I have mostly spent this week being dizzy and working. Although I have managed to get through most of my to-do list - there were things on there I could do lying down or only took five minutes of sitting up.

Although this weekend I have felt well enough to move around a bit and I have finally put all my books, CDs and DVDs on my bookshelves. And then I took photos of them. The last two (Flickr orders them in reverse) are from a funny angle because there's not much space in that corner.

As you can see, there's not a lot of space left... If I owned this house the shelves would be floor to ceiling. I don't have any more space left along the walls in the spare room. Although I might be able to fit another one in and have it sticking out a bit (the room's a funny shape). Theoretically I could have shelves in the middle of the room, but it is supposed to be a spare room too, and I do need space to unfold the bed. But I haven't used the tops of the shelves yet, so when I run out of space I'll buy some bookends and start on those. When I run out of space up there I need to get rid of some books. According to LibraryThing I have 435 books, which is plenty. Maybe one day when I have a house big enough to fit them in I can have more.

There are still things in my room at home. The bookshelves still have ornaments and rabbits (of the cuddly variety) on them. There are still things in the cupboards too (including a lot of videos). But the cupboard doors are being used to keep bunny's hammock up, so I can't open them, otherwise her hammock falls down and she falls out.

I keep not updating this much because I have nothing much to talk about. At least not in the sense of what I've been up to. This month I've mostly gone to work and made bookcases. It's not been helped by work being busy. I've had some really crazy days. I'm just hoping that it'll calm down in November therefore. I can't hope for December being calm, it never is.

I have one bookcase left to make. At some point once I've made them all and got all my books on them I will take a photo (well, it'll take a few photos) to show how many there are. LibraryThing tells me I have 430 books, but there are some I could get rid of.

I have started reading A Game of Thrones. I'd been putting it off because it's 800 pages in a small font, but it turns out that the chapters are only about 10 pages each. So it's easy to just read a chapter before bed. I am enjoying it - the TV series followed the plot well and the book is explaining more of the background. So I will watch the next series before reading the second book.

Before I read A Game of Thrones I read Snuff. Which I was never not going to like.

My copy of Mylo Xyloto (Coldplay's new album) arrived on Monday. And I finally managed to listen to it today. I got through the whole of it on my journey to work and back. But since I was busy driving and navigating the fog and making sure my windows stayed de-misted and talking, I can't say that I listened to it that closely. But not as closely as I did X&Y - I had that in my car when I moved house the time before last and my sister had it in her car too. Given there was a 10 minute journey between my old flat and the new, we both got sick of the album. I couldn't listen to it for ages after that.

I have almost finished playing Lego Harry Potter. I would have finished it ages ago but I came across a bug, so I was forever stuck at 98%. Once my sister's finished Lego Pirates of the Caribbean then I can play that and she can play Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. And then I can play it once she's finished. I have bought games for my Wii, but only three and only because I'd played them and liked them (and in two cases because they came with nunchuck/extra bit to make the remote more sensitive).

I don't have a reading challenge, but I thought I'd post what I'd read each month. So, in September I read:

Stargate: Atlantis: Homecoming by Jo Graham and Melissa Scott.
I was saving this one until after I'd finished my Big Bang story, because they start in similar places, after the last episode of Atlantis. I enjoyed this book to start with, seeing all the characters and what they were getting up to. But then it went over to standard Atlantis stuff and although I liked it when I saw it, I wasn't so keen on reading it for some reason. Perhaps because we had so much from Todd's point of view which was just weird. I wasn't so sure about seeing the Wraith humanised like that, even though they are partly human. I was also surprised to see obvious John/Teyla shipping. I'm not used to seeing that sort of thing in published books so it was a bit strange. The book ended on a cliffhanger, but I can't say that I'm that desperate to find out how it's resolved.

Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey
I've read a few Mercedes Lackey books and I find them hard going until about halfway in and then you have to read big chunks in one go to actually enjoy it. Which means I don't get many books read in a month when I read one of these. But the first in this trilogy actually got going right from the start and I liked all the way through. However, this is book three and it did start going downhill a bit in book two. This one was alright, but I can't tell you what happened in it now, except for a lifebond and Ancar. The lifebond part I hated with a passion. I've been there and done that in fanfiction (reading, not writing) and it's just so cliched and sickly, frankly. The Ancar stuff was more interesting because I realised that I'd read stuff about him in future trilogies (I seem to be going backwards with Mercedes Lackey trilogies). Which did make me want to read another Mercedes Lackey.

Winds of Fury by Mercedes Lackey
I read the first two of this trilogy ages ago, and then read the trilogy that came after, so I had a good idea of how this ended. And then forgot about it because it was ages ago. I actually enjoyed this one. I felt like I was starting to get a grip on the characters and the magic and the land. Some of it still baffles me - I could do with a glossary I think - but given that they only just explained what a Heartstone is in this book, after it being an important thing in the previous two, perhaps that's on purpose. I'm feeling all excited about reading more Mercedes Lackey now. And thinking that perhaps I need to go back and re-read some sometime.

I went to Oxford yesterday morning, to avoid the royal wedding because a) I'm a Republican and b) wedding's just aren't that interesting. Although when people ask I've just been telling them answer b, which satisfies them, even if they think I'm odd. Although, this is mostly girls. I don't think I've come across any men watching it out of choice.

Given that I still had money left on my Waterstones gift card that was my birthday present from my grandmother last year, and she gave me another one this year, early, I had lots of money to spend on Waterstones! Which doesn't go very far on new books, I found. I'm used to not spending more than £2 on books and most of the ones I buy these days are from charity shops.

But I spent £22 and for that I got:
Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods by altariel
Mothers and Daughters by Kate Long
On The Beat by Graham Cole (which is his autobiography)

I've read The Way Through the Woods, which was good. And there was a mention of Barbara and Tegan. And a bit where I went, "Are you sure he remembers that?" and then tonight's Doctor Who confirmed that yes, he did.

I ended up spending an hour at the train station because I got there just in time to miss one train. The next one was half an hour later, which I missed because I got distracted by reading and then the train left a minute early (when does that ever happen?). But it was just as well because I was tired and dizzy by that point and needed a rest and Waterstones only really make a token effort towards seating among the books.

Since I'm not doing any kind of book-reading challenge, I don't tend to talk about what I've read. But I've recently read a few books I wanted to talk about. Read more...

I've been meaning to post for days but have been distracted by too little sleep and a kitten. These things are mostly related.

I'm having a week's holiday from work at my parents with the new kitten. Who is mad. He was scared of me at first, but this morning, just after I'd caught up on my sleep and then stayed up late listening to the tennis, he wanted to play with me at 7am. Whereas I wanted to sleep... But I have been putting up photos of him on flickr. Basically, he's small, sweet, talkative and a complete pest. Whatever's going on, he wants to be in.

In between playing with the kitten I have read the latest Discworld book, I Shall Wear Midnight, which was good. And I've been reading lots of LOTR fic. Well, lots of Elrond fic, to be specific. I'm on the MEFA nominees that haven't been self-nominated now. I intend to write some reviews, but then I intended that the first year they ran and I still haven't written any...

At some point I will write some fic. But I looked through my archive and I have written a lot of drabbles. So I really want to write stuff that isn't drabbles. And I've decided to take this month off to do other stuff, like go through my bookshelves and get rid of some rubbish because I know the telephone manual is there, I just can't find it. And play some games - I've played a bit of The Fellowship of the Ring the Lego Harry Potter so far. I like that the former is third person but has a first person option. The latter is a bit of a pain because it doesn't recognise the mouse, and I'm used to using it to move with.

Back when I wrote some LOTR drabbles for my drabble a day month, I thought about how much of the whole universe I've forgotten. I thought a bank holiday weekend would be good for watching all three films, one a day because it's been years since I saw them. I didn't quite make it for the May ones, but I did manage it this weekend.

And it's not just facts I've forgotten either. I'd forgotten how funny and brave Pippin was, how loyal Sam was, how pretty Anduril was. And Elrond. I don't think he was right in the film, in terms of looks -he was too old and not pretty enough. But he spends most of the last two angsting over Arwen, and for that, I can forgive a lot.

I stopped writing in the fandom because I thought I've said everything I could about Elrond and Estel. Well, Elrond in general, but those two especially. And now I'm thinking there are loads of things I didn't write. Which could have been because I read them instead, but, that was years ago anyway.

I am currently re-reading Nilmandra's History Lessons because it's good and has lots of Elrond, but also because I've forgotten a lot and if LOTR is hard to get through (and it is - I hate description, Tolkien loves it...), The Silmarillion is worse.

I did, however, manage to write a drabble: My Heart and in the words of Samwise Gamgee: I'm back. Or at least, I intend to be.

And I leave you with my new found screen capping ability of one of my favourite scenes (despite not being in the book) as it features Elrond, Aragorn and an exceedingly pretty sword.
Read more...

I started in January 2008, so it's taken two years (I've been too distracted by curling to post this for the past couple of weeks).

50.22 / 50kg (100%)

44.96 / 50kg (90%)

42.30 / 50kg (85%)

Nearly there now!

40.53 / 50kg (81%)

The last one of these I did was in December when I was 58% of the way through. I hadn't realised I'd left it so long!

36.81 / 50kg (74%)

I had a good weekend - well, half a good weekend. I went to High Wycombe to drop off some knickers and other stuff for Knickers 4 Africa and go to selenay936's ex-local bookshop. Where I saw her parents and spent £17 on books - that was being restrained. I'm still working through the books I got from my mum and grandmother for my birthday yet.

It was a good day and we somehow managed to avoid the worst of the weather. I was really tired when I got home, which I expected. What I didn't expect was how dizzy I felt Sunday. All I ended up doing on Sunday is lying on the sofa reading and watching tennis because I wasn't capable of doing anything else. Fortunately, there was tennis on - exhibition matches under the new Centre Court roof at Wimbledon and I enjoyed them, although I could have done without the camera moving so much. I didn't even feel like I'd done that much either. I'm less dizzy now but back to going to bed at 10pm.

But on Friday I'm going to see if I feel well enough after work to go and see In the Loop, which wasn't at the cinema walking distance from where I live now. But it is at the cinema walking distance from work on Friday and Saturday. Then it is at least a three day weekend, although I plan to do things with it - not least find a place for all these books to live...

Also, in the unlikely event that there's anyone left who doesn't have a Dreamwidth account that wants one, I have four invites. And, it turns out, Trillian Astra invites, since it's now in beta. And probably has been for a while, I've just failed to notice, just gave them money...

Because I haven't got the energy for anything more substantial.
Read more...

28.87 / 50kg (58%)

I finally managed to get myself out of holiday mode and cleaned the house yesterday. It's hard to motivate myself to do it when I know I'm going to be moving out of it, but I'll be even less motivated when I'm not living in it, and the dirtier it is then, the worse it's going to be to clean. But it does all look so much better now I have cleaned it.

I also finished the book I started while I was away and it felt never-ending. I'm now a third of the way through The Graveyard book. I have two piles of books from the ones I bought in Canada and the Pratchett I finished just before I went. They're just the right size to fit my laptop on in front of the TV, so I can plug the TV into it. Now I've changed the books the two piles are more level too.

I made the mistake, when I got back, of watching all four Spooks episodes, which included the one from BBC3. So although I put it on last Monday because I was too tired to take it in much the first time, it's not the same as watching it new. So now I am back on watching them on Mondays because Monday needs something to look forward to, since I only watch SJA every other week. Suffice to say I enjoyed tonight's, even if I spent most of it wondering where I knew the bad guy from. Turns out it was one of the recent Poirots.

And just to make all the other people doing Yuletide jealous: I have a first draft of mine. At 1200 words I'm doing better than last year where I managed 1006 (but any padding to that one would have been just that, padding). I'm aiming to get it finished by the end of the week and hopefully writing every night will get me back into it and who knows, I might even get round to the requests I asked for back in June that are sitting in my inbox...

It's gone up 1% since last time!

23.19 / 50kg (46%)

Thank you to all the people who made suggestions for book swapping websites. I registered on bookmooch and readitswapit.co.uk. At the moment I don't want any more books, because then that'll be more to move. So I put ten on bookmooch and have had requests for three already. So I'll see how that goes and maybe try readitswapit.co.uk later too.

Having taken those ten books out of my to charity bag I can now lift it!

I have a bag of books that's sitting in my room waiting for me to add to it, then I'll take them to the charity shop. Although by charity shop I mean one of the five in town. But I think some of them are a bit unlikely to sell in this town. And I know a lot of people keep talking about book swapping sites, so I thought I'd maybe investigate them since maybe it would lead to me buying fewer books.

So which ones do people use? Bearing in mind I have to be able to swap with people in Britain - I'm not planning on sending any overseas because that'll just be more expensive than buying them.

I haven't done an update for so long I've almost forgotten what I think of these books...

22.264 / 50kg (45%)