Hi all! How have you been doing in June? This month was a really busy one, loaded with seeing friends and socialising. In the middle of wedding season that in itself is quite an achievement!

1. Awesome gigs

June featured quite a lot of fantastic live music. I closed May with The Futureheads and then this month went to Isle of Wight Festival, and to see Foals at Ally Pally. Isle of Wight was amazing despite all over the place weather. We were there for just a day and saw Sundara Karma, Rick Astley, George Ezra and Friendly Fires. I haven’t seen Friendly Fires  in about 7 years and I don’t think I’ve danced so much in a long time. I completely forgot how mind-blowing they are live! Foals also had the same effect on me last week. I went with my Foals gig buddy and we danced our butts off. I think Foals put on one of the strongest performances ever – their back catalogue is getting huge now. No one knows how to write good builders like they do!

2. Progress on Project Taka

Back at the start of the year I introduced ‘Taka‘, an elderly Mini I was taking on as a restoration project. I say me, mainly my Dad and I’m the one funding it, as I have zero mechanics skills. Little Taka is 2 weeks younger than me and will be hitting 31 years old in August. Dad has made steady progress and finished everything engine related this month! Being unknowledgeable I probably couldn’t tell you half of what he did, but it sounded like a lot!

I spent a Sunday this month with Dad working on the interior. It was my job to soundproof and lay the new carpets. Actually quite proud of myself even though in relation to all the stuff he’s done, it’s nothing! Dad has cleaned up all the seats, repaired the steering wheel, fixed the heater etc… and now the interior is pretty much done! I’ve ordered a new stereo and fittings for that so once those are in we will just need to do the outside. That’s the fun/costly final bit: deciding on what nice trim I want etc. I can’t wait to see the final sprayed Taka. Getting there!

3. Deliciously Ella podcasts

For those of you who read my ‘What I’ve loved’ regularly, you’ll see podcasts have been quite a big part of this year for me. Last month, Deliciously Ella’s new podcast series started. I absolutely love them for all things wellness. The ‘Period Power‘ podcast was so mind-blowing. Everyone avoids talking about it, but come on people – we’re all adults here.  I honestly never learnt so much about the topic as I did listening to this podcast – what we learn at school is so minimal. Nutrition 101 was also another great episode!

4. Chernobyl

I’d been hearing some things about Chernoybl a few weeks ago, and my other half suggested we watch an episode one weekend evening. Forward a few hours and we had watched until we really really had to go to bed. It’s easily the best TV series I’ve seen in a while. Obviously everyone knows of Chernobyl, but I had never really known the full story, and certainly not really known of the Soviet way of handling such a scenario. My mind boggles as to some of the things that happened. Definitely give it a watch!

My reading list went something like this:

1. Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind: Yuval Noah Harari: I started this book on our holiday and spent the first day of reading it saying every 5 mins ‘wow, did you know..’. It’s absolutely fascinating. I mainly enjoyed the historical side of humans; the different types of sapiens, how culture began etc. All in, this was such an interesting book. Definitely worth a read to help understand the background ofus! 4/5
2. Chernobyl Prayer – Svetlana Alexievich: While listening to some of the Chernobyl podcast that accompanied the series, the creators explained that a lot of the events were based on witness accounts from this book. It’s an collection of monologues from those involved in Chernobyl, those who lived through it, and those who witnessed it. Reading it really does make you shocked at what went on, so it’s a good eye opening read. However, because its in monologue form, the writing can be a bit frustrating sometimes. 3/5