Goodbye WordPress.com

I am moving this blog over to Blogger, I am so impressed with the /view page views, that allow you to look at blogs in different ways.  I will miss categories and tags though.  The ordinary version of my blog will be found here, Ways of Looking at the World.

Oh No I’ve Been Tagged

Well I have been neglecting this little blog of mine reciently, sorry.  And just to spur me onwards (or for some other perverse pleasure) my friend Jules has tagged me in the Guardian questions and answers meme

Which living person do you most admire, and why?

The Dalai Lama, he is an amazing person to stay calm in the face of such adversity over the years.

When were you happiest

Thats a hard one, part of me would say now, but I have had such fun times travelling in the past it would be a hard one to determine.  I am definitely more contented now though.

What was your most embarrassing moment?

Too may to mention.

Aside from property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?

I am not much of a big spender, so I am guessing my laptop which was £700 new a few years ago.

What is your most treasured possession?

My camera, its only an entry level DSLR but its very precious to me.

Where would you like to live?

Somewhere in the countryside, where I can go for a short walk and find cows.  I am not really a city girl at heart, though I have spent most of my  adult life living in citys.

What’s your favourite smell?

Tough one, its a toss up between freshly baked bread, that stormy smell just after it has rained, and very nice weed.

Who would play you in the film of your life?

Maybe Kate Winslet

What is your favourite book?

Far too many to name

What is your most unappealing habit?

I am a real fidget and it does my other half’s head in, I am sure I have more unappealing habits, I am just not telling.

What is your earliest memory?

I think it is of a tyre swing at a house my folks lived in in St Ives when I was just 2, but it could be a memory I have constructed by being told about.  Memories are tricky things.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Eating a mango all to myself, its been a while though.

What do you owe your parents?

Everything

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?

Never apologize, never explain.    I tend to say sorry a lot so I dont think I have left anything unsaid

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Its either Gert or Eva, probably both

What does love feel like?

Cuddly

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Definitely

What is the worst job you’ve done?

Squash picking in Australia, backbreaking, I think I lasted 1 hour and decided I wasn’t that desperate for the money.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

Well I guess I wouldn’t have left my stuff for a year with a friend who disappeared up north with no forwarding address.  Other than that, not much.

What is the closest you’ve come to death?

Some bus trips in India certainly felt very close, otherwise I have been lucky.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Eva, my beautiful daughter.

How do you relax?

Chocolate, Wine and watching something mindless.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

Difficult because I think I have everything I need, maybe a babysitter for a night once a month or so.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Everything works out, generally not how you expect but for the best.

My Top 5 Things I Want to be When I Grow Up – Listography

Well as I have my 40th Birthday this year I guess I should have already grown up, not a chance though.

1: A Pharmacist: I have no idea why but this was my childhood/teenage ambition, but I failed my A’level Chemistry and that was that.  Having worked with pharmacists I am not sure it would be a job I would be suited to.

2: A Second Hand Bookshop owner:  I love bookshops, especially second hand ones.  I know realistically that it is a very hard business to run but I have always quite fancied it.

3: A Photographer:  Not really taking photos of weddings and stuff but selling fabulous arty prints at hugely inflated prices to rich people (well I can dream).

4: A Writer/Illustrator of Children’s books: Quite often whilst reading books taken from the library to my toddler do I think, I could do a better job at this than that.  Maybe I could.

5: Me just as I am: I never though that I would be happy being a stay at home mum, but here I am and even though the toddler stubbornness is doing my head in at the moment I wouldn’t trade it in for a 40 hour working week for anything.

The Gallery – Trees

This is the first time that I have taken part  in the gallery and I seem to have taken quite a few good shots of trees over the past while.

Here are my favorites from the past year:

And here are a few from my travels:

The Bodhi Tree: under which the Buddha became enlightened Bodh Gaya, India

Sukothai, Thailand

Banyan Tree - Phimai, Thailand

Angkor Complex, Cambodia

Photography

I have been neglecting my camera of late, and I have been neglecting posting shots to my blog even more. So here are my favorite shots from the past month.

Basil Seedlings

Framing - The shed construction continues

Painting

Listography – Childhood sweets

Its been a few weeks since I joined in with a Listography, but I cant resist a bit of nostalgia.

Prama Violets – Ok sweets that taste of flowers, kinda strange but so right, love them.

Fizzy Cola Bottles – I still Love them

Sherbet Dib Dab –  Sherbet and a lolly, bonus

Popping Candy – I remember when this first came out, it was a revelation.

Acid Drops – If you ate too much of them it ate into the roof of your mouth, but so worth it.

All the images come from Suck and Chew ( I hope they don’t mind a bit of free advertising

What are you reading – March

Well I thought I should join in with this one quite a mixed bag of books this month, mainly non fiction

This book has probably changed my life, but only insomuch as I have started baking almost all the bread that we eat in this house these days.  I don’t think we will be going back to shop bought bread any time soon.

I have just finished this one that I borrowed from the library, light reading, not quite as good as the tales of the city books but still good.

I have been borrowing loads of cook books from the library recently and have been working my way through the river cottage cookbooks, this one is my personal favorite so far probably because it is thrifty and as the title would suggest about normal family eating, and the lemon curd muffins are yummy.

 

An interesting little tale about life as a 4th wife of a illiterate polygamist in Nigeria.  Somewhat predictable plot but very much a page turner, just what I needed.

Listography – Five Favourite Films

Another one of Katetakes5‘s fabulous listographys. Its hard to just pick 5 but here goes:

1:  Almost famous

2:  Parenthood

3:  Full Metal Jacket

4:  Apocalypse Now

5:  The Princess Bride

Demolishing a Coal Shed

Our old shed, which was here when we bought the place is being demolished.  It was never a thing of beauty and it had the added benefit of everything that you put inside it got very damp.   It was also in a very odd location, I think when they built these houses in the 1950′s the sheds (they where coal sheds I am guessing) was a set distance away from the house, with no relation to the land it was in, and as we have more garden than our neighbours as we are on the end the old shed was about 3 meters away from the boundary.  The new shed will be in a much more sensible place.

Plans for February

A friend has started a meme thingy (what is a meme anyway? *sneaks of to check wikipedia* so I thought I should give it a go:

1: Hopefully the ground will warm up so I can do some digging in the garden, it needs it and there is quite a lot of work to be done.

2: Finish all sorts of craft projects, like a sofa for Eva’s dolls house (in blue denim) and a paper-mache bowl.

3: Start dieting again, got about 5-6kg to lose, I have been crap recently again.

4: Finally drag a friend from baby massage to come and visit my comparatively new home (only 1 year)

5: Maybe go down to Cornwall to see the folks, if it gets sunny it would be nice (but not frosty).

6: Blog more, I have been  a bit slack recently.

7: Pick up my camera again, I have neglected my big girl camera in January, but one months rest post 365 project is enough. I will try and get 7 good shots for the week and post them on Flickr and probably here.

8: Find some horseradish root to plant out, anybody know any online sources?

9: Plant out the first early potatoes into a variety of containers and leaf piles.  They have been sitting chitting on our kitchen windowsill for about a week now.

10: Oh and I nearly forgot, a night out with my OH.   My folks are coming to visit and babysit and we are going for a night on the town.