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March is Women's History Month, and if you're like me you'll be thrilled with how women's history has exploded as a subject over the past few years.

I'm not even that old, I was born in 1985! But I remember how much history at school was focused on men and their achievements. The change has been very welcome, for me at least.

Books I read in April 2022

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In case you haven't picked up on it from my previous posts about books, I am a bit of a history fan. Most of the books I read tend to be history non-fiction, with the occasional foray into fiction when I need a bit of a break.

This month it's all European history! And it's covering pretty broad periods of time too.

Books I read in March 2022

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I thought I would manage to hit 4 books this month as we started off March with a little holiday at Center Parcs and took a pile of books with me.

But typically the first week back at work absorbed so much time that I ended up reading a lot less for the rest of the month.

As with previous posts, these were all books on my "to be read" list in my planner, and this time they were all new reads!

Books I read in February 2022

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As I mentioned in my post about books read in January, I am on a self-imposed book buying ban until I work my way through a good chunk of my "to be read" list.

I've made myself a list in the back of my planner and the opportunity to tick things off is proving to be a decent motivator. Some of the books are re-reads as I'm not sure if I want to keep them and at the very least I'm finding that this is a good way to make me read the new ones I haven't touched yet!

Despite this there is one re-read that wasn't done for decluttering purposes, but purely because I felt a need to have a little brain reset. Sometimes after reading a bunch of new books I need to read something familiar and that I enjoy in order to dive back into the pile of the unknown!

Books I read in January 2022

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Like many people my December featured a pile of new books for Christmas. My "to be read" list is now so big that I'm on a self-imposed book buying ban until I get through a good chunk of the list.

Naturally with a week off in January I managed to get through several, but as you'll see - one of them was so big it took me most of the month to wade my way through it!

Review: Salted caramel and blondie cheesecake

For months now I've been drooling over the English Cheesecake Company cheesecake slices on the dessert shelves in Waitrose. I'm a huge cheesecake fan and for years all we've had in supermarkets is the standard New York cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, and strawberry cheesecake, sometimes with a lemon one if you're lucky.

Books I read in December 2021

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Thanks to the Christmas break and a concerted effort to get through my extensive To Be Read list before Christmas books inevitably added to it, I managed to get through several books in December 2021.

Review: Pizza Express Vanilla Cheesecake Slices

One of the side effects of the pandemic has been the number of chain restaurants that have licensed some of their menu for supermarket shelves. Unable to welcome customers to their own outlets they have managed to save their businesses by getting their good to us for home consumption.

Pizza Express has been doing this for years with their pizzas and their garlic doughballs. But in the past few months they have expanded their line to include pasta, side dishes, and a few of their desserts. I've seen salted caramel tarts, and recently I spotted their new vanilla cheesecake slices on the reduced shelf at Tesco! Since it was only £1.50 I decided to give them a try. I love cheesecake and I'm always happy to try a new brand when it comes out.

Review: Blue Eyed Boy

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Blue Eyed Boy is a novel from the popular author Joanne Harris, the author of “Chocolat” (turned into a film starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche). As with many of Harris’ books this one is written from several different points of view, the real twist comes from two characters actually writing from four different viewpoints between them.

The story starts with the character “blueeyedboy”, an internet persona who posts on a web journal called a “WeJay”. Each section is started with a box similar to that of an online blog, it notes the author, whether the entry is public or restricted (something you have to check as the story develops otherwise you may become a bit confused), what they are listening to and their mood. Each “public” chapter also ends with comments left by other online personas that follow the WeJay.

Blueyedboy is one of three boys whose mother assigned them different colours in order to make buying clothes for them easier; Nigel the eldest was given black, Brendan was assigned brown, and Benjamin had blue. As the story develops you quickly learn that colour is a major running theme in this story as every person is assigned a name that relates to a colour; “Mrs Electric Blue”, “Emily White”, “Doctor Peacock”. The colours are specific to the development of the character and their persona, for example the name “Emily White” suggests a young girl, the character is around six years old so this fits perfectly. “Doctor Peacock” gives you a vision of an intellectual professor type who collects things and has an old-fashioned mentality. As the book moves on you realise how well these names fit the characters. Blueeyedboy is very much an anti-hero, he’s manipulative and scheming and has little to no empathy. However when you realise just how abusive his mother is you feel a bit of sympathy for him (although it’s sympathy that won’t last long!) and his situation.

The community that “blueeyedboy” posts on is called “BadGuysRock” and it is here that he posts little murder-mystery stories written from his perspective. The other members leave their comments on the stories, and in his restricted entries we learn more about his “fans”; a woman obsessed with her celebrity crush, a troll masquerading as a religious fanatic who insists the author will burn in hell, an overweight girl that yo-yo diets and falls for abusive men, and a commenter whose comments are repeatedly deleted.

The story follows multiple murders, all published as public stories on the web community. It is only through blueeyedboy’s restricted, non-public posts that the connections are made and the real story unravels. About a third of the way in he is joined by “Albertine”, who tells her own side of the tale in a similar way. Her public stories are not about murder, but are instead posted from the view of a small blind child called Emily White, and again they are explained and unravelled through both her private postings and those of blueeyedboy.

Having read quite a lot of Harris’ previous works I’m used to her adept juggling of different viewpoints. However this time I struggled. The use of public and restricted-viewing posts threw me off once or twice, you really do need to read the top of each chapter carefully so you know what you’re meant to be reading. Four different viewpoints is a little too much for one book, especially when you throw in a whole host of additional characters, quite a few of which have names related to the colour blue and thus eventually blur in to one big (blue) blob. It makes for a very good story, but it’s not the kind that you can read when you’re tired and not fully concentrating because you really do need to pay attention to what you’re reading.

However the book does include one of Harris’ usual big twists and that makes it all worthwhile!

I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who has read Harris’ previous works. For a new reader however it may not be the best tale to start with, the jump from viewpoints can get a little tiring and if you’re not used to her style of writing (and knowing that sooner or later she’s going to shove in a decent twist that surprises you) then you might end up giving up on the story early on. Stick with it however, the ending will make your spine tingle!

Buy this book from Waterstones.

Review: Nothing to Envy

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I bought this book a couple of years ago, and since then I will occasionally go back to reread it, particularly during times when North Korea is in the news. When I originally purchased it I ended up devouring ut within 2 days as I simply couldn't put it down, and each time I reread it I find it just a compelling as that first read.

Background

The author, Barbara Demick, is a journalist for the Los Angeles Times who spent time in South Korea from 2001 onwards. During her time she interviewed North Korean defectors, those who had escaped from the North in to either China or South Korea. Over the years she spoke to over 100 former North Koreans, primarily those from the city of Chongjin.

In the opening to the book she explains that she chose Chongjin as it's further away from the capital Pyongyang. North Korea's capital city is kept as the equivalent of a trade-show to Western tourists, those that live there permanently are smart, attractive, from high-status families or are part of the Workers Party. By choosing former residents of Chongjin, Demick gets a more authentic tale of life in North Korea.

The book

The story focuses on six main "characters" from a diverse range of backgrounds. There's "Mrs Song", who used to be fully dedicated to the Workers Party, Mi-ran the school teacher, Mrs Song's daughter Oak-hee who managed to escape an abusive husband, Jun-sang whose Korean family decided to repatriate from Japan and settle in the North, Hyuck the orphan whose arrest ultimately decides his fate, and Dr Kim whose Chinese-born father leaves her with an invaluable gift. They cover a range of ages and different social classes, for example Mi-ran's father is actually South Korean, a Prisoner of War who was never allowed to leave, while Mrs Song is married to a journalist which makes their family remarkably well-off in the grand scheme of things.

In between all their stories are explanations about the North Korean way of life. You would think that a true socialist society would have no class structure, and yet North Korea's system is worse than the social structure of India, with those on the bottom unable to rise and their children condemned with them. Likewise the economic situation is explained early on, I never knew that after the Korean War, the South was far worse off than the North. Demick also explains the propoganda, the daily indoctrination, the "voluntary" tasks such as spending one day a week in self-criticism, and the way neighbours spy on each other.

Through each person you get a rich picture of daily life in North Korea, and then the terrible years of the Great Famine and the situation that developed after it. You understand why it's so difficult for many to walk away, and why there is now an increasing number of people defecting. More than that, you'll start to realise the enormity of the task that South Korea will face should unification ever become a possibility, and just how much China will fight tooth and nail to prevent it happening.

Worth buying?

If you have ever had any inclination to finding out about North Korea, then buy this book. If you ever see the old photos of people weeping at the funeral of Kim Il-sun or King Jong-il, and wonder how they can cry like that, then buy this book. If you wonder why the country doesn't just rise up in it's own version of the Arab Spring, then buy this book. If none of those things sound interesting to you, then buy this book anyway.

"Nothing to Envy" is the perfect title, because at the end of it you will come away realising how lucky you are to be born in a wealthy country, and you will never be able to think about North Korea again without mentally adding the words "those poor sods".

Buy this book from Waterstones.

Review: Gentlemen & Players

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Gentlemen & Players is a crime novel written by the very talented author Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat). Normally I am not a fan of Harris’ crime writing, I prefer the magic that is involved in some of her other work. But after a few pages I found myself easily drawn in to this one, and struggled to put it down.

The story is set in a fictional private school named St Oswalds. As with many of Harris’s other books the book is written from two points of view, in this case from the point of view of the child of a former porter, named Snyde, and the Classics professor Rob Straitley.

Straitly is a very old fashioned character, he is the last Classics teacher left in the school, hates computers and whiteboards and prefers to use his pigeon hole and a blackboard with chalk. He has been at the school for over 30 years and is rapidly approaching his “centenary”, his 100th term as a teacher. He is a crotchety character, uncomfortable around women (he has never married), scornful of some of his colleagues and very protective of his students. He is also one of Snyde’s main targets, as he was a witness to an incident many years ago that led to the death of one of his students.

Snyde on the other hand is very modern, adept with mobile phones and computers, using them to leave a trail that incriminates various staff members with pornographic images and fake browser histories. Snyde was also a witness to the death of a student, Leon Knight, and through the book the story is slowly pieced together by these two characters.

The whole thing starts, as most school books do, in September with a new school year and a new term. New staff members, including Snyde under a new name with a fake CV, and reorganisation with some of the classrooms. Straitley’s year does not start well as he finds his office has been taken from him and given to the languages department, and during the term that the book covers other aspects of his teaching are eroded. You get the feeling that he would actually be a better head of the languages department as he is aware of the other teachers and their personal problems, and cares less for politics and Health and Safety and more about those he works with and those he teaches.

Snyde on the other hand is a predator, bent on destroying the school and Straitley, using one pupil to this end. Jackson Knight is in Straitley’s form and feels bullied and victimised, although both teachers agree that he is mostly just another spoilt brat who thinks the world should revolve around him. At one point he accuses Straitley of anti-Semitism, claiming the teacher is picking on him for being Jewish. I will not, obviously, ruin the rest of the book for you.

During the term Straitley is slowly pushed towards increasingly dangerous health problems as the speed of the story picks up, stolen items, accusations from pupils, graffiti on the fence of his home. Likewise the story about Snyde picks up, the past, the parents (including an absent mother) and Straitley’s role in everything and what he did to deserve such torment. Harris balances both characters well, ending each chapter with enough information to make you go “and...!?” before swapping back to the other character, so you are compelled to turn the pages and find out more. I also like the fact that she set the book in a school with an old history, but kept the book in the present day, where teachers are facing pressure to keep up to date with increasing workloads, the latest teaching technology, and the out-of-school arguments between pupils that often start on social media platforms beyond the school's remit.

My one complaint about this book is that it is a bit too long, but the ending will literally blow your socks off and make you flick back through the previous chapters going “how on earth did I miss that?” so it is definitely worth taking the time to read it.

This is a very good book writing by a very good author, if you like crime novels with a bit of a twist then I highly recommend you pick this up. It's been out for a number of years so you'll probably find it in a charity shop if you don't want to pay full price.

Buy this book from Waterstones.

Review: Carluccio's in Colchester

In January I spotted a voucher mentioned in the Money Saving Expert news letter - buy one main course and get a second for £1 at Carluccio's. I'd recently spotted a Carluccio's tucked away in the corner of the top floor in Fenwick's in Colchester, so this seemed like the ideal time to have a discounted lunch date with my husband! 

We booked ahead and I was very glad we did as the space was quite small. We saw several people get turned away as they didn't have a reservation and all the remaining tables were booked up. Despite it being busy the service was still very good and we order drinks while we browsed the menu. Well, I should say while my husband browsed the menu - I'd already looked at it several times on Friday night and decided what I wanted XD

For a drink my husband had a very odd "Rosemary water", which I'd never seen before. It's sparkling water infused with rosemary, and came with a sprig of the herb in the glass. I had a little sniff at the bottle and smell was overwhelming, but my husband said it was very nice. 

For starters I ordered the garlic bread. This was possibly the best garlic bread I've had in years. The bread was a freshly made focaccia, with a lovely garlic butter melted on top, and then placed on a grill to give a fabulous chargrilled taste. I'd already told my husband to have half of it, as I don't like filling up on starters, but I seriously regretted saying that after finishing off my piece XD My husband had calamari, which he said was very nice and came with a little pot of sauce and a slice of lemon.

My main was a spaghetti carbonara. This was the key reason why I was so happy at getting the voucher, I'd been wanting a proper Italian carbonara for weeks. It was as good as I had hoped, although I thought there was a bit too much parsley on top. But apart from that it was lovely, the pancetta had a wonderfully strong taste and there was just the right amount of sauce to cover the spaghetti. Husband went for the Penne Giardiniera, which was large penne with courgette, chili and garlic, with crispy spinach balls on top. It genuinely wasn't something I thought he would pick as he's not a huge fan of spinach, but he said it was delicious and he was very happy with his choice.

The only problem I had was that at the end of my very large bowl of pasta I had no room for dessert! I had sacrificed half my starter to no avail. I'd already seen someone's tiramisu go by (husband thought my reaction was hilarious) and had been determined to order one myself, but there was no way I could fit a dessert in to my full tummy. 

Charity shop haul: August 2017

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Originally it looked like this was going to be a miniscule post. The charity shops in Cambridge, my usual haunt, have been very thin on the ground for good items recently. The students have all left by July and by August the place is swamped with tourists, so donations are thin on the ground (from what I can tell anyway). 

But as I had another week off it meant that I could take some time to stroll around Colchester, and me and my husband had a day out in Maldon with the in-laws so I had a little look around the charity shops there too.

Sadly there were no clothes this month, one or two things caught my eye but I just couldn't picture myself wearing them. There's no point buying clothes you like if you don't wear them, so I put both things back and moved on.

Books

My collection of works about women in history has expanded again this month! My main purchase was a biography on Cecily Neville, the mother of King Edward IV and King Richard III. She's one of those medieval women that used to only exist on the periphery of history, but recent works have really helped make people more aware of her. 

I've already sat down and read the whole thing and really enjoyed it, I liked the way Amy Licence really tried to focus on Cecily. I find that with many books about women there's a greater emphasis on the men in their lives, in order to bulk out the text as there's often very few resources about the women themselves. This book is a little short, but only because Licence doesn't fall in to that trap, and what information she does have on Cecily is really interesting!

DVDs

My aim to refill my DVD collection with stuff I'm missing from home continues apace! This month I bulked out my collection with the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (I mistakenly thought I already had the second one, so now I need to keep an eye out for that too), Sense and Sensibility (which I always enjoy watching on a lazy afternoon).

I also bought one of the Family Guy "Star Wars" specials. I've never seen the Star Wars movies, to my husband's everlasting horror, but I'll happily watch this parody of them, even if a lot of the jokes go over my head.

I then went in to Colchester for a during in my week off, and what else did I find in a charity shop? The second Family Guy Star Wars parody DVD! So now I own both of them for the princely sum of £2, I wouldn't buy them at full price but I'll happily have them in the animation drawer to watch when the fancy takes me.

Changing your name after your wedding

One of the more common questions you get asked when people find out you’re getting married is “So will you be changing your name then?” Generally it’s directed at women, but more men are hearing it too, and if you’re in a same-sex relationship then double-barrelling is flagged up as an option.

I'm only changing my surname!

But one of the problems is just how much stuff you end up needing to change, and how many different ways there are for doing so. After getting married in April I’m now in the process of getting things updated with my new surname, and frankly I’ve had some mixed results with it!

Work

I’m quite lucky to work for a large employer with lots of HR staff dotted around the place, and they have plenty of experience in updating your details. All I needed to do was show up at the HR office with my marriage certificate, wait for a colour copy to be sorted on the photocopier, and that was it. My colleague in HR sorted out my payroll, HR record and pensions information so it was all swapped over in less than a week! I count myself very lucky to have found it this easy, obviously your work place may be slower or require you to fill out extra forms.

Verdict: 5/5

Banks

My main bank since my student days is Barclays, and through Google I managed to find the page on their website that said I just needed to take my marriage certificate in to a branch and they would sort it from there. So I did exactly that, and spent just over five minutes with a staff member going through the process. Originally it came across as very easy, again they took a colour copy of my marriage certificate, and I was told that a new debit card and chequebook would be in the post shortly.

However when things arrived it became very clear that something had gone wrong. Although they had updated my title, so I was now “Mrs”, they’d left my maiden name as my surname. Cue a certain amount of frustration, especially when I went to a second branch to sort it out (I didn’t want to go back to the first for obvious reasons). They could see that something had gone wrong with the changeover, although they didn’t tell me what, but they couldn’t fix it until I handed over my marriage certificate again. I therefore had to make a third trip, certificate in tow. I ended up with yet another new card and another new chequebook, but thankfully in the correct name.

I also have a mortgage with my husband through Halifax. This time it was closer to ten minutes as the staff member had to fill out what seemed to be an extremely long online form. Not only did they need my previous name, new name, my address and my mortgage account number, but I was also asked about my current wage! I even had to check that they weren’t going to change my mortgage in anyway as some of the questions seemed too personal for what was a change of surname. Once more the marriage certificate was copied, and the online form had to be printed off and the whole thing sent to a head office through Halifax’s postal system.

The disappointing thing with Halifax, apart from the questions, was that I was told it would only take three days to sort out and I would receive a text message to confirm it had gone through. Despite them having my mobile number (I’ve had texts from them in the past) I never received anything to confirm the name change had gone through. We only realised it had been processed a week later when we checked our mortgage account online, and found it was now titled “Mr & Mrs” with one surname.

Verdicts;

Barclays – 3/5

Halifax – 4/5

Electoral register

This got done this week as we received a letter about updating details online. No need to photocopy or send off the marriage certificate, we just logged in with the code we were sent on the letter, and there was an option for me to change my surname on one of the pages. Obviously until I next get a polling card I won’t be certain that it’s gone through fine, but it seemed to be a smooth process.

Being on the electoral register is important for your credit rating, so keeping it up to date with your name and current address should be standard. When you get one of these letters, double check they’ve spelled your details correctly, and amend them online if not.

Verdict: 5/5

Driving licence

I’ve only just sent this off (very naughty I know), so hopefully this will go through fine! I’ve deliberately left this late as it’s the first time I’ve needed to send off my marriage certificate and I’m worried it’ll get lost in the post, or damaged by the DVLA (a friend of mine had a bad experience with hers). I collected a form from the Post Office, filled it in with all the details, and have now posted it off with my driving licence and the marriage certificate. It should take three weeks for the new to make its way back to me, and hopefully my marriage certificate will come back in one piece too!

Verdict: 5/5 for getting the form from the post office, ?/5 for getting it back!

HMRC

I expected them to be the biggest nuisance with this kind of thing, but it appears not! All I had to do was fill in an online form, including the date that we married and some information about my husband, and that was that! But again, I’ve only done it recently so any problems won’t have arisen yet. But for ease of use I’ve found them one of the better ones to deal with, even if it was a little time consuming.

Verdict: 5/5, so far!

I haven’t got around to sorting out our utility bills (energy and broadband are in my name), and I haven’t done my passport as I’ll need to pay £95 for a new one to change my name! But so far I feel I’m making progress, and this doesn’t even include all my shop loyalty cards that have also been swapped over!

Review: Jack's Gelato in Cambridge

Last year I made a terrible mistake. Despite my colleague telling me how good they were, I never bought anything from “6” ice cream shop on Bene’t Street in Cambridge. Then they closed down, and winter was spent passing by an empty shop, wishing I’d got round to trying it.

Lovely simple design for the cups

So it was wonderful to walk past the same building at lunch time on Tuesday and find that a new ice cream business has taken over the space! Jack’s Gelato is well-known around Cambridge, he’s normally found serving ice cream through portable freezers around the streets of the city, as well as at festivals and fairs. Now he’s got a new shop, and it’s officially opened, complete with an actual ice cream machine at the counter so in the future you can watch it being made!

Since I was passing by I decided to have a look at the sign outside. Different flavours are on offer each day (you can see a list each day on his Twitter account), and I had to stop when my eyes caught sight of the words “Mint Choc Chip”, “Burnt Sugar and Salt”, and…”Chocolate Orange Sorbet”!

The problem I normally have with chocolate ice cream is that while it’s delicious, it generally makes me feel a bit sick about halfway through the first scoop. Great for making sure you don’t overindulge, but it generally means I have to steer clear of chocolate, otherwise I feel like I’m wasting my money. On last year’s trip to Rome I stuck firmly with hazelnut ice cream and lemon sorbet, rather than risk feeling ill while I was trying to stare at tourist attractions.

However the sound of chocolate orange sorbet was just far too tempting for me to give it a miss, so I got a small pot. The guy behind the counter (who wasn’t Jack) was very chatty and friendly, and happy to answer my questions about the new shop. I was warned that the sorbet was still very soft as it had only recently been made, but sorbet is a bit softer than ice cream anyway, and it wasn’t dreadfully hot so I knew it would last.

So delicious I could eat it all day!

Chocolate orange tends to be a bit of a marmite flavour, people either love it or hate. I’ll happily eat a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, but my other half wouldn’t (he’s the same with chocolate mint though). I think it’s because it’s very easy to get the orange side of it wrong, either it doesn’t taste of orange at all, or there’s too much and it overpowers the chocolate.

In this case though the balance was perfect. The chocolate looked dark and tasted very chocolatey, but had none of the bitterness of very dark chocolate. Likewise the orange was a lovely note within the chocolate, it was noticeable but not excessive, and because the orange was adding the extra sweetness to the sorbet it wasn’t overly sugary, so I didn’t feel sick after eating it! In fact I couldn’t eat it fast enough, I overloaded my tiny spoon a few times and felt highly disappointed when I reached the end of the pot. I'd give this six stars out of five, were I operating a star rating on this blog.

If you’ve never been to the kind of live event that Jack has been catering to before now, then you MUST get down to his new shop. Take a big spoon with you, you’re going to need it!

Review: Aromi in Cambridge

If you're in Cambridge and want pizza without having to go to a big chain (there's a Jamie's Italian, a Zizzi, a Carluccio's and a Bella Italia scattered around the city centre) then you really need to check out Aromi! They're an independent Italian cafe, split across two sites in the city centre but only 2 doors away from each other. The larger one, with a bigger serving counter, a larger seating area and takeaway ice cream at the front, is on Peas Hill next to Cambridge Art's Theatre. The smaller one, which I went in to, is on the corner of Peas Hill and Bene't Street, two doors away!

The main thing to remember about the smaller branch of Aromi's is that it's tiny! The doorway gets

Delicious margarita pizza!

very crowded very quickly, and I've never actually seen a free seat in there at lunch time, even though there's a slightly larger basement seating area as well as the more obvious ground floor one. But this doesn't matter as Aromi pizzas come as a takeaway, so you don't have to hang around waiting for table space!

I keep mentioning pizza but actually Aromi, which specialises in Sicilian food, does sandwiches, arancini (fried rice balls) and desserts including ricotta cheesecakes. They have a selection of toppings for the pizzas and fillings for the sandwiches, and also do hot drinks including proper Italian hot chocolate (the really thick kind). Everything is made fresh, if you walk past in the morning you can see them working on everything as the kitchen is wide open, with the windows facing the street.

Should you managed to find a table then your food will be brought to you. If you're buying to take away then you'll be given a raffle ticket with a number on it. Once your order is processed they'll call your number, you collect your food, and then try to squeeze back out the door!

The thing I love about Aromi is just how good the pizzas are. The dough is fresh, the tomato sauce tastes like it's from an actual tomato, and there's great lumps of mozzarella scattered across the margarita. Everything is set out under the glass-covered counter, and once you pick what you want they cook it in their wood-fired oven right then and there. Rather than a circle the pizzas are cooked as a rectangle, and the toppings go all the way to the edge. At an average price tag of £4 you may think it's a little expensive for a slice of take away pizza, but they really fill you up so you won't be able to eat a second slice (although you'll really want one!)

If I have one small complaint about Aromi, it's that the paper bags they use really don't keep your slice warm for long :( If I'm taking mine back to the office, which I occasionally do at lunch, then I always have to reheat it in the microwave.

But a microwave can't stop these being so tasty. I think I'm going to have to go back again...

2013 in Review

Happy New Year everyone!

I had a quiet New Years Eve, watched Family Guy and ate cheesecake XD

2013 proved to be a good year, I launched Creative History, got more sales for Creative Classics, and started dating a lovely bloke :) Me and the gentlemen visited quite a few places over the year, including Canterbury, bits of London such as the Chelsea Physic Garden and galleries including The National Gallery. I also, before we started dating, visited Wesminster Abbey and the Foundling Museum, both of which were very interesting.

Looking back on it I think I've seen more of London this year than any other year. Now I need to sit down and find some more places for us to go to once the weather clears up!

2013 has also been a good year for my shops, to the point where I thought I'd put it in numbers.

The Bibliophile - A grand total of 3883 views for the year. I really do feel guilty about neglecting this shop. It also had 224 favourites, 50 shop favourites and 174 listing favourites. The most viewed item was a book called "Wild Wales", which went to a good home in November. Overall this shop has held it's own during the year despite my neglect, I need to pay more attention to it during this year.

Creative Classics - This year was a whopping 10910 views!!! So close to 11000, but never mind, that's a target for next year. I had 511 favourites, 79 shop favourites and 432 listing favourites. The most viewed item was one of the postcards, although the most favourited was the Archaeology Geek badge listing. My aim for this year was to average 2 orders a month, which I've reached and gone past, but I've not quite hit an average of 3 orders a month. I also aimed to get have 100 listings in this shop, again a target that I reached! This year I'm aiming to expand on the groundwork I built up this year, and have a day at Camden Market with my badges to see how they sell offline.

Creative History - My newest shop, it's only been open a few months but I thought I'd include it anyway. It's creeped in under the 1k mark with 872 views, but it has had 106 favourites of which 23 were for the shop and 83 were for the listings. The most viewed item was my Team Richard III badge while the most favourited was Team Anne Boleyn. It's already had some sales, which I'm very happy with, so for the new year I need to work on expanding the number of listings and start properly writing down my ideas for development.

In terms of this blog I aimed to do 365 days of blog posts, and failed. For the time being I'm going to keep up my current schedule of updating as and when I have the inspiration, rather than continuously forcing myself to write when I'm really struggling. It just doesn't work.

I'm also currently working on a side project, which I'm keeping under my hat for the moment but should be out in the open in a few months :) This year I want to continue working on my shops, and continue to spend time with my Gentleman Caller.

I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2014!

Book Review: A Cat, A Hat And A Piece Of String

I mentioned last week that I recently revisited my local library and came away with a large armful of books. At the moment I still haven't sat down properly with the recipe books I borrowed, but I have read another of the fiction ones I was reading.

A Cat, A Hat and a Piece of String is a new short story collection by Joanne Harris. She's one of my favourite writers, along with Philippa Gregory and Terry Pratchett whose books I have reviewed in the past. If the name sounds familiar but you can't place why then it's probably because you've seen the movie "Chocolat" starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, which was based on the book "Chocolat" written by...Joanne Harris! (As an aside, the sequel to Chocolat, The Lollipop Shoes, is one of my favourite books).

As I mentioned above, this is a collection of short stories. Rather typically of Joanne Harris they're mixture of nostalgia, sweetness and downright creepy. Sweet is covered by two of the stories about Faith and Hope, two little old ladies living in a care home (also, while the story is sweet it does also give one an alternative glimpse into old people's homes that makes you hope you never end up in one). Nostalgia, to an extent, is the man who celebrates Christmas all year round. LITERALLY, all year round. And as for creepy, let's just say the baby made of cake and the ghost on Twitter made me reconsider eating sugar and indulging in social media.

While some of the stories are a little improbable, they are very well written and easy to dip in and out of. The only real problem is that you'll probably struggle to put the book down.

Book Review: A Nurse At The Front

This post contains affiliate links. These links do not cost you money, but if you purchase something after clicking them I get a small fee for sending you there. Despite this the information below is an honest review, if I don't like something I will tell you!

After a few months of sticking to my own bookshelf, and re-reading the same books again and again and again as a result (which I do a lot anyway, but this was excessive) I finally returned to my local library. Luckily after a break of a few months I found some new books there that caught my eye and which were duly borrowed.

One of those books turned out to be a good but occasionally heart-rending read; A Nurse At The Front - The First World War Diaries of Sister Edith Appleton.

Edith Appleton was an English nurse who spent the First World War in France and Belgium, looking after wounded soldiers, both Allied and German. The information about her was originally published on a website, and recently her diaries were published in the above book.

If you're of a sensitive disposition then you need to avoid this book. What makes it a good read is that Edith Appleton didn't pull any punches with regards to what she experienced, including soldiers who were maimed or paralysed, or who spent days in agony before they finally died. But she also paints a beautiful picture of areas of northern France before they were devastated by shelling, and the stories of everyone clubbing together to make Christmas decorations make you realise that despite the horrendous numbers of casualties people still tried to make sure that life went on as normally as possible.

It also gives you the other side of the war. Most published diaries are from the soldiers themselves, whether they were frontline infantry or vicars who were running Sunday services and holding burials on a daily basis. In this diary you get the views not only of a woman, but a woman who at times was remarkably close to The Front. While she may not have had to deal with rats or contracted trenchfoot, she did have to deal with soldiers who bled to death, or suffocated as gas ate away at their lungs. The nurses who served in France had to be as tough as the soldiers, and Edith's diaries do occasionally mention those women who struggled to cope.

Overall this is an excellent read, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the First World War.

Rise of the Guardians

Over the weekend I finally got round to watching the CGI film Rise of the Guardians. It was created by DreamWorks Animation (creators of the Shrek films) and came out in the cinemas last year.

It tells the story of Jack Frost, who is chosen by the Man on the Moon to become a Guardian of children. The current Guardians are Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Sandman. Santa has a Russian accent, and the Easter Bunny is Australian (and voiced by Hugh Jackman). The "bad guy" is Pitch (as in "pitch black"), a Boogeyman that no one believes in.

Rise of the Guardians buttons by beanclam

The story is good, but I was really impressed by the animation and the scenery design, as well as some of the twists on childhood tales. Everyone knows that Santa has Elves, but did you expect to see Yetis? And the Easter Bunny lives in a lush green wonderland with tiny little eggs that bathe in paint to make them multicoloured.

If you have children, or are like me and just like kids films, you should really check out Rise of the Guardians. You might want to leave it until winter though, it has a very Christmassy feel to it, even though it's actually set at Easter.

Have a nice evening everyone!