MEME - yet another one.

I've a half finished rant post about a birth I attended a while ago but in the meantime I found this on Ali the Artist's blog.

Things you've already done: bold (and I've made it stand out more by changing the colour)
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven't done and don't want to - leave in plain font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars - ooo lots of times. Last time was probably when we walked the south west coast path
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii (this must be American! grin)
5. watched a meteor shower (Big Green Gathering was a good place for this - right time of the year. Sadly BGG is no more).
6. given more to charity than you could afford
7. been to disneyland/world Been to Eurodisney for a day - the week after it opened. My french friend Sophie with whom I was staying was disgusted with me. I took my son who was then 5yrs old - he's 21 now!
8. climbed a mountain (Does Snowdon count? I've also climbed a little mountain in Scotland). 9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11.bungee jumped (though as I get older I get wussier)
12. visited paris (that's where my aforementioned friend Sophie lives).
13. watched a lightning storm at sea (think so, I sailed to US on the QE2 when I was 16yrs old and i'm sure there was a storm on the way!)
14. taught yourself an art from scratch (calligraphy, watercolour, and lots more)
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning (oh yes! many times but memorably, campylobacter on Christmas Day in Ireland and Giardia in Turkey)
17. walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty - (no, but I've been up the Eiffel Tower, and also climbed a humungous amount of steps on the Great Wall of China).
18. grown your own vegetables I'm not very good at this - but we usually have courgettes from the garden, and parsley, various salads and herbs.
19. seen the mona lisa in france
20. slept on an overnight train several times - most memorably in China - when I took a three day train ride right across the country, solo.
21. had a pillow fight That's what sisters are for, isn't it?
22. hitch hiked lots of times in the 1970s
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill must have done at least once, but I usually feel so guilty that I actually get ill! last time was when I was qualifying as a nurse and I hadn't taken any time off - so I took a day off after my exams.
24. built a snow fort (never have enough snow for this)
25. held a lamb - and a baby pig, puppies, kittens, all babies are cute.
26. gone skinny dipping -nothing quite like it.
27. run a marathon I've run a half marathon, so maybe one day I'll do the whole thing.
28. ridden a gondola in venice - yes, surprisingly
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset - both!
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise But I'm going on one THIS AUGUST! I'm going on a knitting cruise with Nancy Bush and Beth Brown-Reinsell around the Baltics and I can't wait! I've also sailed across the Atlantic on the QE2 but I'm not sure that quite counts.
33. seen niagara falls in person it's odd that I haven't because I lived in Wisconsin for two years from when I was 16yrs old.
34.visited the birthplace of my ancestors - well I still live around here - I'm fairly sure they were all welsh/west country celts so here I still am.
35. seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied - is it possible?!
38. seen the leaning tower of pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing - but only beginner's type rock climbing at Chudleigh Rock Centre
40. seen Michael Angelo's David in real life
41. sung karaoke
42. seen old faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa - Morocco
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance As the health professional - and when my dh broke his ankle falling out of a tree!
47. had your portrait painted - not painted, but I've been drawn.
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the cistene chapel in person
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling snorkelling only - but I love it.
52. kissed in the rain (probably)
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the great wall of china
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class I've done aikido and tai chi briefly
59. visited Russia but I'll be in St Petersberg for a day in September.
60. served at a soup kitchen - I nearly did when I lived in London but didn't. I don't think there are any round here.
61. sold girl guide cookies I ran the local Woodcraft Folk for several years and I was a brownie and girl guide so I'm sure I have done the equivelent many times over.
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood - they won't have mine, as I've had Heb B in the past.
65. gone sky-diving Again, I so very nearly did get this organised, but my Uncle Bob let me down
66. visited a nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a cheque I may have done this when I was a poverty stricken student.
68. flown in a helicopter As a child, so young I can't remember!
69. saved a favorite childhood toy There's a fleabitten Bugs Bunny in the attic.
70. visited the Lincoln Memorial (now if I was anglicising this would what would be the equivalent?)
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt I've put together small patchwork items but never an entire quilt.
73. stood in times square
74. toured the everglades - no, but I've been to the Bitches in a kayak!
75. been fired from a job when I was a teenager I had a job in a chippy with my sister and got sacked a couple days later for having an argument with her.
76. seen the changing of the guard in london
77. broken a bone # collarbone- Falling off a motorcycle!
78. been on a speeding motorcycle I was driving it! I've had a kawasaki 550cc ~ they go quite fast.
79. seen the grand canyon in person - nope, but I've been to the Lake District!
80. published a book
81. visited the vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper several times - but the last time was only last week! I was helping out at the Contemporary Craft Show and they put my pic in showing children how to finger knit.
85. read the entire bible
86.visited the White House - but I've seen the houses of Parliament and visited a courtroom.
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating - seperately. I've killed a poorly chicken, and I've prepared a rabbit for a pie. I haven't actually skinned an animal though.
88. had chickenpox (when I was 3 or 4 years old)
89. saved someone’s life not in the dramatic sense, but I've made judgement calls to transfer in, call the doc etc as a midwife.
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous my husband once snubbed Joanna Lumley. I've said hullo and swooned at the feet of a couple of musicians once or twice!
92. joined a bookclub I'm in one. Currently reading 'Surviellance' by Jonathan Raban
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen the Alamo in person
96. swum in the great salt lake.
97. been involved in a law suit sort of second hand - I've been involved peripherally where parents have sued the hospital. I also went to my MP once about being sued for money by wandsworth Council. The money was owed to the Council by a nursery where my son attended years before and I was a volunteer on the committee -I got let off.
98. owned a cell phone Is this is mobile?
99. been stung by a bee OH yes, ouch.

Now it's your turn.

Welcome to the Letter S (I feel like I should be on sesame street)

On Aknita's knits I Spotted this meme with a letter theme. Interesting I thought, so I followed the trail to Soctopus and asked Missmalice for a letter - she gave me the letter S. Easy peasy lemon squeasy Methinks. Does Alice know that I'm married to an S, have a son S AND a dog S? (not to mention spinning, spinning and more spinning and sheep).

The idea is that you ask in the comments for a letter and one is sent to you at random. You then blog about ten things you love beginning with that letter.

Here we go then:

1) I'm married to a Steve. This is a rather old picture of he, before the front room got painted (it takes us a long time to decorate). He does not like his picture being taken. He is loyal, funny, kind, patient, an excellent cook, much better at tidying up than me, and a good friend. We've been married 26 years this July and lived together for a good long time before that... (and if I don't get off the computer soon, we may not be together much longer!).

2) The dog who is lying at the foot of the armchair is Tilly. This (you may have noticed) does NOT start with an S. BUT she is the mother of Sydney. Therefore Sydney is her Son (that's two 'S' for the price of one. Sydney was born (with his 8 littermates) during the Oz Olympics. Sydney - geddit?

Here he is waiting for a stick, with Tom the collie waiting to beat him to it. Syd prefers brightly coloured toys that squeak to sticks, usually. So that's Stick and Squeaky toys too (two more S that is)

Here he is having his ears played with (which he adores) and a Sneaky pic of one of my latest FOs - mazzmatazz's ocimum gloves from the Guardian knitting extra a few months back (remember that?) knitted up in my handspun.

3) I also have a Son called Seth. That's two more S. Seth is a great galumphing bear of man (6'4 and size 14 feet) and he gives great hugs. He has inherited his Dad's sense of humour (warped) and is also a great cook and raconteur as well as being a sensitive sausage. He is very people centred and popular. Unfortunately he has inherited my housekeeping abilities. I love both of my men.

4) My Sister is not an S but she is my Sis. Jane is three years younger than me, and fitter, and taller and more intelligent and slimmer. But I love her despite all these things. She teaches Science in a girl's school in Eire. Have I a picture of Jane?

Yep, here's one of her talking to a local yokel down in Cornwall, when we walked 80 miles of the SWCoast Path together, three years ago...

5) I love Spring and Strolling through the lanes around here, with the Sun shining and the snowdrops in abundance. (How many S in there?). Haven't taken any pics of the snowdrops so you'll have to take my word for it! I'm so lucky to live in Dartmoor National Park. This picture was taken on my walk across the moors to Postbridge - to the Hollowing Weekend back in January.

6)I also enjoy Solitude and Solo walking.

You CAN see me in this picture of a viaduct on the West Devon Pathway - I'm the little shadow in the gap in the wall at the top of the viaduct shadow. walked from Tavistock to Plymouth over a couple of days and camped out wild with the dogs - great fun.

7) Spinning, Sheep, Spinning Wheel, drop Spindles...

I'm obsessed, what can I say? I have a golding and an ashford spindle (the one chewed by Jack Russell and which still spins great), and a couple of others too. I also have my lovely, my preciousSS. my Lendrum spinning wheel (which I haven't photographed yet?!)

- but here's what she looks like (pic of distant relative). I've been spinning about 18 months now, and it has always felt like coming home. 8) S is for Skip North and Stash Expedition (SEX) Extraordinaire:

The weekend of 20th March over 40 of us will meet up in Haworth Youth Hostel to Spin and Knit in Public and be whisked around the LYS of Yorkshire, not forgetting the KCG collection and yarn mountain at Lee Mills.

The youth hostel itself is amazing - this stained glass window looks over the master staircase (and I love Stained glass too) - the building used to be owned by the mill owners and has gone through several incarnations before YHA took it on.Here we all are in the front room last year, cooing over stash and knitting, crocheting, knattering... I'm starting to feel the excitement building now. Love it, love it.

9) S is for a sweet tooth I possess, the stodge (think Stew and dumplings for example) I enjoy and the slim waist I long for - the two (three?) being mutually exclusive.

10) and finally a Sigh. The sigh I make when frogging. I have STARTITIS and have upped my WIPs the last week or so... One of my projects on the go is Apres Surf Hoodie by Connie Chang Chincio. She is lovely person btw - We're having a ravelry kal of this hoodie and Connie regularly drops by to offer encouragement. I'm making this hoodie into a cardigan in drops alpaca (I love the colour) - It took me a couple of starts on the lace before I finally could read it - the force is with me now and I'm on my fourth repeat with no (noticeable) mistakes. I'm making the fronts and back all in one to the armholes - that's a very long row to frog!

I also have mimbres vest to finish off (THAT involved steeking - another 'S' but not a love I guess); french beret started to use up some handspun; scarf in touch yarns laceweight boucle to finish off; couple of my own designs to finish; felted clog booties to knit for brother in law;socks to complete. Sigh again. The list goes on.

I was going to discuss Somnambulism but I think this post has gone on and on enough already.

This has been good fun and thanks to Aknita and MissMAlice at Soctupus.

If anyone else would like a random letter to blog on, please do ask and I'll pick one out of the Jacob hat for you.

BOOKS

Think I did this meme, or one similar, last year. But having spotted it twice now, once on Helen's blog and again on Spinning Fishwife's blog this will cover todays blog nicely.

This meme is originally from the Big Read. Apparently they reckon most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. (!?)

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Post your list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible Well, some of it.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (well, most of it - I tossed it aside when she threw herself under a train because I couldn't bear to read on)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (started it, never finished)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (on mount toobie!)
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My favourite read of last year was "I know this much is true" by Wally Lamb. covers everything, war, peace, relationships, politics, religion, therapy, you name it, it's in there! Now I'm waiting for his new book to come out in paperback.

Long outstanding duty needing rectifying as soon as...



Back in OMG was it as long ago as July (!), I was awarded this by Maylin:



Shamefully, I haven't blogged much since. Awards seem to have this effect on me! Isn't she lovely though? too much time spent on Ravelry. enough excuses.
Thanks Maylin, I'm touched (and was back then too).




Rules in English:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winning, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winning and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.




How to choose from all those creative, wonderful, knitterly blogs out there? With difficulty.
but hold my nose in I go, eeeny meeny miny mo...



For sheer devotion to blogging and the knitting world the number one spot has to go to WyeSue.
Sue is generous, creative, a knitterly genius and, as fellow director of the UKKCG, a tireless supporter of fibrey excellence and knitted underwear... Wye Sue? Wye Sue indeed.



Next, for intelligent discussion, wonderful fairisle knitting and dyeing and technique: The Feral Knitter, truly untamed and wild - Janine Bajus.



For exciting, original patterns and enviable talent (have you visited the twist collective yet?), panache, youthful knitterly energy, and from the UK to boot, Ysolda...



A local lass with a wonderful knitterly talent and who caught on to spinning so quickly I was jealous, a great blog and lots of courage in the face of chronic disability: Denise at Pixie's Paraphernalia



Lastly, another local lass and knitter and fellow nurse AND especially someone who is such a brilliant photographer I really think she could be the next Jane Brocket... Asti over at Lilys house
I could drool over some of those pics all day.



I read a lot of other blogs I could have added to this list with equal enthusiasm - Anni, Helen, Jane, Rosie, Yvonne, Anne, Kate, Christina, Natalie, Kath, Angie and on and on and on. What a talented lot.

Poor old blog been sadly neglected whilst I've been doing lots of knitterly stuff.

Sue, over at eco-tricot has prompted me to get blogging again by tagging me.



oh. OK then.


To participate you
Link to the person who tagged you.
List seven facts about yourself.
Post the rules on your blog.
Tag seven more people to do the same and link to them.
Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry has been posted.

So the seven facts about myself are


1)I am now a director on the UK Knitting and Crochet Guild - next meeting December 6th in London.

2)I really don't like bubblegum pink and orange, especially together. So how come I just finished knitting 'Bettna' in baby poo colours with orange and maybe pink thrown in there? See:
Probably something to do with getting Noro cheap at the last SkipNorth. Lor, I'll knit anything.


3)I'm a member of the Labour Party, although I nearly threw the towel in when the government joined in the Iraq debacle. I mention this only because I'm supposed to be leading a discussion on the NHS tonight... Ho hum.


4)I love reading and belong to the "Never Finish a Bookclub" - a dozen good women and true, who meet up at each other's houses and drink wine and eat cake. The current read is "The Dead" by James Joyce and the last book we read was a "Widow for One Year" by John Irving. My favourite book this year - which wasn't a bookclub choice - was "I Know This Much is True" by Wally Lamb. Go read it... AND he's got a new book out this month. MMMmm.


5)I love traditional knitting. One of the first things I ever knit was a yoked fairisle cardigan from Sarah Don's book on FairIsle (look at that: republished as a paperbook!) in Shetland 2 ply, which my Nan thought I'd bought. (I guess I've got a fairly even tension)( I wonder what happened to it?). I'm supposed to be running a workshop at the next SkipNorth on FairIsle knitting. I'm looking forward to this, but I want a projector so I can do a powerpoint display. I do. I've just joined the yahoo group on Traditional Knitting owned by Liz Lovick. I bow down to her superior knowledge...


6)I was born in Plymouth - in the Royal Alexandra Nursing Home, Devonport. That makes me a native Devonian. The Royal Alexandra Nursing Home' records dept was destroyed in a fire some time in the 1960's, so I've no idea what time I was born, and my mother has given me a different answer every time I've asked her. From the linky I've posted it looks like it was transformed into a mental health unit. So was the maternity unit my sister was born at. hmm, coincidence?


7)And finally (see what happens when you get me talking about me? I go on and on and on and...), I have just given up smoking AGAIN! (three days ago, so the physical side effects of nicotine are over with and the rest of it is in my head). I started smoking when I was 13yrs old (bad girl!) and have given up for years at a time several times since. I forget just how bad it is for you in between times and only remember that it felt good. It smells, it's ridiculously expensive and it's bad for your health. It is also very difficult to knit at the same time as smoking. So there.

And now my seven tags and some of my favourite peepl are
Sue at WyeSueKnits
Denise at PixiesParaphernalia
Heather at HeatherKnits
Rain at FroginKnots
Anni at ConfessionsofaYarnAddict
Fred at CatsCableRatsRib
and finally Beverley who was always at TwoFishKnitting but is now at BeingBeverley

I must I must expand my bust update my blog and stop spending so much time over at Ravelry. I've been to a dyeing workshop, Iknit London. Ally Pally, our very own KTog2 and have so much to show you knitting wise. It'll keep.

Ginny's PHOTO MOSAIC MEME -

Must be the day for Flickr toys: while I was perusing Ginny's blog, I noticed she'd combined a meme with a montage, so if you'd like to have a little fun too then simply

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name? Terri
2. What is your favorite food? Pasta
3. What high school did you go to? Whitland Grammar School
- which didn't work, so I tried WG School - that did!
4. What is your favorite color? Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Couldn't think of anyone off the top of my head (how boring am I?) so I chose Harrison Ford who I liked in Witness and who is supposed to look like DH
6. Favorite drink? Pint of Real Ale
7. Dream vacation? White Water Kayaking
8. Favorite dessert? Cheese cake
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? assertive
10. What do you love most in life? my family
11. One word to describe you. artyfarty.
12. Your Flickr name. Tutleymutley

And my result?
1. The Dark Path, 2. night @siem reap* 06, 3. 1958 Bramdean school, Exeter, 4. From above..., 5. Harrison Ford Portrait (Blade Runner), 6. Pulling a pint of real ale at the Punch and Judy, 7. Untitled, 8. chocolate-coffee cupcake with mocha ganache and mascarpone cream, 9. Friday Night. Walkies., 10. brazilian children's day, 11. Untitled, 12. IMG_0318

And I've been tagged, by Angie! (Thanks m'dear!)
The first tag of the year... is 4

4 jobs I have held:
Bus Conductor/Clippie
Care Assistant (with the Elderly)
Registered General Nurse
Registered Psychiatric Nurse

4 movies I like:
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
"Water" (by Deepa Mehta)
"The Star Wars trilogy" - all in one go!
"Rabbit Proof Fence"

4 Places I've been:
Marrakech, Morocco
Paris, France
Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China
Chiang Mai, Thailand

4 places I have lived:
Laugharne, Carmarthenshire
Balham, London
Burlington, Wisconsin
Lustleigh, Devon

4 TV shows/programs I watch:
I don't have a telly, but I have watched
Life on Mars
David Attenborough's 'Planet Earth'
Star Trek
Have I got News for You

4 Radio-shows I listen to:
Radio 4 (how appropriate) - the Archers
'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' (ISIHAC)
Radio 2 generally
Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I have the original recording on a cassette tape!)

4 favorite foods
Cheesecake
Chocolate
Curry
Spag Bol (damn - that spoiled the run of 'C's)

4 places I'd rather be:
Walking on Dartmoor
Floating down the river Dart on a lovely sunny autumnal day in a kayak,
Curled up in a big comfy armchair sipping a glass of mulled wine, in front of a roaring fire surrounded by convivial friends, on a snowy winter's night.
In bed

The 4 I tag:
WyeSue (well, wye not?)
Mrs Piglottie in the parlour
Rainie at Frog in Knots
and Knit Tigger Ra

And of course feel entirely free to join in - or not!

I can think of a few more? How about:

4 favourite books read last year:

"Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell

"Arthur and George" by Julian Barnes

"The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" by Maggie O'Farrell

BOOKS! I LOVE BOOKS!


I found this on Lickmysticks blog and couldn't resist. (I could've finished those snakey socks and knitted half my stash up if I stopped p*****g about on the net!)

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. +Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) (or then again, maybe not)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) Or will I? since I've seen the film. But films are never as good, are they?
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald) I've read 'The Way the Crow Flies' - brill!
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Don't know, having seen the film...
28. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. *Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. *The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. *Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. +I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (though think I'd skip the begats!)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) (well - nearly finished it. I threw it aside when she threw herself under a train).
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) (Would I read it?, wouldn't I?)
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) (I think I started this once!)
62. *The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) (but probably won't get round to reading)
64. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. *The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) (Don't know if I'd get round to reading this really)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. *Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) (not quite true - have heard of it vaguely)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) (started and didn't finish)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) (I'm not sure if I didn't read this as a kid)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)7
9. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) Though never finished it.
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. *The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. *The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) tried and failed to read this.
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. +Ulysses (James Joyce) Having seen my DH struggle with this (and he has the patience of Job) - I KNOW I wouldn't be able to crack it.

So where did this list of books come from? I shall have to investigate further! *
I've read 45% and I haven't heard of 23% which is quite a few books for me to look up. I knew Mount Toobie was teeteringly tall before this but is it possible to go higher? Always.
Also quite a number of classics and good reads missing, methinks.

All you folk that have books on your bookshelf that you've read and would probably never read again - haven't you heard of bookcrossing?

* Followed the link back half a dozen blogs (like six degrees of separation!) and it appears to have started with Shana who just says "she borrowed it from someone cool". So there the trail goes cold.

If you have a go at this leave a comment so I can see the result, ta.

NAMELIAN!

Here is my 'NAMELIAN' - she's a member of the Wolflutterby genus and the sun shines down on her. This bit of fun was courtesy of Jo and I thank her very much... In turn, she got the idea from Steve where you'll find the destructions for YOUR name. But, in case you can't be bothered to follow the link:-

To create a namelien you:

a. fold a piece of paper in half

b. open your paper up

c. turn your paper so the fold is horizontal

d. write your name in cursive, "real big" on the fold line (a thick-tipped, dark-colored marker, crayon, or pencil works best)

e. keep your paper where it is, fold it up again, and trace the name you wrote (a thin sheet, a lightbox, or holding the paper against a window with good light can help make the tracing easier, if needed)

f. open your paper again

g. trace over your name again (write on the original, front side), this time you'll be writing it backwards

h. turn your paper so that the fold line in the middle is now vertical--choose which way is rightside up (you will now see an interesting, symmetrical design created from your name)

i. have fun adding things (we make ours totally symmetrical)--such as eyes, arms, legs, antennae, wings, hands, claws, feet, hair, patterns, textures, colors, etc.

j. create a nonsymmetrical background/environment for your namelien (optional)

There is just so much fun out there on the internet!

(comment from DH: "Are you on drugs???")