Another Month Done And Dusted – April 2024 Updates & Favourites

April 2024 seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye. One moment it was Easter weekend and 1st April and now I’m sat here wondering how it’s May already. It’s felt like spring for approximately four days of the entire month, so that’s an improvement. But May better be nicer otherwise I’m going to be very sad.

I put my big coats away upstairs and have already regretted it a few times.

Here’s my April 2024 overview, updates and favourites.

Things I got up to in April 2024

It’s been another busy month of book events with two, all with authors who do greek mythology retellings/ reimaginings. At the start of the month I went to the Picadilly Waterstones for a talk with Rosie Hewlett and Bea Fitzgerald and this was one of the best talks I’ve been in ages. Both the ladies and the host (Lizzie Huxley-Jones) were great and it helped as I had read Rosie’s latest book Medea the week before.

Later in the month I went to a talk with Scarlett St.Clair for a slightly smuttier view on greek mythology. I went to this event on my own and it was actually nice to push myself out of my comfort zone and force myself to speak to people and not sit/ stand like a hermit.

Near the start of the month me and Luke went to a local festival in Bedford called Collison Fest mainly to see his favourite band Calva Louise. We saw about four bands in the evening, all of which were pretty good and it was nice to see some smaller bands. Then at the end of the month we headed to Hammersmith to see a Minority Report theatrical performance. I couldn’t remember too much about the story, but it was so good and really cleverly done. If you love the book or movie I’d highly recommend going.

Tattoos and exploring

Near the end of the month I headed down for a solo day in Brighton centered around another tattoo appointment. My tattoo wasn’t until 3.30pm so I spent the late morning and afternoon exploring, reading, book shopping and eating the most amazing brunch. I headed to Oeuf Cafe in Hove and had frumpets which are french toast crumpet stacks, and oh my god. The photo in this post may not look too appetising but it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

Things I watched, read and listened to

Me and Luke started watching the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime in April. Considering that I’ve never played the game I do really enjoy it, although have to look away for some of the super gory bits. I only headed to the cinema once over the month and that was to see Back in Black and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It was interesting to know more about Amy Winehouse’s background, although how much of it was reality I don’t know. But I didn’t love it anywhere near as much as other biopics I’ve seen. But I’m glad I’ve seen it.

I spent most of April 2024 listening to Pierce the Veil as I headed to see them in a few weeks into the month. I hadn’t properly listened to them for years but realised how great their latest album is. And live they were just as amazing as I remembered.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Bring Me The Horizon again as I want to try and rank all of their sings into my ultimate list. It’s just an excuse to re-listen to all the albums (great and not so great) and remind myself how much I love them.

April 2024 was another pretty good reading month, although it started off a little slow.

My three favourite reads were:

• The wake up call by Beth O’Leary. She is an auto-buy author for me and I always find her books pretty comforting and this was no different. It was an enemies to lovers, workplace romance. And I loved that the chapters were split POV between the two characters. Another easy 5 stars for Beth.
• The seven year slip by Ashley Poston was my other 5 star read. Having loved the Dead Romantics I went into this with such high expectations and it smashed them. I loved how it wasn’t just your standard romance, and I kept having questions about the logistics, all of which were answered later in the book which I appreciated.
• The touch of darkness by Scarlett St.Clair. Before the event I went to I read the first book in each of Scarlett’s series and I loved them both, but this was my favourite. It’s a Hades and Persephone reimagining where they’re in the modern world and gods live and move among mortal folk. And this was a pretty spicy version, and I loved it.

Things that made me happy in April 2024

Me and Luke have booked to go away for a long weekend over the August bank holiday weekend which I am so excited for. We’re heading to the Peak District and have found a beautiful cottage with a hot tub. So we’re planning to do some exploring, some walks and plenty of relaxing.

We ticked off the next few things in our year of dates pack. It started off with a date night dinner where we had to flip a coin to decide who cooked (or in our case roll a dice). And luckily for me Luke had to cook, and he did an amazing job. He made french onion soup and a beautiful spaghetti carbonara. I was a very happy, lucky and full wife that night. Then later in the month we went to the driving range for me to try and hit a golf ball. I wasn’t very good at it, but it was fun trying out and I did see a bit of progress which was nice.

Some of my favourite things

At the start of the month Luke put up some new shelves in our second bedroom for my books and I love them. Yes they’re already pretty packed, but they feel far less overwhelming than just being piles on top of our shelving until. And now I can actually see everything I’ve got. The top photo of this post is one wall with two shelves, and there’s one more shelf on another wall. So they’re great storage.

I also gave in to all the Tik Tok videos I saw about the crimpit and I’m obsessed. I love making wraps for lunch but struggled to seal them and they’d always end up a wierd shape. But this silly little piece of plastic has been a game changer and made my lunches so much more exciting. All you do is sit a wrap in it, fill one half then shut the crimpit and it seals it so you can air fry it like a dream.

How was your April 2024? Did you have a good month?