I know I’ve been a bit quiet this week, new job is keeping me occupied … which its supposed to! I had to pop up and wish you all a Happy International Women’s Day, today 8th March.

I haven’t lived in Leeds very long and I’m hearing about new places to go all the time. One of the girls from the “Leeds Knitterati” knitting group that meets in Starbucks in Leeds had told me about Coldspring Mill – its the other side of Bradford and has a camping and wool shop.

Well we went today and it was a lovely day out – it feels like spring today and the scenery is amazing, its hard to believe we’re so close to Leeds/Bradford when we’re there. The place itself was really nice – some good outdoor gear and camping basics. Its not huge but its fine. The wool shop is downstairs and it has lots of mysterious seconds of “designer wools”, they can’t advertise what it was supposed to be but you can guess some of the time.

There is also a tea room at which we had a very nice lunch – they do real meals as well as toasties, sandwiches and so on.

I got 350g of (I suspect Debbie Bliss) DK cashmere in a kind of mauve so I’m open to suggestions for what I might do with that!

Today’s quote of the day comes from a reply to the Freshmeat article Geek Chicks

You don’t become a geek, you discover that you are one

It looks like the government is catching up with the online world. In the last few months I’ve registered as an organ donor, and petitioned for accessible websites.

Well, here we are, 2007 and another year has gone. I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions (I do have a problem with winter blues so January is a rubbish time for that type of thing for me), but there is always a touch of nostalgia when Big Ben strikes. Here’s my year in brief:

Being unemployed

In January I mostly worked my notice period at my previous workplace, having resigned two days before Christmas more or less on a whim. My boyfriend and I did some maths and figured we’d be much better off if I gave up my job, and our home in Oxfordshire, and I sat in his bedsit unemployed – so I did. It was very hard to leave the good friends I made while working there, so hard in fact that I refused to have a leaving do at all in case I cried (which I did, lots, but not until I was in the car on the way home on the last day – thanks Nic!). I did manage to arrange a trip to the other office in Glasgow as well, to hand over some bits and pieces, and had a fantastic night out with the people there, thanks guys :)

My parents were out of the country in January (a month in New Zealand, lucky things!) so, ably abetted by my sister, I took the opportunity to squirrel everything away at their house. They have been laid back about it but actually I think they just haven’t looked in the loft lately … or the garage, or the shed, or my bedroom!

All Change

Once I then got to Leeds, our new location of choice, I had a job to find. I had lots of interviews and a couple of offers straight away so that was good. We also moved house again, across the city, although since all my stuff is at my parents’ home it was quite straightforward. I do recommend moving without furniture! I started my new job which was quite daunting as I do struggle with new places, and met my new netball team which was fab.

Disaster strikes

I fell over at netball and trashed an ankle in the third minute of my second netball match for Shipley which left me hobbling for quite a long time. In fact, I didn’t drive for five weeks and was off the netball court for a lot longer. Its stronger now, but still not right. Apparently I damaged the ligaments and they will take a while to sort themselves out.

Summer Holidays

We didn’t get a holiday really, although we went camping with friends twice (Cromer in Norfolk and then somewhere in darkest Derbyshire). I don’t mind camping at all, my parents first took me camping at 4 months old (apparently!) and I was a girl guide too so its no hardship providing you are quite organised about it. That said, I did forget both the kettle and the matches this time … oops!

Relocation … or not

The house saga really took up the back end of the year, along with a few parties and an awful lot of netball, and here we are again in January. I feel a very long way from where I was this time last year … putting everything in boxes and thinking that in a few months I’d be unpacking them again. Well those boxes are up mum’s loft still and we’‘re no closer to knowing where or when we’ll unpack them. I’ll probably have completely forgotten what we have, or replaced the things I thought I could manage without and then couldn’t!

Still, who knows what the future holds … my New Years Resolution is to keep facing forwards – what’s yours?

I warn you now that this article is entirely about shoes.

I love Hush Puppies. I have several pairs of them and they’ve all been fabulous! They’re pretty, practical (ish, the soles weren’t made for steep streets!), and very very comfortable.

In the last couple of years I’ve bought:

• flip flops
• flat office shoes with velcro strap
• knee high boots (wedge heeled; tall and beautiful)
• high-heeled court shoes
• more smart middle-height heeled shoes
• this season’s version of the flat velcro strap shoes, as mine are about to disintegrate
• ankle-high boots

The last two I bought yesterday and today, and its starting to look like a bit of an obsession – every pair is also black! I don’t collect them or anything, I genuinely wear every pair at various times and weathers.

Am I taking this too far? Does anyone else behave in this way or have I gone mad?

Slightly late I know as its the 28th today but just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, if you like to celebrate Christmas, and general good wishes of the season if you don’t.

Santa was very good to me this year and I got a new watch (its this one, following on from my earlier rant about ladies watches), lots of nice toiletries, a beautiful casserole dish, a couple of lovely jumpers, and countless other nice things too. I’m very happy that most of the gifts I gave seemed to be well-received as well, its a nice feeling :)

Well, I’ve got almost ten days off from work and there’s a few things I’d like to sort out (in addition to the eating, drinking, being merry and lots of visiting I will also be doing!)

• The comments box on this site – its tiny!
• Upgrading Textpattern, disgracefully I haven’t done it yet!
• Upgrading Textpattern for the woollyblanket site as well.
• Writing some content for above site!
• Looking at ideas for a website for my netball club. We need a news page, an events diary, a contact form, and some static pages with information and directions to venues and stuff. I haven’t found an open source (LAMP) solution that really fits the bill so all suggestions gratefully received. Its something they definitely need to be able to maintain without my assistance.
• Choosing a new crochet project – I might even make something for myself.
• Writing a long-planned mini-series for this site about small meals (I go home for lunch each day). Lots of search hits to this site revolve around food and I am a foodie … so I’m going to write more about food!
• Removing the blogroll to a separate page of its own and putting in a little feed of recent comments instead … sometimes debates break out in the comments of a post long after I’ve posted it and it would be nice for people to be able to see the activity I think. Especially as most of my visitors are new and don’t see every article as it gets posted.
• Writing the cringingly long-overdue review of Google Analytics and how I like it, that I promised ages ago.
• Playing on Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’m almost at the Water Temple and I can’t get enough.

Now I’ve admitted my to-do list in public, maybe that will help me to actually get started on some of it! Tell me about you, what are your plans for the festive season?

OK, so I’ve been tagged in a post by dotjay for this meme¹. The idea is that you write five thing about yourself that people probably didn’t know, and then tag five other people to do the same.

So here goes:

• When I was twelve, I wanted to grow up to be a concert pianist.
• I still sleep with cuddly toys, even though I’m 26 and cohabiting. At the moment I have a cuddly gibbon in my bed, he’s got long gangly arms and legs that get wrapped around everywhere but he’s fab. I also have the cuddly tux from thinkgeek that my boyfriend bought for me.
• My first job out of university was writing football games for gameboy and something called an N-gage which seems to have sunk without trace.
• I would like to work for myself but I secretly know that I will never do it. I tell everyone I don’t have the confidence but really its because I can’t go for more than an hour without talking.
• I touch-type at a rate of 70wpm.

I’m not tagging anyone because it feels like a chain letter and in the same way that I read the amusing story on the letter and then delete it, I’m going to join in the game and then stop. I am not superstitious and have never been afraid to break the chain.

If anyone would like to tag themselves and join in then go for it – and add a link in the comments below!

¹ I was going to write about what a meme is but actually its best if you read the wikipedia link

I haven’t had a quote-of-the-day for a while, and I just fell across this which really made me think:

The big media companies shouldn’t worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.

Its from The Power of the Marginal , a long but riveting article that appeared in my RSS feed from joel.reddit.com

The point being made here is spot on. The problem with easily-available media isn’t the proliferation of existing material being accessed by people who haven’t paid for the privilege. The risk is that the “little people”, the non-corporate-financed underlings, will be able to tap into the same channels as the big guys and reach the same audiences. We live in interesting times, don’t you think?