Happy Birthday to Me!

In honour of my birthday I'm going to sing a little song:

Happy Birthday to me,
Squashed tomato and pea
Soup is not nice like cake is,
Happy Birthday to me.

I'm sure I can do better than that.

I'm a little hedgehog short and stout,
Here's my handle, here's my spout-

No that can't be right. The things that come to you at five o'clock in the morning.

Anyway, it's my birthday and I intend to have a happy day! I've got a new game to play on my laptop (Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove) and some smellies in an adorable cute little bag. I don't have anything I have to do so I shall play on the laptop, crochet, and have fun.

I hope!

I hope you all have a happy day too.

Where have all the stitches gone?

I've just discovered that three quarters of the way in to making a crochet shrug I've lost nine stitches. It's easier to do than it sounds, because the wool I'm using is very wavy and it's hard to see where the stitches are.

Now I'm going to have to undo maybe half of my crocheting and redo it.

If I ever finish it it should look like this.

Except for being a totally different colour.

The weather is far too warm to wear it now so it might not get worn till the autumn. Maybe I just ought to buy some string and make some string bags instead.

Time Check

If you live in the UK I hope you remember to put your clocks forward tonight because we go from 12.59 tomorrow morning straight to 2.00 am without passing GO or collecting our £200.

We might "lose" an hour but we get the long, light evenings back. It really must be spring.

Getting it right

Image by wasoxygen

I was listening to a video about meditation* and Linda Hall was talking about the importance of going into it with the attitude that whatever happens is good, rather than putting pressure on yourself by demanding you get it right first time. I wish I'd realised that when I first started trying to meditate!

It seems to me it probably applies to other things too. There's nothing worse for writing a first draft of a story than demanding it be "right" from the very start. I seem to do best at most things when I approach them with a rather playful attitude.

*If you watch the video I recommend you have your sound turned off until after the advert has finished. It's loud!

Oh no, not again!

One of my annoying habits is to wander round the house with a book under one arm like a comfort blanket and then put it down and forget where I've left it. Then I go round asking my family, "Have you seen my book?" and they're very kind and ask me "What does it look like?" They don't say, "Oh no, not again!"

Another annoying book habit is to buy the same book twice and I've gone and done it again. I thought I'd bought the first, second and third books in Rebecca Tope's Cotswold Murder Mysteries series, but I bought book two twice. Oh dear.

I met Rebecca Tope a long time ago when she came to talk at a bookworm meeting up in the Cotswolds. She was lovely. She told us that crime writers tend to be nicer than romance writers because they put all their venom into their books. (I'm sure some of you romance writers will disagree with that!)

A copy of the twice-bought book is available. If more than one person wants it, I'll have to make a hard decision.

The Wedding of the Year

Arriving. Left to right: my younger son's fiancée, my sister, my younger son, me.

Pretending to sign the register. The civil ceremony was surprisingly moving.

The bride and her two sisters.

My sons.

Mostly paparazzi. My Beloved is at the back; I've got hardly any pictures of him because he was so busy taking photos himself.

The bride and groom.

Well, I had to dance at my son's wedding.

Nearly there!

My son's wedding is tomorrow. We have my other son and his fiancée staying with us tonight, and a friend of my nearly-daughter-in-law is staying till Tuesday.

I have my dress, I bought the necklace today, and the friend who is staying did my nails for me (to hide the bruised nail). I'm nearly packed (we're staying at the hotel tomorrow night) and I've arranged for cat feeding. All there is to do now is the last minute things like cook for tonight and clear up, and pack anything I'm still using.

I never did get round to dyeing my hair to hide the grey. I don't suppose anyone will care.

A brand new blog!

You may know Richard North (@richthelandlord) from the comments on this blog and he has just started a blog of his own that's well worth checking out. It's mostly about photography but Richard says

it will inevitably drift in other directions too.

There will be links to 'cool stuff', occasionally some creative writing, maybe once in a while a recording of some of my music... and if something gets far enough under my skin maybe even a good old-fashioned rant...

His first photo is up and it's a good one. Why not pop over to Through My Lens now and say "hi"?

Is it a bug or a feature?

You've probably heard that HarperCollins are changing their contracts so that libraries can only lend their ebooks 26 times before they self-destruct. This is based on HarperCollins assessment of the usual lifespan of a physical book.

This Guardian article explains that ebooks' longevity is not a bug it's a feature. It's an interesting article.

Bookworms Chair

It's a great idea in theory: save space by storing your books in your chair. It doesn't look very comfortable though.

You can get it in different colours here.

Hen Party

Yesterday my son's fiancée had her hen party in my kitchen and I was invited. Ten of us had a beautifully cooked meal and spent the time chatting. Meanwhile, my son had his stag party upstairs with lots of games - computer and otherwise.

We all had too much fun to remember to take any photos.

Next week it's the wedding.