Bits and bobs

1. I broke my left little toe yesterday. It is blue and purple, and outrageously sore. Whodathunk such a tiny bone could hurt so much?

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2. It was also my fifteenth wedding anniversary yesterday. That might not seem very long for someone of my advanced years, but I am grateful for every single day. Tonight Jemimah is off to a birthday sleepover, and my Beloved and I are heading out to our favourite restaurant for dinner. I can't wait! I suppose I shall be wearing comfortable shoes along with my glad rags. Oh well, I shall just hide my foot under the table. Oyster shooters anyone?

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3. We hit the halfway point in AO7 last week. It is hard to believe. I know I call every year our favourite year, but this one has been truly sublime. My favourite books so far have included In Freedom's Cause, Ivanhoe, Churchill's The Birth of Britain, and Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Jemimah lists Twain's Joan of Arc, Once and Future King, and The Brendan Voyage. They are all fandabidocious, though, every single one of them.

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4. We leave for our overseas trip in 5 weeks. We have been doing lots of planning this last week, reconnecting with friends that we hope to catch up with, making ferry bookings and hotel reservations, and investigating car hire. We're even staying a week in a 17th Century French chateau. I am so excited!! We will be visiting England, Scotland, Wales, France and Japan. They are probably my top five countries in the world, and I shall be spending time in all of them. Oh bliss!

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5. I finished my Bennet Blanket - that's it up the top, but prepare for more self indulgent photos soon. This project has been going for a very, very long time - I started knitting it the very day of the floods, in fact - so it feels very good indeed to have it finished.

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6. I am frantically reading Gilead in preparation for my book club next Tuesday. I chose this book, and will be leading the discussion, so it would be rather good if I finished it in time. I am loving reading it - it is sort of meditational - but I prefer reading it slowly for some reason, and I am feeling rushed. I am also reading Three Men in a Boat with some AO ladies for a bit of light relief.

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7. We have a virus in our computer. Again. That's all I have to say about that.

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8. We will read the end of the second book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, tonight in the car on the way to Melbourne. We are adoring this series, but it's all a bit doom and gloomish right at the moment. We'll be taking a break to read the final Tripods book (or actually the first in chronological sequence, but the forth in order of writing) and the second Harry Potter book, which should bring us up to our holiday. I think I'll take the final LOTR volume on Kindle and read it while we're away. Also in the family read aloud book bag are The White Company, The Black Arrow, The Trapp Family Singers, and The Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. We are 3/4 through the final title, and it's sorta boggling my brain a little, but we're really enjoying it, and the family discussions afterwards have been marvellous.

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That's about it around here. What have you been up to in your neck of the woods? What are you reading? Are you creating anything? Have you ever broken a toe? Do talk to me!