A single Summary of my Summer

Dear Reader,

I must apologise for being so late. Anyway, with the beginning of September and university, the weather here in the UK also seemed to realise that Summer is over: the clouds have clung to the sky with great resolution to make my mornings misrable. Subhanallah. So I decided to post a single post that conviniently summerises my summer, rather than lots of long posts with plently of perfectly tedious details.

So first things first.Yes, it happened. I finally went to watch "Wicked: The Musical". As you might I know (if you don't then click here) I been wanting to watch this ever since I finshed reading Gregory Maguire's wickedly wonderful book. So as a treat, on the wednesday after my birthday, my friends took me to Apollo Theatre, Victoria (in London, U.K).

All I can say is that it was absolutely amazing/awesome. I've been to the theatre several times now, but being the first ever musical that I've ever seen, I was gob-smacked at the perfomers' stamina. They were singing and dancing and acting all at once; the actress who played Glinda (the Good Witch of the North) had no scruples in making a fool out of herself, just to make us laugh. It was truly wonderful. I don't want to give too much away, in case you might want to go out and watch it for yourself, but I have to admit I'm quite glad they didn't stick to Gregory Maguire's original ending. The ending of the book, though brilliant and worthy in it's own right, had left me feeling sad but thoughtful. That day I walked out of the Apollo Victoria, a huge grin on my face, laughter in my eyes and a lightness in my heart. I really owe my friends, Codenames: Pixie and Beauty, for such a wonderful day out.  

On a minor - but no less important - note, my two monkey-for-brothers were at a loss for what sort of present I'd like for my birthday (I mean having lived with them for some twenty-odd years now, you'd think they'd know me better) so they ended up giving me £130 worth of Debnehams' gift cards, which of course I didn't mind at all. So me and my  mum went on a little shopping spree. I ended up buying two bags, a frilly-peacock-print top, a practical-(but stylish)-grey-cardigan and brought my mum a lovely-but-classy pair of peach and white shoes. Aside: I felt sort-of selfish spending all that money on my self. We also popped into WH Smith on my insistence and I brought quite a number of books , one of which happened to be Linger, for which I shortly thereafter wrote a little review, right on this very blog.

Aside: of course I already owned Shiver, but I thought it would look nice in the photo 

So that was July. August brought with it lots of work and writing, but I granted five days of reprieve when I went to Snowdonia, north Wales, in a ginormous group of 15 people. (This group consisited of the five members my family. The rest were two sets of cousin-families, five members each as well - we seem to have a thing for the number five!) Here are some 'Life: as I see it' pictures from my trip, taken by me especially for you. Make sure you click on them to see them bigger!

A view of my lap during the car rides. (This bag is in fact one of the two that I bought at Debnehams)

Wales is absolutely littered every where by breathtakingly beautiful rivers and lakes.

                                                                                                                                       

As it turns out, most of the mountains and cliffs in the area we went to were made of slate!

I have to say, Snowdon is one of the most beautiful places in the U.K., and thats coming from a person who has traveled through every inch of the it (well, other than Scotland and Northern Island, that is). It was one heaven-of-a-Road-Trip, with the 15 of us all packed in to 3 cars, along with masses of food, clothes and plenty of play things (from cricket bats to Monopoly). We caravaned for a day or two, camped, picniced, went hiking and did so, so much in those few days. I could probably go on and on about the amazing time I had but I don't think it'll be too interesting for you, so here are just the key events: (these event didn't exactly happen in this order but they are in the order of most memorableness).

• I got my first ever driving lesson on this flat, spectacular, beach called Black Rock Sand (which sounds like a cool rock band name if you ask me):

• After about fourteen years, we finally beat my oldest cousin (codename: Ray-Man) in a game of Monopoly. It took six of us on one team against one of him.

• We went hiking along countless streams/rivers/lakes in Snowdonia...
• ...and then I badly injured my shoulder and knee after slipping off a rock and falling into the most sceneic river I've ever seen. I walked away from it partly in awe, mostly laughing, and didn't actually realise the seriousness of my injury until the day after. But don't worry over me, my dear reader, I'm perfectly fine now, with both arms still attached.

The big pointy rock on the right side, in the foreground, was the evil rock which I slipped off ;-) 

• We also drove around on the these minor A-roads that took us up and down and around the glorious sheep-covered mountains of Gwynedd. (Sometimes we were a bit more adventurous and followed random single-lane roads through desserted and mysterious forests and we once ended up finding a hall/hotel where my brother decided he will host his wedding someday - can't wait!).

Now I wish I had taken a picture of all the sheep!

• After a night's stay in Tremadog bay, we went walking around in this medieval ruined castle in Criccieth, which reminded me strongly of the legends of Kings Arthur.

That's our whole group minus 1 (the photographer) standing at the gate of the castle - ready to invade and conquer. Let's see if you can guess which one I am!

That's my little cousin, codename: Mini-Me, sitting in the place where archers use to sit, always on guard and ready to pierce arrow-holes through any invading army.   

• And finally, while we were half-way between London and Wales, we stopped at a fancy restaurant in Manchester for dinner, but most of us, including me, ended up getting food poisoning instead. Yet I still went into to work the next day (injured shoulder and all). My supervisor took one look at me and sent me straight to the on site walk-in-clinic. They, in turn, sent me packing home with instructions to take painkiller, drink plenty of water and have lots of bed-rest - I had no problem complying with that!

Nevertheless and on the whole, the bout of the 24-hour-vomiting-bug aside, I had a brilliant-but-busy shiny summer which, to tell the truth, is just how I like them to be.

I hope you enjoyed your Summer as much as I did. Let me know about all the thing that you got up to as well, in the comments section. Live life and take care,

Nida

Inappropriate Inspiration

Dear Reader,

I have a question. Why is it that I always get my most inspiring, creative ideas when I'm trying to focus on my exams. Writing takes up a hell-of-a-lot of Time, that time that I don't have to give away. Because, surely you need to have something to give it away in the first place, unless you're some kind of con-artist, right? And believe me, I'm as far as from a con-artist as anyone can be. Confession: I have the most appalling acting skills. Out of a will completely of it's own, my face has a ginormous tendency to express whatever I'm thinking. I never did win a single staring contest as a child, and I've never even attempted to play poker (though I'm not so bad in other card games). 

Figure 1: Expressions often found on my face.

You see what I mean! Anyway, I have gone completely off topic. Unfortunately, true to my word last week, since the-night-before-last my brain has begun to formulate a lovely little short-romance story about the "nerdy-not-so-good-looking-but-with-real-substance-beneath-the-surface kind-of-a-guy". Though, after much consideration I believe the story has turned out to be more about the girl than the "hero", Henry Lionel Francis Grant, known to his friends as just plain-old-Lionel. It's set mostly in the beautiful Pennine-heart of Lancashire, with the time period being, keeping in style with Julia Quinn, the early 1800's. 

I don't actually know why I chose Lancashire. Maybe I wanted some place far removed from London, some place that was just beginning to sprout it's industrial wings, where the quite-country-life was just on the verge of extinction but not quite there yet. Together with the small green-brown peaks in the distant backdrop. And in the midst of all of that fatalistic-peace, will mature-stoic-Lionel be able to overcome the horrors of his past and accept that he has fallen in love with his young and industrious wife? Wow, that sounds extremely icky. I can't believe that I'm actually going to go ahead and write it. But being who I am, it can't be helped. Once I have a story in my head, it must be written down somewhere, even if it will be forgotten until a much, much later date. 

Not that I'm much of a romance writer, anyway. But then again, I can't say what genre-writer I am. You see, I've dabbled in all sorts of genres, which often relate to whatever it is I'm reading at the time, but adding my own flare to it. I think it began with the story of a teenage girl who finds out she's suffering from AIDs. That soon became a trilogy of three extremely different girls attending the same school (St. George's Secondary School and College) and are in the same year, so their stories are mildly interlinked. Each book is written in slightly different versions of diary entries. I think I had just finished reading The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. Anyway, I was sitting my GCSE exams at the time. 

Then came the trilogy called "Chronicles by Anamika". Set in my own little world called Dinuriya (patent pending), consisting of everything from Demons, Dragons to Pirates. Again, the three separate stories were about three very different women, with a single common eccentric-denominator: the mysterious Anamika, who narrates all the Legends. I planned the entire trilogy while preparing for my A-level exams. I also happen to be reading all sorts of fantasy at the time, The Lord of the Rings, Eragon, Sabriel, The Wind Singer, Northern Lights, The Magicians Guild, The Gift, Across the Nightingale Floor to name but a few (Aside: have you noticed how they all form part of a trilogy or series). 

After that, there were a few minor projects here and there, and also a lot of poetry. But then there was the really BIG ONE (also the one that I have written most - i.e. that it's almost complete) which is a pseudo-biography of my some-what-alter-ego (it doesn't have much of a title yet, as you can tell). I wrote most of it at the time when I should have been getting all panicky about my end-of-year exams for my first year at university. It started out, actually, as a way for me to record memories of my time in College (like how normal people make photo albums), to explore my future options and the different paths that lie ahead of me. It was, after all, the period of time when a calm settles down within, after knowing you have made big decisions and finding them to be some-what successful. I can't remember exactly what I was reading at the time I began writing, but I know that I read a lot of the classics most of the year; books by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Homer, George Elliot, the Brontë sisters etc..  

So that is the history of my unfortunate and inconveniently timed writing. If ever I get published, I hope you will have a look at it, maybe read it if it takes your fancy. Though at the rate I'm going, I'll probably only manage that after I die. That was a joke. You are permitted to laugh. I'm not nearly morbid or masochistic enough to get myself killed just to become famous; though that does seem to be the norm for some of our greatest writers, painters and poets.

Anyway, all these dire thoughts aside, I look forward to living out this week so that I may blog again next week. Wish me Luck. 

Nida