can dream, right?

Yesterday was the 29th of February.
A leap year.
Now now, calm yourselves down please! This girl did not celebrate in the traditional sense by asking her boyfriend to marry her. No she did not. Call me traditional but if he likes it then he can jolly well be the one to put a ring on it. Beyonce had a point, people.

Instead, I went to the gym and gave myself a stitch on the crosstrainer and had a swim and spent longer in the jacuzzi than I'd spent exercising because,well, because I wanted to and I offer no excuses or apologies.  I then went home planning to eat peanut butter on toast [crunchy, always crunchy] only to discover Ian was cooking pasta.
Bless him I hear you say. Yes, that's what I thought.
There then followed a scene that I'm pretty sure wouldn't be out of place on some comedy sketch program wherein I went bright red and got tingly lips and a burny tongue and downed a pint of vimto and he laughed til he cried and then confessed that he'd accidentally put half a bottle of chilli sauce into the pan. Fabulous.
I have been pondering this and have decided that either a: he was so heartbroken by my failure to propose that he decided to exact his revenge or b: he was so petrified that I might that he tried desperately to put me off. [Of course, it could always have been an innocent mistake but that then begs the question, why the hell did he still feed me the damn sauce?!]

So yes, that was my last night. I almost lost my mouth to pasta, finally managed to eat the toast I had wanted all along, watched some TV [this is a good week for TV actually, The Vampire Diaries came back on Tuesday and Glee is back tonight] and went to bed with my book.

I'm reading Helen Dunmore's The Siege at the moment as recommended by my Granny. It's set in the siege of Leningrad in WWII, and I've already read its [Booker longlist 2010] sequel, inadvertantly - not realising it was a sequel I mean, not that I didn't mean to read it - and so I know I am a fan of Dunmore's style.
I also know that this book will make me cry.
This is a problem actually because I promised myself I'd read happier stuff this year. Why oh why am I compelled to read books that will make me hurty inside?? Whoops.
However, it's a period of history that interests me, it's a fictional story based on very real events which it seems I am a sucker for and Dunmore, if The Betrayal is anything to go by at least, has an almost poetic writing style and a a knack at characterisation, plus, my Granny liked it which makes it a no-brainer really. So yes, I'm reading that and then then I will read something funny or fluffy or both. I will.

In other news I am totally going to Wimbledon!! I'm not even kidding. Helen and I both entered the draw last year, I heard nothing, but Helen has got two tickets for Centre Court in the first week! Colour me excited!!! Me, Helen, WIMBLEDON. I can totally see it now, we shall eat strawberries and drink champagne and concentrate totally on the tennis and not at all on the legs of the players and as it's Centre Court there's every chance we shall see somebody amazing and it will be so much more fun that watching it on the TV and following the action from work via Twitter or the iPhone app [yes, I know, we only have tickers for one day and will still have to do all that stuff but still. EXCITING!!]
Roll on June.

 And because I didn't propose on a leap year and because of Beyonce and because I re-watched the 'Preggers' episode of Glee last night [featuring Single Ladies] and think season1 Kurt might be one of my favourite things [because he's pretty] I hope you appreciate these little video clips of the aforementioned 'Single Ladies' from Glee Live [I think]

I bid you goodbye

day 23: your guilty pleasure

I think you could probably quite safely say that vampires are my guilty pleasure, not just in books but generally.
& I'm not talking vampires that sparkle in the sun here, I'm talking actual proper vampires; yes I know, that's as much of an oxymoron as the term 'living dead' itself but you know what I mean, right?
I don't know what the appeal is. I remember getting an LJ Smith book free with a magazine when I was about 14. It was about this teenage girl who was dying of cancer and her vampire boyfriend who was all immortal and intense and could read her mind when she drank him blood & then I watched 'Interview With The Vampire' (remember that film??) and something sort of stuck. There's something about the vampire that's just.....sexy.
Is that weird?
It's totally all to do with the way they're portrayed: they're dramatic and powerful; they're sexy in a dangerous passionate kind of way and 9/10 times they're beautiful. They either look beautiful (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Gary Oldman, RPattz [come on guys, you can't deny that RPattz is a beautiful young man] Ian Somerhlader etc) or they are described as being beautuful and thus are so in my head which brings me to my guilty pleasure in the book world: The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.

The Sookie books are the inspiration for the TV series True Blood and tell the story of a telepathic barmaid from Louisiana, living in a world where vampires are living 'out of the coffin' and trying to integrate themselves with society.

They're complete trash.

I love them.

They're 100% totally and completely unrealistic. They're overly dramatic. The plotlines are so insane that they're almost laughable. If they weren't about vampires then I probably wouldn't give them the time of day but that is not the case, instead I have some kind of 'V' addiction so I can easily lose myself for a couple of hours (because that's all they take to read) in Bon Temps, because the vampires, Bill and Eric, are beautiful in my head; there's a cute shapeshifter and a fit werewolf; theres' lots of hotvampiresex;Sookie is actually a pretty awesome protaganist and a pretty good role model in that she is alwaysalways prepared to fight for what she believes in, and every book in the series (so far) has contained enough edge-of-the-seat drama and mystery and romance and humour to keep the pages turning.

I know these books aren't great but I also know I like them and that's what matters, isn't it?


This whole 'guilty pleasure' thing also links quite nicely into my Friday Photo. That beautiful man in the corner of this post is the star of my televisual guilty pleasure "The Vampire Diaries" and yes, he plays a bad-ass vampire.
Anyone noticing a trend ;)
I have a boyfriend and I love him and we're very happy. I just want to make that clear. That does not however stop my jaw from hitting the floor pretty much any time I see Ian Somerhalder (Yes, it is Boone of off Lost) because let's face it people, this man is beautiful and sometimes no matter how loved up you are, a beautiful man off of the telly can make a long slow week seem better.