A little update

Just a little one, I have added a couple of cool features to my blog after I decided some things bugged me.

I can now reply directly to comments people leave me, which I am so so happy about! I always used to feel a bit annoyed that there was no way I could be sure that one of my readers actually got to see if I had left a reply or not, so now I can, and if you commented previously then I apologise for only just figuring out how to do this, this new solution will hopefully alert you to having received a reply in some way, I think through the blogger inbox maybe? Not sure, I shall do a little investigation!

I have also added a little twitter link on the left hand side, feel free to follow me if you use it. I do have my tweets set to private but I accept everyone who isn't a company trying to sell me something, so please don't let that put you off.

Also finally I have added a page at the top that says Tumblr, where you can see a scrolling box of my tumblr posts, which will mostly be pretty things, funny things and the odd beauty/fashion review. If you have a tumblr yourself feel free to follow on there too and I shall follow you back!

I will also just mention that my book this week is Q&A by Vikas Swarup. I had actually read over half of this about 2 months ago for my university course and then got bogged down with work and didn't finish it, so I hope to have a review for you over the coming weeks, I know I am behind but I am composing them in my filofax and taking pictures and posting when I can and the light is good, so I hope to have some great updates for you soon!

Have a great weekend everyone :)

NOTD: Navy

Think this is my fave Barry M colour <3

Miss Pettigrew lives in modern day hollywood. ★★★

So I totally suck at getting these reviews out each week, and there is now a little backlog (check the Project 2011: Reading page to track which books I have read so far) but never the less, I am really enjoying actually setting aside time to sit and read a good old fashioned book.

Week one's nominated book was Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, by Winifred Watson. Now, I have to admit, I didn't know who Watson was when I picked up this book a couple of years ago. I still don't know much, I do know, thanks to Wikipedia and a couple of my old university text books, that she was from Newcastle, and that this book was a success on publication and was due to be made into a film before World War II. It finally managed to be made into a film with Amy Adams and Frances McDormand a few years ago, a film I doubt I will see.

Now, don't get me wrong, It isn't a poor story that would make me not want to see this film, in fact I like the story and its quite happy ending, I believe that the story allows this book to be an easy read which can be picked up and put down whenever you want. It is in fact that I believe that when this book was written in the nineteen thirties it was a sort of Heat magazine of the times which puts me off a bit.

The story is basically an episode of that show "Fearne and..." that featured Fearne Cotton spending a day in the life of various 'celebrities' such as Paris Hilton and one of the Geldof girls. It is a very idealistic view of society between the wars, a 'how the other world lives' story which I imagine at the time would have nicely provided the housewives of Newcastle their insight into the lives of the famous while allowing them to still be able to associate with a character similar to themselves.

The book is, as I say, the exact sort of book that you can easily pick up and put down. This is partly due to its structure, with the day being broken up into slots of time which stand as a chapter, but also because it isn't gripping, it isn't even really very fluffy in the way that I think chick-lit is fluffy. It simply is. If you fancy a quick idealised view of old style glamour featuring a ditzy starlet and an old maid who is learning to let her hair down a little then it is a great book for a Sunday lazing around, but do not expect anything too great.

Despite all that negativity, I have given this three stars, purely because it is a little bit of escapism and everyone needs some of that every so often.

★★★

Voice Meme thingy

Hear me speak! Whoo!

I apologise for any badness in the sound, had a sore throat/getting a cold :(

My Voice Meme

Project 2011: Knitting

So Over the past year I have gone from having little to no stash to having so much it wont fit in both my pink polka dot storage bag thingy and my red Cath Kidston knitting bag.

2011 is going to be about using some of that up!

The plan is to knit at least one thing per month from my stash yarn, and not buy yarn for more then one project per month. Obviously this should result hopefully in the stash going down, but it will at least make sure that it wont get any bigger!

I am participating in the HPKCHC again for the next three months so I hope that will help get some of this stuff used up, and I am hoping that when I am really busy with university this knitting challenge will provide me with something to distract me when studying gets to be too much.

I will be using Ravelry to manage this challenge, I am in the middle of overhauling my queue so that it will only have items on it which I have the yarn for. Everything else will go into the favourites.

I will be tagging projects which I finish that apply to this challenge with the Project2011 label and will be so happy if I manage this, I have never wanted to be one of those knitters who have so much yarn that they will never use it all, and I was beginning to feel that way about my stash. My time has been really limited and knitting has often been set aside in favour of research and essays so I hope that this will also help that!

So look out for a list of patterns I am hoping to knit up over the next 12 months on the Project 2011 page at the top and the accompanying yarns (FYI I added the list of books the other day, and have chosen my first one!)

Wish me luck and a Happy New Year!!