Tea based exploration.

When I was out and about the other month I picked up a leaflet for a Yorkshire Tea Trail and as I'm partial to a nice cup of tea I put the leaflet in my bag for further inspection. 

On looking at the trail it became apparent there were a lot of places that I hadn't been for a cuppa but also that Sheffield and Huddersfield were completely overlooked.

I think it would be a fun challenge to take on this tea trail but I also think that it may be necessary to create my own tea trail for nice places to have a cuppa in Yorkshire and Derbyshire which haven't made the list. Anyone have any suggestions about where I should start?

One whole month!

So I started off this month with the aim of writing one blog post every day for a month and whilst I knew that it would be a challenge I launched into it anyway. It turned out that even with all the topics already road planned out for the month that this was a difficult thing to do.  I had technology problems, trouble thinking what to write for some of the topics and in the end will power problems.

Sadly in the end I didn't manage to hit my goal of writing 31 blog posts this May as the will to write them dwindled mid month and I became unable to keep up by the end of the month.  Despite being unable to complete the challenge I'm not writing the month off as an utter failure as I did learn some important lessons!  The first one is that it's ok to write about topics that are outside of your comfort zone every so often or are a bit different to what you'd normally blog about.  While I'm not sure I'd have ever blogged about my morning commute, my first job, a day in my life, advice I'd give my 13 year old self or what's in my fridge normally I now know what I'd put and that these are not topics I want to return to in the future.

It's also helped to remind me about things I enjoy writing about like books, food, travel and music.  This has prompted me to think about blogging more about these topics in the future.  It had also been good to be a part of the #BEDM group on twitter and visit the blogs of other participants who I might not otherwise have stumbled upon.

There's due to be another challenge in November but I'm not sure that I'll be able to try again then or to post coherent blog posts due to my next big challenge appearing in late September... That as well as November being the month of Nanowrimo!  Still I'll be interested to see how other bloggers approach the topics that are set for #BEDN.

Music Love. Blog Everyday in May.

Nearly everyone who knows me also knows that I love music and that it's impossible for me to name my top 5 albums!  This is partly because I have a memory like a sieve but also because I've been lucky enough to hear lots of music when I wrote for the music section of the Huddersfield Student newspaper. Some great... some not so great...

As a child born in the 80s most of the music my parents played was Queen, ABBA, UB40, Eurythmics, Roxy Music and Human League with a bit of Madonna and Kylie thrown in there for good measure. Queen and ABBA seemed to be played most though...  As I got older I had a small pop phase before being introduced to Belle and Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields and The White Stripes as a teenager. At a similar time I also discovered The Smiths.  Something in this music spoke to me, I'm not sure what. 

I think with The Smiths it was a recognition in the music that there were other people out there that were shy, cynical and a tad melancholy.  With Belle and Sebastian I enjoyed the melodies and the fact that this beautiful sounding band were self deprecating too.  That and their witty songs full of humour, jangly guitars and barbs.

My first experience of the Magnetic Fields was through their album 69 Love Songs and I enjoyed the heartbreaking sweetness of some of their songs juxtaposed with the silliness of Chicken with It's Head Cut Off.

The White Stripes were great for their seeming simplicity and some of their foot stomping tunes like Hotel Yorba.  They also had great style and the rock n roll aggression resonated in the angry young woman in me.

 

Another band I discovered at a similar time was The Pixies, a band who are the right kind of mental for me with their surf-punk fusion.  I must admit I still have debates about which of album of theirs I like best Doolittle or Surfer Rosa... I used to maintain it was Surfer Rosa in arguments but I'm not sure if it's age or my hormones that are swaying me to Doolittle more.

 

Over the years I've grown to know and love many more bands like Sons and Daughters, The Long Blondes, Camera Obscura, McLuskey, Monkey Swallows the Universe, Allo Darlin, Slow Club, Flaming Lips and of course Arcade Fire. I could wax lyrical about all these bands forever and a day... ..so I think that may have to be another blog post or ten for another day!  So there you have it I can't choose just 5 favourite albums out of my hundreds of cds but I can pick 5 influential bands!

What's in your fridge? Blog Everyday in May.

This is one of the more unusual topics of blog every day in May. This what lies inside mine and Paul's fridge today.




It mainly seems to be a combination of beverages, cheeses (paneer, hallomi, dairylea & cheshire) & sauces. As well as some other ingredients for cooking like harissa paste, tomato puree & garlic.

So this is what's currently in my fridge I hope it's of interest, is it like yours?

Compliments. Blog Everyday in May.

I'm one of those people who struggle to accept compliments, they're very nice to receive but there's a rubbish part of my brain that doesn't think I deserve them. Sometimes another part of my brain warps things further and turns them into backhanded compliments.  Why this happens is a mystery to me!

Yet somehow this goes out the window when people compliment something I've made or an idea I've had! If someone compliments my sweet making,baking or writing I'm over the moon. I probably wouldn't hear if someone said you've made a delicious cake shame you look like you've been pulled through a hedge backwards... all I'd hear would be the cake bit. My favourite compliments have been when people say they like my novel idea and want to read the finished article or when someone compliments my writing when I've had an article or a recipe published.

So if you want to get into my good books now you know exactly what to say!

13 year old you! Blog Everyday in May.

I don't have any photographs of me as a 13 year old and definitely none that are uploaded on to my computer! If I met my 13 year old self and this didn't cause a rift in both time and space it would be very tempting to try to offer some advice.  The thing is I expect it would be hard to know where to start!

I think the main thing I would tell my past self would be not to worry so much about fitting in and being normal.  I gave it ago once and ended up ignored and bored.  I'd also try to explain that there's a reason you don't fit in with the people your hanging around with it's because they're not the people who you need to be friends with.  Try to stick with the more artistic and bookish people they are your kind, they understand that you read to escape school not to be rude to anyone.  (They also have the best computer games!)

Another piece of advice I'd give is that worrying about getting more confident won't help you get anymore confident it actually seems to have the opposite effect!  I also used to get upset that no boys seemed to like me but this was really the last thing I should've been worrying about... it was just that I was a shy little thing with no clue that reading books hunched up in a corner wearing baggy clothes wasn't going to make me attractive. Seems obvious now but that took me a few years to figure out.

I'd also be tempted to give myself a couple of other pieces of advice like don't worry so much about school. Although might help to focus a bit more in class and stop reading till the early hours...

The last thing I'd do would be to tell myself that my parents are human and make mistakes just like everyone else.  Another obvious point but it was something I didn't get as a screaming banshee of a teenager. It's also something I hope that my unborn son realises when he meets me, that we're all doing the best we can with the knowledge that we've acquired.

I wonder what advice my 39 year old self will have for me in another 13 years?

Dream Job. Blog Everyday in May.

When I was a small child I changed what my dream job was several times a day I went from wanting to be a fighter pilot to a pig farmer and artist to an actress a pop singer to a film director... the list goes on and the possibilities seemed endless! As I got older I put some of these dreams aside as they seemed impossible or I got bored of them and other dream jobs replaced them. When I was a teenager I went from wanting to be an actress to an artist to a film director before giving film making ago and realising that I'm not very good at it.  At the same time I experimented with writing and found I wasn't as bad as I'd imagined... After leaving college I didn't think about a dream job as such I just focused on getting a job.  Once secure in that I started to think about writing again and another silly idea of mine forming a band.

I didn't stay in that job forever and ended up going to university and experimenting with different writing styles and different career paths.  I even flirted with music journalism and sub-edited the music section of my student rag!  Then after uni I threw that experience away and went into one admin job then another and fantasised about training up to become a journalist or writing a novel.  Now I've got a few friends who are journalists so I'm not entirely sure if that's the dream... I still day dream about making a living writing about my travels, gigs I've seen, books I've read and recipes I've created. As well as maybe something to do with dancing, twiddling stringed instruments and crafting things.   Really I want to be a renaissance woman!

Truth be told I still don't really know what I want to do with my life and as I probably won't retire for another 40 years I've still got to time to try my hand at becoming a successful music journalist, travel writer, novelist and/or food columnist. One career per decade wouldn't be bad would it? So that's when I've done sitting at my desk writing letters by day I come home and write blogs and stories by night. There's no fairy godmothers out there... ... might end up a Jacqueline of all trades but I should have fun in the process!