2024 Weeknote 30

 A good holiday week indeed!

Two swims, as documented in Tuesday's post. Then a third swim in Bristol harbour, which I hadn't meant to book. I was quite grumpy. They were late starting again and wouldn't let me in without scanning the QR code, when I'd left my phone in my car. The lady at the desk held onto my phone when I asked if there was anywhere to securely store it. When I got out, she was trying to convince a passerby to come back and swim the next day - 'Use it or lose it!' she said. I'd love to use it. I'd be there every week. But you need to start on time, ideally have somewhere I can change (hats off to the old lady who went full frontal facing outwards along the path getting her nethers dry yesterday morning, cannot WAIT to be that age of not giving a damn) and also somewhere I can put my bag where I don't think someone will just lean over and nick it on their way past. It's £7.50 a swim and these are basics. I could also do without the loudspeaker pumping questionable musical choices but that's probably just me.

I am convinced All Aboard Watersports is secretly totally opposed to people swimming in the harbour. They just keep the whole thing really quiet and seem to be making it as hostile as they can.  

One paddle, aforementioned. 

Two trips to the library to collect one reserved book. A few months back my library card cracked in half, so the library replaced it. The new one had a new number but this didn't occur to me when I reserved a book I wanted online, using my old saved card details. I went to fetch it during their open access hours (no librarian on duty) and the computer said no. Bless that computer, it didn't realise that the person trying to check the book out was the same person who reserved it. It was trying to protect my reservation. 

I went back the next day and reached for my library card, which lives on the dash of my car...no card. I racked my brains. Eventually I realised I must have left it in the pocket of my dungarees, which were at that moment swirling in the washing machine. I (Mr Z) had to switch it off and pump it out to get the card back. 

I returned to the library, the librarian scratched her head a bit and looked uncomfortable when I told her not to delete my old account, but I've had a book on reservation for two months now and don't want to lose my place in the queue. I appreciate librarians and their commitment to good book service but I stood my ground. So I'm probably the only person in the southwest currently using two library accounts simultaneously. 

One coffee meet up with my friend Vanessa in Bradford on Avon, followed by lunch in the same spot with my friend Caroline. 'I've changed friends so she needs a menu,' I told the waiter, who looked completely confused momentarily and then burst out laughing. This is a ritual for Caroline and me, every time my old place of work breaks up. It feels like summer is really happening after this. 

One coffee meet up with my friend Charlotte, in a fantastic new cafe that has opened in the 'wood. Gentrification is in effect. It's still mercifully cheap, though. 

One yoga class, one PT session and one trip to the gym. I do enjoy the extra movement. My sore back enjoys it too.

One online shopping spree that I had been holding off for weeks: I got paid on Friday so I bought everything on the list, apart from the rug that has had its own tab in my browser window for easily a year now. I just need to bite the bullet and buy. 

Mother Hand is up and visiting because Mr Z and I are off to Devon for some camping today. It's our 18th wedding anniversary. We're currently sitting at our computers, he's playing online golf and I'm doing this. Pretty much sums up the past 18 years tbh. 

And the work is pretty much done! It was a long week of script inspection and report writing. I was full of the do-not-wants. But now it is over for another year and I feel like I blinked and missed it all. Rumours abound of big changes to our systems for next year...oh yey, more change...so perhaps I should be pleased for a nice smooth series this year.

I didn't really take any pictures this week. Most of them are screenshots. But here's Lenin asleep with Cecil (or Cyril, I forget), supervising my morning's work. 

Weekword: Present

John picked this week's word. It makes me think of brightly wrapped boxes with ribbons tied around them in a very old fashioned way. It has also made me think of this song, which I have been listening to all week. Work is a grind and I am a bit fed up with it (again) and in need of a break (again) but this song reminds me that you have to take the rough with the smooth and enjoy the present, and be grateful for the little presents that arrive in your life, whether brightly wrapped or otherwise.

I played this to my classes today at the end of the lessons because it was absolutely pouring. It was totally lost on them, unfortunately!

Weekword: Frolic

Mary at No Polar Co-ordinates picked frolic for this last week's Weekword. I am very late. I had the most amazing, relaxing weekend, frolicking all over Bristol and enjoying coffees and cakes and shopping with friends. I feel utterly refreshed and have been beavering away at work all day, being productive. And when this post is done I am going to finish turning the heel of the second sock of my first pair of socks ever! About time too.



(This photo makes me cringe a bit, as photographs taken at this time of year are rarely flattering. Lack of sun, lack of exercise, over-tired from work... I am just going to focus on the frolics we had and ignore it!)

Last week I frolicked like this. It was the Santa run in bath. We got a Santa suit each (though I managed to break both my beard and my belt before we even started) and dashed around Bath on a 2km route with about 200 other Santas, in aid of Children's Hospice South West, a very worthy cause. Then we frolicked off to a pub for a Rekorderlig cider (their winter cider is a new favourite thing) and it was rammed with very comely young university students having a Christmas meal. The men were overjoyed. I guessed they were the cheerleading society, and I was correct. A whole pub full of tipsy cheerleaders? Frolics ahoy.

Look out for a new word from John this week. Thanks for the inspiration Mary - sorry it's so late!

Weekword: Ferruginous

Very late! Sorry Carmen.

This is a lovely word to say but it had me a bit stumped, until I remembered my current favourite item of clothing.



This lovely skirt is made of cord and it is the most beautiful rust colour. It's not as red as it looks in the picture and not as brown as it looks on the Boden website, but somewhere in between. When I ordered it I was convinced I would be sending it back - it formed a mega order from the autumn preview and I hoped to send more than half of it back, cough cough. I don't regret keeping it at all, though. Just looking at it makes me cheerful and it really brightens up the dull cloudy days. It goes well with a wide variety of other clothing and makes me feel good when I wear it. Look at this colour!



It's actually past due a wash, but I keep sponging it and airing it because I don't want any of that beautiful colour to fade away. The pictures don't really do it justice. Ferruginous indeed.

Thanks for teaching me a new word, Carmen! Looking forward to reading the other posts this week. 

Bonus snug post

The mitten has a cave when we wash the bedding and hang it over the banisters to dry. She loves it, especially when there are fireworks about. How snug she looks! I can forgive her not wanting to sleep on our bed when she looks this content.

Happy weekend, all.

Weekword: Snug

I really couldn't have picked a better word this week, I think! So. Much. Rain. Last night the last thing I wanted to do was trundle out in it, and drive in a shallow river all the way to Bath, but the show was at least worth it. Today has been dry and pretty beautiful, as all the water on the ground meant a low hazy mist across the fields as the sun set. However, it has been very cold - that special British cold that gets into your bones because it's so damp. Obviously I don't mind the cold, as a lover of skiing, but this kind of cold is a bit wearing. All the way home I was making up...

The Snug Routine
1. Place warmest PJs on hot radiator (I have some made from fleece. These are ideal.)
2. Wedge thick socks on there too.
3. Change bed sheets. Clean sheets are definitely snugglier.
4. Make hot water bottle and place this in the bed.
5. Squirrel out fluffiest towel. If you have a tumble dryer I suppose you might dry it for 5 minutes to fluff it up a bit.
6. Run warm bath. Bathe, using snug-inducing bath products, which for me would be anything spicy or with lavender or rose.
7. Dry thoroughly in fluffy towel.
8. Put on PJs and socks.
9. Dive into bed.
10. Acquire All The Pillows.
11. If there could be some sort of fluffy animal, such as a cat, this would presumably make it even better, but our mitten does not do snuggling so I can't speak from experience.
12. Now there should be some reading, playing Draw Something on a device of some kind, and possibly some sipping of a hot beverage, possibly laced with some kind of warming spirit. I personally find gin to be a very warming spirit.

This makes me warm just thinking about it. I think I may run through part of it now, to see how it works.

Just a solitary weekworder this week - please go and see what Carmen has to say on the theme of SNUG - and Carmen, I am tagging you back for next week since we're the only ones playing!

Weekword

Carmen nominated me to pick a word this week which is most helpful because I didn't have any time for knitting at the weekend and thus have no weekend FO post for today.

The word I am picking for this week is snug. A good word for a blustery November week, I think. It has been so windy today that all those beautiful leaves are largely blown off the trees, and now my two big exercisey tbhings are out of the way and the training day I had to contibute to today, I feel it is time to settle in and start thinking about enjoying winter.

So, your best efforts on the word snug please, for Friday - leave me a comment and I will link to everybody.

Weekword: Library

Biomouse tempted me back to Weekword this week with the word Library.

I have to admit that this played right into my hands, almost as if she had read my mind, because since I wrote this post about my local library as a child and how disappointed I was with the local library where I work, I have had cause to be extremely impressed with the local library where I live.

Shamefully, when I went there to look for a course book, my library card was so old it had to be replaced. And it turned out my gym membership card (local authority gym) doubles up as my library card. And they send me an email to remind me to renew my books so I don't incur late charges. AND I CAN DO THIS ONLINE.

Hellooooooo, sexy new library - where have you been all my life?

Online is the handiest bit. I can search the catalogue and reserve books, and request a book from any library in the surrounding counties to be delivered to my local library for the princely sum of 50p. And when I go and check it out, I can do it via a machine. A MACHINE! It doesn't even need a person to stamp it! Which means that the librarians are free to ring up parents and ask if they're bringing their offspring to the next reading circle, which seems like a much better use of their time. 

I realise none of this is probably news to the library-going population, but I am a fresh new convert and all prepared to be evangelical about my new discovery. Why would the government cut funding now when they've got so good?

I do have one bugbear, though, which is that when I went in last week, I perused the History section and saw there was a biography of Edward VI on the "Recommended" shelf. I rolled my eyes at the tagline which was something about the search for England's soul, thinking that it sounded like a vanity project for some bored historian. Then I realised it was penned by our local MP. I reckon he'd been in and put it up there himself.

Thanks, Carmen, for tempting me back! You're like a library, you are :p

Weekword: Bird

Sally picked this week's weekword: BIRD.



We have a lot of birds visiting our garden. Mostly big fat pigeons (we call them coos) like the one above, and a large number of blackbirds (we call them dickories), but for the past few years we've had robins and blue tits, all of whom are much too quick to be caught on camera (by me, anyway - Mr Z has some lovely pictures of a robin somewhere) and, this year for the first time, a group of goldfinches who have come and picked our copious dandelions clean.

I quite like watching the birds, as does the mitten, who loves to sit half-in-half-out of the back door guarding her property, or under her favourite bush in the garden where she has a chance of swatting the baby birds as they conduct their flying lessons between the two fences: luckily she has not caught one so far this year. We do try and keep her in a bit more, even though I feel really mean; but she has a terrible habit of sitting by our next door neighbour's fence, looking straight up at the bird table in the garden next to that, which is owned by a very grumpy and unpleasant sort of man who we fear might harm her if she manages to catch a bird feeding at his table. He dispatched the squirrels robbing it a couple of years ago so I think our fears are probably grounded.

Anyway, Mr Z has got to be a crack shot with the water pistol and is working hard to train her out of her wily ways under the bird table. The birds seem unconcerned. They quite like the cat, to be honest. She leaves fur all over the fence posts which they love. We see them in pairs: one collecting, the other swinging on a piece of the bamboo that grows at the end of the garden, acting as a look out. I think there's some marvellous poetic justice in them lining their nests and coddling their young in the fur of their aggressor.

Good word! Go and have a read of the other posts, won't you?

Weekword: Travel

Welcome to this week's Weekword, and please go and see these lovely blogs to read their take on my pick of word, Travel -

Sally at Sow and Sew
Peggy (welcome back!)
Jen at Timballoo
Emma at the Gift Shed

I'd like to tag Peggy for next week's word because she has been away so long! Hope that's OK, Peggy.

Last year I posted a list of the places I visited throughout the year. There were a lot of places. I like to travel and have no reason not to; Mr Z is very tolerant of my itchy feet, although it did work out that I spent a little over two months of 2011 out of the country which is a lot, by anyone's standards.

This year will be a little different; I intend to spend most of the summer in this country, what with the Olympics and everything (as most people are getting fatigued, I am just getting more excited and inspired by the whole shebang), but I hope to get a fair bit of travel in within the country. And, as it turns out, I have already managed to get about a fair bit.



View Travel, 2012 in a larger map

I do so enjoy it! I like the act of travel and the associated places - airports, train stations, ferries; I even like the long coach journeys of the school trips - nearly 24 hours for skiing, though it was less this year thanks to some amazing coach drivers. I think it's because when I'm travelling, I don't have to worry about being idle, because I am already busy - travelling.

Plus I like to see lots of new things. Some things more than others.

Speaking of travel, I am off to Builth Wells tomorrow for Wonderwool, so I had better close this entry here. I will keep adding to my map as the year passes, so keep checking in if you so desire!

Weekword

This week's Weekword is one very close to my heart: TRAVEL.

Capri in February....I kept waiting for the half naked man with the washboard abs to pop out in his rowing boat and invite me to film the new D&G advert with him but there was only an aging fisherman on a boat seemingly propelled by a chugging cloud of diesel smoke, and I was not desperate.

Regular readers will know just how spoilt I have been in the past couple of years with travel opportunities, and I thought it would be nice to read some other people's views on travel, in whatever form it takes.

So, if you would like to take part, please leave a comment on this blog before Friday, make a post on your blog on Friday about the word TRAVEL, and I will post a list of participants together with my response.

Weekword: the Tardy Edition

Predictably tardy posting this entry, too! I had a very early night yesterday so, even though this was written, it didn't make it to the published stage. Please go and read these entries on Tardy too:

Emma at the Gift Shed
Jen at Timballoo

Congratulations, ladies, on creativity under time pressure!

I hate being late. I am the person who is three hours early for the flight. I get to school half an hour early in the morning because I insist on leaving by 7.15am in case there's traffic. I can be spotted hanging around outside a shuttered Get Knitted on the first and third Saturdays of most months, because I turn up for Knatterers before they open. Awkward.

It wasn't always this way. I was always late for school as a child; I couldn't imagine being a teacher and having to be there early - quelle horreur! Mother Hand runs to her own times and was late for my wedding because she insisted on eating a sandwich first, much to the incredulity of my in-laws (it was OK though, I was 15 minutes late also, for reasons which I can no longer recall). But I think the shame of having to walk into places in front of everybody flicked a switch in me some time in my very late teens and now I make the effort to be early.

I wish I could say the same for completing tasks, though I am better in this respect than I used to be, also. I am pleased to say that I managed to mark all the GCSE assessments in the Easter holidays which is fully a month before the deadline, thanks to a little regular weeknight date online with some colleagues for a shared marking experience. It's also easier to make myself do the marking when I know I'm going to have to see disappointed faces the next day, if it's left undone.

It is something that comes later in life, though. Perhaps after enough humiliation. One of my A2 students was 7 weeks tardy with his essay, and I had to bring out the big guns to get him to complete it. Alas, he had left it so late he resorted to copying and pasting large chunks of text from Wikipedia. Awk. Ward. After a shaming like that I think I'd never leave anything to the last minute again.

This post was brought to you by weekword. To play next week, please check back with my blog on Monday when I will post a new word on which you should ruminate by Friday. I hope it's OK for me to pick two weeks in a row!

Weekword: Tardy

Oh noes! I totally dropped the ball on Weekword. I went back to Emma's blog to see who was doing this week's word and it's me! Egg, all over my face. Oh, teh shame.

Therefore, I am picking the word TARDY, which seems apt. Though I shan't be surprised if none of you post anything at all, thanks to my own lateness. My blogging really seems to ebb at this time of year; I *am* very busy with work things but I also don't seem to have the creative urge to write, for some reason. Tuesday passes me by with no ten. I bake on Sundays (butterscotch banana cupcakes, this week) but can find no motivation to share. I set mental monthly goals but don't post them here. Where has my blogging mojo gone? Perhaps it takes it vacation in the spring.

Thank you, Emma, for picking me, and I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner. I might cheat and pick another one next week because I had an idea for next time but it will take me a bit longer than I have this evening to put the post together.

If you would like to write about being tardy, or any other aspect of the word, please comment on my post and tomorrow (for shame) I will make a new post with the links in it.

Weekword: Chocolate

Emma is hosting this weeke's weekword. She picked a great one! I had grand plans for it. But unfortunately, I am off to Cardiff now to see Steps in concert (last seen May 2000, after my finals) and I don't have time to execute my grand plans. So here is the song that popped into my head as soon as I read the word chocolate.



Thanks for hosting, Emma!

Weekword: Weather

Emma picked weather for this week.

There has been a lot of weather this week - too much, I have decided, as I got caught walking across London in the pouring rain on Tuesday, and watched the students screaming and running as the heavens dumped a healthy dose of hail out two minutes after the last bell went today. What I really wanted (of course) was some snow, because we've got a new boiler now and the heating works properly; and I could really do with a snow day or two to catch up.

But really, what the word made me think of was the old phrase, "It never rains but when it pours" - because it is pouring in my life at the moment, and has been for some time. I've never considered the phrase to be negative (but then, I find the word rain wholesome and comforting, somehow, in a homely way; so perhaps I am odd) and I like to have a lot going on but sometimes it feels like too much.

This has been prompted, today, by being offered a possible place as a lead learner at the next Google teacher thingie. This is a thing above and beyond excitement and I would fall over myself to say yes - but it's happening while I'm on the ski trip. ARGH!! This must be the only time ever I will be slightly disappointed to be going skiing. My life is a bounty of opportunities: I just wish I had time to take advantage of them all.

Please go and read the other entries this week, and look out for a new word from Carmen on Monday.

And don't expect me to be chattery for the next week or so because I am well and truly mired in exam board work. They replaced a team member who dropped out with TWO others so I am frantic. It never rains but...

Weekword: Ultracrepidarianism

Please go and read...

Emma at the Gift Shed
Helen at Autistic Inner Space
Funky La La
Tails of a Biomouse
Junebug

..and I'm tagging Emma for next week. She wished for a simpler word!

And I present my advice about driving. I am obviously the best driver ever, because I spend nearly 2 hours a day doing it.

If you don't know how wide your car is, get out of my way before we get to the narrow bit through Bradford on Avon.

If it's a 60mph limit, don't drive at 40mph. That's not an upper limit, it's the actual speed you should be driving; this, at least, is the case when I'm behind you. And if you're driving at 40 then don't brake sharply when we get to the 40mph zone.

When you overtake me at speed on the chevrons at the end of the dual carriageway, pull into my 2-second gap and brake sharply, don't flip me off when I flash my lights at you. If I've had a bad day I might drive into you. My car isn't expensive and I have a protected no-claims bonus. Also you did dangerous driving and deserve my pathetic attempt at a punishment.

NEVER flash your lights at me, ever, for any reason (unless I've forgotten to put my lights on, which never happens). Some builder-types in a car-van did this to me today, as I was actually overtaking another vehicle. When I eventually moved over and they passed me I was gratified to see somebody had written the see-you-next-Tuesday word in the grime on the back of the van. Like they read my mind.

Fog lights are only for when it's foggy. If you have "day lights" you claim cannot be turned off, remove the bulbs. We all have day lights - it's called daylight. Moron.

There is no conversation so important that you have to have it whilst loitering by your car at a petrol pump which I am waiting to use. Have some manners and get out of my way.

If I want to overtake you, take the hint and move over (I won't flash my lights at you, I have some standards, but you should have enough self-awareness to notice me in your mirror). The reason I always stay in the same lane is because I need to be in this lane to turn, and anyway, nobody could ever want to overtake me - I drive at the speed limit (honest....and brake when I see a speed van). Anybody who wants to overtake me is quite clearly a git. And I don't move over for gits.

Loud music improves driving. Stop glaring at me, pedestrian. It's not that loud, is it?

Big lorries should not be on my route to work. It's a minor A road. Go a different way, especially in rush hour. Which, by the way, is between 7am and 8am. And don't illegally drive cross the Medieval bridge in Bradford on Avon - have some social responsibility. The people in BoA have social responsibility: they work in shifts to watch the bridge for irresponsible drivers like you and photograph them and report them. So it's probably best to heed this advice.
The same goes for bin lorries and tractors.

Let me out, please let me out I'm late, please....thanks.
(2 mins later) Er, no, I'm not letting you out - how dare you presume such a thing? Wait for the natural traffic gap, for goodness' sake!


Driving brings out the rage in me. Sometimes I get embarrassed by my rage, which is silly, because it only ever manifests itself when I'm in the car alone, so nobody to be embarrassed in front of. Mr Z might think this isn't true but he hasn't seen the half of it. I become totally unreasonable and utterly selfish. It probably doesn't help that the roads I drive down for work are narrow, windy, hilly and quite dark, being largely through woods. I've been doing this particular version of the journey for six years now, so of course I know it like my own hands, and have to keep reminding myself it might be quite intimidating for someone who's never been down it before.
Try telling me that at 7.36am ahead of a full teaching day, though. Don't - I'll probably punch you in the face.

Thanks for playing, everyone! Good effort this week.

Weekword

This week's word is courtesy of Mr Z. His first effort was "pen" but I told him that wasn't good enough so we're going with his second choice, ultracrepidarianism. That's a link to the definition because I needed to look it up.

Being a teacher I'm going to do my favourite thing, and give you a suggestion for how to blog about this word which you can use if you're really stuck. I'd like to read some advice from you on a subject you know nothing about. I, for example, might blog about gardening, or raising children. Naturally you don't have to follow my suggestion!

Please leave a comment for me and I'll post a list of participants and my ultracrepidarianism on Friday.

Weekword: Accord

In spite of my usual forced-sunny outlook for January - it's not as bad as everyone makes out, poor old January, etc - I have found that blogging, like many other things which don't involve napping under a duvet, has been quite a struggle so far this month.

This week's weekword, picked by newcomer Helen, is no exception. An exciting word, with several meanings: just the sort of word I like for Weekword. But it's been buzzing round my head all week and all I can think of is perfume. I am used to seeing "sweet cream accord" or some such thing on a list of notes in perfumes from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab but realised I never quite knew what it meant. I'd always assumed it meant the purest form, but then concluded that would be an absolute. Turns out, an accord is a combo of scents which together make a familiar fragrance: hence, sweet cream, which of course has a smell but cannot be added to a perfume. Who knew?

Incidentally, though, when trying to find out what an accord is in perfume, I found this which just calls loudly to the bit of my brain that goes gaga for mind maps. I'm a bit famous in the History department at school for loving mind maps more than is perhaps proper. I sometimes feel a bit sorry for students in my classes who are not visual learners, because mind maps or spider diagrams or whatever it is I am calling them on that particular day make up, I would gues, roughly one third of my starter activities.

Finally, the word did make me think of this song.



Weird Al has done a lot of polkas, but this is the one I know best. There's a lot of accordion in it. It also sort of makes me think of the man who plays the accordion up the 'wood. He's there all the time: not just Saturdays, but weekdays too, if the week before Christmas is anything to go by. He plays in all weathers. I guess it's good practice and he has a good busking spot so hopefully he makes some money as well. I think he shows remarkable dedication, though. He'll have got his 10,000 hours in before he knows it.

Turns out, I did have something to say! And I'm picking for next week, so please pop back on Monday for the word, and post a comment if you'd like to play along.

Weekword: Epiphany

Katy picked this week's word.

I've been having a bit of an epiphany of late. I've been working out very hard for the past few months, to be as fit as possible for skiing; and I am definitely much fitter. I really notice the difference in my stamina, in my shape and in my health. I was able to keep up with my ski friends - one head of PE, one whippet-fit cyclist and one marathon runner - just. I was pleased that all my efforts appeared to have paid of. This is definitely the fittest I've been in my adult life.

However, it's still hard. It still hurts, and I get very tired. I still get very out of breath and can't keep up with the runs in circuits or spinning. And here's my epiphany, depressing and apt for January - these things are never going to go away unless I lose some weight. I can be fit and healthy and work out five times a week, but as long as I'm carrying around all these extra pounds (and there are a LOT) I'm never going to be as fit as I want to be. I do like to think that, if I ever lose the weight, I will be superfit because I've been working out with all this additional resistance for so long....but this is small comfort!

Every year, though, I make resolutions to lose weight, and try and put things in place to make that goal achievable; it hasn't happened yet. I am severely lacking in whatever that final push is. I wonder what it will take? Perhaps this epiphany will be what it takes to make me put down the buttered toast.

Katy has picked Helen to choose next week's word, so pop on over on Monday if you'd like to play.

Weekword: Mail

Emma picked this week's word. Please pop over to see her post, especially about her inspiration by post project (which I would love to take part in next year!), and read everybody else's.

I like getting nice mail, and I like sending it too. I have a stash of nice cards which I break out when I have a little spare time, which isn't often enough to warrant the amount of cards I buy. I guess they fall into that stationery bracket and are therefore irresistible to me.

My love of nice things in the post is probably what keeps me signing up for the secret swaps on my favourite forum. I've been doing these for years, but their current incarnation is secret friends, which lasts a year and involves three pieces of post and endless stalking. I love coming home to a surprise gift at a random moment, and this year my secret friend has had a good line in cupcake cards with recipes on the back which I LOVE. Putting the parcels together is really fun, too.

I particularly like getting magazines in the post. I subscribe to a knitting magazine and a History teacher magazine and I love it when they arrive, because flicking through them fills the hour or two between getting home and eating dinner. I think I might start subscribing to one or two more next year. We get quite a lot of junk mail and it would be nice to have more good stuff in there.

This is my 22nd Weekword post for this year, and I've really enjoyed learning some new words and reading some new blogs, as a result of participating. I hope we can continue our little word-picking circle in the new year - have a great holiday season, everyone!