Tock!

[j4]

Time passes. More stuff gets done.

Supermarket success: one bag of Taste the Difference Jersey new potatoes for only 60p in the end-bin, which will do nicely for lunches; a sweetheart cabbage (also reduced) and some bacon for dinner (a cabbage, bacon & cheese bake which we ended up combining with the leftover pasta, and very nice it was too if I do say so myself); and some little pears (reduced -- spot the pattern) as snack-food for work. Didn't impulse-buy anything unless you count the pears, and that's really to save me buying less healthy and more expensive things later.

I've been slipping a little on the not-spending-money front: bought two summer tops on the market (8 quid for the two of them) and henna from Lush (and some shampoo, but I need to wash my hair with something, and the Lush solid shampoos last longer). Also bought a "Saint" book on eBay, but that was only 99p (+p&p). However I still think I'm doing a bit better than I was before, and now I've transferred the cc balance to an interest-free one that's another 10 quid a month or so that I'm saving.

Started reading one of the books on my immediate to-read pile, Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and decided that it's not really worth finishing -- feels like DWJ on autopilot, perhaps it's just intended for a younger audience? Or perhaps it's that I find DWJ less convincing when she's writing about wholly/mostly 'fantasy' universes, and at her best when she's writing more explicitly about the points where the lines blur between fantasy and the 'real' world. (See: Fire and Hemlock, Witch Week, Homeward Bounders -- in a way they're all stories about the power of myth/story, which is something that appeals to me a lot.)

I must convince myself that I really don't have to read everything in the world, or even everything in the house.

Having said that I did get through most of the first chapter of The Muse in the Machine: computers and creative thought by David Gelernter. It's interesting, but a lot of it seems quite obvious to me.

I also made progress on my dress for Glastonbury.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Dress: Gorgeous!

HMC: yes, I think it's aimed around the 10yo mark (which isn't to say an adult can't enjoy it) and it's not as deft as say The Time Of The Ghost or Fire And Hemlock. I'm a sucker for the Chrestomanci series myself, but there are very few DWJs I don't like a lot.

Spending: you need clothing just as much as you need food. And like julietk says, a bit of knowing-you're-doing-it slipping isn't really significant slipping at all, so long as it's not every day. You need an indulgence now and then, and tops definitely are better than beer in that respect. Fewer calories, more colour. And they keep you cool, and if pretty are cheering, and they save you from being topless in public (although your potential attitude to that possibility may be different from mine. I've flashed too many people in the last year to willingly go without clothing...). ;-)

[j4.livejournal.com]

DWJ: I wasn't as impressed with The Time of the Ghost as with some of the others, not sure why. Maybe it's just that the ones I really like are ones I first liked as a child so I've grown with them, IYSWIM? I read Witch Week as a kid and loved it, The Lives of Christopher Chant (first read when I borrowed it from you -- thank you!) was good but didn't bowl me over in quite the same way. On the other hand Homeward Bounders was superb and I first read that as an adult. Have you got that? I've got a spare copy if you haven't...

<aside>
I've just gone to look at a DWJ site (http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/chresto.htm) and it's now scrolling a message across my status bar in Netscape that says "Legends are an important source of true information". How nifty.
</aside>

Needing clothing: ye-es, well, I'm not short of clothing by any stretch of the imagination. :-} I can just always think of more kinds of clothes that I'd like...

Tops: they are (at least IMHO) pretty, and thus cheering. One is white, made mostly of something rather that strange ruched-lycra stuff that trendy swimsuits in the 80s were made of but with gauzy flouncy sleeves... it's nicer than it sounds, okay? :-) ... and the other is sleeveless, with open v-necked collar, in a 70s-ish red-and-black-and-beige design, big geometric patterns, very cool.

Toplessness: wouldn't bother me per se, in that I don't care if people see me topless, but I suspect it would probably draw unwanted attention of a type that I don't want.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have THB. I think there's only about 3 DWJs I don't have (all 'younger' ones like Wild Robert). I think TTOTG was one of the first ones I read, so maybe I view it differently because of that. There's definitely an element of really liking books you grew up with and not-so-much liking ones you find later on, especially when the projected age-range for the book is a younger one. I have read some 'modern' children's books and find them not as gripping as ones I read as a child, which I can still reread with no problem. Familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt.

The tops sound nice. I bought a loud red-green-white stripy sleeveless one yesterday because what I'd gone out in was just too hot (and I promptly got yoghurt on it but never mind). And I finally found cheap Italia shirts for me and smallclanger although mine came from the Men's section and his from the Girls', so there's a strong strike for gender-neutrality (he already wears some girls' clothes anyway, they often have nicer options than the boys do. Boys aren't meant to wear colours other than blue green or black, it seems). If we're going to be surrounded by England flags and football shirts, we might as well go 'with' the crowd while simultaneously being against it. ;-)