So, I quite clearly failed in my attempt to complete NaBloWriMo. Oh well, at least I tried! There’s always next year, eh?

Ask me what I thought about car drivers a few years ago, and I would have said they were horrible selfish people who hated the planet and liked trying to kill cyclists. Fast forward 2 years and you’d have quite a job prying my car keys out of my cold dead hands (if I had died in the struggle to get them off me, but obviously I would win). I am now one of the people that I hated – and I love it.
 
I passed my test on 2nd January 2001, after taking a couple of years of lessons and on my third test. And for a good 5 or 6 years, I didn’t drive again. Then Jon and I decided to go on a camping trip to Ireland and rent a car to get around, so I took about 5 refresher lessons to get me back up to speed – I remember getting back in that car terrified that I wouldn’t remember which pedal was the brake and which was the clutch. But it wasn’t actually that bad, and I got into it again pretty quickly (sure the financial element was a psychological incentive also…). And we ended up having a great time in Ireland, with only a brief meltdown in a multi-story car park in Galway and lots of empty country roads for me to rediscover my driving skills.
 
Then early in 2007, my nan became ill and I was sick and tired of struggling to make it up to London by train on a Sunday – engineering works meant irregular services and rail replacement buses were the norm, and I did not want to pay £20 for the privilege of spending 3 hours changing from train to bus to train to travel 50 miles, and then doing the same to get back. Also, I had just got an allotment at around the same time and was not enjoying the experience of getting on a bus with armfuls of spades and rakes twice a week. So when Jon’s sister said she was going travelling and selling her old banger for a steal, I decided to get my first car. A tiny blue Rover Metro which shook when you went over 60, had 3 and a half gears, and to my dismay no cigarette lighter for me to plug in my iPod transmitter. But I still loved it.
 
Things went wrong however when I took it for an MOT (5 months early, as I had NO idea how these things worked) and they told me that the bottom was about to fall off the car due to corrosion – not really surprising given its age, but still quite sad. So I went on the hunt for a replacement, and Jon’s mum found us a butt ugly green Citröen ZX for a bargainous price. It may have looked like an early 90’s monstrosity, but I soon fell in love with the 5 doors, central locking, power steering and giant boot for all my gardening stuff.
 
And all when great, until after a few months I was driving home from work and there was a thud, a screech and the exhaust fell off, Luckily it didn’t take too much work from the RAC and KwikFit to get a brand new one in, even if it didn’t look quite the same. And apart from the odd little thing – a chip on the windscreen, a dent in the door – she’s still going strong.
 
And much as I try and be environmentally friendly, it would take a hell of a lot to stop me being a car driver again. I love the freedom of being able to go where I want when I want, and not having to check how much cash I have for the bus or what time the last train is, or whether public transport even goes to the middle of nowhere (it probably doesn’t). Plus, I get to sing to my heart’s content, now that I have a lovely cigarette lighter socket to plug in my choons. I do lift share, and don’t make unnecessary short journeys, but there just seems no incentive to use public transport at all any more. Which is another issue for another time…

I’ve always said I’m the kind of person who can be interested in anything. Apart from watching sports. Or the story about what your cat did this morning that was apparently so cute (which I very much doubt, as all I ever hear about cats is bitching about how they puked on the new carpet or put a dead frog in your bed. As you can tell, I’m a dog person.). This does, however, make me the kind of person who gets all excited about some new hobby I’ve found, and a year later finding 3 paintbrushes and a book of Japanese phrases down the back of the sofa. A completer-finisher I am not.
 
Some of the things I’ve started are:
 
Knitting – I’m hoping to stick with this one as it’s both practical and relaxing, but wool is SO expensive!
Sketching – I have the pencils and the pad, but I fear being rubbish and find it so hard to make a mark on the lovely pristine sketchbook.
Egyptian hieroglyphs – I’ve always loved Ancient Egypt, and wanted to be able to translate the stones in the British Museum – one day…
Spanish – I can speak Spanish (badly), just need to keep practising.
Running – argh, my nemesis! Will discuss in depth later…
Allotmenteering – the plot was just too darn big, but hope to try again with a smaller plot next year.
 
And some of the things I’d like to try are:
 
Dancing – flamenco or burlesque would be fab.
Writing poetry – I have a copy of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled, but have yet to actually get round to reading it.
Fishing – just sounds like fun, and you get food at the end – win win.
Photography – I have a point-and-click digital camera, but I’d love to know how to use it properly.
 
Things I DO like are:
 
Cooking – see yesterday’s post. And the size of my belly.
Camping – I LOVE to go camping when the weather’s right, and go for long walks in the countryside. It’s how I fell in love with the Lake District.
Reading – I don’t do this as often as I would like, but I always have a stack of books by my bed and an overdue fine on my library card.
Films, TV and music – things I indulge in a little to often, but I do love a good horror film, a bit of Dexter and some cheesy 80’s pop.
 
Now to pick just a few and stick with them…

A couple of months ago I went to see Julie and Julia at the cinema. I’d heard of the book, and hence also the blog, and thought it all sounded a bit… dull – wow, a woman cooks some recipes from an old book, great(!). But having heard some great reviews of the film, and needing a girly night out with some ice cream thrown in for good measure, I went to see it with a friend.
 
And I LOVED it! Meryl Streep was brilliant as Julia Child (even though I’d never heard of her before, loved the character) and the food looked to die for. But since seeing it I’ve had a little problem… I’ve become totally obsessed with cooking. I’m meant to be losing weight for my wedding in 7 months (and just generally, for my health an’ that), but I just want to make risottos and cupcakes and stews and pies and everything else yummy under the sun. I even went and fell in love with and bought this book:
 

 
I haven’t cooked anything from it yet, but I look through it and just drool almost everyday, wondering where I can get a calves foot or fresh languostines from.
 
So I need a little advice – what can I do to kerb my cooking addiction? I need to save my cash and my waistline from the evil clutches of Waitrose at the top of the road, before I become a bankrupt blob!

Every November, I mean to participate in NaNoWriMo, and every year I’m busy doing something else this time of year – and as I’m just into my third month of my new job and week 5 of my masters degree, I reckon that it’s more important that my attention is focused on these things right now. Plus, I have a million other things on the go, like a wedding to plan and a marathon to train for…

So while NaNoWriMo may be a little too heavy, I thought I could start off with NaBloWriMo. I have always wanted an opportunity to write more, and this seems to be an easy, risk-free way to do it. Plus, I have a pretty empty blog that needs a bit of filling up, and this is the perfect opportunity to pad it out a bit. So expect 30 days of ramblings from me!

As tonight is All Hallow’s Eve, I’m planning a horror film fest. Here are the films I have to pick from (in no particular order…) – help me decide?

• The Blair Witch Project
• The Exorcist
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (original)
• The Shining
• Don’t Look Now
• Fright Night
• The Haunting (original)
• The Howling
• Them
• They
• Suspiria
• Poltergeist
• Poltergeist II – The Other Side
• The Cave
• The 6th Day
• My Little Eye
• The Hitcher
• The Amityville Horror (original)
• The Orphanage
• The Descent
• Rosemary’s Baby
• The Omen (original)
• The Omen (remake)
• The Host
• Funny Games (US)
• Saw
• The Innocents
• Dark Water (US)
• Hostel
• Prince of Darkness
• Black Sheep
• Carrie
• Eden Lake
• Shiver
• Silent Hill
• The Ruins
• Wolf Creek
• Child’s Play
• Urban Ghost Story
• White Noise II – The Light
• Diary of the Dead
• Eye of the Beast
• Force of Evil
• The Skeleton Key
• House of Wax
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Jason X
• Ju-On The Grudge 2
• The Grudge (US)
• The Grudge 2 (US)
• Identity

I know, I can’t believe I don’t have Halloween either!

I go through phases of loving songs and playing them to death – I ruined my first Backstreet Boys CD this way (don’t mock me, you loved them too). My latest aural obsession is Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap:

Pretty popular on the radio right now due to it’s prominence in the film (500) Days of Summer (which I still haven’t seen!) – which has a wicked OST by the way – I’m still not sure if this song is happy or sad. But I love it, and that’s all that matters to me.