The Replacement hobby

For the moment I may have found something to replace my reading hobby... or obsession, if you will.
I got myself a new bike!!!!! It is a lovely Giant bike, black, sleek and very very shiny.I cycled it into work today for the first time and it was pure bliss. I am sure that as the weather turns and gets more nasty I will not be saying this any more but or now... MAN IT WAS GOOD! I had a bike but it was on it's last legs and I had to put it down. I then got myself to work on the buses but now I am a free agent again! I get to cycle wherever I want and leave work whenever I feel like it. I had really forgotten how nice it was. I have always had a bike and cycled to school and work wherever I lived. I grew up on a bike basically and it is part of the Dutch culture having one. I did not know any kid that did not have a bike. I have certainly always had one. I can even remember when dad took the training wheels of my first bike and how chuffed I was that I could now cycle like a proper grown up. It was a great feeling and I still really enjoy riding. I am not super quick, I am not super trained but I do really enjoy cycling to work again now. Gives me a chance to clear my head before I get home. The main thing to do now is avoid glass and keep the tyres at the correct pressure.

My reading for my course is still progressing well. I think I might be getting used to the more tedious technical language. At times I am still finding it more of a ploughing contest that a reading one but I am still getting through it. I figure it is not my reading material of choice but as long as it gets me where I need to be and gets me a decent grade I cannot really complain too much. Am still really looking forward to finishing the course though and getting back to my normal reads. I miss them but I really do not have the time to read anything else. At the moment it is all work, bit of telly (News/Hollyoaks/Only Connect/Sherlock), eat, do my coursework and sleep. I have now moved on to the next two books we have to do for the second assignment and as I am typing this I realise that I really should get back to trying to complete the first question of the second assignment as the work is not going to do itself.... unfortunately... off I go... wish me luck.

Round numbers

I cannot believe I almost ended the year on an uneven number of books! But, just in the nick of time my present to myself arrived. I got my first Terry Pratchett book ever. I have been meaning to get one for some time and thought about starting at the start of his Discworld series at one point but then that creates the obligation to read all of the other ones as well... and as I do have plenty of others to read I decided against that plan. Not that I will not end up reading all of them anyway but I wanted one to start me off. Then someone at work mentioned one he was reading to me and it was about Death getting an apprentice. I kind of liked that idea and now am the proud owner of Mort ( 4 in the Discworld series I believe!).

So... books bought:
Books to be read: 80
I am now rapidly running out of room on my bookshelves so might have to call a moratorium on buying books. Alternatively.. I will have to restack them all and relocate some DVDs.

Oh yeah... apparently a new year has started as well. 2012... year of the London Olympics, lots of lovely food to eat, many more cities to discover, books to buy and much more fun to be had. Make it a good one!

One last thing.. I am listening to James Vincent McMorrow at the moment.. utterly beautiful!! Both my brain and my ears are smiling.

Fun links and good books

For Christmas this year Santa gave me a few good books. They are not really reading type novel-ly kind of books but cookery books so I will not be adding them to the total. I guess that you can call that cheating, but hey this is my blog and I make the rules! One of then was all about how you can combine flavours and which ones go together. I am looking forward to experimenting with that one in the years to come.

On a completely different vein... It is funny how you sometimes come across things via something that you hear or read. I am on Twitter and follow this dishy actor guy called Emmett J Scanlan. He tweeted/twittered.... well whatever the correct lingo is.. he wrote something about this one song so I googled it and listened to it. I have to say... the man may be onto to something here! Ben Howard - The Fear, listened to it and got the album! Also watched Shrek today and there was a song on there People they aint no good. Googled that one and found it was by Nick Cave and the Bad seeds.. got the track as well. Then googled something else I have been meaning to google for ages now. There is this add on telly and the song on it sounded really good. Every time I just hard a snippet of it but was intrigued as it was a version of a Stevie Winwood song that I like called Higher Love. So, I found out who sang, listened to the full version it and was blown away by it, almost cried so beautiful. I now have the guy's album on order. He is called James Vincent Mc Morrow in case you are interested. I love this about life.. how one thing leads into another and you discover some beautiful things on the way. Hoping for much more of that next year.

Gotcha

On top of having completed my first assignment for my OU course on Friday, today my quest to find a certain book ended. After months of looking I finally found a decent copy of Faulks' Birdsong! Hurrah! I read Charlotte Gray ages ago and really liked it. Then I found out that together with The Girl at the Lion D'or and Birdsong it was part of the War Trilogy and now I have all of them!! Bliss. Just in time for Christmas.

I also ended up buying another Agatha Christie one so have two more to add to the total.
Books bought: 2
Books to be read: 79
... will I make it into the new year below 80?

Inspirational

It has taken about one and a bit afternoon of solid thinking, writing and re-writing, 6 cups of tea, three cups of decaff, 5 custard cream biscuits and half a bag of cheesey-whats-its but the first draft of my assignment is now done. I only have to chop about 500 words and go through everything again and then I am ready to hand it in. I did send of a mail to my tutor about one of the questions and he will have to come back to me on that one and then I have to amend that question but apart from that it is 99% there. I think... it's hard sometimes to know if you are doing the right thing and thinking along the right lines. I am now in the dangerous process of going through it all again and seeing where I can cut some words to hit the 3000 word target. When you go through it again there is always the risk you realise that you got it wrong (or think that you got it wrong) and redo things.. I am working very hard to resisting that temptation. Perhaps another custard cream will allay those fears?

Another one that almost got away

Is it too late to declare a book I got given by someone at work when it has been about 3 weeks ago? Nah, did not think so. One of my colleagues was having a clear out and came across a few books. He asked if I wanted any and most of them were chick lit which I am not into at all. But.. one of them looked good. It is called Talk to the hand and claims to be about the rudeness we all encounter in everyday life. It looked interesting, it was free, someone offered it to me.... what can I say? I am a sucker for a book sob story and this one was going to be left all alone in a box somewhere if I had not rescued it. Now it a spacious living environment and 76 other friends to talk to... and I have another book to read. Win, win!

Books given to me: 1
Books to read: 77

Gone but not forgotten

Bet you thought that I had won the lottery and decided to pack a suitcase filled of books and jet off to a deserted island to finally give myself half a chance of getting through the 70 odd books I still have left to read! Alas my friends... no such luck. I have not even bought a lottery ticket in ages (note to self: remedy that situation). Life is still mainly determined by working on my OU course just about every evening. I do not get round to reading anything else but my course books, and the weekly TV guide, and Twitter... and my emails, oh and Facebook.
Actually... It is amazing how much reading you actually do in a day. You would almost start to wonder why people would want to read more in their spare time. How many of our jobs and things we do in our daily lives do not involve reading one thing or another? Be it e-mails, proposals, letters in parcels from loving family members, cards from the best sister ever, websites, information on phone and computer screens, subtitles on telly and so on and so forth. Perhaps it is a miracle anyone wants to read in their spare time at all? But they do, for otherwise why would there be books and magazines, and all the other printed and digital media we have at our daily disposal?

I am thoroughly ashamed though of not updating the blog for so long. What's a little post amongst friends? I have mentally put a "Must do better" in my school report on updating my blog. I will now go stand in a corner for a few minutes. Partly so I do not have to read any more and partly because I am ashamed.