Had parents, sis and gran over today for afternoon tea. So decked the house with an Easter tree:
I brought in the daffodils from the back garden (they just opened) and popped some Cadbury’s Mini Eggs in the rabbit dish Tom’s folks gave us for Christmas. Plus we bought some Peeps in the US last year so I had them out:
Looking forward this evening to torturing the brightly coloured mallow in some hot chocolate 
Just finished reading this and really enjoyed it. There was no gossip in it just his story and a frankness about the mental health issues in his mothers and his life.
It was really interesting and at times funny – not laugh out loud more gently amusing. It’s worth noting that there is little on the shows or people he’s worked with save for how they changed him so no reading it to get behind the scenes M.A.S.H or West Wing gossip!
This display came about as a discussion with pupils. Originally they decided we should have the egg and chicken as Papier-mâché. But past experience with this left me cynical – mainly because pupils have a tendency to loose patience before enough layers are added so the sculpture tends to implode when the balloon is popped.
After the failed Papier-mâché attempt I convinced them that paper could work as well so we created a paper egg and chick. The idea was partly Easter based but also it’s subject choice time again and philosophy is one of the available subject choices they have in S5/6.
Anyway books included Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder and the Philosophy files by Stephen Law and Daniel Postgate plus on the egg side Dino Egg by Charlie James, Eggs by Jerry Spinelli.
It went well and lots of pupils were asking what the answer was – hence leading to an an explanation of what Philosophy is. Some even took the books out!
Valentine’s gets a mixed response in my library for some it’s fun for others it’s viewed with disgust. I’ve promised them anti-Valentine’s next year but this year speed was important.
So back out with the hearts (these were originally done when I started five years ago so they are doing well), pint off some letters onto A4 sheets (making it just the outline means you can just trim round) and out with some books about love or first sex since didn’t want them to be all soppy (I used a list from the Ultimate Teen Book Guide as a guide).
I also added to the display some very bad jokes thanks to Disney’s Family Fun site’s Valentine’s Day Jokes.
It’s not going to change to world but it did get some groans from pupils.
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.