This photograph was taken by Chris Engelsma.

Last month, the book blogger named in the title of this post posed some questions for a short list of people, myself included. I don’t tend to join in memes, but considering he had created the questions himself, I thought I would answer the ones I could respond to best. I reckon they will also provide a better insight to me, and because I like reading about others on their blogs, I wondered if you all would appreciate the same in return. I’m rarely personal on this blog, apart from my about page, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be every now and then. So here goes.

What’s your favourite memory?

There are several to choose from, including hearing my musical compositions being played by a mini-orchestra, attending various concerts, and the weird feeling of a cog settling in place in my head the first time I met the guy who’s now my boyfriend. But I’d say my most favourite was years ago when I went with a group of people to look for the childhood home of an A-Lister – and we were invited inside by their parents. I probably ought to say that this was an A-Lister of another country, and there weren’t many fans from the UK. It was only about tens minutes, but when something like that happens you can’t really say it’s not your favourite memory.

Why do you blog?

I blog because I “have” to. I used to write a more personal blog, which is where Carnelian Valley comes from – I’ve been using the name since 2003. But because I didn’t want to commit to any niche my posting was sporadic and the topics random; my ideas and interest ran out. When I started reading avidly again, after years away, I found myself wanting to review the books, having already enjoyed reviewing music and films for my old blog. And I found book reviewing a lot easier, more straight forward, even if there are just as many different ways to approach it as there is a music review. When I read nowadays I find myself responding to the text in the ways my English teacher would have loved me to back in the day, and so that’s why I “have” to blog. The discussion and community that come with blogging pretty much sealed the deal, I’ve learned so much I’d never have learned if it weren’t for everyone else.

Why do you like reading?

The escape; the ability to go to different places (in my case namely the Middle Ages); to learn, whether from fiction or non-fiction; to improve my language skills; to better appreciate the written word.

What’s your most unrealistic ambition?

Sadly it’s my biggest passion, the thing I want the most: to compose music for a living. Nothing fires me up more than watching a concert, or a documentary about music where you watch artists recording. I’ve experienced a little of both those things first-hand, but nothing near what I would like. But it is an incredibly difficult industry to get into unless you want to sign your rights away to Simon Cowell. You could say it’s easier now, with You Tube, but in fact I’d say it makes it harder, there is so much competition, the same way there now is with ebooks. Maybe I’ll post some music one day, we’ll see.

Thank you, Andrew, for getting me out of my shell, and I hope my rambling was okay.

Over to you, my readers – do any of those questions pique your interest enough to answer them in the comments?

We arrived back from our holiday in London on Saturday, after a crazy 7 days. As I’ve said in the past, having your anniversary in late northern hemisphere November isn’t great, and I’d advise anyone thinking of making their relationship official to wait until Christmas or springtime. Luckily being in London meant that, unlike the country retreats of yesteryears, there was actually quite a lot to do in this time of off-season closures.

It will come as no surprise that I have several (understatement of the century) photographs to share with you, and that I’m still going through them to make a collection of the best instead of showing you a blurry London. Expect a couple of posts as whilst I’d love to limit holiday excitement to one post, I’d need to reimburse you for the days you’d have taken off work to read it all – saying you found it interesting. So instead, for now, I’ve done something similar to the past years when I would list pros and cons intentionally under the opposite heading – I’m still giving you a crazy list, but this time there is no separation.

Here is a summary of our holiday:

• Primose Hill: you have to see this, especially if you’re into photography. Visited for the sheer numbers of references to it in chick-lit books, and now I can see why there are references.
• Seeing some gorillas: picking your skin and eating it is apparently tasty.
• Strangers rallying to get to the aid of people falling down escalators: hearing the squeak of the machinery as a fallen person nears the bottom is rather scary.
• Seeing a minor celebrity on a tube escalator, trying his best to cover his face whilst noticing that everyone could see him: this man, known best for his role in EastEnders.
• Oxford Street, Mayfair, Picadilly – Beautiful and amazing times 3.
• Problematic Canary Wharf – the place looks stunning but it’s no good for those with asthma or who like clean air. Best viewed at night when everyone has gone home.
• Charlotte Street: I haven’t read the book yet, but I had to get a photo of the place.
• DLR: Often travels above street level, though otherwise just like the Underground.
• Unexpected penthouse apartment: more on this later.
• The Savoy, The Ritz: The Savoy is squashed between buildings, easy to miss but quite something, the Ritz is a behemoth.
• The Strand, Charing Cross, Leicester Square, Chinatown, Covent Garden: All worth seeing and Covent Garden at Christmas (or near it) is unmissable.
• Science Museum: Geared more towards children, not so interesting for adults.
• Missing the National History Museum (it’s next to the Science Museum): going home a couple of hours before, it later emerged, the royals turned up.
• Deciding to attempt using the toilets in a café without eating there: a necessary venture, gets spoilt when you realise you really ought to buy something. The brownie was heavenly.
• Hello sushi: after so many day-trips-worth of saying I must go to a Wasabi cafe, I finally got there.
• A Folio Society Guardian event: unfortunately the less said about that the better.
• Sims games: thanking you in advance, boyfriend, for the lost free time.

I had a few chances to come online throughout the week and I was happy at the response to the guest posts. Firstly I’m glad you all liked them because of the work the writers put into them, and secondly because I’m rather humbled to have my site kept alive. Thank you to Alice, Chris, and Meg for the posts they wrote (click on their names to read them).

So there we are. It will take me a bit longer to have detailed posts written up, but it seemed a bit odd to not have a written reference to my holiday closer to the time, to come back as though I’d not been away. Hope the list has you intrigued!

One thing I’m not keen on is posting a review of a first book of a series, and then my very next post being the second book. Whilst it may work for some people for me it feels as though I’ve stopped reading broadly, even if my readings were actually spaced apart. To sum up, I apologise for being incredibly boring this week and posting two Lian Hearn reviews one after the other. Normal service will now resume.

The exam period now over, whether or not I’ve done well or indeed fainted from anxiety being something I don’t know as I’m writing this prior to the event, I am going to set out a list of what I would like to have accomplished and finished by the time October comes around. I feel setting it out here and making it public will help me to actually make a go at completing things. So here goes.

• Get a lot further on the computer games I started during this last academic year – why not start with something totally fun? I’ve a few games that I’ve really not played much, which for a gamer like myself is difficult to acknowledge. I would like to get a lot further on Oblivion, finish The Sims Medieval kingdom (yes, I’ve got that game, no it’s not very good and it’s the history that caught me), and make some progress with The Prince Of Persia.
• Finish my novella – I started it last year and am currently at 24,000 words. I know where it’s headed, but still have to create a couple of scenes to come first. In addition I need to heed my mother who said that everything moved too quickly and I should add more detail. Family are not to be considered unbiased, I know, but in this situation I feel my mother’s suggestion to be a good one.
• Visit more historical/culturally important places – My list of English Heritage and National Trust sites is incredibly long, and summer is the best time to take nice outdoor photographs.
• Finish the changes to the blog – I’ve a very long list still to complete. If all goes well I may even have a new layout up here in the next few months.
• Read, lots, while there is time.
• Be a better blogger – be a more active member of the book blogging community and write better posts.
• Listen to music – something else that’s suffered this year.

A nice balance of general and specific, simple and complex. Of course there are lots of other things likely to gain my attention, but in place of study I hope to regain… well myself really. I may love history very much, but any sort of university study is going to turn a hobby into a chore sooner or later.

Are you a student? What do you look forward to when summer comes along? Feel free to apply the past tense to both those questions.

I’m all out of ideas today, a situation that often occurs with the combination of rushing round a holiday home to make sure you packed everything and the blazing heat of the finally-arrived British Spring-Summer. As such I’ve chosen to use the same title I did for one of my previous holiday posts.

Our last-minute booking for a short break sounded like a very good idea on paper, but in reality it turned out to be even better. We may not have had much time to do anything, but we had focused our efforts on finding somewhere unremarkable to stay anyway, so that when the time came to leave we wouldn’t feel we had missed out. And I don’t think we did. We didn’t realise how utterly beautiful the landscape would be and it is so good that viewing the country is something you can do at ease with a car. Our host said that she hoped we felt relaxed as that was her goal for the accommodation. I believe we are feeling very refreshed, I for my upcoming exams and the plans I have for the reopening of my personal blog, and my boyfriend for the changes about to come his way.

Highlights included:

• Splinters – old wooden staircases are difficult to ascend at the best of times, but more so when the wood is rough.
• Spiders – where there is history there are creepy crawlies.
• Drives to the peaks of hills only to find the view obscured by trees – unless you want to trespass on private land and we didn’t.
• Green tea spillages – make sure you remind your boyfriend every minute that you are holding a cup of tea whilst sitting beside him so that there is no chance he’ll get up too quickly and send it flying.

The lowlights were:

• The most perfect little cottage with an even more perfect bedroom and garden. The bedroom was my dream room realised.
• Visiting the ruins of a medieval castle and being able to sit at a window in the somewhat fallen great hall, in solitude. To be able to sit somewhere where others would have sat, and to be able to still see the wall sconces and be surrounded by four almost-perfect walls, in a position to really imagine the celebrations that would have happened right there, 700 years ago, is so magical. The feeling is impossible to describe. I thank my boyfriend for letting me sit there for a good few minutes and apologise for any illusions I may have created of handsome chivalrous knights – but then when you find out the castle is one that was owned by the main characters in the novel you are currently reading, everything feels very personal. Yes, I’m reading another Elizabeth Chadwick, and I’ve just walked the grounds of one of William Marshall’s properties.
• Walking amongst the flowers together taking macro shots.

If life worked out the way you hope it does, we wouldn’t have had this opportunity, so in this case, a negative revealed itself to be a positive in disguise. There will hopefully be photographs to follow.

None of these have been edited except to put the copyright notice on it. You’re not seeing things – the weather is sensational at the moment!