1) I made a hat! I have been making it for a while but I finished it today, spurred on by the freezingness of my walk home from work. Here is a not entirely awful picture of it in situ, i.e. on my head:

( actually it is mostly a picture of my camera, tbh )

2.) Have not yet won anything in Big Finish's daily podcast competitions, and I don't know the answer to today's question so the prospects are not good. But they are a great listen anyway and I was pleased to hear that the main range will include the Eighth Doctor again from 2011. Eight is my favourite but I can't afford to subscribe to the separate Eighth Doctor stories and the main range and the Companion Chronicles, so something had to go and I don't like the format of the separate Eight stories, so that was it.

3.) Snow is forecast for tomorrow everywhere in the country but here, which is a little sad, but on the other hand I have some travelling by train to do tomorrow so maybe it's for the best.

4.) LJ are doing a holiday promotion thing whereby paid account holders like me get ten vouchers foor $10 off a paid account to give to basic/plus account holders, thereby giving LJ more money. If anyone would like one, give me a shout in the comments or by PM, or email, and it shall be yours!

5.) Today at work the PGCE Music studios came in and sang carols to us, it was lovely. They do this every year but there were loads of them and they sounded great. I could even hear them when they went down to sing on the floor below. ♥

Argh, I typed a whole entry and then lost it. FAIL.

1.) Thank you to glinda_penguin and _catharine_ for the cards! ♥ (also, glinda_penguin, have you seen this pattern from the new Knitty? I think it will appeal to you!)

2.) I don't know why, but I am terrible at posting and commenting at the weekends. I do read my flist, but something in the back of my mind keeps telling me that interneting at the weekends doesn't count. Sorry!

3.) Sat up til 1am on Friday night finishing The Book Thief, which I really recommend: it was amazing. The prose is deceptively simple, and the book is absolutely heartbreaking. (Seriously, consider this a warning: I was sobbing by the end, and would advise against reading the last hundred pages or so in public.)

4.) Also, Merlin happened. (This is the bit of my post that I am most annoyed about losing and having to retype.) ( spoilers )

- Thank you for all the virtual snowflake cookies! They made my face make this shape - :D Alas, they all seem to have gone now so I can't send any back, but nevertheless, I ♥ you all, flist!

- Happy belated birthdays to vonquixote (for Saturday) and harveypenguin (for Sunday)! And happy early birthdays to marah_sarie (for tomorrow) and _catharine_ (for Thursday)! I hope you all had or have lovely days.

- All weekends should have three days in them, you can get more done that way. I did lots of Christmas shopping yesterday and felt very virtuous, but also like I'd been stepped on by a Pythonesque Giant Foot. Not good! I have the afternoon off today so I'm going to spend it putting up the tinsel and the baubles and the lights that I bought. Normally I would not approve of putting up decorations this early, but I'm not going to be here over Christmas and I'm hosting Stitch 'n' Witch tonight, so decoration time it is.

- Does anyone have any recs for CDs of carols? I bought this one from iTunes last year and it's nice to listen to and has all my favourite carols on it, but it's but a bit... choir-y? maybe? and I'd really prefer something a bit more singalongable, if you see what I mean.

- Yesterday I watched The Brain of Morbius. I was expecting to enjoy this one and was not disappointed.

( spoilers )

That was the last story in season thirteen (ETA as everlasting_day has just pointed out, this isn't actually true, it's the penultimate season thirteen story. So... never mind!), which means that by seasons I am now (almost!) half way through watching everything in order. Eek! So far I think that One's era is the one that's benefited the most from watching this way: it really makes it obvious just how diverse and daring his stories were. ♥ Other thoughts so far: it's a huge advantage that I like all the companions - I don't get too sad about one leaving because I know the next one is also awesome! I did miss Steven quite a bit, but since I love Ben and Polly I think that was mostly because he got written out in such an unsatisfactory way. I'm also pretty pleased that I've seen all the recons now and won't get stuck with lots of them to watch at the end!

(ETA2, much later: let's all pretend that I can spell "irresistible", ok? *facepalm*)

- fandom_stocking has started up again! I really regretted not getting involved last year so have already signed up myself and started bookmarking other people's letters - let me know where yours are! ♥

- I finished The Wanderer by Fanny Burney yesterday, which is sort of a good thing because it is a Mighty Tome and I was getting tired of lugging it around, but also sad as I was enjoying it. It's not her best work and it has the same problem as Richardson's Clarissa in that every now and then you want to climb into the book and tell the heroine that she doesn't have to be quite that impeccably virtuous all the time, honest (I loved the bit where ( mild spoilers )), but it's well written and engrossing (even though the blurb on the back of my copy contained SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS, which given that the identity and history of the heroine is meant to be a mystery is rather annoying) and I enjoyed reading it. It succeeds beautifully at what it sets out to do, i.e. demonstrating how hard late eighteenth century society makes it for a young woman who wants to live independently without compromising herself.

- Quick thoughts on The Android Invasion, which I watched the other day:

( with spoilers )

Hurray, it is December the first! I can open the first door in my advent calendar when I get home. Also when I get home I shall be getting my heater out and switching it on, because it is getting ridiculous: I spent yesterday evening curled up on the sofa, wrapped up in three layers, a blanket and my spare duvet, wearing fingerless gloves and feeling a bit like a Victorian miser.

Tonight the BBC will be giving me a program in which Delia teaches us how to do Christmas cooking. YAY! I have a bit of a soft spot for cooking programmes, especially ones involving a) Christmas and b) Delia. (I also like Nigella and the Hairy Bikers (this is what I am calling my band, I have just decided), in case you were wondering. My parents like Rick Stein but I saw the one where he grates his finger on a mandolin (the slicey kind, not the musical kind), swears a bit and teaches us all about why cooks should wear brightly coloured plasters (so if they fall into the food, they'll be easy to spot) at an impressionable age, which put me off a little. Though now that I have typed all this I am not entirely sure that that was him. It is possible that I am talking even more nonsense than usual.)

On a similar festive note, I was looking up the last posting dates today to put them into my Google calendar (*is a nerd*) and it seems that the overseas ones are soonish. So if you are on my flist, would like a card from me and would also like it to arrive in time for Christmas, I recommend leaving your address on this post asap. :)

I'm not going to be this obnoxiously Christmassy all December, honest...

- Thoughts on this week's Merlin first, so anyone who hasn't caught up yet can skip them: ( spoilers )

- Then I watched the Children in Need Merlin special, which was much more cheerierer. ( spoilers )

- On Friday night I went to see The Winter's Tale at the Tobacco Factory. I've studied it but never seen it before, so I was really looking forward to it. And I wasn't disappointed - it was a great production. The change in tone between the acts was a little jarring, but I think that's a fault of the play, which is pretty much a mini-tragedy with a mini-comedy smushed onto the end, and the production handled it very well: the comedy shenanigans were excellent. ("Aha, I shall put on this ridiculous hat and this eye-patch, there is no way my son shall see through that!" And indeed he doesn't.) The same actress played Mamillius and Perdita, which was an interesting choice, though it may have been driven more by the size of the cast that anything else - there was a lot of doubling up. Antigonus was lovely - ( there are no spoilers so old I will not cut for them )

- Jess and Vanky stayed over on Friday night, and on Saturday we went and played ADVENTURE GOLF at Cabot Circus. Great fun, even though I lost. Again.

Telly I have watched recently, from most newestest to most oldest:

( Merlin - The Lady of the Lake )

( SJA season three )

( Terror of the Zygons )

Title: Bricks and Mortar
Rating: All ages
Characters: Sarah Jane Smith, Romana
Warnings: None
Words: 1080
Summary: Sarah Jane wasn't expecting visitors that early in the morning.
Notes: For Sarah Jane Smith week. Thanks to persiflage_1 for beta reading!
Archived: AO3 | Teaspoon

( Three a.m., and Sarah Jane was woken by a frantic hammering at her front door. )

- Finished watching Genesis of the Daleks yesterday. Thoughts:

( spoilers )

- And then I watched Revenge of the Cybermen, the first new-to-me story since Planet of the Spiders. Reactions:

( spoilers )

- It was my afternoon off yesterday; I had Grand Plans involving making a necklace tree out of wire and papier mâché (*scatters accents randomly*), but the wire I had was too thin, so I went up to the craft shop to get some better stuff, which they didn't have. So I made some earrings instead.

( picture! )

- Two links, coincidentally both from Twitter: 1) Stephen Fry - sorry , Step Hen Free - reaches one million followers; triggers an event in the continuum. 2) Javier Grillo-Marxuach linked this fantastic picture of Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar from the filming of the pilot episode of The Middleman, which I can't stop looking at. Am now attempting to make The Middleman be uncancelled through the power of MY BRANE.

Merlin was proper good this week, I thought. HOWEVER. ( spoilers )

(I did not watch The Waters of Mars; I find it much easier to be zen about New Who if I don't watch too much of it, also I cannot stand Ten. I watched The Sontaran Experiment instead, which was not that great but anything featuring the Four-Sarah-Harry team is A-OK by me.)

I worked on Saturday (and also ended up doing the late shift on Friday night), which was actually quite good as it was blowing a gale and tipping down with rain, so it was nice to be somewhere warm and dry. And when I arrived on Saturday morning there was a Mysterious Amazon Parcel waiting for me. "Strange," I mused, "I don't remember ordering anything. Am I maybe ordering things in my sleep now? That is not good." But it wasn't that - it was in fact a present from sparra and Mr. sparra (squee, thank you!)! So that was a v. cheering way to start the day. And then I checked my email and found my invitation to the Archive of Our Own had arrived! (I was 18th in the queue, hence the speediness.) I haven't done much with it yet apart from upload my fics and look around a bit, but it is so pretty and user friendly and well organised! I LOVE IT.

There is this new program on E4, Misfits, about superheroes, which I'd been looking forward to because yay superheroes! And then I actually watched it. [trigger warning, also spoilers] ( Read more... )

- Happy belated birthday, elyssadc! (Sorry I missed you out of my post the other day, for some reason LJ didn't tell me it was your birthday :/)

- Quick plug: who_daily and torchwood_three are looking for new editors! I've only done backup editions of both, but if anyone is considering applying and wants to ask me any questions, I shall do my best to answer.

- Had a slight booktastrophe earlier when I finished the book I'd brought to read at work (The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones, which I found slightly unsatisfactory: it was enjoyable, as ever with her books, but rather slight. I thought I was only about half way through and was rather surprised to find myself at the end. I think it needed more middle) rather sooner than I had planned. But then I remembered that I work in a library, so I nipped down to the Children's Fiction section and picked up a copy of Margaret Mahy's The Changeover, which I'd been thinking about rereading anyway. Crisis averted.

- In my attempt to watch All of Doctor Who In Order, I have got to Robot (sidenote: last time I complained on here about some post not arriving, it was there when I got home, so in that spirit: where is my copy of About Time 4? I waaannnttssss it (ETA that actually worked! Awesome! *clings to shiny new book*)). I think the things I enjoyed most this time round were all the little reaction shots and things like that - ( minor spoilers )

- Merlin was much better this week, I thought, apart from two things. One wasn't their fault; it was the massive banner plastered over the top of the screen informing me that if I am over 75 I can get help upgrading to digital TV before the switchover. Alas, there was no way of telling it that a) I am not over 75 and b) I have a digibox, it just chooses not to acknowledge the existence of the BBC at this time. The other was their fault and is spoilery: ( Read more... )

- I was IMDBing Idris Elba last night, as one does, when I suddenly stumbled upon the fact that Vampire Bill from True Blood also played Jack in Ultraviolet (the TV series, not the film. I have not seen the film but I JUDGE IT for not being the TV series). Possibly everyone but me already knew that, but I did not recognise him even a little bit! In my defence he had very different hair ten years ago. Anyway, I also found out that Idris Elba is going to be in a BBC 1 thriller type thing with Paul McGann and Indira Varma. DO WANT.

- The Unbelievable Truth was excellent last night, I had to stop eating a few times because I was laughing so much. Highly recommended. Sadly it was the last one in the series but happily next Monday the new series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue is starting.

- I only have one Anji EDA left, woe! I've been trying to string them out by going back and reading the early Eight 'n' Sam ones which I skipped, and to that end I read The Bodysnatchers a while ago: quite fun, but it got a bit unnecessarily gory, grr. And I am trying to like Sam, because I feel guilty about hating her so much and I know I'm going to warm to her later on, but she was still quite annoying. I assumed she was joking when she asked, of Victorian Londoners, something along the lines of "haven't they heard of global warming?", but from the context... possibly she wasn't.

Happy birthday to ghost2!

Happy belated birthdays to the_smut_fairy (for Friday) and persiflage_1 (for yesterday)!

And happy early birthday to sparra for tomorrow!

I hope you all have, had or are having lovely days of wonderfulness. (Actually this is true for everyone reading this, whether it is your birthday or not. ♥)

- Halloween! I went to Croydon at the weekend for Izzy's halloween party; many school people were there, hurrah! I made black fairy cakes, Girid made some incredibly lifelike finger biscuits, we watched Little Shop of Horrors (which I'd never seen before) and much fun was had. The next day, Izzy, Jess, Vanky and I went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. And then I missed my train. Whoops!

- I'd got a little out of the habit of watching Doctor Who over the last few weeks, but I made up for it on Wednesday by watching the last two episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs (wee rubber dinosaurs! Benton's "bracing myself to be knocked out" expression! ♥) and all of Death to the Daleks (playing spot the things that will reappear, slightly modified, in Blake's 7: I spotted the insignias, a character called Jill Tarrant, and SPACE ARCHERY). ( spoilers ) Last night I started The Monster of Peladon, which I'm enjoying, but then I always love stories with lots of different aliens in them.

- Whilst watching all that, plus Spooks (ETA that there may be spoilers in the comments!), True Blood and 45 minutes of Adulthood (at which point the disc gave up, grr), I've been working on the top I'm knitting for The Sister. I finished the body (which I think would work on its own quite nicely, too) on Tuesday, and I've nearly finished the collar - assuming that I don't rip it all out and start again. Which would not exactly be uncharacteristic of my knitting style.

Twelve SJA icons, all but one from "Prisoner of the Judoon" and "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith", so beware spoilers!

Teasers:



( all of them )

- SJA today was WONDERFULNESS, even more so than usual. ( spoilers and babble )

- Alert alert alert: Now Show tickets available! Anyone want to go?

- I read Earth Abides while I was on holiday (a book about a plague that wipes out almost the entire population of Earth, not exactly a cheery pick but the book pile must be obeyed) and am rather torn about it. On the one hand, it was very well written and developed, and the tone was nicely melancholic without being too depressing, but on the other hand, the attitudes towards gender, race and disability were, well, skeevy is putting it mildly. Ack.

- I have many things to do tonight and tomorrow, none of them were or are "make a new wallpaper for the laptop", and yet... The picture was posted on Shakesville a few days ago and as soon as I saw it I wanted a wallpaper of it, it is just a great image.

Went pumpkin carving at amicu's with Rhiannon and tigerpixie last night! I had never carved a pumpkin before and was a little worried that I might end the evening with fewer fingers than I began it with, but all was well. There are many photos on facebook here; I shall post my effort under a cut:

( Don’t make fun. I worked long and hard to get this pompous. )

amicu and Rhiannon made the innards into lovely pumpkin soup (slightly too spicy, but that was the recipe's fault, not theirs), and later we made pumpkin cupcakes decorated with chocolate spiderwebs (turning into a pumpkin, brb). We ate them watching an appropriate Buffy episode, "Fear Itself", which contains one of my many favourite Buffy moments: Xander asks Buffy, who is dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, "What have you got in the basket, little girl?" Calmly Buffy replies: "Weapons." &BUFFY;! I do love a good fairytale subversion.

HELLO GMT HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU! This morning I was awake enough to finish my book before I had to get up. THIS NEVER HAPPENS WITH BST.

Book in question was The Levant Trilogy, the second half of Fortunes of War, and it was excellent: I recommend both it, the first half (The Balkan Trilogy) and the 1987 TV version with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh to all and sundry. It's about a young married couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle, who are sent out to Romania early in the second world war (Guy is an English teacher), are evacuated from there to Athens, then escape to Cairo, but the war, although it is behind most of their actions, isn't really the main subject of the books (it's more prominent in The Levant Trilogy, where a new main character, a soldier, is introduced) - it's more about their lives and their relationship with each other and the people around them. It's very unsentimental, which I liked.

Edinburgh was lovely. It is a very fine-looking city and I took many photos. Also it did not rain all the time! The Mother and I did many touristy things. I think my favourite was the tour of the new Scottish Parliament building, which was v. interesting and something we probably wouldn't have done without Jess's recommendation, so thank you Jess! We were also very impressed with the National Museum of Scotland, though we felt it could have been laid out better as some of the floors were a bit of a maze. We had some very nice meals, too, particularly on the last day: we went to the Elephant House (JKR's old stomping ground) for lunch and the Vincaffé for tea. YUM.

The journey there was fine, though it did get off to a bad start on Thursday morning when I thought "hmm, I'd better just check that my railcard is where it always is... oh, it isn't. RIGHT." But I got to the station in time to get a replacement, with a much better photo as an added bonus. The journey back was much longer and by the time I got to Cheltenham I was feeling a bit "BRING ME MY FAINTING COUCH, I HAVE THE VAPOURS." But then I went back to my parents' house and ate a lovely roast dinner what The Father had cooked, which quite restored my spirits for the journey back to Bristol.

Whilst I was on holiday I watched this week's Merlin, and though it was terribly fun and all that... I don't know. I think possibly I am viewing last season through rose coloured specs, but I can't help feel that this season has been not as good. ( spoilers for all aired episodes )

And finally, a meme: The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

- The Mother and I are off to Edinburgh tomorrow, huzzah! Back on Sunday evening and shall have no internets whilst I am away. (I will have phone signal though, which is a nice change: usually we go to Abroad, where my cheapo Tesco value sim card doesn't work.)

- Stitch and Witch was at mine last night, there was tea, there was knitting and there was this cake, which did not look a bit like it does in the picture but did at least taste ok, so there we go.

- At the weekend I watched the first four episodes of Avatar and absolutely loved it. I was incredibly charmed by all the characters and am looking forward to seeing more of them and their adventures. Zuko's uncle cracked me up in every scene he was in, Katara is fab, Aang is adorable and I am very fond of Sokka - he feels very real and has had some great character development. And I am now angry once again about how the film version is going to be so racefaily. Gah.