Matt's birthday, A silent voice and Nottingham

Honestly this blog isn’t abandoned! I just haven’t had much to blog about recently, unless people want to read about me slobbing about in my pyjamas every weekend! It has been quiet recently, but I suppose this time of the year always is. Plus there is just over 7 weeks until my japan trip so I have mostly just been saving my pennies for that.

This last week though I have been out and had some fun. Last weekend I booked the Monday and Tuesday off of work to spend some time with Matt for this birthday. We really didn’t do very much other than the cinema and a trip to Wing Yip. I bought a LOT of panda biscuits for cheap cheap prices. (10 for £8.50 bargain) and yes I have eaten them all. Then Tuesday was his actual birthday and our 11 year anniversary. We went out with his Mum in the evening for dinner, but other than that it was super chilled and relaxed.

Forcing Matt to participate in selfies with me

Then on Friday I headed up to Nottingham again. I have been DESPERATELY trying to find places that were playing ‘A silent voice’ and they were playing it in Nottingham over the weekend so we decided to go and spend the weekend with Laura and Sam again.

I’ll start with the film because BY JINGO it was good. If you don’t know what it is then here is a little synopsis I have stolen from myanimelist.com

‘Ishida Shouya bullies a deaf girl, Nishimiya Shouko, to the point that she transfers to another school. As a result, he is ostracized and bullied himself with no friends to speak of and no plans for the future. This is the story of his path to redemption.’

It was a lot deeper and darker than I had originally thought which wasn’t a bad thing. It is really uncomfortable watching these children pick on this poor deaf girl (Nishimiya) and then to see how quickly the ring leader (Ishida) friends’ (who were also bullying Nishimiya) turned on him. He ended up becoming the victim of bullying for his original behaviour and we flash forward to a boy planning on ending his own life who has been ostracised and spends his time alone to avoid being picked on himself.

We watch Ishida try and make peace with Nishmiya and also slowly make new friends even though there are quite a few bumps along the way. Everything kind of seems to be going well between the two but then we realise how much years of bullying has affected Nishmiya and Ishida ends up getting critically hurt in an attempt to save her.

It was a really beautiful film and some points really hit home especially if you have ever dealt with bullying or social anxiety. There are some really funny bits in it too and the progression of character development throughout the film feels really natural and right. The art was gorgeous and as was the music. It pulls at the heart strings all the way through the film and although has an open ending it leaves you feeling warm and content.

I would really love to see it again but alas I am having trouble finding somewhere that is showing it that I can get to easily. However if I can I will defiantly see it!  

Forcing Laura to also take selfies with me....... no one seems to like having their picture taken!

So we saw that on Saturday afternoon and started the morning off with a trip to a farmers market for brownies and then Primark (according to Laura to get it out of the way lol). Then after the film we did plenty more shopping. There is a book shop called Page 45 that sells some really unusual yaoi manga which I ended up picking up 3 books from. Oops…… and also we picked up far too much manga in forbidden planet because the one in Nottingham has an epic manga section.

Other than the tones of manga I ended up buying, I also got a new shirt and some birthday gifts for Laura. We then headed to Annie’s as we always do for burgers and I got a big breakfast one again and it tasted amazing. Laura had big plans for us to go for drinks after but we were so tired we headed home and watched weird documentaries all night, and I feel a sleep half way through as I was so exhausted.

Sunday was pretty lazy with a really late breakfast (I made some pastry things I made for Matt’s birthday breakfast which involves bacon, cheese and scrambled egg in puff pastry) and I then drove back into Nottingham for Matt to pick up a coat he has seen after all the shops had shut. The afternoon was spent watching TV and doing Laura’s hair and having a good chat and eating doughnuts! I had such a lovely weekend and was gutted when we had to come home.

But I am home now and back to work. The next big thing to look forward to will be Japan now! Hopefully as the weather improves I will get out a bit more too, I hope so I feel like I really need some sunshine!