Loved, Read and Watched – January 2020

Clear vase with green leaves painted on it

Last year, I ran two regular features – Watched and Read where I shared what I have read and watched for the last month. And Lovely Things which was all the lovely things that had happened in the previous month – big and small. But I often struggled to manage both features. So I have decided to combine them into a new monthly post – Loved, Read and Watched.

January is a bit of a grey month isn’t it? No one has any money to do anything, there are lots of germs and bugs around and payday seems like a million years away. To top it off, a week after the children went back to school, my husband went to India with work for two weeks. I also picked up a virus that triggered my asthma while he was away. So all in all, it was a quiet month to say the least. I certainly read and watched more things than any days out.

Loved

  • Doing simple things with my children like playing games, watching films together and cuddling up in bed or the sofa together
  • Celebrated my Mum’s birthday with a family meal at her house (totally forgot to take any photos though!)
  • I was featured in the January edition of Berkshire Life magazine
  • I reorganised my desk area where I work and it’s so much better
  • Set up my new feature wall in a collaboration with Poster Lounge
  • Was gifted a gorgeous vase as a total surprise as a random act of kindness and was totally blown away
  • Finally hit 5000 followers on Instagram
  • Was nominated in the Inspire Category of the Mads Blog Awards

Read

I managed to read 6 books in January – against my target of 50 for the year. The beauty of my husband being away is that some evenings I could just curl up and read a book without the TV being on. They were pretty much all fab books.

The first three were the last three books in Anne Bishop’s Other series. Which is you like shapeshifter books I would definitely recommend. The shapeshifters in this book aren’t sexy or romanticised. They are brutal, scary and monstrous. These books are all about the inter species relationships and the struggles of building a brave new world.

Next up was a go-to favourite of mine Kristen Ashley and her book Three Wishes. It was a romance, with a bit of a twist. Her family have a rather different heirloom – a genie who can grant them any wish.

Finally I read the first two books in C. L. Wilson’s Weathermages of Mystral series. They are both romances, but I love that the female leads are strong characters in them. They were real page turners too.

Watched

I’m not going to list everything I watched each month, but rather my highlights of the shows or films that I really enjoyed.

Virgin River

First up is the wonderfully cheesy Virgin River on Netflix. Based on a series of books written by Robyn Carr. It is set around a community nurse and midwife who relocates to a new town after a terrible tragedy. There’s lots of interesting characters, romantic story, but sadly a cliffhanger at the end (I hate cliffhangers). Roll on series 2…

Spinning Out

I love ice skating, particularly pairs, I think it’s beautiful to watch. So it was with great excitement I started Netflix’s new series Spinning Out. Around an ice dancer and her struggles with mental health. The story line was full of ups and downs and gave a real insight to living with bi-polar too. I loved it and couldn’t stop watching it. I’m really gutted that Netflix has decided not to do a second series.

The Witcher

This was really mostly a December watch, but it was so good I thought it deserved a mention. An epic fantasy based on the computer games which I have never played. Henry Cavill is positively awesome in it, if you’re feeling the loss of Game of Thrones this is definitely worth a watch.

Bohemian Rhapsody

I think it’s fair to say my husband has put off watching this film as he’s not the biggest fan of Queen’s music. But he finally relented and we both absolutely loved this film. Rami Malek was magnetic as Mercury. I grew up on Queen’s songs as my Dad loves them, but was too young to know the full story so I really enjoyed learning about it, and being submerged into the music.

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