• Blogging,  Food & Drink

    My journey with food, & beyond.

    I have been musing about what to add on my blog and I thought why not Food & Drink? Let me take you on a journey as to why I love this topic so much…

    Lovely steak at Brewers Fayre

    When I was a child I loved going out to places and loved to eat a lot. A favourite place I used to love in Cardiff Bay was a fish and chip restaurant centred next to Techniquest. It was a lovely place and it had some memories I will treasure forever of going there with my dearly beloved nan.

    Scroll on to 2000s, I was an anti-food snob and barely ate anything but ready meals and the so. There was a period of time that during my teens I just wanted to eat & go out. I didn’t appreciate either my mother’s home cooking or where we went to eat, I had no idea about money or what food costs.

    Since 2015, I have started to really enjoy tasty food. Yes I have gained weight (about a stone… or two) but it can’t put a price on the happiness I feel when presented with a tasty meal. I have, in the last few years, tried a few different areas, and other places such as Cardiff & small vintage inns or local pubs & restaurants nearby.

    I have found some unique menus with options including fish, meat, pasta & salad. Although I am not a vegetarian I am going to pledge to look at 1 vegetarian for every 4 meat dishes on my blog. I will be showing you the dishes that I love. I would not describe myself as a critic but more a lover of food.

    Mom’s homemade spaghetti bolognese

    Please join me on this new journey where I will show you both new & old places to eat in South Wales (UK). I’m sure many people have heard of places like Toby Carvery & Jamie’s Italian but I want to show you places that many don’t know even exist. Join me & fall in love with food again! To collaborate or for sponsored posts click here.

    Please Note: 
Images are my own - share only with my permission. ©WBooksnThoughts.
  • Blogging

    HOW TO: Start a blog (& maintain it)

    This is a common post most bloggers end up creating – about how they survived the first few months blogging. It is crucial that in the first few months you don’t give up as they are the most challenging of all the months. After you have established a brand or started working with brands hopefully it will get easier. I’m not quite at that level yet but I am actively searching for brands to collaborate with, in 2019. Anyway, here’s my top 5 tips…

    1. Make sure you have content ready BEFORE making your blog.

    This is important because when you first open your blog and ask people to view it, you want to have some content already so they want to come back for more in the future. I know from experience when I first started uploading content people were confused by it as they didn’t know what I would post next & if they would like it (I’m sure some still do wonder where this blog is going, I’m working on it – I promise!). The more consistent content you have the more a person is likely to follow it as they want to read more in the future.

    2. Find a topic YOU love talking about, a lot!

    This is a decider on whether your blog will thrive or fail. If you have a topic you love and can’t stop talking about that’s what you should talk about on your blog. I know from experience that I choose a topic and ran out of things to talk about because I wasn’t enthusiastic enough and had no more conversation to write about. I have since changed my blog name & topics to suit what I like and it works much better.

    3. Decide early on, what themes you like

    This is something you should do preferably before you promote your blog. It is important that a theme shows your uniqueness in a rapidly growing world of blogs. Your theme should be something you would want to read & is drawn to you. To put it bluntly, if it is a shit theme & does not follow what you’re saying, people won’t want to read it anymore … of course, you can always change your theme after and make it better in time.

    4. Get solid advice from other bloggers and friends

    This is a tough one if none of your friends and family blog or work in IT/graphics. It will be crucial that you view other blogs that you admire or want as a base to start your blog (however you can not under any circumstances copy them… EVER!) My advice would be to create your site but do not publish it until you have asked others you know to look over it, even if its just the menu’s don’t look quite right or the theme doesn’t show your personality (see above), in the long run, you will thank them!

    5. Think of an AWESOME blog name

    This is a really interesting one. Although if you stick with a hosting site (I will talk more about what that means in another post or Google it now!) you can change your name multiple times if you don’t like it. the best blog start with a unique name (or the bloggers own) which get them noticed. When you eventually go self-hosted (IE a .com site) you want to stand out from the crowd and be noticed as an interesting name for potential readers to remember and brands to want to work with.

    That is the end of my ranting and raving. I hope these (admittedly brief) tips and tricks will help you create your very own blog like mine (or better, who knows). If there is a trick I mentioned above that you used tell me if it worked.

  • Favourites,  The Library

    Library Volunteering: 1 YEAR ON.

    As you might be able to tell from the title I have now been a library volunteer locally for over a year and what a year its been. I have had my ups and downs but overall helping out has been a good experience & I aim to carry on for another year…

    Meeting new people

    In a library, it is impossible to go a shift without seeing and greeting new people. They are either regular members of the library or new-comers. Sometimes you bump into people you know outside the library and start a conversation and get distracted. I love chatting to members about books and how their life is going.

    Reading new authors:

    Being in a library you see lots of books being checked in and out, you start out a conversation with the member; get to asking “whats your favourite author or series?” and create a list of of new books or old favourites, then you go and read the synopsis and see if its something you would like to read yourself. I have found lots of new book series and authors this way.

    Getting involved in the Book Community & creating this Blog:

    Because of my volunteering, I got the confidence to create this blog and run it 100% myself, with technical help from my good friend Matthew. This blog has become an outlet for all my library wonderings and get the word out about libraries closing. The library also inspired me as a blogger as I write reviews for books I read and I also now get requests from publishers and authors who would like honest reviews online which makes me feel proud.

    Do you use your local library? Has your library closed down?
    Do you prefer to own books rather than borrow?
    Tell me WHY in the comments below.

  • Blogging,  Favourites

    ONE YEAR OF BLOGGING, IN 2018.

    This post is a celebration of blogging for a whole year. Am I proud? Yes. Will I continue? Yes. Do I think I can improve? Definitely. Will you join me reading my blog? I hope so!

    As this year has flown by so quickly, I want to look back on what I’ve learned this year blogging. Then do a brief description of what My Blog was, is & My new goals.

    WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:

    This year has been an eye-opening experience into the world of blogging. Although I have tried before in my teens it wasn’t until I fully dived into the community of books and blogs I didn’t have a clue it even existed. Blogging may look easy but it takes a lot of work, effort and sometimes creativeness to pull it off.

    It is a competitive world but most bloggers all pull together and help one another. I feel I have been neglecting this blog recently due to a thing called “Life” and I’m hoping to jump back into it soon. I noticed that some bloggers are more successful than others but others are a more interesting read. Just because they are popular right now doesn’t make the blog superior – blog popularity quickly changes.

    Just because your blog isn’t “popular”, doesn’t mean you haven’t put in the same amount of work into content!

    My blog personally has tried a few things and failed but that’s okay because you need to think outside the box and try – sometimes it works & sometimes it doesn’t.

    WHAT MY BLOG STARTED AS: This blog started out as a hobby as I enjoyed reading I wanted to share it with the world. While first starting out in the blogging world I had no clue what I was doing and had to change a lot of my posts. Most of my first few posts were obviously book reviews. This is my first blog post HERE.

    WHAT IT CURRENTLY IS: My blog has recently become self-hosted (post about it HERE). I am looking into different topics to add to posts as I don’t believe I am doing my best by writing book reviews. I believe I need to create more posts with more passion for what I am writing. This means right now I am coming up with a few different posts and seeing which ones work best with readers.

    WHAT I WANT FOR THE NEXT YEAR: In the next year, I hope to get more daily views and continue posting good quality posts. I don’t know which direction my blog is going yet as it is an on-going process. I want to increase activity and start writing more posts. I would love this little space on the internet to become my full-time career maybe a few years down the line. I think if I put enough effort into creating content I could create an income from this blog one day.

    WHAT do I want TO ADD TO MY BLOG?: I am going to start adding a huge variety of different topical posts on my blog, which I hope will become popular!

    What are your blogging achievements? Will you be continuing following my blog?
    What are your favourite posts on my blog? What can I do to upgrade my blog?
    LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

  • Books,  Favourites,  REVIEWS

    [REVIEW] Animal Farm – George Orwell

    “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.” – George Orwell

    As I finish this book I am reminded why I wanted to read it. Not only is it a good commentary on modern sociology but a great book to read. This book follows the liberation & revolution of a farm in England that drives out all humans and establishes a hierarchy of animals in control of themselves. It is a quick read and rather interesting. This is a tale that shows the darker side of human nature through the eyes of animals copying them.

    This book is one of my favourite books of 2018. I thoroughly enjoyed and had a good time reading it (but slightly distressed, due to graphic descriptions within the book). This is a great read that has a brilliant film adaptation.

    George Orwell, the author, is famous over the world for writing both this and “1984” among other less-known novels. Both books have individually stood the test of time & known all over the world for being modern classics.

    Did I see the ending coming? Honestly, Yes as well as watching the film first I could also tell by the way it was written how it was going to end, but that didn’t take anything away from the final few pages when I was reading it.

    Would I recommend this book? Yes, to all ages over 12 (purely due to graphic violence). This is a book that anyone, anywhere can read and if you didn’t know; it is based on the real-life event of the Russian Revolution.

    SPOILERS BELOW…

    Although Snowball is taken out of the equation early on and to be honest you don’t know whether to trust him or not, about 10 pages into him leaving the farm I started to question Why? …and I wanted him to come back.

    My favourite character has to be Boxer, not for the way he is but because he shows how loyal he is to the farm, how his undying devotion eventually is his own demise. He is the best character and lovable throughout the book.

  • Favourites,  The Library

    Libraries in 2018 (part 2)

    I think this is an interesting topic. Do you use your library? As you might know, if you have been following my blog I volunteer at my local library. Some days I can’t wait to get home and other days I enjoy my time there. This is part 2 of my “series” talking about Libraries. Part 1 is here!

    In the library, there are many things to do and it keeps you busy. There is looking for books and giving our books out to lend and keeping our costumers happy.

    The library is so useful for people with a low income as they can borrow books for 3 weeks at a time for free. We as book bloggers and vloggers take for granted a lot that we can receive books without paying for them (although we are tied to making reviews – I understand that).

    Some negatives to using a library card is 1. you do not own the books you read so can not add them to your shelves and 2. you can only have a few weeks to read a book before you are asked to return it – not a problem at under 300 pages long, a big problem at 600!

    My personal experience with a library

    Although I didn’t use the library until I volunteered there in 2017 I always as a child read books and I’m pretty sure my primary school borrowed books from the library (and still do!). As I hit my teens I was self-conscious and didn’tt read in secondary school except for English studies but bout 6 years ago at 21 years old I decided to start reading again and I have not looked back

    Something to consider

    As some people might be aware there has been series of closures around the UK, which has resulted in libraries such as my own have been demoted to “Community” libraries, This means we rely on the public and the library itself raising funds to keep it open. This month it is a year since the volunteers (like me) took over.

    Do you use the library? Is there a local library near you? Has your library closed down? What would makee you go to your library? Share your opinions on libraries!