My favourite places on the internet

I thought for this post I'd share some of my favourite places to visit on the web- blogs, sites, videos. The last post I made was a bit downbeat and I feel like spreading some positivity and maybe you'll find something you enjoy in the list.

Ted Talks is a website I visit if I want to learn about something new or feel inspired. They are basically short videos most no longer than 15 minutes covering a massive range of topics. Their bio states that their mission is to 'spread ideas' which is basically the essence of it. A lot of the speeches are very motivational too, I recently watched one about letting go of regret that I found really insightful. The range of people they have doing the talks are brilliant too, people from all walks of life, there's basically something for everyone. I'm pretty sure you can find their videos on Youtube as well as just through their own site.

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's film reviews are next on my list. I don't always listen to the full pod-cast which you can find here, sometimes I like to put that on if I'm doing other things and I'll just have that playing in the background but for when I just want to see a specific review I go to their Youtube channel here. The pod-cast is good though because it has interviews with actors/directors and listeners emails read out, as opposed to just solely reviews. I just find their dynamic quite entertaining and Kermode knows so much about cinema that I always find myself discovering other films I would never have known about through his reviews. Not that I always agree though, I mean he liked Twilight so..... but then again, maybe that shows that he he is confident in his own opinion enough that he can say that? Yeah, I dunno.

I think I'll throw a blog in here now. This girl Charly is hands down my favourite blogger, if I could write anything like she does I would be one happy bunny. I can't actually believe she's only 20. She writes about a number of topics- men, friends, fashion, mental health and everything she writes she writes with such openness and honesty that's rare to find on the internet. I admire the fact that she hasn't succumb to the usual style of writing nowadays where there is pressure for everything to be super concise bitesize reads.I think often people are worried that their readers might get bored unless they can put their point across into a few neatly packages paragraphs.This post about her experience with Bipolar is worthy of anyone's time.

Next upppp, a Youtuber. Anthony Fantano 'the needledrop' is just great. I watch most of his videos even when I know It's an album I'll probably never check out, like Kermode his wealth of knowledge alone makes it worth watching. Then on top of that the dude is funny. 

I've discovered some artists I now LOVE through him like FKA Twigs when she released her first album and he gave it glowing reviews. This is him reviewing her latest EP. He also has a mostly trolling 2nd channel thats funny if your into dumb shit like I am look it up- thatistheplan.

I'll leave it here for now, there's more bloggers etc that I'd love to include so I'll probably revisit this and do a round 2 soon. That's it for now, I hope you enjoyed the list! x

January Blues

So, I only have two previous blog posts, both written in Summer of last year but today I feel the urge to write again with the possibility of blogging on the regular from now on. I don't want to box myself into one category blog wise right now so I'm just going to write whatever I fancy I guess, from the frivolous to the more personal shit. I hesitate to use the word 'deep' there because I often find that word thrown around too much whenever anyone tries to talk about feelings, which creates this awkward barrier of 'wait I shouldn't speak about this or that because so and so might think I'm being too serious or heavy going'. When in actual fact it would do us all the world of good if we didn't worry about opening up to other people with the fear of being stigmatized as too serious or difficult. Woops, already started on a mini rant.

 I guess by now you've gathered that I'm about to talk about feelings and all that complicated crap that goes on in my brain. I've not been feeling great recently, I'm on a waiting list to go back to CBT and I have a major case of January Blues. At the end of last year I was feeling slightly optimistic about the start of the year, I had a last minute trip to Amsterdam booked for the first week of January and I was looking forward to the idea of leaving some of the bad parts of 2015 behind me and moving into a new year. Well January is drawing to a close now and I feel determined to find some good in the month, despite my over all low mood, maybe it will be therapeutic for me to get it written down and maybe (hopefully) it will be of interest to you.


I saw some of the beautiful Derbyshire countryside.

First of all mid January I went to Dovedale (can we have a moment to appreciate how darn cute that name is), it was a lovely sunny winters day and my dogs absolutely loved exploring somewhere different to our local parks. I love walking somewhere quiet when the sun is setting and I always feel more peaceful anywhere where there's water. I'm pretty sure that's a thing and I'm not just an oddball, watching water move is relaxing right?

Next up, a couple of days back me and my parents went to Lathkill Dale to walk my dogs for my Dad's birthday. Here's a few of Lathkill, the weather wasn't so great but the scenery was equally as charming.

It's definitely made me want to venture out into the outdoors more and explore more of the Peak District. Usually when I go on walks I don't go much further than what Manchester/Cheshire has to offer. Just being somewhere with no people around and so much natural beauty was calming too, I'm not going to say it made all my worries go away but it helped mute everything a little.

I de cluttered.

I'm not going to include photos for this one, I feel like no one wants to see a pile of my unwanted things in packages ready to be sent off. It's also maybe not the most exciting 'highlight' of my month but it is something that I can draw positives from. I have a pretty small box room so junk piles up quickly and without really realizing it I'd become quite the hoarder, especially with clothes. I'd hang onto it and think 'one day i might wear that', knowing full well that by that point I'd either hate it or I'd never fit into again unless I decided to cut down on my cheese obsession and get serious about exercise. So I decided I'd either give bags of it away to charity or sell the barely worn/never worn items. Now I know I might sound dramatic here but honestly getting rid of a bunch of stuff that never gets used makes you feel pretty good, knowing that its gone to a better home and also being able to pocket a little bit of money on the side for it. It turns out de cluttering your stuff does ~kinda~ help de-clutter your mind. I need to remember to keep doing this one.


I went to the Van Gogh gallery and it made me want to be creative and shit.

This isn't the point where I tell you I'm now going to rent out studio space and become an artist. I can't paint or draw a thing. Seriously, not even a basic doodle. I do like to go to galleries though and admire art from a I~know~nothing~about~why~this~is~good~but~that~looks~cool stance and the Van Gogh gallery in Amsterdam was spectacular. His work is so varied- portraits, self portraits, landscapes. Some of them are very dark and moody and then others like 'the pink peach tree' are on the very other end of the spectrum. I was just in awe of how much he painted in such a short amount of time and quite inspired to learn he only learnt to paint at 27. It's not often you learn about one the 'greats' picking up their skill as late on as that. Obviously I'm not now saying that I'm about to become an incredible artist or creative driving force but I would like to try my hand at something in the arts whether that be to relearn the piano (I stopped when I was 14) or just learn to draw something basic or write something creative or go to a class. Anything really, even if its just something small, I feel like I should at least give it a go and try and get any creative juices I might potentially have flowing. That sentence looks weirder typed out than it did in my head but we'll stick with it.

There we have it, January blues with a slightly positive twist? I didn't want to just write a super 'this is how you feel good' unrealistic post because sometimes you can't just snap out of it with a Buzzfeed '10 ways to feel happy' article and you can just search for the good in a sea of not so good feels. Maybe there will be a 'Fantastic/Feel good in February' post or something next month hmmm....you never know.