What am I reading at the moment?

Today's post is going to be quite a quick one. As you can probably tell form the title, I'm going to tell you about what I'm reading at the moment, which is "To kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

I'm really interested in English, and as I don't go to school I've never properly had the chance to do an English lesson. So, my Mum bought a copy of "To kill a Mockingbird" for me to read, and a study book on it to use after I'd finished the novel. So far I'm really enjoying it, and am almost halfway through.

If you don't know what it's about, it's a story, told by tomboyish Scout Finch, about the prejudice against black people in 1930s America. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer, and is defending a black man charged with rape. Even though the book is a about a very serious subject, it is still really funny and entertaining. When I'm finished reading it, I might do a proper review of it, so stay tuned for that.

If you want to find out more about the book, here's the link to it on Amazon, where you can look at the first pages and read reviews on it.

Room Makeover

Recently, I was feeling annoyed with how untidy and badly organised my bedroom was. So, I decided to do something about it and had a room makeover! I apologize for the lack of "before" photos. I would have taken some, but I didn't know I was going to do a blog post about it at the time.

I really wanted a better dressing table area, as previously I'd just been using my desk, which is also where my computer is, so there wasn't much room. I decided to use the top of my bedside table/bookshelf. There had been a lot of junk and other things there, so I had to find a place for it all, but after that I had pelnty of space. This is how it looks now.

I decorated a jar to put makeup in, which you can see above. I also used an old body shop basket that my Mum gave me to store stuff in. I put my nail vanishes on display as well, as they had previously been in a tin.

The rest of my bookshelf didn't change much, but the top shelf did. I put my jewellery box on it and other stuff, like my tin of hairpins, my doughnuts, ect.

My desk had been a state, so I tided that up as well.

I decorated another jar, this time for pencils. I used a ribbon and glued it round the rim. 

I also cleared a lot of stuff up which was just lying on the floor, but I won't show you that, as I didn't take any "before" pictures for you to compare it with.

There's a lot more stuff I want to get done before I will say my room is fully complete. I still would like to get the walls repainted, take down old pictures and put new ones up, but I've done quite a lot already. I enjoy being in my room a lot more than I used to, and it feels less claustrophobic.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and that if you have a messy room, maybe it inspired you to to have a day cleaning out and reorganising. It takes a while, but it really is worth it!    

Memory Boxes

I thought it would be interesting to do a post about my memory boxes this week, and show you some of the things I keep in them. I have two boxes which you can see above; the one on the left isn't a very interesting box, just an old shoe box. In it I keep paper memories. By that I mean letters, postcards, leaflets and so on. The box on the right looks more like a treasure box, and in it I keep object memories.  

First I'll show you the object memories box.

This is a little toy that my school buddy Ellen bought for me at a jumble sale. When you open the roof of the house, Daisy Duck jumps up!

This next memory was given to me around the same time. I was leaving for another school, and a girl called Millie gave me this little dog keyring as a goodbye present. I had it clipped to my bag at my next school for a very long time.

This one is probably one of the most interesting things in my memory box, as it is a piece of dried lava! I found it the first time we went to New Zealand whilst visiting a beach. At first I thought it was just a strange rock, but then my Mum told me that it was a piece of lava that had probably come form a old volcano which was nearby. I (being a young and stupid), decided to brighten it up a bit by drawing on coloured stripes with felt tips. In this photo you can see the side that I didn't colour in, and fortunately the colour that is still there is wearing off now.  

This is a slightly more recent object in my memory box. It's a Clarice Bean watch that I was given after I sent a letter to Lauren Child! (Lauren Child is the author of the book "Clarice Bean", and also many other books, including "Charlie and Lola")

Moving onto my "Paper Memories Box", I have some leaflets from places I've been, and here's a picture of some of them. From left to right they are from; "The Bronte Museum", "The Anne Frank House" and "Edinburgh Zoo"

This is a photo my Mum gave me recently, of me visiting Ruth's Nursery when I was little. My Mum said that one of the teachers let me dress up in a brides costume, which I imagine I must of loved!

These little pictures where given to me by a girl called Peta when I was younger.

The last thing I'm going to show you is this letter I got from Jk Rowling! I had sent her a letter, saying that I really enjoyed her books, and she replied, though not personally, as she has too much fan mail to do that. I was also sent a sheet answering some of her most commonly asked questions.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my memory boxes! If you did, it would be great if you could leave me a comment, as I'd love to read them!     

My Holiday, Part Three: The Lake District

This is the last part of of my holiday posts, and this time, it's all about our time in the the Lake District! Originally we were going to go to London, but due to the heatwave, it was going to be way to hot there, so instead we went to the Lake District.

The first thing we did there was go on a boat ride on one of the Lakes.

 

 Before we boarded the boat, we went to the café near by to get something to eat. I know this wasn't really that important, but I just had to show you this photo of the cake I got ... it looks so delicious!

The boat ride was nice. There were lots of good views and the inside of the boat was very grand, (sorry I don't have any pictures of it).

The next place we went to, and my personal favourite, was Beatrix Potter's house. You could look around all the rooms of her house, which where really nicely set out so that it looked as if she still lived there. You could also easily recognise rooms from the illustrations in her books. I would have loved to have taken pictures inside the house, but it wasn't allowed. I did take some pictures of the garden though, which you can see above. 

We also visited John Ruskin’s house and gardens. The garden had some really lovely flowers! You can see some photos from our visit below.

After that we drove home and it was the end of the holiday. 

I hope you enjoyed these posts! Here are links to the last two parts, Part One and Part Two.

See you soon!