29 December: Catch up

As you may have realised, I had a Birthday. (I now have the Bus Pass, too, but haven't yet used it.) My daughter made a chocolate cake to a recipe from Australian Women's Weekly Quick Mix Cakes, I added chocolate icing (novel texture because of running out of icing sugar), and my grand-daughter, with assistance, did the writing. The candle sang Happy Birthday.


The intake of books this year has been excellent. There is a huge book about gardens and gardening that I have only glanced at, a book about Longitude, and 3 that I have really got into. There was "Blood of the Isles" by Bryan Sykes - an analysis of DNA to determine the tribal origins of Britons; "No Nettles Required" by Ken Thompson - an analysis of real wildlife in gardens, not just the large creatures (though I notice he barely mentions rats!); and "England in Particular" by Sue Clifford and Angela King, Common Ground. All excellent - if you like that sort of thing, which of course you may not.

The holiday has produced some curious information from StatCounter - who would need to google "appendectomy female beach volleyball" for instance, or "helicopter and light aircraft birdbath"? What were they hoping to find? Anyway, they found the String Bag. And apparently, here is top google result for "bathmat" - astonishing.