Book Stuff: Instructions For a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

I just finished reading the book instructions for a heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell.  This book rescued me from a bit of a reading slump, I felt like I hadn't read anything really good since the summer and I was beginning to lose my faith in my book choices, especially as I felt like I read so many good books last year.

Instructions for a heatwave tells the story of the Riordan's, an Irish family living in London.  One morning during the heatwave of 1976, Robert Riordan goes out to get a newspaper but doesn't come back, as his wife begins to fret over his disappearance she summons her adult children home to help her solve the mystery. 

I love a novel that delves into the psychology of a family, and the Riordan's are a family who have been pulled apart by lies, regrets, resentments and things left unsaid, so there was plenty to get my teeth into with the characters in this book.

My only gripe with this book was that it moved at quite a slow pace that sometimes felt sleepy, and if it wasn't for the notes on the heatwave act throughout the book I think the relevance of it being set in that time would have been lost on me.  That could be to do with the fact though that the heatwave was before my time, maybe if I had been around at that time then it would have sparked some sense of nostalgia in me.

This book is definitely worth a read if you like family drama type stuff, another book that I would compare it to would be fly away home by Jennifer Weiner.

Trust yourself!

I feel like I have been hearing a lot about trust within relationships or rather a lack of it over the last couple of weeks.  A friend told me of her endeavours to find out if her husband was lying to her about his work Christmas party, while another acquaintance informed me that she was trying to find out about her partners credit history after noticing a note on his file during a bank meeting.  Following on from that I then read an article in the Guardian earlier this week about the rise in lady detective agencies in Mumbai, with people who now instruct detectives to carry out pre marital searches on people and even hire spy's when someone so much as cancel's a date with them.  Jeez, all of this made me constrict around the throat, mainly because I would hate the thought of somebody doing that to me, how have we become so repressive?  It made me question why people have a need to have all of this information about somebody, and I think it is because increasingly we want to get everything that we need from just one person, we hate the thought that somebody could be lying to us because then our happiness might fall through.  The strange thing is a lot of the time people don't want this information so they can walk away from a bad situation, they want it so they can manipulate and coerce that person back into doing what they think they should be doing, back to providing the secure future that they were meant to be providing.  Since leaving a relationship where I felt lied to, manipulated and taken for a fool, I have made an effort to just place all of my trust in myself, it really doesn't concern me too much now if somebody lies to me or tries to manipulate me because I know I trust myself to know how to take care of my own needs.  I no longer believe that my happiness is within another person, it s in my own hands.  If somebody in a future relationship cheats on me, well more fool them because I was a good catch, if somebody has debts the truth will come out and I wont have placed all of my financial security with them, if somebody cancels a date with me and I think they might be making up an excuse, oh well I am not short of things to do.  Keep yourself protected, and understand that you might be let down by somebody one day but know that you have a deep trust within yourself and your own abilities and that you know how to survive and how to be happy.

Always celebrate your birthday!

Somebody said to me recently that they were told as a kid that they should make the most of their birthdays up till they were 21, because after that it would all be downhill and they wouldn't want to celebrate them. Until a couple of years ago I probably would have agreed with that statement. Right from the age of about 16 I didn't like getting older, I was a late developer at everything and I always wanted my actual age to match up to that, it felt like time was always flying by. All throughout my twenties I still celebrated my birthdays, but with each one came a sense of sadness that I was growing old too quick or that I wasn't quite where I thought I would be at that age, when my 30th approached I felt positively doomed. Everything changed when a couple of years ago my sister was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 40, when she turned 41 I kept thinking about the fact that this was probably one of the last birthdays she would have and I wondered how it would feel to know that the milestone that comes around every year, wouldn't be coming again. As I turned 33 this year, my first birthday without my sister, I felt nothing but grateful, whatever my age I had been blessed with another year of life, and that was something to celebrate. In a world full of the hurdles of crime, illness and stress it's an achievement to have successfully navigated yourself through that and to have been spared to see another year of life, and somewhere out there in the world people are being told that they won't see their next birthday, while we still have the hope of others to come. So on your next birthday no matter what age you are turning, take the time to celebrate, it doesn't have to be anything big, but just something that pays tribute to the privilege of growing older in this world.

Book Stuff: Trying out YA - Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

As a 33 year old I can't get excited about YA books, but booktube has made me feel bad about this and I've been wondering if I'm missing out on something really great by not reading that genre. It's not that I don't remember what it was like to be a teenager, I honestly do, but when I read a book I want to relate fully to a character and for them to spark emotions in me that are relevant to my life today, and I think that requires adult main characters. Whilst watching booktube over the summer I made a list of a few of the YA books that people seemed to be raving about and decided I would give them a try at some point this year, one of those books was Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Everybody seemed to have this book in their top 10 YA book videos, so I was delighted to stumble across it in my local library. A few pages into the book I thought to myself "this book reminds me of something", and after mulling it over for a while I realised that it reminded me of Judy Blume's style of writing and characters and that made me reminiscent for my childhood. Eleanor & Park tells tne story of a girl named Eleanor and a boy named Park who are kind of the school misfits, through sitting next to each other on the school bus they develop a friendship that progresses into a deep teenage love. I wanted to love this book more than I actually did, it is wonderfully cute and it did take me back to those giddy days as a teenager when you first fall for somebody, and there is all that excitement of finding out about each other. I felt like I wanted more though, I wanted to know more of the intricacies of the characters and what made them so different to everybody else, it wasn't enough for me that Eleanor was an outsider because she had red hair and was slightly chubby, and Park didn't fit in because he was half Korean, there was scope to take the characters a lot further than the author actually did. I know that 14 year old me would have adored this book, and I would have found the ending the most romantic and heart wrenching thing ever, but I think it was just too 'YA' for me. I am glad though that young people of today have a 'judy blume' type author to give them 'all the feels'.

neighbours - Karl and Susan's 20th anniversary

I'm always watching Neighbours episodes about a month behind everybody else, so I only just watched Karl and Susan's 20th anniversary episode. It seems crazy to me that they have been in the show for 20 years, as it seems like only yesterday that I was watching them as newcomers to the street when I was just 13 years old. All of the old clips they showed made me really nostalgic for my teenage years of watching the show. When the Kennedy family first came into Neighbours I wasn't sure that I really liked them, but I think that was because they were replacing the Willis family who had been a kind of trademark family of the 90's era of Neighbours,and also I didn't fancy Mal or Billy, but when people ask me about my favourite characters today Karl and Susan are always top of my list. I love how Karl and Susan have evolved over the years, when they were first in the show Karl was more of an uptight Dad figure but he has become this kind of comic genius character over the years, and I particularly like Susan's development from doctors wife and mum to a journalist/ teacher/ business woman. I know that there will come a time when we have to recall Karl and Susan in the same way that we do Scott and Charlene, but I hope they have a few years ahead of them yet on Ramsay Street.

BBC Doctors - Bye Bye Kevin

I feel like characters exits from soaps are fairly cliche these days, they are either killed off or they head off somewhere for a 'fresh start' or to 'find themselves', so I like it when occasionally a characters departure is a little more complex and leaves me thinking, analysing and asking questions for days. I was sad to see Kevin leave The Mill last week and kept hoping for days leading up to it that there would be a turn of events and he would end up staying. I always associate Kevin with my first getting into BBC doctors two years ago,I had moved back in with my Dad following a bad break up, I didn't like the area we lived in so I never wanted to go out much so I turned to TV for entertainment. I wanted shows that I could watch every day and going through BBC player doctors kind of jumped out at me, the first episode I ever watched was where Kevin had discovered he had a sister from his Asian fathers new family and he was quizzing his mum about her relationship with his family, from that day onwards I have been gripped on the story lines and never miss an episode. I think what has got me with Kevin's exit was that it kind of feels so miserable and unnecessary, but it also tells a really good story of how pride comes before a fall, Kevin effectively became a victim of his own ego, and that ego pretty much defined his character in the show. What has happened to him with Poppy has brought his character full circle, and the intention is that he will go on to be a better person because of it, but a part of me still thinks why couldn't Zara have just kept the secret for him? So he could have had a happier ending somehow. Well done to the writer of that storyline and Kevin's exit, it still has me deep in thought and intrigue!

Never allow loneliness to drive you into the arms of someone you know you don't belong with

This weekend was the first one in about six weeks where I didn't have plans with other people. As much as I have enjoyed everything I've done with others over the last six weekends, I've been looking forward to a weekend with no agenda,to do some nice stuff at home like baking and reading and taking the time to catch up on the tons of washing I have piling up. I've been single for two years now and I'm one of those people who is generally okay on their own, but I did find myself noticing a little sweep of loneliness coming over me by Saturday evening. My first thought was that maybe I should be making sure that I always have plans on the weekend evenings, but as I showered I realised that I just wanted to run away from something that was making me uncomfortable, and really I still wanted to stay committed to being able to face up to things I don't like and ultimately allowing myself to grow from that. After making peace with my few moments of loneliness, it was kind of a surprise to me that I dreamed about being reunited with my ex boyfriend. In the dream we randomly met up again and ended up rekindling our relationship. The dream felt so real, that I woke up in a panic regretting the meeting with him, I didn't want to have to go through the awkwardness of trying to make a bad relationship work, I didn't want to have to be somebody I wasn't, and I didn't want to be used by somebody who didn't really care about me. It was such a relief when I realised that it was all a dream and I didn't have to do any of that stuff. The dream showed me how far I had come though and how much of my own happiness I am not prepared to sacrifice, just so I dont have to face up to things that are difficult or uncomfortable. Loneliness can be hard sometimes, but dont be so scared of it that you stay in bad relationships or hang out with people who don't value you, learn to accept and find your own way through those feelings and you will find that you attract the best people in life, because you don't have a need for anything other than that.

Book Stuff: A week in December by Sebastian Faulks

On Friday I finished reading 'A week in December' by Sebastian Faulks, and it was a long hard slog of a read! Ever since I read the back of this book in a shop a few years ago I've been interested to read it, so I feel really let down by how much of a disappointment it turned out to be. A week in December is a book that follows the lives of multiple characters during a week in December whose paths kind of cross at various times in the story. With this book, the same thing happened to me that I get with other books that focus on lots of different characters, I just couldn't get any empathy or interest in the characters going for me. I would find one character would peak my curiosity only for the next chapter to move on to somebody else, and by the time it came back around to the person I had been interested in I just didn't really care anymore. It felt like we got so much day to day detail about the characters but none of their emotion and the story just kind of fell flat on me, I found myself having to force myself to read chapters of this book and counting down the pages till the end of the book. The idea of the story, all these characters living slightly disconnected from other people against the back drop of the fact that they all travel on a London transport line that is constantly connected in a loop was a great setting, but the actual product just didn't live up to it's potential for me.

Letting go of the need to manipulate!

When I was suffering with depression the worst behaviour I engaged in was manipulating and controlling people. Although I understand now that I was unwell, it's still the one thing now that I look back on that time and struggle to forgive myself for. Back then, I could never let things unfold naturally, or let people decide what they thought of me and my actions, everything had to be carefully contrived to produce the outcome and image that I wanted. People could only have the opinion that I was the best, and I would manipulate people to the highest degree in order to make them form that view of me. Three years later and I've let go of my need to control and please people so much, but yesterday I found myself slipping back into a trap of manipulating somebody, and I instantly disliked the person that I became. I have a shared work situation with a friend which is coming to an end and we are trying to complete it so that we both end up in good positions. In my head I had mentally planned out how things would go and the timescales they would be working to, so when yesterday I found out that things would be moving quicker than expected, this instantly threw me off kilter. I quickly caught myself coming up with ways to slow things down, putting ideas in my friends head to hold her off from taking action and getting angry when I didn't get the responses that I wanted. I retreated to my bedroom feeling crazy and out of control, I didn't like this side of me that I hadn't seen in so long, who was this person who manipulated people's thoughts just to make sure she wasn't disadvantaged? I came back out of my room and told my friend the things that the new developments in our arrangement were making me feel concerned about, and we sat down and made a plan to deal with them to make sure the situation still works for both of us. Today everything feels on track and the fact that things are going at a faster pace than I had expected doesn't seem like it will harm me. I am learning step by step to just trust the process of things and that I can let go and keep my inner manipulation monster firmly in it's cage!

Feeling motivated!

After what has seemed like weeks of distractions, interruptions, birthdays to buy and make plans for, lethargy and illnesses that I just couldn't shake off, this week I am finally feeling calm and motivated and I am experiencing that brilliant feeling at the end of every day of loving what I am working on and creating. The fears that have surrounded me for the past month that I will never recover my motivation have just silently retreated, and it's like they never existed. Maybe the key all along was not to fight the lull in my motivation and just let it take it's course. Just let all the busy and annoying bits of life have their way with me and consume my time and then allow illness to render me a couch potato for a while. If you truly love doing something you will get back in the swing of it and it will feel all the more sweeter for having to live without it for a while.

Young girls need role models exactly like Zoella!

I'm 33 years old and I love Zoella (aka Zoe Sugg), so I can only imagine how insanely I would have adored her as a 16 year old girl. I get emotional every time I see Zoe's YouTube advert come on the television, I want her to succeed in life as badly as I want my little sister to. I first became aware of Zoe when I started watching YouTube videos by sprinkle of glitter and my interest in her peaked when I learnt she was a fellow anxiety sufferer, five months later and I'm hooked on her vlogs and blog posts and well basically everything about her! With all the great things I feel about Zoe, it was disappointing to wake up to an article by the independent claiming that Zoe is the worst kind of role model for the young women of today. In a media world that is saturated with young people falling out of cocktail bars and being paid for photos of the marriages they rush into or children they create in a hurry all to remain famous, there is something refreshing and comforting about somebody who would rather go late night shopping at Waitrose than to the pub, goes for beach walks in a rabbit onesie and gets excited about a Wispa hot chocolate or Nutella pancakes. I am not Zoe's target audience, but does it matter? Beauty isn't my first love but I appreciate what she is creating from her own passion for it, there is an innocence and friendliness about Zoe that is truly infectious and I look forward to her daily vlogs where everything is so familiar that it almost feels like I am checking in with family. The article in the independent implied that Zoe is a bad role model to girls because she encourages young women to be obsessed with beauty and sends the message out to them that looks are the only thing that matter in life. As I read the article I thought, what about 'chummy chatter' where Zoe teams up with sprinkle of glitter to advise on issues such as 'setting boundaries in personal relationships' and 'allowing yourself to feel sad'?, what about the blog posts where Zoe advises young people to get the most out of school and to embrace their studies?, what about the countless times that I have seen Zoe stand up to twitter bullies to defend her followers? And what about the number of times Zoe has spoken out about her ongoing battle with anxiety? How do all those factors constitute a bad role model? The way I see it is that the beauty videos are just a very small part of Zoe's brand, she encourages girls to try new looks and styles and to get excited about products but she also tells them not to hide behind make up and frequently appears make up free in her own vlogs, while helping them negotiate the trickier issues of growing up. I wish there were more young women like Zoe, encouraging young girls to live up to their full potential and to feel good about themselves inside and out, and sharing their vulnerabilities as well as their successes to help inspire young people.

Book Stuff: life after life by Kate Atkinson *contains mild spoilers*

I've just finished reading life after life by Kate Atkinson, I've been eyeing this book up in shops for about 6 months, so I was ecstatic to find a copy of it in my library, as my budget for book buying this year is minimal. It is a fairly chunky book at 615 pages and it took me four weeks to read, but that is only because I started reading it just before I got a really bad head cold where I couldn't bear to look at a book for a fortnight, without that I think I would have devoured the book in days. The story goes a little something like this, during a snow storm in 1910 Ursula Todd is born and dies immediately at birth, on the same day in the same snow Storm Ursula Todd is born and lives to tell the tale and many after that. Ursula is gifted with a strange ability to relive her life over and over again, but in kind of different variations and parallel universises of the same life. The question of reincarnation and the journey of our souls is something that fascinates me, I quite often get senses of de ja vu, or feel instant connections to other people that I can't quite explain, so I was keen to explore this book and the questions that it was posing. I'm going to admit that I did sometimes find this book difficult to follow, it flits with alternating chapters anywhere between 1910 and 1967 as Ursula lives out her various lives, but as you get to understand the characters and the various periods of time it becomes a little easier to deal with. With themes of rape, domestic abuse, sexual assaults on children, war and abortion I did quite often find myself getting a little depressed while reading this book, but as Ursula gets an unlimited number of restarts on her life there was a lot of relief from the alternate versions of her life where the bad stuff hadn't happened. About mid way through the book when it seemed to settle heavily into the period of the second world war, I found myself asking if you had the ability to live your life over why would you keep coming back to the point where you live through war time? Surely you wouldnt choose that over and over again? As I got the end of the book though I understood why Ursula had to live through that in various capacities,ultimately in order to bring greater good to the world. I felt the book could have been a lot cooler if we had some kind of inner dialogue from her Ursula's soul or something like that. For instance why in some cases when she lived her life again did she make it so something bad hadn't happened? And why at other times did she ultimately go back to living the same scenario? This book has had me asking a lot of big questions about how much of our life journey is really chosen by our soul and how much of it is fate? If I had Ursula's gift would I go out of my way to do things differently or are there certain things that however bad they are I need to experience them? I gave this book 4 stars on good reads, its worth a read but like I said it has some heavy themes and requires serious concentration to keep up with the story moving between time periods.

Letting your boundaries slip with people who take advantage

When I suffered a nervous breakdown just over three years ago, the main feeling I had about myself was that I only existed for other people. I was in a relationship with someone who didn't love me, I was in a job working for people who just saw me as somebody to do all the hardwork, and my only friends were men who seemed to have a sense of entitlement over me, yet despite my lack of value to those people the thought of just ceasing the roles I fulfilled in their lives was unthinkable. How could I put my health and myself first when those people needed so much from me? Somewhere in my recovery I grew strong though, and I seemed to be led to make decisions that took me away from the situations I was in. Over the course of six months or so I ended my relationship and stopped being merely half a rent cheque to somebody who didn't care an ounce about me, I left the job where people heaped work upon me, which in turn meant leaving my male work friends behind who only seemed to take an interest in me when there was a work conference coming up where there was a possibility they could get me into bed. When I left those parts of my life behind all of the people protested, or tried to manipulate me to stay in the situation and the weak part of me wanted to stay behind, doing what I knew best which was looking after people. I did the harder thing though and walked away, and I massively distanced myself from everything, it really hurt that only time I ever heard from the people I had done so much for was when they occasionally wanted a self esteem boost by checking that I would still do things for them, I never got any messages simply asking how I was or if I wanted to meet up etc. A year down the line I've massively healed and I realise that those people all just took advantage of me, and that I am better off away from those situations. Occasionally though somebody will pop out of the woodwork, and I will get that familiar anxiety, that feeling of obligation, that I must keep that person happy, and I usually end up telling them what they want to hear, or helping them. After that I'm pretty mad at myself for letting my boundaries slip, because I know that person is off smiling to themselves thinking that they still have the power to get me to do stuff for them. I really hate it when I let myself down like that, but then I remind myself that the fact I even recognise that I should have boundaries is progress! The times that I let these people back in are few and far between nowadays, three years ago I would have been catering to their every demand and whim and thinking only of how I could keep them happy. Boundaries that you are comfortable with are the key to happy and healthy relationships, and I know I am using that 'delete message' option a lot more than I used to. Xxx

Shutting down your cyber bully!

I'm going to admit it, I never really thought cyber bullying was that much of a big deal, but that was before I became a victim of somebody's hate campaign eight months ago. Prior to that I had existed happily on Facebook and Twitter for years, sure I got the odd person on twitter who didn't like my opinion on a neighbours character, and that guy on Facebook I worked with years ago who felt the need the need to poke me, but other than that it was on the whole a good experience and everybody who had my mobile number were considered friends. When I used to hear these stories of people being harassed by text message and stalked on Facebook, I would think why dont they just ignore the messages? Change their phone numbers? Use the block button? Since I have been a victim though I fully understand the fear and anxiety you feel when that person messages you and the terror you go to sleep with wondering what they could do next and when they will pop up again. The person that bullied me actually used to be part of my extended family and the stupid thing was that I hadn't actually done anything wrong to them, their problem was with another member of my family, but they saw me as a weak easy target to take everything out on. I put up with the constant abusive text and Facebook messages for seven months, every time one came through I would feel myself flood with anxiety and negativity, if this person was this evil with their words what could they do to me physically? People I told about it advised me just to ignore everything, and that he would get bored soon enough, I wanted to tell the police but people warned me it might just make things worse. For a while my abuser did disappear, but then he came back with vengeance, his words were meaner and every time he texted me my first instinct was to lock the front door. One day he sent me a message with an attempt to black mail me, it gave me a full on panic attack and something in me just suddenly changed and I very calmly rang the police and told them everything that had happened. The police were actually brilliant, they gave the bully a formal caution under tne bullying and harassment act, which means that if they contact me again they would be liable for arrest. It's been over a month now since the caution and I haven't heard from them. I hope it's the end of a horrible nightmare but I will stay vigilant for now, my biggest lesson has been that online bullying is no joke, it causes just as much hurt and pain as face to face bullying and needs to be stopped. If you are the victim of a cyber bully, here are a few things you can do to protect yourself. 1. If anybody makes a threat of violence to you via mobile phone or social media tell the police immediately. 2. Do not respond to any messages from this person, I know it can be tempting to fight hate with hate, but the last thing you want to do is incriminate yourself. 3. Make sure somebody else knows what is happening, tell a friend or family member so you have a witness to the behaviour. 4. Retain all evidence, I was tempted to change my phone number and block the bully on Facebook, but having all of the messages gave me a strong case with the police for action to be taken, if reading tbe messages upsets you then give the phone to a friend who can monitor it for you and set yourself up a different facebook page, trust me, evidence is your friend. 5. If it is somebody from school, college or work that is bullying you then tell a teacher or HR representative. 6. Please make the police aware of what is happening, if they dont have enough evidence to caution the person at that time then they can at least keep an eye on the person, and you never know you might not be the only person making a complaint which gives more weight to the severity of their caution. 7. Please dint listen to people's fears about contacting the police, it is their job to keep the community safe, a lot of bullies do things because they think they are big, clever and can get away with it, a lot of the time they don't realise that what they are doing holds potential criminal charges. 8. If your bully gets a caution they might come grovelling to you with an apology, please don't get sucked into starting communication with them again, stay silent and let them deal with the repercussions of their actions. 9. Never feel guilty about speaking out about a bully, nine times out of ten people bully because of mental health issues or their own insecurities, you can have empathy for these people but refuse to be their victim, by speaking out and stopping their damaging behaviours you are breaking the cycle and increasing the chances that the bully will get the help the really need. Stay safe xxx

Book Stuff: Chameleon by J. Jackson Bentley

I just finished reading Chameleon by J. Jackson Bentley which is the 2nd in the City of London thriller series. I started reading this series because someone I know recommended it to me, they were raving so much about it and kept asking me if I had downloaded it yet that I felt kind of obligated to read it. I have to admit that I quite enjoyed the first book, even though I found some of it a tad cheesy, this led me on to reading the sequel called The Chameleon, but being honest I found this a long and arduous read! I started reading this just as a quick couple of chapters before I fall asleep type of book, but after about three weeks I was still only 20% of the way through it, so I decided to spend most of Sunday getting it read as I have so many books on my TBR to get through and this one was taking way too long to read. The Chameleon is a weird sequel in that the main character from the first book Josh Hammond is merely an extra in this book. The Chameleon focuses around Josh's wife Dee and her security agency who are tasked with protecting an African couple for 72 hours before they give a speech to government. Events take a turn for the worse and Dee and her people find themselves in a battle for justice against a secretive agency called the chameleon. The story was intriguing and dramatic but the book was just too long for me, some of the descriptions and extra characters just felt so unnecessary and I felt like the story could have been told in about half the time without some of the pointless stuff. The author also makes a brief cameo in the book himself, although I'm still not sure if I find this cool or a bit cringey. I'm not sure that I'm going to read the third book in the series at the moment, but I might come back to it at a later date. The first two books in this series are free to download on kindle.

Book Stuff - The Lessons By Naomi Alderman

I've just finished reading a book called 'The Lessons' by Naomi Alderman. It's a book that has been out for a while that I've eyed up a few times in the library and finally decided to check it out last week. It was one of those books that I could have happily read in a day if I hadn't have started reading it during a very busy week. The book is all about a boy called James, who is kind of a loner and outsider who goes to Oxford university where he is kind of taken under the wing of a very rich boy called Mark. James is invited to move into a house with Mark and a group of his friends and he enters into a strange world of luxury and wealth, but there's a kind of dark sinister side to Mark that James has to painfully uncover. I've made a bit of an attempt at answering some reading group questions on the book, so let's dive in! Question 1: early in the book Mark is writing an essay entitled "A God who does not suffer cannot save: discuss" Can one person save another? Is suffering a necessary part of this? Could Jess save James? Can James save Mark? How about Mark and Leo? Answer: There is a difference between physically saving somebody and emotionally saving them. In the book Mark physically saves Leo from drowning which is achievable, but Jess tries to save James emotionally and James does the same thing for Mark. As humans we frequently try to save people and it always encompasses suffering, you can never truly save somebody because you ultimately just become a shield for them so that they don't have to deal with any of their own issues. Question 2: why do you think Jess wanted to be in a relationship with James? Answer: I think Jess was a rescuer, I think in James she saw a vulnerable person who need protecting. James talks about Jess being a serious almost mother type figure, and somebody childlike and lost like James would have appealed to her nature. Question 3: "people change, our tastes develop. I used to like sleeping with boys, and now I like sleeping with Nicola" what do you think? Is this how sexuality works? Can it be? Answer: I believe that bisexuality exists, but I think it is more of a curiosity thing. I think ultimately our sexuality cannot be changed although of course we can try to deny it or mould it to suit ourselves and our fears and desires. Mark was clearly gay, but I think his desire to be a father and be somewhat normal forced him to make a decision or create an illusion that he was straight. Question 4: The Cavafy poem that opens the novel talks about "longings that have passed without being satisfied". In the novel is it better to have desires satisfied or unsatisfied? How about in life? Answer: I definitely think the characters in the novel would have been a lot better off having their desires unsatisfied, James loses Jess because of his desire to be with Mark, and Mark loses a child and the family life he craves because of his desire to sleep around with boys. In life I think with longings we have to weigh up at what cost they should be satisfied as we might end up paying a heavy price for not leaving them be. Question 5: "beauty is a lie, but it is so hard to spot". Does James love Mark and Oxford mainly because they are beautiful? Do people love James because he is beautiful? Answer: James buys into the beautiful and prestigious idea he has been sold of Oxford by his family and I think he is drawn into Mark and his world too because they appear so beautiful and somewhat untouchable. Mark describes James as beautiful, but I think people love James because his vulnerability has a person is beautiful to them. Question 6: "Doesn't everyone want this? To stay together with their university friends forever?". If none of us ever had to make any money would we want this forever? Answer: if there wasn't a need to earn money then I think a lot of people would be tempted to carry on living in shared student houses. During my time at work I've seen a lot of people struggling to put university life behind them, it's a golden carefree time for a lot of people and they have a desire to carry on living in it. In the novel James enjoys the life he lives with Mark and the others but he can understand that it is a moment in time and that he will eventually have to have responsibilities and a career. Mark doesn't want it to end because the group he has around him are ultimately protecting him from himself

Don't sweat your GCSE results!

GCSE results for 2014 are released this week, and even though it has been 17 years since I collected mine I can still vividly recall that feeling of apprehension as the results day approached. I didn't do great at school, I was bullied from the middle of year 7 onwards and to be honest I just felt isolated and insignificant. The bullying massively affected my attention levels in classes and the confidence to believe I could learn. I recently read a blog post by Carrie Hope Fletcher on her blog all I know now that had a quote about her own bullying at school that I felt summed up my experience of school and the affect it had on me, Carrie said "how could I grow when there were people constantly cutting me down?" So accurate in my opinion. I kind of came in to my own confidence wise in the last year of school, but by then I had fallen in love with a rebelious boy, and that was a massive distraction for me. It was kind of too late to turn my academic performance around and I just didnt have that much interest in it by then. When my results came out I had got mainly D grades which wasn't too bad considering that with the foundation papers I had been entered for the highest grade you could get was a D. I got graded G in maths though which I knew my parents would be disapointed in. I remember as I looked around at the other pupils at the results day and seeing them all hugging and celebrating their top grades, I felt a massive sense of regret. I wished that I had worked harder and that I was going home to tell my Mum and Dad how great I had done. My exam results were not good enough to get me on the 2 year business BTEC that I wanted to do at college so I would have to do a foundation year at sixth form first. During that year I felt even less confident than I did at school, the sixth form teachers treated us like the drop outs, the ones who were likely just there so our parents could continue getting child benefit. All of that coupled with the factor that I was in a relationship with somebody who was emotionally abusive left my self esteem on the floor. I suffered through that year though, and was one of the only two people to actually complete the course. One good thing about that year was that it included a typing course, which I passed and has greatly benefitted me thhroughout my professional life. That summer I decided that I wanted to turn my life around, I wanted to end the destrucive relationship I had been in and I wanted to get away from all of the people I had been at school with and actually do well at college. With all of this in mind I enrolled at a college a couple of towns away where I didnt know anybody and the teachers treated you like adults who were capable of achieving great things. I went there with so much determination and two years later I left college the highest achiever in the class with excellent results, but on top of that I left there a different more confident person ready to thrive in the working world. All I want to say really is that if you have done great in your GCSE's then you should feel extremely proud of yourself, take in the moment and savour it, do something great to celebrate - you deseve it, and don't forget to keep up that work ethic on the next part of your journey. If you haven't done so well for whatever reason then don't sweat it! The grades just get you from one thing to another and there is still time to get where you want in life. Not everybody is acadmically minded and for a lot of people school just isnt a great experience. You did as well as you could at the time, and that is fine. I thought it was so rubbish that it would take me 3 years to get my qualifications from leaving school but I was still just 19 when I started work, which looking back seems very young. There is no set route you have to take to achieve what you want to, if you think that you could have done better then just tell yourself that you will apply yourself better in the next phase of work or study. Whatever your results may be, well done you survived school!

Big Brother 1st August 2014

I wasn't surprised to see Zoe evicted last night as the public had really turned on her over the comments that she made over 'normal people'. I think it was kind of unfairly edited and what Zoe meant was that because the series was big brother power trip it appealed to her more than the average series because the contestants would be high achievers etc. However, she still said that she wouldn't be interested in talking to or sharing a house with normal people so she should take responsibility for that. Chris was still being a bit creepy and over possessive with Ashleigh last night, I would be quite interested to see if they do stay friends outside of the house.

Big Brother Thursday 31st July 2014

Last night there were some home truths for the housemates when they were rated by the public in different categories. Helen didn't take too well to being branded the most two faced housemate, and Chris said he was 'okay' with being called the creepiest housemate, but his little rant in the diary room later on said otherwise. I think Chris can sense that he is being judged by the public over his relationship with Ashleigh, although I don't think the public had a problem with it until he made those comments to Pav about him staring at Ashleigh. I think it's fine that they are friends, Ashleigh seems very mature for her age and that's probably why they have connected, I just worry that Chris is vulnerable and may have stronger feelings for her that will hit him hard when he leaves the house.

Big Brother Tuesday 29th July 2014

It was the episode of big brother last night that everybody loves, the one where they get their letters from home. Winston was given the task of choosing which housemates could receive their letters and whose should be sacrificed, I think he made the right decisions by choosing to give the letters to those with children and the younger housemates. I thought Ashleigh's letter from her boyfriend was by far the sweetest and most emotional of all of the letters, it was sad for those that didn't get theirs but as we know there is always a twist where they can win them back again. I still think Chris does have a weird creepy crush on Ashleigh, as he kept looking at her a bit oddly and possessively when she got the letter from her boyfriend. There was a nice moment at the end of the episode when all of the housemates gathered together to look at a perfect rainbow that had appeared in the evening sky.

Big Brother Monday 28th July 2014

So, last night saw Pav, Zoe and Chris all put up for eviction and Ashleigh granted immunity from being nominated. I think the general consesus on twitter last night was that Pav and Zoe are just resented by the original housemates because they have come in at such a late stage, but still have just as much right to win as them. I have been a big fan of Chris since the start of the show, but I really didn't like that stuff last night with him telling Pav not to look at Ashleigh. I know we only see a really small amount of their time in the house, but I haven't noticed Pav looking pervily at Ashleigh or making comments about her. Ashleigh herself said she hadn't noticed Pav doing anything, so it wasn't really Chris's place to say anything, he just made himself look a bit creepy and possessive.

Reading Group Questions And Answers On Perfect By Rachel Joyce

I read Perfect by Rachel Joyce last week, and it was one of those books that left me feeling very emotional and asking myself lots of questions about the characters and themes of the book. The following is my attempt at answering some reading group questions on the book.

 

Question 1: The attempt to achieve perfection is central to both Diana's and Byron's behaviour. Has the novel changed your perception of what it may mean to be 'perfect'?

 

Answer: Both Byron and Diana are trying to live up to the ideals of being perfect people, for Byron this is being a first class academic and for Diana this is being a perfect wife and mother. These ideas have been placed on them by somebody else, which increases the pressure on them to live up to them. My perception of 'perfect' changed when I had a nervous breakdown at the age of 29, I believed that I had to have a career at a certain level, earn a certain salary and have married and had a child by 30. When these things started slipping I tried to grab on harder to them, to the detriment of my health. In recovery I have realised that all that matters is happiness, there isnt a certain thing that makes you secure of successful. We are all made different and living a life that makes you happy as an individual is all that matters.

 

Question 2: Rachel Joyce portrays time as a slippery and un-predictable concept. Has this affected your attitude towards the ways in which we measure the paths of our lives?

 

Answer: The book makes you consider how time is something that can both break and heal things. Time is unpredictable, as you find out in the book, a split second decision can alter the path of our lives. I think people can become too obsessed with time though and running their lives to schedules. I liked the part in the book where Diana stops using clocks, I have tried in the last year to be a bit freer from doing things when I think I should and it can be very fulfilling to be free from routines.

 

 

Question 3: Responsibility is a theme that plays a key part in the novel. Who do you believe holds the greatest responsibility for the accident?

 

Answer: If the accident really happened then of course Byron was responsible for distracting his mother and his mother was responsible for taking her eyes off the road. The question is though, did the accident actually take place or did Byron imagine it? or did Beverley just take the opportunity to con and manipulate Diana?

 

Question 4: Is Jim's mental illness the inevitable result of the events of his childhood??

 

Answer: We find out early on in the book that he is an anxious child, the idea of time changing scares him. A lot of the issues with his mental health would have come from the pressure to live up to ideals placed on him by a father who was absent mostly from his life but still expected him to live and behave to his standards. He is also very responsible for his mother who is struggling with life, so that coupled with the burden of the accident would have of course pushed him over the edge later in life.

 

 

Question 5: Diana says: 'I'm beginning to think chaos is underrated' do you agree?

 

Answer: Yes I do agree, Its a great thing to throw caution to the wind and be spontaneous, when we live our lives ridgidly and to routines then we miss out on a lot of the joy of life.

 

Question 6: Byron identifies the moment at which he no longer considers himself to be a child. How does the novel question traditional definitions of childhood and parenthood?

 

Answer: In the book Byron strikes me as a character who was born old and Diana comes accross as somebody who was forced to become an adult too quickly and still has a childlike nature. I think in life we just expect parents to be the responsible ones who have it all figured out but sometimes I think children can end up having to guide and be responsible for their parents. Its comes back to the point of does time really exist as we think it does? Just because we are in adult or child human bodies, does it necessarily determine the intelligence or wisdom we have, the roles we are here to play or the journeys or souls have been on?

 

Question 7: What is the significance of class in the relationship between Beverley and Diana?

 

Answer: Class is what ultimately causes Diana to have to confront herself and a lot of the demons she is holding inside. She is living this wealthy lifestyle, but really inside she is a free and very natural person and meeting Beveley lets her unleash that side of her nature. I think both Beverley and Diana use class as a power over each other but in subtle ways, Diana has the money to buy and do what Beverley would like to do but Bevereley has the freedom in her lifestyle to obtain the happiness that Diana craves.

 

Question 8: Diana believes that the course of her life is determined by destiny. What part does spiritual belief play in the novel and do you agree that our actions cannot influence our own fates?

 

 

Answer: In the novel Byron believes that you can control things and he has a deep need for that, its part of the reason why time being altered scares him so much because it is something that is unnatural and out of his control. It is a grey area, but I believe that I think we are all destined to fulfill a certain role or to experience certain things. Acting in a certain way cannot control that but sometimes actions we perceive to be bad really end up leading us to our ultimate purpose.

 

Question 9: Seymour and Andrea Lowe express strong views about feminism. How does Rachel Joyce represent the role of women in the novel?

 

Answer: I think the way that women are represented in the novel is very significant and relative to the time period that the book was set in. In the 1970's most women did aspire to be at home living off men and rasing children and were told mostly by men that it was their place to be at home. However there was a new breed of women like Diana emerging who challenged sexism and believed there was more to life than just keeping a house. As the novel moves on to present day, we see that the women working with Jim in the cafe are stronger fiestier characters and this represents the change in our culture.

 

Question 10: Diana is lonely despite having a family and friends; Jim experiences intense loneliness. What do you think makes people feel connected to each other, and what creates fulfilling relationships?

 

Answer: I think the feeling that we are understood and accepted is what makes us feel connected to people. With Diana she was represseing her true nature to live a so called perfect life so she wasn't meeting people similar to her or developing deep connections. I think we create fulfilling relationships by being true to ourselves and by being accepting of other people.

Big Brother Tuesday 22nd July 2014

So the big question of last nights episode, is it romantic or creepy to be planning your wedding with somebody you have known six weeks? With Steven involved it can only be creepy in my opinion! Ashleigh has taken like a duck to water at being the power housemate, she isn't afraid to make decisions like a lot of them have been who have previously had the power. Although I do think that putting Mark in the alliance was a mistake as he is far from discreet and will probably end up blabbing stuff to other housemates. Funniest moment of last nights episode was Mark thinking he saw himself in his tea leaves, then thinking it was a map of Scotland and then realising it was Pav staring at him from the bottom of his tea cup!

Big Brother Sunday 20th July 2014

So, last night the big announcement was that Kimberly will not be returning to the house due to a medical condition. Obviously we don't know what is wrong with Kimberly and how seriously unwell she is, but based on the fact she was well enough to be able to take a live on air phone call to Steven, I have a speculation on the matter. I think that when Kimberly went to hospital she either saw some of the show or was told by someone how the relationship with Steven was making her look, and she saw the opportunity of getting a way from it by not returning to the house. I would lay money on the fact now, that Kimberly and Steven won't be together again outside of the house!

Big Brother Friday 18th July 2014

I finally got caught up with big brother in time for last nights eviction, and I'm so glad I did as it was a great eviction to tweet along with other viewers too. I was glad to see the back of Biannca, I appreciate that she did stir things up a bit, but she was just too much and the tone of her behaviour with the boys would have brought the show down to an all time low. Her exit kind of said it all really, so I'm glad that the public kept Zoe and Pav in as they are way more interesting characters to watch. I was gutted to see Danielle voted off by the two new housemates, I think she went for one reason only, that she was judged for appearing in the web cam documentary. I found Danielle such a fascinating character, I think the mystery around her morals and beliefs that she portrayed on the show comes from the fact that perhaps her family don't know the extent of her glamour career. So she put on this act of having pure beliefs to protect their opinion of her, although I am sure they have seen that documentary by now! What was all the stuff with Dexter Koh about? She sold a story on his dick that she hadn't even seen? Everybody was ready for a kick off on bit on the side, but they were both very meek when they saw each other on there. It will be interesting to see now what Ashleigh is like without Danielle, I think she will come in to her own a lot more and have a bit more fun.

Book stuff: Perfect by Rachel Joyce

I just finished reading Perfect by Rachel Joyce and I absolutely loved it! I randomly treated myself to it in Waitrose on a bit of a down day, as the synopsis seemed to connect with how I was feeling in that moment. Perfect tells the story of a summer in 1972 when two seconds of time are added on and a young boy Byron who thinks he witnesses the time change on his watch and in that moment something awful happens. Failing to get the incident out of his mind, Byron and his friend James launch 'operation perfect' to attempt to put things right, but events spiral out of control with life changing consequences. This book links both summer 1972 and present day time together with alternating chapters, each chapter ended on such a good cliff hanger that I was desperate to find out what happened next. I really want to read Rachel Joyce's other book, the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry now, so I will be looking out for that in the library. I will be posting a reading group questions and answers session on Perfect up on my blog next, I will flag that it contains spoilers, so don't look if you haven't read the book yet.

Big brother bits!

I'm finally nearly all caught up with big brother after missing it for a week whilst I was on holiday, I only have yesterday's episode to watch now. It was no surprise that Marlon went on Monday night, I knew the public would turn on him for saving himself from eviction, but aside from that I found him incredibly dull. Once Kimberly tore down his fake ladies man persona, he didn't seem to have a real one to replace it. Three new housemates also entered the house on Monday night, and I immediately recognised Zoe Birkett from the first ever series of pop idol. I remember when Zoe was on pop idol I used to think she was really cool and had a very individual style, I remember telling people I thought she would be a big star, so it's a bit sad to see that she has become just another one of those people who are happy to be famous for anything as long as they are getting paid. It is also getting a bit annoying that big brother is becoming a low grade celebrity version of the show, in all of the series since it moved to channel 5 in 2011, I have recognised housemates from other reality shows. Come on channel 5! we like the celebrity version of the show, but give the main big brother back to regular people, we don't need to recognise people to be drawn to watching it!

Book stuff: Brida by Paulo Coelho

I've been continuing my spiritual journey with another Paulo Coelho book, this time I went for 'Brida' which I found in my local library. The book tells the story of Brida a young Irish girl on the search for her soulmate and trying to understand her gift for magic while also trying to balance her everyday and real world relationships. Her journey sees her encounter and learn from both a witch and a magus and gives a great insight into the world of magic and witchcraft. My favourite quote from the book was this "I will always remember you, and you will remember me, just as we will remember the evening, the rain on the windows, and all the things we'll always have because we cannot possess them". I think what the quote means is that when we love something or someone we never lose it, because we never owned it, so it will always be there. Aside from this book I have only read Aleph and The Zahir of Paulo Coelho's books, and I am going to say that I didn't like this one as much as the other two. If I ask myself why this is, then I would say it is because the lead character in the Zahir is male and The Aleph is autobiographical so I got more of a sense of Paulo himself coming through in those two books. I'm going to see if I can get some more of Paulo's books from the library next week, I am keen go find out if there are any others of his that I will love as much as The Zahir.

TOWIE

How are you guys liking the new series of TOWIE? To be honest, all of the Ferne and Charlie drama is driving me mad as I feel like its just a repeat of the last series. It's quite obvious with them two that the respect between them has gone, they have both slept with other people so they have physically moved on, they just need to do the same emotionally. Jess is also doing my head in with all this stress about Ricky not making enough of a commitment to her, she is just having the freak out that everyone has in their 29th year where you suddenly realise you are nowhere near to the life you thought you would have aged 30 (remember that episode of friends where Rachel turns 30?). She should just chill out and enjoy her relationship, life rarely happens on schedule, also can her mum stop talking over the top of her whenever she says anything? Thank you. Gemma is still my favourite cast member but all of this stuff with Bobby and Harry seems very odd, to be honest I think her and Bobby are too old to be hanging out with someone Harry's age and they can't really expect someone of his age to have the same views on relationships as them in their late 20's/ early 30's. On a final note can Billie hurry up and have her baby!!

Benefit Sugarlicious make up kit

I was on holiday on a cruise ship last week that had a fab beauty and perfume shop on board, with lots of products that I haven't seen in UK shops, I literally could have bought so much in there! I was really intrigued by these Benefit make up sets they had which contained various mini Benefit products to give you a certain look. I decided to go for the Sugarlicious set which gives you a nude make up look with products for your lips and cheeks. The set contains 'high beam' which is a dewey type fluid that highlights your cheek bones, 'benetint' which gives a subtle reddy/ pink stain to your cheeks and lips, 'sugarbomb' powder which is four subtle shades of browns/ pinks and oranges to lighltly bronze your cheeks and finally 'sugarbomb' lip gloss which is in a light pink shade for a nude look lip. I have used the set several times this week and have to say it is great, my complexion has had a very healthy and bronzed glow, I have to keep reminding myself though that the kit is miniature so I can't use it everyday! I have my eye on the primping with the stars set now as as potential birthday gift!

The Armstrong Lie

I was looking forward to watching the Armstrong Lie on channel 4 last night as I have been curious to see it for a while now. Ever since the truth came out about Lance Armstrong two years ago now, I have struggled to clarify my feelings on him and the subject of doping. I remember being 23 years old and reading 'it's not about the bike' and thinking it was the most amazing and inspirational thing I had ever read. When I struggled in the gym I would think of that photo of a bald and skinny Lance drained from chemotherapy cycling away on an exercise bike, I would answer quickly with the name 'Lance Armstrong' when people asked me who my favourite sportsman was and I wore my Livestrong band with pride. Hearing that Lance cheated throughout all of his career was definitely illusion shattering, all of his books had inspired me but it all suddenly felt meaningless. The documentary was great in that it gave us an insight into the specifics of how Lance managed to get away with cheating, as that is something I have been wondering about as it conflicts so much with things mentioned in his books. Some of the tactics that they used were crazy, like removing their blood with the EPO drug in it into bags before the pre-race drugs test and then putting it back into their bodies during the race. It still felt kind of sad to me to be watching a documentary like that about Lance Armstrong but it was still incredibly interesting. I think while Lance has lost all credibility as a sportsman, I will always respect him as a cancer survivor and fundraiser. I feel a bit like the documentary has left me still wanting to know more about all of this, so I am definitely on the look out for some great books about it.

Curvy girl dressing: ASOS curve range

As a curvy size 16 girl I find it difficult to find clothes, particularly dresses that flatter my figure. Clothes from the main stream shops on the high street are just made as bigger versions of the items for slender people and don't sit right on curves, or plus size clothes like those from Evans are just made like tents! I went away on a cruise last week which involved a lot of formal evening dinners and I really struggled to find dresses to take with me that would suit my figure. I managed to get a couple in Debenhams and Coast but in a last minute mad dash to find some more before I left on my trip, I tried ASOS online and found that they have a plus size range called Curve. There were two dresses that I instantly loved, but I was sceptical, would they be undersized and leave me struggling to get into them? Or would they hang off me like a sack? I decided to order them anyway and find out. The dresses arrived and were gorgeous, trying them on they fitted me perfectly, accentuating my curves in all the right places and hiding those wobbly bits that I'm not too keen on! Wearing the dresses on holiday, I felt like a million dollars, they were so glam, I only paid £25 for each of them but I felt more confident wearing them than in the dress I paid £160 for from coast. If you are a curvy girl like me and you battle to find clothes that work with your figure then definitely check out the ASOS curve range.

Catching up on big brother

Hope everyone is okay this weekend. I haven't written any blog posts on big brother over the last week as I have been away in holiday. I am spending a lovely Sunday catching up on the show today and will write some more big brother views on my blog next week xxxx

Big Brother Tuesday 24th June 2014

It was great to see Danielle come out of her shell a bit in last nights episode, it is like one of the housemates said, she kind of needed that validation from the 'cool kids' of the house to open up. It's quite possible that some of her views were a bit of a defense mechanism, almost like if her views kept her separate from everyone else then she couldn't be rejected by certain people. I really wasn't keen on a lot of what she was saying about wanting to retire at 30 and just live off a man, if you want to be a mum that's great but I think in this day and age women can and should want to support themselves. I'm also a little bit suspicious about her 'glamour modeling' career, now I don't really consider myself fashiony at all but wouldn't a working glamour model in big brother be a bit conscious of the opportunities they could carve out for the future and therefore pay a bit more attention to what they are wearing in the swimming pool? That off White shapeless bikini Danielle has been wearing, which doesn't look good against pale skin, doesn't suggest somebody whose used to showing off their body and who is aware of how to dress it to it's best advantage. I dont want to judge her on fashion and looks really but theres just something that doesn't add up about it all, compared to other glamour models that have been in the house. I'm interested to see how her integrating more into the 'cool' group will affect her relationship with Ashleigh, as those two have kind of been the outsiders among the girls in the house.

Big Brother Sunday 22nd June 2014

Well last nights episode turned pretty explosive when "hurricane Toya" suddenly hit the house. Everything had been pretty calm until as the power housemates Toya and Matthew had to chose three people's nominations to veto and these were then subsequently revealed to the house. When big brother then later revealed that because of the veto'd nominations Kimberley was now safe from eviction, Winston and Ash took it the wrong way and a big argument broke out which then involved Marlon as well. Toya did get very aggressive and took the stance of "how dare a man speak to me like that, but I can speak to a man how I want". Her attitude is becoming a bit irritating now and she needs to be careful about how she is coming accross as although we love entertainment, the public has little tolerance for bullying behaviour.

Big Brother Friday 20th June 2014

So it was eviction night last night and it was no suprise to see Pauline leave the house! When Pauline was interviewed by Emma she made out that she didn't regret any of the way she acted in the house but when Emma played back some of the video clips you could see she was embarrassed by her own behaviour. Pauline could have lasted way longer in the house but when the public made her the power housemate she felt superior to everyone else and seemed to think she was untouchable. At the end of the show big brother announced that Toya is the new power house mate and she picked matthew to partner up with her, there was some dithering when it came to them nominating someone but in the end they chose Christopher.

Big Brother Thursday 19th June 2014

So it was all about shower gate in last nights episode! Everybody was outraged when after a messy task, Kimberly asked to share the shower with Winston. This was deemed as disrespectful by Helen, Pauline and the rest of the bully gang as apparently Winston is with Tamara. Err, I'm pretty sure Winston and Tamara just shared a spalobol and a snog, I doubt he was planning on ignoring advances from other girls in the house for the rest of his time in the house. At the end of the day Kimberly is clearly a perceptive girl who is there to play the game, and seeing Winston becoming a strong character in the house she is going to try and get in with him to save herself. I'm looking forward to the eviction tonight!

Big Brother Wednesday 18th June 2014

Love was sort of in the air a little bit last night with Kimberly and Steven dancing around their attraction to each other. It kind of feels like he is doing that thing a lot of housemates have done in other series of the show where they fall into the trap of thinking they have fallen madly in live with someone within days and they start talking it up into a big deal. When you are with someone day in, day out it can feel like you have known someone a lot longer than you really have, I wonder if Kimberly is too cool to let her guard down with Steven though to allow anything to happen? People seem to be warming a little bit more to Jale now, especially after she pulled no punches in the farmyard type task. Jale stands up for herself and I like that, I'm really interested to see how the voting goes on eviction night now.

Big Brother Tuesday 17th June 2014

So last night finally saw Helen get a warning for her bullying behaviour and language, and like many have said, it was long overdue. I do, like a lot of you think that big brother did try to get away with leaving it for as long as possible to give her that warning to provide as much dramatic viewing as they could to stop viewing ratings dropping off. As a show they have worked hard over the last couple of years to maintain a zero tolerance bullying policy with housemates, so it is a shame they let that slide this year. They need to understand that for viewers like myself who have had experiences of being bullied that watching it being carried out on TV can be upsetting. I think if Helen continues to behave as badly as she has been then big brother would need to think about revoking her pass to the final. It was also awkwardly revealed to Christopher and Jale that Chris is the power housemate after some viewers shouted it out over the garden fence, so big brother may have to pass the power on to somebody else now!

Big Brother Tuesday 16th June 2014

I felt so sorry for Jale last night as the majority of the housemates led by Pauline and Toya continued to isolate her. A few of the people I spoke to on twitter last night shared my opinion that they can't believe that from Friday the housemates haven't worked out that Pauline isn't popular outside of the house. I still think that if Pauline goes on Friday then there will be a massive shift in people's cliques within the house. None of them have guessed yet that Chris is the power housemate. I noticed last night that he was starting to play the game a bit more rather than just staying silent when people speculated about the nominations.

Big Brother Sunday 15th June 2014

So last nights episode was a Pauline arse licking special with both Toya and Steven letting her know how amazing they thought she was. It really suprises me that despite hearing chants of "get Pauline out" on Friday they still haven't worked out that she isn't popular with the public. It will be interesting to see on Friday if she does go or ranks low or isn't the first safe housemate if that makes it hit home with them how the public are really perceiving the situation. If Jale is first to be saved then I am sure many of them will switch sides and try to become friends with her. Speculation was also still growing about who the power housemate is, I don't know if it is just because we know who it is, but I do feel like Chris isn't doing that great of a job at hiding that it's him, he goes too quiet and shifty when someone mentions it, he needs to up the banter a bit!

David Beckham into the unknown

Hi guys, I caught up with the BBC1 documentary David Beckham into the unknown today. The film sees David Beckham and a group of his closest friends taking a road trip through Brazil to the Amazon jungle as he contemplates his future away from football. David said he took the journey as he wanted to experience life and to do things of his own choosing after 22 years of answering to the demands of football clubs. The places they travelled to looked truly beautiful and peaceful, and seeing a more intimate side to David it was easy to see how much he has grown in confidence throughout his career. At one point in the documentary he reveals that he still desperately misses football and is still pondering on whether he could come out of retirement. Whenever you give something up that has been a massive part of your life there is always a side of you that wants to go back to the familiar, to having a routine that you know, a future with no set plans or goals can seem daunting when you are used to having everything in place. I am sure that whatever David does next he will flourish in it just like he has with football. The documentary is fairly long at an hour and a half but it's an emotional and worth while watch.

Big Brother Saturday 14th June 2014

How is everyone liking big brother so far? I've heard a lot of people say that they are struggling to get into it this year but I think it is always challenging to watch in the beginning when there are so many people to get to know. I was very suprised that Tamara went on Friday over Danielle as I find Danielle very irritating, but I think Tamara messed it up for herself by getting with Winston so early on. As a public we tend not to like girls that hook up casually with the good looking guys but we love a 'will they, wont they' long running romance saga. Think back to the series in 2011, when Maisie had a casual snog with Aaron she was promptly evicted but we loved all the arguing and back and forth goings on of the romance between Faye and Aaron. Pauline has really gone down in my estimation, I think because she was the power housemate she took that to mean that she was popular with the public and now she feels kind of untouchable. The way she reacted when Christoher got his own plate last night was horrible and later on she even manipulated him so much into thinking he had been behaving really badly towards her that she reduced him to tears. That was not cool in my book!

It's better to be alone and healthy than sick with someone else

"it's better to be healthy and alone than sick with someone else" - Phil McGraw I've found myself thinking a lot about the past in the last week, the hurt of my last relationship has been washing over me frequently. I think it's the fact that I'm editing the book I wrote last year about my battles with codependency, anxiety and agoraphobia that has got me over thinking and dragging myself back to a place that I wish I had never had to go to in the first place. While thinking a lot about my ex I suddenly came across this quote from Phil McGraw on a friends tumblr "it's better to be healthy and alone than sick with someone else" and it reminded me just how far I have come and the reason why I walked away from everything - to understand and have a relationship with myself. Three years ago I was a sick, broken person, I felt like it was my sole purpose in life to keep people happy and to try to make people love me, after years of being used and emotionally abused I could no longer actualy physically function. I know I still have a long way to go and healing from all of the hurt I have experienced is part of the journey, but that quote reminded me that the relationship I have with myself is the most important thing and the reason why I have worked so hard to come back from the lowest point of my life.

BBC doctors is back!

BBC Doctors is back on Monday and I know all of us fans are eagerly anticipating it's return. I know a lot of people were frustrated that it hasn't been on for the last two weeks during the Easter holidays, including myself, although I am used to the show taking it's seasonal breaks now. It can be annoying that it is taken off the network during these times, but we have to remember that the show doesnt have the budget or audience of the big soaps like Eastenders and Coronation Street. The key audience of BBC doctors is stay at home mums and during the Easter holidays they will most likely be out entertaining their kids so it would be a waste of money to put out episodes to small audience figures, especially when viewing ratings could affect the longevity of tne show. Although I miss tne show when it is not on I will happily accept missing it for a couple of weeks if it means they can keep making further series of the show.

The Waltons At 30!

At the start of the Easter bank holiday I watched the documentary the Waltons at 30, which caught up with the Worlds only all girl sextuplets as they reached a milestone birthday. I grew up watching the Waltons annual documentaries and found it fascinating, I used to think imagine being one of them and having five sisters all the same age as you? So it was nice to catch up with how the girls are getting on as adults. There was a lot of people saying on twitter and Facebook that it was strange that none of them had got married and had children but in the day and age where celebrities get married and divorced within months, I think it's nice to see young women taking their time to build their own lives. None of them has rushed into marriage and subsequently divorced leaving children and trails of destruction behind them in it's wake like so many these days, nor had any of them tried to use their notoriety to cash in and make easy money. The girls seem as lovely as their parents and I felt encouraged by the stable upbringing they have had, you could clearly see there's still a lot of love in that family. It was great to see as well that they still continue to raise money for the hospital that looked after the girls as babies, the amazing gift they were given has not been forgotten by them. It would be brilliant to see some more documentaries about the girls adult lives in tne future.

Back to reality...

Hope everybody had a good Easter break, I've been really struggling to get back into a routine over the last two days. Having a four day weekend certainly spoils us, lots of lie in's and time to spend with the family and to relax. I am paying for over indulgences in the food and drink department with bad indigestion this week, my body just doesn't have the tolerance to eat lots of rubbish these days. I was a little bit disappointed with the films they had on TV over Easter, it would be good if they put on a few more adult choices. I did check out the new series Fargo though, staring Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton, I haven't seen the film but really enjoyed the first episode of this series and thought Martin Freeman's acting was great. Eastenders also gave us a brilliant Easter storyline with the murder of Lucy Beale, the murderer is unknown but of course we know Lucy had a few enemies who would have had motive. Eastenders have promised us a 'whodunit' as big as broadchurch, so it looks like the story will take on many twists and turns before we find out who Lucy's killer is.

First episode of Party House

I checked out the first episode of Party House yesterday on E4, and have to say oh dear! I'm really not sure about it. It was sort of like the story and filming style of made in Chelsea but with the cast of skins, but it had that kind of empty feel to the production that I remember desperate scousewives having, even when the people were saying something or there was music playing it still felt like there was something missing. The girls seemed to have no shame over he guys as well, fighting over the same guy 'shoey' who really was nothing special. I will give next weeks episode a look, but I can't see this one coming back for a second series!

ITV drama: The Little House

I watched ITV drama The Little House yesterday while I was working, it was made a few years ago but has recently been reshown. The programme is based on a Philippa Gregory novel and is about Ruth a young ambitious teacher who has plans of travelling who unexpectedly finds herself pregnant and forced into a rural life living in close proximity to her inlaws. Her mother in law Elizabeth who is jealous of her and wants her grandchild for herself begins a campaign of manipulation against Ruth with tragic consequences. The ending was a little bit weak and could have had more substance but it was a great story and well worth a watch.

The Widower

I caught part of the second episode of The Widower when it was originally aired on itv and was intrigued by the story and wished I had watched it from tbe start, so yesterday I watched the whole three parts in one afternoon. It's crazy and heartbreaking when you remember that it's a true story and that those things that Malcolm did actually happened to real women. His second wife was inspirational by staying married to him to protect other women, and her family never stopped trying to get him convicted for the murder of his first wife. It took 15 years but eventually he was imprisoned for life for the murder of his first wife and the attempted murder of his second wife. The drama got me thinking what would push someone to those lengths? That they would lie about having cancer or drug someone who was breastfeeding their own child. I think though when you saw the scene with Malcolms parents it kind of became obvious that he had always been written off and not much had been expected of him, he probably had a great need for attention and gratification which he got from money by stealing from women or running up debt. All in all it was a great drama with some fantastic acting, another job well done by ITV.

New Series Of The Call Centre

I didn't watch the first series of the call centre on bbc3 but I've just started watching the second series that has been on for the past two weeks. Call centre boss Nev is certainly a character and I can safely say I have met a few Nev's during my time in the corporate world. The call centre they are filming at reminds me of some of the large telecoms type companies I have used as suppliers over the years, where there is a heavy emphasis on maintaining a social atmosphere at work. The problem I often find with those type of companies is that quite frequently the employees don't know how to snap out of that social mode and actual work issues aren't often given the attention and standing they require, if you don't believe me try getting hold of someone from one of those companies at 2pm on a Friday! Watching the show last night which featured a guy who's job was under threat because his sales technique was failing, I was reminded of my student days working for a large supermarket chain. I remember that pressure to fit in and do a certain job in one set way, there was nothing that took individual personalities into account. I was really hoping that they guy would tell Nev to shove his job but in the end he accepted a demotion to sorting out the mail!

Emmerdale catch up!

I've just been getting up to date with last weeks Emmerdale episodes. It was great that Marlon decided to be part of the super cute April's life and there were some funny moments as he tried to win her over! It was sad though that we found out the reason why Donna wanted April to get to know her father, she has a terminal illness and has possibly only a few years to live. Elsewhere it was great to see Priya getting help for her eating disorder but is she getting too close to David again?

Well done Mo Farah!

Yesterday was the London Marathon 2014 and it was a lovely spring day for it. I always make sure I watch the London Marathon on TV as I love seeing the atmosphere and hearing the inspirational stories behind why people are taking part. It reminds me of how much our UK charities need us, I know that I will never be a marathon runner but it does encourage me to remember to give back in my own way through my own skills. Yesterday was also Olympic champion Mo Farah's first marathon which he chose to run competitively with some of the best marathon runners of all time, with a view to beating the British men's marathon record. In the end Mo finished eighth place and his time ranked 4th in the British record, which is a great achievement for his first marathon. What I found really disappointing was the attitude of the commentators and interviewers working for the BBC who implied because he didn't win that he should stick to track running where he is champion or that he should have run his first marathon in another country where there would have been less media attention. So what he didn't win? He's mastered track running and now he wants a new challenge, he did amazingly well for his first time and wanted to take part in his hometown to give something to the country that has been behind him all through his career. Why should he run his first marathon in another country or in private just in case he didn't do as well as expected? It sometimes typical of our attitude in Britain that people should stick to what they are good at or only do something if they know they can win. It's the reason that there are so many cases of depression in sport, that people are built up for being good at just one thing and then they crash out when they fail and the public knocks them down. Mo isn't afraid of failure and we should admire him for that, marathon running is a new venture for him and he had to start somewhere. When asked by a well meaning interviewer if he would be sticking to track running from now on Mo assured us that "he will be back" good on you Mo for inspiring us to achieve more.

BBC doctors round up 12th April 2014

I spent last night catching up on last weeks BBC doctors episodes. It was an emotional week as Chris's final days in leatherbridge approached. We were left guessing as to whether Chris would turn himself into the police or not for assisting his Dad Sam with taking his own life. A firm talk from Jimmy made him realise that he shouldn't have to pay for the rest of his life for his Dad's selfish actions and finally Chris opted to start a new life in Australia. I do think Nathan Wright who plays Chris is a fantastic actor and it won't be long till we see him on our screens again in another part. There were also plenty of comedy moments last week as an offended breast feeding new mum started a Bellamy vs breast campaign against Howard, Karen and Rob were caught naked while babysitting Joe and Bigalow put Zara firmly in her place!

Adrian Mole and me: RIP Sue Townsend

As I saw Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole trending on twitter this morning I was intrigued. I hoped that the trends would be news of a new Adrian Mole book but my heart told me that the news was not going to be good. My fears were confirmed and reports informed us that Sue passed away yesterday at the age of 68. Great sadness filled me at this news, this is not only the death of a wonderful author but for me the loss and the end of the road as well for a literary character who has meant so much to me over the years. I first discovered the secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 when I was nine years old. I remember finding the book randomly in my mums bedroom and starting to read it. I was hooked and spent that Easter weekend laying on my parents bed devouring the book whilst munching my way through Easter eggs. Looking back I was way too young to fully appreciate the adult humour of the character of Adrian and I remember just like Adrian wondering what "wanton" meant. Nonetheless, to a nine year old me Adrian was a funny teenage character, with his aspirations of being a poet, his love for mars bars and his obsession with Pandora Braithwaite. Maybe I related a lot to Adrian because just like him I spent a lot of my early life living in my head and my bedroom. After I read that first book there was no holding back on my love for Adrian Mole. I asked for the other two books and the video of the tv adaptation for my tenth birthday. My sister and I watched the video over and over again and knew the whole script by heart. As a child that didn't really fit in at school, having a literary hero provided me with a sense of comfort and solace. As I grew, Adrian grew too, sometimes it was frustrating being an Adrian Mole fan, he made some really bad decisions, but haven't we all? As I got older and real life got busier I needed the comfort of Adrian Mole less and less, but I knew he was always there if I needed him. The time when I really needed him came when I was twenty nine years old, one weekend I started getting panic attacks and the only thing that kept me calm was reading Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years. After that I put all of the Adrian Mole books on my kindle and from that point on I read bits of them over again whenever I felt anxious. Somehow reading about Adrian's antics could give me immense comfort and distraction from my problems. I would like to thank and pay tribute to Sue for giving me such an amazing literary character in Adrian Mole, and for keeping his story going for us fans all the way through her career. Tonight I will read a couple of Adrian's diary entries and say a quiet prayer for Sue.