Counting down to Northern Craft

Counting down to Northern Craft

Saturday 7 October 2017

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With Northern Craft a week today I thought i'd get excited with a look back at all the goodies I got from their Summer Fair.

In August my friend Jessica and I paid a visit to the Northern Monk Refectory in Leeds for Northern Craft after missing the April event.  A brewery with a tap room full of great beers, amazing food trucks and a room of incredible independent crafters, what more could you want?

With it being the weekend before my birthday I treated myself to a few bits after a number of loops around the room.

Autumn Wild, Winter Wild & Pages On A Theme Zines from Kristyna Baczynski 
Garden Bird Notebook from Kate Broughton 
'It'll Be Reet' Pin by Kim Lawler, Finest Imagery from Northern Craft's Pin Drop
Mother's Ruin Patch from Hord Co

Mug and 'More Letters of Note' are from Homesense and we picked up the Cloudwater Wit Loral and The Kernel Porter from Little Leeds Beerhouse in the Corn Exchange.

Northern Craft was held in the top floor of Northern Monk's grade II listed home and after treating ourselves we headed down one floor to their tap room to attempt to pick from their sixteen keg lines, 2 cask lines and incredible can and bottle selection.

After a couple of beers we headed down to check out Awesome Merchandise, Leeds merch experts who were screen printing tote bags in the entrance.

Regretfully, we skipped it on the way in thinking oh, it will be fine to do it on the way out. Well, we we're wrong and there was a queue out of the door. So next weekend you will be mine AM x Northern Craft tote!

A week later I caught up with Jessica to find out she'd treated me to the incredible HÔRD hip flask that I had fallen in love with, including my initials on the back. So not only do I have amazing friends but the gin obsession continues and it definitely has my name on it. 

Northern Craft was such a refreshing day full of creativity, craft, talent and passion. I cannot wait for next weekend to see what the talented independents and makers bring to Northern Craft and what comes of the worships. 

Showcasing 35 makers and workshops, who can you not wait to see? 

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'The Girl On The Train' by Paula Hawkins

'The Girl On The Train' by Paula Hawkins

Tuesday 3 October 2017

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“There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home.” 

I finally picked up ‘The Girl On The Train’ after a a long run of hype and constantly seeing the film adaptation advertised everywhere. The novel centres around Rachel taking the same commuter train everyday, focusing on a signal stop and the suburban homes behind the tracks. At this stop she idealises a couple whose home she can see into and reflects on her previous ‘perfect’ life. 

As we follow this daily pattern, gin and tonics fall in with hints of alcoholism and it soon becomes clear that Rachel is trying to cover something up. What isn’t clear at this point is that Rachel is using alcohol to mask harder times. Her unreliability and memory loss increasing as she loses herself in the fictions she creates around the couple she can see from the tracks. 

With all this building the story kickstarts the moment she witnesses something out of the ordinary in the perfect life she loves watching and desperately goes to the police.  As Rachel’s unreliability develops as readers we are desperate to fill in the blanks but also to find out what drove her into her disparity. 

From this point on I was waiting for the twist, or at least hints of it. So rather than finding myself wrapped up in ‘The Girl On The Train’ I felt like I was just waiting for it to happen. 

Rachel isn’t the only narrator in the novel. Hawkins creates three distinct female voices whose narration she switches between. The style creates a desperation between chapters that leaves us the reader over reliant on not putting the book down, a fantastic ploy and technique to keep you reading.  

As much as these voices were distinct I found each narrator was defined by the men in their lives, even the ones who were a mystery to them. This dictated our perception as the reader, feeling as those the male characters had more control over our perception of the three narrators and their unreliabilities than the characters themselves, purely because we were not met with their flaws yet. 

Although this agitated it me thinking back it reflected on how much time we spend as voyeurs now. We often work on assumptions made with the little knowledge we have about people or focusing on their issues rather than the situation that led them there.  Exactly the situation Rachel found herself in. 

After finishing the novel I was eager to watch the film but it lacked something I loved about the novel, the elements and closeness of London. 

The location in the novel commented on how little attention we pay to those who we commute with on a close daily basis and the mysteries of what happens behind closed doors. By changing to an American landscape the closeness was lost and everything I loved about the book. 

What did you think? Buy it here: The Girl on the Train

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