Some good things

I’m not very good at this regular blogging thing, am I? I’m currently a bit weak and ill, I’ve had an up-and-down few weeks recently, and the news has been particularly depressing of late, so here are some Good Things that I’ve enjoyed/done of late.

Isle of Dogs

We went to see the new Wes Anderson film, Isle of Dogs, when it was released a few weeks ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is very much in Anderson’s distinctive visual style, which goes incredibly well with the film’s Japanese setting. All the usual suspects provide the character voices (if you’ve seen any Wes Anderson film in the past, most of the big stars from that will also be in Isle of Dogs) and it’s just generally an excellent film.

One word of warning, though: I don’t think this is really a children’s film. There were loads of families with young kids in the cinema when we went, and I honestly can’t imagine what they made of it. It may be animated, but some of the themes are quite grown-up. There are also lots of subtitles translating from Japanese!

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

I raced through this novel by Gail Honeyman this week and absolutely LOVED it. It’s no wonder that people are raving about it. Eleanor Oliphant is one of the most unique characters I’ve come across in a novel in some time and there are loads of bits that made me laugh out loud in public, as well as others that nearly had me in tears.

I won’t say too much about the story, but if you’ve been thinking about giving it a go, just do it. You’ll love it.

Donkeys

We went for a walk on a rare sunny day recently, and discovered that there’s a donkey sanctuary very near to us. It was so lovely to look at them all standing quietly in the sunshine. Donkeys are very underrated animals, I feel.

Make-up new and old

My face has been feeling horribly parched recently. I couldn’t work out why until I went through an elimination process with my skincare and make-up, and came to the conclusion that the combination of my concealer (Clarins Instant) and face powder (Beauty Pie One Powder Wonder) was somehow dehydrating my skin. I have no idea what’s in them to make such a thing happen!

I’m now back on my trusty favourite powder, Bourjois Healthy Balance, and have stumbled across a brilliant bargain in the form of Barry M’s All Night Long Full Coverage Concealer, which provides loads of coverage and a good yellow tone for the excellent price of £4.49 (compared with £20+ for the Clarins!).

I’ve also been enjoying Beauty Pie’s Fantasticolour Liquid Lipstick in Winner, a lovely brown-toned pink. I find most pinks other than deep/bright shades don’t go too well with my skintone, but this is a really flattering colour and stays on fairly well. If you haven’t heard of it, Beauty Pie is a subscription-based make-up brand where you pay £10 a month and get the products at a really cheap price (eg the lipstick is £20 at non-member prices and £4.34 with a subscription, although there’s a limit on how much you can buy each month).

It’s early days, but I really love their cream eyeshadow sticks and have got an eye on some of the skincare products. I think I’ll stay away from their face powders, though!

Realm of the Elderlings re-read

My pre-ordered paperback of Assassin’s Fate came in the post a few weeks ago, reminding me that I really need to crack on with re-reading Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings books. I’m currently on the final book of the Farseer Trilogy, and will move on to the other trilogies in due course (although I think I’ll skip the Rain Wilds series this time, as they’re not essential to the re-read).

I’ve really enjoyed being back in the Six Duchies with Fitz and company, although I always forget how much of an emotional rollercoaster the books can take you through! I’m not reading them back to back – I’m slotting in a book from my ever-massive to-read pile in between each one, which both helps me to stretch out the re-read experience and prevents me from being an emotional wreck all of the time.

Actual creative writing

I’ve been slowly working my way through an online creative writing course in yet another attempt to get back into writing fiction, and it’s actually been going really well for a change!

I used to write a lot as a child and then into my teens and at uni (where I did a creative writing course in my first year), but I’ve struggled to get back into it since then. Hopefully it’ll stick this time!

Holiday(s)

Okay, so this hasn’t happened yet, but I’ve been very excited about our trip to the Lake District/the Eden Valley next month. We’re renting a cottage for a week and plan to go on lots of walks, drink plenty of beer and have at least one ice cream and afternoon tea, which will be lovely.

I’m also thinking about our annual European city break this September. We (or I!) have pretty much decided that we’re going to Brussels and Bruges, as I know a few people who have been to those cities and all the feedback has been positive. I’d like to go on the Eurostar, so I might see if there’s a sale on Standard Premier seats this summer. We went to Paris in Standard Premier, and it was basically two hours each way of having cheese and wine brought to us!

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Don’t like skincare? Don’t judge those of us who do

Earlier this week, I read a bizarre viral article entitled The Skincare Con. The writer of this article claims that “most skincare is a waste of money”, skincare products are a “scam”,  and that anyone who spends money on looking after their skin is basically a horribly shallow person who can’t see past their outermost layer.

This seemed so obviously written to provoke a response (which it already had in the hundreds on social media by the time I’d read the article) that I just rolled my eyes and carried on with my day. Then, yesterday, I read Hadley Freeman’s response to the article in the Guardian, about how she loves skincare because she enjoys how it feels. I nodded. I smiled at the funny bits. I agreed with the general gist of the article. Then I committed the cardinal sin of scrolling past the end of the column to… the comments.

Dear lord. I’m not sure why I was expecting to see lots of supportive ‘right on, sister!’-type comments. But I was, and so I was at first slightly perturbed and then downright angry to read comment after comment along the lines of ‘what’s wrong with soap and water?’, ‘all women are mugs’, ‘no one needs skincare’, ‘why on earth would you spend money on that when you could spend it on X?’, ‘I’m a man and my skin is much better than my wife and daughter’s skin because I don’t use anything’, and so on and so forth until my blood was actually boiling from the ridiculousness of it all.

So here I am, doing what I thought I wasn’t going to do when I first read the original article: making a response.

I use a lot of skincare products. This hasn’t always been the case; my primary beauty passion was always for make-up, and I scraped by with the basics for my skin (facewash, cheap moisturiser, wipes to remove make-up) while I went wild in the make-up aisles of Boots and Superdrug. My skin has always been a bit temperamental due to hormone imbalances, and it seemed like nothing I could do would sort it out, so I just concentrated on covering it up instead.

But then I started reading articles by people with a genuine passion for skincare who recommended certain things that could help specific skin problems. I realised that maybe I could do something for my weird skin and feel a bit more confident in it.

There were two things that really changed the game for me: forgoing wipes in favour of having a proper night-time wash with a decent cleanser and a flannel, and using serums to target specific problems (especially those containing hyaluronic acid to tackle dehydrated skin). I could see after quite a short period of time that doing these two things had a positive effect on my skin. I was delighted. So I read more articles, started talking about beauty with like-minded women online, and bought more products based on recommendations from those with similar problems.

That was perhaps 7 years ago. Now I use all sorts of products (although not as many as I should be using, according to the Koreans!). I have some products that I’ve been using for ages, and others that I’m trying for the first time to see if they work. I have a particular order that I put things on in, both in the morning and evening (I’ll post my routines at the end of this blog for anyone who’s interested!). I mix and match bargain products with more expensive items while keeping an eye out for any discounts. I follow various beauty writers and bloggers to see what else is out there. Most of all, I love doing all of this.

Yes, not everything works. Yes, a lot of skincare and make-up advertising is, to be quite honest, bullshit. Yes, there are some stupidly expensive products out there. Yes, there are some truly pointless things being sold that I will never understand (glittery hand cream: why?). Yes, I probably could just wash my face with soap and water and never use make-up again, but my skin would be a horrific mess and I would be miserable.

Yes, others may think otherwise, but you know what? I don’t care what they think. I use skincare – and make-up – for myself, and no one else. I spend the money that I earn on the things that I give me pleasure. I do this while saving money each month, giving to charity and never getting into debt.

And I’m doing all of this while other people are spending vast amounts of money and time on their hobbies – clothes, football, beer, fine art, pets, sports cars. You don’t see me getting all offended about them. I am not rooting around the depths of the internet for an article on collectible vintage toy cars from the 1940s so I can get in there with a sneering comment about what a waste of money they are and how sad the blokes with thousands of these cars must be.

There’s something about the combination of women + spending money on themselves + spending money on their appearance that brings out the worst in those who just don’t like to see other people enjoying themselves. You see it in the endless debates over women ‘should’ wear make-up, or whether women over 40 ‘should’ still be wearing miniskirts or brightly coloured tights or low-cut tops, or whether women of any age ‘should’ turn to plastic surgery/Botox/whatever they want to do to make themselves good.

Sod ‘should’.

I’m just getting on with what I like to do, and – guess what? – you can too.

What I use

The specific products I’m using at the moment are in brackets, but I change up some of these quite regularly.

My skin type is combination – a bit shiny/prone to spots around the T-zone and jawline, and slightly dry on the cheeks – and dehydrated, with the occasional very dry patch (read about the difference between dehydrated and dry skin).

I also have some acne scarring and significant hyperpigmentation, or dark patches, on my cheeks. This can be caused by sun damage, but in my case it’s mostly been those pesky hormones and my Asian heritage, which makes me more prone to it. To add to the joy, I also go through phases of being very spotty/very dry all over the face for no apparent reason.

This is what suits me and my budget – I am of course not saying that everyone should use all of this too (except maybe the last product in the list because it’s so brilliant!). We’re all different, so go with whatever you want.

Morning routine

• Cleanser (Bobbi Brown Soothing Cleansing Milk) – I always use non-foaming cleansers to avoid drying out the skin.
• Exfoliator (First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads) – to slough away dead skin cells and even out skin texture. I don’t use scrub-type exfoliators – they’re too harsh. Acid exfoliators definitely work better for me.
• Serum (mixture of The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5, The Ordinary Alpha Arbutin 2% + HA and Superdrug Vitamin C Invigorating Skin Booster) – HA to rehydrate the skin, alpha arbutin to tackle dark patches, weak vitamin C for radiance.
• Eye cream (Clinique Pep-Start Eye Cream) – this is a free sample I’m trying. I normally use whatever moisturiser I’m using under the eyes.
• Sun protection (Vichy Idéal Soleil Velvety Cream SPF 50+) – I never go out without sun cream on, even in winter, because exposure to any amount of sunlight exacerbates my hyperpigmentation. And you should always wear sun protection if you’re going out after using an exfoliator or vitamin C, as they can weaken the skin’s defences.
• Moisturiser (Clinique Moisture Surge Intense Skin Fortifying Hydrator, or Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief on oilier days)
• Primer for make-up days (Laura Mercier Hydrating Primer)

Evening routine

• Eye make-up remover (ASDA The Skin System Dual Phase Eye Make-Up Remover)
• First cleanse (Simple Hydrating Cleansing Oil) – with a damp flannel to remove make-up.
• Second cleanse (same as morning cleanser) – to ensure skin is properly clean, as the first cleanse partly moves make-up around my face! If I didn’t wear any make-up that day, it’s just straight to the second cleanse for me.

Then either one of the following – I rotate between them, as using both at the same time would be too harsh on the skin:

• Exfoliator (REN Wake Wonderful Night-Time Facial) – again, to get rid of dead skin cells.
• Vitamin C treatment (The Ordinary Vitamin C Suspension 23% + HA Spheres 2%) – to tackle dark patches.

Then:

• Serum (same as morning but without the alpha arbutin)
• Eye cream (L’Oreal Revitalift Anti-wrinkle and Firming Eye Cream) – this is different to my lighter daytime eye cream because I’m not wearing any make-up that will slip off it, and I need extra hydration under the eyes.
• Oil (The Ordinary Rose Hip Seed Oil) – to tackle dark patches and soften skin.
• Masks for bath time – I’m currently rotating between NSPA Skin Glow Mud Mask (for blemishes), Superdrug Vitamin E Moisture Mask and samples of Clarins HydraQuench Cream Mask and Bobbi Brown Radiance Boost Mask.
• Night cream (Superdrug Naturally Radiant Renewing Night Cream, or Nivea Pure & Natural Regenerating Night Cream when my skin is feeling particularly dry)

Other products

• Superdrug B. Confident Hyaluronic Acid Spritz – this is handy to spray on whenever my skin feels a bit meh, and to cool my face in the summer.
• Dr Organic Manuka Honey Rescue Cream – to target stubborn dry/irritated patches.
  
• Clinique Moisture Surge Overnight Mask – I use this in place of oil and night cream once a week. It. Is. AMAZING. I wake up with visibly plumper, smoother skin every time I use it. It’s expensive, but you get a massive tube for the money and it lasts for ages, because you don’t need to use much each time. I’m on my second tube in the space of a couple of years. It’s so, SO good.

Getting back into the swing of things

My last post was in 2017, I spent all of January whining about long the month was, and now it’s February and this is my first post since December… oops. To be fair, I haven’t had much time for blogging since the start of 2018, as I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to get back into some sort of normal routine. Among other things, I’ve been getting back into the swing of…

…work

The main thing I’ve been grappling with is that I started a new job when I returned to work in the second week of January. I’m still at the same university and have the same job title, but I’m now working in a completely different part of the uni which is somewhat bigger than the department that I came from. I’ve been having to get to grips with new websites, new people, new projects and new places (seriously, this university is so huge you could spend all your life working there and still never have the chance to visit every single building on campus).

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It’s been really exhausting, but also really great to have a change from the norm and do something a bit different with a bunch of extremely lovely people. It also helps that the department I’m in is way more aligned to my personal interests – I’m now responsible for the arts, languages and cultures part of the university website network, and I’ve already read two books by lecturers here (more on that below!).

This is only a temporary post, but I’m learning lots of things that should stand me in good stead for going back to my permanent role (or wherever else I may end up…).

…exercising

I was off work for 2 weeks over the Christmas and new year period. I spent the first week at home and did so well at going for runs and working out at home, despite being surrounded by all manner of food and booze. But then we spent the second week in a cabin in Sherwood Forest with my husband’s family surrounded by all manner of food and booze, and I didn’t exercise *quite* as much as I had the previous week. So let’s just say that it was somewhat difficult to get back into my exercise routine when I went back to work!

It doesn’t help that the weather has been atrocious and it’s still pitch black in the mornings, so getting up early to do one of my DVDs hasn’t been easy. I think I’m slowly getting there, though! I bought a new DVD which has a series of 10-minute boxing workouts (my favourite!) and that’s helped to make exercising slightly less boring. I’m still trying to get out for a short run once a week at the weekends, and I’m hoping to ramp up to twice a week once the mornings are light enough for me to go out before work.

…reading what I’ve got

I’ve made a sort-of resolution to make a proper dent in my to-read pile this year, and only buy books that I will definitely keep, relying on the library for everything else. And I’ve done well – I’ve finished 6 books so far in 2018, consisting of 3 from my own pile, 1 from the library, 1 from a colleague and 1 that I pre-ordered with a view to keeping.

The books from the library and my colleague were by lecturers at the creative writing department of my bit of the university – The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown (quite good, but a bit slow) and Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (really good). Before I started writing this post, I finished the book I bought, Eat Up! by Ruby Tandoh, which is absolutely fantastic.

Having said that, my to-read pile is still 66-strong, including two reservations that I have waiting for me at the library. It’s going to be interesting seeing if I can keep up the good work!

…eating well

Beer’s good for you, right?

Like everyone else, I went a bit crazy with the cheese, mince pies and wine over Christmas, so I’ve been trying very hard to not be so greedy while not depriving myself of the comfort food I definitely need during the winter months, also making room for a night at Manchester Beer Festival.

It’s gone well so far; we’ve been planning our meals as normal and have only gone overboard a few times (mainly because I’ve wanted to have an impromptu meal out or thought it would be a great idea to pick up a cheesecake for Friday night). I’ve gone back to not boozing during the week and I’ve only baked once so far this year (and took most of it to work instead of letting it sit temptingly in the kitchen).

I’m still tracking calories via MyFitnessPal, but I’ve stopped weighing myself entirely and am now focused on eating good, delicious, home-cooked food instead of getting in knots about going over my daily calorie limit. I’m probably not going to lose that much weight this way, but I’ll certainly be happier than if I was trying to starve myself! Reading Eat Up! has definitely confirmed that this is the right way to go for me at the moment.

…being cultural

Okay, so I’ve never really been one for cultural activities aside from reading and going to gigs, but we’ve been to two plays since the start of the year (having never really gone to any since school!), and have enjoyed them so much we’re going to try to go to the theatre more often.

The first play we saw was Blue/Orange at the Garrick Theatre in Stockport. The play had only three actors and it took place in the bar area of the theatre, so it was a very small but perfectly formed performance. I was intrigued to read that Joe Penhall, who wrote the play, also wrote Mindhunter, which is on my Netflix to-watch list, so I’m looking forward to getting round to watching that!

We also saw a production called The Manchester Project at HOME in Manchester. It consisted of 19 mini plays, each centred around a different area of Manchester and performed by one or two actors at a time, and was over in just an hour. We really enjoyed hearing the different ways that the actors from Monkeywood Theatre interpreted the areas that we knew, and finding out about the parts of the city that we’ve never really been to.

Now we just need to find some more plays to go to!

My 2017 in books

Everyone always says this, but I can’t believe yet another year has whizzed by and that we’re all knee-deep in end-of-year lists!

I’ve had an excellent reading year, managing to read 52 books and finishing most of them (scroll on for my duds of the year…). I may finish my current read before the end of the 31st, but for now I’m very happy with getting through 52 books.

It’s been particularly wonderful for reading more by writers of colour – two of them feature in my favourites list below, but I discovered many more through the excellent anthologies A Change Is Gonna Come and Here I Stand: Stories That Speak For Freedom. I must also give Angie Thomas an honourable mention for her brilliant YA novel The Hate U Give, which is essential reading if you want to understand the everyday impact of police shootings of black people in the US.

I also managed to read a few brand new releases (which never usually happens!) thanks to the library, including the excellent Winter by Ali Smith and Munich by Robert Harris. And, even though it happened right at the start of the year, I think my crowning achievement of 2017 was finally reading all of War and Peace after it had been sitting on my shelf for years and years!

I decided at the start of the year to post a brief review of everything I read on LibraryThing, which I’m now grateful for as I can scroll through my reviews and rediscover my thoughts on books I read what now seems like aaages ago…

My favourite reads

I gave six books the full 5 stars in 2017:

The Crimson Petal and the White (Michel Faber)

The blurb:

‘Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them …’

So begins this irresistible voyage into the dark side of Victorian London. Amongst an unforgettable cast of low-lifes, physicians, businessmen and prostitutes, meet our heroine Sugar, a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can. Be prepared for a mesmerising tale of passion, intrigue, ambition and revenge.

What I said:

I’m a huge fan of two of Michel Faber’s other works – The Book Of Strange New Things and Under The Skin – and also love Victorian settings, so the only surprise was that it took me so long to get round to The Crimson Petal And The White.

I LOVED this novel. Yes, it’s long, but the writing is so immersive and the characters so human and well developed that I could happily have read another 800+ pages. As it stands, I’m glad it ended the way it did (which seems to be a controversial opinion!).

On Writing (Stephen King)

The blurb:

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have.

King’s advice is grounded in the vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 – and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.

What I said:

I’m a huge fan of Stephen King and have dabbled in creative writing in the past, so I found this book particularly fascinating. I love the stories about how he first started writing, and the advice for writers is genuinely useful and easy to understand – it’s always worth listening to someone who has sold a gazillion (probably) books since the 1970s! I would recommend this book to anyone who is similarly a King fan and would like some tips on how to improve your writing.

A Closed And Common Orbit (Becky Chambers)

The blurb:

Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has to start over in a synthetic body, in a world where her kind are illegal. She’s never felt so alone.

But she’s not alone, not really. Pepper, one of the engineers who risked life and limb to reinstall Lovelace, is determined to help her adjust to her new world. Because Pepper knows a thing or two about starting over.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that, huge as the galaxy may be, it’s anything but empty.

What I said:

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet is probably my favourite science fiction novel, so I had high hopes for this sort-of sequel – and it didn’t disappoint.

It’s definitely a different sort of book to the first one, focusing on the history of one character and the present day for another. However, Becky Chambers’ immersive style of writing and knack for getting into the heads of fascinating characters is still very much in existence. She has a real flair for exploring what makes us human from the point of view of characters of all kinds of species without being boring about it and through a compelling plot.

I heard the day before I finished this that the third Wayfarers book is coming out in June 2018 – if it’s anything like the first two then we’ll all be in for a treat!

The Fifth Season (N K Jemisin)

(I also gave the third book in this series, The Stone Sky, 5 stars, but I didn’t want to spoil the plot of the trilogy for anyone by posting the blurb/review here!)

The blurb:

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

What I said:

I haven’t got much to say that others haven’t already said, but what a beautifully written, wonderfully surprising novel this is. I loved the setting, the characters, the history, the different narrative styles, everything. I reserved the next book in the series at the library when I was about 100 pages in. I can’t wait to read it!

Kindred (Octavia Butler)

The blurb:

On her twenty-sixth birthday, Dana and her husband are moving into their apartment when she starts to feel dizzy. She falls to her knees, nauseous. Then the world falls away.

She finds herself at the edge of a green wood by a vast river. A child is screaming. Wading into the water, she pulls him to safety, only to find herself face to face with a very old looking rifle, in the hands of the boy’s father. She’s terrified. The next thing she knows she’s back in her apartment, soaking wet. It’s the most terrifying experience of her life … until it happens again.

The longer Dana spends in nineteenth century Maryland – a very dangerous place for a black woman – the more aware she is that her life might be over before it’s even begun.

What I said:

This is a brilliant novel.

Kindred is not really science fiction; the time travel concept is the most science fiction-y thing about it, but it’s presented very matter-of-factly and without any real explanation, scientific or otherwise. It’s more historical fiction, but from the point of view of someone from the modern era, which is what makes it so interesting, especially now when race relations and the spectre of slavery is very much in the news.

The pared-back writing style certainly makes Kindred fairly easy to read in the practical sense, but it wasn’t an easy emotional read for me. I became caught up in the characters and their fates alarmingly quickly, and every twist really got to me. It’s not often that books do this to me!

My not-so-favourite reads

Unfortunately, I read a few duds this year and didn’t finish a couple of them. As well as the below, I spectacularly failed to get on with Paul Beatty’s Booker-winning The Sellout and felt thoroughly stupid for doing so.

I also fell out with The Last Hours by Minette Walters for making me plough through a lot of dull plot only to discover it’s not even a complete novel in itself – there’s apparently a sequel coming at some point!

Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Cafe (M Henderson Ellis)

0.5/5, unfinished

I couldn’t get on with this at all and abandoned it after 50-odd pages. The protagonist isn’t at all interesting and the sardonic, overly wordy writing style isn’t my thing. Which is a shame, as I originally picked this up as I was due to visit Prague soon!

Prague Nights (Benjamin Black)

1.5/5

Well, this wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read. I so wanted to love a historical crime novel set in Prague, but it was so slow, dull and nonsensical that it’s a wonder I finished it at all. You don’t learn much that isn’t already in the blurb until over 100 pages in, then nothing of note happens until a minor character reveals a whole load of crucial backstory three-quarters of the way in.

Meanwhile, the prose is 75% description/metaphor, the main character does nothing whatsoever to advance the plot and just sleeps with every woman he encounters while wistfully comparing them to his mother (!), and the other characters are so slightly drawn that you don’t care about any of them at all.

Stancliffe’s Hotel (Charlotte Brontë)

2/5

I wasn’t expecting much for something that was never intended to be published and was written at a young age for three siblings with a similar mindset, and that’s what I got. There are some wonderfully funny snippets of speech and description, but there isn’t much of a plot to get into.

Still, you do get a sense of Charlotte Brontë’s developing wit and imagination, which is fascinating to see if you’re a huge fan!

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (edited by George R R Martin)

2/5, unfinished

I probably should’ve realised that it’d be a good idea to read some Jack Vance before picking up this collection. But I didn’t, and I only managed 160 pages before calling it a day. I understand that the stories are a homage to Vance and his particular style of writing but, unfortunately, it’s a style that’s not for me (especially when there’s nearly 700 pages of it).

I did skip ahead to look at the stories by two of my favourite authors – Tad Williams and GRRM himself – but couldn’t even finish those. I did, however, enjoy Neil Gaiman’s story, which is fortunate as he’s been on my to-read list for a long time.

2018 reading

A whole mess of books in my to-read pile…

I still have a to-read pile of 60-odd books to get through, so I’m going to try to get through most of them in 2018. As everything seems to be going up in price at the moment (grumble grumble), I’m going to make a real effort to only buy books that I’ll definitely keep, and rely on the library and BookMooch for everything else.

I’m most looking forward to receiving the paperback releases of The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams and Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb – whether I’ll get round to re-reading the series/books before those remains to be seen!

I’m also hoping to continue reading more from BAME writers. I have a couple of library reservations that will help with this – Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, which I’m really looking forward to.

Here’s hoping for another excellent year of reading!

My new bathroom

I bought my little terraced house nearly five years ago, but doing up the bathroom wasn’t my priority then – the main task was to get the hundreds of layers of wallpaper, paint and woodchip (woodchip!) off the walls of the main bedroom.

Because I hate hard work, that particular job took quite a while to get round to and even longer to complete, but it got done. Then my attention turned to the bathroom with its weird avocado-pistachio-yellowy-brownish suite and half-tiled walls. The upper half of the walls were lined with wallpaper, which is of course the perfect thing to use in a room that’s perpetually full of moisture.

The old bathroom. What colour *was* it?

There was no extractor fan, so the wallpaper ended up spotted with condensation mould which the previous owners had simply painted over. I tried to do the same, but lost the will to keep repeating the exercise quite quickly. Something needed to be done.

Over the summer, my husband and I had a brief debate about the merits of a gradual renovation to minimise disruption versus getting everything done at once so we’d have more disruption, but over a much shorter period of time. And, trust me, we needed to get EVERYTHING done – replastering, extractor fan installed, new tiles all over the floor and walls, new suite put in, pipes shifted, and electrical work.

We both agreed that we just wanted to get it over with after spending so long with a crap bathroom, so after expending a lot of time and energy trying to find someone who would be willing to give us a quote (seriously, a couple of people either didn’t turn up as arranged or came round but then never sent a quote. We actually want to give you our money! What’s wrong with you?!), we got the project booked in for a period of around 10 days in October.

It wasn’t a pretty 10 days, let me tell you. It was a bit scary coming home from work on the first day and seeing the bathroom completely gutted of everything except the loo – which we had to put up with only being usable when the workmen weren’t there, and only then with a ‘manual’ flush, shall we say. We could only wash at the kitchen sink, although I could at least use the showers at work. Thank goodness for dry shampoo.

When the tiles started going in a few days later, I was relieved. I could finally see everything start to take shape! Once the suite was in, I was practically ecstatic. We’d definitely chosen wisely (well, mainly my husband, because I’m crap at choosing things that go together) – we wanted a look that would suit the high ceilings of the house, so we went with a Victorian-style white suite with a high-level toilet, charcoal and white pattened floor tiles, and huge white gloss tiles for the walls.

I can’t tell you how brilliant it was when the workmen finally left and we could clean up all the dust and set about buying the little bits we needed for the bathroom. We got some new grey storage units from Argos and a little round teal table from Zara Home that I love but my husband thinks is ‘a bit weird’. The teal is there to add a splash of colour to what is otherwise a pretty monochrome room, and I think it works well.

I love my showers, but it was so, so wonderful to have my first bubble bath in the new bathroom. I could finally relax in a lovely, fragrant, foam-laden haven without having to stare at specks of mould on the wall! I could even have the ‘big light’ off for more subdued lighting as we now have an illuminated mirror! Which also heats up to keep steam off it!

We’re now around 6 weeks on from the renovation, and I’m still delighted with the new bathroom. It was an expensive, messy and stressful time, but so totally worth it for what we have now. Here’s to lots more perfect bubble baths over the winter!

Some things I’ve been doing

I haven’t had much to blog about of late (although there’s an upcoming post on my new bathroom!), so I thought I’d give an update on various things I’ve been doing recently.

What I’ve been…

…reading

My current obsession is The Broken Earth trilogy by N K Jemisin, an award-winning black female fantasy writer who is really, really good. The books tell the story of a future Earth beset by earthquakes and related weather events, focusing on characters with the power to control and manipulate these events.

I absolutely love everything about them – the setting, the diverse range of characters, and the twists and turns of the plot. I’ve read the first two books so far, The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, and am impatiently waiting for other library users to return the final book so I can find out how it all ends. Then I’ll turn my attention to Jemisin’s other books!

I’ve also recently enjoyed Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (a fairly technical yet compelling generation starship novel) and Munich by Robert Harris, which revolves around the signing of the Munich Agreement by Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier and is told from the point of view of an official from the British Foreign Office. I have another Harris novel on the to-read pile, Fatherland, which I’m really looking forward to delving into.

One book I read that I didn’t enjoy quite as much as the above is The Sellout by Paul Beatty. It won last year’s Booker Prize and received so much praise that I was properly excited about reading it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite for me. It sort of made me feel the same way that cult novels like Jack Kerouac’s The Road do – like it’s written for a specific, niche audience who will just ‘get it’ and love it instantly, but sadly I’m not in that audience.

…watching

Roisin Conaty as Marcella in GameFace

Like nearly everyone else I know, I made short work of season 2 of Stranger Things as soon as it hit Netflix, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ve been obsessed with this (unofficial) Spotify playlist ever since.

I also really enjoyed Roisin Conaty’s funny and brilliant E4 show, GameFace, which reminded me a bit of Fleabag.

We’ve been well and truly enthralled by the new series of Blue Planet – I still can’t get over the fact that a) some fish have FEET, and b) cuttlefish change colour to hypnotise crabs!

I tried to watch the new Star Trek: Discovery series on Netflix, but I’ve never really been a big fan of Star Trek, and was disappointed with the second episode I saw after the previous one was actually quite enjoyable.

After not going to the cinema for ages, we went twice in quick succession to see The Death of Stalin and Paddington 2, both of which were excellent.

…playing

I started playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild (Wii U version) soon after it came out in March, and I quickly roped my husband into playing it with me. We came close to completing the main story months ago, but he persuaded me to go in search of all 900 (!) of the collectibles called Korok seeds before we actually finished it. We finally did it after months of running around the map in circles (quite literally), and now I’m happy to finally be taking a break from the game, great though it is!

I’m still playing Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy on my 3DS. I think (I hope) I’ve nearly finished it. It’s a bit disappointing – there are a few really good visual puzzles, but a lot of the others are basically really annoying trick questions. It’s not quite vintage Professor Layton!

I really, really want to buy a Switch because there are so many games I want to play on it, but it’s a bit on the expensive side for me at the moment, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get one next year!

…cooking

We’re well and truly into autumn cooking mode – lots of curries (especially around Diwali), stews and generally warming dishes.I’ve really enjoyed trying some new recipes from The Dal Cookbook and Chai, Chaat and Chutney, including this delicious egg curry.

We also made a Greek feast with houmous, whipped feta, giant beans and pitta bread to celebrate the completion of our new bathroom!

I’ve baked two very autumnal things recently – a spiced raisin traybake adapted from this recipe, and parkin, the latter of which I made from a recipe from Felicity Cloake’s ‘Perfect…’ column in the Guardian. It was incredible, especially as I left it for a few days before eating it, and it continued to get better over the next few days before we polished off the lot.

Parkin!

5 of my favourite make-up products

I’ve been wearing make-up since I was 16 and put it on most days. At first, I wore it to disguise problematic skin (acne and scarring, ugh), but over the years I’ve also learned how to use it to accentuate my features and express myself through a bit of colour and sparkle.

I have quite a few make-up products, so it’s a bit difficult whittling it all down to just five things I really like, but these are the ones that I would categorise as ‘must haves’ that I would happily repurchase over and over.

Bobbi Brown Skin Foundation Stick

I’ve been using this ever since I went to a Bobbi Brown counter for a bridal make-up lesson. The assistants recommended the Skin Foundation Stick to help my skin look like skin, but better – as opposed to just covering everything up with a thick, full coverage liquid foundation, which I’d been tempted to do as I suffer from hyperpigmentation.

I’d never used a stick foundation before, but I was an instant convert and I now use it daily. I would say it offers medium coverage that can be built up, and never looks cakey or oxidises on my weird slightly-combination-but-largely-normal-with-dry-and-dehydrated-bits skin. I use my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush to apply it, although if I’m in a rush I can also just dab it on straight from the stick and blend with my fingers.

Also, can I just quickly praise the shade range – Bobbi Brown is well known for catering to a huge range of skin tones with its face products, and I’ve always found a perfect match with their foundations. My skin is on the fair side for someone of Indian descent, and it also has yellow undertones. However, most high street brands don’t go up to my shade, so I love that I know I’m always 4.5 Warm Natural in Bobbi Brown foundations!

MAC Powder Blush in Gingerly

I was introduced to the ‘double blushing’ technique by a column and video from the wonderfully knowledgable Sali Hughes a few years ago. This is where you use a blusher a few shades up from your skin tone as a base blusher all over the cheek, then apply your normal blusher on the apple of the cheek for a pop of colour. I find that this helps the colour to ‘blend’ with my skin tone and not look too garish.

I did a bit of googling to see what my base blush should be, and MAC Gingerly – a matte bronze shade – looked ideal. I’ve been using it ever since and love the warmth it adds. My favourite colour blushers to add on top include NARS Deep Throat (shimmery peachy pink), NARS Impudique (coral-red), Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge in Raspberry (warm red-pink), Daniel Sandler Watercolour Crème Rouge Blush in Soft Peach (peachy pink) and Sleek Flushed (deep berry pink).

Illamasqua Precision Gel Liner in Infinity

I have a ridiculous addiction to eye liner – I have all sorts of types and colours, including pencils, liquid liners, pens and gels in black, blue, purple, green, brown… the list goes on. I generally wear black liner most of the time, and this Illamasqua gel eye liner – which I first read about on the brilliant Fashionicide blog – is my favourite for a true blackest of blacks line.

I use my Bobbi Brown Ultra Fine Eye Liner Brush with this to create a neat line and precise cateye flicks, although you could also smudge it before it sets for a softer look. I find that it stays on all day and a pot lasts for aaages – I think I’ve had mine for well over a year, if not two. I pile it on maybe twice a week and it’s still going strong!

Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Cream Shadow Stick in Stone

This is the product that started a relatively recent obsession with eye shadow sticks. I wore Sunlight Gold (a sparkly gold) with dark brown powder shadow in the crease for my wedding day and continue to use it every so often, but Stone – an interesting grey/brown shade that’s a step up from your usual neutrals – is what I wear most days.

The cream shadow glides on really easily and stays on all day. I can use a variety of colours in the crease to change things up, depending on whether I want to go cool or warm-toned with my eye look. I’ve used dark brown, navy and charcoal in the crease with Stone all over the lid, and it always looks so good!

Kiko Precision Eyebrow Pencil in 01 Blackhaired

Confession: I’ve never had my eyebrows threaded or shaped in any way. I do a bit of tidying up myself when I really need to, but otherwise I can’t be bothered when my brows are hidden behind my fringe most of the time. They’ve been pretty thick for most of my life, but they’re now prone to becoming sparse every now and then, so I’ve got into the habit of filling them in with this bargainous pencil from Kiko.

I used to find it hard to find a brow pencil that wasn’t too black, but then I stumbled across this and it’s perfect – it’s more of a dark grey than black, and doesn’t look too obvious unless I accidentally become heavy-handed with it (which happens sometimes!). After filling them in, I set my brows with some clear brow gel from Rimmel, and that’s pretty much the full extent of my brow upkeep. Which is pretty minimal in the current age of eyebrow mania!

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Recipe: Bombay potato and pea curry with rice and a cheat’s kadhi

This is a quick version of a dish I grew up with. My mum makes a simple lunch dish of rice, kadhi (a yogurt and gram flour sauce) and a vegetable curry most Sundays, and it’s just a really nice, comforting dish with lots of flavour.

The kadhi is usually served warm and involves tempering various spices in hot oil and adding it to the sauce (which can sometimes cause a small explosion…!), but I’ve created a safer cold version here that’s not particularly authentic. However, it adds some sharpness to offset the spice of the Bombay potatoes and the sweetness of the peas.

You could even do away with the kadhi altogether and just serve the curry and rice with a dollop of sharp yogurt on top – but I like the moisture that the kadhi adds to the dry potatoes.

Bombay potato and pea curry with rice and a cheat's kadhi

• Servings: 2
• Time: 45 mins
• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

A quick and easy curry perfect for lunch.

Calories per serving: 488

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
• 0.5 tsp black mustard seeds
• 0.5 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
• 1 thin green chilli, finely chopped
• 0.5 tbsp ginger, grated
• 0.5 tsp red chilli powder
• 0.5 tsp turmeric
• 300g potatoes, peeled and cut into medium chunks (I like to use red potatoes in curries)
• 80g fresh or frozen peas
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 0.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 0.5 tsp amchoor (dried mango powder) (optional)
• handful of coriander, chopped
• salt, to taste

For the rice:

• 120g basmati rice, rinsed and drained
• 10g butter
• 2 whole cloves (optional)
• 2 cardamom pods (optional)
• salt, to taste

For the kadhi:

• 60g sharp natural yogurt
• 1 tbsp coriander leaves
• pinch of red chilli powder
• pinch of ground cumin
• pinch of garam masala
• salt, to taste

Directions

1. Parboil the potatoes in salted boiling water for 10 minutes and drain.
2. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the black mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Fry until the mustard seeds start to pop.
3. Add the onion and fry gently until soft.
4. Add the green chilli, garlic and ginger and cook for a further minute.
5. Add the potatoes and the red chilli powder and turmeric. Stir and cook over a low heat with the lid on while you prepare the rice and kadhi. You may need to give the potatoes the occasional stir to stop them from sticking to the pan.
6. Cook the rice using the absorption method: put the rice in a small saucepan and add enough cold water to cover the rice by about 1cm. Add the butter, spices and salt, then place over a high heat until the water starts to boil. Put a lid on the saucepan and turn the heat down as low as it will go, and cook without removing the lid for around 13 minutes, until all the water has been absorbed and the rice has been cooked. Remove the whole spices.
7. Make the kadhi by placing the yogurt in a jug and adding enough cold water to create the consistency of a thin gravy. Add the coriander leaves and spices, and stir thoroughly. Add enough salt to bring out the sharpness of the yogurt.
8. Add the peas to the potatoes around 5 minutes before you turn off the heat.
9. Once you turn the heat off, add the ground cumin, ground coriander, amchoor (if using), garam masala and coriander. Stir, then taste and add salt as needed.
10. Serve the curry over the rice, then pour the kadhi over the top of everything. Enjoy!

A bookish Six Degrees of Separation: From Like Water For Chocolate to Life After Life

There’s a wonderful book blogger challenge that takes place regularly called Six Degrees of Separation, where Kate of Books Are My Favourite And Best starts everyone off with a particular book and anyone who wants to take part writes their own post listing five more books in addition to this one, each inspired by the previous one in the list in some way. I saw my friend Jan do this on her blog and I just had to join in!

The starting book this month is Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, which I’ve never heard of but definitely want to read. It sounds really intriguing and is structured around the 12 months of the year, with each section starting with a specific recipe – as the main character is in love with someone she can’t have, and uses cooking to convey her feelings.

Like Water For Chocolate uses magical realism, which made me think of Isabel Allende’s The House Of The Spirits. I haven’t read this either, but it’s one of those highly acclaimed novels that is repeatedly recommended, so I hope I’ll read it one day!

The ‘Spirits’ bit of that title reminded me of Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. The novel is about twin sisters who inherit a flat next to Highgate Cemetery in London from their aunt, who was also a twin estranged from her own sister, the twins’ mother. The twins soon realise that their dead aunt is haunting the flat…

Niffenegger wrote one of my favourite books ever, The Time Traveler’s Wife, which made me think of another time travel novel I read recently, Kindred by Octavia E Butler (you may have seen me gush about it on Instagram recently!). The book tells the story of a black woman who is forced to travel back in time from the 1970s to slavery-era Maryland where she has to repeatedly save her white slave-holding ancestor from dangerous situations – while also experiencing the grim reality of life as a slave during this period.

This reminded me of another book I really want to read, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which reimagines the real-life network of escape routes and safe houses used by slaves to run away to freedom in the US as an actual railway.

As The Underground Railroad is an alternate history, my last book on this list is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which tells the story of a woman forced to be born over and over again and live alternative versions of her life repeatedly. I absolutely loved this book when I read it, and the follow-up, A God In Ruins, is excellent too.

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The night is dark and full of terrors

The night before last, I went to a wonderful Manchester Literature Festival event in the city centre with a friend. I’d been looking forward to it for a while, and it didn’t disappoint. But as soon as it was over and we parted ways outside the venue to go home, the fear set in.

It was the first time I’d faced a journey home alone at night for rather a long time. Almost a year, in fact. Nearly 12 months to the day when I was mugged by two teenagers while walking home from the bus stop at some point after 8pm on a dark October evening.

They forcibly took my bag with my purse, phone, keys, books and all the other usual detritus that ends up in a woman’s handbag. I ended up on the ground in the middle of the road, shocked and angry and incredulous, while the thieves sped off in a car. But things are just things, and I wasn’t seriously hurt in a physical sense. They simply took my sense of confidence and safety away from me along with my possessions.

Since then, I haven’t had the will to go on any sort of outing that involves having to come home on my own at night and walk down the road where I was mugged all that time ago. I made one exception in the summer to see my favourite fantasy author speak at a bookshop event, but even that 5-minute walk from the bus stop in the still-bright evening reduced me to paranoia. Other than that, I only ever go out in the evenings with my husband (thank goodness that, literary festivals aside, we share many of the same interests!).

I keep thinking that I can just get a taxi if need be, but I already pay nearly £60 a month for my bus pass – why should I spend even more for feeling a bit safer? (Also, I’m not entirely sure that taxis are all that safe, anyway – I was once asked for my phone number by a driver who I’m pretty sure was unlicensed but was posing as a licensed black cab driver).

Going home from work was really difficult at first. There was no way to get around having to make that journey in the dark in the winter, so I started off by taking an alternative route up the next street along, and then going back on the normal route, practically running all the way. It was made all the more difficult later that winter when there was a spate of other muggings, attacks and sexual assaults in my area, which just made me panic even more.

It’s still been difficult in the lighter evenings, though. The sound of a car going too fast (the muggers had screeched up the road past me, then got out to mug me), quick footsteps behind me, a sighting of teenagers on the path ahead, strange men crossing to my side of the road… It all still makes me anxious, and I’m absolutely dreading the first walk home in the dark in the next few weeks.

I know it’s mostly in my head. I know that night a year ago could’ve been a lot worse. I know I should be grateful that I came out of it all in one piece.

I know all those things, but bloody hell am I angry that I’ve let them take my sense of freedom away from me. I used to saunter through the dodginess that is Bolton town centre late on Saturday nights on my way home from a day out in Manchester and sometimes have to run away from creepy men passing by in cars. I’ve been groped on trains and shouted at in the street and had quite frankly downright weird encounters with odd people on buses.

I never let any of that get to me for long, but being mugged seems to have been the last straw – perhaps because it’s not just ‘one of those things’ that comes with being a woman going from A to B on her own, unfair as it is, as it could’ve happened to anyone walking down that street at that precise moment. And it just so happened to be me.

The other night was a small step forward. I went out, I came home (albeit via the alternative route, and after some deliberation over whether to fork out for a taxi or not) and nothing happened, either in the city centre or on that last stretch from the bus stop. That’s good. It’s progress, I’m sure.

But I’m still not keen to try it again any time soon. When I reported the mugging to the police, I had a call from the victim support service asking if I needed to make an appointment to talk to someone, but I said no. I was distracted by things like waiting for replacement bank cards and a new bus pass, buying a new phone, trying to get a message to the police about where my debit card had been used after it was stolen (although I never heard anything from them after that, so of course I’m convinced that my muggers are still out there, somewhere), and just didn’t think ahead to how the whole thing would affect me in other ways.

Now I wonder whether it’s something I do need to talk to someone about, but they’ll probably say what I keep telling myself – that I’ll get over it in time – and, in any case, it’s difficult enough just writing this down.

I have another evening event in December that I’m determined to go to. If I can get back from that on my own without seeing potential criminals everywhere, I’ll consider that another small step forward.