I think this week's edition may be a little shorter than usual, certainly shorter than last week's! In part, this is down to the fact I didn't get onto last week's until Friday but it's mostly because, though I have been busy, I don't really think I have a great deal to write about.
After my 20 crash out last week, I've forgotten how to sleep again and have spent the last three nights hopelessly tossing and turning in bed and when I finally do sleep my dreams have been nothing short of bizarre and certainly not restful! My mattress is terrible and so thin that every once in a while the springs will actually wear through my skin as I sleep (though strangely, not through the fabric of the actual mattress). My ankles are red raw this week and I've taken to sleeping under a sleeping bag on top of the duvet to protect my poor, sore feet!
It's half term for mum this week so we've been going on lots of walks and I've been winding her up something chronic. She's the school troll so I'm paying her back in kind on her week off. It would be more fun if she wasn't still run down with some sort of chesty thing so that every time she laughs at me she starts coughing like she's been trying to concentrate a lifetime of smoking into a single day. I'd stop but she keeps trolling the cat for her own amusement so she kind of deserves it.
Catch of the day!
On the flip side, I find some of the plot rather problematic. The characters often dress as and imitate one another which in itself is fine, but this has led to (more than once) people having sex with someone when they think they're with someone else. Not once is this addressed as a bad thing, indeed one man ends up falling in love with Sarah after sleeping with her pretending to be Beth (something she only did to stop him asking awkward questions)! Someone needs to remind the writers that manipulation and abuse is not the same as a romantic spark.
The plot is hurtling from 'normal people in over their head' to 'sci fi/government conspiracy mania' at such a pace that the latest season seems like a totally different show to the first. I always mourn the origins of a series - in an effort to keep things new and exciting a lot of writers make their plots bigger and bigger until you completely lose sight of where you started. I totally understand this and sometimes it does work, I think the progression in Buffy is really smooth and natural but then you look at shows like Supernatural which have taken it so far that it's surely impossible to step it up anymore and it all just gets a bit far fetched. I worry Orphan Black is taking the latter route and I can't say I'm exactly excited to see what comes next but I will be watching at least some of it to see.
On Saturday, mum and I went to Seaburn which is a coastal town not too far from here. It was super windy and chilly but we had a nice walk along the beach. Everyone had their dogs out and I delighted in watching them pelt up and down the sand after their respective tennis balls. There was a little Jack Russell who was jumping up on his hind legs trying to place his ball in his owner's hand in his eagerness to play. When she tried to take it from him, however, he suddenly realised that he actually quite liked his ball and refused to let go of it.
The tide was pretty far out so we had a look around the rock pools for any glass - reject glass from the Sunderland factory used to wash up on it's shores after being dumped into the water - but I only managed to find one bit. There were lots of shells and a huge bed of seaweed, however, which mum rather enjoyed bouncing on!
Much wind!
After our walk, we popped into Morrison's café for a snack before heading home. I wish we hadn't bothered! The plates were filthy - like someone had deliberately sat and crumbled a cake over it and then left it for the next person - the hot chocolate machine didn't work, there were no straws or cup lids, there were no trays, the coke mum got was absolutely foul... what a disaster. I felt so sorry for the bloke on the till. He was trying his hardest to be helpful - going to get a tray for us and asking someone where the straws were etc he must have been run ragged doing that for every single customer!
I headed home with an empty belly but I full Pokédex so I can't complain!
The following day, mum and I went to Bishop Auckland as she randomly decided to show me her old cross country route from school! It was a nice walk, mum was reminiscing the whole way and I heard lots of stories from her school days. This may not seem like much to you but mum isn't the most loquacious of people so I feel like her life before me is still a mystery. She's always there to support me and one thing I am afraid of when I leave home is that she will be lonely without me. I kind of want to fit in as much fun and friendship as I can before disappearing on her again. She'll still have Shinx so it could be worse but I feel like I'll come home for Christmas to find she's started painting the cat's nails and gossiping with her over a cup of tea! Though saying that, my mum is the type of person who would do that just to mess with me...
Poserrrrrrr
On Monday, we walked to the library to return some books I'd been reading. It's about three miles and I took over the gym outside while mum spoke to the librarians because I am shy and awkward and had Dragonites to defeat! It was a really nice day of chatting and daftness and just spending time together. Mum's always a bit too knackered after work to go for leisurely walks like this so we're trying to ram them all in over this week. I'm also secretly hoping I manage to magically become as toned as an Olympian by Saturday which is a completely realistic expectation!
Come Saturday I'll be heading off to Leicester for my first shoot as Hawke which I'm super excited about. The photographer and I have come up with some great ideas and I look forward to sharing the results with you!
Anyway, back to the stuff I've done not will be doing! Yesterday, mum and I headed up to see nana and Peter. For his birthday, mum agreed to look into his family history so we went to collect some bits of information that he's managed to amass himself - the odd photo and wedding certificate - which we took with us to Palace Green library in Durham. They're off on holiday for a month on Sunday so it was also a last catch up before they go to sun themselves in Tenerife.
There's so much construction going on in Durham it looks different every time we visit - which is actually quite frequently! We spent a good few hours in the library looking up various distant relatives and a few people for mum's new book before dragging our exhausted brains to the nearest shop for a much needed sugar boost!
I've been pretty proud of myself this week, getting up every day and going out and doing things. Mostly down to the tireless efforts of mum wafting cups of tea under my nose in the morning,., for which I am very thankful! When she goes back to work she'll find me floundering in bed at 5pm waiting to be fed!
As well as all the outside stuff, I've also been doing a lot of reading. I wanted to read more this year and I'm currently ploughing my way through the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz. I don't want to blow any minds but I can't even remember the last time I switched on Netflix!
I'm a fan of Koontz but I find him a little hit and miss at times. The first book I read of his, Velocity, I absolutely adored. It was taut and strange and wonderful. However, when I tried to read Shattered I had to leave it halfway because the sinister axe murderer was so boring! Everyone I've spoken to who is familiar with his work seems to agree that there's a huge difference in standard in his books so you have to be a bit careful which one you pick up. I actually had to google him to find the title Shattered as it left such a passive impression on me I'd already forgotten it's name!
Odd Thomas, I'm glad to say, falls into the better half of his collection. I'd seen the film a few years ago and didn't connect it to the author that I'd read until much later. I've just started Odd Interlude which is set between books four and five in the series (it was released as an e-book as a kind of teaser to get fans excited for the next proper sequel) and I'm thoroughly enjoying the journey.
When you just wanna read and hold a banana in the air in peace
but your mum insists on photographing you
I find it interesting that though Odd (that's his actual name which I love!) is psychic and it is a story about ghosts and mystical weird things, it's sort of... 90% real world thriller with a little sprinkling of supernatural. There aren't werewolves and vampires and witches and whatever else. Odd has his - rather limited - abilities and there are ghosts he can see... but that's it. It's kind of a thriller version of Sixth Sense with a lot of humour and sweetness. The tone is light and playful, like a friend telling an anecdote and the way he looks at ghosts and the afterlife is comforting and kind, despite the often tense and action packed nature of the stories. Koontz has a way with words and oftentimes I have to reread a section because he has described something so beautifully that even the most mundane of thoughts becomes becomes poetry. Those every day thoughts we all have are transformed in his hands into something magical and, because those thoughts had occurred to you too, that magic becomes yours as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the story goes and there's something so refreshing about a protagonist who is so unfailingly sweet and respectful to everyone he meets. More people should be like that.
Today, we went to a big warehouse full of knock off Argos stuff (the stuff they can no longer sell in store) though, interestingly, nowhere does it say Argos but every product has the unmistakable number sticker on it. We went with the hope of finding me a bed that won't flay me in my sleep but there wasn't that much choice... apparently there's a website with way more choice though so I may keep my skin yet!
We have a few tentative plans for tomorrow but with Storm Doris on the way to scupper them, I'm not really sure what we'll be getting up to. I guess you'll have to find out next week!
Xx
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