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This months Lones newsletter is all about craft and the envelope ended up being more crafty than I expected. I failed miserably to buy A5 envelopes or bring home the A4 ones I keep stored at work so instead I had to come up with a envelope – a recycled Hello! magazine came to the rescue.
To finish off I added white sticker labels to the front for the address and I even made a little seal for the back – roughly drawn trefoil with ‘Lones Newsletter’ written around it
Well this past two weeks I’ve had some dread disease (possibly the common cold) anyway it put a stop to reading much with a epic plot or hard words (well at least a lot o f hard words) so instead I decided to catch up on my favourite comic strip – Get Fuzzy. You can catch it here at comics.com. Get Fuzzy is the simple tale of a man and his dog and cat. It becomes less simple because the cat is really evil (at least he tries to be). It is hard to explain why I love it so much. I love the homage to poetry, movies, music etc. that litter the strips, I love the monkey obsession held by Bucky but mostly I love the drawings.
Anyway I read ‘Ignorance Thy Name is Bucky’ and ‘Dumbheart’ this past week between nose blowing and they cheered me up. Read it, love it, share it!
Y: The Last Man is a series of comic books by Brian K. Vaughan which was recommended to me by a man dressed as Clark Kent (I was dressed as Barbara Gordon at the time). Often a tad sweary, certainly full frontal female nudity and a fair bit of gore but also full of pop culture and a really good bit of story telling. The premise is simple – a plague wipes out all the men but one (Yorick) and his male pet monkey (Ampersand) and they then try and get somewhere else and meet a wide range of crazy ladies on the way.
Excellent well worth reading and -point of interest -a popular title to steal from the library. Today saw me read volume 3 and 4 which saw a nice development of the story and a fair bit of drama.
I haven’t just been reading, oh no. I also picked up a needle and thread and tried some embroidery. Now this is my first attempt (I know I should have done a traditional sampler but I just wasn’t inspired). 
It’s a picture of one of my rats – Wheeler. I tried to do a range of different stitches but found that as I wasn’t doing flowers things like daisy chains and similar didn’t really have a place. Guess I’ll have to make a needle case or similar to try them out. I’m most proud of my broccoli – 1hour to do the French knots! 
The latest book the be completed is ‘And another thing…’ by Eoin Colfer. This was another very enjoyable book. If it hadn’t been I’d have been most disappointed as 1) I’m a big fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 2)I’m a big fan of Artemis Fowl. Not only that but it was a Christmas present and the only book for ages I wanted to buy new.
It was great fun with the old gang re-united despite the apparent destruction of at least three of them and the Earth (again) at the end of ‘Mostly Harmless’. Warning – the Earth again fails to do well in this book – some things are just not meant to be.
All the classic characters are either in the book or given a nod to and the style is very much in keeping with the Douglas Adams originals. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Tom felt I hadn’t made a bear for a while (he’s right it’s been an age) so to get me back into it he bought me a ‘Make your Own Bear’ kit. Now this consisted of a bear skin (complete with Velcro back), a jumper, and everything you need to make the bear.
Gyles was stitched up on Boxing day complete with a gnome and flowers embroidered on his jumper. I didn’t change anything else save for the nose. I gave him a proper embroidered black nose rather than the pink fabric one he started with.
Another of the read by World Book Day books – Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Now this one I can enthuse about. I was worried at first that it would be similar in disappointment to Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights – neither managed to draw me in. At no point did I fall for our leading man but I did find myself caring a great deal too much for the nameless narrator. I could see how the events of the ball would unfold but I still found myself wishing it could be otherwise. However, the big revelation when it came, came as a complete shock. The final third was a brilliant – tense and very much ‘edge of seat’ stuff. I’m not sure I’d rush to buy my own copy (borrowed this one from the library) since a re-read is unlikely to be as exciting since I know the story but it was excellent first time round.
The Christmas holidays are a time of family, food and reading for me. So the first two books for the holiday were Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick.
Blood Red Snow White I’ve had lying around for a wee while. It drew me in as it mixed fairy tales and Russian history. It’s printed on paper that’s off white and designed to look old and is written as part fairy tale, part history and part biography. Done from the perspective of Arthur Ransome (of Amazon and Swallows fame) it cover the period just before the Russian revolution until the Bolshevists are set in place. It’s written for a teen audience so it’s easy to read but high in interest.
Lucky Jim is on my list of 10 books to read by World Book Day. It was easy enough to read but not much happens it’s one of those development of character books the English department love so much. James is a lecturer who kind of fell into the post and hates lots of things about it. By the end he’s fallen into another phase of his life. It was good, I enjoyed it – I wanted to know how it ended, I even cared for James. I’m not sure I’d agree with the great comic genius of it all, Jeeves and Wooster it isn’t but it was amusing. It’s a three out of five – worth reading, enjoyable but probably not going to stay on my book shelf.
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