Booking Through Thursday

It's that time of the week again, Booking Through Thursday:

Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain?

Hmmmmmm, I'm a bit mixed on this one! I would not describe myself as a spine breaker but I do like to bend it back a bit as I hate feeling like I am performing hand exercises whilst trying to merely hold the book open. I do like my books to be in excellent condition when I have read them and I probably only lend books to two ceratain people who I trust to look after them as I would. I can't stand people who dog-ear the pages, I always use a proper bookmark rather than turn the pages back, it's just not right to do that to a book!

We have a house full of books; it is getting quite ridiculous now as they are just everywhere! My partner, Mr S is the one person who can really wind me up as he seems to like using books as mats for drinks! This infuriates me and there has been many a crossed word about ring marks on books, especially ones belonging to me. I think that people do view books in different ways, I would class certain books that I own as some of my most treasured possessions and woe betide anyone who damages them!!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I cannot believe how cold it has become! I think that yesterday was our first properly Wintry day and it got dark really quickly. I was working in the kithen yesterday and we have a massive bay window, I looked up at about 5pm and was really shocked that it was pitch black outside! Poor Mr S didn't finish medical school until 6pm so had to cycle home in the dark to then be met by a lecture from me about not having a light on his bike (It's only becuase I care!).

We were going to go out last night but we decided that it was just too cold and stayed in and watched Spooks and had Spaghetti Bolgonaise. We have my lovely sister and her husband coming for dinner tonight plus we have our part-time lodger with us this week so it shall be a full house- at least we can make use of the body warmth!

Alfie actually slept last night!! Mr S and I are not 100% sure what did it as we changed a few things. Firstly I put an old t-shirt in his bed that I had been wearing all day which is supposed to comfort them and then Mr S left the Frank Sinatra play list on repeat on the i pod. Anyway it was one or the other or a mixture of both so we shall be repeating the process this evening and hopefully get more than 4 hours of sleep again!

I know not where you sit

I know not where you sit,

I know not what you see.

Do you have a garden?

Do you think of me?

Homes hold many memories,

This one must be bare.

Have you put up photographs?

Or is there no trace of me there?

What do you tell your neighbours?

Does anyone come to visit?

Looks like you are hiding,

I bet it's lonely, is it?

That extra hour makes all the difference

It is so good when the clocks go back as you get that extra hour in bed, we didn't quite get a full hour this morning because of Alfie crying the house down but we got a bit extra. Mr S and I were talking and we do both like the Winter but we both really struggle with it being dark when you get up in the morning. I just always feel like I haven't had much of a day as you wake up and start work when it's dark and then the sun goes down just as you are finishing. One of my best friends has one of those light box alarms, it impersonates daylight as it would be in the Summer so when you wake up, the room you are in is lovely and bright. Mr S suggested we get one, I am going to look into it but I also thought surely the illusion has totally worn off by the time you leave the bedroom and head for the shower or maybe it just gives you that little kick up the bum you need to get your day going, hmmmmmm?

First Hangover for a long time!!!

Oh dear, definitely felt my age this morning!! We had some friends over for dinner last night and consumed quite a lot of alcohol. We started the evening with champagne, then 2 bottles of red wine, then 2 very strong Cuba Libres!! Had a really lovely night but my head was banging this morning, gone are the days when I can just jump out of bed the next morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. Mr S was even more hungover than me having polished off several glasses of Whiskey after dinner, I don't think we will be having a drink for a while, our livers are definitely in need of a holiday.

So due to recovering we have not had a very productive day but that's what Saturday's are for aren't they. We did get dressed and went for a walk in the park this morning which was really lovely, I love this time of the year when the leaves are changing colour and it's all blustery; looking forward to being able to take Alfie with us once he has had his jabs. We got provisions and headed back home, embarrassingly I was back in my pyjamas by lunchtime! This evening we are going to continue our day of being slovenly by ordering a take away and watching X-Factor.

I have found this week really tough, not feeling 100% at the moment but really had some time to think today and I think that I am going to try and see Monday as a new start and move forward. I am very lucky to be surrounded by people who care and love me and sometimes you need to bad times to make you realise who those people truly are.

Booking Through Thursday

I love Booking Through Thursday and haven't done one for a while so here we go:



“Name a favorite literary couple and tell me why they are a favorite. If you cannot choose just one, that is okay too. Name as many as you like–sometimes narrowing down a list can be extremely difficult and painful. Or maybe that’s just me.”

For me this has to be Eliza Bennett and Mr Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice- I love this book and obviously their relationship is the driving force of Austen's story. They are intrigued by each other from the very beginning and their initial perceptions and mutual dislike of each other soon turns into true love. Ooooh made me want to read the book again!!

Sleeping Under Water

Sleeping under water is exactly what it feels like when you have to resort to sleeping with ear plugs jammed in your ears as Mr S and I had to last night. Now don't get us wrong, we both LOVE Alfie, absolutely love him but he is still freaked out about sleeping on his own. When he wakes up in the night he makes sure that we and probably the whole street know about it! So Mr S suggested that we purchase some ear plugs as we are both feeling like we have jet lag but without the added benefit of having been somewhere nice! They did work really well, just took a bit of getting used to; it really is like being underwater, everything is a bit muffled and you can really hear your heartbeat. They didn't cut Alfie out completely but it wasn't as loud so we got several more hours sleep and will be jamming them in our ears again this evening!

I had 2 lovely books for my Birthday and a nice big WH Smith gift voucher so that I can buy some more! I am re-reading Harry Potter at the moment, I am on the 5th book and loving it. I have wanted to re-read them for a while as I had the tendency to rush through them when they first came out just to find out what happens. It's nice to read them again and take my time; I think that people have very mixed opinions about J.K. Rowling but I have to say that I think she is brilliant. You can see that she has been influenced by other classic children's books but which writer hasn't been influenced by what they have read? I think that as you read the books close together you can see how she develops as a writer and you get a sense of her individual style of writing as her confidence clearly grows. I would love to write children's books- it gives you such a wide audience and something that J.K. Rowling has proved is that good children's literature can always transcend to adult readers.

26 wasn't too bad after all!!

Well I had a lovely Birthday! Mr S bought me lots of lovely presents and cooked me a delicious dinner last night! My beautiful sister and her husband sent me some gorgeous cupcakes and came over for dinner last night too! They also bought me lots of lovely presents, I was very much spoilt yesterday! We had lots of cake and apart from one little glitch I had a really special Birthday!

Alfie arrived on Sunday and is settling in well! He is tiny- when he sits down he just looks like a fat owl! Yet for something so tiny he can make a lot of noise!! We want him to sleep in the kitchen at night rather then upstairs with us and this is when he kicks off. It is such a strange noise, kind of a cross between a flock of seagulls and an excited chimpanzee! He just needs to get used to it though I think! Mr S and I look as though we have not slept for about a week, we are purchasing some ear-plugs this afternoon and will hopefully get a full night's sleep this evening!

Well that is all for today, thank you to all the people who made my Birthday very special, means a lot!

Bring on the Weekend!!

I am really looking forward to this weekend for several reasons:

• I am going Birthday Shopping on Saturday with my future in-laws who are buying me a Winter coat as my present- I last had a Winter coat about 4 years ago so I am VERY excited about this.


• The in-laws are also cooking me a Birthday dinner which should be lovely- they have been great over the past few weeks with everything that has been going on.


• My best-friend is popping in at some point and I don't get to see her that often because of living in the Shire.


• I will be seeing my beautiful Sister and her husband on Sunday morning and we will hopefully be picking Alfie up to bring him to his new home.

So all in all it is going to be a very lovely weekend and then Monday is my Birthday! Going to be 26, not very happy about this, I wasn't very happy about being 25 but 26 is just that one step closer to being 30. I felt really old this week when I went to see my GP as she asked me whether Mr S and I had thought about having children yet. We would love to have children and we do not take it for granted that we will be able to have them but I was shocked that she asked as in no way do I feel ready to have children, still only feel little myself most days!

I am a little apprehensive about my Birthday on Monday becuase of everything that has happened recently. I know that I am not going to feel great all day but I am going to really try and not let the day be spoiled. I am going to spend it with the three people who are most important to me in the world and eat cake! (Hopefully there will be cake!!)

Get Ready for a RANT!

Now I am not usually one to rant but I have got to get this off my chest, I currently HATE students. Mr S and our friends are an exception to this but as to all the other ones who live in our road I would definitely have a few choice words to say to them. I was a student not so long ago and Mr S is a student of the worse kind but we never felt the need to run up and down the street screaming at 4am in the morning. We have lived in our house for just over a year now and last year was no problem, there was the odd noisy night and I am sure we contributed to this at some point but it seems that since September there has been no let up. I was well prepared for Freshers Week to be a noisy one but this lot seem to be planning Freshers Year. It usually starts at about 11pm- this is when they are going out, so we have taxis honking their horns up and down the road, people shouting for their housemates to get a move on, other cars honking for the taxis to move out the way. Then we usually have a 3 hour window where you are most likely to get any sleep as at about 3-3:30AM the screaming begins. What happens to these people when they have had a drink? They all scream, I used to think it was just the girls but no they all do it. Just go to bed- why do you need to scream along the way? Then there are the pointless coversations that they have to have at the top of their voices; we had two people arguing over how to spell disappointed underneath our bedroom window, Mr S had to stop me from opening the window and hurling the Oxford English Dictionary at them.

Phew, I feel much better now; it annoys me as I am one of the most laid-back people you will ever come across so it has to be pretty bad for me to be this wound up. I think that the sleep deprivation has really started to hit now, it's ok for them as they don't have to drag themselves out of bed until the afternoon. I am always very tempted to go screaming up and down the street first thing in the morning just as they are settling into their sleep but again Mr S has always managed to restrain me!

Catch up!

Well this writing malarkey is not going well is it! I have been so busy these past few weeks, feels as though there just aren't enough hours in the day. On a positive point though I have had a fair few ideas recently and they have been jotted down in my trusty notebook, doesn't sound like much but it is further than I usually get. I had to write a really difficult letter this evening; I have been putting it off all day but forced myself to sit down and do it about an hour ago. As I've mentioned before I haven't been having too nice a time recently, it's a really long story and I'm sure extremely boring to those not involved. Anway I needed to return something and it did not feel right just popping it into the envelope, I felt that I needed to write a letter to accompany it. So I had a good think and eventually got it down on paper and that is where the problems began, I knew the exact tone that I wanted this letter to deliver but reading it back I was worried that the receipients may get a different message from it. I showed it to Mr S and he understood it in the way I intended so it has gone in an envelope and is waiting to be posted on the morning walk tomorrow. It has really made me think about the audience when you are writing and you can understand why writers go over and over their work and edit and then re-edit. I know that any piece of writing is open to interpretation but I imagine that when you put something out there for others you want them to get your message and ideas as you intended.

Anway onto lighter things, I have had such a lovely weekend, Mr S took me for an early Birthday meal on Friday night at the new Italian restaurant that has opened in town. Italian is my absolute favourite so of course I managed all three courses, several glasses of wine and a capuccino. On Saturday we went Birthday present shopping, I picked lots of lovely things which have now been hidden away and will hopefully reappear next Monday. Mr S usually likes to surprise me on my Birthday but there were lots of things that I needed (wanted) and I am hoping for a very surprise free Birthday this year anyway. Saturday was topped off by my beautiful best friend coming to stay, we kicked off her visit to the shire with a trip to the pub for some guinness and a catch up before returning home to change into our Pjs and settle down to an evening of X-Factor with Mr S!

So back to work tomorrow for another week, we have only 7 days until we get the new puppy! Think we will be picking Alfie up on Sunday and bringing him to his new home. Mr S and I are are very much like two excited 5 year olds at the moment and had to stop ourselves from buying up the entire stock at Pets at Home when we went to get provisions! I shall leave you with a picture of the little man, I am sure you will be hearing a lot more about him in the next few weeks!

Winter has arrived!

When did it suddenly become Winter, I am sitting here wearing four layers of clothes with a fire going and fingerless gloves on my hands. Mr S has just been in and informed me that I look like a tramp and then told me not to get any grand ideas about turning the central heating on. This is the problem; we live in a very old Victorian House and it is unbelievably cold but with prices how they are we definitely cannot afford to have the heating on all day. So unfortunately I have to go round looking like a homeless Michelin Man, good job that I work from home so it is only Mr S who has to see me in my 'work' attire! I'm not sure what I'm moaning about though as I do love the Winter and everything that comes with it, open fires, snuggly jumpers, hot chocolate, Christmas, mittens, winter food, ear muffs, ah the list is endless. I do love a good open fire, we are lucky enough to have one in our front room and I love spending the day in there replacing the logs as they burn out and reading a really good book, maybe Mr S and I will just have to spend the Winter living in the one room in front of the fire, drinking hot choclate!

The suitcase is packed

Yip, only going away for the weekend but managed to pack a whole suitcase; I am so indecisive at the moment so have taken 3 pairs of jeans and 4 pairs of shoes for a 2 night stay, as you can imagine Mr S is not impressed. Quite looking forward to the weekend now, tonight we are meeting Mr S' best mate and his new girlfriend for dinner so that should be good. Tomorrow we are meeting Mr S' nieces and nephews in town for cup of coffee (and maybe a slice of cake); then meeting my best friend for some lunch, it was her birthday last week so this will be a belated celebration. The weekend does not end there though; Saturday afternoon we are visiting the new pooch again and giving him a name so that he is used to it before he comes to us and then Saturday night we are having dinner at my sister's house and she mentioned Strawberry Shortcake for pudding so all good there! The weekend will be topped off with Roast Beef and yorkshire pudding at Mr S' parents on Sunday- I really shouldn't moan about it being a busy one should I!

I had to go birthday present shopping for my best friend last night and I don't know about you but I nearly always crack under the pressure of what to get. I was on my mobile in the shop shouting to my sister that there was absolutely nothing to buy. My sister is used to these phone calls and always manages to calm me down. I think that I worry too much that whatever you buy looks like you have not put much effort into it and it's so silly really. I hate buying people gift vouchers as I think it looks like i've not bothered but then I LOVE getting vouchers for my birthday as it means you get to go shopping for free!! Anyway I managed to calm myself down and picked out 4 little presents which are all wrapped up and ready to go to the Birthday Girl.

Waiting for the Weekend!

Arrrrgggghhh I started this week all bright eyed and bushy tailed and I have had enough already and just want it to be the weekend and it's only Wednesday! I just feel like there are not enough hours in the day, how do you write and have a normal job? We have things planned nearly every night this week and the weekend is pretty busy too; I think that I am going to have to start disciplining myself and actually set proper time aside in which to write. I am very lucky as Mr S is very supportive and always encourages me to follow my dreams but sometimes I feel bad about shutting myself away of an evening when I haven't really seen him all day. Things are not great at the moment for a number of reasons and the idea has been to keep myself really busy in order to take my mind off things but this has just resulted in me filling my time up with seeing other people so then I never get time to myself and I suppose at some point I am going to have to take the time to actually sit down and think about everything rather than just brushing it all under the carpet.

We are going to be spending more time at home over the next few months anyway as we are getting a puppy which I am really excited about. We are having a Shih Tzu boy on the 18th October, it sounds like a real handbag dog but I am not like that at all, it's just that they are a breed that I know really well, that is what we had at home when we were young and it is what my sister has. Mr S is slightly concerned that his manliness will be called into question when he is seen walking the tiny ball of fluff in our local park!! We went to look at them last week and I was so shocked at just how small they are; at the moment they are a little bit smaller than guinea pigs and it will not be much bigger when we bring it home; I am very frightened that I may accidentally step or sit on it and we have had to go round checking for any nooks and crannies that it may disappear into! So as I said we will be at home trying to train the pooch to wee outside rather than in the house so I am sure I will have plenty of time to get things down on paper, fingers crossed.