Summer

At last, summer is finally upon us, yay! We've had at least a solid week and a half or so of sunshine now, something I thought near on impossible just a few months or ago. However, as pleased as I am about the warm weather, my body isn't quite as happy. My pale Irish skinned self, with stupidly bad hay fever, has spent the past week looking like it's having an emotional break down (mainly in one eye...) and debating whether or not it's acceptable to bare such milk-white legs. Though, I've now decided, at the age of 24, that I'm just going to embrace my paleness and use Nicola Roberts and Dita Von Teese as my role models.


Summer fun


I always think that the summer makes you want to read more, sitting out in the garden with a good book is one of my favourite things. So with that, I've recently read The Handmaid's Tale and My Dear I Wanted To Tell You, both of which I enjoyed immensely. I've now moved on to The Wasp Factory, having never read anything by Iain Banks before I thought I should. I'm not too far in at the moment, but despite being quite removed from most of the books I usually go for, I'm finding it a really interesting read. At times it's proving to be quite shocking, but the elements of dark humour shine through. After this I might move on to something a bit more cheery.

I'm off on holiday in a few weeks and I've already scoped out a Literary Pub Crawl that takes place there. Needless to say, I'm planning on doing this. The combination of alcohol and literature, as mentioned in my previous post, is just too perfect to miss out on!

In other news, I recently treated myself to my first relatively expensive handbag, well satchel. I picked a colour that would be good all year round, there were so many pretty colours to choose from though, I found it quite hard. If I can justify getting another then I've got my sights set on a light green one.



New bag

May

While it may seem like all I do is read and makes lists, I do from time to time, find other ways to entertain myself. In fact, in the past week or two, I've watched The Great Gatsby (ah, Leo!), developed a bizarre girl crush on Gillian Anderson and seen some live music, where I found out that I have the capability of turning into a massive fan girl - 'I follow you on Twitter. I love your new song. I love you. Photo?'. As such, my new aim in life is to learn how to be cool and aloof. We'll see how that one goes!

Doing my best groupie impression.

But naturally, despite this *hectic* schedule of mine, I have managed to fit in some reading. I finished Tender is the Night and then moved on to The Marriage Plot, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Bell Jar. So, quite a varied array of literary offerings. From reading these books I've learnt a lot about Guernsey, gained more arguments for my new found feminism (which my friends now hear me do various speeches about - thanks for nodding along, guys!), realised that not all stories have to end with 'and they all lived happily ever after' and that, as amazing as F. Scott Fitzgerald obviously is, I don't think he's the writer for me.

Amongst all this reading and girl crushing, I've also managed to find the most perfect book ever. My Friday nights are now set to be a heady mix of literature and liquor. Because after all, literary inspired drinking is the best kind of drinking.

 

 

 

 

Latest Reads

In the past month or so I've read three novels: Water for Elephants, Gone Girl and You Had Me At Hello. All essentially are along the boy meets girl theme but they are each very different. Since reading Gone Girl I've recommended it to pretty much everyone I know, it's that good. I might even say it's one of the best novels I've read in a long time and goes to prove the old adage that 'you never know what goes on behind closed doors', whilst also making you question how well you can ever really know somebody. I won't say any more as I wouldn't want to spoil it, (somebody recently spoilt the end of Skyfall for me and I wanted to hurt them) just be sure to read it.

 

In other news, I am extremely excited about The Great Gatsby finally being in the cinema next month. I feel like this has been the longest wait for a film ever! In the meantime, I'll be reading Tender is the Night to get my F. Scott Fitzgerald fix.

Yay, Leo!

Musings

I recently had ten whole days off work, something I was pretty excited about. As is the norm, it went far too quickly and I'm already looking forward to the 'holiday' I've booked next month. Anyway during my week off, besides seeing friends I've neglected a bit since Christmas, going bowling, drinking too much Prosecco and making lemon curd cupcakes, I did quite a bit of pondering of life's big questions. Well, perhaps less 'life's' and more 'my life's' big questions. I've not yet found the answers to all of these questions, but I'm sure you'll agree they're fascinating, nonetheless... Or, maybe it's more that I felt I wanted to blog and this is the best I could come up with.

Hannah's Big Questions

- Why did I not know that Charlotte Brontë married and was pregnant at the time of her death? Thank you, Sheila Hancock, for filling me in on this.

- Has the 'if he can't see how wonderful you are, then it's his loss' speech ever made anyone feel any better?

- Am I brave enough to get a 'Where's Wally?' tattoo? I so want the answer to be 'yes'.

Tattoo number two?

- What is it about The Cure's 'Love Cats' that makes me feel so anxious? Seems I have an inexplicable, yet powerful, aversion to this song... 

- When does Facebook stalking go from impressive to scary? A friend of mine recently managed to find someone knowing only their first name and the university they went to... Worrying.

- Will I ever manage to convince someone to come on a literary tour of Britain with me?

- Should you ever trust a man who willingly professes his love for Michael Bublé and Hugh Grant? 

- At what age does it stop being acceptable to use hair straighteners to de-crease clothes?

- Will I ever give up on attempting to turn myself French? My latest 'man, I'm so French' attempt involved wearing a stripey t-shirt and baking madeleines, which I then forced upon my work colleagues. Although, when I think about it, I don't remember seeing that many stripey t-shirt wearing French people whilst on my year abroad. Hmm, maybe where I'm going wrong.

- Is there a better way to 'celebrate' an empty club than forming a conga line? I think not. 

Everybody loves a conga line...

However, there are some questions that I am quite certain I will always have the answers to, such as 'what are all the lyrics to the following songs: Disco 2000, Wuthering Heights and Jason Donovan's Too Many Broken Hearts?'.