Happy New Year - 2019 - New Ideas....

Wow, Happy New Year 2019!! How did that come around so quickly??

After a very busy end to 2018, I've already cut out pieces for 15 new mobiles, I'm ready to have a good few days of sewing and re-stock my Etsy shop ready for all those 2019 babies.

One of my favourite new designs from last year, that I can't wait to get around to making again, was an Alice in Wonderland mobile. It's so fun to read into the characters, and work out how I'm going to recreate them in felt (and which ones to use). I think this is a mobile that will always change slightly, every time I make one.

Here are some photos.....

Book Review: Cloud Atlas versus The Bone Clocks

It's been a while since I've written about books. Mainly because I have been so busy recently, that I haven't had nearly as much time to read as I'd have liked to. As our house is very small, I've been very good in the last few years of not buying books, but borrowing them from my local library instead. This has lead to me reading a wide variety of books (some terrible, some gripping, some just a bit meh) which I probably wouldn't have ever bought.

When I was travelling in Argentina, back in 2010, I was staying in a hostel in Ushuaia, in Patagonia in Argentina.

I'd finished the book I was reading, and the only English book in the hostel book exchange, was David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I did a quick skim of the inside (my usual test for whether I think I'll like a book - I have to like the font and the page layout, or a book will annoy me!) and wasn't convinced. I considered getting a book in Spanish instead, but that would have taken a lot of effort, and I wanted something to enjoy reading. 

So I took it, and on a series of long distance bus journeys - the perfect time to read uninterrupted - I started reading. Well it was a struggle. I thought it was utter rubbish. I skipped a fair few chapters at the start, only to realise that they had second halves and that I was quickly going to run out of book if I continued at this rate! So I went back and struggled through most of the book but I was seriously disappointed. I don't feel like I've read a book this bad for ages. Especially one that was supposed to be good!

Over lunch at school one day, I was speaking to our school librarian (who has literally read everything!!) about what to read, and she started telling me about David Mitchell's other books, saying she really liked Black Swan Green, and recommending that I read it. 

When passing my local library the next day, I saw that they had The Bone Clocks, which I'd seen advertised on the Tube as being Mitchell's latest book, and so thought that as every other person I've ever spoken to about Cloud Atlas seemed to love it and rave about it, I should give him a second chance. 

And well....The Bone Clocks is an entirely different story. I got into it straight away, as it seemed a fairly normal story about a teenager in the 80's in England - a story I could relate much more to that the 1850's in the South Pacific. It was a while before anything unusual slipped into the story, but it was slipped in in such a way that it was just a casual injection of something a little out of the ordinary, and then gone, back to a normal story. 

I don't want to say too much about the actual plot, as I don't want to ruin it but I will say READ IT!! It was incredibly gripping. I struggled to put it down at night to go to sleep, and even tried to drunk-read it on the tube on the way home from a night out (it didn't work - I had to re-read it all the next day as I remembered nothing!)

It was so addictively written, and really made me think about what our world is going to be like in 30 years time, and what we are doing to it. 

I'm tempted to read it again before returning it to the library, but instead, I think this will be a book I will buy as I know I could read it again and again. 

What A Strange Country - Oh Wait, It's Malaysia!

Malaysia! Such a beautiful, underrated holiday destination, but also a rather strange place! We crammed a lot into our 3 weeks, and hopped all over the country, visiting the capital, an island, the jungle, another island, with Sharon's house on the mainland, some tea plantations in the mountains, another island, a historical city, then a short stop in Singapore, before the overnight train back to KL.

On Pulau Tioman we saw loads of fish, quite a lots of monkeys, and I got sprayed by a cat whilst at dinner one night!

We had the most amazing Satay one night, as well as some scrumptious Singapore noodles and far too many cocktails.

After a short stay in the jungle where we encountered far too many leeches than is necessary (only about 5 but that's 5 more than I' comfortable with) we headed to Penang for a stay with Sharon! She was an amazing tour guide and took us to all the best places and made us eat all the local delicacies. Including Cendol. Do not eat cendol - it's weird! Who puts noodles and beans into their pudding??

Onto another island, and we headed to Pulau Pangkor which was very calm and quiet compared to Tioman, but we did manage to persuade one of the local barmen to bring us mojitos on the beach at sunset every day. And there was an inflatable obstacle course in the sea. And a temple with a Mickey Mouse and a mushroom. What more could you want?

From Pangkor we headed to Melaka (my Greek housemate says this means 'arsehole' in Greek so finds it pretty funny every time I mention this!) which was a beautiful old city. It was baking hot but we still managed to fit in lots of wandering and a visit to one of the local night clubs.

Then we headed South to Singapore (followed by a Frenchman who we were very rude to) and spent a classy day and a bit in a posh hotel with a rooftop pool, a cocktail at the Raffles Hotel and then a good explore.

We overnight trained it back to Kuala Lumpur and did a final bit of sightseeing and finished off our bargainous shopping, before partying in style at the Reggae Mansion - the best hostel in the world!

I loved Malaysia (so much more than Thailand!) and would definitely recommend it as a holiday destination!!

Excuses & Other Random Stories

I've never actually phoned in sick to work. Well apart from when I nearly broke my ankle in a trampolining competition and was on crutches, but I've never skived off. I just don't think I could phone and make a reason without laughing or just sounding really fake. Even if I was genuinely ill.

However, I think I'm quite good at coming up with good excuses for other people to use when phoning in sick, or giving excuses not to meet someone or do something. My current favourite was a friend was hated her current job and had got an interview to be an accounts manager for Tetley Tea. She was planning on saying that she had a migraine (boring) or her washing machine had leaked (too common) but I said she would say that she had got her hand stuck in a tea pot and it was her housemates favourite antique teapot so she couldn't just smash it to get it off so had to go to hospital to get it removed. So unbelievable that it instantly becomes believable as they would think 'how could she ever make that up?'. Sadly she went for the migraine option, but I bet they knew she didn't really have one and was just skiving.

When I was travelling last year, I did get a little fed up of constantly going through the 'Hi, my names Amy, I'm from Bristol' spiel every time I met someone new, which was pretty often and towards the end of my trip I started to make up some new identities. These are a few of my favourite new jobs....

1. I am a carrier bag tester. Well someone has to text their durability and it is very important to know how many pairs of shoes you can fit in one bag. My role included strict adventures such as travelling along a high street with a list of things to add to my carrier bag.
2. I am the youngest ever female train driver for British Rail. This one was actually believed by quite a few people as I do get quite excited about trains...until I met an Aussie Train Geek and he caught me out by asking loads of technical questions about them...which I couldn't answer.
3. I am a Button designer. I wish....