Happy New Year - New me? Know me?!

Well, this Christmas and New Year holiday has been a bold, relatively quiet and muchly daft one...

We've had no snow to speak of - Just a few short flurries which didn't do any damage - Do you remember, we've been snowed in for the past three years until cabin fever set in and I threatened to eat the chair legs!

We've been mainly ferrying a somnambulent and nocturnal teen (he turns 20 in February *gasp*), as he segued from one social appointment to another, returning every other day to refuel and snore the rafters loose (or was that me?!)...   It was like having to take a toddler off to playdates again!   This meant we could go nowhere special...

We spent part of some evenings in the pub, catching up with gossip - Who's put whose windows in, driven their car into a ditch, run off with whose wife, that kind of thing - Toasting our tootsies by the fire - Drinking our spoils from the Annual Leek Club Bottle Draw - (I won back the ghastly bottle of white wine I had in fact donated!) - while trying to avoid the fall-out from the septuagenarian landlord and landlady, who are my sort-of substitute parent figures, but who are also at each other's throats over her plans to semi-retire, finally and long-deservedly...   This situation will be resolved in one way or another, I'd guess.   I hope it's happily.

A lost earring of mine - Silver, with a tiny heart that dangles - resurfaced.   My friend had only recently gifted them to me for my birthday.   Phew!   I am hopeless with earrings, but I do still love them.

Meanwhile, I watched some of the films I had been longing to retreat into, and became a part of my sofa.   I even squeezed in Hitchcock's Rear Window, with my favourite, Jimmy Stewart!

We stoked the stove, burning coal on it for the very first time and occasionally feeding it fragrant logs.

We tickled the rats and, at the same time, learned something about neuroscience from scientists LINK.

Sadly, Grizz broke up with his lovely girlfriend (owner of said rats).   We think that means we've got custody...   We don't know why they broke up and can't find out...   I know it's not our business, but we are sad about it...

In other news, with my 'gin-goggles' on on New Year's Eve, I bought a beautiful handbag in local designer, Karina Hesketh's, sale.   I've lusted after it for months at full price, and then I take it as an omen that if no-one else has bought it in her sale, it and I are meant to be...   Karina's going to be designing some more soon.   Oh dear.   Mind you, I do only buy one-ish of her uniquely designed and beautifully hand-made bags a year, so I can't be described as anything like obsessed.   No...

This is a metallic pink leather brogue bag with a cross-body strap, integrated with a vintage (Fifties'?) scarf depicting the Dolomites in Italy.   This is a bag that called my name, like a Siren ensconced beside the River Coquet!

And, we learned on New Year's Day (but not from Bono) that my eighty-plus year old father-in-law had run himself over with his own car...   Three weeks ago.   And my helpful sister-in-law only saw fit to inform us on New Year's Day...

I rail against my socially apathetic in-laws, out-laws, I do!

I don't know what I can do about them?   Obviously nothing...   'You can't teach old dogs', etc!

Meanwhile, I build bridges, forge friendships, make amends...

Happy New Year, mes amis, bold and beautiful as you are...

I wish you all that you could ever wish for yourselves...

For myself, all I require is some peace and some certainty.

Meanwhile, your love and comments are enough!

Merci mille for you and them.   Mwah!   Well, the mistletoe's still up above the doorway, so I'd suggest a kiss is in order!

Continued - 20 Questions Meme...

Please go and take a look over at Michelle's blog at Raw Cool...Black is the new blog...

Michelle picked up my earlier challenge of choosing the 4th photo in your 4th album, etc, and has picked some beautifully clear and story-telling photographs of her friends, family and daily life! Really lovely, and I feel as if I'm there! Thank you, Michelle!

Following on from yesterday's 20 Questions Meme, here are the remaining 20 - I hope you enjoy them, and I have no probs if anyone wants to pinch owt from them!

(Translation - Please feel free to pick and choose any or all of the Meme questions to illustrate your own blog, and for those rare 'brainless days!')

I do wonder whether I'm letting too much of myself to be seen, but I probably don't care. I don't always hold with all that Astrology stuff, yet I am a true Saggitarian - Always with one hoof firmly in my mouth, and pretty much 'Speak as I find...', i.e. you need to take me at face value, because I am an honest and a very truthful person - I don't dissemble well, look at my face if you want to know what I am thinking! And I rarely lie, unless it's a very gentle lie that will hurt no-one. 'Nuff said?! Then on, MacDuff!

Voila - the remaining 20, very hypothetical, question-ees!


21. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?



If they're not doing anything, or planning to do anything, I would lie very still meself, as if mummified, holding my breath, and hope they go away... with my lung capacity, they've got about a minute at most!


22. You have George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden locked in a small room together. It's airtight so both the guys are gonna suffocate anyway, but what amusing weapon do you give them to make it more entertaining?

Sex and Violence - Has this Meme been set by Quentin Tarantino??!

Weapon = A table leg...


23. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?

Spend time with my family and say all that needs to be said...


24. Truthfully, what underwear are you currently wearing?

White bra, can't remember what I grabbed out of the laundry pile, but it will be M & S cotton 'granny knickers'! Hello, hello, is anyone still out there?!


25. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What’s it gonna be?


The ability to remove suffering in the best possible way... (Right, I am ready for my Miss Universe tiara and orb now...)


26. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Tricky question, that one... Best experience would be the birth of my son - I was elated, and no drugs in sight, and what I felt at that moment was overwhelming enchantment and spell-binding love that would surmount all other loves. Of course, he's a teenager now, so I've come to me senses!


27. Moses trips on his robe and drops the stone tablets (Moses sounds as clumsy as I am!). Commandment number eleven is broken off. He leaves it there as his back is killing him (...ditto!). What does it say?

"Though shalt not covet not Paris Hilton's (or any other Zeleb's fake-tan, or fake anything! Thou shalt be true to thine own self..."



28.You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Did you read the one about the bullying manager yesterday? That one! Or, even better: The root cause of my back problems, I believe in any case, is an accident I had at work when I was fresh out of University. I didn't have a proper workstation and I did not know about Health and Safety and so on, and I wrenched my back very badly so I could not move well for months.

I have been suffering episodes of this kind every couple of years for the past 20+ years which I think all stem from that experience - So if I could take that away from the sum of my life, I think I would have led a more active, and less fearful, existence, and I would not be off work now...
Hey ho...


29. Rufus reappears with the time machine and a custard pie. Who's gonna get it?

Bullies at school - Yes, or that ratty manager in Question 3 yesterday...


30. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-travelling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But you can move to anywhere else in the world! What country are you going to live in now?

Predictably, France...



31. What part of your body would you change (no, you are NOT perfect; you gotta answer this one) and why?

Fat content..



32. You have been eternally banned from every single bar in the world except for ONE. Which one is it gonna be?

Our local, The Shoulder of Mutton... Good beer, great fire, nice food, friendly staff!


33. What's the last thing you ate?

Boiled egg and bread fingers, fresh from the new bread-making machine I bought GJ for his birthday last week! Selfish, moi?!




34. Hopefully you didn’t mention this in the super-powers question…. If you did, then we’ll just expand on that. Suddenly, you have gained the ability to float. Who are you going to show this to first?

My friends, the sea otters!


35. The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead celebrity of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?

Albrecht Duerer.


36. The Celestial Gates of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, once again Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person, etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

After yesterday's experience, and the quiet of my house today, if it were an animal, it would be this one,

In all reality, and because I would not wish to choose from either of my own departed parents, who waited long enough to be together wherever they are... I would elect to bring back Mad Asthmatic, Emma Bearfoot, bloggeur extraordinaire to her parents... For no child should outlive her parents.


37. What’s your theme song?


All your life you've never seen a woman...
Taken by the sky...
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Would you even try?



Dreams unwind
Love's a state of mind
Dreams unwind
Love is hard to find...

Rhiannon




38 When did you last have sex?




39. Buffy, Willow or Xander?



Van Helsing! Next to Dave Grohl (see yesterday), Mr Jackman comes a close second in my books!


40. Who’s up next?




And just as a post-script, it seems as if yesterday was silent reading poetry day across pockets of Blogland, and so as not to miss that boat, here is one of my favourites... Hope you like it...


My soul is an enchanted boat,


Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;

And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.

It seems to float ever, forever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!

Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound of ever-spreading sound.

by Shelley