A film about Christmas

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Afternoon folks! I’ve been a bit quiet this past wee while but been very busy nonetheless. I am really excited to share my first ‘proper’ attempt at making a short film with you and not before time!

Belfast was in the news rather a lot over the Christmas period and sadly not always for the right reasons. I wanted to make a film that explored the importance of Christmas to the individuals featured beyond what’s going to be under the tree on Christmas Day. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas presents and parties are brilliant and something to look forward to but there’s more to the season than just that. For me, and the people I interviewed, it’s a time for family – whether that’s the family you’re born with or the one you pick up along the way – and generally looking out for one another. I hope that comes across when you are watching.

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Spread a little sunshine

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sunshine-award-2

Yesterday I got a lovely message from Kirstan of Getting On Top to say she has nominated me for the Sunshine Award. My first ever blog award – how exciting and made all the more flattering that the award is for bloggers who inspire in a positive and creative way. I’m delighted that Kirstan and others have enjoyed reading my blog and am very chuffed to receive this award!

I first discovered Kirstan’s blog through WordPress’s Freshly Pressed series. The post that led me to her blog is this one. Once you read it you’ll know why I followed her right away and why you ought to as well!

As is the process with a lot of awards on WordPress this one necessitates listing 10 things you mightn’t yet know about me so here goes:

1. I love to sing in the shower when I’m at home, the louder the better. It makes me a little sad that the walls of my new flat are so thin and I don’t have a shower radio…YET.

2) When I was 13 I fell in love with Taylor Hanson and began a roughly 2 year campaign to persuade my parents to relocate to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I don’t remember why my campaign ended but I remember feeling particularly peeved years later when I discovered they all married fans who they spotted in the audience at their concerts. That could have been me!

3) When I was wee I wanted to be a hairdresser. When I was at University I cut off all my hair and dyed the remainder jet black. I was quite the sight to behold. In spite of this not one but FIVE friends subsequently allowed me to cut / dye their hair.

4) I’m fortunate to have family in the most beautiful place on Earth, the Faroe Islands and hope to visit them once I can save enough money. I’d like to make a film there in the future.

5) I really enjoy mixing curry powder with ketchup. This tastes incredible with chips (fries) and sausages and takes me back to my time abroad, eating Currywurst in Herbert Groenemeyer’s favourite sausage stall.

6) I like my own time and space but I hate to be lonely.

7) I make no apologies for watching TLC shows like Extreme Cheapskates, Extreme Couponing and Alaskan Women Looking For Love OBSESSIVELY.

8) Along with a DIY haircut that horrified my parents I also used to sport quite a number of piercings with 2 in my arm – these ended horribly – 1 in my nose and 1 in my lip, among others. Sometimes I re-pierce my lip and nose because I miss them, occasionally because it drives my mum nuts. By her nature she will worry about me anyway, right? Better to worry about a couple of irrelevant things over anything bigger!

9) I once hitchhiked from Glasgow to Amsterdam for a charity race. It was good craic – thankfully I wasn’t doing it on my own!

10) I’ve been told I’m a good person to have around in a crisis. I suppose this is relatively subjective and crisis-dependent but I’ll take it all the same.

I don’t know if any of those things are interesting but there we are. Now, enough of me and on to the next part of the award process – nominating the new recipients! I’ve chosen 5 blogs which brighten up my day, teach me new things and generally inspire me to keep putting one foot in front of the other to get to my end goal. I hope you will visit these blogs and I hope they will uplift you as they do me. Follow them, talk with the authors and keep sharing. I’m grateful to have come across each of them. Without further ado here, in no particular order, are my five:

From Casinos to Castles
A Pretty Penny
Ali Does It Herself
A Girl Called Jack
Made by Fi, Made by Me

To the nominees, if you would like to accept this award, just write a post about the award include who nominated you and pass the award along to others. If you want to you can also tell us some fun facts that we might not know about you. Thank you and happy writing!xx

Thank you for reading

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Boys-a-dear! In the last 24 hour hours my blog has, (much to my surprise), had more traffic than ever before. Who knew so many people love Scandinavia like I do? Interestingly one of the top searches driving traffic to my page was named ‘nordicana moans’. I’m not sure what reveals more about my predominantly British readership – the desire for a good old moan or that search engines led wanton readers to me. Either way, I am delighted you stumbled across my blog – whether you intended to or not! I hope you weren’t too disappointed with what you found and I hope you’ll stick around!

Now is as good a time as any to thank you all for reading and interacting with me since I started my blog last year. Whether you followed way back in the beginning or you joined us just yesterday I am so glad that you did! I hope you enjoy what you read and I would love to hear more from you. After all, blogging is a two-way street and I’d really like to know what kind of stuff you are interested in – or not, as the case may be! I’ve had an idea for a project I would like to work on over the next year but it’s really dependent on a little a lot help from my friends. If you’re intrigued then please do follow / subscribe and comment to let me know you’re in!

I wanted this post to be about sharing a recipe I discovered for Chocolate Chia Cookies I came across the other day. Now don’t they just sound lovely? It was going to be all arty farty pictures and everything. I went out the other day and even bought something called ‘buckwheat flour’ especially. Well I am very sorry but out of a recipe that was meant to make 10 I now have about 30 dense misshaped mounds of nut-rich, taste-poor muck. And because buckwheat flour is expensive – even though it seems to taste of nothing – I am going to eat them because a) I don’t like waste and b) they are too dear to throw away. I suspect I’m also going to have to up my exercise intake due to all the nuts in said muck burgers so if you see a girl power walking through a London park eating what looks like a little patty of dog mess don’t be alarmed, it’s probably me.

Boggin'. If you don't know what boggin' means, the first thing that springs to mind is probably about right.

Boggin’. If you don’t know what boggin’ means, the first thing that springs to mind is probably about right.

So it seems I’ve given you a big fat nada with this post and how apt I found the picture below which I took in a shop on Brick Lane that appears geared towards people with too much money and too little sense. I promise my next post will be more interesting! In the meantime, thank you for sticking with me through the good and the muck!xx

Don't worry mama, I didn't buy it! ;)

Don’t worry mama, I didn’t buy it! 😉

(Incidentally, if anyone knows of a good use for buckwheat flour and chia seeds please send it my way so I can use this stuff up!)