The Wanderer Returns and Some Mumsy Stuff

I begin with good news. St Jude is back! Her regular readers may remember she disappeared some time ago on a quest to find the perfect abode, and was gone for so long I began to wonder if the morally challenged had tampered with her in some way. My worries were groundless, she is safe and sound, so off you go and say 'hi'.

At 3.41 tomorrow morning, Number One Son will be exactly 21 years old. He arrived 4 weeks early, in the middle of a blizzard and was born after more than 46 hours of labour, but it was most definitely worth it. The arrival of this tiny 6lb 8oz person changed my life for ever, and for the better. He arrived in the world with a look of amazement on his face, if he could have spoken he would have said 'wow'.

Happy Birthday! I have enjoyed being your Mum and I'm looking forward to the next 21 years.

I had an idea . . .

. . . I have just installed a plugin on my Wordpress blogs which adds a random phrase of my choice to the end of the feed for each post. The idea is, I can search for this term and track down splogs which are using my posts without permission. As I was doing this, I thought it was a shame that a similar thing didn't exist for Blogger, but them I had an idea - text can be added in the blog feed footer, and it could work in the same way. So, I went to my dashboard, clicked on Settings/Site Feed, added the words 'Indignant Tortoise Is So Itchy' and it worked! Anyone who subscribes to the feed should now see this at the end of every post. It might be worth a try if you wish to keep track of who is using your posts and where.

And now I will go an do something far more festive, because updating your weblog is a rather geeky way to spend Boxing day. Hope everyone is having a good 'un.

Merry Christmas

I'm about to head for the bathroom to get ready for the visitors who will be arriving in the next hour or so, but I thought that before that I would pop in and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a new year that is everything you wish it to be.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my humble blog this past year, it has been a pleasure to get to know so many talented and interesting people.

I'll be off now - I just wish I could get rid of this nagging worry that I have forgotten to buy something.

Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated

I am still alive. I haven't been abducted by aliens or the Men in Black. Tony Blair hasn't had me bumped off for saying rude things about his hair, and Mr Blogs hasn't buried me under the patio. I have simply been very busy. But fear not, from 27th December I shall be back to normal, and you will see the usual stream of mind-numbing drivel posted here.

Having said that, I would like to thank the people who have emailed/posted comments enquiring about my absence. It is nice to know that ones presence is missed, and with hindsight, I would have been quite upset if no one had noticed I was AWOL.

You will also be relieved to know I have been making notes of potential blog posts, whether these will ever come to fruition is debatable but I have been thinking of ways to inform and entertain you. Plus, I have come up with some other plans which I hope to enact in the New Year.

One thing I am pondering is the possibility of reviving a couple of ezines I used to publish. One was on the theme of writing, the other web design. I don't intend to bring back both, but the idea of merging them into one does appeal. I produced them for a couple of years, but had to shelve them when I became involved in other (paying) projects that took up a lot of my time. However, I rather miss the whole procedure, even though they were most definitely a labour of love, I found the process of editing, content selection etc. rather enjoyable. So, I'm hoping to revive the concept, but this time in the form of one monthly ezine which covers writing, web design, blogging, graphics and other web related creative concepts.

Oh, and before I go, I have switched over to the new Blogger. Better late than never. I received an invite to switch when new Blogger beta first emerged - Google seems to like me, it always sends me invites for new things* - but I couldn't switch at the time because I am admin of a team blog . Now, finally, I too can enjoy groovy new features :-)

* And that is only fair because I love Google too (creep, creep)

Christmas tunes and pig throwing

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."

The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore

Why? Had everyone gone out? How on earth did that poem ever catch on? Was there a time when Christmas Eve was a calm, peaceful affair, because it certainly isn't now. Or am I the only person who spends the evening peeling potatoes and wrapping last minutes presents - well, some bugger always turns up with one for you and then you have to . . . you get the picture. Oh, and I don't wish it could be Christmas everyday either. I mean, what would we eat, the shops would never be open.

I am feeling quite festive, you might be surprised to hear, and not at all against all forms of Christmas tunes. In fact I shall be dusting off my Christmas compilation cd to listen to while I put the decorations up at the weekend. One of the highlights is The Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl which you can listen to here.

One more thing on a completely unrelated subject. A man in the US has been fined for throwing a pig at a hotel. He faces a second charge of pig throwing which he denies, and there have also been two incidents of possum hurling. Local police are mystified, but Lt. Danny McCaskill suggested, "It must be some redneck thing, because I haven't ever heard of anything like it."

When did you last see a hedgehog?

Hedgehogs are cute, spiky and a benefit to any garden (trust me, they are the best and greenest slug killer known to man) Sadly, they are also in decline. Hogwatch are asking internet users (in the UK) to visit their site and let them know when you last saw a hedgehog. They are also hoping that people will be kind enough to vote for hedgehogs in the Times poll for British icons. The latter may seem trivial, but if hedgehogs can achieve some kind of national recognition, then it may spur the goverment on to providing them with some protection.

Five Things About Me

Diddums posted this over at her blog and tagged anyone who wanted to have go, so I thought I would. I think I may have done a similar meme before, but here goes anyway:

1) I once inadvertently told an old boyfriend's mother that her hair looked like a wig. I meant to say it always looked sleek and well groomed, but I was drunk. Not suprisingly, she didn't like me much.

2) The song Man of the Hour by Pearl Jam makes me cry because it reminds me of when my Grandad died.

3) I have fractured both my little toes, a bone in my right foot, a vertebrae in my back and my right index finger, but you know about the latter. Three of these fractures were door related.

4) When I was four years old, I had a pet goldfish called Bill who could jump out of his tank. Sadly, he couldn't jump back in, and one day he performed his trick when no one was around and discovered the horrible truth about fish out of water :-(

5) I loathe sprouts, and I don't care what tv chefs say: nothing can make them taste nice!


ps: I saw Nigella Lawson being interviewed by Jonathon Ross last Friday. At one point he showed a clip of the old tv cook, Fanny Craddock - up until my teens I thought she was a drag act, a bit like Danny La Rue but with food.

pps: edited - left index finger changed to right index finger. Apparently, I can't tell left from right either.