Books I’ve Been Reading

I remember reading The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins about a year ago, it was coming up to Christmas and I wanted to escape university and maths for a bit, I picked up a book given to me or bought for me, I can’t quite remember. I was so fascinated by the style of writing and the way the book absolutely gripped me and made me feel like I was on the edge of my seat and breathless with each turn of the page. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time, as a kid I used to stay up all night under my blanket with a book light just so I could finish a book. Every book fascinated me, I’d read science books over and over again just so I could read and get drawn into a different world, one different to mine. I wanted to read more, I needed to, TV never drew me in like a book did. So I’ve compiled a list of books that I’ve been reading in the past half year or so when I’ve had time away from university.

1.The Good Girl-Mary Kubica
I’ve been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I don’t know the colour of her eyes or what they look like when they’re scared. But I will.
Mia Dennett can’t resist a one-night stand with the enigmatic stranger she meets in a bar.
But going home with him might turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia’s life…
I was unsure of whether to start this, I was never keen on kidnapping and falling in love with the kidnapper sort of crime stories, just never my kind of thing you know?
However, this was exhilarating, the way the book goes between the characters and they all flow into one another, it’s lovely. I did actually finish this tonight and I knew I needed to document my reading to tell others how amazing books are. I did really feel for the mother in this book and ended up sobbing on a plane to my own mother’s confusion. The ending isn’t your usual plot twist but it does make you think.
7/10

The Zoo Quest Expedition-David Attenborough
In 1954, a young David Attenborough was offered the opportunity of a lifetime – to travel the world finding rare and elusive animals for London Zoo’s collection, and to film the expeditions for the BBC for a new show called Zoo Quest.
This book records those voyages, which mark the very beginning of a career that spans decades and stretches across continents, from Life on Earth to Blue Planet II, from the deepest oceans, the darkest jungles and everywhere in between’. Staying with local tribes while trekking in search of giant anteaters in Guyana, Komodo dragons in Indonesia and armadillos in Paraguay, he and the rest of the team battled with cannibal fish, aggressive tree porcupines and escape-artist wild pigs, as well as treacherous terrain and unpredictable weather, to record the incredible beauty and biodiversity of these regions. The methods may be outdated now, but the fascination and respect for the wildlife, the people and the environment – and the importance of protecting these wild places – is not.
Written with Attenborough’s trademark wit and charm, Adventures of a Young Naturalist is not just the story of a remarkable adventure, but of the man who made us fall in love with the natural world, and who is still doing so today.
This is going to be a lone wolf in this list however if you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know I’ve always been so interested in zoology and the science of animals. Honestly though this was an amazing book and even if you’re not interested in animals or science this was so interesting about Attenborough’s journey to where he is now and how he started off in the business and boy did he go on some adventures. I gave my grandad a copy of this book for Christmas and although he was more interested in a climbing book, my dad picked it up, read one page and asked me the same day if he could borrow my copy. I was hoping I could send it down to his address to possibly get it signed by Attenborough but my dad hasn’t read in a while and I may not see the book for a few months!
10/10

The Silent Wife-A.S.A Harrison
Todd and Jodie have been together for more than twenty years. They are both aware their world is in crisis, though neither is willing to admit it.
Todd is living a dual existence, while Jodie is living in denial. But she also likes to settle scores. When it becomes clear their affluent Chicago lifestyle could disintegrate at any moment, Jodie knows everything is at stake. It’s only now she will discover just how much she’s truly capable of..
This was a strange, deja vu sort of experience. My own mum split from her cheating partner and he has been trying to kick her out of their old house since then. However the ending isn’t quite the same as what happened in the book. I did relate to this book and I think the book does make you try to feel sorry for Todd in the situation he’s in however going through the situation myself I could not feel a thing for him and I hope it wasn’t just me. Very good book but strange.
6/10

Dangerous Girls-Abigail Haas
Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise and a group of close friends set off on a debaucherous Spring Break trip to Aruba. But paradise soon turns into a living nightmare when Elise is brutally murdered.
Soon Anna finds herself trapped in a foreign country, fighting for her freedom. As she awaits the judge’s decree, it becomes clear that everyone is questioning her innocence. To the rest of the world, Anna isn’t just guilty, but dangerous. And the truth is more shocking than you could ever imagine . . .
I read this just after The Girl on The Train and I did think it was a bit young for adult readers but a bit too much for teenagers, I’m 19 and I thought it was a good book for my age group but my mum would have hated it.
It was a good book, you feel sorry for the protagonist but want to find out more and more at the same time. The books give clues like giving candy to a child and you yearned for more and to know what happened. You go from one conclusion to the next making your own judgement on who did it. Mental ending, did not expect it and sorry if you’re going to read it but I had to sit and contemplate for at least 10 minutes and then go on to look at all the threads of it on reddit, literally amazing.
8/10 read it till the end.

Before I Go To Sleep-S.J. Watson
Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?
Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight
And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
Absolutely fabulous book, above average film, as usual. I think I read this book in about a day, I couldn’t put it down, even to eat. This is a great book to get you back into reading if you’ve been out of it for a while. I can’t say much more really but read the book before watching the film, and I couldn’t recommend this book more.
10/10

The Secret Place-Tana French
Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to join Dublins Murder Squad when sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives in his office with a photo of a popular boy whose body was found at a girls boarding school a year earlier The photo had been posted at The Secret Place the schools anonymous gossip board and the caption says I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM Stephen joins with Detective Antoinette Conway to reopen the casebeneath the watchful eye of Hollys father fellow detective Frank Mackey With the clues leading back to Hollys close-knit group of friends to their rival clique and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.
I remember this being a similar sort of thing to Dangerous Girls, I think it suits the young adult spectrum more than older adults. I thought the writing was great, it was like French was taking you back to school days and the bond of friendship that you had then. It does become a bit weird half of the way through but still think this is a great story.
7/10

That is everything I remember so far, if I do find any more books that I’ve read and completely forgotten about, I’ll do an update blog post.
Whilst trying to distract myself from my very recently completed exams, I’ve been watching the series Black Mirror on netflix, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to whoevers reading this and looking for a new series to start.
Thank you for reading my blog post and make sure to follow me on my social medias and my instagram @meg__greeny to see my latest journey to China.

China – day 4

We woke up today in hong kong, something i never thought I’d say. I know how hard it is having ryan away all the time but without him coming to china i probably would have never come over and explored it in the intimate local knowledge way that i have. It was a late wake up, read my blog from yesterday about why it was, its disturbing. I had a few hours just sitting in bed and closing my eyes and then scrolling through twitter and Facebook. Jason wasnt up yet and anyway he needed to go back over to hong kong island to get a few things for his parents so we left him o sleep. We searched through google maps looking for somewhere to go for breakfast, we decided on a bakery in a mall across the road. Arrived there and it was beautiful, it was surrounded by cake shops with the most amazing cake designs (mental note taken). In the bakery they had cheese and ham breads which my mum got and i got raisin baguette, we both got a croissant. The raisin bread although called a baguette was like brioche with raisins in which were so moist and juicy you could feel the raisin juice spill into the surrounding brioche when you bit into it. It was absolutely lovely. We had a wander round for 10 minutes, looking at all the cakes and the bakery and then set off to our next destination, Kowleen park. 

We’d walked past it the previous day and it looked nice enough and looked fairly big on google maps, the parks in china were really nice when we went and i thought it would be a good stroll. Walking round the park was great, there was a waterfall and a fountain and wild flamingos in an area of the koi pond. The weather was heavenly and it made a nice walk. 

After we attempted to go to hmv, a music store but got lost several times on the way, with no wifi and no data and google maps crashing on us, we had a bit of difficulty. I decided to ask some passersbys if they knew any english, anyway they were really helpful and showed us the way to go, i would recommend asking young people if they know english, english speaking has really improved for the youth of china and hong kong in the last 20 years from what I’ve spoke to people about it. 

My mum needed some earphones, id got some the previous day, a Bluetooth pair called sudio, she’d tried them and really liked them and so got a pair like mine. 

After this we headed back to the harbour to wait for jason to get back from the island, we got an icecream and chilled out in the sun. 

I didnt keep up with these blog posts sorry. You can see my china holiday on my instagram @meg__greeny 

China – day 3

Today we had to wake up really early to get ready to go to hong kong. Me and my mum were going there with ryans friend from china, jason. Jasons been to hong kong plenty of times so he knows good food places. We met up with jason in the morning and he brought us some breakfast, some cranberry brioche bread which was actually lovely and i could so imagine toasting it with lots of butter(mmm..).

Its a pretty long journey, 3 hours coach time plus time to get through the border, which as it was a public holiday for china, took us ages (about 50 minutes) being sent to and from queues and having to do more and more documents. Finally getting through was a relief and we got to hong kong an hour later. 

My mum had booked the hotel a few months back, it had been £250 a night and we booked the harbour bay hotel. We went down sidestreet after sidestreet and finally found it. Now i do travel quite a lot, enough to know that that night was not worth 250 quid. We did pay for a view of the harbour (we didnt get a view of the harbour) and it was a twin room. It was very small ill be honest, pretty cramped and there wasnt many freebies; 2 lukewarm bottles of water, some slippers and a robe each. 

Anyway we thought it’s just for a night we’ll cope, more on the hotel later, it gets even worse. 

We all headed out to the shopping district, a long street full of posh shops only the rich can afford; chanel, alexander mcqueen, tiffanys. I’ve got to be honest, if youre like me and you don’t have the money for these kind of shops and just want to go find authentic chinese and hong kong sort of shops, this really isnt the place for you and i did regret spending a few hours looking round them because it did feel wasted. 

We went to the harbour after this which was absolutely beautiful, make sure to take plenty of pictures, i lost my polaroid of it but i managed to get another one later. 

For dinner and tea we went close to our hotel, i can’t remember the names of the places but dinner was lovely, we had dishes jason chose for us, bbq pork, doughnut sort of things, dumplings, like an egg inside bread, spring rolls. We literally ate everything it was so nice. For tea we had ramen, jason had to get in the queue half an hour before we ate and that was at a quiet time, by the time we came out the wait was about 2 hours.

Later we took the trip across to hong kong island, we got the ferry across, only 5 minutes but by god does it make you feel sicky even me and i dont feel sea sick at much. We got the number 15 bus up to the top of victoria peak, a steep mountain with a city viewing perch at the top. I would say this is the best thing we did all weekend, it was a clear night and we had a full view of hong kong with perfect picture opportunities. Theres a tat shop inside where we got all the tourist presents to take back home and they had a lovely panda snowglobe i got for olly. It is a bit squashed on the viewing areas and so you do have to push your way in for the perfect pictures but if youre going to hong kong you should get used to that. 

Heading home there were huge queues for taxis and buses to get to the ferry stop, however i do recommend getting the bus, they come practically one after another continuously and so even with a big queue it goes very quickly, we waited 5 minutes when it was going past the barrier. We managed just in time to get on the last ferry back from hong kong island (sigh of relief) and got back to hotel. 
We walked into our room, there was a black smudge on the ground, now my mum is terrified and i mean it of cockroaches. We turned the light on and this smudge jumped and scuttled behind the bin. I pressed the bin into the wall making sure it had gone to a better place (cockroach heaven?). Me and my mum settled down after a few minutes, just a little cockroach we said to ourselves, I started taking off my shoes to put my pyjamas on and i saw my mum go over to the sink, she was about to take her contacts out and picked up the contact solution when all of these cockroaches about 6 or 7 scuttled round the worktop going everywhere. My mum almost had a panic attack and screamed. We rang reception, they said theyd send someone up. Almost immediately reception rang back and told us to get our stuff together and to get ready to move, they would help us. In between fits of screaming moving things back to the suitcase we saw even more cockroaches come out it was horrendous. Now i know on the fifteenth floor of a building you definitely should not get cockroaches and its from a build up of not cleaning and leaving crumbs around. It took the hotel staff approximately 2 minutes to come up, i think it was the manager, he was an old man but he helped us with our bags bless him and was extremely apologetic about the situation. 

We arrived at our new room, a huge twin room with a minibar and a bath in the bathroom. It was a lovely room and if originally we had got that room we would have been happy with the standard. However, we were very on edge and struggled to sleep for another hour, looking around with a light to see if there were any more cockroaches lying around. It was 1am before we got to sleep and being exhausted from the day we fell into bed, leaving the bathroom light on so if there were any they wouldnt come out into the room. 

Now i know what i know about harbour hotel i could not recommend it, i would not let someone be paranoid in a space they’re supposed to feel safe and i thought it was horrific the amount of cleaning they had to do, there were even used tissues underneath the beds in the second room, not great. 

Hopefully tomorrow will bring a new start, and ill be better rested. 

Time

Its been some time since i last posted.

The last time i was in china, on the bus on the way back from hong kong. Id love to be there again. There was something about coming back that killed me and depressed me in a way i feel every time i come home, because im coming home to something i dread. Home doesnt need to be manchester or newcastle it can be a person, a thing. Home was uni this time and im not happy to be back. 

Where my friends are all meeting up for lunch im sat in a room panicking about failing when failing could be my excuse to get off this course.

Its not that i dont enjoy maths anymore,i just feel maths has deviated so much from what i used to know it as and now we’re not solving equations its all make believe, theorem shite im not interested in.

I dont mean to swear, im sorry i have.

Maybe nows not the right time for me, i can’t express my feelings because nobody takes me seriously. They think its suddenly come up that i dont want to do maths when its been since the first month i started uni. I should have changed then, i have regrets. 

I dont know what to do, thank you for reading. Maybe ill figure out my life at some other point.

China – day 2

I ended my last post on the way to the photoshoot. It was a lovely hot day today and this is winter time in china! 

Completely forgot about this blog post till the day after, ill try and remember everything we did.

We went to Starbucks on the way to the photoshoot, i had a chocolate croissant and mango smoothie, it was such a refreshing drink for the weather and was so nice. The streets were covered in little decorations so beautiful.

The Photoshoot place was 2 little rooms in an apartment block. It was 40 pounds converted from yuen which included makeup, hair and all of the photos edited that are taken. 

For the first lot of photos we all dressed up id say in like wedding sort of fancy dress, i was in a short floral dress with a poufy skirt and my own trainers to match, my mum in a long blue dress and my brother in a shirt, jacket and jeans. We went down all the little side streets next to a train and a garden to take the photos and i felt a bit silly in the dress but no one will see me twice there so its fine. For the second lot of photos we all wore our city tops, it was much comfier in these and i felt better, we did these photos in one of the small rooms.

After the photo shoot we went looking for a place to eat dinner, got a bit lost and ended up near an adults play centre.

Finally found the right place and we had a feast of bbq lamb(not so great), candied sweet potatos(more of a dessert), dumplings and chilli cauliflower which was absolutely amazing and i dont even like cauliflower.

Heading back home i was shattered but ryan wanted to show us round the park near his flat. Getting there, i was actually glad he did take us round it was absolutely beautiful.

Back at the flat i had no idea how tired i must have been because i sat down on the coach and 3 hours later i was opening my eyes to salad for tea. 

Ryan had to go to work for an hour to teach his lesson and we went for a lookaround and met all of his colleagues, they were all nice just very posh i think.

We went for tea with his boss and walked back to the flat, stopping off to pick up japanese cheesecake to try.

It was pretty good, i dont rate the cheesecake bases over here, it’s not the same without a good digestive biscuit crumb but it was nice with the strawberry. 

Thank you for reading,  heres a few pictures i didnt include.

China-day 1

I arrived in china this morning, it was a hell of a long journey and i dont think it could have got much worse other than not getting here at all. 

It was an early start, 7am to get to manchester airport. Roads were dead as it was the day after boxing day and people are mainly still off work for the holidays. Got to security and my mum had forgotten that one of the christmas presents shed put in for my brother was like a shower gift set and we got that taken off us, fair enough. 

We were flying economy with hainan airlines, i was astounded when we got on the flight. Every seat had a screen with games and movies and tv shows, it even had game of thrones! 

Screen on flight

The seats were comfy and everything was going great. Then the people behind us arrived, a woman with her 2 kids, now one of the kids was lovely but oh my goodness the other was a little devil. She kicked the seat for the full 10 hours, me and my mum switched halfway through but still it was horrendous, the flight attendants tried to reason with the mother but she wouldnt do anything. Ahwell, we managed to get to beijing. There were 2 meals on this flight, dinner;beef with rice and veg, there was bread and cheeses and coleslaw, this was really good and then breakfast; omelette or porridge with a croissant and yoghurt.

Beef dinner with rice, bread roll, coleslaw and cheesecake

At beijing airport we were a bit lost, being english speaking and having a transfer at a different terminal we knew we would have a bit of a hard time. We got our luggage and set off, a man came up to us said he was with hainan and would take us to the terminal. He showed us a quick glimpse of his badge, too quick to read, i thought something was wrong at that point. We tried to go up the elevator and follow the directions to the terminal but he pushed our luggage trolley out of the elevator and to a different floor. I looked at my mum, this is wrong i said, we’re not going the right way. He said he was taking us through a shortcut and lead us underneath a dark bridge to a desolate car park, i told him im not okay with us and he started phoning someone up trying to order us a taxi, it would be 100 yuen he said, and it would be a 40 minute walk to terminal 1, we would miss our flight if we walked. Now my brother had been to this airport before, hes had to do the same transfer, he said it took 10 minutes to walk there. The taxi came, screeching round the corner, he said it would be 500 yuen to get there at least. I thought this was a laugh, youre joking i asked. He started yelling in chinese saying he had always said it was that amount, at this point me and my mum started to push our trolley away, not letting him near us, i wasnt okay with this and i was going to get us away as quickly as i could. We started running back to the airport, suitcases rolling everywhere leaving him to shout horrid phrases i assume at the top of his voice. 

It was a 10 minute even 5 minutes quick walking to the other terminal once we were back at the original point. We had numerous people telling us we needed a taxi on the way and we refused, im so glad we did and i hope if anyone reads this in the same position it helps, just follow the signs. 

Beijing airport is complete madness to an english person, if chinese people do queue they will stand so close you can feel them breathing and otherwise they will decide there isnt a queue and just go to the front. Here we had another present taken apart for my brother. You arent allowed battery packs in your main luggage, they had to be seperate even in your hand luggage. Everything else was easy enough to find, theres a lot of english directions and a lot of people to help if not. 

View from the flight

Getting on the plane from Beijing to Guangzhou was fine, there was a bus from the gate to the plane which they squeezed people on to but everyone was obviously very tired at 5am and so there wasnt much rushing involved as manchester. Now i was exhausted and as soon as i got on the plane i knew i needed a sleep, i had 3 hours to waste and i wasnt up for doing much else. A flight attendant came up to us, he was white and i assume he doesnt see many as he did give us special treatment, helped us with our drinks and anything extra we wanted and after my sleep he gave me his snacks, a yoghurt which was amazing! 

Yoghurt i really liked

On the flight we did get another dinner halfway through but i was so tired i dont even remember what it was and i think i had one bite of egg fried rice and fell asleep again. 

Overall experience of hainan flights was great, the attendants really care for you and look after you and i really appreciated that. 

It was amazing to see my brother and meet his best friend here. 

Heading out into foshan centre we had bbq pork and rice which was amazing and we went to a mall with sephora, i had a look for tarte but couldnt see it in there and they had a monki shop, which I’d paid so much to just get shipped to england! Overall they had great shops. 

On the way to my brothers flat i was falling asleep, could not stay awake for long. We got back there and he started opening his christmas presents. My mum had got him a ps4 and i got him some game of thrones and stranger things tops, he’s wearing one today for our photoshoot, his present to us. We got pizza(dont judge us, it was the quickest takeaway) and i fell asleep on the couch, so exhausted from travelling. Woke up numerous times in the night, just trying to get used to sleeping 7 hours ahead which is hard.

Ive woke up this morning about 5am chinese time, went outside to the balcony with a cup of orange smoothie and my book which is really good.

David attenborough-the zoo quest expidition

On our way to the photoshoot, i will update my blog later with how today goes.

White chocolate and raspberry macarons

I never liked macarons, i wasnt too keen on the almond and coconutty taste of the more popular macaroons, until i made my own. These are like nothing youve tasted before, crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy in the middle like a meringue they are beautiful. Filling them with jam and chocolate or dipping one half of the meringue in double cream they are amazing either way. 

(Excuse my dog in the background, he wanted to be part of the picture.)

Ingredients

• 170g icing sugar
• 160g ground almonds
• Egg whites from 4 medium eggs, split into 2 equal batches
• 160g granulated sugar

For the filling

• 120g double cream
• 110g white chocolate
• Raspberry jam

Method

•  Warning, this makes a lot of macarons, i normally half this amount of ingredients.
• Sieve ground almonds and icing sugar into a large bowl, the almonds will go through, if they dont then pulse in a food processor for a few seconds.
• Add the first batch of egg whites to this and mix together, it will make a thick paste.
• Tip the second batch of egg whites into a clean heatproof bowl.
• Place 50ml water and the sugar into a pan and bring to the boil on medium heat. After the sugar has dissolved (not stirring);start whisking the egg whites, wait 3 minutes for the syrup and then pour down the side of the heatproof bowl, keeping away from the whisk. Continue to whisk until the bowl cools down. 
• At this point you can add food colouring, however this is often goes wrong for me and you have to add a lot for it to make a difference. I would avoid water based food colourings and make sure it is colder than room temp. otherwise mixture just flattens.
• Tip the meringue mixture onto the almond mixture and fold in, do not over mix this.
• Tip into a piping bag with a small opening and pipe out circles with around 1 inch diameter and 1cm height onto baking paper, leave out of the fridge for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven on 150° for a fan oven.
• Bake the macaron shells for 14 minutes, after put onto a cooling rack straight away.
• For the filling, put the cream and chocolate in a microwave or on the hob and melt into a paste. Then put into a piping bag with again a small opening and put on the outer circle of one half of a macaron shell, filling the centre of this with half a tsp raspberry jam each. Then sandwich this with a similar sized macaron shell. 

I love these macarons and would recommend them.

Inspiration: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1369639/chocolate-and-raspberry-macaroons#tab-comments

Rating: 5/5

Pamper days

After finishing uni and coming back to my home town, Manchester, i can finally relax. Ive been helping my mum with childminding and we took the kids to see father christmas and alls very jolly and christmas spirit is all around.

I dont think ill feel relaxed till the weekend as ive got to bake biscuits and cakes for the family. So far its macarons, ginger biscuits and christmas cupcakes (might follow the recipe on zoellas channel for cupcakes) for dads side of family and banana bread for my nana on my mums side and hopefully will get 2 cheesecakes done and a trifle for christmas day so expect updates with how the recipes go. 

Im so looking forward to Christmas and china and have been getting ideas of where to go in hong kong and Guangzhou. 

Ive had my hair and nails done, and its been nice to look after myself.

Logging off for the day, thank you guys.

Dread

Woke up this morning with a feeling ive not had in a long time, anxiousness. I dont know what to do and i cant shake this feeling. Ive asked olly whats wrong a thousand times but i know its me being shaky and i dont know why. Maybe somethings wrong with me im not sure, i need to get back home into my safe space. I cant wait for the happiness of christmas to get me.

London

So, ive not posted in a few days. To be honest i do miss it, in the evenings i keep thinking to myself, i should tell my blog about that maybe someone will like it anyway, ive been travelling. Ive been to london this weekend and i bloody loved it.

Friday night, me and olly headed to the palace theatre and we watched the new harry potter play, the cursed child, it was amazing. Theres a sense of magic contained in the show and excitement, and the aura that fills the air, oh gosh, it was brilliant.

Got back to the hotel, the royal horseguards and we’d been upgraded, i think its the luck of olly, to a lovely room overlooking the london eye, the rooms here are wonderful and i would so much like to recommend them (especially with the creme brulee here).

Saturday, my mum and her partner arrived in london and it was great to see them, ive been at university for such a long semester and we havent had a proper break together with each other for a long time. We’ve been to madame tussauds and went on the london eye and went on our own little tour and they saw the lion king and absolutely loved it. Theyve gone today but it was a great touristy weekend.

Anyway, we’re going back home to manchester in the morning and i cant wait to finally have a lie down and a drink, fab.