Vision In Blue

   I was surfing Netgalley looking for my next reading opportunity and spotted the holy grail, the one I'd been waiting for... Trollhunters by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus. I instantly requested it and within half an hour I'd been approved for it... score, and auto-approved for Bonnier Publishing... double score! I was going to be good though, I was half way through another book that I would finish first. So Trollhunters shot to the top of my TBR. I had originally heard about the book from our Bonnier rep [Graham, most entertaining man on the planet, possibly the only rep that when I'm horribly busy I still love to see... sorry other reps, this is the guy you should aspire to be.] and was already sold on the book as soon as he said Guillermo del Toro. [He'd been practicing.] But to be honest, after he's said he'd sort out a proof for his next visit I didn't think much more about it until I saw it on Netgalley. I couldn't remember anything abo...

Chloe knows where she's going in life, it's planned and she's got everything ahead of her. That is until her Dad drops a bombshell and she is left dealing with the aftermath. As family loyalty is first in her mind she works out a way to stay and look after her distraught Mother, sacrificing her one way out of their tiny town. Then she meets Ethan, a sweet boy, who is sweet on her. He's supportive when she needs it and life doesn't quite seem so bleak. As Oliver, the favoured son, returns to the family home unannounced his presence immediately effects Chloe. This new mysterious and intriguing man in her life sets her in a very different path. He can see the real her, the potential she's wasting in her small town job in her small town. Torn between the safe Ethan and the unknown Oliver, Chloe's guilt fights with her loyalty and as events shape her future she discovers all sorts of desires she never knew she had. Dangerous Boys is advertised as a t...

After another spurt of enthusiasm I've, sort of, finished the living room. I'll just get some shelving to go up in the alcoves. So I put together my fifth Ikea flat pack... and you know what I've noticed? Ikea and the Allen key business must have had a falling out. I've hardly used one to put this furniture together. Gone are the days where all I needed was an Allen key and some free interpretation of the wordless instructions. You'll see from the pictures above that I managed to get rid of the delightful border. The person who invented stick on borders should really take a good hard look at their life!! The walls downstairs were a lot more difficult than upstairs, I'm not exactly a fan of standing up a ladder, and unfortunately the walls are higher. I don't exactly enjoy the wobbly feel of the dizzying heights on my ladder... which is probably partly why I've only done two walls... lets call them "feature walls" so it doe...

I moved from one Ikea town to another, but until yesterday I hadn't visited the new home of pointless things I don't need... but secretly do. And after yesterday... I think I won't be visiting it again. The chaos of the Croydon branch is my type of chaos. You wander around aimlessly if you're not lucky enough to remember how to take the short cuts and end up picking up so many tea lights and random kitchen utensils that you can't carry the yellow bag without things falling out of each end. Bristol, Bristol, Bristol. What is your Ikea about? I have to order my flat pack, pay for it and then get in my car and drive round the block to get it?! Whaaaaaaaat?! The store is tiny in comparison to the Croydon branch [from what I can tell... there really aren't enough nerd facts on the internet about Ikea stores], I can't believe you couldn't find a space that was big enough for one complete store. While it was a novelty to have to take a second expedition to ...

Say it loud and say it proud girls... I am big and I am beautiful! I've always been big, since I was 17 I've been anywhere from a size 16 to 20. Well that's not very big, you might think, but you go into a "normal" high street shop and yes they might sell 18 and 20 but the chances of finding one can be quite remote. For clothing essentials that don't break the bank the best option is actually a supermarket. The quality in relation to the price is fantastic and the clothes last for ages... but that's a different matter entirely. We all know that body shaming is a big thing at the moment, I'm not sure what set it off but I've certainly been seeing a lot of uproar about different things. Yet another thing that makes me sad about humanity. Why are we shaming anyone for anything? Apart from shaming cats and dogs for weird things... because that's cute... and they don't care, you can tell by their expressions! Anyway, what really made me...

Shaun the Sheep has come to Bristol. Shaun is in my city. My friend came to visit and I made the exclamation that he'd chosen badly as he was just going to miss them... but no... the good old Bristolians started putting them up early. In total we saw 21 Shauns last weekend, and completed the Temple Trail above. But those sneaky buggers didn't have the decency to put them out in the dead of night so they were all out in the morning! No, they kept tiptoeing out of the shadows and putting them out after we'd walked past the spot. It's a fantastic community thing... well, it didn't seem that way when they were in London, but we were having fun here! Everyone was being friendly around them and asking for help getting pictures, we were using the app and all trying to work out where the next closest one was. So on Saturday we'd gone into town with the idea of just taking in some of the city, hitting the bits that I hadn't seen and enjoying the sun. We wa...

So I've been doing a lot of DIY lately as you know, I'm no expert, but I do have some common sense... and paint gives me pause for thought. I've been painting with a variety of colours and spend so much time washing brushes and rollers that it's a joke. A really easy trick to at least save you the time is to line the paint tray with foil, you remember me mentioning it when I wrote about life hacks? This one was a god send to find! But remember to double line the tray if you're going to use a brush as well as a roller... those bristles are sneaky buggers and like to poke holes through to the tray! Tins are probably the dumbest vessels for paint. Why doesn't it come in watering cans? Or tins that have a pinched side that works like a jug? We make so many innovative things but we can't make paint storage that also works as a pouring device?! When you google paint cans there are also pictures of spout type lids that you can put on the top of cans... wh...

Although the main bedroom is done with decorating-wise it doesn't really feel like it. I think that's only because I haven't finished putting the doors back on my unit... mainly because they're a pain in the proverbial. I've also got a pile of random junk from when I was sleeping in the guest room before my furniture arrived... I now know the perils of leaving stuff until the last minute as I basically picked stuff up and moved it all to my room. Before All the rooms upstairs were lined with paper, and unfortunately a lot had to be replaced in this room. When Bristol had a lot of flooding years back lots of the homes had bad roof damage which obviously led to some damage on the walls, luckily that was generally cosmetic. As you can see in the picture we had the paste table up and... I wont use the royal "we" here, Dad replaced the bad paper. He's no Granddad when it comes to decorating but it is all still vaguely on the walls... and now it...

Sorry for my absence, but I have at least been productive. I'm currently two rooms finished... it's amazing what you can botch together when you don't have anything better to do! So here's a little introductory guide to my guest bedroom... photos aren't amazing I'm afraid but you'll get the idea... or... get the picture... hahaha, I crack me up! *stony silence* Fine, less rubbish humour. So luckily there wasn't a great deal that needed to be done in this one. I have yet to decide about any carpets, there's nothing particularly wrong with any of them upstairs that a good clean wouldn't fix but with the bizarre weather in Bristol at the moment using my steam cleaner isn't an option. Before The before picture doesn't really do it justice... it looked much worse, in fact I think all the before pictures were taken after some cleaning had happened. We [any time I refer to "we" that's me, Dad and Mum, who came down...