My birthday went well inasmuch as I pottered for most of the afternoon in the glorious sunshine. I have a new 2GB SD card for my camera so I can take even! more! collie! pics! (you can never have too many) and I may inflict upon you the collie glory at some point. I also have a new multi-level bird feeder with a mesh seed tray and a bird bath as ( Read more... )

So, flights and hotel are booked for Phoenix Con 7 next March so all I have to do is be ready to take off at the ungodly hour of 06:55.

I have recovered from the virus I had last week which is a relief and I'm back at work - both day jobbery and not - so that's good. :-) And I'm making my way back through Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife. Very ( Read more... )

I've breached the 50k barrier (woo!) and have one chapter to go before reaching the end of part one. I'm so pleased, I can't wait to get onto part two. I've slowed down a fair bit in the last few weeks as we've approached the new term. Hopefully, I can pick things up again during my lunch breaks and crack on a bit more.


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It will soon be time to hunt for pumpkin and butternut squash to make my roasted autumn soup with, adding in my Tuscan herb mix for a last hint of summer. It will also soon be time to dust off the slow cooker so that I can set stews/ curries/ soups cooking while I'm at work. There are few things better than coming home to a house that's full of the ( Read more... )

The start of term rush has begun and we've all been inundated with tours and resources sessions. It's been rewarding to see people get what you're trying to teach them, but it's knackering on the legs and feet and all I want to do when I get home is lie down in a hot bath with a nice cold drink in my hand. Unfortunately, by the time I get home I've ( Read more... )

The last four days have been nice and relaxing and full of sloth. There, I said it - I was bone idle. My brain was fried so I've spent most of the past four days re-watching Supernatural and reading a couple of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels (crime with a paranormal/ Deliverance (as in exorcism) twist.) Good stuff, and nothing like the books ( Read more... )

Holiday over - back to the grindstone. (The updating of publications...oh, the glamour)
I had a nice relaxing time off; read a lot, wrote a bit, went and saw Harry Potter (not bad, but it lacked the zoom zoom pace of Order of the Phoenix - bit of a filler, I think.)

Fiona Glass has been doing posts on people's desks up on her blog. Mine went up on ( Read more... )

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Well, my brief holiday is over and it's back to work  - and the preparation for a presentation I have to give at a staff conference next Thursday & Friday (the 4th & 5th of June). I was volunteered for this, so it should be interesting as I have to do a 20 minute session on effective Google searching (aka Improving Your Google-fu) using interactive ( Read more... )

No writing over the weekend, although Friday's wordcount was good, so I'm pleased with that as I got another 2,207 words on the short which brings it up to:

Does Old Earth Dream of Green, Green Things?

5948 / 6000

It's also rather obvious that I'm going to have to revise the first draft wordcount up (again) so I think I'll take it up to 10K and if it' ( Read more... )