So, here we are again, with Mercury causing trouble. The planet going Retrograde is being blamed for all kinds of breakdowns and communications, meanwhile, our thermometers have been rising too with a small heatwave last week. It makes a change from floods, I suppose, at least if you don’t count the personal ones I have been experiencing in my own little sweatshop (or the conservatory and my workroom, as it is known.) Either way, it is exploding head time.

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No, really, this is not a badly drawn butterfly, it’s real.

Found this little fellow in the garden yesterday, well, at least two of them actually. When they are in flight, all you see is a flash of shocking pink. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I’m almost certain it’s Life imitating Art, in this case, a child’s painting of a butterfly. The grey is precisely the shade that the white paint goes in a child’s paintbox after repeatedly being used with a none-too-clean paintbrush, and the pink has clearly been daubed on with a highlighter pen after all else has failed.

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It’s no good. I’ve searched and pored over the small print on the tin, but nowhere can I find a disclaimer regarding the colour of this Ronseal Fence Life that they have entertainingly labelled “Medium Oak”. I have taken the colour swatch from their website for your amusement –>

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Watts Chapel

I have been a little slow in sharing this find. You know how it is when life, the universe and an inability to pull your finger out and download your photos from the camera get in the way, but better late than never, I say and perhaps the timing is apt.

A couple of months ago, I finally got around to an excursion with a friend (deferred several times over a few months for one reason or another) to Watts Gallery and more specifically, Watts Chapel and Cemetery. OMG!  Awesome is not a word I use casually, but it was completely and utterly an awesome place, an awesome experience and a jaw-droppingly awesome sight. In all…awesome.

As you may be aware from recent posts, we have been migrating from using the old Windoze-based kit to Macs. One unfortunate side effect of this is that there is now not a single functioning printer in the house…out of four.

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So what did I get for Christmas?

I got lucky, that’s what 😀  See? It says so here –>

The card is from the rather lovely Vintage Erotica Tarot, just one of my many Christmas presents and the source of many of the previously mentioned giggles 🙂 In case you can’t see it properly, the card is The Wheel and is subtitled “You Are Lucky”, which pretty much sums up how I feel about life at the moment.

This deck is a collection of, as you might reasonably expect, vintage erotica – lovely original sepia toned pictures of un-airbrushed ladies with naturally shaped bodies and plush, luxuriant lady beards (no Brazilians here, or if there are, it’s due to nationality rather than nether region hairstyling).

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Was this how your Christmas went? Or is that just the stuff of soap operas where everyone on the street/square/close has the kind of issues that make your toes curl?

Did your spouse have you fingering the carving knife longingly? Did your children turn you into a shrieking harpy? Was your head in danger of exploding like an overfilled balloon? Did the relatives have you reaching for the gin? Were you desperate for it all to be over for another year?

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See that there picture? Do ya? Do ya?   –>

The one that says “Winner” in large letters for the NaNoWriMo challenge ?   –>

Well…er…..that’s not me.

That there Winner’s certificate belongs to none other that my darling daughter, who embraced the challenge and completed just after 9pm last night 😀

Am I proud? You bet! <puffs up like a puffed-up proud thing> 😀

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I confess: I’m a Bookaholic, a bookworm, if you prefer. I love to read and always have, spending most of my schooldays with my nose in a book.

Admittedly, these days, I tend to read in fits and starts, depending on how much time I can squeeze away from doing mundane things like eating and sleeping. Fortunately, it is possible to read whilst eating and a little light reading before going to sleep is usually a good way to wind down. I say usually, because it is not unknown for me to read all night, or at least until the chorus of over-enthusiastic avian abuse hurling that heralds the dawn reminds me that I probably won’t be much use to man or beast unless I get at least a short power nap. (more…)

So, there I was, pootling along the M4, with a car full of family and a trailer full of Medieval tent and all the other paraphenalia required for a weekend’s trading at Firejoust, when there is a sudden clunk and shudder. I glance in the wing mirror to see my trailer wheel bouncing across three lanes of motorway into the fast lane.

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