I'm a sentimentalist.

Okay so let's get one thing straight. I'm one of those sentimental people who has the ability to fall in love with something in about three seconds flat. Whether it be a person, a material object or more commonly, and brilliantly, a line of a book. I have just picked up, and when I say just, I mean, like, literally (see my Instagram @eleanorward_ for evidence!) Rainbow Rowell's widely acclaimed novel Eleanor and Park. I have had this book, along with about half a dozen others, sitting on the draws beside my bed since around Christmas. The titles visible when I open and close my eyes, there when I wake and when I drift heavily off to sleep. There is absolutely no denying that literature may be my one and only true love. (Sorry, to anyone this may offend, it's nothing personal.) 

But seriously, it's amazing. That feeling. I can't describe it in clearer terms. I just read half a page's worth; an inserted extract before the novel actually begins, and that's it. I'm in love. Properly. Like doe-eyed movie kinda love, intoxicated, overcome, totally and utterly seduced with the words on the page in front of me. If you know what this is like, you'll be pretty familiar with the feeling. My smile is happily escaping from my lips, as I get ready to discover a book that has been flung into my grasp too many times to even count. Plus, and this is the obvious bit (and I can't even explain why) I mean maybe I'm a narcissist, but I kind of like the fact I'm going to read a book entitled with my name (even partly so.) Vain or what? Who cares, let's do this. 

You can very obviously expect a blog post/review/babbling document as a follow up in time. Oh, while I'm at it, with books and everything.. I finished Nathan Filer's The Shock of the Fall today, and it's brilliant. I loved it. YOU MUST READ IT. Even @nathanfiler favourited my tweet about it, so y'know, he even knows how good his own work is. 

Happy days: #1

Okay so I've well and truly jumped on the #hashtagging happy days bandwagon and for that, I'm smiley yet also partly sorry for giving into it. It's kind of just too irresistible. I'm going to write happy posts every so often, in a list-like form, of things that make/ are making me, happy. Plus, as people know, I have a tendency to be cynical, negative and terribly pessimistic. Indeed. So, maybe, I think, this may help lift my mood, and focus on positives rather than negatives. Always a good idea, right? So here goes nothing. 

A kind of given, but Alex Turner's voice is just the soundtrack to my life at the minute. I'm unhealthily obsessed with Arctic Monkeys, and AM is, in my view, the best album yet. My favourite song, well, I have too many. I'm too indecisive for that. 

My "reading week" at uni: yes! It's finally here, shh, we're taking advantage of any time off possie. As of Monday coming, I'm off for the week (according to my own schedule anyway) so that means no uni, no stressy mornings and no boring as hell lectures at 9am. Happy days, I've needed time off for ages. Sleep time yes.

My latest read: as some of you may or may not know, Nathan Filer's debut novel The Shock of the Fall won Costa's book prize this year. Immediately, I almost sprinted to Waterstones to get my hands on a copy. As soon as my eyes feasted on the first few pass of this brand spanking new novel, I just knew I was going to love it. I'm about a third of the way through at the moment, and it's really addictive. The crisp pages are just engorged between my fingertips. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've read in ages. Read it. It's making me happy.

My old new-found obsession with My Family. We bought the boxset around Christmas time. If you haven't seen it already, I urge you to google it, or find one of the many sky channels that count on repeats to fund their viewings, because this programme will be lurking around I promise you. Originally a BBC sitcom, My Family follows the lives of the Harper family, their ups and downs, loves and losses, through chaos and celebration, turmoil and despair. I have seen every single episode multiple times, and now we've invested in the boxset (yes..boxsets are the way forward for a quick fix) I just need to watch them over and over again. Also, Miranda, yes, she's wonderful, and the sitcom is just painfully hilarious. Get watching.

Oh, and I can't forget this one. A spin off from the very well known Grey's Anatomy, Private Practise was discovered by me about a year ago, maybe less. I started watching just one or two episodes a week, and now it's five and a half seasons later and things are unwinding like never before. It's already finished, I might add. This programme doesn't run any more. It ended 13 episodes into six seasons, over nearly as many years. I have around 15 hours of it left to watch, ever, and I'm torn between savouring it and completely devouring it in one intense, bizarre, emotional sitting. The latter will probably occur very shortly. 

So, yes. Happy moments. Also, a tiny little shout out to Lukas. I'm not one for soppy exchanges and waaaaay OTT PDA's, but I don't care, this suffices, because, he makes me happy. So there you go. That's really all there is to it.