Earl Grey Books

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is a non-bookish freebie. I thought I’d keep it pretty simple and just talk about my favourite non-bookish things.

Tea

You can probably guess from the name of my blog that I do, in fact, enjoy tea. You can probably also guess that my favourite is Earl Grey—I know it’s a bit of a controversial pick, but it’s always been my favourite. I like trying different types of tea as well though, and of course, eating lots of desserts as I do that.

My Cats

I have two beautiful cats—Percy and Fletcher. Percy is the little black-and-white one in my blog header—he’s six years old and has been with me for five years now. He was my first ever cat, and oh boy, was it a learning curve! He is extremely mischievous and a bit of an oddball but still adorable. Fletcher is the little ginger and white one—he’s just turned eight this month but has only been with me for just under two years. He was pretty badly treated by the seven or eight foster homes he was moved between, so he’s extremely shy and scared of everything but me, but he’s also an absolute sweetheart and can be extremely cheeky when he wants to. I love them both a lot—they’ve bought me so much joy.

Movies

These days I honestly don’t watch that many movies or TV shows—I find it kind of hard to concentrate on them these days and for me, just reading a book is easier. I do still enjoy it when I get the time. I’ve had the same two favourite movies for a while now—Terminator, which is one I used to watch with my dad pretty much every month, and then The Mummy, which my best friend and I usually watch whenever we get to hang out.

Music

Next to reading, listening to music is probably the thing I do the most (other than you know, eating, sleeping and generally keeping myself alive). It usually helps calm me down, especially if my mental health is playing up, so I rely on it a lot for that. I like a relatively wide mix of artists: David Bowie is an absolute favourite, as is Taylor Swift, but I also like Marina, Maisie Peters and Fleetwood Mac a lot.

Art History

I’m currently doing a degree in Art History, so I do spend a bit of time thinking about it. My course is relatively general, but I’m specifically interested in the Renaissance and female artists throughout history. My favourite artists include Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo and Van Gogh.

Writing

I suppose you could argue this one is ‘bookish’ because in my case, I am talking about writing novels. I started writing at about age seven, and I used to do it almost every day. It’s hard to work and deal with my medical conditions and still have time for writing, so it’s something that I don’t do as often as I’d like anymore, but I’m trying to get back into the routine of doing it.

Crossstitch

This is another hobby I don’t do as much as I used to, but I’m trying to get back into it as well. This was definitely a lockdown activity for me—I live in Melbourne, so we spent over 260 days in lockdown, during which time I desperately needed something to do beyond all of the things I’ve already mentioned. I really enjoyed it, and I hope to start back up this month.

And that’s everything for me. Do you share any of these non-bookish hobbies/favourites?