Taking the first step!

Welcome to my blog!

Let me introduce myself! My name is Amanda, I am 34 years old as of a few days ago (my birthday is 26th December), and I live in Sydney, Australia, with my husband Craig and our son Luke who is 17 months old. We also have a dog named Evie. I will try to figure out how to add photos at some stage! This is my first foray into the world of blogging so there will be a great learning curve involved for me!

The emphasis of this blog is intended to follow my adventures in reading, which has always been one of my great passions. My mother passed onto my the love of reading (thank you so much mum, even though you will never read this as you are completely afraid of computers), and am ALWAYS reading a book. My main interest is history and I read historical fiction and non-fiction. I love English history, particulary the Tudor period and medieval times. I also like a bit of french history too. Some of my favourite historical figures are: the Tudor monarchs and their families, Mary Queen of Scots included, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Charles II, Catherine de Medici, and Marie Antoinette.

Also since having Luke I have started a new hobby. BEADING! I have made a few pieces of jewellry for myself, and I will make some more trying out new techniques until I can inflict my creations on others as gifts! So I will post some photos of my beading work as well.

Aside from these interests, I work as a pathology scientist in the cytology department. Although since having Luke, and loving being a mum, I have only recently gone back to work for a few hours once a week. Cytology is literally the study of cells and we examine pap smears and samples from other areas of the body (respiratory specimens, fine needle biopsies of breast, and thyroid, urine, and fluid from around the lungs), and we look for cancer and precancerous changes, and a few basic infections. It is a challanging field, there is always something not quite going by the textbook! So it keeps you on your toes!

OK...as for current reading, I have just finished "The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette" by Carolly Erickson. I read this book as the movie "Marie Antoinette" has just come out here and I wanted to read something about her before I saw it. So this has now started an interest in this tragic queen of France. Some of the descriptions of the activities of the Revolution are quite harrowing. She is an interesting figure which I look forward to learning more about.

I have now started on "Marriage to My Kingdom" by Alison Plowden which is the third book in her non-fiction series about Queen Elizabeth I. It runs through the political value of Elizabeth in the marriage market, and her list of potential suitors is running up already and she has only just ascended the throne!