My life lately - May 2022

I thought I'd do a little life update with some of the things that I've been doing and enjoying lately!

Reading

I wrote recently about the books that I read on holiday, and now I'm working through the rest of the free books that I downloaded and didn't get to. Then I have a haul of second hand paperbacks waiting by my bedside table. 

A book that I really enjoyed recently was one of my Amazon First Read selections - The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel. It falls under one of my favourite genres - a woman inherits a house full of secrets - and this book is about a woman who is Indian but was adopted and raised in a white Catholic family and has no knowledge about her heritage. She discovers that an unknown woman has left her an apartment in a block that was purchased by Indian students who moved to the US to study engineering so that they could take their skills back to India. It's now inhabited by their descendants, who introduce her to their culture despite not knowing exactly why she has been left the apartment. I enjoyed reading a new take on a favourite genre.

Watching

We are so behind with our television watching! There are lots of series that I have lined up to watch - Bridgerton, Life After Life, The Time Traveller's Wife, The Essex Serpent...I just need to find the time!

We've just started the new and final season of Better Call Saul which is looking good. I've also discovered a little programme on Netflix called Old Enough which we are enjoying watching, each episode is only about ten minutes long and it follows a small child in Japan who is sent out to run errands and filmed to see how they get on. It's very sweet! Finally we enjoyed watching Moon Knight as a family, the latest Marvel series on Disney+ and definitely one of the better ones.

Listening

Lately on the school run I've been enjoying listening to piano music. I have a playlist on Spotify called 'Relaxing Piano' and I do find that it helps me feel calm when driving. I'm enjoying playing the piano too myself and so I like to hear fancier versions of the pieces that I play. In particular I'm enjoying listening to Ludovico Einaudi.

Playing

I'm still enjoying Pikmin Bloom on my phone, although I accept that I'm probably one of the only people in the country playing it! It's a simple mobile game that is a little bit like Pokemon Go in that it uses a map and your walking data to play. You collect seedlings which take a certain amount of steps to grow, and when you pluck them they become a Pikmin which is a little character that follows you around and plants flowers. If you collect seeds from certain places then when you have fed them enough nectar they put on a decoration related to where you picked them up, and so you can collect lots of different décor which is where I'm at now in the game. I have lots of beach, café, park and forest Pikmin but I'm still working on lots of the others, like the different shops which include sweet, sushi and clothing. I have it on when I'm out running, and it encourages me to run to different places to try and pick up the ones I'm missing.

Creating

I've been working on a cross stitch snowflake piece for Christmas which I'm quite proud of. I've worked up my own pattern for an embroidery hoop design, and I'll be publishing it on the blog as winter approaches.

I'm also working on some bits for the garden - I'm planning to make some fresh bunting and paint some plant pots.

Travelling to

Over the Easter holiday we had a wonderful holiday to Mauritius with lots of sunshine, time to relax and sightseeing. Then we managed another trip to Monkey World to see Mia's adopted gibbon and other primate friends.

I've also been up to London twice, having not visited for over two years. The first was a lovely surprise trip for our wedding anniversary. We went to watch Les Misérables, which is my favourite musical, and also went Swingers for some tipsy mini golf! Then last week we went to the Young Voices concert at the O2 to watch Mia perform. It was so strange seeing all the crowds and everyone out and about, it really did feel as though things are now back to normal.

Coming up

I can't believe that the summer term is so short, with the half term holiday in just a couple of weeks! We have booked an Airbnb in Bournemouth for the week which is on the beach and looks lovely. It's Mia's birthday that week, and so there will be at least one trip to Monkey World while we are there.

Then it will just be the countdown to the end of term, and the end of Mia's time at primary school which will be emotional I'm sure. Fingers crossed the weather this summer will be better than last year, I want to enjoy some garden time!