Update and Technology Fail

Hello, hello!! I am back!

I have been a busy, busy girl and sadly blogging fell by the wayside. Well honestly blogging, housework, eating well, socialising, reading and seeing my family all fell by the wayside. Apart from work the past couple of months has been focused on producing my last play. With my close friend Ross we produced an amateur production of Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth. It was so much fun and a massive challenge. How often do you find yourself sitting down to discuss finding a child because your standby child just fell through or what the chances are of finding a caravan we can cut up. in the end it was all worth it to get a 5 star review which you can read here. I have also started a tumblr showing my iPhone photos from the project. Feel free to have a wee look.

So after I was finished with the play and I started feeling back to normal and ready to start reading and blogging again, not only do I pick up my kindle to find that kindle 2.0 has died on me, but that the mains lead for my laptop has also decided to stop working. But fear not, with my replacement kindle (kindle 3.0) and borrowed notebook laptop (thanks little sister) I will be back to blogging about everything that I love (or that takes my fancy).

So expect to see more frequent blog posts and chatter from me n books, TV, shoes, pretty things and anything else that takes my fancy.

Don't forget to follow this blog on bloglovin

I am still here, I swear!!

Hello, is anyone still out there? I have been very absent recently, not because I don't love you all, I have just been really busy and something was going to suffer... well a few things suffered, but let's not dwell on all of the things I've not got round to doing in the past few months.

So you may well ask what I have been doing to keep myself so busy. What an excellent question, and one I was hoping you wouldn't ask!!

After a very successful run as assistant director on Six Degrees of Separation, I was approached to be AD on another two projects. The first of which was Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us which ran for a week in the Edinburgh Fringe.

Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us

"I was in this very room at my wits' end when I heard buzzing and there was a wasp trying to get out of that window. You know how I can't stand wasps. So I opened the window as wide as I could but it just kept bumping up and down the glass...How could it comprehend me, whose brain is hundreds of times the size of its whole body? How do you know you're not bumping against the glass?"
A family thrown together with a secret they'd rather forget.
So Dad drinks. Mum and daughter Cath pop pills. Their youngest son, Patrick, finds god. And their youngest son, Johnny, finds snooker.

But when the secrets are dug up, there's nowhere to hide.
Premiered at the Traverse in 2008 and written by leading Scottish actor turned writer, Paul Higgins, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us is a darkly comic look at a family under siege.
In an endles quest for meaning, where do you turn when you can't forgive yourself?

We were over the moon to find out that, not only did this play go down really well, but we won an award for it!! Yay! You can read about us winning the "Spirit Of The Fringe Award" here.

My next project (which may be my last so I can rest) will be Richard III set in the 1930's. Work has only just started on this and I am finding it all very exciting. I will keep you updated on this as we make progress.

The other thing taking up my time over the last few weeks was a well needed holiday to Barcelona. Me and my amazing best friend (commonly referred to as my wife!) spent 10 days splitting our time between visiting friends in Barcelona and laying on the beach in Salou. We were lucky visiting our friend in Barcelona while the Gracia Festival was in full swing. This is where the streets of Gracia are decorated and all compete to be the best. There is also live music at night with different bands playing in every street and mojitos being served out of the windows of the bars until the wee hours of the morning. I think we called it a night (or passed out) a little after 4am. To see some pictures you can check out my best friend Bug's website at Style over Sense, or check out the ones I have posted below.

Catch up with you all soon!!

Me and my BFF

Farewell Emma's Kindle 1.0 - I will miss you!

Picture the scene: it was 11pm last night and it was particularly cold. I have just put on the kettle to make some herbal tea to drink while I read in bed. I pull my kindle out of my bag and flick the switch to read while I get organised. What did I see? Not a whole lot of anything!!! My poor kindle screen had frozen and nothing suggested on the kindle help page was making any difference!!

My Poor Broken Kindle

After asking my clever technical sister if this was something she could fix, she told me it sounded like it was truly passed it and suggested that I call Amazon. What a helpful phone all I had. It was confirmed that my kindle was beyond fixing and that I was about 6 months out of my warranty period. *sad face* 

All was not lost however, Mr Amazon offered to replace my broken kindle for the exact same model for £50. That is £100 off what I would have had to pay for the same again. YAY!! I use my kindle almost every day and I am going through withdrawals!!

Now I only have to wait until Tuesday for delivery (silly May Day holiday!!), so all that is left for me now is to choose a pretty new skin for Emma's Kindle 2.0!

What I'm up to! 6 Degrees!

You may have noticed that I have not been posting as much as I have in the past. I wanted to let you know my reasons for this and let you know when I should be back to normal!! Fret not though, I still plan to post at least 3 times a week.

Well, the reason is that I am currently acting as Assistant Director for a production of Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare, which is being put on by the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group.

I have not been involved in any sort of dramatics since I was about 13, so it is a little nerve-racking, even if I am behind the scenes. Auditions were held before Christmas and we had an amazing turnout and could have cast a number of the parts a few times over. Myself and the Director (RH) have been meeting over the festive period to try and sort scheduling and costuming etc... which has taken a massive amount of time.

We had our first rehearsal earlier this week and the read through was better than I expected, which has renewed my excitement in the whole process. The play is due to run in April and up to that point I will be manic trying to get everything done. I will certainly keep you posted.

Now for those of you who don't know, or are unfamiliar with Six Degrees of Separation (the concept) then where have you been? Wikipedia classes it as:

"Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. It was originally set out by Frigyes Karinthy and popularised by a play written by John Guare."

The play is a bit of a dramatic comedy (with some fantastic moments) which was made into a film with Stockard Channing, Will Smith and Donald Sutherland. The outline of the play, again as classed by Wikipedia, is:

"Fifth Avenue socialite Ouisa Kittredge and her purveyor of high-art husband Flan, are pedigree parents of "two at Harvard and one at Groton." But the privileged insular world inhabited by the Kittredge family, as well as their public status as distinguished arbiters of culture, makes them easy prey for Paul, a consummate con-artist. One night, Paul mysteriously shows up at their front door—injured and bleeding—claiming to be Sidney Poitier's son and a close college friend of the Kittredges' Ivy League progeny. Impressing Ouisa and Flan with his articulate literary expositions, Paul proves to be a sharp-witted, learned young man with epicurean taste and surprising culinary skill. His highbrow façade is so charmingly persuasive, Paul soon has the Kittredges lending him money, putting him up for the night and taking satisfaction in his appraisal of their posh lifestyle. Much to the Kittredge's shock, Paul is revealed to be a highly persuasive con-man, who has charmed his way into many upper-crust homes along the Upper East Side with his wit and insider knowledge. As Paul's plot unravels he becomes an urban legend of the upper crust, a witty anecdote to banter about at cocktail parties. However, he has a profound effect on the many individuals who encounter him, linking them in their shared experience."

I have always enjoyed reading plays, and would recommend this to anyone as a great read. I will keep you posted with updates and as I say above, I will still be here, reading and passing on my thoughts to anyone who will listen.

Review: Raw Blue By Kirsty Eagar

Title: Raw Blue
Author: Kirsty Eagar
Publisher: Penguin Books Australia
Published: 29th June 2009
Source: Own Copy

Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly café. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing … and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago at schoolies week.

And then Carly meets Ryan, a local at the break, fresh out of jail. When Ryan learns the truth, Carly has to decide. Will she let the past bury her? Or can she let go of her anger and shame, and find the courage to be happy? - From Goodreads

Raw is the perfect word in this title. The whole book is raw like an open wound with emotion dripping from every page. If there is one book I could give a hug and a cup of sweet tea to then this would be it! Look at it, even the cover is beautiful!

This is the story of a girl who at the start of the book is just trying to survive day to day. Every day for Carly is surfing and working to make the money she needs to surf. The back story of Carly's trauma is slowly revealed through the book, but it does not feel like this is being kept a secret from us, more like Carly is telling when she can.

The other characters in the book are also amazing and only add to the story. While on the subject of the other characters - Ryan!! Why can't I have my own Ryan? It is easy to see why Ryan keeps Carly afloat, he is charming, supportive, patient and smoking hot!! 

Right from the get go this is an extremely Australian book, using what can only be described as Australian sounds. I thought this was funny and my years of watching Neighbours and Home and Away when I was younger paid off. I also think that these years of viewing Home and Away made me think that surfing is super cool. I have no knowledge of surfing or any of the lingo but I never felt confused about the surfing talk.

I loved this book so much I think it will forever bin in my top 5 books. If you have not read it yet then out down whatever you are doing and get yourself a copy!

I'm back...

As mentioned earlier in this blog, I was attempting to run a 10k. Well on Sunday 2nd October I ran and I came in 5,547th with a time of 01:31:48. For my first run and my minimal training I am really happy with this time as it was 14 mins faster thank I thought it would be. To top it all off I got a shiny medal too!!

A couple of days after the race I ran away to Gran Canaria for a week of rest and relaxation in the sun and to catch up on all my reading.

I managed to raise loads of money for CMT UK. Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and support. Now to train for the BUPA Great Winter 5k, running in snow should be interesting!

Finally Finished!!

What Have I Done?

So about 8 months ago I decided that I was going to get healthy. As a part of this I signed up to run a 10k. Why I did this is still a mystery to me but since it was done I thought it might be a good idea to use this opportunity to raise some money for a charity close to my heart.

My Mum suffers from a strain of muscular dystrophy called Charot Marie Tooth (CMT for short). I will be running the 10k on Sunday 2nd October and I am feeling a bit of fear mixed in with excitement about it.

If you would like to show your support my just giving link is on the right of the page and if you would like to learn more about CMT please click here.