Hello,

I did a little life update post using this R.E.P.O.R.T format in November and it was a really lovely way to write about the books I’m reading but also some lifestyle stuff too! Without making every single post a book review or a list of recommendations (or continuing to acknowledge how many books are on my physical TBR), finding new ways to talk about books can be a bit challenging, especially when my brain is not doing it’s best right now so my creativity is not at it’s peak.

Therefore, a chill little rambly catch up is in order!

R.E.P.O.R.T stands for Reading, Eating, Playing, Obsessing, Recommending and Treating and I can’t promise I’ll only pick one thing per section, but here’s a little look into the things I’m enjoying at the moment!

Reading

I’m currently reading two books – Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson and Spiral by Bal Khabra. I’m audiobooking/co-reading HMRC (depending on when I’m listening – I’m not co-reading when I’m listening in the car lol) and then I’m reading Spiral before I go to sleep each night and I’m enjoying both of them.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a really cool urban fantasy that felt really immersive from the off for me – the magic system makes so much sense and is explained in a really well integrated way without info dumping, I love the cast of female characters and how they’re such different people but have such a special sisterhood friendship that I really love. There’s fantastic LGBTQ+ rep and some hard topics, but I ‘accidentally’ listened to 6 hours of the audiobook in a day this week, which equates to nearly 200 pages.

You may wonder how one can ‘accidentally’ listen to so much of an audiobook – for one, I’m listening at 1.5x speed so it wasn’t actually 6 hours of me day, but it was that I spent an hour listening on my drive home after taking my husband to school work, then I was formatting some photos to order and it was the perfect mindless task to listen to more and I think I inadvertently spent at least 2 hours doing this, then I listened to it again when driving to and from work which was just over another hour. With some books, reading that much in a day would get boring but I’m enjoying this book so much and I will almost certainly be reading the rest of the series.

And then Spiral – I thought with reading so much during the day, a book that I’m exclusively reading when I go to bed would be one I don’t read too much of yet I’m spending at least another hour reading before I go to sleep too! It’s an easy-cheesy romance – it’s the second book in a series where I’ve not read book 1 and I bought it exclusively because the FMC is a ballet dancer. The main characters keep dropping rather heavy trauma on each other which feels a little out of place, the author clearly isn’t a ballet dancer so the terminology doesn’t quite make sense, but they’re quite sweet, the communication is pretty good, I’ve just read a couple of very hot spicy scenes and I can’t imagine I’ll rate it any more than a 4, maybe a 3.5 but sometimes you just need a switch your brain off book! Spiral is very much filling that requirement for me.

Eating

We may be a week into February, but we’re still eating Christmas chocolate! My husband and I came home with a lot of leftovers after the holidays, except not a single one of them was savoury – chocolate, biscuits and more chocolate!

Then on top of that, my husband’s birthday was in January so I made him this moelleux chocolate cake which was a lot of effort but was really delicious – I want to make it again, despite all the effort which says everything!

We also made the cookie recipe from the Stardew Valley recipe book which, again, was a very faffy recipe – we had to stand over the hob to brown butter for longer than I care to admit. We had to buy a blender! They were very nice but I think we need to try them again, now that we’re more experienced with the blender. We’ve not picked a recipe to try in February yet but the rest of the Stardew Valley recipe book is very intense (and very fishy?) so I’m not sure we’ll cook anything else from the book, but I’m sure we’ll bake something else this month!

Playing

I think this section is meant to reference music but since discovering audiobooks, I don’t particularly listen to a lot of music except when I teach my dance classes, but I do occasionally play video games with my stereotypical gamer husband. I wouldn’t describe myself as a gamer, but there’s a couple of cosy games we play together. For example, the previously mentioned Stardew Valley – I clearly like it enough to have got the recipe book for Christmas and our farm is very profitable and I’m very proud. When we can, Stardew is usually our first choice.

But I also got Pokemon Arceus for Christmas so we’ve been playing a bit of that too! I’ve been playing the mainline games since I met my husband nearly a decade ago, but as this wasn’t a main title I wasn’t bothered by it when it came out. Then we started watching a lot of Pokemon YouTubers together and then I could see the appeal a bit more and now we’re playing it a little bit.

To be honest, it’s just nice to play a game with my husband rather than listening to him and his best friend getting angry at their shooty games while I edit videos or read books. But then I can’t complain because when I want to spend time on my journals or do something else. Sometimes I feel like I’m arranging a play date for my husband and his friend, but I think other partner’s of gamer boys will understand.

Obsessing

Okay this is where I talk about the one music related thing – before Christmas, my husband and I listened to EPIC – a musical that was cast via TikTok and tells the story of the Odyssey (and has a full animatic playlist on YouTube which feels like watching the first draft of a movie) and we are obsessed. Every single song slaps – there’s not a single one that isn’t incredibly good. It’s also got clever lyrics, fantastic musical motifs and really intelligent instrumental references. I’ve genuinely woken up every single morning this year with different song in my head, we’ve started following a bunch of the performers on their individual social media profiles and listening to their music (Gemini by Troye is an absolute bop) and it’s just wonderful.

I love Greek mythology – this isn’t new information, I’ve been talking about how much I love all the Greek mythology stories I’ve read for years, and now there’s an incredible musical too. My Spotify Wrapped this year could absolutely be 90% EPIC and I have no regrets, whatsoever.

Recommendations

I’m going to switch this up a bit – rather than giving recommendations, I would like to ask for them! I am very fortunate that I won an Instagram giveaway at the beginning of this year for a two-night stay in Hay-on-Wye – the World’s first book town, in Wales. I’m so excited that I get to go on a trip with my husband, especially in a year where we wouldn’t have been able to afford to go away at all,

I’m going to make a list of all the book shops (and books I may or may not buy 👀) but if you’ve ever visited, I’d love to hear your recommendations for our trip! Whether it’s a bookshop that you particularly loved, a cafe or a restaurant to eat in, any things to see or do, I want to hear it all! We intend to arrive before we can check into our hotel and stay after we check out to maximise our time in the town and I want to squeeze in as much as we can!

Treating

This is something I’ve been very bad at f late. The beginning of the year as been a challenging one for sure and looking after myself in any way – physical or mental – has been beyond my capabilities. I did recently resubscribe to Headspace with intend to get back into meditation to see if it helps, but I’m yet to make the time to actually use it. I’ve done a lot of admin stuff for the beginning of the year and been quite vulnerable in putting myself out there in reaching out for some more freelance work and it’s not gone as well as I’d hoped which hasn’t helped my mental health.

My priorities right now are just trying to eat properly, taking my meds, getting some movement in when I can, working on my goals for the year and trying not to spend my entire day in a depression slump on the sofa (unless required – on my period, I’m allowed sofa days).

I’ve been putting a few extra mini marshmallows on my homemade hot chocolates, I’ve been allowing myself to spend more time reading and having an afternoon nap if I really need one. I’m trying to be gentle but I’m running on fumes right now, so any recommendations to try and get some energy back would be much appreciated!

So there’s a little update of the things I’m enjoying and what I’m up to. I don’t think I want to make this a monthly format or it’ll feel too much like an old school favourites, but every now and then I think it’s a nice way to talk about some other life things! Let me know if you’d rather I stuck exclusively to books 😂

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx