Flaine, France - 25/1/15 - 31/1/15

Last month I was lucky enough to be in France skiing with my family. We also went last year, and it was my first time strapping on the skis. This year, I was so pleased to realise I could still do it! I started off with lessons at the beginning of the week, hoping to pick up where I left off and improve, but by day two had cancelled them. I felt confident enough to carry on and just practice.

However! on the third day, disaster struck. I woke up feeling a little worse for wear.

Went out in the morning and managed to throw myself all over the mountain, but by lunch felt like I was possibly going to faint. I headed back to the chalet and collapsed on the bed, not to be heard of again until a few hours later. When I woke up I was so hot, had bumps all over my arms and a headache. Those symptoms didn't really leave me for the rest of the week. It's quite annoying being on holiday and not being able to enjoy it. I had only mustered up enough energy to try again on the last day, and even then had to bow out by lunch. I think it's quite important when you're skiing to be in control of what you're doing. Being ill tends to take that control away and that's when accidents happen. I'm kind of gutted that I didn't manage to get out that much, but at the same time I enjoyed what time I did.

As apposed to last year, we were in a catered chalet this time. Our chalet hosts name was Joe. He was such a lovely person, and his cakes tasted so much better than mine. His victoria sponge was ridiculous.  

We had two birthdays whilst in Flaine, my mums and my roommate, Maureen. On Thursday Joe spent the morning cutting out a happy birthday template for the cake. Such a sweet thing to do. Note the messy little gluten free muffins for Steve!

Flaine as a resort is beautiful. The valley is so picturesque. I think my favourite part was this little split in the mountains where you can see through to the valley beyond. The trees that lined it were just so nice.

Check out the view from our bedroom window!

The first day we arrived we also got driven around in a snow buggy. This thing doesn't look like much, but the experience was pretty fun. The driver didn't have to slow down on corners and certainly didn't. I was terrified I was going to fall out!

 

I'm currently doing driving lessons at the moment. At this point I had only had 4, and I was a bit too keen to drive this thing. It would have ended so badly!

As always now is my chance to binge upload some of the photos. I always take too many.

I should probably mention that there were ten of us in total on this holiday. Not all family, but all friends of the family.

An accidental photo taken from the bus window. I just love it how gloomy it looks.

I think the trees were my favourite part of the scenery. The snow just sits on them and contrasts so beautifully. Like a christmas card!

 Before being struck down 'in the pribe of libe!' (anyone else reference Friends when sick?)

 My beautiful mother.

Looking forward to next years trip! Hopefully it won't end so horribly. I'll be sure to take all my vitamins and build up my immune system before I go!

New Years Photos!

A much delayed selection of photos from my trip up to Inverness for new years! My friend Steven took his big fancy camera with him and took some really nice photos. I meant to post them sooner but totally forgot!

 

 

 It was a really fun weekend. We stayed with Louisa and her family and went into town for the bells. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers were playing on the stage and we took an awful disposable camera selfie at midnight! I got the photos back last week and it's so blurry!

Below are some of my iPhone photos too. Lesser quality than Stevens and heavily filtered ;)

 We made an apple pie for New Years day lunch.

Some photos from the Clootie Well.

 

 

Sea-salty windswept hair.

So yeah! Sorry for the sheer mass amount of photos in this post. I took so many and just wanted to put them up in a big post. The clootie well and Fairy Glen were really pretty, I couldn't help but take loads of photos.  

Reading Challenge 2015 - The Scorch Trails + The Death Cure

The Scorch Trails + The Death Cure by James Dashner

I finally finished this series! I read the last instalment whilst on holiday in France about 2 weeks ago so I'm a little fuzzy on the details of The Scorch Trails. Overall I thought the series was great, though at points a little heartbreaking. Chapter 55 of The Death Cure, anyone? I was a mess.

The whole story was really fast paced, I couldn't put it down. I was also satisfied with the ending. There's always a risk with ending a series. As a reader there's always an ending you predict in your head and the strong likelihood that it just won't happen that way. I'm not sure how I wanted it to end, but I guess I was okay with all that happened.

Now I guess I'll just wait until the next film is out and wonder how the hell they're going to translate it all into something!

So that's me ticking off the trilogy on the reading list which I posted here. I'm already halfway through my next book! This one's a play.

Reading Challenge 2015 - The Maze Runner

WARNING - Will probably contain some spoilers.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

First book of the year completed! I read this whilst in Inverness last week and couldn't put it down. I must admit that I only wanted to read this series because I watched the movie. Although I greatly enjoyed the film version, as always the book was far better.
I don't want to write a comparison of the book to film, but I will say that it lacked a lot of the tension that I felt the book had. Whilst reading I was constantly fearing for Thomas's well being. The other characters have such aggression towards each other and are unpredictable in their actions, as apposed to the somewhat quick acceptance that seems to happen in the film. I understand that films have to condense what is days of character development in a book, down to an hours worth of something in a movie, but I still felt it all came a bit too easy.
There were also a few major changes that I didn't understand. The main one being the lack of telepathic communication between Thomas and Teresa. Why did they leave that out?!
I actually really enjoyed that secret bond that they had in the book and I think it helped flesh out her character a lot more. In the end I really liked Teresa.
Movie now aside what I most enjoyed about this book was, like always with me, the characters. What really draws me into a story is the characters and The Maze Runner did a good job of making me both hate and love certain people. Every moment with Gally had me wanting to slap him silly, and every time Newt panicked, or Minho spoke up I was instantly interested. The final scene with Chuck made me an emotional mess.
The story overall was pretty interesting. I'm really intrigued to know the full extent of what is going on outside the maze. It must be pretty tragic that it can force humanity to have to experiment on children in order to make a change. Even at worst I'm not sure such an act could be the best solution. The mental strain these children go through is horrific. However, as with all good stories it ends with you understanding less about whats going on and curious about what could possibly come next after such a roller coaster of a story.
Although I thought this book would most probably be aimed towards a teenage audience, and don't get me wrong it kind of is, I still really enjoyed it. I've started on the second already and was a bit disturbed by whats happened within the first few chapters of that!
Everybody's opinion is obviously different dependant on what you like to read. If you like a bit of sci-fi, and a bit of action and intrigue then this is probably the book for you. Is pretty easy to read as well.

Review over. I could say so much more but I'm not great at reviewing literature, being a pretty bad writer myself. Grammar? Pah.

I'm including this in my challenge under the trilogy, so I still have the other two to read before I can safely tick that off. I'm aware this series has a prequel book, but for the sake of this challenge I'm only going to count The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trails and The Death Cure.

Wales - Nadolig Llawen!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry it's so late, I've been wandering from Wales to Edinburgh and finally Inverness over the holidays. It feels so good to finally have a weekend where I do absolutely nothing and get the chance to be in my own head for a bit. I don't know about anyone else, but I need an occasional day where I talk to no one. 

I always feel most at home at Christmas when I'm in Wales. Which makes no sense really as it isn't my home. Hazel and G's little house fully packed with family, squishing up together to watch the TV, the single bed I get assigned with an electric blanket, G and I sitting in silence reading our books and crowding round the dining table to eat. Hazel always over buys food and we're offered something to eat every hour. It's probably very similar to most peoples Christmas, but non the less I love all those little things that make the day. 

We are now well on our way into 2015 so talking about Christmas is now a bit outdated I suppose, but I never got a chance to post some of my favourite moments of Christmas 2014. So here I go! 

We left at 4am in the morning of the 24th, arriving at about lunch in Carmarthen. I went to visit some friends in the pub the night before in my home town so I hadn't slept much. I went for a much needed nap as soon as we arrived, waking up fresh as a daisy at about three for a shower and some food. Anyways, I won't go into an hour by hour recount of the day. 

Needless to say, everyone woke up on the day bright and early and some went for a walk. Presents were given, and we had some tea and toast whilst the dinner was made. 

We were down until the 28th, so Christmas day aside there were a few walks, a trip to the pub to see friends and a bit of shopping on Saturday. It was on Saturday that I purchased my yellow Seasalt wellies. I am in love with these wellies. (photos in next post) 

We also visited a gorgeous little vintage shop that sells everything. It's when I'm in shops like that, that I wish I owned my own house and had the money to buy furniture and decorate. Such beautiful things. 

Anyways, time for a few photos, most of which were from that little shop. 

 

We drove back early in the morning again. It was a lovely cold misty day and I took a few photos from the car window.
All in all, a very enjoyable Christmas.