Happy New Year

James gave me the most adorable wallet for Christmas - apparently he thought that I kept losing things in my other one. This one has really cute blue lining and lots of pockets (so I won't lose anything).

I love the dog on the front, too. I think, in honor of Rrufus, I will name him Blue-fus. [John says, "Oh, kill me now.]

A closeup of the lining (and the pockets):

John has been baking: some pizzas but mostly cinnamon-raisin bread. We're on our second loaf of the year already. YUM. It makes the house smell SO good.

On New Year's Day, we decided to go for a walk. We went east, to Brandeston, and did a circular walk from Cretingham to Brandeston and back. Just as we were arriving in Cretingham, the New Year's Day Hunt was starting out. There were tons of people on horses and an apropriately barking pack of hounds. It looked like a LOT of fun. If we ever win the lottery, John and I have decided that we'll buy a big (but warm) country house where he can have a sprawling live-steam garden railway and I can have a stable with some horses (and someone to muck out the horses).

We came across this sign on our walk, at the entrance of a field that we'd been instructed to cross. We crossed at quite a clip, but didn't see the bull (thankfully). There had definitely been one recently, though - the water trough had an appropriate amount of mud around it and there was an empty food bucket nearby.

I think I'm going to call this picture "de-fence". It was definitely part of a gate at some point, but I think that may have been a while ago.

We then came home and watched the entire 4th season of Lost over the course of 3 nights. 7 episodes on New Year's Eve, 5 on New Year's Day, and 2 last night. All done! The upside is that the back section of my sweater is now almost finished. It's surpising how much knitting you can get done while watching TV for 10 hours. It had lots of backstory and some new characters, although neither John nor I are fans of the flash-forwards. I knew it had to happen at some point - one of the first things they teach you in the Improv class at Colby is "don't put yourself anywhere where your story is constricted by your location, like on a desert island. you'll run out of room."

I also finished reading Sepulchre, which was recommended by a friend with the caveat that "she spends the whole book trying to prove to you how smart she is". That part didn't bother me as much as the complete lack of editing - she gave descriptions of the most bizarre things (like what color 'scrunchy' the main character was wearing, and the fact that she was wearing some variation on jeans, sweater and sneakers in every scene). Why, Kate Mosse? It did nothing for the story. It was a forgettable book. If you have a long plane ride and need something to read and the person next to you offers to loan it to you, go for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

As there was some kind of blockage in the library book queue system, I'd run out of other books to read. So I started in on Brideshead Revisited. And I'm sorry to all the people who love it, but the movie was drivel. And the book was worse drivel. I stopped half-way through - even reading it on the couch under a blanket with a nice cup of tea couldn't redeem it. I made the mistake of buying it (on a recommendation), so if anyone wants it, tell me and I'll mail it to you. Otherwise, it's going to be left as a Book Crossing.

Thankfully, the library un-blocked itself on New Year's Eve and I picked up a Maeve Binchy (shh, don't tell the intellectuals) and the newish Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book). The others in my queue are coming...supposedly.

And finally, I was tipped off by some bell ringers that Lidl had great graph paper notebooks. 3 (of varying sizes) for 99p. WOOT! This one is perfect for writing out bell methods, and I've got one of the others on the go for making knitting patterns. The paper is surprisingly solid-feeling, and it's nice to write on with both pencils and pens.