Apologies if I owe you stuff, but I'm curled up under a duvet, crocheting and pretending that my stomach doesn't hate me. On the plus side, I've almost finished the mitten I was working on. On the down side, I'm hungry and eating doesn't make me nauseous, just ill.

*sigh* Thank you all for the cookies, which I will nom when I'm feeling better.

(Z, I will be fine for tomorrow, if I have to eat all the Settlers in the world ;))

Thank you topaz_eyes, xparrot and AnonyMouse for my snowflake cookies. My stomach is quite upset at the moment, so the virtual kind are ideal. Especially since all we have here right now is much rain and gloom, they were a sparkly treat to wake up to :)

ETA: THIS IS WHY I PAY MY LICENCE FEE:

Evan Davis playing Bohemian Rhapsody on the paper and comb

The Radio 4 Advent Calendar

Today has gone all topsy-turvy on me, and I'm still trying to find my feet. Headlines are: Lovely Weekend If Somewhat Wet, We Have Achieved Crochet (I Have The Pictures To Prove It) and I Love It When Work Pays For Lunch.

It's likely that I'm going to be at a loose end in London for an hour or so tomorrow afternoon. Any suggestions for 'must visit' yarn shops so that I can alarm J further with the size of the stash?

Love to y'all and hope everyone else is drier than I am...

Have the Muppets instead.

Okay, so now I'm getting slightly freaked.

I went out at lunchtime, and the sun was shining. Despite it being showery today, I didn't get wet.

I found ar_gemlad's work with no trouble and picked up a bag of stuffing (the toy kind, not the food kind) from her, so I can finish my crochet toys off.

I went to the library (still dry), where I found that the book I'd reserved to get my reel_torchwood fic done had come and gone. Since I never received an email to say it had arrived, they reserved it for me again free of charge. And I found a copy of a crochet stitch encylopaedia that I'd put on my 'to buy' list. And in the paperback sale on the way out, I picked up 2 Steven Saylors and A Gathering Light for 20p each.

And the little Pret at the bottom of Cornmarket has a new manager, who used to manage Starbucks on the High, and always recognises me and says hello when I go in, so I left with a warm happy feeling (and coffee, which also imbues a person with a warm happy feeling, but not quite in the same way).

I'm now slightly nervous that it's all going to go wrong, so I'm hiding behind my desk and working hard in the hopes that it doesn't. Still. It bodes well for tonight's quiz, though!

I'm terribly listless today, which I think is a combination of sheer tiredness and Stuff that's going on that I have no control over. It's going to be a long week, in that respect at least.

On the other hand, I wrote 4 pages on the train yesterday, so at least one part of my brain still works. It's a Criminal Minds future!fic, and while I like the idea, I'm having trouble with character-wrangling. Serious editing is going to be needed if it's going to come out as a story rather than a self-indulgent ramble.

Oh, and at the weekend, I put my name down for an Archive Of Our Own account, and despite being told I should expect something by tomorrow, it actually came through on Sunday. ( Read more... )

I've been trying to get my head straight over writing priorities, which is hard when what you really want to do is crochet small flowers. The learning process is going pretty well, although I keep forgetting what stitches are called - I can do them all, but I can't remember when a pattern names a stitch, which of them I'm meant to be doing. I may need a crib sheet...

Anyway, on the writing front, I'm not going to get my Fandom Free For All stories done on time, so I need to do some shuffling to make sure they get slotted in between my firm deadlines. Hmmm...I'm also going to need a PodBang extension.

Firm deadlines right now are:
10th December: sga_santa
11th December: reel_torchwood
21st December: yuletide

Everything else is negotiable, and is going to have to wait in the plot bunny corrall until I can find time to play with them. More carrots not required. These critters are big enough as it is!

How's everyone else doing? Did we all survive Monday intact?

Good...er...lunchtime all. Gosh, when did that happen? Hope everyone's coping with Monday okay. I'm tired out of my tiny mind, but managing better since the sun came out. I have lists as long as my arm to be getting on with, so clearly what I want to be doing is writing a long LJ post about my dull weekend.

~ I had a very practical weekend, what with one thing and another. On Saturday, I made us a medicine box from a shoebox and diet coke boxes. I can actually find a paracetamol when I need one, which is a great improvement. My SAD light makes an excellent craft lamp, it must be said.

~ Mum brought me up a collection of crochet hooks and some yarn, so I spent a happy evening trying not to tie my fingers together and mostly succeeded \o/ I'm pretty confident with the basic stitches now, as well as the basic amigurumi technique, which I like a lot. My main problem now is turning the end of my first row of proper stitches - all my squares are somewhat wobbly at the edges! Blackwell's knitters, would someone be able to help me with that on Wednesday, please? The books and YouTube vids aren't really doing the trick *looks hopeful*

~ A couple of emails at the weekend have made me look back on 2009 slightly differently than I'd expected. 2008 was a bad, bad year, and I know we'd all hoped this year would be better. It hasn't been, for most of my friends, and I will be glad to get into 2010, hoping for more. On the other hand, my own state of mind has, on the whole, been much better than last year, and I feel like I'm definitely *trying* to recover, even if I'm not there yet. I got up the courage a while back to email some friends that I'd more or less lost touch with, and their replies have been humbling and incredibly welcome. I'm still too flakey for my own liking, and need to get a grip on my organisational skills, which are more than lacking, but just the desire to do that is so much better than last year. Baby steps, but it's good to see progress.

~ Is anyone going to do Christmas wish lists this year? I checked, and they went up about this time last year. I'm very aware that the last posting dates are coming up in a few weeks, and I want to make sure I send stuff in plenty of time. If they don't pop up in the next few days, I might get the ball rolling myself...

~ I discovered a bunch of postcards from Menorca in the bottom of my rucksack. If I have your address, you might be getting a surprise!card in the next few weeks. Also, I must thank naye, rustydog and darththalia who have all sent me cards over the last few weeks, and have brightened my day immeasurably.

~ I did watch Waters of Mars yesterday ( and don't have many thoughts about it (doesn't include spoilers for the Christmas Special) )

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So, how's everyone else? Good week ahead?

I have just successfully crocheted a long row of chain stitches for the first time ever. It's in horrible brown acrylic, the tension is all over the place and it's one of the ugliest things ever done to wool by a human being, but damn if I'm not proud of it.

Early indications are that my crocheting is going to be looser than my knitting, although not by much, and that I'm going to need cutting out of it at least once in the not too distant future.

But still.

Crochet! \o/

Just when I think my life can't get more surreal, I get spoiled for the Archers by Stephen Fry on Twitter.

O.O

Actually, that's happened to be a few times in the last week. wrongworddammit spoiled me for NCIS, and a colleague spoiled me for Strictly Come Dancing (shush, it makes me happy).

Fortunately, I'm not a spoiler-phobe, but it's going to make me more careful about making jokes in passing...

Since I am very boring at the moment, have some stuff that isn't:

The Zoo vs The Internet. Following the carrier pigeon beats broadband story from South Africa, CNet has done some more comparisons.

YouTubeDoubler. Because you need to watch more, clearly.

Every wanted to make your own lego designs but didn't know how? Lego Design will let you create whatever you want and THEN buy the bricks, just for your model. Wonderful. Incidentally, did I mention that rustydog, who knows me far too well, sent me Pirate!Lego for my birthday? J and I spent way too much time firing the tiny cannon...

Which actually segues nicely into my recommendation of James May's Toy Stories. He's so far covered Airfix, Plasticine and Meccano, and it's been an absolutely joy.

Since it is grey, gloomy and horrible here, I'm going to turn on my daylight lamp and try to actually get some work done. Any other recommendations of how to entertain myself while doing so?

Dear Moron,

I can see you from here.* You have just locked your bike to an iron gate that's going to need unlocking some time in the next hour. If the Oxford City Singers have to stand in the rain because of you, you are liable to come back to find one of them has nicked your helmet. Also, the presence of your bike has encouraged another moron to lock their bike to the gate. This should be fun, and you lose another mark for leading other astray.

Seriously, idiot, if you can just clip it to the lock, someone else can unclip it. Also, if you leave it that way up, it will fill with rain.

On second thoughts, nice job on that one.

No love,
Me

*I'm not creepy, I'm just sitting in a cafe opposite the choir venue. Honest.

Why did no one tell me in REALLY SMALL WORDS so I could understand just how awesome The Sarah Jane Adventures are? Seriously, I've only seen the pilot, the first part of "The Wedding of Sarah Jane" and the first fifteen minutes of "The Eternity Trap Part 1" (spoil me and die, kaithx) and I am absolutely in love with it. Clyde is my favourite so far, although Luke and Rani are close behind.

Although, note to self: You can watch most things without getting too bothered by them, but haunted houses freak you out. Please try not to scream too loudly in the staff room in future.

Also, when I told my manager what I was watching, she went "ooh, the new episode is on on Friday. We've got the recorder set." I already thought she was great, but now I have it confirmed!

Damn. This means I have a new interest to seek out icons for...

I have written today, although it's scaring me a little. Just over 300 words of original fic which is kind of giving me palpitations and makes me happy at the same time. It sucks, of course (see icon) but I can see something of the shape of it now, and how to stitch up what I've got so I can go on. We'll see what happens.

Other than that, it's been a very quiet day. We did hold a 2 minute silence, and we did ring the bell for it, but I'm not sure how many students twigged what was going on. Apparently it's hard to tell in a library :( But we knew, and that's what counts.

One excellent thing at the moment is that my eating is getting right back on track. Regular listeners readers will know that food is one of my big Bete Noirs, and this last week has been horribly hard for it. Cooking some really nice meals seems to have been the key to getting me back on track, as well as some panicked calls to J when I'm out on my own and Just Want Food. Whether I'm hungry or not, whether I'll enjoy it or not, I don't care. I get it into my head that I must eat or... Well, I don't know what will happen, but I won't like it. Anyway, I've been leaning heavily on J and eating the yummy food he's been cooking and I'm starting to feel like I might be able to handle this after all. Possibly. Some day. Remind me to type up the kheema curry recipe for y'all, because it's fab, cheap and great comfort food.

Next week is shaping up to be...stressful...so I'm going to need my new-found eating Zen. On the plus side, since we probably won't be able to go out anywhere, I should get lots of writing and recording done. Always a silver lining. Also, my mother is coming to Oxford and bringing me a crochet hook and some yarn. ALL my friends knit, or so it seems, so it'll be nice not to feel like the odd one out. Which reminds me, another excellent thing was my lovely lunch with said knitters, a regular occurance that has rapidly become the highlight of my week. Ooh, and I got my first book through Book Mooch so that was also awesome. And I even did some work ;)

So yes, all in all (and appart from gross over-use of the word 'so'), it's not such a bad week after all.

What about everyone else? Is it all downhill to the weekend now?

I meant to post something before about this, but better late than never!

consci_fan_mo is just the thing for non-NaNoers, or NaNoers recovering from the month's marathon. Short stories, original or fanfic, posted over 21 days in December. And in case you're all out of ideas, there are plenty of prompt posts over at the comm.

Just click on the banner for more details and ideas!

I'm still trying to catch up on comment replies, but that might take me a while. My brain is still on a 'go slow' today, brought on by constant dreams last night which have left me worn out this morning, and the awful, horrible weather which is making me want to crawl under a blanket and not come out again. Under the circumstances, being busy should be good, but I'm not coping so well. I've got lots of easy, interesting things to do, but I still look at my list and want to cry. That's just daft, because seriously, everything on that list is totally achievable, and quickly, and then I get to cross things off, which will be AWESOME.

So, I'm writing in an attempt to pull myself out of my own head (no ear bleeding so far, you'll be pleased to hear) and remind myself that I do exist.

~ Last night's lecture was on EU law, which was...er...honestly? Not as dull as it could have been, but when even the lecturer is apologising for the content, you know you're in trouble. Still, she was a good speaker, knew her stuff and I learned some things about what the Lisbon treaty actually *means*, although don't ask me what until I've had a chance to read my notes again.

~ I like being allowed to sleep in on a Tuesday morning. Only an hour or so, but it makes a huge difference after all the travelling on a Monday.

~ Despite extreme cravings, I got through yesterday without having to resort to junk food, even though the soup we made at the weekend didn't turn out very well. So, oh wise and knowledgeable flist, do you have a favourite soup recipe that you could give me? It's not something I've ever really got the hang of, so while I can make pasta sauces from scratch using my imagination, I don't really know where to start when it comes to soup. I prefer thin soups to thick ones (broths rather than thick 'leek and potato' type things), but I eat most things!

~ Because I know this is relevant to some friends' interests: Get a free Evolution wall poster (UK-only, sorry, although if you really, really want one, I might be persuaded to post one overseas).

~ I'm still ploughing my way through the Eighth Doctor Audios, ( cut for vague spoilers, especially for The Natural History of Fear )

~ In terms of writing, I wrote an SGA ficlet off a drabble prompt (for which I'm sure I'll be forgiven) and prodded a few others that refused to cooperate. I'll get the drabbles cleaned up for posting later in the day, along with the ficlets. Both are SGA, actually, which seems to be a fandom curiously resistent to drabbling. I've only ever managed one which is not like me. A couple of the prompts have me utterly and unusually stumped, so I'm going to give myself until the end of the week to get them done, then declare defeat. I have an idea for an original fic that I offered someone at the Fandom Free For All, and I'm hoping once that's out of my head, other stuff will start to flow. Don't hold your breath, though...

~ Speaking of feeling blocked, I really want to write something with Hugh, but my brain keeps freezing. Sic Transit Tempus readers who know what I'm talking about, would anyone care to throw me a prompt/scenario/wild idea? I'm all at a loss.

~ Tonight is slightly nuts, since I have my slimming world group THEN people to dinner, but at least I have something resembling a social life at the moment. Of course, it's not helped by my sore throat and slight sniffle that I'm desperately hoping won't turn into a cold. I don't have time to be ill right now!

So that's me, folks. How's everyone else doing? Better now Monday's over?

With thanks to taffimai for pointing me in its direction:

For all Torchwood and Doctor Who folks suffering from Fannish Ennui?

Spaceman by kaydeefalls could be just what you need.

It's the kind of vid that reminds me why I'm a fan of these things in the first place. Sometimes I need something to just stop me and make me go "OH!" and this is it right now. Just wonderful

Things I have done since I last posted:

~ ( Visited a country estate )

~ ( Visited the new Ashmolean museum )

~ ( Discovered the value of proof-reading in a church context )

~ Hoovered and tidied the flat.

~ Started looking at a January holiday. We've found that our vague plans are possible, assuming J has a job and we decide we can afford it.

~ Had a few minor melt-downs, but have kept on recovering.

~ ( Eaten my own body-weight. )

~ Signed up for yuletide \o/

~ Replaced most of my icons with old ones I'd missed and shiny new ones. I really need to rotate them more often and use some of the 800 that I have on file.

Things I have not done since I last posted:

~ Written a word on any of the fics due over the next few weeks.

~ Recorded any podfic.

THIS IS NOT GOOD. My brain feels full of barbed wire at the moment, and it hurts every time I try to do something creative. So my plan for this week is to write *something* every day, even if it's just a drabble. And I'm not going to cheat and post the ones I've already written. You're getting completely new words and stories, even if I have to bleed out of my ears to get them to you.

How was everyone else's weekend? Doing okay? My Monday so far has involved a surprisingly good work meeting and a whole lot of coffee. I'm hoping the rest of the week follows this pattern!

With apologies to the flister who lives there...

Council in Liverpool gets a bad name for poor spelling

Since the article is very, very short, I've c&p'd it below:

Council officials were left embarrassed after an eight-year-old boy gave them a spelling lesson. Matthew Spurgin was appalled when workmen from Knowsley council installed road signs with a glaring error near his house. Matthew lives on an avenue in Liverpool but the new signs said “avenune”.

Matthew, who got full marks in a spelling test at school this week, said: “They should learn to spell correctly. If they aren’t sure, they need to look it up.”

A spokesman for the council insisted that the error was made by contractors and that correctly spelt signs had been ordered.

From The Times

It's the quote that made me sporfle. Someone's going to be a beta when he grows up...