Here’s a sneak peek at a project I’ve been working on. It’s a book! I got the test copy through the post this morning! Just a couple of tweaks here and there and then bingo, it’ll be ready! I’m so excited.

As promised – another random post for the day. I dug out some old instax photos from my uni days. This one was taken on one of my many hunts for inspiration around the city centre. This place is right by the train station so some locals may recognise it. Every time I passed this building, with it’s crooked lettering and grimy windows, I always pictured it as the perfect location you’d check yourself into to write a murder mystery. I could imagine someone sat by the window, chain smoking and then frantically tapping away at their typewriter. Lounging around the room reciting snippets of dialogue, working late into the night. I thought it would be fun to share that memory with you. I’ll see if I can dig out any more instax photos – better yet, I’ll see if I can dig out the camera and some film.

Talking of murder mysteries, I just finished another book: Sleeping Murder (another Agatha Christie). Highly recommend it!

I’m reading a fantastic book at the moment ( “The 13 Problems” )and I figured since I eagerly update my ‘Virtual Bookself’ on facebook why not make my fiction intake a bit of a feature here on the blog as well.

I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie but I’ve not actually read many of her books. I’m familiar with loads of the stories from listening to radio adaptations and devouring the feature lengths on Christmas TV but I’ve decided it’s one of my belated new years resolutions to catch up on my Agatha Christie reading list. This one in particular is a collection of short stories merging to create one big story. I can’t say too much because I’ve only chomped my way through half of it but I love her style, her characters and the little mysteries they’re each spinning. I also love that Miss Marple is mid knitting project – as am I. Although I reckon she’s doing a much better job since I’ve just had to start my Cardigan project from scratch for the 5th time. Fingers crossed this book will bring me a little luck in the wool depatrment.

Finally! Some house related pictures to share. Woke up this morning to a pleasant surprise – although I can imagine it’s going to make getting into town later tricky. Anyway, this is the view from the MOUNTAIN (it’s a hill really) we live on.

Below is the first half of our kitchen/dining room. We’re still in the process of filling up the shelves with our colourful picture books. Through the windows you can catch a glimpse of our snow covered garden. Illya’s enjoying skating around on the tiled floors – as you can probably imagine. I’m trying to decide whether I want to make some table mats or settle for incredibly overpriced habitat ones… Since I’m on a strict budget and my ‘studio’ space isn’t accessible I’m leaning more towards homemade. Maybe that’s going to be this weeks project – now where did I bury my sewing machine…

This is a shot of the other half of the room (the bit where the food is made – not by me obviously as I don’t cook) and the door leading to the hallway. I’ll have some more photos of the rest of the house soon. I’m taking it room at a time – no point in showing you a lovely house with my chaos scattered around it :) Also the light’s better at this time in the morning in this room.

Below is just a random picture of rose face I thought I’d share too.

Back soon :)

I started reading this last night and it’s brilliant. So brilliant that I couldn’t help but get up this morning, read some more, write a post about it and hope that you go out and hunt it down or perhaps put it on your Christmas list (if it’s not too late!). It’s witty, it’s clever, the kid and his dog are bonkers but hilarious. Awesomeness :)