The Graduate

So after three years of working my butt of and having an awesome time I have finally graduated. I managed to stay on my feet the whole time - no falling over in sight! However I swear my robe was longer than everyone else's. Most came down to the calves yet mine seemed to be dragging on the floor!

We (me and my family) travelled up to Swansea first thing in the morning stopping off in Bridgend Designer Outlet for some shoe shopping before continuing to the rainy city just in time for a yummy tapas meal before it was time to go and robe up. The day was nicely rounded off with a trip to one of my favourite places - Verde's in the Mumbles.

Lots of pictures were taken on the day yet no one has uploaded them yet so for now you shall have to be content with a picture; drawn by your resident 'artist' me!

Please don't ask why my face is very pale and my legs and hands are very pink!

You find them in the strangest of places

Friends that is.

I haven't blogged in ages. A combination of not really feeling like it and not having enough time. I'm not really sure what to blog about to day. I had some vague idea about finding friends in the strangest of places but I'm not sure I have enough to say but lets give it a go anyway and then there might be cake!

They say that friends can be found in the strangest of places (actually I think they say love can be found in the strangest of places but close enough (and no I have no idea who 'they' are. I did a bit of googling and found nothing.)) Friends really do pop up where you least expect them to. Take my best friend for example. We met on our first day of uni and have been inseparable ever since. Nothing odd about that is there? Well let me tell you we met in a queue. An epic queue. You see we had to sign up for our modules on the first day and get a bunch of things signed. Not so easy when you're doing a joint honours degree where the subjects aren't even in the same school! Added to that is that History and English are two of the biggest courses in terms of people at the university. First there was a queue to pick up registration packs before joining another queue for module selection. That's where I first met Maddy. We didn't talk at first; we were both too shy. But after several hours in that queue and another few hours spent hopping between departments and standing in various queues we were soon talking. And the rest is history.

So watch out behind the next tree or boulder you never know who may pop out from behind it to befriend you!

Now I believe I promised you cake. You remember here where I made some muffins from left over coconut milk. A curry made for last weeks camping trip left me with half a tin of coconut milk and I decided to try to actual recipe those muffins were adapted from so here I present to you Coconut Lime Muffins. Yumm.

This is why I will never get to the bottom of my reading list...

I have a large pile of books that are to be read and a large list of books to read after I've made my way through the pile. But neither ever seem to go down and not only because I keep adding to them but because I keep going back and rereading books.

You see when I'm reading a book I get attached to the books; the story, the people, the places. They become part of my world: I care about them and I know my way around their world as if I have lived there all my life. So when the book ends I miss the characters and the places. I miss the authors writing style, the little quirks and everything.

Sometimes, after having not read a book for a while, I find myself longing to immerse myself back into the world. To hang out with the characters, see the sights, feel the excitement, travel on the journey. So then I have to go and reread the book, or in the case of series', books. My biggest weak point is Garth Nix's 'Old Kingdom' trilogy. I consider Sabriel, Lirael and Sam to be friends, I feel like I know Mogget and the Dog personally.

I try to always wait until all the books in a series are out before I start reading as I'm to impatient to be left hanging! There have been two exceptions: Harry Potter and Pamela Freeman's 'Castings' trilogy. The latter because I did not realise it was a trilogy! I'm still sitting on the edge of my seat to read the third book and find out what happens to Bramble, Ash and Saker because the book is somewhere among my 'to read' list.

Perhaps that's why I enjoy Terry Pratchett's  'Discworld' books because I can dip in and out of the world that I love so much and meet new people each time.