Landlocked Mermaid

  So it would seem my spoons are sparse at the moment. Rather than feel guilty and keep posting "maybe next week", I am taking a conscious break. Hopefully, I will be back in a few weeks with a recharged brain and a good supply of spoons. Til then, hope you all stay well. TTFN my lovelies. 💙

Work appears to have eaten all my writing spoons this week. So, here are some pics of our Nerdy session this week. Photosynthesis Fluxx Munchkin Munchkin was definitely my favourite game this session. Drawing the floating nose monster card made me giggle like a child. It is likely I shall be acquiring a copy of this at some point! Nerdy is a board gae cafe in Shrewsbury and it deserves all the love. If you're looking for something different to do in Shrewsbury, I cannot recommend them enough. Recommend booking though - gets verry busy! I was with my good friends from the North Shropshire Board Game Group , we play regularly online on Thursday with BGA too.

A few posts ago, I detailed a few things I wanted to get done this year. One of which being, make that weird vegan cheese thing my mum makes . It's this delicious, spreadable cheese-like, urm, thing. I have no idea where she got this recipe from, I have only ever seen hand written versions but my god do I love it! Every party buffet, it is on the table and I swear I eat about three-quarters of it. It cannot be helped, it's just too tasty. Ever since I first tried it, I have been threatening to get the recipe and have a go at it myself. To the point where I did take the recipe a couple times, only for it to get lost in the void that is life. It may have taken years, but I have finally managed to take note of the recipe, buy the ingredients, and actually make it. I think I over cooked the first batch, which clearly means it was high time to make it again And share my mishaps here, too. It's been an age since we were last in the Mermaid Kitchen! Ingredients 75g cashews 4 tbs...

  Growing up, I have always enjoyed board games. In recent years, this has evolved from the occasional game of Monopoly on a Sunday to full on girly game days and regular game nights with more complex beasts. From Carcassonne to Stone Age to Seasons, I have a great long list of games that I adore. My own collection is ever growing too, all those kickstarters I backed are starting to arrive! So today, you get my top five board games because I am always willing to share this love. But Emily, you've written this before! True, but these lists evolve as more games are released, discovered, and appreciated. 5. Anomia   Anomia is snap meets word recall meets shape recognition. Each player takes it in turn to draw a card from the deck and place it in front of them. The cards feature a category, such as Jam Flavours , and a symbol, like a cross or a diamond. An easy to recognise and distinct shape. This is because, if the shape on your card matches another on the table, you and the ot...

It's time to see who my plushie sharks have befriended on their travels! Name: Fried Egg Jellyfish ( Cotylorhiza tuberculata ) Location: Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Agean seas Habitat: Deep basins and open waters Diet: Gelatinous zooplankton and smaller jellyfish Conservation Status: Not extinct (NE)  Bruce thinks... I wonder what it would be like with brown sauce... Chum thinks... What amazing colours! I wish I was that colourful. Ten Jelriffic Facts The Fried Egg Jellyfish is named for its distinctive bell that heavily resembles an egg! Alternatively, they are called Egg-Yolk Jellies. They use their numerous club-like appendages to trap their dinner, largely gelatinous zooplankton. Whilst Fried Egg Jellyfish can actively swim, they prefer to spend their time motionless. (Anyone else relating?) The bell top to this jelly can reach up to 35cm in diameter. Disney, get your notebooks out, sometimes small aquatic creatures will hitch a ride on top of or inside the Fried Egg Jelly...

  A genre I have recently got into is steampunk. It is as epic as it sounds. Jazzy music with a modern twist, with an electic mix of genres and styles. My go-to playlist is Steampunk Radio on Spotify, there are ome absolute bangers on there. So, I thought I'd share my favourites. Fighting Trousers - Professor Elemental Steampunk seems to go from electro swing all the way to gentlemen rap - which I did not even know was a thing until I heard Fighting Trousers. It is delightfully absurd and I want a pair of my own fighting trousers. They better be comfy.  Tangled Up (Lokee Remix) - Caro Emerald Caro Emerald is a spicy lady. She has a great voice for the jazzy style she sings. Tangled Up is great for its beat, but is elevated by the line " Treating girls like a yo-yo is a no no of monumental kind". Monumental ... yo-yo ... no no , all awesome words to include in a song. But they are all in the same line! So cool. Booty Swing - Parov Stelar I couldn't make a list based o...

I am not a "New Years Resolution" person. In my teen years and early twenties, I would make them and fail miserably by about the third week of January. As is the grand tradition. I am also not a fan of "New Year, New Me", because the change from one calendar year to the next does not make a profound difference on my physiology or mentality. Why would it? Instead of setting myself difficult and unquantifiable tasks that ultimately lead to failure, I like to set goals for the year. Things I'd like to do. Things that if I don't immediately start doing them January first it doesn't matter. Things that I can track in my bujo and keep up to date with my progress. Quantifiable and realistic things. That's what I shall be waffling about today - with a nice scattering of pics from my bujo. Find an exercise I like. Now this is one I have been banging on about for quite some time. But after an episode triggered by not fitting nicely into any of my dresses, it...

  Bruce and Chum are back! They blame their yearly migration habits for not posting since July. It's definitely that and not the fact I cannot hold a routine for more than three days. Here's who my plushie friends met on their travels! Drop a comment if you can guess where they went travelling to. Name: Tope Shark Location: Global, particularly Europe Habitat: Coastal waters, temperate climates Diet: Pelagic fish and cephalopods; juveniles eat benthic invertebrates Conservation Status: Critically Endangered (CR)     Bruce thinks...   Tope sharks are pretty neat, but their name is a little confusing. They are also called School sharks, Soupfin sharks, Snapper sharks, and Vitamin sharks. Not sure why they have so many names - apart from Vitamin shark. That name comes from the fact that their flesh, fins, and liver are all high in vitamin A. Maybe if I eat one, I'll be able to see in the dark. Chum says...   Tope sharks are big travellers like Bruce and I. One was ...

   🎃Spoopy Edition🎃 It's time for the next lot of Mermaid Music, Spoooooppppyy Edition. Because I have spent the majority of the last month listening to my Hallowe'en playlist. So I thought I'd share my top five faves and add them to the Mermaid Music playlist. Spooky, Scary Skeletons (Undead Tombstone Remix) - Andrew Gold This one came up on my TikTok feed before it sank in that this was my kind of tune. Naturally, I then scoured Spotify for it and queued it up a number of times. It just has that steampunk vibe which I love. I may have been singing and dancing to this while I waited for trick or treaters. Sweet Transvestite - Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show) Can we just take a moment to appreciate what a beautiful human Tim Curry is? His voice is also incredible and this voice is just so heckin' fun to sing along to. That "Hah-yahh" noise he makes is just. so. good. It's been a while since I've seen the film, I wonder if it's on Netflix......

  Happy Hallowe'en my lovelies! May your day be the best kind of spooopy 🎃🎃🎃 Drop a comment below with who you are dressing up/have dressed up as ⤵⤵⤵ I was Miss Scarlett .

  I have nearly been at my job for a year now and I have yet to aimlessly ramble about it in a dedicated post. How rude of me. My official job title is Digital Content Copywriter, and I work for Overclockers UK. We sell some pretty hench gaming computers, hardware, and all the shiny things do with PCs. Learning all the bits and pieces was very brain consuming, as you may have noticed with my silence earlier in the year. I simply did not have enough brain left at the end of the day! Basically, what I do is write the product descriptions for the items we sell, detailing their unique features, what makes them good, and how they work. I do this for existing products pages which need a breath of new life in them - important SEO and keyword stuff, I assure you. I also get to write a lot of the content for new products dropping, which can be pretty nerve wracking but always hella exciting. Over the last six months or so, my role has developed to include writing regular blog articles and p...

  The week I got my new job, I also backed my very first Kickstarter. As a game where you take fish meeples and make aquariums, well I wasn't not going to back it. A couple weeks ago, it arrived! Now, I am going to share this beautiful game with you. Aqua Garden by uchibacoya The aim of the game is to create the best aquarium in town, using the available resources. It plays up to four, in addition to having a solo mode. (Always love a game with solo modes, because Human doesn't always want to play with me.) Over the course of three or four rounds, depending on how many players there are, you gather fish from the market or sea board and place them into your aquarium. At the end of the game these fish are worth different amounts of points which you tot up. Whoever has the most points, has the best aquarium. Winner, winner! There are more ways of gaining points, too. Placed by the central board, are four goal cards. If any one of your tanks meets the conditions set out on the goal...