I’ve produced a book cover for my friend’s wonderful book. You can read some excerpts on her site. I’m now working on another paper cut on a topic very close to my heart.

You may not even notice, but this sight took my breath away. See the person to the left of the gate? Gave me such a shock. There is never a person visible when I look outside. They were just standing there, smoking a fag. Trudi went over to investigate and that alerted them to the fact they had been spotted. She came back when I called her and I made sure that I took plenty of photos of the intruder trying to clamber over the rocks by the shore. I found the whole thing quite freaky and all a bit ‘grim reaper’.

I was telling Al about it and he was asking me what it actually said. I speak Spanish but not Portugese and so, wasn’t exactly sure. He was quiet for a while but then started bawling with laughter. He had decided to use Google Chrome’s translator. I had never tried that. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. This is what it said:

We went the whole hog when decorating this year as we had our lovely niece and nephew here with us and their mother, Al’s sister Samantha of course. The place looks so bare without the twinkly lights and decorations now we’ve taken them down.

So that I can remember where everything goes to get the same effect next year, I’ve taken some photos of our sitting room. You can click to enlarge:

Here they are full of sweets and gingerbread:

Here they are on Christmas day, utterly exhausted after all of the excitement:

I decided to take I Love Mayo on the road and participate in an OpenFair. This one took place at the Traveler’s Friend in Castlebar. I went to a huge amount of effort getting stock together for this and so was disappointed when I arrived to discover that I had a tiny space to fill… half a table, even though I was amongst the first to book my place. Still the OpenFair concept is a good one and taking part is free. It was an interesting exercise and it was great that Al was able to provide a lot of help and some very kind friends called in to support us. There were lots of great little businesses there and it was useful from a networking point of view. That wasn’t why I attended however, and I won’t be doing an Open Fair again. The event wasn’t really marketed, infact, there wasn’t even a proper sign outside. A shame and a missed opportunity for us all.

It’s Mammy Woo’s Music Therapy meme. All I have to do is pick 3 pieces of music that move me…

Number one is easy… always at the top of my list. I melt every time as soon as I hear the guitar chords at the beginning. I couldn’t find a decent video of the song with good sound quality so this one will have to do. At least the music is right. It’s Alison by Elvis Costello:

Number 2 has a similar effect Witchita Lineman by Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb. Again I’ve had to go for the non video video because I’m a purist, I love this so much and all of the live versions on YouTube hit a bum note with me. Not Glenn Campbells fault it’s just that I know this version so well that every difference grates on me.

Bonkers, camp and slightly ridiculous I know but this gives me goosepimples every time and as a child used to really fire my imagination it’s Keith West’s Excerpt from a Teenage Opera:

Now I think I am supposed to tag other people… I had better ask them if it’s OK first… I’ll get back to you.