Number 5 - With a little creativity

OK, so this year I have fallen out of love with bookcrossing somewhat (If I am talking weirdness again check out www.bookcrossing.com) mostly due to the lethargy of the London meetup group. So, I had kind of written off this challenge.

However, tomorrow is the last day of The Wimbledon Bookfest so I thought there must be an opportunity to do a little bookcrossing event of my own. So, I have invented not the usual OBCZ official bookcrossing zone but a pop-up version, the one day only OBCZ outside bookcrossing zone.



I hope to register 40 books and I am taking them to my local public gardens tomorrow, where I will leave them with a big sign and...watch this space.

An update & more photos to come.

Number 34 - SLAYED in the nick of time

So, I spent the night of my 40th birthday quaffing champagne, admiring my twinkling bracelet, briefly rolling on the floor in agony (but that's another story) and watching episodes 141-144 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

At 11.23pm I saw Sunnydale crumble to dust (oops sorry SPOILER) thereby closing the hellmouth and releasing Buffy from her destiny to be
the Chosen One.
[no longer to] stand alone against the vampires, the demons,
and the forces of darkness.


I feel a bit bereft now that it's over, and I need to mull a bit on the ending itself.
So here goes, donning my Captain Contentious for a moment I'l tell you what I think happened;

Buffy orchestrates and creates the final episodes to ensure that she relinquishes all her responsibilities and personal ties;
She attempts to send Dawn away with Xander
Xander loses an eye and his ex fiancee in order to keep him unattached & focused on Dawn
She rejects Giles as a figure of authority
She says a final Goodbye to Angel and kills off Spike
She returns Faith to the fold
She creates a relationship for Willow and changes her from uber witch to Goddess
She destroys Sunnydale (the world she created) and everything in it blocking up the hellmouth

Why?
So that she can return to her family. Giving up her slayer alter-ego and fighting her real mental demons.

When asked 'What will you do now Buffy?' she simply smiles enigmatically and if we were to cut away to a mental institution somewhere in LA, I think a damaged, schizophrenic teen would be opening her eyes and calling for her Mommy. I hark back of course to Episode 17 - Series 6.

Now, this of course means nothing to most of you, but is it enough to drive you out of lurkdom with a comment Mr Rider?

Anyway enough, it's over.
Buffy? Seen it!

Who's a lucky girl

Number 27 - paving my way to heaven

I have done some minor one off good deeds this year;
volunteering to cover Rachel's playtime duty
Volunteering to hear readers in Arden's year 1 class
volunteering to change nappies when it is technically not my turn :-)
volunteering to deal when I'm knocked out of poker tournaments

But these are just being 'nice', and I have received many equal and greater kindnesses in return. Volunteering in my mind should be something that goes beyond this. It is about doing something for no other purpose than for the greater good and technically should benefit someone that I don't know.

So, I have made an appointment to give blood, on Monday afternoon. This is something I have never done, for no good reason!

I've volunteered, will I be accepted? Watch this space.

WOO-HOO

It's today, my happy birthday and I feel great!
This year has been amazing. I did so many fantastic and funny things with my fantastic & funny friends.
I have several more updates to make, having completed 3 or 4 more from 'the list' and I need to do an end of year report, all this to come but at the moment my baby boy is having his nap and I am having a sneaky middle-of-the-day glass of champagne and squeezing in a couple of episodes of Buffy.

I'm cheekily giving myself another week to complete as many as possible (because my party - number 40 is next weekend) so watch this space.

With lots of birthday love.
Judi x x x

Burning the midnight oil

Willow has gone almighty evil.
Spike is in the process of regaining his soul.
Giles is back on the scene (Thank God)

And I have 1 week to watch season 7 approx 4 episodes per night to find out how the entire thing ends.
As I write I am on episode 3, could be a late one!

Number 14

Number 14 - a grass sitting, sun shining tick

Today Teddy and I surprised Guy with a birthday picnic in St James' park.

The sun shone, the ducks quacked, the squirrels gathered nuts, Teddy frolicked through the Autumn leaves and an idyllic time was had by all.

Photographic evidence to follow.

37 and 15 Two for the price of One

Well time is running out, I need to be doing 2 at a time now and this one is spectacular, rather like my husband who has planned it. But I need to take you back a few weeks ripple...ripple....ripple

Saturday 5th September was my wedding anniversary, Guy and I have been married for 16 years. I had done the anniversary 'stuff'; a card, a gift (small but lovingly chosen) declarations of undying love etc Guy ...wished me a happy anniversary.

However, over a scrummy anniversary dinner in the village he casually mentioned that he wondered if I would like to have a day in a London Spa and a night in a hotel for an anniversary present! Well DURRRR

So, on Wednesday 7th October I am off for my number 37 and boy am I going to pack that full of treatments. Then, obviously exhausted by the exertion of moving from one couch to another, taking that heavy robe on and off and all that turning over I will retire to my hotel bedroom to sleep, alone until I wake.







'me' on that swing!

"O frabjous day Callooh! Callay!"

I have invited Guy to join me for breakfast on his way to work, and you never know he might even get invited back to my room ;-)

Number 23 - Vehicular tick!

I'm doing it!!! I'm really doing it!!!
Days I never thought I'd see number 23 :-)

With a big thank you to;
Annabelle for forcing the issue and hosting 'Learning to ride day' at her house.
The young bloke in the bike shop who didn't smirk at selling a bike to a 30something yr old woman who couldn't test 'drive' it.
Guy who didn't suggest running behind me holding onto the saddle.
Arden & Ben who shouted encouragingly 'Good Job Mummy' as they rode effortlessly around the park.
The visitors to South Park Gardens who leapt out of my way.
and
The nice man in the cravat who gave me the last piece of the jigsaw.

It's not elegant but if the hounds of hell were baying at my heels and there was a bike close to hand I could now save myself!

From Dusk to dawn - Numbers 2 and 35

If you have seen or spoken to me in the last few weeks you will know that I loved the 80s rewind festival in a mad, evangelical, born-again kind of way.
Shall I tell thee why I loved thee, let me count the ways;
The tent smelt like PGL and opened a floodgate to a million memories of a summer that ever seemed to end.
Arden and I fell in love with each other all over again.
It felt truly privileged to spend so much time having fun with one of my children.
The setting - on the banks of the Thames opposite Temple Island.
The weather - absolutely gorgeous days, freezing cold nights.
The wooden spoons from The Comfy Crappers
Toyah, Bananarama, Nik Kershaw,Rick Astley, Billy Ocean, Heaven 17 etc etc etc
'Nuff said?

My camera mysteriously 'disappeared' but the memories will last a lifetime. The freezing cold, cloudless night opened up te heavens and we truly slept under the stars.


We watched the sunrise over the river Thames, the mist hovering over the surface of the water (Oh the joys of camping with a 6 yr old who wakes in time for me to see the sunrise....YAY me!)

Number 17 - A literary tick!

I actually finished my 40 books in the Isle of Wight, but what with festivals, cramming 6 weeks of holiday work into 3 days and watching back-to-back Buffy well...

But here goes with the final 4;
I loved this, every bit of it; from the little girl who was taught to swim in order to appear in a local paper photo shoot, through the movies, wife, mother, woman. Lots of gossip from the golden years of Hollywood. Plan to watch some of her movies now.


Warm, witty read. In some ways all about being an Asian woman in Britain and in other ways nothing. It is a book about being a woman about love, loss, family and humanity. Warm, funny, sad. Glad I read it.



This is an extract from the blurb. Seeing any parallels?
"It's early 2008 and the credit crunch is starting to bite. Sam and Laura Diamond - and their friends - are circling forty and all feeling a lot less certain about life than when they first met in their twenties. Laura wants to work part-time and have a third child - an appalling prospect for her husband Sam, whose secret ambition is to give up his job as a struggling scriptwriter and have a vasectomy."

Oh happy days! I read Diceman many years ago and was intrigued and repulsed by it in equal measure. In this book the son of Diceman goes in search of his estranged father. Wicked!!!! Dice living is not without its attractions. Maybe in 50 before 50!

So, the dice makes 40. No Russian translations, no Dickens, nothing that was life changing. But 40 new books, no re-reads, no short cuts.

Tickety Tick Tick!

Number 9- Still grinning

The time of my life

Oh my goodness, I had a ball!
Reliving my youth with my beautiful daughter. dancing into the night, singing until I was hoarse, chanting the mantra 'don't look down' whilst on the camp toilets, drinking warm wine from plastic bottles, cleaning my teeth in public, not showering, oohing at fireworks, choosing a target whilst on the bumper cars, tripping over guy ropes in the dark, having my camera stolen, no fruit, no shower, no sleep.
HEAVEN!

More details of which numbers get a big fat festival tick coming when I am clean and have stopped grinning and singing bananarama songs.

number 23 continued

In case you are wondering this is my left leg!!!

I am bruised from ankle to thigh.

My lower back is on fire.

My upper arms ache.

My fingers are frozen in 'locked onto handlebars' position.

BUT..... I can now cycle in a straight line about 20m across Annabelle's garden.

I cannot steer!!!

Almost there.

2,9 35 The answer is...

This weekend, Arden and I are girlie bonding. sleeping in a tent, dancing to cheesy music and hopefully watching the sunrise.
Watch this space.

Number 23 -a work in progress

OUCH!

Number 8 - KERSPLOOSH!

Just back from the best family holiday ....ever! It was simply fabulous on every level. A lack of a video player meant that I am horribly behind on the Buffy challenge but to be fair I'm not sure I could have squeezed it in between the poker with Annabelle & Miles, romantic walks on the beach and midnight pool swims with Guy, long boozy dinners with Jolyon, Georgie and Janie and champagne and chinese with Angie & Lewis. The Isle of Wight rocks!

However, I did manage to complete 2 'silly things' one of which was the swim in the ocean.
It was, I have to say, bloody freezing! This might have been exacerbated by the fact that it was 8am (I do have 3 small children so we had been up for some time) I would have wussed if it hadn't been for this..

Arden threw herself into the sea, declared it was lovely and struck out for Portsmouth. Hell fire! There was only one thing for it!

It was a brief swim, so brief that Guy didn't have time to find the zoom on the camera. But I went, I saw, I immersed. Number 8 a chilly, soggy, sunny tick!

Number 18 - Woof!

On receiving a text saying 'Fancy number 18 with me?' Most sane people would reply 'yes please with egg fried rice' (Or potentially 'not if it's the elephant position')

However as this message came from one of my dearest friends, Sarah, I felt quite confident replying 'yes please' before rushing off to my computer to find out what I might have just agreed to! And number 18 was a breath of fresh air (literally) when in the midst of a very stressful week, Sarah turned up on my doorstep with Toots!


We passed a very happy hour and a half, taking a turn around South park Gardens in the sunshine and putting the world to rights.
Toots was impeccably behaved apart from chasing the odd pigeon, climbing the gardeners ladder, and this...



















Luckily (?) Sarah had some tissues as I had prepared for the walk by erm......er..... well....bringing a can of diet coke along. Cue much girlie squealing and threats to 'wet ourselves' as we giggled and retched our way through Dog Walking 101 - picking up the poo! The best bit, sorry Toots, was definitely spending some child free time with Sarah and talking without punctuating every sentence with 'Don't scoot across the road' or 'Well you had your book bag when we left the house.'

Thanks to Sarah and Sam and Toots for a sunny, smiley, chatty, cathartic tick.

70s Dinner - A boozy, silly, retro blast from the past

Last Friday was such fun! Thanks to Guy, Janie, Stuart, Jolyon, Georgie, Backy and Barry.
There were many highlights; Georgie's wig, Janie's Chianti in a basket, Guy's sandles worn with socks, the curly wurlies, the shaggy carpet around the toilet, Jolyon's facial hair, the ugly plates, my impression of Margaret Thatcher (Thank God there were 4 teachers on hand) remembering Mateus Rose was fizzy! Barry as the bastard detective killing off the widely misunderstood Little Mafia (me) and so many more......

Thrilled to bits with this groovy tick - and when can I host another one?