Well, I’m back. Christmas and New Year passed off very smoothly and enjoyably – ate too much, drank too much, watched too many movies but I am actually facing the New Year (despite the downbeat news) with optimism and equanimity, I am going to make it a good one. It was great to spend time with my boys and my lovely friends. Santa must have thought I had been a good girl last year, as he was extraordinarily generous and somehow managed to get a new 24″ iMac down my chimney.
The dog loved having the boys home as much as I did, and he adored having two large creatures willing to roll about on the floor with him and brave the arctic conditions to chase around the garden and take him to the beach. Boy toys as opposed to toy boys, I guess. Now they have returned home, Milo sits looking at me with a tragic look on his face whimpering quietly, wondering why I am such a boring replacement ( answer – because I am playing with my iMac…..)
I haven’t been blogging (what do you mean you hadn’t noticed?!) but I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on Facebook. Yesterday I decided to delete all the outstanding ‘notifications’ (almost 60), so apologies if you sent me ‘Karma’ , a plant for my Lil’ green patch, an invitation to play poker, scrabble or a war game, or just wanted to poke, hug or throw a sheep at me, but there were so many I decided to start afresh. New Year and all that….sorry.
The new year has begun on a very good note. I was very gratified to read that it is a really bad idea to go on a diet at the moment, what with the flu epidemic and the horrid sickness (and worse) lurgy doing the rounds, apparently if you are on a diet, your body’s ability to fight off the viruses is reduced. Read more here. So that’s one less resolution to have to worry about breaking.
More good news is that Andy Murray has just won an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi defeating both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on the way. And the BBC are announcing who the new Doctor Who will be in 30 minutes in a special program on BBC 1 – all very exciting.
I’ve also been asked to do several web design projects and a big bookbinding project which I will tell you about in a few weeks time. Who knows? Maybe my ‘hobbies’ will start to earn me some money – which would be a fine thing indeed.
I found a really funny image which keeps making me laugh…
So it’s been a really good start to the year. I hope yours has begun as well and I wish you lots of wonderfulness for 2009. The best New Year wishes I read were two both by the great Neil Gaiman
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
“…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”
Wonderful. You can’t put it better than that, can you?
Happy New Year everyone.
Later : Ooh, couldn’t wait so I have seen who new Doctor Who is and thought I would tell you all…it’s ……..Matt Smith. Matt Smith? Who?
Ooh I’m not sure about this at all. My year might have just gone pear-shaped already…
I was visiting AmyH’s lovely blog to drool over her lovely new studio and I saw that she had made a book using a binding I hadn’t tried before and even better, she had included a tutorial showing how to do it. It’s called a Secret Belgian Binding. (I’m not sure if the binding or the Belgian is secret). However, never one to resist a challenge, I had a go and actually found it quite easy to follow BUT my book (unlike Amy’s) does have a couple of big errors. It looks fine on the outside.
Inside is where it all starts to go pear-shaped. I followed the instructions to the letter but two things went wrong. I ended up having to join two lengths of thread and didn’t realise the knot would show if I joined them where I did – I’ll know better next time. And the three sections – front cover, spine and back cover, have to be held in place using masking tape AFTER you have covered them with the decorative paper and unfortunately, it stuck to the inside paper when I peeled it off. Next time I will not use such a rough finished paper as the masking tape didn’t stick to the outside paper which is much smoother.
Anyway, I loved this binding and it is actually, quite easy to do, so I shall definitely try it again. It requires lots of very precise measuring and cutting which I love so you will be seeing more of these!
Now, are you sitting comfortably? Got a few minutes to spare? Well, following on from yesterday’s post, here is my favourite penguin, Pingu. My boys and I used to LOVE watching this on TV when they were very small.