Photo an Hour l 21st March

06.35 : Up frightfully early for a weekend because I was about to embark on a huge journey. Not before fuelling up with Marmite on toast & a cup of tea though.

07.20 : In the car and ready to drive down the M5 to Somerset to visit my Dad. The prospect of a 3.5 hour trip down there was not making me feel excited.

09.25 : No photo for 8am as driving (safety first everyone!) But I did have a stop off at the Services after hitting a stressful diversion on the M5 which was closed for 4 junctions due to a lorry overturning and spilling about 600 litres of fuel all over the place.

11.10 : Destination reached! Hurrah! Cup of tea for the weary traveller.

12.30 : Oh no I'm back in a car again! But luckily not driving this time. Instead we were headed for an adventure...

13.30 : To the sea!! I love the sea! Technically not the sea, but the English Channel. And a stroll along the beach at Burton Bradstock. It was beautiful and there will obviously be a separate blog post devoted to it where I will spam your face with pictures of it.

14.30 : Some people go to the beach and have fish & chips - I do it in style baby. Messy style, but style nonetheless.

15.40 : Back at home and Shadow is not a happy girl. She did not enjoy the water and did not enjoy the sand. It's safe to say she's not a beach fan.

16.30 : Sat down to do a spot of crocheting, obviously there's something new on my hook...

17.30 : Dedication people. I will get back into running, I will. And so determined was I that I brought my stuff with me to go for a run at my Dad's. Not one of my best decisions, Crewkerne is absolutely littered with hills. They are everywhere. And because I was just aimlessly running I didn't know where I was going and I swear at one point I thought I had devised a route which only contained uphill streets and I was never going to make it back down again. Still. Felt smug at the end of it though.

18.30 : Back crocheting and admiring my awesome stitch markers.

19.40 : It's starting to take shape - but can you tell what it is yet?!

20.15 : Late dinner of breakfast. Obviously.

21.20 : What? More crochet? Oh go on then.

22.30 : BED. Too much adventuring for one girl to take.

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Thanks as always to Jane and Louisa for hosting. Check in with them to find out the date for April's Photo an Hour post and don't forget to join in on Twitter and/or Instagram using #PhotoAnHour

2015 Photo an Hour posts

January

February

On Antelope Canyon l America 2014; Part 4

"I will finish blogging about my road trip in America before we get to the one year anniversary of me going..."

This should become my new motto in life.

That leaves me with until the end of March to get it done. Don't worry, we're not too far away from the end now. I know what you're thinking - "The road trip was only about four days long, how much more can there be to write?" - but I really did jam as much in as possible.

So just to give you a little re-cap:
Day One - drive from Phoenix to Monument Valley and a night spent at the View Hotel
Day Two - drive from Monument Valley - Four Corners - Page, Arizona and a night spent at the cheapest Best Western ever

So the morning of Day Three dawned in Page, Arizona...

Page might seem like a very random place to go and I would never have heard of it if it hadn't been for a colleague that had gone at the beginning of the year and after seeing her photos I knew I had to add this to the list of places to visit.

I was there to see Antelope Canyon - another of Arizona's geological wonders. There are a couple of canyons, an Upper Antelope Canyon and a Lower Antelope Canyon. I was there to visit the more popular Upper Canyon.

Access to the canyon is limited to official tour guides only and Page is filled with trucks driving people to and fro from the main street to the canyons. I was booked with Antelope Canyon Tours and they were brilliant from beginning to end.

Antelope Canyon is a busy old place. Tours are taking place constantly throughout the day and I was there at the busiest time of the day, around 11am, which is when tourists have the opportunity to see lightbeams coming in to the canyon.

The Canyon was formed like any other kind of canyon - just water doing its thing and cutting through rock. In fact Antelope Canyon still floods and when it happens it happens quickly and dangerously - hence the reason for access being limited to official tours only. (That and it's a hell of a money spinner says the cynical side of me.)

As you can see from the photos so far this is a scenic place. It's aaaallllllllll about the photos.

There is the possibility to book on more specialised Photography Tours which last longer than the ordinary tour and the guides can instruct people in setting up their cameras to get great shots. But to be honest our tour guide, Ricky, was incredible with getting us to take great photos - he told us the optimum settings to set our camera to, how to get the best shots, it was all covered.

But it really did feel like it was about going "Take this shot, take this shot, take this shot, take this shot, move, move, move, move". There were at least four or five other groups in the Canyon at the same time as my group and there are times where the canyon is narrow and it felt like there were a lot of people in there.

I would have liked a bit more time to just stop and stare about me because it is just insanely beautiful.

Instead my pictures are filled with other peoples' cameras, elbows, heads, arms and whatever else. And I'm pretty sure we were all getting in the way of the people who were part of the 'proper' photography tour.

You can't deny how beautiful it is though. You just have to be prepared for it to be a bit of a bun fight to get the best shot.

There are lots of pieces of random driftwood and other detritus hanging about in the Canyon as a result of the last flood that took place, but my all time favourite were the huge piles of tumbleweed that were hiding in every corner and crevice and piled up really high just outside the Canyon.

On the first day of the road trip on the way to Monument Valley I nearly died when I saw honest to god real life tumbleweed blowing across the road in front of the car. I didn't even realise that stuff existed outside of films. Something you might not realise - tumbleweed is super spiky and painful, don't try and grab it. Just saying...

Being in there around midday meant that we got the opportunity to see some light beams coming in to the Canyon which was beautiful.

The guides throw sand up in the air so that the dust motes stand out in the beams and it is very beautiful, although, as you can see from the photo below, it is hard to capture without also including someone's elbow or head. There were a few times when we were shooed out of the way so that the people on the photography tours could get a good shot of the light beams.

It could be worth doing however as a photo a light beam in the Canyon has just broken the record for the most expensive photo sold, selling for a rather impressive $6,5 Million

Not sure how much I'd get for the below shot...

After the Canyon it was time for a quick drive down the road to have a look out at the Glen Canyon Dam. Let me tell you, health and safety is not high on the agenda around this place - no barriers and no proper stairway which made me really want to freak out but it did allow for some good photo opportunities.

It was then time to get back in the car and drive 130 miles to the next destination - a Canyon with another name...

Not Really Resolutions 2014 l The Conclusion

*Insert standard sentence about "Oh my goodness where has the past year gone?"*

Seriously though. What a year. Right now I'll be very glad to see the back of 2014 but before I shove it out of the door I need to take a few minutes to update you on 2014's Not Really Resolutions. After 2013's miserable performance (2 out of 10 resolutions anyone?!) I felt sure that 2014 couldn't be that bad, and actually it's not gone badly...

1. Read 12 Classics

Completed! After failing last year for the first year ever I felt like I wanted to go for this full force. I've had a pretty good mix of more 'classic' Classics and more modern Classics. Quick overview of some of this year's Classics?

Vile Bodies - easy to read, bit of fluff, funny, but not my favourite Waugh.
Lady Chatterley's Lover - not really that rude it turns out.
The Woman in Black - actually full on made me feel scared when I was reading it. Chilling.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - just...weird.
Of Human Bondage - took an age to read but I loved it, which is quite a feat considering that the main character is such a sap. But despite that I kept rooting for him.
Mrs Dalloway - oh I could not get into this at all. It's such a short book but I struggled through every page. Would be very wary of picking up another Woolf.

I always enjoy this challenge and have been doing it for the four years that I've been doing the Not Really Resolutions but I think 2015 might see time for a bit of a change.


2. Eat 1 Vegetarian meal per week

Oh dear. This really could have happened and I hate to be a massive tit and blame everything on the break up but I really do. Post break-up my eating habits have just been plain horrific and I haven't made anything, much less go to the effort of looking up vegetarian recipes to try out.

I think I did about 30 veggie meals which is half way there so it depends what my yardstick is for achieving a Not Really Resolution - if it's 50% then I totally did it.

Mind you the number of times I ate toast or had a jacket potato with beans post break-up I probably did end up hitting 52 meals.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including a visit to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - A trip to America to see American Girl and Boy get married and take a little road trip around Arizona (can't believe I still haven't finished blogging about that. Eek.)
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a resevoir
June - A trip to North Yorkshire to see Heather
July - The Color Run in Manchester, a trip to London to Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
August - Nothing - but I was laid up with sciatica at the time so I'm letting myself off
September - A trip to France to see my Dad and a trip to Birmingham with some work friends
October - A night out at the dogs with work people
November - A trip to Bristol
December - A trip to Marrakech - even if all didn't go quite to plan...

4. Save up to buy a car

All done! It's worked out a bit more expensive than planned given that this was supposed to be something that two people were paying for but whatever, I did it all myself and that makes it even more awesome.

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not even close. In fact I don't think I even picked it up this year shamefully. The closest I came to it was buying a light up crochet hook because I knew I had an inordinate amount of black squares to make and thought it might make me blind.

I won't feel too bad though. According to my records I made 26 amigurumi things for people this year which is actually pretty immense when you really stop and think about it.

And that doesn't include the random dinosaur I made for funsies...

...or the Father Christmases...

Anyway. You get my drift. No Tetris blanket this year.

6. Learn something new

I was all set to go "Nope, not achieved this one either" and then I thought I wouldn't be so harsh on myself because actually I did learn something new this year. I learned to be on my own. And whilst it isn't as if I was a massive sap who was completely dependent on someone for their very existence, when someone who has been in your life for 13 years ups and leaves you there is a huge amount of readjusting to do.

I'm giving myself a massive gold star for this one because I didn't have a complete breakdown over anything when I really did feel like it. I got on with it and I learned that I'm not a total idiot, he's a total idiot.

And if that's the only new thing I learned this year then I'm ok with that.

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Well no I didn't.

But, see Point 5.

I was a craft fair this year. I was my own personal craft fair and seeing as the reason to do this was to make some money and feel that my stuff was good enough to put out in the public space I have actually achieved that. I've sold my stuff to people and have made some money from it and therefore I'm going to count this as complete.

I know. I'm a massive cheat.

8. Beat my 10k time

Let's not talk about this shall we?

Let's just say that 2014 was the Year that Running Forgot. It was my Annus Horribilis Runnus. I was either injured or mentally broken for 2014 and that did not make for a good runner. Since my bout of sciatica in August I haven't run at all. I will be back to the beginning once I start running again - ugh.

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There we have it. Five out of eight will do me very nicely.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2015 has in store for me.

I think.

Life lately

Time marches on regardless of whether you want it to or not and for the most part Tuesdays are now just Tuesdays (for the most part anyway).

I took everyone's advice and tried to keep busy and it's been great, although part of me wonders whether the keeping busy is just a way of keeping your thoughts at bay. This weekend was the first one in a few where there was nothing planned and as soon as Friday morning hit I started to feel a little sad at the thought of an endless weekend stretched out ahead of me with no-one to have fun with.

I have entertained myself over the past few weeks as much as possible though and the time feels ripe for a life lately mega photo round up kind of post.

So life lately has consisted of:

1. Gerbils

These guys need a post all of their own really and they will get one in time. In the meantime however enjoy a small round up of recent photos due to me celebrating one whole year of gerbil ownership. I called it my Gerbilversary,

(Form an orderly queue gentleman)

2. Rabbit

I live very close to someone from work and have become the official go-to person for rabbit-sitting duties when the family all goes on holiday. I don't mind as a) it's only across the road b) the rabbit is actually pretty cute, (and that's coming from someone who is a little bit afraid of rabbits. Yes really.) and c) I get wine for doing it. I like anything that involves me getting wine.

3. Dogs

No explanation for this one really. Just....dogs. My sister has been ensuring that I occasionally get a decent meal in me - I still haven't quite got to grips with cooking for one, not in that I can't do it, I just cannot be arsed to do it. Anyway good meal also equals Rowan and Rosie, always the antidote to any sad feelings

4. Crochet

Obviously. When in doubt, turn to your hook. Above is the output over September/October. I'm particularly proud of the tractor (pleeeeeease tell me you knew it was a tractor) as that is officially the first thing that I've made where I've worked out the pattern myself. I looked around for various patterns but they were all either not what I was after or were too small so I took the picture of one and just set to work. You can't really get the sense of scale here but he was about 30cm tall so fairly big.

The penguin has winged his way to Hull to live, maybe he'll get to see the Gentoo Penguins at The Deep, who knows.

Anyway, you get the picture. I'm also currently working on a wreath inspired by the Attic24 wreaths that Lucy has created. Mine will be a little less CROCHET IN YOUR FACE as the ones that Lucy has produced and it is very very very exciting.

5. Spending

Now that my flat is just that, mine, I've been keen to make it a proper little home for me. That includes acccessorizing it up the wazoo with interiors. After blogging back in May about my desire to have a flat that looks a little less like a student flat and a little more like a grown-up flat I have been trying to put my grey and yellow theme into action and I finally feel a little bit as if it's coming together.

I couldn't resist this cushion from John Lewis Home and although he's more than I would ever normally pay for a cushion I had a £25 gift voucher and a hangover which gave me good enough reason to get my wallet out.

6. Pumpkin

I just wanted an excuse to show you a picture of the pumpkin I carved. This isn't really something that's been helping me over my break up, but it did keep me occupied for about 40 minutes and I was very pleased with it as I didn't go for a fancy stencil *cough cheat cough* and I only had use of a kitchen knife to hack away at him.


But the biggest news of all is.....

*Drumroll*

7. Car!!!!*

That's right. I finally finally finally own a car at the ripe old age of 31. A Ka to be more specific. This is so major I cannot even put into words how brilliant it is. But I hope to try because, although it might sound daft to you, it is a really significant life event for me.

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So. That's me. What have I missed?




*Unfortunately car does not really have a moustache

On Four Corners and Mexican Hats l America 2014; Part 3

Oh yeah, remember when I went to America in March and then totally forgot to blog about it? Allow me to try to rectify matters for you...

Feel free to read Part 1 here (it's got a plane journey from hell and baseball in it you know) and Part 2 here (it's got pictures of Monument Valley in it you know).

If you don't fancy re-reading back then allow me to refresh you: 

We flew to Phoenix, Arizona, spent a couple of days acclimatizing with American Girl & Boy, got a car, drove to Monument Valley, spent the night at The View Hotel. In a nutshell...

.........

The next leg of our American road trip was one of the biggest in terms of distance covered. When I tell you the reason why you may think that I possibly have mental problems but hear me out…

When we were first planning our Grand American Road Trip I had spoken to American Girl about my determination to go to Monument Valley. She suggested that as we were up that way we could take a visit to Four Corners.

“I beg your pardon? What the hell is a Four Corners?”

When I found out that this is the only place in the US where you can stand in four states at the same time it was on the list. In stone. We were going to do it.

Even when I then looked at the logistics and realised that we were going to have to drive quite a way out and then come back on ourselves I was insistent that I wanted to go. The Person wasn’t that keen but I wasn’t backing down - I’d included the Grand Canyon on our road trip for him (I already saw it back in 2008) so I needed Four Corners.

If you look at the map you can see how ridiculous my plan was, but hell, I was the one that was doing all the driving so I was driving us there.

(Do you love my map? It’s so hilariously awful isn’t it? I just went mad in Paint. I can only apologise. I’m sure my award for most aesthetically pleasing blog is going to drop in my lap any day now…)

This was actually my favourite day driving. On the way from Monument Valley to Four Corners the roads were empty. And I mean empty. Remember the pictures of the roads from my last post? Just those roads with no-one else in sight. It was weird. But actually quite nice. I turned the music up and drove along without a care in the world, making sure I didn’t think about what would happen if anything did go wrong on an eerily deserted Highway in the middle of nowhere. For the rest of my life Settle, the album from Disclosure will remind me of this particular day's driving.

We did make a brief stop off on the side of the road not too far out of Monument Valley. Having seen signs for a town called Mexican Hat we spouted various theories as to why it might be called that. Turns out they have a rock formation that looks like….a Mexican Hat.

Too good.

But mostly it was mile after mile after mile after mile of open and clear road. It’s easy to zone out on those lonely America highways - they are so straight and empty that all you have to do is set your course and plough straight ahead. The scenery was overwhelming - it’s hard to explain how something so vast and empty can simultaneously leave you spellbound. I suppose it was just that it was so different to anything I’ve seen before. The UK just doesn’t have the space for those kinds of vistas and although views of rolling hills and fields are beautiful in their own way, they are on a completely different level to what I could see out of my window as I drove along through Utah/Colorado.

Four Corners is.....Well.....

Ok, it’s a little underwhelming. The monument is there with the flags of all four states flying in their respective corners and surrounding that there are lots of stalls for local traders. We found out after we got back that allegedly you can buy weed in the Colorado corner as it is legal to buy it in that State. Unfortunately I can't confirm that for you.

The good thing about going out of season meant we virtually had the place to ourselves so we could lie on the monument, crawl over the monument, put small stuffed animals on the monument - anything that we pleased. 

Hanging out and being super cool on the Four Corners monument. That's a crocheted mouse on my lap. I don't want to talk about it...

To me it was worth going just to say we’d been there - and for the simple pleasure that driving there meant that I had technically driven through 4 states.

Touristed out (and yes, yes I did buy a Four Corners tshirt and it is my favourite and I love it) it was back in the car to basically head back exactly the same way that we had just come for two hours…

This was much less fun than on the way out and I was definitely starting to getting tired - the windows went down and the hypnotic music went off and The Person was woken up to keep me company until we got to something resembling civilisation which turned out to be Bluff, Utah.

I swear I’m not making these place names up.

Bluff is a road with some houses, a petrol station, a post office, and most importantly, somewhere to have a lovely cup of tea. It suited me perfectly and we spent an hour there drinking tea, writing postcards, using the much loved wifi and starting to feel a bit more human again.

Restocked on drinks and crisps we were back on the road to our final destination, Page, Arizona.

The drive was relatively drama free, we found our hotel for the evening without any fuss whatsoever, and took note of the slightly alarming number of churches that are very neatly lined up one after the other on the road into Page. I think we counted 8 in total - all different denominations, all different churches, all in a line. It was…..different.

It was kind of an odd place, looking at the signs almost felt like I’d stepped back in time, I’m sure the Travelodge opposite to our hotel had old branding. But I don’t know if I’m just making it up, I look at this picture and I just absolutely love it, I don’t know if it was the light or what, but it just makes me smile. I know. Of all the things I took pictures of on this trip a photo of a hotel sign is one of my favourites. I’m quite the artiste.

We took a little wander about but opted to have dinner at the easiest place we could find, right opposite the hotel. I don’t know if it was the altitude (Page is 1,255m above sea level compared to my home town’s 144m) or tiredness for the driving but I got pretty wrecked on a minimal amount of alcohol. It was brilliant.

(This reminds me, I will one day tell you a story involving me and altitude which will probably make you cry with laughter but will almost certainly make you think less of me. I’ll get around to writing it down one day…)

In hindsight we could have not gone to Four Corners, had a much more laidback drive to Page and had more time to hang around there but then I wouldn’t have been able to say I’d driven in four states, you know?

What on earth were we in Page for?

I'll try and not leave it another five months before blogging about it...

Not Really Resolutions 2014 l Update

1. Read 12 Classics

Still going well on this one and certainly better than I did in 2013. I've got a good mix in here of 'classic' Classics and more modern "are they really Classics?" Classics.

I guess I've relaxed my rules a little bit as the years have gone on with this not really resolution. Before I wouldn't have read anything that didn't have Penguin Classics written on it anywhere but now I'll whack it in there if it's just a well known one. I don't know if Murder on the Orient Express can count as a Classic - but it's famous so I've added it in.

I do enjoy this challenge but I think that next year there may be a modification...

2. Eat 1 vegetarian meal per week

I am trying guys, I really swear I am. I think the trouble here is just lack of inspiration. Every vegetarian recipe that I look at just makes me go....bleh. At the moment of posting we are 35/36 weeks into the year and I have completed 30 veggie meals.

Easy Cheesy Bake

There was a point where I thought this was going to be much worse so I'm feeling ok about it.

Please please please feel free to hit me up with your veggie recipes. Just as long as they don't involve carrots, sweet potato or anything in that ilk - The Person isn't a fan and I'm not up for making massive meals just for myself. I've also found that the vegetarian meals that I tend to like the look of also seem to involve outrageous amounts of cheese.

Spinach & Mushroom lasagne

Another thing I've found is that it is wicked hard to photograph veggie meals in a way that makes them look good and not like random piles of veggie mush.

Tomato, chickpea & green chilli stew

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including getting to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - America baby!
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show (where I totally met Chris Packham!) and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a reservoir
June - Picnic at the Castle with The Person and a trip up to see North Yorkshire and see Heather that I still haven't blogged about yet.
July - The Color Run in Manchester at the Etihad Stadium and a VERY exciting trip that I haven't had a chance to blog about yet.
August - Well. I did nothing. But that's because I spent most of it laid up with sciatica. But one quiet month is ok by me.

4. Save up to buy a car

This one is going well. We should have a car by the end of October - squee!

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not a Tetris Blanket

It's just neeeeeeeever going to happen is it? I don't feel too bad about it, it's not like I've been sitting on my behind doing knack all. I've crocheted 23 animals this year and I've managed to make another blanket (which I still need to blog about). I don't think that's bad going. But next year I'm definitely going to become a bit more selfish.

6. Learn something new

Still working on this one...

7. Sell something at a craft fair

I don't think this one is going to happen (see Point 5). What I need to do is take time out to build up stock before I can think about craft fairs. Definitely one to think about next year though - I'm going to have a little practice at Christmas time with crocheting a job lot of pieces up. What I really need to think about is what I might need as stock.

8. Beat my 10k time

Oh dear. Oh very dear dear. The Hull 10k was awful and terrible but I really pulled myself up by my bootstraps to get a shift on. I secretly signed up to another 10k at the end of August and my training was going really really well. I managed 6km running without stopping and was feeling so so confident. And then - hello sciatica. I was barely able to walk, let alone run, for all of August so the 10km went un-run and now I have nothing to sign up for as we're entering the winter months.

More to the point, being unable to run has meant I've got out of the habit of running and now I haven't run in over a month and can't find the motivation to start again...

Next year though. I need to beat those Hull 10k demons!

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4 more months to go!

(Last update here)

On driving and Monument Valley: America 2014; Part 2

When I told people that I would be driving in America they invariably thought I had mental problems. I can see their point, after all I’d only just re-learned to drive in the last year after not having driven since the day I’d passed my test 13 years before and I still don’t own a car over here. In fact I’ve only driven 3 times on the motorway since re-learning.

I swept everyone’s concerns aside…

Until about a week before we went on holiday and I suddenly realized what I was proposing to do. The first leg of our road trip was around 300 miles from Phoenix up to Monument Valley on the Arizona/Utah border. Not a little pootle round the streets.

I was going to be driving on the wrong side of the road. On the wrong side of the car. On strange roads. With different rules. And I was the only one responsible for driving because The Person can’t drive.

We were almost definitely going to die.

I do have a whole post that I could, and probably will, write about driving in America as opposed to driving in the UK but I guess that ultimately driving is driving, no matter what side of the car or road you’re on.

Our trip out of Phoenix went as smoothly as could be. We enjoyed the changing landscape which went from cacti to forests of pine trees to red rocks to completely empty barren moonscapes which caused me major feelings of anxiety. I began to have images flashing through my head of The Person and I stranded in the middle of nowhere with condors feasting upon our flesh.

Some of those roads were pretty lonely let me tell you. It is impossible to get that feeling of expansion in the UK because it’s just not big enough, there are too many of us on this little island. But out in the middle of Arizona where there’s nothing but nature out there and no other cars on the road you start to feel ever so slightly insignificant.

Especially when you realize that you are literally the only person on the road.

How do you know that? Because America is the land of the Ridiculously Straight Road. As in straight ahead of you until you can see no more. As in you don’t really need to touch the steering wheel. As in you turn on to the freeway and the sat nav says to you “Continue on the current road for 160 miles. Then, turn left.” As in, it’s ever so slightly dangerous to forget that you’re driving and let your concentration wander…

Back to the story.

As I said, our first day of road tripping was taking us out to Monument Valley and was the tourist destination that I had picked out when we first started planning our trip. I was determined to go and see it because it was so iconic but then I started to worry because, you know, it’s so iconic.

I had visions of us turning up and going “Oh yeah, it looks just like it does when you get glimpses of it behind Kim and Kanye on that motorbike”.*

This was not helped by the fact that as we got closer to Monument Valley we also drove in to a pretty intense wind that was making driving a little less fun and the view a lot more obscured by sand.

Like, a lot.

When we eventually pulled into the car park I got out of the car, keen to stretch my legs and immediately had my sunglasses whipped off my face by the 50mph winds. I was definitely beginning to regret my decision.

We were staying in The View Hotel which is the only hotel based in Monument Valley. Only three storeys high, all the rooms face out into the Valley offering amazing views and for a very small amount extra you can choose a room on the top floor which allows you to look out on to the stars in the evening with no balcony from the room above obscuring your view.

I’d read all this on the website and thought “Yeah, ok, brilliant, sign me up.”

But no amount of reading and no amount of seeing pictures of Monument Valley prepared me for the actual view that greeted us when we stepped out on to our balcony…

Even that photo isn’t doing it justice.

We decided to get up to see the sun rise over the Valley. Fortunately for me no alarm clock was needed as I was still having issues adjusting to the time difference and was finding myself wide awake at around 5am each morning. I waited and waited as quietly as I could until I thought it was acceptable to start pushing and pulling on The Person to wake up and see the magical sunrise.

Hey guess what? When the sun hasn’t risen in Monument Valley in March it is fricking freezing. Like actual freezing. Phoenix might be there all smug in its 30 degree heat but up there on the border it is no joke. We wrapped ourselves in blankets that kept giving us electric shocks and tried and failed to operate the coffee machine in the room [side note: no hotel room in America has a kettle, they have fancy coffee makers. Not that it matters because half the time they don’t give you teabags. WHAT?!] and sat there freezing our behinds off as the sun slowly rose. It was beautiful. It really was. 

But mostly it was cold.

We thought about taking a tour right into the Valley. It is possible to drive around but it recommends taking 4 wheel drive cars and I wasn’t about to risk Chad, our rental car that I’d already grown close to, and, much as I’ve spoken about how awesome it is to see – you know, sometimes a rock is a rock is a rock. Plus it would have taken the best part of another day and we had the next day of our road trip to get ahead of us….

[To be continued…]

*Don't know what I'm on about. Go and watch this video. It's so awful it's brilliant. No. Wait. It's just awful.

2013 Not Really Resolutions - The Conclusion

I very nearly didn't do this post.

My absolute shame at my performance in 2013 is overwhelming.

It is not going to be one of those "Oh look at me and how great I am".

This is going to be one of those "Well I don't call them Resolutions anyway so it doesn't matter that I basically didn't do any of them."

Prepare yourself for some class A excuses...

1. Get behind the wheel of a car again - Completed! This resolution was invaluable as it has meant that when I have had access to a car I've been able to get out and about, something which is impossible to do when living in the middle of nowhere. I've been able to hire cars to make long journeys rather than depend on the UK's expensive and unreliable rail service (and it does pain me to say that, having been a rail traveller for so long). There is definitely a post I want to write about being a first time driver on the roads - it was a bit of a baptism of fire for me. My first drive on a motorway was a 3.5 hour stint down the M5 to Tavistock which was all kinds of intense. But I'm pleased I've got this one under my belt - you can read about my refresher lessons and my experiences driving my sister's Tank.

2. Project 365 - Failed. I don't really know what happened here because it was actually going pretty well but then I just....stopped. I think I got busy with the impending move in the flat when The Person was moving here and just forgot to take photos. Plus I really didn't do anything and taking photos every day was a bit of a literal reminder of that. I'm amazing I made it through half of the year to be honest. Still, I did do Project 365 in 2011 so I'm not a complete failure (I tell myself).

3. Read 12 Classics - 9/12 - FAILED! I know! First year that I have ever ever failed this Not Really Resolution in all the years that I've been doing it. My downfall was finally picking up a Classic and a half in the shape of Vanity Fair. That is quite the tome you know. I have had a tendency sometimes to play it safe with my Classics and pick up slimmer volumes or easy volumes (for instance, one of my Classics this year was 101 Dalmatians...) so whilst I do feel sad that I didn't complete this one, I feel proud that I took on the challenge of Vanity Fair and conquered it.

1. North & South, Elizabeth Gaskell

2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

3. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

4. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford

5. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

6. The Chrysalids, John Wyndham

7. The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood (a review of which can be found HERE)

8. The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Dodie Smith

9. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

4. Crochet an Elmer Blanket - Abandoned! You may remember that I abandoned this Not Really Resolution back in April as I decided I want to make a Tetris blanket. The Tetris Blanket is currently ongoing...

5. Learn to Knit - Failed! It just....never happened. Nothing more or less to it!

6. Bake once a month - Failed! It was just too hard, living in someone else's house for half the year isn't really conducive to taking over the kitchen randomly and I spent most of those weekends travelling to Preston to see The Person which meant I didn't have much time left for baking.

Jokes. I just bought cakes and ate them rather than making them.

7. Go abroad - Done! I went to Corfu with The Americans and The Person in July and it was amezzing and beautiful and I loved it and I didn't want to leave. It was made even better by the fact that the day before flying to Corfu, The Americans became Engaged Americans which made me giddy beyond belief.

That's what it looked like. Damn. Now I want to go back immediately.

8. Makeover a chest of drawers - Failed. HA. We moved into an unfurnished flat in August and let me tell you, furniture is expensive, even when shopping for cheap stuff. We still don't have a bed in the spare bedroom so we can have guests over, I am far from having the time, willingness and energy to makeover a piece of furniture I already own.

9. Cross stitch a big picture/item just for me - Failed. In the same way that 2012 was the Year of the Cross Stitch, 2013 was the Year of the Amigurumi and I have crocheted my fingers off. I have barely done any cross stitch at all.

10. Only buy 12 books throughout the year - HA! As if. In 2012 I managed to go a whole year without buying books so this should have been easy but it seems that with me, it's either all or nothing, and looking at the state of my to-be-read bookshelves I may need to implement a ban in 2014.

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So there we go. TWO out of TEN Not Really Resolutions completed.

You are totally allowed to sit back and feel pretty damn good about yourself right now.

Hey, at least 2014 is going to be better....right?!

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Take a look back at my past attempts...
Not Really Resolutions 2011
Not Really Resolutions 2012