With my ancient Nokia on its last legs, am starting to covet a smartphone.  IPhone? Android?  Android?  IPhone?  Hmmmm...

Any thoughts, o flist?

... just so you know. Sorry, altariel , I know it's your favourite month, but...

( moan grumble )

Made a New Year's resolution to try and participate in tolkien_weekly , even if not every week, instead of just reading and commenting, so here's a cross-post of this week's effort for the "Thunder" challenge:

altariel graciously gave me permission to share her birthday tribble with everyone. Happy Birthday, A!

(ETA: cross-posted now at HASA and TFF.)

( Warning: insufferable cuteness and mild psychological torture of Aragorn under the cut... )

In the park near our house, this...

I have sensiblecat to thank for the inspiration for this one.

(OK, it's a bit lumpier than the original, but hey - it was made by me, a six-year-old and a three-year-old...)

Hope you have a great day and January continues to be your favourite month. (And that you like your prezzie!)

Just in case anyone hasn't had their fill of RTD-Who (and their pockets emptied) by the excesses of Christmas... BBC Books would like to squeeze another few quid out of you for this.

I suspect I am too sad to be able to resist...

While I was wrangling Second Small Person into his warmest pyjamas, which happen to be Bob the Builder ones:

Me: [singing]  "Bob the Builder..."

SSP: "Can We Fix It?"

Me: "Bob the Builder..."

SSP: "NO WE CAN'T!!!"

Resident Geek wonders why I am lying on floor helpless with laughter instead of getting SSP into bed...

Current satellite photo of the UK from BBC News here.

Yes, all that white is snow. If you look on the left of the picture you can just about make out, by contrast, that Ireland's all green.

Wow. It must be years since the whole country's looked like that in one go!

Hope everyone is keeping warm, UK or not...

I walked in to work this morning (which was beautiful, like Narnia just as it was last Feb), opened the Library with the two other colleagues who live in walking distance... and then at 10 am the V-C decided to close the University officially and sent us all home!

Best of all worlds - I got the brownie points for getting in, now I get to enjoy the snow with the boys (school and preschool as predicted are closed), the RG can hide away upstairs and do some work, and we'll get given the day as the Uni closed.

Result - now to find out how much shopping I can tow home from the Co-op (assuming they have anything left!) on the sledge...

ETA: a happy afternoon sledging up at the park was brought to a somewhat premature end when First Small Person failed to steer around a tree and banged his knee, causing me to tow an incapacitated six-year-old and a wailing toddler home squished together on the same sledge (we got half way home and then the Resident Geek came to help tow!). Fortunately, the knee is still the same shape, size and colour as the other one, so I suspect it's just bumped and will be cured by a bit of vegging on the sofa watching Wallace and Gromit.

There are now a couple of teenagers out on the crescent building a more-than-lifesize snowman (the powder's compacting down now into very sculptable snow)

... an inch or two outside now and it's coming down heavily, in great big slow flakes, and is forecast to continue so doing for hours.

The University bus, which goes up the steep hill to work, has just been spotted outside our house, which means it's been diverted to an alternative route through our estate so the hill must be impassable. 

Looks like walking boots to get to work tomorrow - fortunately for me the Resident Geek has agreed, in the event of school being closed, to take a day off and supervise the Small Persons' snow day ;-)

Patrick Stewart has been knighted in the New Year's Honours List for services to drama!

(OK, the British honours system is a bit ridiculous, because how can you be a knight in the 21st century, but...)

So there you are, he's now officially a National Treasure. And so say all of us.

...yes, yes, RTD, we noticed the Hamlet ref, thank you.

( Thoughts under the cut, just in case I'm not the last person in the Universe who cares to have seen it... )

... DT has just apologised live on Radio 2 to the nation for his ubiquity.  Well, at least he's noticed.

(And actually, he and Catherine Tate are very good, so far. Not that I am stalking the guy through the ether or anything, honest...)

Oh, RTD, you are so bloody frustrating...

( spoilery rant within )

... blimey. I can't remember the last time the Small People went to bed early voluntarily.  Stockings placed, glass of wine and mince pie left out for Mother sorry Father Christmas, carrots for reindeer; we all cuddled up to read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

... next thing I knew they were loudly "SSSHHH"ing each other as I tiptoed down the stairs.  Why can't it be December 24th more often?

Merry Christmas to All; and to all, a Good Night!

Last Friday, Christmas shopping in town, I picked up in Waterstones a copy of a Rumpole of the Bailey Christmas story anthology for my Dad, who is notoriously difficult to buy for and, being a lawyer, was always a big Rumpole fan.

Just went to look something entirely unrelated up on Amazon and top of "Recommended for You" were two Rumpole books.

Now I swear to God that I hadn't looked anything Rumpole-related up on Amazon, or indeed anywhere online, for months or years - that purchase for Dad was entirely impulse-related.

Are Waterstones feeding credit-card-identified purchasing information through to Amazon now????!!???

(Or is it just, perhaps more likely, that for some Christmas in the past I bought a Rumpole book on Amazon and it has remembered and served more up as potential seasonal fare?...)

(... well, the man is all over the British media at the moment, he's kinda inescapable...)

here's a link courtesy of davidtennant.com to a very funny and sweet feature article on DT from this week's Observer newspaper. (Warning; minor End of Time spoiler about half way down)