Betwixtmas 2014

Apparently we call the period between Christmas and New Year, Betwixtmas. I heard it on Radio 1 the other day and I liked it. I can be down with the kids.

Betwixtmas for me started off with some fairly major snow late on Boxing Day night. Not a big deal in itself, and quite exciting for most people, but a bit nervewracking for me as the next day I had to drive to Hull. I haven't driven in the snow/ice before and I would also have with me my Mum aka the World's Worst Passenger.

But we made it to Hull which was good because we had to break these two people out of cat prison aka the cattery.

Betwixtmas is a time for many a Fred and Lily photo to be taken. Pay special attention to the top right photo - Lily was nicely asleep on my knee for ages and when Fred saw this he immediately had to come and sit even closer to me because he is a big fat jealous ginger boy.

Betwixtmas was a time for catching up with friends. Catching up with them from 2pm until gone midnight to be precise. Messy. Although the next morning I discovered that I'd had a very productive shopping trip at Sainsburys. Oh and I took the funniest selfie with Lily ever - why does she look so horrified? Because I chased her all around the kitchen grabbing at her to take that photo...

Betwixtmas is also a time for me to dogsit for a day. Which just involves lying on the sofa watching TV with this pair of idiots. I don't know why they always look so sad in photos, I swear to god they're really happy dogs normally.

Betwixtmas is a time for crocheting things that have no purpose and are for you and you alone. I got Kerry Lord's book for Christmas along with some lovely fancy Tofts Alpaca wool (which is eye wateringly expensive when you're used to buying Stylecraft)

Betwixtmas is a time for sitting on your behind, drinking hot chocolate and reading massive 900 page tomes.

Betwixtmas is a time for starting to get organised and fill your fridge up after you have eaten it bare. Before I went shopping I swear to god all I had in my fridge was a bottle of cider, gherkins, Flora and an out of date yoghurt. I love a bit of batch cooking although it drives me mental that I don't have more space in my freezer. Jamie Oliver's basic stew recipe is a winner every time.

Betwixtmas is a time for surprise presents out of the blue from Apple. I have been the proud owner of a first generation iPod Nano for the last 9 years or so. You might not remember first generation iPods, I think they stopped making them a bazillion years ago.

Anyway the battery on mine gradually just got rubbish and wouldn't retain charge. I put out a random tweet saying I felt sad that my iPod's time had come, and a stranger replied pointing me in the direction of Apple's First Generation iPod Replacement Program. I was absolutely convinced it was a scam that was going to steal everything from me but it turns out it was actually true.

I sent my iPod Nano off and Betwixtmas delivered a brand new, latest, 16BG, iPod Nano. I could not believe it. Finally being cheap and not buying the latest model of anything pays off...



Christmas 2014 could suck it but Betwixtmas 2014 I could get on board with.

Not Really Resolutions 2014 l The Conclusion

*Insert standard sentence about "Oh my goodness where has the past year gone?"*

Seriously though. What a year. Right now I'll be very glad to see the back of 2014 but before I shove it out of the door I need to take a few minutes to update you on 2014's Not Really Resolutions. After 2013's miserable performance (2 out of 10 resolutions anyone?!) I felt sure that 2014 couldn't be that bad, and actually it's not gone badly...

1. Read 12 Classics

Completed! After failing last year for the first year ever I felt like I wanted to go for this full force. I've had a pretty good mix of more 'classic' Classics and more modern Classics. Quick overview of some of this year's Classics?

Vile Bodies - easy to read, bit of fluff, funny, but not my favourite Waugh.
Lady Chatterley's Lover - not really that rude it turns out.
The Woman in Black - actually full on made me feel scared when I was reading it. Chilling.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - just...weird.
Of Human Bondage - took an age to read but I loved it, which is quite a feat considering that the main character is such a sap. But despite that I kept rooting for him.
Mrs Dalloway - oh I could not get into this at all. It's such a short book but I struggled through every page. Would be very wary of picking up another Woolf.

I always enjoy this challenge and have been doing it for the four years that I've been doing the Not Really Resolutions but I think 2015 might see time for a bit of a change.


2. Eat 1 Vegetarian meal per week

Oh dear. This really could have happened and I hate to be a massive tit and blame everything on the break up but I really do. Post break-up my eating habits have just been plain horrific and I haven't made anything, much less go to the effort of looking up vegetarian recipes to try out.

I think I did about 30 veggie meals which is half way there so it depends what my yardstick is for achieving a Not Really Resolution - if it's 50% then I totally did it.

Mind you the number of times I ate toast or had a jacket potato with beans post break-up I probably did end up hitting 52 meals.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including a visit to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - A trip to America to see American Girl and Boy get married and take a little road trip around Arizona (can't believe I still haven't finished blogging about that. Eek.)
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a resevoir
June - A trip to North Yorkshire to see Heather
July - The Color Run in Manchester, a trip to London to Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
August - Nothing - but I was laid up with sciatica at the time so I'm letting myself off
September - A trip to France to see my Dad and a trip to Birmingham with some work friends
October - A night out at the dogs with work people
November - A trip to Bristol
December - A trip to Marrakech - even if all didn't go quite to plan...

4. Save up to buy a car

All done! It's worked out a bit more expensive than planned given that this was supposed to be something that two people were paying for but whatever, I did it all myself and that makes it even more awesome.

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not even close. In fact I don't think I even picked it up this year shamefully. The closest I came to it was buying a light up crochet hook because I knew I had an inordinate amount of black squares to make and thought it might make me blind.

I won't feel too bad though. According to my records I made 26 amigurumi things for people this year which is actually pretty immense when you really stop and think about it.

And that doesn't include the random dinosaur I made for funsies...

...or the Father Christmases...

Anyway. You get my drift. No Tetris blanket this year.

6. Learn something new

I was all set to go "Nope, not achieved this one either" and then I thought I wouldn't be so harsh on myself because actually I did learn something new this year. I learned to be on my own. And whilst it isn't as if I was a massive sap who was completely dependent on someone for their very existence, when someone who has been in your life for 13 years ups and leaves you there is a huge amount of readjusting to do.

I'm giving myself a massive gold star for this one because I didn't have a complete breakdown over anything when I really did feel like it. I got on with it and I learned that I'm not a total idiot, he's a total idiot.

And if that's the only new thing I learned this year then I'm ok with that.

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Well no I didn't.

But, see Point 5.

I was a craft fair this year. I was my own personal craft fair and seeing as the reason to do this was to make some money and feel that my stuff was good enough to put out in the public space I have actually achieved that. I've sold my stuff to people and have made some money from it and therefore I'm going to count this as complete.

I know. I'm a massive cheat.

8. Beat my 10k time

Let's not talk about this shall we?

Let's just say that 2014 was the Year that Running Forgot. It was my Annus Horribilis Runnus. I was either injured or mentally broken for 2014 and that did not make for a good runner. Since my bout of sciatica in August I haven't run at all. I will be back to the beginning once I start running again - ugh.

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There we have it. Five out of eight will do me very nicely.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2015 has in store for me.

I think.

Photo an Hour l 14th December

Pitifully late with this month's Photo an Hour post. After being ill in Marrakech and then off work for a week, I've been having problems getting my act together and actually caring about doing anything. To be honest I'm giving myself a gold star for actually taking these photos.

This was Sunday 14th December...

10am - Late start for me, still in recovery mode after the kidney infection. Felt bad that the gerbils hadn't had a lot of exercise with me being away and being sick so I set up a mega cage extension into their playpen so they could come and play as they chose. They absolutely loved it and ended up being in there until about 2pm.

11am - Got around to finishing a book. This guy is a bit of a Marmite author, people seem to really like him or have a very visceral reaction to his books. I like him - his books are silly and easy to read and sometimes that is what you need. I wonder about his shelf life though, this book was very similar to his last one...

12pm - My guilty pleasure is absolutely, totally crap made-for-TV Christmas films. I'm not talking Elf, Polar Express, The Holiday, Love Actually here. I'm talking the kind of films you have never heard of, featuring actors you have never heard of with plotlines which are inconceivably easy to work out. I can't get enough of them.

1pm - Finally getting around to blogging, something which I have been completely remiss at lately.

2pm - In previous years I've been pretty good at making most of my Christmas cards. Not this year. I've been low on festive cheer but I gave myself a kick up the bum to make some cute crocheted Christmas tree cards to be given to the people I really like.

3pm - Round at my sister's so I got to see this little squishy face.

4pm - The downside of your sister being the boss? You get to spend a couple of hours of your Sunday sorting out vouchers to give people for a Christmas bonus. Yaaaaaaaay.

5pm - You can't tell from this picture but Rowan was literally sat on me, pushing me right against the arm of the sofa. She has absolutely no sense of personal space and I wouldn't have it any other way.

6pm - I stayed on at my sister's after dinner to help her with the Christmas tree. Having two teenage sons means that decorating the tree is kind of a lonely business for her. I on the other hand will leap at the opportunity to decorate a tree. Any tree.

7pm - And we didn't do too badly if I say so myself. Good bauble placement - I can't be doing with a sparsely decorated tree. And good distribution of lights. The more lights the merrier I say.

8pm - Back home where the washing up from the past *cough* days was awaiting me. It's pretty easy to let the washing up pile up when you're living on your own - you just keep taking plates out of the drawers until there aren't any left, or until there is no more workspace left to stack the dirty dishes. I know. I'm a terrible person.

9pm - In bed with a cup of tea and getting the last of my Christmas shopping done.

10pm - Ever late to a bandwagon. About 4 billion years ago, American Girl and Boy bought me Series 1 & 2 of 30 Rock. I loved it but just never got around to buying any more series. Over the past couple of weeks I rediscovered the box sets I did have and had to immediately buy Series 3 which is oh my goodness even funnier than the first two series. I've already order Series 4. Tune in next week for me discovering shows that everyone raved about 10 years previously...

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I feel like I can't thank Jane enough for hosting this year's Photo an Hour series. It's been surprisingly good fun and has got me blogging when I couldn't find anything else to blog about.

Louisa is taking up the Photo an Hour mantle for 2015 and has chosen the first date - Saturday 17 January - so get her blog bookmarked, get the date in your diary and get joining in. I love having a good old nosy at what people do during their weekends.

Not Really Resolutions 2014 l Update

1. Read 12 Classics

Still going well on this one and certainly better than I did in 2013. I've got a good mix in here of 'classic' Classics and more modern "are they really Classics?" Classics.

I guess I've relaxed my rules a little bit as the years have gone on with this not really resolution. Before I wouldn't have read anything that didn't have Penguin Classics written on it anywhere but now I'll whack it in there if it's just a well known one. I don't know if Murder on the Orient Express can count as a Classic - but it's famous so I've added it in.

I do enjoy this challenge but I think that next year there may be a modification...

2. Eat 1 vegetarian meal per week

I am trying guys, I really swear I am. I think the trouble here is just lack of inspiration. Every vegetarian recipe that I look at just makes me go....bleh. At the moment of posting we are 35/36 weeks into the year and I have completed 30 veggie meals.

Easy Cheesy Bake

There was a point where I thought this was going to be much worse so I'm feeling ok about it.

Please please please feel free to hit me up with your veggie recipes. Just as long as they don't involve carrots, sweet potato or anything in that ilk - The Person isn't a fan and I'm not up for making massive meals just for myself. I've also found that the vegetarian meals that I tend to like the look of also seem to involve outrageous amounts of cheese.

Spinach & Mushroom lasagne

Another thing I've found is that it is wicked hard to photograph veggie meals in a way that makes them look good and not like random piles of veggie mush.

Tomato, chickpea & green chilli stew

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including getting to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - America baby!
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show (where I totally met Chris Packham!) and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a reservoir
June - Picnic at the Castle with The Person and a trip up to see North Yorkshire and see Heather that I still haven't blogged about yet.
July - The Color Run in Manchester at the Etihad Stadium and a VERY exciting trip that I haven't had a chance to blog about yet.
August - Well. I did nothing. But that's because I spent most of it laid up with sciatica. But one quiet month is ok by me.

4. Save up to buy a car

This one is going well. We should have a car by the end of October - squee!

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not a Tetris Blanket

It's just neeeeeeeever going to happen is it? I don't feel too bad about it, it's not like I've been sitting on my behind doing knack all. I've crocheted 23 animals this year and I've managed to make another blanket (which I still need to blog about). I don't think that's bad going. But next year I'm definitely going to become a bit more selfish.

6. Learn something new

Still working on this one...

7. Sell something at a craft fair

I don't think this one is going to happen (see Point 5). What I need to do is take time out to build up stock before I can think about craft fairs. Definitely one to think about next year though - I'm going to have a little practice at Christmas time with crocheting a job lot of pieces up. What I really need to think about is what I might need as stock.

8. Beat my 10k time

Oh dear. Oh very dear dear. The Hull 10k was awful and terrible but I really pulled myself up by my bootstraps to get a shift on. I secretly signed up to another 10k at the end of August and my training was going really really well. I managed 6km running without stopping and was feeling so so confident. And then - hello sciatica. I was barely able to walk, let alone run, for all of August so the 10km went un-run and now I have nothing to sign up for as we're entering the winter months.

More to the point, being unable to run has meant I've got out of the habit of running and now I haven't run in over a month and can't find the motivation to start again...

Next year though. I need to beat those Hull 10k demons!

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4 more months to go!

(Last update here)

The weekend of nothing

This weekend has been about being at home.

This weekend has been about the pottering, about the wandering about and not really doing anything at all.

This weekend hasn't even really been about chores, it has been about the bliss of being a grown up without responsibilities.

No children, no parents, no other dependants, just a whole two days stretched out ahead with no demands on your time. Nowhere particularly to be, no-one to particularly see, nothing particularly to do.

What do you do on weekends like this?

You try your hand at baking something for the first time in what feels like a million years...

(Apricot & Cranberry bars from the Hairy Dieter's, super easy to make although don't think that you substitute tin foil for baking parchment. This stuff is sticky.) 

You spend some time hanging out with your gerbils, building them a super fun playpen with every obstacle and hidey hole that you can think of. Mostly in an attempt to encourage Ser Jorah to run off a bit of his bulk, as covered in this blog post.

(You get a bonus point for spotting the gerbil in this picture.)

You take a massively long bubble bath on a Saturday night because there is nothing to watch on a Saturday night anyway, and you run the bath so hot that you have to come out of it and drink about 3 litres of water to rehydrate yourself.

You read your head off in bed in the mornings because despite the fact that you've woken up annoyingly early you don't really need to get out of bed and can lie, lolling about, drinking multiple cups of tea for as long as you want.

(The Casual Vacancy was pretty good actually, I really enjoyed it, although it did go a little off the rails at the end. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a revelation, I didn't know what to expect at all and it has taken me quite by surprise)

You binge watch Scandal because you find the box set on Sky On Demand and remember how much you loved the first series.

(Episodes watched over the weekend = 10)

You cross stitch and cross stitch and cross stitch because you'd forgotten how much you enjoyed doing it and because watching the picture slowly build is hypnotic and makes it impossible to put down until you've just...finished...this....last.....line.

You go out for a run because you want to feel like you've really done something with the weekend.

(Yeah, yeah I'm no Mo Farrah. But I did it without stopping so I'll take my wins where I can thanks)

But mostly you just savour it for what it is. A perfect weekend of nothing.

When I'm not blogging I'm mostly reading...

...and not just reading but reviewing my friends.

And at the moment I am over round Alex's internet joint reviewing some books for her Blogging Good Read series.

Go have a gander won't you?

BEDM Day 27: Books & books & books

The first part of this year has been a pretty good when it comes to reading. I'm not the world's fastest reader but I do love to read. It just pains me that I can't do as much of it as I would like because life very irritatingly gets in the way.

The count so far is 17 which I think is good going, especially when 2 of those are George RR Martin books which basically count for at least two 'normal' sized books.

And considering the amount of crocheting that 2014 has brought my way so far I'm especially pleased with the total. It still bugs me that I can't crochet and read at the same time.

(Cue someone suggesting audio books....I'm afraid they don't work for me, I can't concentrate on what they're saying.)

There has been a lot of talk lately about books given recent headlines but I'm not going to saturate the world of blogging with another one of those posts.

Instead this is just me giving myself a well done pat on the back for doing a jolly good read over the past five months.

Recommendation-wise I could probably throw some your way...

I feel very good about finally finishing the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. These books require a huge amount of dedication. They are simultaneously almost impossible to read due to the incredible amount of characters and at the same time complete page turners, leaving you wanting more and more each time. The pressure that he must be under to produce the next book which has been three years in the waiting, plus the addition of the Game of Thrones series, must be intense.

Books I would wholeheartedly recommend:

• Heft, Liz Moore
• The Rosie Project, Graeme Simson (is there a person left alive who hasn't read it yet)
• The Long Earth, Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter (even a not sci-fi fan like me could enjoy this one)
• Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes 

Books I would recommend but with a warning:

• Brain on Fire, Susan Cahalan
• A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout

These books were excellent but did not make for 'easy' reading, especially the latter. 

Books you might want to not bother touching:

• Ash, James Herbert

I hate to speak ill of the the dead but that book was just awful.

And finally - books you will see me reviewing:

• Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell
• Black Diamonds, Catherine Bailey

On Alex's Blogging Good Read next month!

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Happy reading, whatever you choose to read.

BEDM Day 3 - Not Really Resolutions 2014: Update 1

I was supposed to do this post at the end of March when we were a quarter of the way through the year but somehow something magical happened and we reached the end of April and we're a third of the way through the year instead.

Oh well.

1. Read 12 Classics

We're off to a good ol' start on this front. Not surprising as this is the Not Really Resolution that I don't normally struggle with.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was a bit of a surprise, it wasn't what I was thinking at all. I think with all the fuss that's made about it I thought it was some kind of Fifty Shades of Grey but it's actually a really sad book in a way about the loss of female identity. At least that's what I read into it. But yeah there's a bit of rudey in it too.

Flowers for Algernon is a beautiful book and a slight cheat because I have read it before but it's lovely and it makes me cry at the end and it's only teeny tiny so you definitely have to pick it up.

2. Eat 1 vegetarian meal a week

I'm currently a little behind on this one, it's not quite working out at one a week, some weeks it has been none and others it has been three but as long as I eat 52 I'm calling it a win. I have a whole post for talking about my adventures in meatless cooking though. You lucky devils.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

This is coming along very nicely indeed. I got off to a great start in January by seeing the lovely Chloe and continued the meeting up with internet people theme in February by meeting up with Janet and exploring Leicester. March doesn't have a specific post but I went road tripping in America so I think we can call that month taken care of interestingness-wise. April passed by in a bit of blur, I didn't even really do anything for my birthday but I did go to Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United in the FA Cup Semi Final so I reckon that is up there on the interesting scale.

4. Save up to buy a car

Yeah I definitely need to put a plan into action for this one or else it's not going to end well...

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not a Tetris blanket

Ugh. I wish. Unfortunately I haven't been able to work on this, much as I would like. As I mentioned in this post back in February I have been making a lot of amigurumi stuff. And if you follow me on Twitter you will see a lot of photos of animals flying off my hook. The trouble is that word got round at work that I could make these animals and orders came flying in. And they just won't stop. This is for two reasons - one being that it's earning me a little bit of money on the side (although I'm not charging anywhere near what I should be for the time it takes) and the other being that I find it hard to say no. In my messed up little head saying to someone "Actually I'm sorry but I'm not taking any more orders" is the same thing as punching someone in the face. What can I say? I'm a people pleaser.

I have decided to be firm and am absolutely shutting up shop so I can make something for myself.

Probably.

6. Learn something new

Still waiting on this one. Maybe inspiration will strike? Anybody want to teach me something?

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Hmmmm. Not sure about this one. Although technically if I'm selling all this amigurumi stuff doesn't that mean that I'm kind of selling stuff a craft fair.....No?

8. Beat my 10k time

Oh dear.

At the moment this has never seemed further away. I started off the year laid up thanks to a completely random knee injury that occurred in the flat. Apparently I am a person capable of tearing the tendons in my kneecap just by standing still. I don't know what happened. My knee overlocked, there was searing pain, it swelled to twice its size, I was in agony all over Christmas and New Year. I eventually went to a physiotherapist and after paying an ungodly amount of money and being poked and prodded and given homework my knee was fixed again.

I'm signed up to the Run for All Hull 10km which is taking place at the beginning of June. I put a training plan in place and off I went. Running life was good until this weekend when I went trotting out on a Saturday run. The wind was in my hair, a lovely podcast was in my ears, a searing pain was in my left calf....oh hello. I have no idea what I did, I guess I wasn't warmed up enough (although I never warm up before my runs, I don't run fast enough to make it worth warming up) and I definitely didn't trip or stumble over anything. There wasn't a 'pop' or anything dramatic, it just hurt. A lot. And when I thought I might be able to "run it off" I most certainly could not. I hopped about for a little bit and then resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to limp the mile home looking terribly terribly sorry for myself.

I guess I should be grateful that I don't run faster, I could have been even further from home when it happened.

So yes. I'm not running again. Hopefully only for a week, after not being able to walk at all on Saturday I was much improved the day after and every day it feels a little bit better. Let's keep our fingers crossed, yeah?

This does mean that beating my 10km time seems terribly unlikely. At the moment running 10km without stopping seems terribly unlikely. *sulks*

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[Don't understand why I'm doing these things? Take a look at this post to see my reasonings behind them.]

Lately...

I know that I need to continue my American Tale at some point (it involves me road-tripping around Arizona and not an adventure seeking mouse unfortunately) but I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated to write these blog posts at the moment. I'm very neglectful and I'm not really sure why.

I took my break from blogging and came back because I definitely felt like I wanted to but for some reason, no matter how many ideas and random words and phrases come bubbling to my mind, getting those out of my fingertips and on to the keyboard is just not happening.

I've decided to ease the pressure off and going for the easiest of easiest posts - one involving photos and one liners.

So. What has been happening lately?

L-R [1] Reading in bed; [2] Accidental flowers; [3] Afternoon drinking; [4] Hungover shopping

Easter has been the perfect blend of time to relax and time to have fun. I do feel like I've spent the past four days or so either drunk or hungover, which I'll be honest with you, is perfectly ok with me.

[1] Festivities for me began on Thursday night, going out for drinks with some work people. Good Friday started off well for me, which basically consists of reading in bed and drinking tea. There's something about reading in bed which feels incredibly decadent to me. No Ferrero Rocher needed thank you - mug of tea and some pages to turn is all I need.

[4] However...whilst hungover I committed the greatest of sins....I went shopping. Big mistake. I needed to get food so sloped off to Tesco to see what I could find. All I needed was lunch, instead I came home with - a candle, a can of Coke, Nivea face-wash, two small packs of sushi, Moroccan cous cous salad, chocolate pretzels, pack of six hot cross buns, sausage roll, massive bag of crisps, a top.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened in there, it's all a blur. Still I got enough food for the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend and the top is nice...

[2] The Person and I headed off to Nottingham on Saturday to spend the night with some friends. I dutifully bought flowers to give to our hosts (my mother would be so proud) which I actually forgot to take with me so we now how some lovely flowers for the house. Winner.

[3] Saturday was the perfect kind of day of afternoon drinking, followed by dinner out and more drinking. Relaxed and happy and laid back. I had some of the strongest cider of my life at The Crafty Crow. Kopparberg it was not.

L-R [5] Spooning gerbils; [6] Amazing reading; [7] Dog walking; [8] Creme Egg bonanza

[5] The gerbils have been as cute as always but lately I've been able to take some megacute (I just invented a word!) photos of them. They have a cottage that they normally sleep in but decided not to bother for a while, instead choosing to make a toilet roll nest in the corner of the gerbilarium. This meant I could take photos of them sleeping. Gerbils sleep on top of one another, entwined around one another, curled up on top of one another, and as this picture shows, spooning each other. Darn their cute little furry heads.

[6] This book is amazing. You should read it. That's all I'll say.

[7] I was on dog and nephew sitting duty. I took Rosie for a walk and we came upon some cows. These cows were initially at the other end of the field and came practically running to this end to stand staring at her. I wasn't sure if they were afraid of her or curious about her but I do know that I still have a healthy fear of cows.

[8] My work is super fun sometimes. Case in point, I get asked to buy everyone Creme Eggs for Easter. People love it when that happens. I am the Candy Lady.

L-R [9] Middle class snacking; [10] The walk towards Wembley; [11] Match in play; [12] Final score

[9], [10], [11] & [12] Luckiest most randomest break ever. I managed to get hold of tickets to the FA Cup Semi Final match at Wembley between Hull City and Sheffield United. Yes they were corporate tickets - boo hiss etc etc. But it was literally impossible to get tickets any other way so I'll take what I'm given and enjoy my non-segregated area of non-football louts thank you very much.

On the train down to London we were very much out of place. Amidst football fans drinking cans of Carlsberg I sat being the very most middle class football fan there was, drinking cocktails from a tin and eating my Graze brownie. Boom.

It was a stressful match. What should have been a fairly easy game for Hull City, as they are two Leagues above Sheffield United, they made incredibly difficult for themselves, going 1-0 down, then equalising, then allowing Sheffield United to score again less than two minutes later, before immediately going into half time. 

Thankfully the half time break was used for head pulling together and Hull City came out the winners. It is not often that I'll get the chance to go to Wembley to watch Hull City and see an eight goal game. It was absolutely amazing, unreal and I can't believe I got to go.

Now need to figure out how to get tickets to the FA Cup Final where Hull City will face Arsenal....

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So there you have it. What have I been doing lately? In summary:

- Gerbils

- Dogs

- Drinking

- Eating

- Reading

- Football

Not bad, my friends, not bad at all.

What I've been doing whilst I haven't been blogging

Oh it's February...

How did that happen.

I have a brain which is full to the brim of things I want to blog about (mostly involving gerbils) and I know that there have been many times when I've said to myself "You need to sit down and get your blog on woman", but for some reason, even switching on my laptop has been an effort.

One thing I have not been doing though is sitting on my bum and feeling sorry for myself you will be relieved to hear.

Things I have been doing include:

Reading

2013 was over-shadowed at the end of the year reading-wise by some fairly weighty tomes that took up all my time. Vanity Fair took me a ridiculous almost three months to read - although that was because I kept dipping in and out of it. When I wasn't reading Vanity Fair I was starting to make my way through George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series (also known as Game of Thrones to TV fans). If you've never seen them before they are whacking great door stops of books.

I decided to take a break after reading the first three books - the third of which is so large it's split into two massive books - in January and raced through three books in the first three weeks. This is mainly because the sum total of pages of these three books probably adds up to one Game of Thrones book.

After finishing Heft, I have turned back to George RR Martin and I am currently reading A Feast for Crows - this means my book tally for February is going to be a low one.

Eating

After my Not Really Resolution to eat more vegetarian meals I have been spending time looking for interesting veggie recipes.

This is the trouble I find with vegetarian meals. They are often terribly uninspiring and it's been harder than I thought it would be for a variety of reasons.

However I've made a good dent and am four meals down.

From top left: Blue cheese & pesto pasta / Tortilla / Mushroom & Spinach pasta / Lentil bolognese

Crocheting

This is the main reason that I have not been blogging.

I have been crocheting like a wild woman in 2014. A couple of people at work had found out about the amigurumi stuff I was doing and asked me to bring the books in to work so they could have a look. Before I knew it, the books had been passed around work and the books came back to me with little bits of paper sticking out all over them.

I think the order book was at about 12 items so I've been head down.

January's output is this so far:

 Dinosaur & cat from this book / Monkey from this book / Seal, goat and bee from this book 

 Actually I'm quite impressed with myself. Pat on the back for me.

The dinosaur is by far and away my favourite I love him and I want an excuse to make him again. The cat was also a favourite although all the colour changing to make his face did make me want to poke my eyes out a little bit. Bee was super quick to make up, until I got to his wings, which are made out of a super annoying fluffy wool but I'm very proud of myself for not swearing once whilst making them up.

Oh and actually I made two goats this month so add another one on to the total.

It's hard to crochet and blog. It's impossible to crochet and read which is something which I find really annoying. Unfortunately audio books don't work for me, I can't concentrate on them. What I have done is watched a vast amount of absolutely terrible television whilst creating all this output.

Still left to make:
- Horse x2
- Elephant x2
- Panda x1
- Octopus x1

Who knows, eventually I might be able to crochet something for myself one day.