What I’ve Been Up To, June ’13

Gigging

June was such a good month for gigs (read more)!  I feel as if I have achieved so much over the last few weeks.  My favourite was at The Masons Arms, which always has such an amazing supportive atmosphere.  I have quite a few named gigs lined up for the rest of the summer – you can find them all on my ‘live’ page.  The next one is on the evening of Friday 19 July at Jack Murphy’s (Wind Street, Swansea), 9pm start.  I’m so happy with the progress I’m making in this part of my life at the moment!  I finally feel as if I’m moving with a purpose. 🙂

Writing

I’m still looking for people to contribute to the 2 compzines I edit, Pandora Press and Sonorus: Feminist Perspectives on Harry Potter!

I recently wrote an article about bisexual invisibility for Bi Community News, which is due to be published sometime this summer – more details to come!  I also recently wrote a review of Secrets of a Suffragette for UK feminist blog The F Word, and wrote some zine reviews on Spill the Zines last week.

I’ve been working on issue 12 of my perzine recently, and am hoping to get it printed and published next week during my week off!  I’m so excited to have a zine out again; I sort of feel like I haven’t written a perzine since #9 really – #10 was a retrospect all about my university years, and #11 was made in 24 hours, so it mostly dealt with the rubbish that was floating around in my head at the time.  It’s been nice, to write like this again.

I’m currently doing a blogging challenge over at Spill the Zines for International Zine Month – follow my daily progress on the STZ Facebook and twitter!

Reading

One of the challenges for International Zine Month is to read a new zine every day through July!  You can follow my daily progress on the Spill the Zines Facebook and Twitter.  My favourite zine of this week was dirty love #2 (above).

I’ve been so busy with music and zine stuff that I haven’t managed to make time for much book reading at the moment.  I’m currently picking my way through ‘Reclaiming The F Word’ by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune, and ‘The Declaration of You’ by Michelle Ward and Jessica Swift.

Eating

I’m suffering with my hayfever at the moment, so have mostly been eating dishes made with lots of local honey and fresh garlic (not together!), as both are said to be good natural hayfever remedies.  Current favourites include homemade garlic ciabatta, pancakes drizzled with honey, and chinese and italian food stuffed with fresh chopped garlic!  It’s not having a huge effect, I’ll be honest, but I do love honey and garlic so I’m happy to keep trying. 🙂

I’ve also been getting into making fruit and veg smoothies, as quick and easy ways to get a lot of goodness into my body!  My 3 favourite recipes at the moment are banana and nut (I add a little almond milk to this recipe), carrot, nectarine and apple, and pineapple and ginger.

Some things that have made me happy recently:

– Yoga!  I finally got round to trying it and it’s wonderful.  I’m struggling to improve my flexibility, but then again I’ve only attended 2 classes so I’m hoping that will improve once the rest of my 10-week course is over 🙂

– Planning/designing my new blog and website with Daf. I’m so excited to get everything tidied up and generally looking more professional.

– Planning my first tattoo! I’m hoping to get it done sometime next month!

– Taking time off work next week!  I’ve got so much planned, it’s going to be amazing 🙂

– Going for long walks and picnics with Daf and Toby. We spent yesterday afternoon in a secluded quay in Kidwelly, it was awesome.  We had a veggie feast, read zines in the sunshine, and met another King Charles spaniel called Carlo 😀  Daf took some wonderful photos of me and Toby: