 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. How are you all doing? I hope you're all doing really, really well. I haven't been here in a few weeks but I'm back now and it feels so nice to be sitting in front of the camera. So today I'm going to be doing one of those catch-up let's chat videos that I like to do every now and again after I've disappeared for a while either because my mental health has taken a massive dive or I've just been really busy with lifestyle. Thankfully this time it is because of the latter. So the past month also for me has been mad. It has been so busy and exciting and non-stop among other things. You might know if you follow me on Twitter, Cameron and I got engaged which was amazing and we went on a road trip and we've also been moving house. So today I just wanted to chat to you all and update you on everything that's been going on and explain why I haven't been filming videos. I'll also tell you about what I've been reading recently, the whole shebang. So around a month ago now Cameron and I set off to Ireland to road trip around. We just spent a week out there and it was the best time ever. We flew over to Dublin and then picked up a hire car there and we just drove around for a week. We spent the majority of our time on the west coast which was the absolute best and Ireland was just so gorgeous. We absolutely loved it. We did a mix of wild camping and campsite and we basically just drove around and enjoyed the beautiful views. We did a lot of walking and reading and relaxing and it was honestly like the best break week ever. Cameron and I were actually celebrating our six-year anniversary together on the trip. We got together when we were 17 and we're now 23 which is mad and we took our anniversary cards with us so that we could swap them together at a special moment on the trip and then we were over on the cliffs of Moa on the west coast which are absolutely gorgeous. We had the best walk up there. It was so stunning and we were just having the nicest time together. We were just having a really good day and we decided to swap our cards then and in my card from Cameron he had written that I should close my eyes and that he had a surprise for me and so I did and then he said little speech and when I opened my eyes he was down on one knee and had a ring. So that was pretty amazing. I'm not gonna lie it was very very lovely. I did well up a little bit. For us this isn't about getting married anytime soon. We're not planning a wedding right now or anything like that. We just both wanted to do this thing together and we're just enjoying it and we're very happy. So Ireland was an absolute dream. It was one of the best weeks of my life for Shua and then when we got back from Ireland we started the process of looking for a new flat and moving so everything has been pretty non-stop. For the past year you may know that me and Cameron and a couple of our best friends have been living in a city centre flat and it's been so amazing but now we've got to the point where we're all going to be doing slightly different things which is sad in a way. It's the end of an era but Cameron and I are so excited to be getting a flat on our own. It's like the most exciting thing. Luckily we managed to find a gorgeous city centre flat really quickly and the whole thing's just gone really smoothly so we are now in the process of moving in. I just realised that I haven't actually said where I'm filming right now so this isn't our new flat. That would be insane. This is actually my mum's house because I'm back with my mum in the Lake District for a week. I'll get on to that in a minute. So we're moving over to the new flat pretty slowly. We've got a few weeks crossover between the old flat and the new flat and we're wanting to get everything really sorted and just ready for us before we move in. We're doing a lot of secondhand shopping and upcycling for our new flat. We're painting a lot of things ourselves so it's really cool to have the time to just get all of that sorted and have it really ready for us for when we move in. Quick shout out here to my lovely friend Margot who has been so amazing throughout this whole thing. She is like a queen of interior design and home furnishings and giving secondhand furniture gorgeous new lives and she has been so helpful to me and Cameron. Our flat is looking so good and it wouldn't look nearly as good without her. So we hope to be fully moved into the new flat in a week or two which is really really exciting and I'm thinking maybe I'll do a flat tour when we're all settled in and we've got all of the little details finished as well. Please just let me know if that's something that you'd be interested in seeing. It won't be the most gorgeous house that you've ever seen but we really love it and if you wanted to see then I'd be happy to show you around. So as well as all of that going on everything else has been pretty normal I'd say. I've been working quite a lot. Cameron has also been working quite a lot. He works at Waterstones and at a climbing wall if you didn't know. We've both actually been spending a lot of time at the climbing wall because climbing is so much fun. Climbing is just really great exercise and it's really fun and it's really challenging and really rewarding. I was really anxious when I first started climbing. I got halfway up the easiest route and had a full-blown panic attack but now I'm feeling much more comfortable with it and I think it's great. It's become really popular over the past year or so hasn't it but I would definitely wholeheartedly recommend it. Just go out and give it a go. It's really fun. Then my mum and sister came and visited us in Leicester for the weekend which was really really nice. They helped us do some painting and move some stuff over to the new flats and me and mum actually went to go and see a theatre performance of Grease at the Curve which was so good. Peter Andre was actually in the performance he featured as the guardian angel which was odd and then last weekend I came home to the Lake District to spend a week with my mum and sister and just have a nice holiday and that is where I am now. So I've been spending this week seeing family and friends and having lots of baths and doing a lot of reading and watching Bake Off with My Mum and going to yoga with Grandma and catching up on Booktube which has been so good. We also went to go and see Downton Abbey in Cinema which was so good. So as I said I've had a very busy and frankly amazing past couple of months. I did not have time to film, no filming happened but I am back now and honestly I wouldn't change it all for the world. So as for what I've been reading recently I've read quite a mix since I last spoke to you. So Booker Reading did happen before the Booker Shortlist was announced. I read Nightboat Tangier, My Sister the Serial Killer, Lanny, The Wall and Frankenstein, none of which made it onto the shortlist which is just sod's law. If I'm honest I was quite disappointed by the shortlist this year. The Rushdie and the Atwood are on there which I'm fine with but it didn't surprise me at all. I've heard negative things about an orchestra of minorities and it just isn't one that I'm really interested in anymore and I've totally gone off the idea of Doug's Noob Report. I am pleased to see the Aleaf Shafak on there and also Girl Woman Other by Bernardine Everisto. Those are two that I still really do want to read. I just feel like the other four on the list could have been far more interesting. I mean Lanny man, that book is so so good. Even Nightboat Tangier. Both of those two are just offering something really unique and interesting and it would have been awesome to have seen those on there. So that's how I feel on that. I don't really have much more to say about it to be honest. I just really hope that the Aleaf Shafak wins. I've also been reading some poetry recently which has been nice. I read a five star novel which was Ask Again Yes by Mary Beth Keane which was so good. I absolutely loved that book. It was my book to a tee. If you love Celestine at all then you really should try that novel. It's so amazing. You will be able to hear more about all the books that I've been reading recently in my next video which I plan to be my August and September recent reads. So do hang around for that if you want to hear more about my thoughts on the Booker books and everything else I've been reading recently. So I think I'm going to leave this video here. That's basically everything that's been going on with me over the past month or so and everything that I've been reading. So I hope you've enjoyed hearing about it. I would also love to catch it with you guys and hear about what you've all been doing recently. I really genuinely mean that. So if you want to talk to me down below about something cool that's happened to you recently or something good that's happened or something good that you've read then I would love to hear. I can't wait to see you all down below in the comments. Please say hi. It will absolutely make my day and I'm just really excited to be back and making more videos for you all. I do have a few tentative video plans that may be a bit different to what I normally film if you guys are open to watching those kind of things. Things like filming a flat tour when we're in properly and showing you all our new book cases and the layout of our books. That could be really fun. I'm also fancying maybe doing some fashion related videos and some just general favorite videos that don't have anything to do with books necessarily. So let me know what your thoughts are on all of that. And if you have any video requests at all I would absolutely love to hear them. They don't need to be to do with books. Just anything you might be interested in I would be really open to. So thank you all so much for watching. I really do appreciate it as always. I hope you're all doing really well and I look forward to speaking to you and I will see you all soon with another video. Bye.