Luckily the blog was pretty much all written, I just had to read the last fifteen pages of the book which I've finally managed to do.

Has anyone else read this book? What did you think? #PhDSky #PhDChat #PhD #Gardens #BookReview

Its a silver Toyota CHR, reg FD19 AGX

Once the dashboard is up I'll share it on socials - there's also the option to leave your email address if you want and I'll drop you a line to let you know the dashboard is available, that way you won't miss my updates here.

Do let me know if you've any questions! 🌱🌻🍄

The plan is that once I have around 100 responses or so I'll make a publicly available dashboard that people can search that might help with planning themed garden spaces.

If you know a plant that fits the brief please do fill it in - and share with others that you think might like plants!

I picked three 'themes' - food, embroidery, clothing and my goodness they come up so much more than i would have guessed at the start. I almost gave myself a fourth of 'natural world/animals' and i'm pleased I didn't because it again comes up so much!

It's called Feather & Flame - it's part of a series of four books called The Queen's Council that take Disney princesses (this one is Mulan) and gives them a next story, one in which they are a ruler in their own right - in this one Mulan becomes the empress of China (not a spoiler - on the cover).

Once I’m done I’m considering turning this into a longer post if people are interested?!

But what do I do next when I get to the end of the book? English lit people - help me out! Go back through and see when and where each theme comes up and what the context is, then see what it tells me (if anything?).

It’s been super interesting, and has gone from being something I do not enjoy at all to something that’s giving me a little thrill each time I have to post it.

But I decided I would pick three themes at the start of the book and post-it every time they came up, and good crikey, I’m not even halfway through and I have so many sticky notes in the book.

I’ve never really been an ‘English Lit’ girly - I always found activities like ‘dissecting the themes of the book’ really draining and something that took away from my enjoyment of the book - which is what I felt they were there for. To be read, and enjoyed.

My secret hope is that he'll think it's great and that it should be turned into a collaborative paper to send off to be published...more likely he'll look at it and think it's garbage (which he'll then tell me very politely and diplomatically)...now I just have to wait and see!

If you don’t want to miss a post from the blog, why not sign up to my newsletter here:

open.substack.com/pub/lucybrew...

In good news? A week free of Phd writing means I can read Poirot and work on my embroidery without feeling guilty! 😂