I have been sadly neglecting this blog, except when cornered like a rat, which is why I have been signing up for the Tarot Blog Hop regularly. Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind, though that does mean that I have only been writing about Tarot lately and neglecting the myriad of other projects etc. that keep me too busy to…err…write my blog.

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The Japanese are known for their love of a fiendish puzzle, from wooden boxes that can require over a hundred moves to open, to all kinds of number puzzles. It seems that this apparently includes knitting patterns, as if the use of different symbols and the obvious language barrier weren’t enough of a challenge.

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Well, what a week it’s been! After all the excited anticipation for the eclipse last Friday, not to mention all my faffing about careful preparations to set up my telescope and ensure that I could mount my camera on it for photographing the great event, it turned out cloudier than bath of asses’ milk and a good deal less beautifying.

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Many years ago, (no, that’s not a picture of me!), I became quite interested in photography. I got my first SLR when I was 18 and in the pursuit of this hobby, I eventually acquired quite an impressive array of photographic kit, mostly Pentax, who were, IMO, by far and away the best of breed when it came to optics and pleasingly compact SLR cameras.

I took a lot of pictures.

I had fun taking a lot of pictures.

Some of them were even passably good.

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There is much excitement here at Ania M HQ. Not only is birthday season coming up, (we each have our own month month, starting with DH in March and ending with me in June), but LOTS of projects are starting to come together and creative ideas are flying around like a cloud of bats. (Yes, that is the collective term.)

This year is a big one for myself and DH as we’re both *cough*-ty. The difficulty when you get to this advanced and doddering age is that you have acquired most of what you need and it becomes harder to think of something you might want that you don’t already have.

I have managed to come up with something! 😀

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I’ve been working my crafty mojo hard lately and have finished several projects, some twice 😀

You may recall my Renaissance Blanky, which I finished in October ready for use as a throw for keeping my tootsies warm on the sofa over the winter months. It did get used for that purpose for a whole but then migrated to the (unheated) bedroom where it covered approximately half the bed. I still had some of the red yarn left, though not enough to do anything significant, since I really needed enough for 32 more squares to get it up to 8 x 10. So, I bought another ball of yarn in Tudor Rose (I fancied a bit of contrast and 32 squares in the same colour is really boring) and this is the result:

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I haven’t got off to a roaring start on my resolution  to-do list item regarding writing more, at least not as far as this blog is concerned, though after the daily Advent calendar posts, I imagine that’s something of a relief. I am doing rather better on most of the rest of the list though and will be posting an update about that soon 🙂

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Day 16 and it’s another crisp and sunny one here, though I understand we’re in for more drear and rain after today 🙁

Yesterday’s sauciness ended up being quite a long post, so I omitted mentioning a couple of other things. Most notably, the gorgeous (and broken) glass has been repaired (and stunk the house out with the smell of Araldite.

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DD’s a Winner!

I have to take off my hat to DD, I really didn’t think she was going to do it. Just shy of 19k words, a target of 24k and 1 day left. I thought she’d get half way there and I’d be just as proud of her having done over 20k, but no, she plugged away (with plenty of additional prodding from me) and produced over 5k words in one day! That’s OVER FIVE THOUSAND WORDS IN ONE DAY! (It needed writing out in full and in bold). I am seriously, but seriously impressed!

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Well, it’s Black Friday and the masses are both seething and rampaging if the news is to be believed, with reports of punch-ups over TVs reminiscent of the kind of thing that used to happen in the January sales, or that bit in Airplane! where the passengers are told to assume crash positions and chaos ensues (see pic). My particular corner of the world seems to have largely avoided bothering with any of it and when I nipped out to collect something earlier, the high street was quiet with no evidence of this lunacy.

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