basically living on the sun 🥵☀️🔥

and other musings from this month

May has literally disappeared into a giant fireball.

After a pretty busy April, the biggest things I’ve done this month have both been for videos - a solo afternoon out and then my first-ever visit to the RAF museum!

(I had to look through my camera roll to remind myself of this month, and that’s pretty much the entirety of my photos).

It’s been good, though! I’ve been really proud of my videos whether they performed well or not. And I’m excited about my video plan for June! The cycle never stops.

In non-Youtube-related-news, I dog-sat my friend’s Cocker Spaniel for the first time 🐶 She’s adorable and sooo well trained that it was a total dream.

And finally, the hottest May day on record. I think it happened twice, actually?

I had sweat coming out of places I didn’t even know could sweat.

Everything turned a red hue.

I was crawling around our flat, trying to find any type of relief (feet in a bucket of cold water, wet tea towel on my shoulders).

I always loved summer in Canada, but it’s definitely not my favourite in England - especially living in flats built to retain heat (and yet somehow super drafty in the winter? How???)

33C has a different vibe when you’re on holiday on a beach somewhere versus sat at my desk trying to edit a video. Okay, I’m done complaining.

Also in that kind of heat, it was hard to think let alone be productive. And I broke out in a rash from sweating so much.

Okay, now I’m done.

Hope you survived this month!!!!!!!!!!!

A+N Updates

Youtube this month saw reacting to fascinating British inventions, a fun solo date out, visiting the Royal Airforce museum and a taste-test of weird Amazon UK food! It’s been pretty varied this month and I’ve loved making them all.

On Twitch we played our favourite Golf With Your Friends game, plus Jackbox (an A+N classic). I made the community watch a terrible movie (which was genuinely hilarious) and we hung out!

If you’d like to watch a bonus full-length weekly video, please consider joining me on Patreon or Youtube Memberships. I post the same content on each platform, but I know some people prefer staying on Youtube or vice versa.

For my exclusive content this month, I reacted to more British 80s adverts, shared my trip to Marseille and taste-tested strange ALDI stuff!

I also shared how I organize A+N as a business and to finish off the month, I reacted to funny videos. There’s been a lot!

What I’ve been watching + reading

You know how I said I want to get to the cinema more (especially since I pay for an unlimited membership?) I didn’t go this month 💀 Oops.

To be fair, I haven’t see loads of movies this month at home, either! We’ve still been watching Homeland and the new season of Taskmaster. We also watched the new show Man On Fire which was fine but I’ll probably forget it exists in a week or two.

In terms of books, I buckled and finally started reading the viral fantasy series ACOTAR 💫📚

A Court of Thorns and Roses (Book 1) 🌹 This started out exactly how I thought the series was, but the second half was much more dark than I imagined - a pleasant surprise!

A Court of Mist and Fury (Book 2) 🔥 This was my favourite so far. You’re introduced to a variety of interesting characters, learn more about the lore and explore new places. Super fun!

A Court of Wings and Ruin (Book 3) 🪽This one was pretty boring considering there’s a giant battle but somehow didn’t feel like loads happened in this one. Still an easy, enjoyable read.

A Court of Frost and Starlight (a much shorter Book 4) ❄️ This was by far the worst one. The writing is lazy and genuinely nothing happens. It’s fine if you go into this one knowing is more like cozy filler than any real plot…

There’s still one more book released in the ACOTAR series which I’ll come back to next month.

In-between all the fantasy, I also read the heartbreaking autobiography When Breath Becomes Air by neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi who comes to terms with his terminal cancer diagnosis in this 30s. Not for the faint of heart, but a beautiful insight into the act of dying.

Talk about a genre-switch from all the lighthearted fantasy I read earlier in the month!

After all that I read True Grit 🤠 Kind of crazy that I haven’t seen the movie before, but this was a really quick, funny, enjoyable read. Mattie rules!!

And finally, I transitioned to Japanese fiction and read Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Even though it’s a pretty cute time-travelling coffee shop novel, the characters and their stories are actually pretty heavy and moving. I know there’s a few more in the series but I’m happy with just reading this one - I think more of the same will get a bit boring. This first book was really good, though! ☕🇯🇵

Bits that made me laugh

Will June be just as sweaty as May?? I can’t wait to find out!!

Stay hydrated out there, folks. I hope you had a great May and an even better June! ☀️

Alanna x