Today's next topic is Book Love.
Now I have to say that nowadays as a full time employee, mum, wife and blogger, I don't get much time for reading any more, and when I do it has to be on a Kindle because allergies have made it hard for me to keep paper books in the house any more -sob-. But as a child and in my teens and early twenties I was a total book addict. I never had a book out of my hand and if I had nothing to read I felt physically deprived. I remember once when I was a child and sitting on the loo, I couldn't even last the few minutes until I got out of the bathroom so I sat there reading the back of the toilet roll packet just for something to read!! I didn't know back then but this was actually a side effect of having Dyscalculia which I have had all my life... dyscalculics tend to compensate for having learning difficulties with numbers, by being really good with reading and words instead, and boy did I over compensate!! I especially loved fantasy books, sci fi, and also the classics which I found in a local book shop for cheap and had a whole collection of them. I had hundreds of books and loved them all. It's hard to pick out favourites from all the books I love or have loved but here are two of special significance to me: the first 'proper' book I ever read, and my favourite book as a child.
The first 'grown up' book I remember reading is Watership Down. I could read by the time I was 4 years old. Partly because of my dyscalculia, partly because I was rather precocious back then anyway, and partly because my mother disapproved of the new system of Phonics they were teaching at the time and therefore she made darn sure I could already read before I started school. At the age of 4 I was reading more fluently than most people twice my age and once I started school they just didn't know what to do with me. At 5, given the 'Roger Red Hat' book learn-to-read series everyone else in my class at school was reading, I finished them all in less than a week. After a bit of consternation and trying to make me read other books for kids my age (which all lasted me about 5 minutes before I was back asking for something else to do), the teachers just gave up and let me pick whatever I wanted from the top class' book shelf. I chose Watership Down, which everybody thought was waaaaaay too hard even for me. I finished it in three weeks flat and all the teachers pretty much fainted lol. They let me keep the book and I still have it today and love it even now.
The Swiss Family Robinson was my favourite book for years as a child. Dad picked it up in a charity shop and gave it to me as it was one he'd been fond of as a boy. I absolutely loved it and pretty much read the ink off the pages. I loved the stories of desert island life, the way they survived in the wilderness and made themselves such a lovely home from sheer resourcefulness that in the end when rescuers arrived, they decided to stay there rather than leave. When I was older I saw the movie and I HATED it. Hollywood-ised to death, it was nothing like the book... gone were the fascinating tales of survival and the intricate details of how they'd designed this that or the other gadget to make butter or string, made their own fishing nets, or how they protected their little farm area from wild animals. Instead they'd been replaced by cheesy shmaltz and stupid scenes of brothers (who in the book had been decent and sensible) suddenly turned into hormone crazed idiots, fighting over who gets to dance with the girl (why do they have to bring sex into everything??). Even now the movie gives me rage just to think about it. I consider it pretty much the worst movie I have ever seen, just because of how far removed it was from my childhood memories of this lovely story and part of the reason why I rarely watch a movie that's based on a book unless I have already read the book first and seen what it was really supposed to be like!
That's it for Book Love for me. How about you? Which books did you love as a child?
Showing posts with label Blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogs. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Book Love
Labels:
Blog,
Blog Every Day in May,
Blogging,
Blogs,
Challenge
Travel Dreams
Morning, sweeties!
So having caught right up with the blog every day in May challenge, I wound up with a killer headache that lasted two days and BINGO, I'm behind again. It was so annoying, but my head hurt too much to even look at a computer screen.
Never mind though because both of the topics I've missed are fairly short ones, so rather than ignore them I'm going to catch up all over again. First up is Travel Dreams : if you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? This is quite a hard one since there's a lot of places I would love to visit, however if I had to pick just one it would be the place I love so much, I even have it as my blogger user picture:
The Caribbean! I have always wanted to go there, ever since I was a child. I've always been kind of cold blooded - I'm cold pretty much all the time, and the UK leaves quite a lot to be desired when it comes to hot and sunny weather for most of the year - so anywhere that's tropical and warm sounds like my idea of heaven.
One day when I was about 10 my mum and I were talking about what it would be like to live somewhere warmer than the UK, and if so which sort of place would we prefer. She said that there were dry heat places like deserts, and tropical places where it was more humid, and so on. We looked at pictures of different hot places and when I saw photographs of the Caribbean islands I thought they were the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. Ever since then I've been entranced by all things Caribbean! The landscape... the food... the people... the music... even now a Caribbean accent leaves me weak at the knees. Though I have never actually been there I have promised myself I will go one day, though I'll probably have to win the lottery first to afford the plane fare!
How about you - where would you love to go?
So having caught right up with the blog every day in May challenge, I wound up with a killer headache that lasted two days and BINGO, I'm behind again. It was so annoying, but my head hurt too much to even look at a computer screen.
Never mind though because both of the topics I've missed are fairly short ones, so rather than ignore them I'm going to catch up all over again. First up is Travel Dreams : if you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? This is quite a hard one since there's a lot of places I would love to visit, however if I had to pick just one it would be the place I love so much, I even have it as my blogger user picture:
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| Barbados |
One day when I was about 10 my mum and I were talking about what it would be like to live somewhere warmer than the UK, and if so which sort of place would we prefer. She said that there were dry heat places like deserts, and tropical places where it was more humid, and so on. We looked at pictures of different hot places and when I saw photographs of the Caribbean islands I thought they were the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. Ever since then I've been entranced by all things Caribbean! The landscape... the food... the people... the music... even now a Caribbean accent leaves me weak at the knees. Though I have never actually been there I have promised myself I will go one day, though I'll probably have to win the lottery first to afford the plane fare!
How about you - where would you love to go?
Saturday, 4 May 2013
A Day in the Life of Opalline
So it's day two of the Blog Every Day in May challenge and the topic is 'A Day in the Life'.
I have to say I was a bit dubious about this one as my daily routine isn't exactly exciting, especially on a Friday when I'm always so tired from working all week! But never mind, let's see how it goes.
6.30 - 8.00 Get up, shower, get dressed, put on make up, have coffee. Feel smug that it's fish and chip day at school, so the kid won't want packed lunch today and I only have to make stuff for myself. Realise that, because it's the end of the week, we've actually run out of most things that could be vaguely considered 'lunch'. Consider boiling up some rice or pasta for a quickie salad. Cheat by packing a dried Batchelors Savoury Rice mixture and some carrot sticks instead. Feed the cats and dogs. Chivvy child into getting dressed and out the door. Spend a moment looking at the grotty mess that is my living room and wonder how it could have got that bad in the space of an hour and a half.
8.00 - 14.00 Drive to work, leaving child at his Nan's house to have his breakfast and watch TV until school. Spend several hours at work finishing off the things I've done all week, filing, typing up experiments and data and making sure the analysers are topped up with enough reagents for the weekend. I like Fridays - I work flexi time, so during the week I try and work enough extra hours here and there that I can take a half day off on Fridays and be around for when the kid gets home from school. Of course because this weekend is a 3 day weekend, the time reallllly dragged (why does it always do that before a holiday?)
14.40 - Get home. Get mobbed by hungry dogs and cats who seem to think that just because I got home 3 hours earlier than normal, they should get dinner 3 hours early too. Attempt to convert the living room and kitchen into something that doesn't resemble a bomb-site for the weekend. Child appears, then goes to the park to play with his friends. Sister in law appears, so stop doing housework and make coffee instead. Husband gets home shortly after, so make coffee for him too.
15.30 - Water the veggies (can I call them veggies yet when they're only about 1cm tall?). Have heart failure when a giant spider runs over my foot. Try to work out what to do about the ants that seem to be setting up a next in my courgette tub.
16.00 - 17.00 Realise the house still looks like a dumping ground and do some more tidying. Reboot the dishwasher and the laundry. Asda van arrives with the weekly shop (FOOD!!). Unpack shopping, cook dinner for child and husband, call child home from park to eat it. Realise that kid can't find his phone. Spend fifteen minutes searching the park, then have bright idea to call the phone. Husband answers it because it's at home on the couch where we already looked three times and didn't see it. D'oh.
18.00 - child goes to friend's house for a bit. Realise that I forgot to cook myself any dinner. Despite arrival of new exciting veggies and other food, having spent all this time tidying and cooking for other people and putting new groceries away, now I don't feel like cooking anything 'proper'. Too tired. Eat sandwich instead. Tell self that this is okay because I had a cooked lunch (savoury rice totally counts as cooked, I mean I had to microwave it for 15 minutes and everything, right?).
19.30 - Finish tidying up and spend a few minutes serving up cakes, macaroni cheese, stew and jasmine tea on my phone. Marvel at the irony that I'm too tired to cook myself any actual dinner, but I'll happily spend hours on Bakery Story and Restaurant Story cooking imaginary food instead.
19.45 - Cakes served, spend some time with the kid (who's reappeared from his friend's house) watching Hey Arnold. He's obsessed with this show at the moment (a bit like I'm obsessed with cute cooking game apps, maybe?)
20.30 - 22.30 Kid's bedtime. Make the mistake of giving him a cuddle on his bed before sleep time. Wake up almost two hours later having accidentally fallen asleep - whoopsie, well I did say I'm always tired on Friday!
22.30 Time to relax. Would have had somewhat more of this relaxation time if I'd not fallen asleep, but never mind. I guess sleeping counts as relaxing too. Ignore the fact the downstairs seems to have reverted back to rubbish dump status since I went upstairs (how does that happen??? Are there special mess gremlins that emerge and rumple the place up while your back is turned?). Spend the rest of the evening on the sofa writing blog posts, reading blogs, writing role playing posts, checking Facebook, Twitter etc.
And that's it! Not the most exciting of days but the weekend ought to be better! What did you do today? Any plans for the bank holiday weekend?
I have to say I was a bit dubious about this one as my daily routine isn't exactly exciting, especially on a Friday when I'm always so tired from working all week! But never mind, let's see how it goes.
6.30 - 8.00 Get up, shower, get dressed, put on make up, have coffee. Feel smug that it's fish and chip day at school, so the kid won't want packed lunch today and I only have to make stuff for myself. Realise that, because it's the end of the week, we've actually run out of most things that could be vaguely considered 'lunch'. Consider boiling up some rice or pasta for a quickie salad. Cheat by packing a dried Batchelors Savoury Rice mixture and some carrot sticks instead. Feed the cats and dogs. Chivvy child into getting dressed and out the door. Spend a moment looking at the grotty mess that is my living room and wonder how it could have got that bad in the space of an hour and a half.
8.00 - 14.00 Drive to work, leaving child at his Nan's house to have his breakfast and watch TV until school. Spend several hours at work finishing off the things I've done all week, filing, typing up experiments and data and making sure the analysers are topped up with enough reagents for the weekend. I like Fridays - I work flexi time, so during the week I try and work enough extra hours here and there that I can take a half day off on Fridays and be around for when the kid gets home from school. Of course because this weekend is a 3 day weekend, the time reallllly dragged (why does it always do that before a holiday?)
14.40 - Get home. Get mobbed by hungry dogs and cats who seem to think that just because I got home 3 hours earlier than normal, they should get dinner 3 hours early too. Attempt to convert the living room and kitchen into something that doesn't resemble a bomb-site for the weekend. Child appears, then goes to the park to play with his friends. Sister in law appears, so stop doing housework and make coffee instead. Husband gets home shortly after, so make coffee for him too.
15.30 - Water the veggies (can I call them veggies yet when they're only about 1cm tall?). Have heart failure when a giant spider runs over my foot. Try to work out what to do about the ants that seem to be setting up a next in my courgette tub.
16.00 - 17.00 Realise the house still looks like a dumping ground and do some more tidying. Reboot the dishwasher and the laundry. Asda van arrives with the weekly shop (FOOD!!). Unpack shopping, cook dinner for child and husband, call child home from park to eat it. Realise that kid can't find his phone. Spend fifteen minutes searching the park, then have bright idea to call the phone. Husband answers it because it's at home on the couch where we already looked three times and didn't see it. D'oh.
18.00 - child goes to friend's house for a bit. Realise that I forgot to cook myself any dinner. Despite arrival of new exciting veggies and other food, having spent all this time tidying and cooking for other people and putting new groceries away, now I don't feel like cooking anything 'proper'. Too tired. Eat sandwich instead. Tell self that this is okay because I had a cooked lunch (savoury rice totally counts as cooked, I mean I had to microwave it for 15 minutes and everything, right?).
19.30 - Finish tidying up and spend a few minutes serving up cakes, macaroni cheese, stew and jasmine tea on my phone. Marvel at the irony that I'm too tired to cook myself any actual dinner, but I'll happily spend hours on Bakery Story and Restaurant Story cooking imaginary food instead.
19.45 - Cakes served, spend some time with the kid (who's reappeared from his friend's house) watching Hey Arnold. He's obsessed with this show at the moment (a bit like I'm obsessed with cute cooking game apps, maybe?)
20.30 - 22.30 Kid's bedtime. Make the mistake of giving him a cuddle on his bed before sleep time. Wake up almost two hours later having accidentally fallen asleep - whoopsie, well I did say I'm always tired on Friday!
22.30 Time to relax. Would have had somewhat more of this relaxation time if I'd not fallen asleep, but never mind. I guess sleeping counts as relaxing too. Ignore the fact the downstairs seems to have reverted back to rubbish dump status since I went upstairs (how does that happen??? Are there special mess gremlins that emerge and rumple the place up while your back is turned?). Spend the rest of the evening on the sofa writing blog posts, reading blogs, writing role playing posts, checking Facebook, Twitter etc.
And that's it! Not the most exciting of days but the weekend ought to be better! What did you do today? Any plans for the bank holiday weekend?
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
My First Award!
Today Stephanie at The Polish Diary tweeted me to say she nominated me for two blog awards - thanks Stephanie! So exciting to have my first awards so early after starting this blog!
The first award is the Sunshine Award.
This is the form to be completed:
Black or white?
Your biggest fear is... :
Your best feature is... :
Everyday attitude:
What is perfection?
The first award is the Sunshine Award.
Here are the rules for this award:
- Thank the person who gave you this award
- Write a post about it
- Pass it on to 10 bloggers who you think really deserve it and send them message to let them know
And here is the second award!
The rules for this award are:
- Link back to the person who passed you the award
- Complete the form below
- Share 7 random things about yourself
- Award 15 blogs
- Drop them a line and tell them about it
This is the form to be completed:
Name you favorite color:
It kind of depends on the item, my mood etc but I do love red, the brighter the better :D
Name you favorite song:
I don't have just one favourite... I have hundreds, depending on how I feel at the time.
Name you favorite dessert:
Tiramisu
What makes you mad?
How long do you have???
When you're upset you...
Go quiet, stop eating, stew, then crack up over something minor and cry my eyes out
Your favorite pet:
My cats Merlin and Poppy
Black or white?
Black
Your biggest fear is... :
That something bad could happen to my son.
Your best feature is... :
My eyes.
Everyday attitude:
Friendly, smiley, tries to please everyone
What is perfection?
True perfection doesn't exist. It's a concept we torture ourselves with unnecessarily: 'good enough' is much easier to achieve and is just as satisfying.
Guilty Pleasure:
Nail polish, chocolate, singing loudly on my own in the car, writing until 3am
Nail polish, chocolate, singing loudly on my own in the car, writing until 3am
NOW 7 random things about me:
1. I'm double jointed: my elbows and knees bend the wrong way
2. I am scared of clowns, deep water and heights
3. I love post-apocalyptic/dystopian/sci-fi/fantasy/vampire movies
4. I'm allergic to rabbits, superglue, latex and mould
5. I love the smell of coconut, cherry, rose, cinammon and patchouli
6. I'm a night owl; I can't stand to go to bed before midnight, no matter how tired I am
7. I'm named after a horse: my dad's favorite brood mare!
I would like to pass these awards on to the following bloggers. There are more than 15: never mind eh? All of these (and they are in NO PARTICLAR ORDER) are people who have been particularly welcoming, friendly, helpful or inspirational to me in my quest to join the beauty blogging world, which can sometimes be rather cliquey and unwelcoming towards 'newbies' (plus their blogs are just nice to look at and interesting to read) and I've included them here as a way of saying thank you!
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