The Circus of Horrors, Cabaret of Curiosities

 

I first saw The Circus of Horrors on their 'The Asylum' tour in 2007/2008 and knew these were my type of people! Unfortunately, I wouldn't return until over 10 years later with Mr H on one of our first-ever shows/events together for the Voodoo tour in 2018/2019. Then we were locked up indoors for more years still...until last year when we noticed they were going to be at our local theatre, the Customs House, South Shields for their Doktor Haze's Cabret of Curiosities tour on the 16th of February 2024 and so we had no choice but to go!
Only a week or two before the date and an extra exciting announcement was made stating that legendary drag queen Charity Kase would be joining the tour for certain dates (ours included!) and we couldn't believe our luck!
So on the 16th we got dressed up (well, for us!*) and headed off for our first theatre visit in 5 years. This is what we saw... *To be fair, a lot of people were in joggers so we were more dressed than them. I guess gone are the days of dress codes.

Obviously, the photos aren't fantastic, they were taken on my potato, I mean phone but if I had been allowed my camera I could have gotten some amazing shots as we had a great, unique view. We purposely chose the seats furthest from other people and donned our masks as always and it was a good decision. Just like the previous shows, this one was incredible only different in one way and that was the huge miss that was the original creator and master performer Doktor Haze. Sadly he passed away last year and though the show must go on, he is certain never to be forgotten. The inclusion of him in the show was beautiful.

As we exited and headed for the merch table we actually ended up getting evacuated due to the fire alarms going off, which is funny because of the amount of fire/smoke etc used on stage and how on top of it they were. You'd think the theatre would have been more prepared and expected it but oh well! We ended up hanging around for a little as we really wanted some merch and stupidly hadn't got it on the way in. Thankfully the gorgeous Anastasia IV the 'hair hanging goddess' was on hand to arrange our purchase and we scored an awesome hoodie, t-shirt, hot sauce (yes, they make a hot sauce?!), badge and tote bag. Happy with our haul and about to head home, Charity Kase appeared and for some unknown reason, I had the balls to ask her for a photo! Now it's known I am rarely in front of the camera but I just had to to document the night. She was more than lovely and really ended our evening on a high! We can't wait to return to the Circus soon. If only we could join! Oh, lastly, here's a little video of some clips I took. I didn't start filming much until the second half which I'm now gutted about but still, it's nice to have this. Enjoy.

8 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2024

 

This time last year I published a post called '10 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2023' and although I did the odd little check-in within my quarterly reading round-ups, I never did a proper update. Today I'm going to give updates on that list as well as talk about what I plan on reading in 2024.

2023 List
The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman - Unread
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Unhauled
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton - Unread
The Primrose Railway Children by Jacqueline Wilson - Read
Sepulchre by Kate Mosse - Unhauled
A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons - Read
The Garden of Lost and Found by Harriet Evans - Unhauled
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - Read
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker - Unread
The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell - Read

Read - 4
Unread - 3
Unhauled - 3

So I've, as of last year, decided that if I keep putting off a book to read I'm probably not going to read it and those three books that I've unhauled had been on my shelves for many years. Before I donated them I did look into them a little more online and realized they weren't for me after all. 

As for the 4 I did read, I had mixed feelings...
- The Primrose Railway Children by Jacqueline Wilson I rated a mere 1 star and I was so disappointed with it. I don't want to clog up this post with my ranting but if you're interested to know why I hated it so much I did talk more about it in my previous quarterly reading round-up here > What I Read Last Quarter // October - December. 
- A Clock of Stars: The Shadow Moth by Francesca Gibbons I gave 4 stars. It's been about 7 months since I read this so I can't pinpoint anything in particular that I liked but it was an enjoyable premise and I look forward to reading the second book at some point.
- Inkheart by Cornelia Funke got a 3-star rating from me. If I hadn't seen the movie before reading this I'd maybe have enjoyed it more, but the pacing seemed a bit off and I feel some chunks could have been missed out completely and it would still have been a perfectly fine book.

- The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell was another 4-star-er for me. It was read way back in February '23 so it's even harder to remember but I do know that I enjoyed it more than its predecessor.

Technically there should be 5 read books, as originally I had The Book of Dust Vol.1 on that list. However, I read it in January before I published the blog post so thought I couldn't count it. I wish I had counted it though because I never got around to it and like the other unread books it has been brought forward into my 2024 list, as seen below!

2024 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman (from last year's list) - 720 pages
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (from last year's list) - 586 pages
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (from last year's list) - 563 pages
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini - 665 pages 
Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery - 424 pages
Inkspell by Cornelia Funke - 675 pages
Mossflower by Brian Jacques - 427 pages

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Book by Natasha Pulley - 482 pages

As I probably said in last year's post, I know that a 'Big' book with be different to everyone. The majority of the books I read are usually between 200-300 pages so for me 400-800 pages is pretty long! I look forward to getting around to (hopefully) all of these books this year and have my fingers crossed for some more 4 and 5-star books in 2024!!

World Wetlands Day 2024

 

Friday the 2nd of February marked World Wetlands Day! 'World Wetlands Day is a United Nations International Day of Importance that celebrates the value and benefits of wetlands.' 
On the 2nd of February 1971, the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed in Ramsar, Iran and so this year marked its 53rd anniversary.
Wetlands, areas either always covered by water or for part of the year including flooded or waterlogged areas, are extremely diverse and valuable ecosystems that are sadly overlooked and undervalued.
They make up a mere 6% of our Earth's surface and have drastically declined since the 1970s at a rate three times faster than the loss of forests! 
Over the years our wetlands have been underappreciated and misunderstood, used and abused, drained and filled in to provide solid ground for humans to continue their 'development' takeover. 

Wetlands have many benefits but to me, the most important is that they are a home to many creatures big and small. That is surely enough to protect them?
World Wetlands Day is an important day of recognition with aims to raise awareness for the conservation and wise use of these magical places and I was lucky enough to visit our local Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust on the day.  Below are the photos I took there.

Read more here about What are wetlands, and why are they so critical for life on Earth?

Where are all the photos?! Exactly my thoughts. On this particular visit, I met up with a new friend and so it would seem my photo-taking suffered...however, it was just nice to be able to spend World Wetlands Day at one of my favourite places, the Wetlands.

I have many more posts of photos from our last year as WWT members coming up and there is another about Washington Wetlands Centre here > A Year at WWT Washington.