More reindeer

Real ones, this time, snapped at Gateshead's Frost Fair. They were gorgeous - such velvety soft antlers and fur.



The Nordic Frost Fair was, as ever, a bit of a mixed bag. The reindeer were fantastic (and we managed to ask what they would like to be left on Christmas Eve - apparently carrots are acceptable) but the Frost Fair stalls were the usual dull not-very-nordic range of crafts (glass angels, silk bags, fudge, Northumberland cheese...etc etc etc). There were a couple of token 'country' stalls from Denmark, Iceland and Finland which were a little more interesting, but that was about your lot. It would have been lovely to learn a little more about Scandinavian culture and traditions, especially those relating to Christmas. Oh well.

What was amazing was the Los Kaos life-size polar bear, Bjorn, who had the children spellbound, eyes wide as saucers. He shuffled into the performance space, sniffing the air, and looking every inch the real polar bear (he's a puppet with an operator inside). He was a mixture of thrilling and terrifying - M refused to go and stroke him as he was too scary, but couldn't take her eyes off him.

Dear Santa,

Here is a picture of you, Mrs Santa, Rudolph and Glitzen the Reindeer. We've posted it to you (at Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland, SAN TA1), and we hope you like it enough to reply...

It's amazing what you will do to keep a three-year-old amused on a damp, cold afternoon. Let's hope Santa's impressed...

(and yes, I know it's not Glitzen, but M insisted).

Eco-silliness

(photo via the Guardian)

There's camping, and there's camping...our Rapido may not be quite as snazzy, but if we're heading off into the great outdoors to escape the urban grind, the last thing I want to be taking with me is an "on-board entertainment centre, complete with a projector, 6 speaker surround sound, and a roll down screen" or PC tablet stashed in the dashboard to check my email... I'll save my £86,540, thanks.

Christmas is coming...

It's been a few days of feeling Christmassy (as well as stress about the sheer amount of work that has to be finished by then).

But we now have a Christmas cake - recipe over here at Recipes for Millie - which looks rather spiffing. The new silicon tin (Lidl's versions are brilliant, and come in at under £3) is a marvel. No more faffing about with all that baking parchment.


And yesterday we trundled up to Kielder to take part in the Northumberland Lights 2008 installation, Out of Water. It was a fantastic, magical experience, albeit a little eerie to be wandering around the woods in the dark. I loved the illuminated bridge, whose steel ropes 'twanged' a tune, and the immensely tall pine trees, lit from below to look like totem poles.

The moon rose over Kielder Water during our walk, and you could see for miles across the water. It was so beautiful, we made a resolution to go back up there in the summer, and have another look in daylight.

Things to do with a three-year-old, no. 432

1. Finally get fed up with the fact that there's a gaping hole in the tiles behind the loo, and decide to do something about it.
2. Set off for Homebase in the freezing cold and rain.
3. Pick out lots and lots and lots and lots of wallpaper, giving the three-year-old free rein to choose.
4. Take wallpaper samples home; drink lots of frothy milk and eat cake (this part is essential).
5. Hold a wallpaper face-off, with a happy/sad/not-bothered-face scoresheet (make sure you outnumber the toddler here, unless you want a loo which is papered with pink roses).
6. Realise you've not actually got any money to sort it out just yet....

Captain Jack Wakeman

He also has a rather natty wand, to match the tiara/cape/wings combo.

It's amazing what you can do with sticky-backed plastic

1. Fairy wings (the kitchen is now awash with glitter, and the cat is leaving glittery pawprints throughout the house).



2. Halloween cat (the real cat was rather spooked).

Things I would love to do this month*

1. Write a 50,000-word novel as part of NaNoWriMo

When I can't get beyond a few blog posts each month, I suspect this one will have to remain a pipe dream.

2. Bake more cakes

This might avoid the situation last night at 10.30pm when we realised there were no cakes or biscuits in the house, and for some reason, chocolate buttons just wouldn't do. There was no other option for it - I had to bake some scones (well, one rather large scone round, as it turned out). We demolished most of said large scone round at 11.10pm with lots of butter and jam. And yes, we did feel like fat pigs afterwards, but we were very smug and happy piggies.

3. Watch more telly

Aside from an episode of Merlin (which was mainly just an excuse to lust after JRT), all I appear to have watched last month was a couple of episodes of West Wing (yes folks, it is indeed the year 2000), some appalling kids' nonsense called Space Pirates, and the sainted Shaun the Sheep (please let there be a new series soon as the DVDs are about to wear out). It might be time to broaden my horizons.

Right, that'll do for starters. I'm sure there's more that will occur to me, but I can't stop - I'm off to eat the last bit of scone before Orb nicks it.

*UPDATE: I've just realised it's still October, isn't it. Especially as it's Halloween and all that. If you're halfway through reading this, just put it off until tomorrow - it'll make far more sense.

Work-related stuff: networking

In a bid to make things even more confusing, I've installed Blog Link on my Linked In profile, which in theory will automatically post updates from here to Linked In. I'm not sure quite what the people there are going to make of the adventures of Captain Jack and the random musings that usually ensue, but it's an interesting experiment in social networking/marketing (insert any current buzzword except 'credit crunch' here).

It might actually force me to focus on posting more work-related stuff to the blog, rather than pictures of a small, rather scruffy cat. Then again, perhaps not.

Up a bit...left...left..

I've spent the evening at the 'does what it says on the tin' Climb Newcastle, in the middle of the Byker wall. It's rather exciting being in the middle of a swimming pool (with the steps down still there at one end), especially now the walls are covered in handholds, and you can clamber about to a fair old height.

There's some great pictures of the construction on their website, together with some shots of the abandoned swimming pool. It's nice to see a building that's been out of use for so long (15 years or so) coming back to life.

In which the death defying Captain Jack joins the circus

The long winter afternoons are definitely drawing in.

Work-related stuff - survival

There's an interesting post here from Getting Ink on how journalists can survive the recession. (As a complete aside, isn't the phrase 'credit-crunch' the most hideous thing anyone's dreamed up this year?)

I particularly like point 1 - write about something boring. I quite agree. I never bother pitching for anything remotely 'sexy' like travel or arts-related material, as it's (a) appallingly paid and (b) overwhelmingly oversubscribed. I suspect I've probably wittered on about this before, but you can't go far wrong with government departments or higher education, in my opinion.

I also like point 6 - diversification. It's important - and also avoids you being pigeonholed. I write/research/edit/proofread/create web content/nitpick with the best of them. Preferably all at once.

Captain Jack travels back in time...

...and spends a while in his cat moses basket, complete with mobile. His street cred may, I fear, be at an all time low.

Alnwick Garden

I had a go at sidling between the metal slabs, which is harder than it looks - they're covered with a sheet of water. It's much easier when you're three.

The main cascades were beautiful, as ever. One day I will either (a) remember to take the proper camera or (b) get a better one on my phone.

Work-related stuff - academics and blogging

Really interesting post here, on the subject of blogging in higher education - academics, not students. It's not something I'd ever really thought about much - and now I know why. There's hardly anyone doing it.

"It has not reached the kind of critical mass that it has among US
academics...you are very much at the cutting edge if you are doing it at the
moment."

Odd really - blogging doesn't feel remotely cutting edge these days. Even Downing Street has a fairly rip-roaring website, complete with blog-style news, flickr photos, YouTube videos and a Twitter feed. And it's not as if it's a 'yoof' thing (god only knows what's current with the 14-year-olds) - those silver surfers are everywhere you look.

I'd forgotten...

...how much fun blackberrying is (especially when you get to play hide and seek in the woods, and are pelted with shells by squirrels scoffing nuts).

...how ridiculously funny Green Wing is. We've just sat in front of the telly eating tea and watching the deleted scenes from series 1. The carpet now has a light scattering of couscous, which blends perfectly into the pub-floor-style design.

...how much I like researching in libraries. I spent the morning perusing the stock at Newcastle City Council's Local Studies collection, for information for a project on Blyth - you can't beat the musty dusty smell of the old newspapers. It's one of the reasons I did a history degree, I suspect.

Blue Peter eat your heart out

When your three-year-old demands "an alien in a ballerina dress with a sparkly necklace", a certain inventiveness with egg boxes is required...

The open road beckons (very slowly)

Slight hiatus at the moment, for which apologies. There's been lots of work, together with a couple of weekends away. I've still been posting over on the Recipes for Millie site, so if you want more insight into the minutiae of life with a three-year-old then hop on over. Oh, and some recipes of course.

In other news, we appear to have bought a caravan. A Rapido Confortmatic folding caravan to be precise. Here it is up in the back yard in all its glory:



See - walls, roof and everything. Beats sitting in a tent, especially when you have this interior to play with:



Check out those 1970s colours! Here's how to put one up:



Needless to say, it took us slightly longer...

Books galore

One of the nice things about going away for a week to France, apart from the fact that you can actually see some sunshine on a regular basis, is that you get time to read some books. Not that much reading was done in the sunshine - a certain young lady was too busy playing in sandpits, swimming in lakes and swimming pools and shopping at our favourite place in Bergerac (the fizzy sugar cubes for the bath were a big hit).

I did make a dint in my pile of books, though, mainly by staying up until the early hours until I needed matchsticks to hold my eyes open. It was such a luxury to read in peace and quiet (there's no broadband, hence no distractions).

Scores on the doors:

The Rose of Sebastopol, by Katharine McMahon

Found at the library, but I'd have been quite pleased if I'd bought it, as it wasn't a bad read. It lost its way towards the end (to be honest, it could have ended a couple of chapters earlier), but I liked the characters, and the way they were drawn (there were some nice sewing details too). And I'm a sucker for a long drawn-out romantic thread. Mind, I couldn't tell you anything about the Crimean War now - it obviously went in one ear and out the other.

The Palace of Strange Girls, by Sallie Day

I liked this one a lot, but I did manage to devour it in a couple of hours, which usually means it's light on the description and heavy on plot and characters. I liked the picture it drew of 1950s Blackpool (fairly accurate, according to my Mum who was brought up there), and I loved the way each chapter was opened by a quote from the I-Spy-at-the-Seaside book. Rather a predictable ending, but I liked how it got there.

The Ghost, by Robert Harris

Ooh, plot plot plot plot bit of character development plot plot plot. You know what you're getting with a Robert Harris, really, don't you? Not as good as Fatherland or Enigma - maybe because the subject matter wasn't as interesting - although I'm sure Tony Blair's memoirs will be a riveting read.

The Visible World, by Mark Slouka

I sort of liked this one - or rather I liked the fictional memoir which makes up the first half of this book. The romance thread lost me though - in fact I didn't bother with the second part (the romantic novel), as I could cheerfully have banged the main characters' heads together by that point.

3 today, hip hip hooray

Following on from last year's Joseph and his multicolour dreamcoat cake, I present this year's birthday offering:


M was determined it was going to be a 'strawberry cake'. It came out pinker than I expected (I think for a true red colour you'd have to use an awful lot of food colouring), but tasted pretty good (it's just Nigella's all-purpose birthday sponge underneath). The rest of the birthday tea vanished fairly quickly too.