Book Club - 02/10/13

I cannot believe it is October already.  This month we went to the Slug and Lettuce in Croydon, which was nice but too loud so we still haven't found our perfect venue yet!! We were discussing 'Everything's Cool' by Justin Carroll.  Its quite a short book so most people had finished it and the verdict was that it was actually quite gripping...until the disappointing ending.  We all agreed that it was so abrupt that we were all expecting to read the next chapter.  I'm all for leaving us wanting a bit more but this did really feel like the last chapter had gone missing. 

Nevertheless it was an interesting read, which took quite a twist towards the second half making most of us speed through it.  Its a bit of strange one really I felt like I couldn't put it down but I didn't really like it that much.  The story is about a guy called Stan who has some very strange behavioural issues.   He lives to a rigid routine, eating and drinking only specific brands and foods he considers safe for consumption and has extreme paranoia that the world is going to end and he is the only person who can stop this from happening.  He doesn't really seem to like life or other people but is intent on saving the world.  Unfortunately he convinces himself that the people around him are against him, one in particular his new boss who has genuine feelings for him and tries desperately to get to know him, not knowing that all along Stan suspects her of being a spy.  Lets say things start to take a turn for the worse.  

I actually pictured Stan as a young guy in his early twenties but a few people at book club pointed out that he was actually supposed to be an older man.  His behaviour and interaction with other people made him appear much younger, which might have been part of his mental illness.  I like the fact that Stan's character was so well described through his actions and thoughts, it made you feel tense and anxious like he felt himself, but I didn't think we knew enough about his background, why he was the way he was and how he had come to these conspiracy conclusions.

Overall the book got between 5 and 6 out of 10, as it wasn't a bad read it certainly kept your attention but it seemed unfinished and there were so many things that could have been expanded on to make it more interesting.      

The new way of choosing the next book seemed to work well last month so I got people to pick 3 bits of paper, read the blurbs and then we voted on which book we'd like to read out of the 3.  The result was...

'11.22.63' by Stephen King

What if you could go back in time and change the course of history?  What if the watershed moment you could change was the assassination of JFK...11.22.63 the day that Kennedy was shot.

In 2011 Jake Epping, an English teacher from Maine, sets out on an insane and insanely possible mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination.  Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of lindy hopping, the sound of Elvis and the taste of Root Beer.

In this haunting world Jake falls in love with Sadie, a beautiful high school librarian and as the ominous date of 11.22.63 approaches, he encounters a troubled loner name Lee Harvey Oswald...

I have already started it, be warned it is a hefty book so if you want to get through it before we meet then get reading!!  I have a feeling this is going to be a great book with lots to talk about!

Next Book Club Meet:

Date: Wed 6th November 2013
Time: 7.30pm

Location: As usual I'm undecided - but if there happen to be any local firework displays maybe go to that first and then back to mine for some munchies and discussion! We shall see!

For those who missed last weeks meet up or left a bit early, we came up with the idea of having a Thanksgiving Book Club dinner (mainly so we eat loads of pie and naughty food, wear silly jumpers and be generally jolly)  This is probably going to be at Laura's house on the 29th November but more details to follow at the next meet up...

Portrait Project - Fletcher

It's taken me a while to get going but officially this is my first portrait!

 

 'The Man Who Loves Fantastic Sandwiches' 

 

Thank you Fletch for letting me post this on my blog its a bit scary drawing pictures of your friends and you're the first to brave it!! Who's next?

Book Club - 28.08.13

We had a nice cosy corner of the pub garden this week and it was lovely to take advantage of the warm weather; it may be our last chance to have an outdoor book club as next time we meet will be October (can’t quite believe that autumn is sneaking up on us).  We had a new recruit aswell Laura joined our gang, hoorah!  I’m thinking we need some more men too so if anyone knows anyone please feel free to invite!  Our book that we were discussing was ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus.  Unfortunately quite a few people didn’t manage to get through it, I think there were only 4 of us that finished it.  One of the reasons was because it wasn’t the easiest of books to persevere with.  Not that it was difficult to read in terms of language but that it was not particularly gripping.

Personally I found the beginning of the story quite interesting as the rats started to come out and the disease began to encroach on the people of the town, however quite a chunk of the middle became quite slow and repetitive.  But when we discussed this it made me consider the fact that by that point of the story that was what life was like in that town, it was monotonous and devoid of emotion because the people of the town could do nothing but try and carry on with their lives and detach themselves from what was going on around them, quote ‘great misfortunes are monotonous’.

Another quote that jumped out at me ‘their despair saved them from panic’ described perfectly the way the towns people reacted to the situation because on reading about the plague my first thoughts were of people screaming, locking themselves indoors and panicking about an epidemic, but in actual fact the complete hopelessness of the situation and being shut off from the rest of the world, watching loved ones pass away, people just fell into despair.

I think it’s a shame that the narrative didn’t invite me to become emotionally attached to any of the characters.  For this reason I found the book less enjoyable than many others that we have read.  Although it’s not my favourite of the books we have read, as always I like the fact that it is completely different to anything I have read before.

This month I decided to be a bit more organised and went through the list of books we have and printed off some blurbs so we could all read what these books are about.  It wasn’t until I did this and read them myself that I got more excited about them because to be honest I didn’t know what half of them were about! After doing this we picked three at random and then voted on the final choice, the result being…..*fanfare*

‘Everything’s Cool’ by Justin Carroll

 

 

Stan has always known how the world will end, and that only he can save it. And he's always known that someone will try to stop him. From his apartment, his thoughts hidden by static, trusting no one and eating and drinking only what he knows is safe, Stan seeks out the man his dreams tell him will be responsible for the apocalyptic 'Project Cassandra'. Faced with a potential spy in new colleague Rachel, Stan's increasingly frantic search takes him down dark paths to darker places. He will have to confront his fears, commit desperate acts and forget all he has known in his mission to save the unwitting, ungrateful world from its destruction. Everything's Cool is a black, paranoid and occasionally funny story of obsession, conspiracies and the end of the world. Stan might be insane, but is he wrong?

My copy has been ordered from Amazon (I couldn’t get a copy in the shops…and no I haven’t tried the library you know what I’m like) so I am eagerly awaiting it to drop through my letterbox!

Next Book Club:

Date: 2^nd October 2013

Time: 7.30pm

Location: As always ‘to be confirmed’ as I have yet to find the perfect venue, most probably the dragon but I will let everyone know nearer the time!

Enjoy!

A Self Portrait

I recently bought a book of photography projects to give me some ideas and encourage some creativity.  Although it is a photography project I've decided because I really want to draw more I'm going to combine the two. My first project is going to be portraits, so watch out I may come after you with my lens!

After taking a picture of myself in a mirror, I decided to draw from the photo and actually prefer the drawing, so this is the official start of my project.  You may think I'm cheating a little here as you can't see my face but essentially this is my self portrait as a lot of the time I am hidden behind my giant lens.  It also represents what I am about to do, I am going to photograph other people doing things they enjoy, love, something they are passionate about.  Primarily the images need to represent my friends personalities!  I finally had a reason to use my new funky sketchbook that I got for my birthday too which is perfect, charlotte you must be psychic. 

 

 

Volunteers with ideas welcome ;)

 

I was undecided on where to document this project, on my normal blog or my photography blog but I thought to start off with it might be more suited to Gem's blogspot as I feel I can reflect more on here for some reason.  Maybe I'll put the grand finale collection of portraits on the other blog as an official ta dah!

 

Book Club - 31/07/13

Great turn out last week sorry its taken a while to blog but I've been a busy bee this week! We met up in the Green Dragon which tends to be a favourite pub for most of us Croydon lot but it was a bit noisy so I'm not sure we've found our perfect venue yet! Venue for next time is to be confirmed, someone has suggested upstairs in the Spreadeagle so I'll let you all know nearer the time!

Well this was an interesting book club, we discussed 'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyes.  I'd say it was a pretty controversial discussion but I think the 5 women had a bit to say on this one when Bill immediately displayed his dislike for the book.  I think its fair to say that it is more 'girly' than any of the other books we've read for book club but I'm pleased the guys gave it a chance and read it! Most of us thought that although written in a chick lit kind of way, because it was quite a serious theme of disability and it wasn't all happy and fluffy that it didn't fall in the same genre.  Saying that it was easy to read and it turns out the girls much preferred it to the men!  And we do like a controversial discussion at book club it would be very boring if everyone had the same opinion about everything!

Personally I really enjoyed reading it, I liked the way their relationship grew from nothing.  They didn't like each other, for Lou it was a job she had to do because she needed the money and Will didn't want a carer/companion to baby sit him.  But as they spent more time together and became used to each others ways their relationship started to grow to friendship and then something more. Its a very sad book, in many ways.  The relationships between Will and his family are strained and in different ways to Lou and her family.  They both have personal struggles going on, but its the way that Will makes Louise come out of herself and develop as a person in such a short space of time which I liked and also how just through friendship Lou makes a big difference to Wills quality of life.  I don't believe if they'd met in other circumstances that they'd be together because before Wills accident he was a high flying businessman, who appeared to be able to get whatever and whoever he wanted and I don't think he would have given Lou, a quirky girl working in a tea shop a second glance.  But that's why it was interesting watching their relationship develop.  There were romantic parts in the story but I think the front cover actually puts some people off by saying its 'gorgeously romantic' because that's not how it appeared to me at all.

I won't give away the ending as some may not have finished and or read the book yet but i'd definitely recommend it, and it would be a good holiday read, although you may have to disguise the sniffing as hayfever!  We decided to let Bill choose the next book as he has been with book club since the start and none of his suggestions have actually come up yet! So our next book is....

'The Plague' by Albert Camus

'The towns people of Oran are in the grip of a virulent plague.  Cut off from the rest of the world, living in fear, they each respond in their own way to the grim challenge of the deadly bacillus.  Among them is Dr Rieux a humanitarian and healer, and it is through his eyes that we witness the devastating course of the epidemic.

Written in 1947 just after the Nazi occupation of France, Camus magnificent novel is also a story of courage and determination against the seeming absurdity of human existence.'





I have no expectations of this book as I've not heard anything about it, but it sounds interesting.  I'm looking forward to reading it because again its something completely different and also not something I would have read if it hadn't come up on our list so even if you're not sure you like the sound of it give it a go, you might well be surprised! I've ordered mine but it hasn't arrived yet but I will be diving straight in when it comes through my letter box!

Next Book Club:

Date: Wednesday 28th August
Time: 7.30pm
Location: TBC (Green Dragon or perhaps Spreadeagle, Croydon)

Get reading! :)

   

It's been a while

I haven't blogged for a while, apart from book club blogs which don't really count.  A friend let me read her first blog today which inspired me to write on mine.  I don't just blog for the hell of it, and I don't blog for other people, I blog because I like to write stuff.  It makes me feel better.  I'm home off sick today and it seems like a good time to write to make me feel better.  I'm actually feeling a little more alive since I started taking my antibiotics, hay fever tablets, eye drops and nasal drops.  Although earlier I did get somewhat confused and nearly put the eye drops up my nose.  What can I say I'm not used to all this medication!!

I just watched Silver Linings Playbook (again) it made me laugh and cheered me up, I love that film.  I laughed out loud as I do, I'm loud.  The man who lives next door probably now thinks some madwoman has broken in to his neighbours house as I am normally at work.  I've nearly got through two boxes of tissues in the last two days, I hate being ill.  On the upside I slept through all night last, a big improvement on the previous nights two hours sleep on the sofa sitting up so that I could breathe.  Life's been very busy the last few weeks, I think this is my body's way of saying ok calm down. What with studying till my eyes fell out on my PTLLS coursework (Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Sector), which to be honest I did find interesting and helpful for my training but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if they gave us more time.  Just under three weeks to complete the coursework was too much in to short a time.  If I were retired it would have been fine.  But that's done now and sent off, just waiting on the results now which should be anytime this week.     

Then there was my driving test last week which was stressful.  I tried not to worry about it, but I am a worrier, I can't help it.  And I passed, although I swear to god I thought I had failed and so did my instructor who was sitting in the back of the car while I had my test.  I don't know who was more surprised him or me when the instructor said 'I'm pleased to tell you, you have passed'.  I didn't hear anything she said after that it was all a blur.  The driving went really well and I actually felt confident, probably one of my better drives (not to big myself up or anything) but the manoeuvre went totally tits up.  It actually couldn't have been much worse.  All I hoped for was that in my test I wouldn't get reverse around a corner, so when she pulled me over and said we are going to reverse around that corner, my heart sank.  And I fluffed it in ways I've never fluffed it before.  But maybe she saw that in other ways I'm a pretty safe driver and for some reason she chose to pass me so I am not going to complain about that!  There was a slightly hairy moment before I even got in the car when she didn't believe I was the same person as the picture on my driving license.  If it was a joke it wasn't very funny.  She made me take my glasses off and told me I looked about 12 in the photo.  My instructor who was actually my music teacher when I was at school was about to step in and say he knew me when I was 12 its definitely her, when she relented her questioning and let me lead her to the vehicle.  It was a hot day but that's not the only reason I was sweating.

I am so relieved but have yet to take my first solo flight.  I drove to Bromley and back on Saturday with Jay in the car which was good but scary on a busy Saturday afternoon, we got there and back in one piece.  I did however tackle a multi story car park for the first time, but I kind of cheated and drove round and round to the very top where not many people park so I had ample room to get into a space.  It was good though.  I can't believe how far I have come in a year from when I first started learning to drive.  I have always said I would never drive, and I was literally terrified when I started lessons but I made the decision that I wanted more independence.  I want to be able to do my photography when I want without making Jamie chauffeur me.  I want to disappear off to national trust parks miles away and take photos without having to wait for everyone else to be free to drive me up there.  I nearly gave up several times, one day in particular when I came home crying I told Jamie that's it I can't do this anymore.  But then I changed instructor and this made all the difference.  I started to realise I can do this, its going to take me a long time but I can do it.  Then I started to enjoy it.  I was still nervous before every lesson but it got less and less.  And now its done, the test is over but the real test is going out and driving around.  Which I know is going to be scary for a while yet.

Jays recently taken one of his exams, and although it wasn't me studying I still found it stressful, and I'm sure he found it stressful watching me study and moan about my coursework.  During the actual course I rediscovered that I like to teach.  But I also discovered that the reason I don't love what I'm doing at work is because the people I teach (generally) don't really want to be there.  I want to teach something people have booked, they have decided I want to learn this, they are interested.  I'd also like to teach something that I am enthusiastic about.  How can I get people to enjoy something which I don't really enjoy myself.  So my next big challenge is to find that something that I want to learn and then learn to teach it.  This could take some time.   

I am very excited about starting a sign language course in September.  I went to a free taster session a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it.  I've been thinking about doing it for years but kept putting it off as it is quite a big commitment, but the taster session was the push I needed. I am now looking into art classes.  When I was at college doing my theatre design degree, one of the things that I always felt held me back was my drawing skills.  Although friends and family told me my drawing was great it was clear on that course that my drawing was no where near as skilled as what others can do.  I watched my friends sketch and paint with fine art skills and felt deflated as I struggled to do my best.  One of my teachers tried to encourage me to enrol on a drawing course to improve myself but for some reason it knocked my confidence and I felt like I couldn't do it.  I hadn't drawn anything for years and then recently this last year I started to draw the odd thing again, mainly animals as this is something I find I really enjoy.  I just love animals.  Then I realised that I do have skill it is just not as honed as it could be, but I do love to draw.  So I am going to find a course in some sort of drawing or painting, just for fun, to get me back into it and make me a better artist.  Now that I am not being marked on my art skills it doesn't matter if I make mistakes, if I draw something crap.  I can just screw it up, shrug my shoulders and draw something else.

I cannot wait until our holiday in two weeks time.  We are going on a cruise around the med for a week.  I have never been on a cruise and we didn't set out to book one either it just happened really.  I am just so excited about seeing lots of new places, taking photos and us just having a new adventure everyday.  Lots of good things to look forward to.  This is why writing makes me feel better because all the crap comes out, I look at it, read it through, then realise that I've already come past it and now have lots of good things to look forward to.  Now piss off germs, thanks for making me realise I need to take it easy this week but you can go now you've done your job.  I'll finish this blog with a picture that always makes me smile and then I'm going to eat some chocolate cake because in my experience I've found this to be much more effective than antibiotics.

Book Club - 19/06/13

Last week was so hectic I have only just got around to writing up June's book club blog!! We met in the Odd Shoe which was uncharacteristically noisy (but the weather was good for once).  For next months I'm thinking if the weather is good then we can have book club in my garden as we finally have a table and chairs outside!! However if the weather is pants perhaps we'll go to the Green Dragon for a change.

Anyway Tess of the D'Urbervilles seemed to go down quite well.  It's a classic so I enjoyed reading it, its not really like anything I've read before, although it is very depressing.  Let's just say there never appears to be a silver lining for Tess! Although its not that big of a book I did only just manage to get through it in the 6 weeks and I think most people were the same.  At first I decided I was going to look up the meaning of any words which I didn't understand as I went through the story however there were so many words I had never heard of that it would have taken me months to read it so I changed my mind!! But it didn't hinder from following the story it just made me think this Thomas Hardy bloke knows alot of long words and wants me to know it.

We had a discussion about who we felt loved Tess the most out of the characters and who really betrayed her the most.  To be honest it was difficult to judge this one for me as they all seemed to love her in some form, but really she was wronged by all of them, her mother, her husband and Alec D'Urberville.  I kept thinking that something was about to go right for Tess and then a turn of the page and I realised that there wasn't going to be a happy ending.  I was very surprised by the twist of events at the end which I won't share for those who didn't get there... (you know who you are). Being set in the late 1890's we talked about how men and women spoke and behaved towards each other and the meanings of being a lover in contrast to today.  There was some confusion as to whether Tess had her baby after being raped by Alec because that chapter ended so abruptly, however Bill reckons there was another chapter that was cut out about Alec engaging Tess in a 'fake' marriage to lure her into his bed.  I'm not sure on this one but if that is true then it does make quite a big difference to the story!

Overall I think score wise most people gave it a 7 out of 10 (I may be making this up as it was last week and I can't remember to be honest) but I don't think there were any hideous marks, we didn't let Rachael rate her 8% as her favourite character had been the horse (pretty much the only one in it so far ;).  

The next book *Drumroll* 

'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyes

Right I've got to say here that I am really pleased this has come up because I got it for my birthday last year and have been waiting to read it, but also because its modern and sometimes after a book like Tess its quite a relief not to have to concentrate too hard.  Unfortunately for some (mainly Bill and Kevin) there were gasps of horror at the words 'gorgeously romantic' on the front cover.  Sorry guys but we're covering all the genres here! To be honest I've just started it and I don't think its a typical trashy girly book you may be surprised so I hope you give it a go! 

'Lou Clark knows lots of things.  She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home.  She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.  What Lou doesn't know is she is about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live.  He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now, and he knows exactly how he is going to put a stop to that.  What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour.'



Next Book Club Meet:

Date: Wednesday 31st July
Location: TBC (Possibly my garden if not Green Dragon)
Time: 7.30pm