Gosh...

...so much for saying I'd be blogging more.

To be fair, I've got a pretty good excuse.

This picture was taken on the 15th of November.

Then these pictures were taken on the 13th of December.

So I'd say that's a pretty good excuse really. ;-)

What with my dreadful past history and all (2, 3, 4), the doctor signed me off work as soon as I went in there with my positive test. This was a very good thing, as apart from all the pre-planned pills I needed a course of antibiotics that basically led to me sleeping right through November. Seriously. For five weeks I was awake for about three hours a day and either asleep or dozing the rest of the time. Thank goodness for audiobooks!

But since I'm 14 weeks and two days pregnant today, oh and cos it's my birthday, I thought I'd spread a little bit of sunshine into the post-Christmas gloom. (I'm back at work tomorrow too!)

I also want to say a massive THANK YOU!!! to the lovely folks who have been aware from the start and kept me going through my paranoid days. You lot are real blessings.

(I won't finish this post by saying I'm going to blog more, cos that'll just jinx it...again.)

Remember...

...this post about the amazingly gorgeous illustrations that tanaudel is doing for The Dalek Game?



Well when I woke up this morning and discovered Neil Gaiman had been tweeting about it, I might have had a little bit of a squee.

Oh yes indeedy.

Check out the hashtag #dalekbooks. I'm in love with this tweet from daibhidc.

The Booker Prize...

...is not something that I choose books based on. In fact, having looked at this list, I have read exactly zero of the winners, and exactly three (Small World (1984) and Nice Work (1988) by David Lodge, and Astonishing Splashes of Colour (2003) by Clare Morrall) of the shortlisted titles. (and the David Lodge ones were read because my parents had them and one of the covers appealed, exactly how I ended up reading Animal Farm and 1984 before I'd started senior school).

Basically, that type of writing is not my type of reading.

But this kind of thinking is my kind of thinking.

Julian Barnes, in his acceptance speech, said: "I'd like to thank the judges - whom I won't hear a word against - for their wisdom. And the sponsors for their cheque."

Thanking the book's designer, Suzanne Dean, he added: "Those of you who've seen my book - whatever you may think of its contents - will probably agree that it is a beautiful object.

"And if the physical book, as we've come to call it, is to resist the challenge of the e-book, it has to look like something worth buying and worth keeping."

Can I get a HELL YEAH!

I will freely admit to buying books based on their looks. There have been countless books where I have read a proof copy and known I wanted to buy the book, then not bought it because it just isn't nice enough to be worth the money when I've already got a proof copy. There have also been quite a few where I've made myself wait for the paperback to be released, only to be disappointed by it, and instead buy the hardback before it gets sent back to the publishers.

One year, darling Miss Emily bought me this beautiful hardback, quarter leather bound edition of The Colour of Magic from a second-hand bookshop.

Later, I discovered that the mail-order book club I was a member of had started producing these editions and I added to my set. Sadly they only ever produced up to book 18, but I do keep my eyes peeled in case one day, they decide to complete the series.

When I went down to London at the beginning of September, Mama and I spent a nice couple of hours at the British Library, and she practically had to forcibly remove me from the shop due to all the beautiful Folio Society editions that they keep in stock there. Warning; if you follow that link, prepare to be scared by the prices. Instead, I had a quick look on eBay when I got home, and Folio Society editions do turn up on there quite often.

I treated myself to this totally gorgeous slipcased edition of I Capture the Castle, for a barginous price of £8.50 (inc shipping). (the edition on the right is my original second printing copy)

Now I just need some kind person to be selling off these editions of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion at sensible prices, and I'll be a mostly happy bunny.

Mostly happy, because I'll still be lusting after this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Ooh, and these.

Anyone won the lottery recently?

PS: I'm experimenting by having set all of the above links to open in new windows/tabs. Let me know if this majorly narks you, and I'll get rid of it.

Miss you...

...dad.












I hope if there's an afterlife, that they pull a decent pint or three there.
I hope if there isn't an afterlife, that your component atoms have relocated themselves to suitable pints of beer. :-)

Before the new DiscWorld book...

...comes out on the 13th of October, I am attempting to reread all the previous ones. All thirty eight of them, plus the three Science of DiscWorld books (people miss these out, but if you don't at least read the story sections you are missing out on vast chunks of Rincewind and The Wizards).

I am partly reading, and partly listening to the unabridged audiobooks. This way even when I decide to have a reading break and go and do some jigsaw or some WoW or some stitching, I'm still getting through the books.

I might have to speed up a little though, I spent Sunday finishing off Reaper Man, which is book eleven.


DiscWorld Reading Guide

I am very aware...

...that nowadays I am a very intermittent blogger. I am trying my hardest not to be.

I have been trying to blog by thinking up ideas ahead of time - this then means that I feel like I have already written the blog post in question. When, of course, I have not.

I have been trying to blog by not thinking up ideas ahead of time - this then means that I go "I need to blog" and then go "errrr, about what...".

The fact that I have just had two weeks off work (holiday I booked in March when partly expecting Anthony to be able to get the time off too (he couldn't) and thoroughly expecting to be off work for a year from the start of November (maternity leave)) should have meant that I blogged. If only about my plans for my four days down south, or about what I did when I was down there.

Instead I did a lot of cross-stitching, played a bit of WoW, read/listened to (Audible rock) a lot of DiscWorld and did assorted jigsaw puzzling, Pinteresting, and clearing out of old cross-stitch magazining while watching an awful lot of NCIS.

Then this morning, despite going to bed at 2.30am (a very failed attempt at getting back onto "normal" time), I woke up at 8am and had ideas for blogs and crafts and all sorts of things. So instead of just snuggling back to sleep and losing them all, I got up and wrote some very short notes on life, the universe, and everything. (and found a million beautiful Whovian things on Pinterest, but that's today's previous post)

So I'm not going to promise suddenly organised blogging, 5 days a week, with a topic for each day. But I'm going to add "blogging at least once a week" to my Now List (that's from this here book), and see what happens.

I am currently...

...so deeply in love with this that it hurts.

The Dalek Game by tanaudel (not only for the illustrations, but also for her "Fire and Hemlock" inspired name)



I stumbled across her dalek illustrations on Flickr while I was drooling over these heavenly Mucha inspired prints



Now I just have to work out: a) where I can put them in my house, b) what I have to not buy in order to afford them.