Day Twenty

Day Twenty — A hobby of yours

One of my hobbies is Origami - I love folding paper! At the moment I'm working on filling a vase with tiny 3D origami stars, which I think might take a while! There's something quite relaxing about folding paper and seeing fabulous shapes appear, and while I'm hardly the best at it, it's still entertaining!

Here's what I have so far:

Day Nineteen

Day Nineteen — A talent of yours

I don't really think I have many talents. I can sing okay, I can bake fairly well, I can do crafty stuff to an extent, but I don't think anything I do can be called talent. Aside from maybe procrastinating, I can do that!

Hmm...I guess what most people would call my talent is my Wenching ability - I sit on knees, I pour beer expertly, I make Grog any pirate would be proud of and I look damned good in a corset!

Still not sure it's a talent though!

Day Eighteen

Day Eighteen — Whatever tickles your fancy.

Ah, blogging about whatever tickles my fancy again...difficult. I never know what to blog about, hence my not blogging normally!

Ah, I have an idea!

Craft swaps are often fun, but I always really stress over what to make for people. Apryl has come up with a really awesome idea - a crafty book swap - alongside sending some handmade craft items, the participants are also going to swap a book!

I think this is a really great idea, and I am going to sign up just as soon as I'm done blogging! All the information is here:

Click me for swapping fun!

Day Seventeen

Day Seventeen — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)

I don't really know a lot about art, but I have bought some art recently that is cute, surreal and makes me smile.



They're from the super talented ravengirl at Etsy - check her out!

Day Sixteen

Day Sixteen — A song that makes you cry (or nearly):

Wow, am I behind on this. Apologies for the blog spamming which will now ensue. Sorry for anyone who's reader is now filled solely with posts by me!

There are very few songs I can think of off of the top of my head that make me cry (or nearly), but one that definately does is Rufus Wainwright's version of Halleluja. I'm not sure what it is about it that affects me in a way no other version of it does, but there we go. I'm not sure what else I can say, so here's a video of it.



Apologies for the crap video - I could only find the Shrek version of it!

Day Fifteen

Day fifteen — a fanfic.

I'm not sure I've ever really read any fanfic (except maybe the awful Dr Who nonsense my friends over at the SFX forum know about, but which isn't suitable to talk about here!).

I have written fanfic though. When I was about 14 or 15 I wrote some truly awful Star Trek fanfic, which I'm laughing at even remembering now, and at the same time I was a member of a Buffy-verse based roleplay site, which probably counts as a kind of fanfic.

Other than that, it's really not something that interests me. I like characters to stay where they belong!

Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen, a Non-Fiction book.

I'm not really big on Non-Fiction, but I suppose the non-fiction book I've read most often is 'Byron: Life and Legend' by Fiona MacCarthy. It's a biography of Byron, and it's probably one of the best written, and my love for Lord Byron means I feel the urge to read it every now and then to reacquaint myself with him, as it were!



There's not really very much I can say about it, it does as it implies - talks about Byron's life, and his legend. If you have any interest in Romanic Poetry, or even the man who was Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know, I recommend it!

Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen, a fictional book.

I read a lot. I always have a book in my bag - it's very rare I leave the house without one. As I mentioned previously on this blog, I've read Gone With The Wind about 10 times. I'm re-reading it at the moment in fact!

I know it's not politically correct, I know it's racist, but it reflects a time I really wish I could have experienced, and you can't help but fall in love with Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. There's something timeless about the story. Even though it doesn't have a happy ending, you find yourself siding with Scarlett and her determination to fix things.

There are sequels as well, commissioned by the estate of Margaret Mitchell - Scarlett, which focuses on life for Scarlett after Gone With The Wind, and Butler's People, which is about Rhett Butler before and after he meets Scarlett O'Hara. They don't work together, and I was really confused when I read Butler's People, as it doesn't link in with Scarlett at all, but they're both as entertaining as GWTW.

Day Twelve

Once again I have been very bad with actually keeping up with this. So, many posts this morning!

Day Twelve: Whatever Tickles Your Fancy.

I'm a bit stuck on what to write about here. I think I might talk about Lego. Yup, plastic bricks.

I love Lego. I have done since I was a kid. Who would have thought there could be so much fun in snapping bricks together? As a kid I made cars, houses for dolls, towers, anything my imagination could come up with. And at the end of the day, it all came apart and you could start the next day!

Pete is a much bigger Lego nerd than me, our bedroom is full of completed Lego models, and more recently, a couple of them are mine. And mine are all Toy Story Lego. As mentioned in the previous day's blogging about favourite films, Toy Story is quite high up on the list of my favourites. I'm very excited about Toy Story 3 coming out next month!

My favourite Lego model is my Lego Buzz Lightyear. He looks like this:



If I had the money, I'd have the entire Toy Story Lego range!

Day Eleven

Day Eleven - a recent photo of me.

Generally I don't like having my photograph taken, so I don't really have many recent photos of myself. I think the most recent one I have is this one, which was taken about a year ago.



It was taken at an SFX Forum weekend meet up, and it's a picture of me, with a jug of Grog I'd just made. The Grog went down well, and I do actually like this picture - one of very few I do!

Day Ten

A photo of me taken over ten years ago...



This is me and my sister (I'm the redheaded one, obviously!), outside of the house we grew up in in Bristol. I'm probably about 4 or 5 in this picture, and my sister is probably about 2 or 3. I miss that house!

This is actually a photo of a photo, so apologies for the poor quality - I took a photo of it ages ago, when I was too lazy to find my scanner, when everyone was posting baby photos of themselves at the SFX forum!

Day Nine

Okay, I am really quite bad at this. I blame the fact that P is off work this week and taking me to work, so I don't have to get up early. So I don't have time to play about online!

Okay, Day Nine - a photograph I took.



This is a picture of Lilah, one of the first sock bunnies I made. She's probably still my favourite! This is probably also one of the best photos I've taken of my crafty work!

Crafty Update

I said on Sunday that I was going to have a go at making drawstring bags, for my dice. I didn't do that. In the end, I spent all of Sunday doing pretty much nothing.

I am doing something crafty at the moment though - although it's mostly experimental at the moment. I'm French knitting some really gorgeous wool (it's from Wharfdale Woolworks), and when it's all done, I plan to try and knit with the braid I'm making at the moment. It'll be interesting to see how it comes out!

Here's a picture of what I have so far:



Apologies for the crappy phone picture - I seem to have misplaced my camera again!

Day Eight

A photo that makes me angry, or sad.

I don't have any pictures that make me angry, but I do have a couple that make me sad.



This is a picture of my niece (and her dad) on the day that she was born. We live about 130 miles away from my family, so I didn't meet my gorgeous neice until about a week after she was born. And I was, and still am quite sad about that fact. Pictures just aren't the same.

Day Seven

I did start this post last night, from my phone, but it died before I could post it, and I got grumpy, so you're going to get two (possibly three if I can get pictures of something I'm working on) posts from me today.

Day Seven - a photo that makes me happy.



I didn't take this picture - in fact it's been on my hard drive so long I'm not sure I even remember where it came from. It's of the Covered Market part of St. Nicholas market in Bristol, which is one of my favourite places in the world. The covered market is where all the food stalls are, and even just thinking about it I can smell all the fabulous food they sell there. There's a Morrocan food place, a Jamacian food place (mmm, salt fish), a smoothie place, an olive stall, a place that sells sausages. It's lovely. And I miss it. But this picture makes me happy!

Day Six

Today's blogging theme is 'whatever tickles your fancy'. And I'm having trouble thinking of anything...

Okay, I think I'm going to blog about how totally nerdy I am, and talk about D&D. Yes, you read right, Dungeons and Dragons.

Back when I lived in Bristol I played D&D once a week with some friends. And it was amazing fun. We played through the most ridiculous scenarios, had the most amazing weapons and at one point, killed a dragon and then had a necromancer reanimate it so we could use it for our own nefarious plans! 'Proper' D&D it wasn't, but it sure was fun!

It's one of the things I really miss, and I would love to start playing again, but it's hard to find a group. I honestly can't think of a way to search for a group, or advertise for one, without sounding really nerdy, or really creepy. And I know it is nerdy, but I don't want to sound like I'm THAT nerdy when talking to strangers! I know, it's irrational!

I've been reading about making drawstring bags this week, and I think today I'm going to get the sewing machine out and have a go at making one. I'm going to embroider some dice to the front of it, and voilà, I'll have a new dice bag! There'll be pictures when I'm done!

This has been kind of a rambling post - hope I didn't scare anyone off!

Day Five

I know I should have posted this yesterday, but a) it was Saturday and I was busy, and b) it was waaay too hot yesterday! So today you get two posts. Here's the first - and today's topic is a favourite quote.

Quotes are hard to choose, harder than books or films. So many people have said amusing, witty things that are worth remembering.

I think a favourite of mine has to be this one by Lord Byron:

"If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company."

It sums up everything I love about reading - that you can lose yourself so much into a book that it seems that the characters become your friends!

Day Four

First off, I'm really not in the mood to be writing this today. I woke up thinking it was Saturday, and the sudden realisation it wasn't has made me quite grumpy. Today will probably be fuelled excessively by sugar and caffeine.

Still, A Favourite Book.

When asked what my favourite book is my stock answer is normally 'Alice In Wonderland'. And it is one of my favourite books. But I love to read, and so it really is hard to choose just one book.

I also love Gone With The Wind (as posted previously I've read it about 10 times!), Stardust, Darwin's Radio (a great story based on real science, and genetics to boot! It's by Greg Bear - look it up!), Kushiel's Dart, The Vampyre (this is essentially a biograpy of Byron written from the perspective of 'what if Byron was a vampire?'), The Scar and so many Pratchett books I couldn't choose one. Although it's possibly Soul Music.

If you haven't read any of these books, go look them up! They're all awesome (or at least I think so). And then come tell me what you think of them!

Day Three

What's with all the favourites in this blogging list? I'm so indecisive it's hard for me to keep choosing favourite things!

Today's topic is favourite tv programmes. I watch a lot of TV, probably more than I should, so choosing a show that's my favourite is hard. I may have to resort to making a list again.

I have actually been thinking about this one for a few days now though, and I think I have finally decided - it has to be Futurama. I love everything about it, most especially the geekiness, and I am really looking forward to it's return later this year. As I type, I am in fact watching an episode!

I was always a Simpsons fan, but Futurama seems to take everything that's good about the Simpsons and takes it one step further. I tried to find some amusing clips from the show on YouTube, but I couldn't find any that just summed up the show perfectly, from my point of view. But I urge everyone to watch it, because it is great!

Also, I love it so much, I've listed to the Audio Commentary track on every episode. And I remember far too much information from them. I is officially a nerd!

Day Two

Today I'm meant to talk about my favourite movie, which again is a really hard thing for me to choose. I have a hard enough time even narrowing my list down to ten, when people ask me my top ten films.

Movies, like music, can instantly take me back to the first time I saw them - take Star Wars for example - I was 9 years old, I came downstairs, and my mum's boyfriend at the time was watching it. I was hooked instantly. My love affair with sci-fi had begun. Or True Romance - it reminds me of living in Bristol, working for Broadsystem, and Damian making me watch it with the promise that Gary Oldman was in it! Every film I love, I love because it means more to me than just the fact I spent two, or however many hours sitting in front of it.

I think the point of this exercise is to choose one film, but I really can't, and besides, this is my blog, so I'm going to make a list, in no particular order, of my ten favourite movies. Judge my taste in the comments if you must!

1 - Empire Strikes Back
2 - Toy Story
3 - True Romance
4 - Gone With The Wind
5 - Leon
6 - Mermaids
7 - The Little Mermaid
8 - The Sound Of Music
9 - Girl, Interrupted
10 - Chasing Amy

Day One

Apryl is doing this over on her blog, and it seems like a good way for me to actually get back into blogging. Every day for the next 30 days (so until the end of June), I'll be making a post with the following themes:

Day 01 — A favourite song
Day 02 — A favourite movie
Day 03 — A favourite television program
Day 04 — A favourite book
Day 05 — A favourite quote
Day 06 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 — A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 — A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 — A photo you took
Day 10 — A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 — A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 — A fictional book
Day 14 — A non-fictional book
Day 15 — A fanfic
Day 16 — A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 — An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 — A talent of yours
Day 20 — A hobby of yours
Day 21 — A recipe
Day 22 — A website
Day 23 — A YouTube video
Day 24 — Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 — Your day, in great detail
Day 26 — Your week, in great detail
Day 27 — This month, in great detail
Day 28 — This year, in great detail
Day 29 — Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 — Whatever tickles your fancy

So, day one is a favourite song. I've had to think about this for a while, as music means a lot to me, and my favourite song at any given time depends on what mood I'm in!

But I think my favourite song, generally, is 'A Sea To Suffer In' by My Dying Bride. They're my favourite band, and while not to everyone's taste, I've found a video of the song to share nonetheless: