Cooking up a storm

I'm being a good little wifey this evening and am cooking up an extravaganza in time for when Steve comes home from his football tournament or whatever it is he has been doing.

I have made potato skins which I will start cooking once Steve is on his way home to go with our sirloin steaks.

I have also been baking! I have made a small batch of triple chocolate cookies, with three types of chocolate chips.

I am definitely marriage material. Nigella and Delia have nothing on me. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the finished article to add to the post.

Book Review: Room

Room by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book after it was recommended to me and managed to pick it up very reasonably on the Kindle.

This book is told from the point of view of 5 year old Jack and gives us a real insight into his life and world, which are considerably smaller then your average 5 year old. It took me a while to get used to the style of writing, but I think it worked once I had settled into it.

Jack lives with his Ma in Room and they live a very unusual life. In the book Jack takes us through the way they live and changes they encounter along the way.

I preferred the first part of the book to the second as I found the plot lost its way slightly and I found the ending a bit abrupt. However, I thought it was a brave book in both the way it was written and the subjects it tackled and it kept my attention all the way through. If I were allowed to give half stars, I would give it 4.5 due to the drifting of the second part.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Death of a Gossip

Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is the first in M.C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series and the first I have read featuring Hamish Macbeth. I decided to give this series a try as I enjoy the Agatha Raisin series so much and I was not disappointed.

I really enjoyed reading this and though it had some strong local characters as well as the fishing school "incomers" and it kept me guessing over who the murderer was.

I liked the Highland twist on the countryside murder mystery and will definitely read the rest of the series!



View all my reviews

Book Review: Small Man in a Book

Small Man In A Book by Rob Brydon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had this autobiography as a Christmas present and got into it as soon as I picked it up to read from my "to read" pile. It was like reading something written by a friend as Rob has a brilliant narrative voice.

I really enjoyed reading about his youth and was suprised that he had a fairly privileged upbringing compared to the majority in South Wales. I think it made it better for me as I knew a lot of the places he talked about in the book so it made it more personal for me.

The book itself only tells Rob's life story up until 2000, so pre Gavin and Stacey and basically pre fame! Rob's struggle to make it was pretty interesting, but the last 80 or so pages runined my enjoyment to be honest as he went into too much detail about the writing and making of Human Remains and Marion and Geoff. I understand that these are the shows that made him, but it just wasn't for me.

All in all a good read with an easy going style and packed with humour.

View all my reviews

Book Review: True Things About Me

True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came across this book on my creative writing course as the writer had also attended the same course. An excerpt was given as an example of an unusual writing style. From that excerpt I wanted to read more.

I liked the way that the book was written as it was an unusual style and leant itself to making me feel in tune with the character and feel her panic and how things were running away with her.

The story itself is about a woman who is getting involved with a man who she really shouldn't be. Everything screams wrong, but she just gets in deeper and deeper. The book was really compelling and I kept wanting to read more, but in a way it was something of a morbid fascination as you know it can't go too well.

The reason I have given this three stars is that I felt I couldn't enjoy it because of the subject and the main character wasn't particularly endearing because of the route she was choosing to take. Despite this, I found that it was a good read, if a little disturbing. I liked the style of writing and would read more by Deborah Kay Davies.

View all my reviews

Chortle out loud

After yesterday’s word related rant post I was having a think last night (Yay! Insomnia!) about vocabulary and the way that words are used these days. I was thinking about how there are so many rich, wondrous words available to us to use to describe things and feelings and yet everyone seems hell bent on abbreviating everything as much as possible. The introduction of text speak (or txt spk) which has crept into our lives, stealing all the vowels is now being used in totally inappropriate situations. I actually grimace when I get an email in work which says “u” instead of “you” or “thnx” instead of “thanks”. I have actually had a work email which said “LOL” too!

And this is another thing I have found. The abbreviations that litter emails, texts and even magazines these days are not only stealing our vowels, but inhibiting our use of the many words available to us, by virtue of the restrictions imposed by the abbreviations (or acronyms as they are also known).

The main word that comes to mind in this way is the humble laugh. The introduction of LOL, LMAO, ROFL and even LMFAO has made it all about the laugh. What about the other words to describe the noises we make when amused? When is a laugh not a laugh? When it’s a giggle, that’s when. Or a chortle. There are a plethora of words which are going to disappear from our language if we don’t carry on using them.

Here are a few of my personal favourites:

Guffaw

Chortle

Chuckle

Titter (Oooh-err matron)

Snicker

I have written before about pledging to read the printed word, but it may be time to start a pledge to use the spoken word before it’s too late and it starts to become acceptable to write without using vowels and in a complex code of abbreviations.

TTFN

Words of wonderment and a water update

Well, I thought last week was bad. I've been off baddy sick this week with what I thought was a virus, but was actually an infection so am feeling very sorry for myself!

I have spent the week reading, sleeping and watching crap TV. I have watched a lot of old sitcoms on Gold and have just watched a Carry On film, but I draw the line at anything with Noel Edwards. He's been out of favour with me since he stopped doing Noel's House Party. Although I am now watching Wedi 7, just because there is nothing else on and I can't be arsed to get up and put a DVD on (or make my lunch to be honest). Although I have just rediscovered the Welsh word for forward slash - blaen sleis. It always makes me giggle. Perhaps you have to be here though.

I have a couple of book reviews to publish, once I've had my lunch and Bruce stops trying to attack my Um Bongo (for vitamin C to make me feel better, although the antibiotics might do a better job).

One thing I have been thinking about from my sick bed (apart from how fed up I am!) is how many words there are out there that frankly don't get enough use in this day and age.

Canoodling being one. The words you hear being used these days are so much more vulgar and less innocent.

Hoot, as in he is a complete hoot. Noone uses hoot enough for my liking. I try to bring it back into conversation but it usually results in someone taking the piss out of me.

Kerfuffle. Why is this not used more? There are all sorts of kerfuffles happening these days. Like those riots last year where loads of kids broke into sports shops to get new daps. They caused a bit of a kerfuffle.

Wondorous. What wondorous weather we are having this fine day. What a fine and wondorous cover is upon that book. A fine and wondorous word indeed.

These are just a few of the underused words I can think of. Maybe we should just start using the less used words more rather than adding new ones to the dictionary. Maybe that would save the country some money on printing new dictionarys and signs. Maybe I will put this idea forward.

Anyway, I went off on a bit of a tangent there. I think it might be the cold getting to me. You might remember my water related issues of last week. Well they were solved when we found that the stop cock (yes I said it!) that was under our sink only seemed like it wasn't working for one reason. It was the wrong effing one!!! We have found that we have two stop cocks, one for the outside tap and one for the water supply to the house. So the reason the water wasn't going off when the "plumber" (who might as well have shouted yee-hah and rode off into the sunset on the back of his trusty steed) was turning the stopcock was that it was the wrong bloody one!! And the stupid twonk (another good word) didn't even think of testing it!!!

So, since this enlightening discovery of the correct stop cock which wasn't fully open, hence the pressure issues, we have had no heating. We have water, and indeed hot water, but no heating. And the bloody boiler is leaking. And our normal plumber is on holiday until Monday. So I have been half freezing to death, as well as suffering with my illness (noone can call me a drama queen) with only a convector heater and a grumpy cat to keep me warm.

But on the plus side I have read loads and am on the mend! Yay!! Anyway, enough of my ramblings (for now!) I am off to make some lunch and watch either Dudley ar Daith (the Welsh Gordon Ramsay, but with less effing and jeffing) or I might put a dvd on and carry on reading Rob Brydon's autobiography!!