A day at the Park

The weather in England seems to be picking up a little finally. Last weekend (well from Friday until the bank holiday Monday) me and Mum managed to get away for a break, with my sister and her husband. We had a lovely break in Cheltenham, and visited Bath and South Wales.
Yesterday, me and Mum took William to the local park.




He had great fun, except he wasn't sure about the roundabout!

Important people in my life

Today I will say why my family is so important to me :)
The most important person is obvious Mum. I still live at home with her, and she does absolutely everything - cooks, cleans, drives me where-ever I want (within reason!). She's definately my best friend. Mum is one of 13 - 7 are still alive.
Dad. Dad was great. He died almost three years ago now - Mum and I still miss him loads - but he was just a great person. Dad was one of 13, and amazingly enough, all his brothers are sisters are still alive, dotted around the world!
My sister - there's 13 years between us, but I get along really well with her. She's married and got two daughters. She always said that she wanted to move closer to me, Mum and Dad (noot that she was very far away in the first place) so that I can always live in this home. Finally, in 2006, the pefect opportunity came up - our old neighbours were going to move, and asked if they would like to live right next door to us. They moved in about four months before Dad died, and Dad was really happy about it. Christmas and Easter are great fun, as we can walk out of one door and into the next - no taxis home any more! :)
My nieces They are almost 23 now and mean a lot to me. They are Twins - one of them is studying hard, in her last year of university. The other is living at home at the moment (as in, next door) while her partner is in Afghanistan, with William.
And finally - William. He's such a good little thing, and loves playing with his Auntie! He has certainly brightened up mine and Mum's life. His middle name is Patrick, after Dad. And I am sure he will be a brilliant big brother when the new baby arrives in July :)

Books though the ages

A bit of a ramble about my favourite books, from when I was tiny until now. I think only one book has really influenced me deeply (and it will probably be no surprise when I say it is more a series than one book!)
I have always loved books. Mum and Dad always told me that I could read before I could talk - work that one out! - and I am lucky enough to have a library more or less on my doorstep (well a few minutes walk) so I have been a regular there for a good 20/30 years now.
The first set of books I can really remember is the Ladybird books - the Read-it-yourself ones, the Well-loved tales ones (and I can remember being terrified of the wolf on the front of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids"!) and, my personal favourite series, the Rhyming books. The Rhyming books were perfect at bedtime, to send you asleep. Mum and Dad both read to me when I was younger (maybe it is no surprise that I love audio books now!) but Dad had a way of doing the Rhyming books. My favourite was always "The Runaway", about a escaping rabbit, and even now can repeat some of it. There was also "The Tiger who came to Tea" by Judith Kerr - which is still going even now!
I read the Mr Men books too, and of course, Enid Blyton. Blyton was my constant companion. Some of the stories were similar, and of course some of them aren't very PC these days - they have been rewritten for the younger generation - but I never tired of the Famous Five etc. Even now, I have been known to pick up a few favourite ones.
In my teenage years, I read the Babysitters Club and the Sweet Valley books. They were OK (some of them!) but didn't make much of a lasting impression on me. I must have found Agatha Christie in my teenage years - probably my first Christie was "Murder is Easy", without any famous detective - and I still love Christie now (no surprise there!). No matter how many times I read "And then there were none", I always forget how well written it is.
Onto a series that I discovered late in life - "only" eight years ago in fact. That, of course, is Harry Potter. I "found" Harry totally by accident. I had heard of the series (I think only three of them were out in December 2000, if GoF was out, it was quite a new one), but I considered them "Children's books" at best, and also was frightened they would be too much like "Lord of the Rings". I had read the series (Dad was a great fan of the Hobbit in particular) but I found them too long, and some of it make so sense.
But on Boxing Day 2000, I read that Stephen Fry was going to read Philosopher's Stone on Radio 4 - complete and unabridged. Seeming I was always at a loose end on Boxing Day - the day after Christmas, full to the brim with the food from the day before - I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Even the first few sentences intrigued me. Why did the Dursleys consider themselves "normal"? What was their secret - because no one could have been so unpleasent and Vernon! I think I was totally hooked by the time Dumbledore walked down Privet Drive, and the cat turned into McGonagall. I think that first chapter - "The Boy Who Lived" - is one of the best written in the whole series.
After absolutely loving listening to it on the radio, I hurried to buy books 1 to 4 and the cassette tapes to go with them - which I have now upgraded to CDs! The Potterverse has helped me through some hard times, and also helped me make some wonderful "virtual" friends

More Ramblings

I'm still around! Life has been a little busy at the moment!
William has turned one year old last month and, of course, had a wondeful birthday party! His daddy has gone off to Afghanistan for six months, though he will be allowed home for about two weeks, in July, hopefuly when "baby number two" is due. His Mum (my niece) is managing at the moment.



Hopefully I will blog more soon :)