Cherry Nightingale

New Things

2012-03-03T11:00:00.000Z

Following on from January's list of new stuff, I kept it up for February and I was surprised to see the list is not shorter than January's (the opposite, in fact) - considering I've been back at work since the start of the month and consequently had less free time for doing fun stuffs. Some of them are, admittedly, a little more 'minor' (boring, unimportant, tedious... Whatever you wanna call it) than all the new things I did in January, but new is new and they're all experiences, right?

☼ Wandered round Harvey Nichols (felt like I didn't *quite* belong here..)
☼ Tried mee goreng (meh)
☼ Bought a pair of proper walking boots
☼ Visited Sandal Castle
☼ Went to Red Hot Buffet (omg - amazeballs)
☼ Ate sushi (not for me)
☼ Built a snowman
☼ Went sledging (I have done this before but not since I was tiny, so for the purpose of this list it's the first time I've been sledging *as an adult*!)
☼ Signed up to a dating website (!)
☼ Went on a date with someone from said website
☼ Shared rum with some randoms, awesome people I happened to share a train carriage with
☼ Tried a Kir Royale (yum)
☼ Tried a chai tea latte (a grower)
☼ Went on a night out in a town I'd never been to before
☼ Drove my friend's Land Rover Defender. This was with the intention of learning to tow a trailer in it, and I'm dead excited - I felt totally boss driving such a large, unforgiving vehicle! I hope to report back on this more in future, as I'm really keen to learn to tow.
☼ Read four new books: The Diary of a Madman, A Hungarian Quartet, One Hundred Years of Solitude and A Tale of Two Cities
☼ Watched four new films: Prozac Nation, Elizabethtown, Stealing Beauty and Midnight in Paris (would especially recommend the latter two - so wonderful)

The Book List: Part [Who Knows]

2012-03-02T22:47:00.001Z

Another two books to cross off the list and take off the slowly-decreasing stack! I finally feel like I'm making progress with it now, although I will probably change my mind when I get to James Joyce's Ulysses... I'm totally dreading that book, and I might cheat and give it up altogether if it's as tedious as I fear it will be. Why did I even buy it?

Rant over. Ahem.

First up we have One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I actually didn't love, adore or cherish this book as much as I thought/hoped I would. That said, I still enjoyed it very much. The rhythm of the plot gives the book a haunting atmosphere, as do the occasional supernatural occurrences throughout the story. It's often quite sad, in a sort of poignant, reflective, melancholy way, and often very beautiful as well. Yet at the same time, the characters are imbured with so much life I didn't notice just how sad parts were until I reflected back on them.

While I don't have a particularly strong opinion about the book now, due to the writing style and the themes throughout the book, I do think that the feel of it will linger with me for quite a while. I always like it when that happens with a book, though I'm never sure if anyone else ever gets that feeling?

I've just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I enjoyed this novel immensely, so that brings the total of Dickens novels I have loved up to 2 out of 2. Go me.

I wasn't particularly taken with the subject of the novel at first (the French revolution) - I thought it would be overly political, and little bit dry. Clearly I don't know Dickens very well, as it was less about politics, more about love and bloodshed, liberty and equality, tyrannism and morality. It was a little slow to start with but became increasingly gripping halfway through. Plus, as before, excellent writing throughout.

A Tale of Two Cities wasn't quite as enjoyable as Great Expectations, for me. I think that's because there was more scope for humour and witticisms in Great Expectations, whereas of course that wasn't appropriate for A Tale of Two Cities. Nevetheless, it was still a fantastic book and I am again smarting that I didn't give him a chance earlier. I know what's going on my shopping list once my book-buying ban is over!

Top Bonuses of Being Single

2012-03-02T11:00:00.000Z

♥ being able to spread across the whole of a double bed.

♥ falling asleep to music. Music that I like.

♥ painting my nails ridiculous colours without getting grief for hours afterwards about the room smelling.

♥ never having to compromise when it comes to watching films.

♥ no more nights sat in front of the TV because somebody couldn't be bothered doing anything else.

♥ singing anywhere and everywhere.

♥ more opportunities for spontaneity.

♥ FREEDOM!

How I Avoided A Disaster

2012-02-28T11:00:00.000Z

So, I used to think I was a ‘maternal’ person. You know, that it would justbe a matter of time before I would have a family, and I would be this wonderfulearth-mother type figure, with a loving family and friends all sitting in thekitchen waiting for me to take my home-baked bread out of the oven. Completewith home-made chutneys, made from our homegrown vegetables. Yep, the wholeshebang.

I never spoke about this other than to my ex, because I was a littleashamed. In our feisty-female, independent-woman generation, I think it issometimes viewed as a bit of a cop-out to want to start a family so young.What, you’re not even going to try tosave the world before you pop a baby out? Having children is secondary, likeyou have to get all the other much more important things out of the way first,because once that bebé comes along you ain’t gonna have time for anything elseunless you fancy tackling it whilst elbow-deep in sick and baby poo. Which Iguess is kind of accurate.

I guess I made myself want that lifestyle because I was in a long-termrelationship, living with my then-boyfriend we’d been together for ages, etc etc- so it seemed the next logical step and, acting of course with my bestinterests at heart, my brain convinced me into wanting it. The whole package.It’s good at doing that. I think my (subconscious) rationale was: I’m settled,there’s little chance of me going off and having adventures, so I might as wellthrow myself into the life I have and make the most of it.

That was how I thought six months ago.

Now? No, thanks. I still love children (most especially my nieces andnephews), I enjoy spending time with them and their crazy minds – you can havebetter conversations with kids than you can with adults sometimes, and theylook at things with a totally different mindset. I just don’t want any myself.Right now, and maybe not ever.

It’s taken me a lot of mulling over to realise this, and it takes a lot toadmit it both here and to myself, because for so many years (ok, 5) myself-identity has been tied up with the image of being, at some point, amother. Six months ago, I wanted children so much, the only thing stopping me (well,us, I thought) was financial stability.

Maybe I’ll change my mind. I do have a strong track record of doing that alot. But now I’m single, I’m really appreciating having time, money andresources to spend on myself, and I just can’t imagine having children andgiving up so much of my life, at least not for a very long time.

Until then, I’m saving my collection of Roald Dahl books for the firstniece/nephew (tangent: why isn’t there a gender-neutral term for such relations?)who shows an interest in them. Or I’ll continue to read them myself, because,after all, they’re just awesome.