 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel Long Time No Speak. You may or may not have noticed that over the past four or five weeks I think it is now I've not been uploading on my booktube channel but today I am and I just wanted to sit down with you all and have a good chat with you all really about where I've been, what I've been doing, why I've not been uploading, what I've been reading. Quickly before we start I do just want to point out that I have a new camera you may or may not be able to tell by the quality but I'm so excited about it. I've actually never owned a camera before, I've always filmed on my phone before now so this is pretty cool for me, I've been wanting one for a while and I decided to just splash out and treat myself so I'm very excited. I don't really know what I'm doing with it yet, I may be way too bright, I may be too dark, I may not be in focus all of the time, I don't really know but I'll continue to play around with it and hopefully it will mean better quality videos in the future. So I'll start off by telling you why I've not been posting videos over the past month or so and what's been going on in my life. I've spoken about my mental health and the mental illnesses that I have in the past on my channel so those of you who've been watching me for a while will probably already know that I have generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. I have struggled with these things my whole life, this isn't a new thing for me, I think I was being treated for my anxiety and OCD when I was four years old so this is just all part of my life. It's all something I'm very used to, I don't know what it's like to not have these illnesses so combine this with all of the many years of treatment that I've undergone during my lifetime. My GAD and OCD and depression are things that I'm relatively good at monitoring and coping with but I do go through periods in my life where my mental health takes a big dive as we all do and when this happens it can be quite serious and it can make living my day-to-day life quite hard. The past few months for me generally have been really hard, I've been going through one of these rougher periods and I've not been very well at all. I've constantly been working really, really hard to keep going and monitor my illnesses and stay functioning and stay well and throughout this period I had days where I was feeling much happier and much more well and I had more energy and I would grasp those opportunities and I would film. But that hasn't really been possible for me over the past few weeks. Day-to-day life has been really, really hard. Getting out of bed was hard, going outside was hard, attending work was hard, just day-to-day functioning and living was hard. I've also been struggling with my physical health recently as well. That's a whole other story but put those two things together and that's been pretty crushing for me. So that's where I've been recently, mainly in my bed or at the doctors and I'm by no means out of that period at the moment. There's still a long way to go until I come out of the other side of this thing. I think a lot more perseverance and hard work but as you can see today I am feeling so much better. It's actually incredible how good I've been feeling over the past couple of days and I just really wanted to sit in front of the camera and talk to you all. So that's it for that kind of thing. I do just quickly want to say a really big, genuine thank you to everyone who's been so kind about my mental health in the past and thank you to everyone who will be kind about it in the comments of this video because I know there are so many of you who will be. You're all so supportive and amazing and I feel absolutely no pressure to get better and get back on it and get in front of the camera. You're all just so understanding and so kind and for those of you who've actually said to me that I shouldn't worry about filming and that you'll be here for me when I get back and that I should just take my time, thank you so so much. That is the best thing I could hear. Hello YouTube. I hope you're liking the new camera. So for those of you who may be wondering about my job, I am still in my job at Sweet Cherry Publishing. For those of you who don't know I am a junior editor at an indie children's publishing house in Leicester. I've been at Sweet Cherry Publishing for around seven months now and although the past couple of months have been pretty challenging for me personally, I still absolutely love my job. I love editing books. I love thinking up new content ideas. I love talking to authors and working with the design department and I love learning more about grammar and language every day. I'm doing so many cool things and I'm learning all of the time so I'm really really happy with my job and I feel really good about that area of my life generally even if it has been a struggle recently. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I do want to make a video talking about working in publishing. At some point I want to do a video talking about what it's like to be an editor and what it's like to work in children's publishing and loads of things so I will do that at some point, I promise. I have some really nice things coming up in my life soon which I am really excited for and really grateful for. Cam and I were meant to be going on a road trip soon around Wales but we've actually had to postpone that because of how and well I've been feeling a road trip would be challenging for me at the best of times so considering how I've been feeling recently it just wasn't a good idea. So instead we have booked a weekend away at a lovely hotel with a spa and we're just going to get away for a few days and spend some time together and relax and I cannot wait. I've also seen some friends recently which was lovely and the weather is starting to get warmer and brighter so all good things. Another pretty amazing thing has happened here recently as well and this seems as good a time as any to talk about it and that is that here on my channel we reached 3,000 subscribers. I am absolutely blown away by this. I know that everybody says this but I genuinely can't believe this has happened. I cannot fathom the idea of 3,000 people liking me and choosing to subscribe to me and watch me. This channel and you lot fills my heart with so much happiness and light and joy and I am so appreciative for all of it. Thank you so so much to every single one of you. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for sticking with me. I do really want to do something to celebrate 3,000 subscribers and to give back to you all but I don't really know what to do. My brain can't really think of anything at the moment so please let me know what you'd like to see. Would you like to see a giveaway or a Q&A? I did a Q&A for 1,000 subscribers I think and everyone seemed to really like it. If we did that you could ask me anything, literally anything, no boundaries. Please just let me know. We'll have a brainstorm down below in the comments and I'll make it happen. So I think that basically sums up my life recently. Not much of anything else has been happening. In terms of what I've been reading recently, women's prize reading is definitely over for me at this point, at least for the foreseeable future. I really enjoyed following this year's long list and I read some gems, I found some books that I really enjoyed but I wasn't overly pleased with the shortlist, if I'm honest. I've read four out of the five books on the shortlist and I'm not particularly in the mood to pick up Milkman at the moment which is the one I haven't read. So I just kind of turned away from the list for a while and read some things that were completely different and it was so good for me. I was really craving some Victorian, thrillery, addictive kind of historical fiction at one point, just something that I could get lost in and devour and race through and really enjoy and so I picked up The Conviction of Cora Burns by Caroline Kirby and this was such a good time. I've also been reading some and Bronte recently. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my first Bronte and I'm absolutely loving it. It's so fun and comforting for me to read. I also recently read Something Like Breathing by Angela Redmond which I also absolutely loved. It's set on a Scottish island in the 1950s and it's about two girls and it was a five star read for me. So reading has been really good for me recently. I've really enjoyed getting back into reading because there was definitely a period a couple of months ago when I wasn't reading anything so this has been really nice. At the moment I'm taking a bit of a break from reading anything new because my mind just isn't there and I'm rereading the Harry Potter books which is really really good. Of course you'll hear more about all of those books that I just mentioned in my next recent reads video whenever that may be. So I think that's going to be it for this video. I think that's a pretty good catch-up. Thank you so much for watching. If you've made it all the way to the end I really really appreciate it and I'm sorry if you're not here to hear about my life if you just want to hear the book reviews. That's completely fine and I promise I will be back on bookish videos very very soon. I've got so many good ideas, so many things that I really really want to film soon. I just need to make the push and actually do it. I'm hoping that the incentive of my lovely new camera will help with this. I would love to know what's been going on with you all recently as well. Please let me know down below what you've been up to and what you've been reading. Something good that's happened to you recently. I would really really like to hear about some good things. Let's chat down below. Let's chat on Twitter. If you didn't know I do have Twitter. I like to tweet about the things that I'm up to and pictures of pretty books and what my boyfriend's reading. And I just love to see what you are all up to as well. So go over there and say hi if you want to. I would really like that. I'm going to go now. Thank you again for watching. Thank you all for being so kind and I will hopefully see you all soon with another video. Bye.