House of Many Ways - Nom Nom Nom Nom

After reading Caroline's post about shopping for books and seeing her mention Garden Spells at the end, I decided to read it again.

So I took it to work with me this morning, and read the first chapter or so while waiting for our morning meeting to start (and then delayed the meeting slightly by raving about it when Bod asked me if it was any good (having sold one to Jo after I'd recommended it to her))... anyways, so I planned to read it again today.

Then all my plans went out the window when Donal phoned up from Goods In to tell me that House of Many Ways had just arrived. So naturally I read that instead.

Once again, Diana Wynne Jones has written a brilliant book. Now it's "A chaotically magical sequel to Howl's Moving Castle" so I was very much looking forward to reading a little more about Sophie and Howl (and Calcifer) - and I wasn't disappointed. One of the things I loved was the dog called Waif. Now in the film (that Scott Pack prefers) there is a dog called Heen that is small, scruffy and very wheezy. Heen doesn't appear in the book, the dog in the book is the combination of Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin that the Witch creates (another bit dropped/mixed up from the film, read about him here and discover the whole point of the scarecrow turning into Prince Justin (something Richie Fingers asked me about)).

Ahem.

Anyways, Waif is basically Heen, but with a new name and new purpose. I love the fact that she's taken this film character and transplanted it into a new book!

Now if none of that makes any sense, I do apologise - basically I recommend it!
(and I've now seen the American cover and may just have to buy that edition too...)

Healed...

...by Phish Food.

Ahem.

I followed the lead of wonderful Caroline when on my day off yesterday by adding Google Reader. I spent a happy half hour or so adding blogs to it and then getting it set up to my satisfaction. The only problem with the bloody thing is that when I'm trying to fill in time by reading blogs...it cuts this time right down.

Luckily Michelle is discovering some new ones for me!

Hopefully once my sister gets into RADA (not trying to jinx you, doing the positive thinking thing) then she will blog more (even if it will all be about technical lighting stuff etc).

Now I'm back off to Outland and then early to bed.

Cadburys Flake...

...or actually not.

I have been flakier this week than the last couple, mainly because I am doing this again. I did it back in the summer and it worked well, but for some reason I never managed to go back onto it after coming back from holiday...

This week has been bloody hard work but as Anthony has kept saying to me "If you can do it this week, you can do it anytime!". I have cheated slightly though, I've been drinking a little milk which is verboten. I've been doing this after nearly fainting a couple of times at work, low blood sugar + running about at work = not good.

I'm feeling good about it today though, even though it's day 5. I have lunch in front of me: lovely deli ham, strong cheddar cheese, pickled onions, celery and pate (the pate goes on the celery). M&S have been helping me out by having an offer on pre-prepared chicken tikka (the sort you can add to salads etc) which has been lovely for work lunch on days I don't fancy smoked salmon. Breakfast is the difficult meal as I have to eat it but always feel sick eating in the morning. Safest solution so far has been a whey protein shake which also makes me feel sick...

I have done some cooking this week, an attempt at Beef Stroganoff on Monday and Spag Bol last night (but no Spag for me).

Otherwise I have been doing much the same things as last week apart from eating Creme Eggs!

Yes I'm boring, go read Caroline's blog instead - she has been doing amazing things!

Variousness

The lovely lovely Caroline is once again blogging things I'm thinking about. (She's so wonderful).

My thoughts on this were partly brought on by Facebook after a few very, very old pictures of me were put up on there and I still can't believe that was actually me. Partly cos I wish I'd had a hairdresser that would allow for the fact that I didn't want to spend 3 hours on my hair every morning. (The joys of bleaching it for so long mean that it's the same length now as it was then but so much more under control!)

I also just realised that of all my ex-boyfriends, there are only two that I'm not Facebook friends with (and that would be Jon from uni and the Yeti). I mean, there are a couple more who aren't on there, but Jamie's been dead for 11 years now so I'm letting him off, and the others I can only just remember first names let alone surnames. I think that's quite a good record really.

Not an ex-boyfriend, but a very dear friend from my Canterbury days, is thoroughly excited about the fact that his blog has shot to the top of Google on a search for three little words. I'm not going to put them here in case I topple him, but well done Steve on your success!

Foley chewed through the lights on the tree on Thursday so I have had to take the lights from my bed and put those on the tree instead. There is also now a length of lovely red ribbon draped round the tree after our visit to Hobbycraft yesterday. I keep wanting to make something, but I don't know quite what. I have a few ideas that I'm writing down until I have the money to give them a try. (Which makes it sound expensive, but it'll be about £5!)

The wanting to make something is probably brought on by some of the new blogs I have been reading, they're over in the sidebar under Home Stuff. I love Posie Gets Cozy and SouleMama, both of which I discovered via yarnstorm. I very very much want to make some of these which I first spotted on Posie, and then found all over the place on Flickr. This of course means I'm looking at all sorts of bits of fabric on eBay...

Otherwise I am ticking along nicely. The whole being violently sick thing has calmed down quite a lot, it really only starts up when I start feeling guilty about not being at work - so I am trying not to think about work.

I am also listening to large quantities of Radio Four and getting rather hooked on The Archers!