family

REVIEW: Don’t Take Me Home (2017)

Documentary about the Welsh international football team’s rise through the FIFA World Rankings, and their first international tournament for 58 years when they got to the Euro’s in France in 2016.

I’m half English, half Welsh, with my dad being Welsh. I was staying with him in Spain during a lot of the 2016 Euros, and have fond memories watching Wales’ matches (and also Iceland’s) because they were the underdogs and it was the first time Wales had been in a major international tournament for decades. Perhaps it’s because of those memories, and thoughts of my dad who died three months ago, that made me decide to watch Don’t Take Me Home, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

Rather than being a comprehensive history of Welsh international football, Don’t Take Me Home focusses on how coach Chris Coleman took these players who were grieving for their former coach and were 117th in the rankings, to the Euros and making a far bigger impact than just about anyone could imagine.

The focus is on Euros 2016 and follows the team through the Group Stages and beyond. It’s a talking heads type documentary with players and staff commenting on their thoughts and feelings before, during and after games. The footage of the games is interspersed with players commentary, and the matches are just as thrilling as when I watched them four years ago. Don’t Take Me Home also gives an insight into the players mentality and how they gel together, on and off the pitch. It really shows how this group of players are friends and that while naturally they trained hard and talked tactics during the tournament, they still could wind down and have fun.

One thing Don’t Take Me Home showed really well was the passion of the Welsh fans and how the teams’ success and drive made such an impact. Wales is a small country, one of the smallest in the tournament, and now it’s a country that other people have heard of. As I said, my dad was Welsh. He lived in Spain for eighteen years, and for so long the locals down the pub (my dad did learn Spanish) would presume he was English which naturally annoyed him a lot. It wasn’t until Gareth Bale started playing for Real Madrid that he had a point of reference for the Spanish (“Soy Galés como Gareth Bale”) and watching the matches down his local, with Wales doing better than Spain that year, made them take notice.

The footage showing the Welsh fans, both in France following the team around the country, and the ones back home in Wales in fan parks and down their local pubs, is just great. Their joy is infectious and Don’t Take Me Home is filled with a lot of feel good moments.

While Don’t Take Me Home will certainly strike a chord with Welsh fans, I think anyone who is a fan of football and underdogs will enjoy this insight into a team that achieved great things. 4/5.

READ THE WORLD – Afghanistan: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Ten-year-old Abdullah and his little sister Pari live with their family in the small village of Shadbagh in Afghanistan. They are as close as two people can be but when circumstances outside of their control separates them they both go different life-long journeys, where they struggle to keep their connection alive.

I’ve had And the Mountains Echoed sitting unread on my shelves for a couple of years now, but it was only when I got the audiobook (narrated by Khaled Hosseini, Navid Negahban and Shohreh Aghdashloo) from my library, that I finally got around to reading it and I’m so glad I did.

Khaled Hosseini is probably most famous for writing The Kite Runner, but this is the first book I’ve read by him. It was a very enjoyable book that’s often devastating but does offer a sense of hope. The writing is really good, there are so many touching and thought-provoking quotes, and the way Hosseini gets you connected to these characters is to be admired as there’s a lot of them.

And the Mountains Echoed not only follows Abdullah and Pari, but characters related to them or characters they’ve met briefly at one point or another. It’s sometimes a little disorientating as each chapter is from a different character’s point of view and at the beginning of each chapter its not made clear, whose perspective we’re now in. In a way, this makes And the Mountains Echoed a bit like a mystery. You are given different perspectives of different events, that all somehow relate to the main plot-thread but it’s up to you as the reader to figure out how these characters and events are all connected.

You don’t just get to see how characters change over time in And the Mountains Echoed, but countries and their people too. The book spans almost 60 years, starting in 1952 and the last chapter taking place in 2010. Through this time, you get to see Afghanistan as a country evolve. Characters live through prosperous times and times of conflict, it is often everyday life for them as it’s their home. While for other characters who have emigrated and then returned, they don’t always feel at home there anymore.

And the Mountains Echoed is about family, heritage, culture, and the connections people make with others and places. It’s finding about finding loved ones and a place to call home. It’s a touching story that while is often sad, as it follows the all to real traumas of everyday life – sudden death of a loved one, old age, and disagreements with family – it also has moments of light-heartedness and optimism about life. 4/5.

Alzheimer’s and Me

In three weeks I will be taking part in the Memory Walk in Brighton to raise money for Alzheimer’s Society and to raise awareness for the disease. If you’d like to sponsor me, you can do so here. But this isn’t just a post begging for money, I also wanted to talk about why I’m doing the walk and how Alzheimer’s has been a part of my life for almost ten years.

Dementia is the broad term for a persistent disorder of the mental processes that are caused by brain disease, like Alzheimer’s disease, or a brain injury and that causes memory problems, personality changes and impaired reasoning.

My grandad got diagnosed with dementia when I was fifteen. While there had been various instances that we were all noticing leading up to the diagnosis, when we look back now we can see that things hadn’t been right years before but no doctor or anyone had said there was anything wrong. Looking back, my grandad had a couple of strokes when I was very young, only about six or seven, and when he was in the hospital bed he’d say there was a bird sitting on the end of it or there were rabbits running around the ward. We all found it funny and as he was otherwise fine and had no physical problems from the stroke we all thought nothing of it. Now we think that that might have been a sign of dementia but then we were unaware that such things as dementia and Alzheimer’s even existed.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past ten years is that dementia and Alzheimer’s are words used much more frequently, before my granddad was actually diagnosed doctors just said it was a man getting old.

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Thoughts on… Moving House

I am now technically homeless. Let me explain, yesterday everything was completed on the sale of my family home and we don’t have a property to move into until the middle of April so we’re now staying with family friends till then.

This whole moving house thing has been a bit chaotic and (for my mum at least) pretty stressful. The only time I have moved house before (not counting the four years I was at University so it was just a portion of my stuff moving each year) was when my parents split up when I was nine. When we moved into our new home (the one we’ve now just left) we just had all of mums belongings, my belongings and bedroom furniture, and a dining table, chairs and matching cabinet we got off a family friend. So we basically moved in with a small van.  (more…)

Why I Love… My Mum

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK so I thought I’d use this time to talk about why I love my mum so much.

I could be cheesy and say that my mum is my best friend and I suppose in some ways she is. I like to think we are not the super cheesy mother and daughter relationship that’s all over Facebook – I knew a girl from Uni who had that sort of a relationship with her mum and it just would be a bit weird after a while seeing another comment on all Facebook statuses and photos but if that’s how it works for them, fair enough. My mum is friends with me on Facebook mostly because of when I first went to university and it was just a precaution really in case I hadn’t text or phoned or emailed her in a while, she could have a look at Facebook and see when I last posted a status or when photos of when I last went out with my new friends were uploaded. She’s never commented or liked anything and we both worked well with that system of her just be able to check up on me but not really get into in that part of my life. (more…)

My Favourite Christmas Things

Now in my family we don’t have many traditions or anything when it comes to Christmas. This is probably because my family is ridiculously small – if we don’t have friends round for Christmas dinner it’s just me, my mum and my gran. But there are something’s I love about Christmas even if it’s a small affair.

Putting up the Christmas tree
This has always been “my job” at Christmas. Even when I was little I’d always decorate the tree. When I was at Uni, my mum would do it because I’d only get home a few days before Christmas but the last few years I’ve been home I’ve done it and putting together the tree (we have a fake one) and decorating it is what makes me feel all Christmasy.

Favourite Christmas Film
We don’t have any Christmas films we have to watch each Christmas but the one that I will stop and watch if or rather when it’s on TV is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Michael Caine is great in it, Rizzo the rat is my absolute favourite and the songs are so catchy.

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TOP TEN TUESDAY: Ten Fictional Families I’d like to Celebrate Thanksgiving with

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week – I’m thinking I might not take part every week but just see if a week takes my fancy. In honour of Thanksgiving (which I know nothing about really because I’m a Brit) this week I’m going to list the ten fictional families I‘d like to celebrate with, these families are going to be from books, films and TV shows and my favourite trope of “Families of Choice” will almost certainly be making an appearance.

The Pevensies – The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Sure the Pevensies don’t always get along but they always come together and sharing a special dinner with them, and maybe some other characters like Mr Tumnus and the Beavers, would be nice.

The O’Connell-Carnahan’s – The Mummy and The Mummy Returns
This family is #familygoals. Rick may be the only American in the family so he might have to persuade his wife, son and brother-in-law to take part in Thanksgiving but I’m sure they would and then Ardeth Bay could join in too.

The Baggins’ – The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
Whether it would be a small dinner with just Bilbo and Frodo, or if Pippin, Merry and Sam were there too, it would be a great meal because Hobbit’s know their food and how to party. (more…)

Favourite Grandparents in Film

This month I continued with The Lunar Chronicles (Re)Readalong aka #TLCReadAlong on Twitter run by BookAddictsGuide and read Scarlet by Marissa Meyer – I ended up enjoying this book even more than the first one. As a part of The Lunar Chronicles (Re)Readalong there’s bonus posts you can do and I’ve chosen to write about some awesome grandparents in film. Scarlet’s grandmother is pretty great, she used to be in the military, won’t be bullied and has a great relationship with Scarlet. So here’s some other great grandparent relationships.

The Princess Diaries Princess Diaries ElenaSquareEyes
Queen Clarisse Renaldi is the Queen of Genovia and isn’t perhaps the most maternal grandmother to start with, she’s incredibly prim and proper but that’s just because she cares what happens to her country. Still, after spending time with Mia, they get along really well, she even discovers the joys of corndogs and the funfair, and will do her best to protect Mia from the press and anyone else who tries to hurt her.

gammy elenasquareeyes The Proposal 
Grandma Annie is hilarious – Betty White plays her so of course she is. Her 90th birthday is the reason Margaret and Andrew are up in Alaska pretending to be in love and engaged. Gammy dances for the Gods, she has a cute Pomeranian and she’s the one who realises that Margaret really does love Andrew and even fakes a heart attack to help them actually talk to each other. Gammy is the best. (more…)

Taking a Break from the Internet

I spent just over a week at my Dad’s in Spain and I barely used the Internet at all. Previously my Dad’s internet connection hasn’t been that great (he lives out in the sticks) but it is better now and he’s even got Wi-Fi! I could’ve connected to the Wi-Fi on my phone but decided not to for a number of reasons.

First of all my work emails come to my phone. When I’ve had just one day off work I’ve seen all the emails come through and it can be up to around 100 emails. I didn’t want to be constantly thinking about work when I’m supposed to be on holiday. My colleagues had my mobile number so if there was any major problems they could’ve get hold of me. I have to say getting back to the UK and suddenly receiving emails on my phone, it was quite a surprise and sort of daunting to see I have 314 unread emails from work.

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New York or Somewhere Different?

For my 21st birthday a few years ago, me and my mum went to New York for five days – I instantly fell in love with the city, my mum enjoyed herself way more than she thought she would (she’s not a big city kind of person) and we did loads of touristy things and saw a lot of shows.

This year my mum’s reaching a birthday milestone (I won’t say which because I’m nice like that) so she suggested we could go to New York again and do new things and the stuff we missed last time. So we’ve been looking at hotel prices and flights and that sort of thing when she said “Why go back to somewhere we’ve already been? We should try somewhere new.”

So now we’re thinking about other places in America we could go for a long weekend. So far we’re looking at Washington DC and San Francisco but more ideas would be welcome.

What city should we go to in the USA for 5 days and what should we do there? Big up your hometowns, give me your travel tips – I’m really liking this plan to explore somewhere new.

UPDATE: My mother has now suggested we stay in the UK and instead go spend a long weekend in a spa hotel and have epic chill time. So there’s now that idea to think about too. Dammnit mother! Stop having so many ideas!