Movie: The Hobbit

We'd been down in London for some sale shopping, as is our new tradition after Boxing Day. After about five hours of shopping we weren't quite ready to go back to the hotel and stay in all afternoon/evening, so instead we used our time to watch a movie. We had been watching the second LOTR movie in the hotel the night before so it was already on our minds and probably the only thing we wanted to see that was playing in Stratford - we chose The Hobbit.

I had started to read the book years ago when the first of the LOTR movies came out, I remember my dad bought me the book - he never bought me anything all by himself, so that memory always sticks out. I didn't finish the book (shock) but had some gist of the story before going into the movie. I did my best to prepare James by telling him it was about Gandalf taking Bilbo out on an adventure with a bunch of dwarves to fight a dragon, meanwhile Bilbo picks up 'The Ring' on a meeting with Gollum. That's pretty much the first film summed up, I can't believe it's one book into three movies but I'm looking forward to the rest of the series - I forgot how much I loved the LOTR movies (the third one is on TV this weekend, I'll be watching!).

019. Be in the audience of a TV show

It wasn't the kind of TV show I had in mind, but we were in the audience for the Robbie Williams O2 concert broadcast live on Sky One back in November. It counts!

"

097. Do something amazing for our 10 year anniversary

We went to the London 2012 Olympic Games for our 10 year anniversary celebrations back in July this year. It's taken me a long time to write about it, but I'll let the pictures tell the story - we had the best time!


001. Welcome to London; 002. View from our hotel room;
003. Chinese noodles for dinner at Leceister Square; 004. Les Mis showtime;


005. London Excel by our hotel; 006. Disney World style maps!;
007. Olympic face; 008. Empty seats?;


009. Arriving at Olympic Park; 010. Tickets for the Orbit viewing tower;
011. Views inside the Olympic Stadium; 012. Team USA in the Basketball Arena;

Yearly Review 02

Two years on and I'm still working on completing my list of 101 things, slow and steady. I've come to terms with the fact that I won't complete them all and this yearly review cannot be me changing the whole list just so I can complete all 101. For this review I'm not going to remove/replace very much, instead I'm just going to tweak some that might actually be achievable. 

Just like last year, those that are replaced or changed count as incomplete with my money to charity pledge still standing - although this one itself will change to a lesser amount per incomplete (who knew I'd have so many incomplete, I can't afford all that! Sorry, charity...).

All of the below will be getting slight tweaks:

001. Donate £5 to charity for each mission I don’t complete

021. Read all the books that I own but haven’t read yet
031. Order grocery shopping online 50 times
044. Lose 50lbs, 10lbs at a time
051. Take a photo of the same place every month for a year
054. Do 'A Day In The Life' 10 times
060. Have 12 'No-Buy' months
062. Save £100 a month
063. Buy 20 lucky dip Lotto tickets
079. Buy five sets of matching underwear
092. Bake brownies for someone who’s having a bad day
100. List 5 things I'm grateful for once a month

And these ones are gone to be replaced by something when the inspiration strikes me:

038. Run a 5K

053. Make my own Christmas cards to send out

055. Make my own Christmas decorations

069. Spend Christmas in a different country
074. Go to a Christmas market in Germany
080. Have electrolysis treatment at the salon twice a month

With only 9 months to go, I wonder if I'll even make it to half this list completed? Who knows, but at least I know I tried.

Project 365: November 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

013. Eat at 10 new restaurants (9/10)

Savoury food on sweet waffles? Surely not! Well, it's true and I tried it. There's a very little place in Norwich called 'The Waffle House' that serve a variety of main courses on top of waffles. IA group of friends from work and I visited on evening, the only option of mains that was a safe option for my unadventurous tastes was the bolognese. So strange to eat bolognese on a waffle, but I went with it.

It was all about the desserts to be honest. We all went for small waffles for the mains and were larging it up for dessert. I had the yummiest butterscotch sauce on mine and it was amazing! I will definitely be going back, if only for the sweet dessert!

Movie: Skyfall

It took us a couple of weeks after it had come out, but we finally went to see the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. I'd only seen one other Bond film before and that was Casino Royale so to me Daniel Craig is Bond because he's all I've known in the role.

I really enjoyed the movie, but I'd forgotten how anxious I get watching movies like that which a full of peril over and over and over again! GAH! Are they trying to give me palpitations? Seriously though, I thought the movie was great and I would definitely watch it again if it happened to be on TV. I didn't think much of the Adele song from the soundtrack until I saw the opening credits, now I love it.

And we can't stop singing that traditional Bond theme......

Project 365: October 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

Phone Free Week

I've always loved the idea of turning off my phone for a week and living without texts, Twitter and all of that techy stuff we think we can't live without. Going away on holiday for a week seemed like the perfect time to give this a try!

James and I went to Spain at the end of August and I turned our phones off completely from the moment we got on the plane. It meant we were far away and could not be contacted, everything a proper holiday should feel like.

I did cheat a bit and use my phone as a camera and the hotel wifi for some Twitter action, but I couldn't receive calls and texts which was half the point of this!

Gig: The Enemy, Norwich [October 5 2012]

James and I first saw this band live in 2009 at the Radio One Big Weekend in Swindon. They were headlining one of the smaller stages while Prodigy were performing on the main stage - they weren't our thing and James had The Enemy on his list of must-see for the day. I really enjoyed it, not knowing too much about them, and ended up listening to their songs a lot after that performance. 

 The Enemy played at the Norwich UEA LCR back in November of that same year, so we booked tickets hoping to enjoy watching them again. We got such a great spot on the steps in the LCR, right opposite the stage. If you know anything about the UEA LCR then you'll know there is a sunken dancefloor with steps going down to it on three sides and you can stand on these steps during gigs for perfect tall-person-free views of the stage! The steps are perfect for me, I get to see over everyone and if you can get near the middle console that's fenced off you're less likely to have beer-drinkers shoving past you all night. 

That November gig was, and still probably is, the best gig we've been to in such a small venue. The Enemy are touring again in 2012, so we had to get tickets when we found out they were coming back to the UEA LCR. There must be something about small venues that the band loves because they're not doing anything bigger than the O2 Academies all year.

On Friday October 5 2012 we found out spot on the steps at the LCR, away from the mosh pit and with  a small chance of being pushed by beer-drinkers, we were set and ready. After two disappointing support acts they finally came on - equally as amazing as the November gig of 2009. The band were loving just as much as the crowd and the lead singer, Tom, said we were "f*cking unbelieveable!"

So, when's the next tour? We can't wait already!

Book: 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by EL James

I started reading this on my holiday, read some of it on the plane and finished it when I got home.

I liked it, I suppose that's all we need to know. And I've bought the other two books in the trilogy as well.

Project 365: September 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

Book: 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth

After finishing 'Uglies' I had to carry on the team dystopian book trend with 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth. It was one of those titles that came up in searches and suggestions relating to 'The Hunger Games' which I loved earlier this year.

This book was actually my first choice read for my recent holiday to Spain. I finished it in five days, not as quick as 'The Hunger Games', but I had sunbathing to be doing! Once the momentum of the book picked up and the story really go going in the second half of the book I was completely hooked and could not put it down! I really wished I'd taken 'Insurgent' on holiday with me as well so I could carry on with the story straight away.

My second holiday read was 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by EL James. I've not finished that one yet, but will do soon - more on that later!

Project 365: August 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

Movie: Disney Pixar's 'Brave'

I love me a Disney movie. They're my favourite kind. I had to see the new Disney Pixar movie 'Brave', set in bonnie-Scotland and about and red-haired princess. 

I wasn't too excited to see it really, before or after actually watching it. I just thought it was nice. Typically a nice movie with that moral message about controlling your own fate and all that....

Might not be one for the DVD collection, but we'll see how shiny the cover is when it comes out!

Book: 'Uglies' by Scott Westerfeld

After I'd finished reading all three of the 'The Hunger Games' books, I needed something similar to keep me going! After doing some searching online and watching a couple of YouTube videos I decided to buy 'Uglies' by Scott Westerfeld. Some of my friends told me it was more "teeny" than Hunger Games, and they were right, but it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it as an adult.

I'm not sure if I'll order the sequels just yet, but I did get more into the story as I read more into it, the beginning and build up seemed a bit slow so I'm expecting the next few books to carry on with that momentum.

Next up I've got some choices, I could finish another one of the many books I've started reading and not yet finished. Or, I could give 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth and 'The Maze Runner' by James Dashner a turn. I'm going on holiday to Spain on Friday, so I'm going to need lots of good reading material.

094. Meet up with my Uni friends five times (2/5)

It had been way too long since I'd met up with my friends, although I did see Katy back in February when we sent a couple of nights in Hull. I hadn't seen Steve and Vicki since we went to Peterborough last July, which is a very long time!
We always try to pick a location that's as equal distance as possible from all of us, me being out in Norfolk means that's a bit hard because there's nothing really close to me - other than London...
So, London it was! I'm 2 hours away and so was Vicki, Katy and Steve were a bit over 3 hours from Hull but it was direct so not that much of a pain. I'd actually been shopping and tried to see a movie the night before so had booked myself into a hotel in Epping that James and I had done before at Christmas time when we planned a double attack on Westfield Stratford and IKEA during the sales!
We met up at Kings Cross train station, the newly renovated section is amazing and platform 9 & 3/4 is actually real - who knew! Not everyone made it, Vicki got caught in traffic and missed her booked train - to buy another ticket was about £80, so she stayed home very sad, so Katy, Steve and I went on.
One of the must-go-to-places for comic fans like them was Forbidden Planet on Shaftsbury Avenue - a heavenly place for all who love comics, anime and general sci-fi goodness. It rained while we were inside which meant my worn out Crocs couldn't cope with the slippy surfaces and a trip to Office for a new pair of Vans was required. With dry and comfy feet we then had lunch at GBK and shopped some more around Selfridges for Lola's cupcakes and even visited Hamleys to stare at the gorgeous sweets and buy teddy bears. By the time we ready to say goodbye we'd had a great day catching up and buying some cool new things.
I still plan to meet up with Vicki soon, hopefully in September, because it's been well over a year now since I've seen her - I'm sure we have lots to catch up with! We're both aunts now, so it'll be fun to swap baby stories.
I think our next group meet up will probably be around Christmas time - I wonder what city it will be next time? I'm thinking I may have to travel up north and stay in a hotel to really make travelling not so much of a pain as it's been in the past - and to make sure we go somewhere new and not the same ol' places all the time.

086. Make a birthday cake for someone

Two desk buddies at work had their birthdays one day after the other last weekend, so to celebrate I thought I'd brush off my cupcake skills and make something for them. It had to be GB themed with all the accessories I have to use up now the Jubilee and Olympics are both over!
It was like a little British tea party, which my Canadian desk buddy very much enjoys! We had a glass of Schloer for a little toast. The Schloer looked very much like wine!
I made just a 'plain' vanilla cake from the Humminbird Bakery 'Cake Days' book and whipped up some icing with the scraps of icing sugar and butter I had left - didn't go too badly and the cupcakes were a success (as always!).
Next time I make cupcakes I'd like a bit more time to make something a bit more interesting than just vanilla!

014. Go to a movie alone

Back in May I spent a day shopping in London the day before meeting my friends for a catch up. I intended to finish the day of shopping with a solo trip to the cinema partly to fulfill this on my 101 list but also to see Disney's Beauty and the Beast on the big screen for the first time in years!

I queued for ages to get my ticket at Vue Westfield Stratford, but with plenty of time for the start of the screening - I even had time for bit more of a wander and to grab some food before the movie started. Buying food didn't really go that well, I didn't end up with my hot dog - the service at the food counter was so slow and ridiculous that the woman in front of me slammed her money on the desk and didn't even wait for acknowledgment from the sales assistant. Rightly slow, it was just so bad! Anyway, I ended up with a bag of chocs and a large cup of cola.

It was finally time to take my seat! Turns out row B was right at the front, not the back! Row B in the Norwich Vue is at the back, so I have to be forgiven for not sitting in my allocated seat - I did have to move for a family, but sat one seat up instead. Ads and trailers started and that was great, some of the trailers seemed a bit questionable for a screening of a Disney movie but we went along with it, until...

Until the movie 'American Pie: Reunion' started playing! That is not a movie suitable for 5-year-olds! We all left the screening, much to my embarrassment - I was hoping to sit alone and enjoy the movie without being seen as one of those 'losers' who goes alone! haha. Especially because of the movie it was!

The cinema had cancelled the showing but were still selling tickets for it, they hadn't even advertised the new showing of the 'American Pie' movie either. After much hoo-haa and speaking to managers, angry mothers and their tiny children made it back into the theatre for the movie to start again.

I didn't go back in, I chickened out of the whole experience, got my refund, hopped on the Tube and headed back to my hotel in Epping. It had been a long day and I was actually pretty tired. 

Such a shame, but I think I'm going to count this as complete. Such a disastrous experience, I don't want to go through that again!

013. Eat at 10 new restaurants (8/10)

We originally went into Norwich city centre to go and watch the new Spider-man movie, we needed dinner beforehand so tried an old favourite - The Library. It was the evening for lots of Graduation celebrations so there weren't any tables available, instead we decided to go for a new place that we'd always wanted to try.

'Captain America's' in Norwich is a small place hidden away up some stairs and on the first floor, so it's not somewhere you can see into and see how busy/not busy it might be. This had always put me off, but we went for it anyway and waited 10 minutes in the bar for a table.

We both ordered burgers, the standard speciality for the restaurant and seeing as we'd stumbled across a special 40th anniversary evening and were getting 40% off our food bill, I ordered extra onion rings, James ordered a side salad and we went all out with Sundaes for desert.

It was a good choice, and so, so busy! We didn't know about the special 40% off discount, but it made for a pleasent surprise anyway. We finished off our superhero themed evening as we'd planned, by seeing the new Spider-man movie starring Andrew Garfield.

Project 365: July 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

022. Watch 100 never-seen-before movies (28/100)

Three movies in a week? This is completely unheard of!

Last weekend there was no sport on at all, no F1, no football, nothing like that so we decided to pop on a movie from our saved ones on Sky+. We chose 'X-Men: First Class' because we'd seen the ads on TV for so long and just fancied it. I didn't care much for the main plot of the film, but it was really great to see the familiar story of the creation of the X-Men and how everything came to be.

The second movie we saw last week was at the cinema and it was the new 'The Amazing Spider-Man' starring Andrew Garfield. James is a massive Spider-Man fan and comic book geek, so he was a bit nervous about how this movie would come out, hoping it would do the stories justice. We both really liked it and think it stayed true to the story telling from the original comic books. And I think I love Andrew Garfield....

The third, and final, movie of the week was 'Date Night' with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. I'd never watched any movies with them in as the lead actors, only as supporting roles like Anchorman and Mean Girls. We just stumbled on watching this after another TV show had finished. Teamed with a big bowl of cookie-dough ice cream and we were set, we just didn't change the channel. Ruined a bit by poorly placed ad-breaks (that's you Channel Four....), it was kind of okay.

After 'Date Night' had finished we flicked over to watch the end of 'Independence Day' - I've seen that before so won't count on my list, and it was just the end where they beat the big bad aliens and America was great! ha. I cannot believe how old that movie is, some of the actors that we recognised...oh my gosh, they looked so young!

On my list of movies I want to watch, and are out soon, are 'Anna Karenina' starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law and Disney Pixar's newest release, 'Brave'. There isn't really much else drawing me into the cinema lately, not even bothered by 'Dark Knight Rises' - never been a Batman fan and neither is James, really. We've got loads of movies saved up on our Sky+, including Inception which we've still not seen, so should probably get on to those soon.

Project 365: June 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

023. Watch 20 movies in the cinema (9/20)

I have to admit, I love the previous Men in Black movies - I can't believe how long ago they were released! Will Smith is one of our favourite actors as well and we'll watch pretty much any movie he's in. 

We had to go and watch the third movie in this series and we really enjoyed it. The little twist at the end wraps it up nicely and I really don't think they need to make any more of these movies after that. 

Project 365: May 2012

You can see all my daily pics uploaded onto Flickr. All pictures are taken with my iPhone 4S and shared through Instagram.

Finished! The Hunger Games Trilogy

It's been so long since I last finished a book, keeping this blog for my 101 tells me the last time I'd finished a book was way back in March last year. Fourteen months later and I've read three books in the space of a month! Crazy.
It's 'The Hunger Games' trilogy by Suzanne Collins that has brought on this behaviour. Never before have I read a book before seeing the movie, but with this series I just had to. I'm so glad I did, I love these books!
I've been lending the books to someone at work and she's a fast reader, it's spurred me on to read books two and three really fast so she can have them. 
I now have the amazing urge to Google 'The Hunger Games' and found out everything I can on some sort of dedicated Wiki site! I need to fill the void until the next movie comes out in 2013!