The Twelve Posts of 2021...

2021 is almost done and 2022 is ushering us into the warmth of its bosom. Or something. Let's look at the year gone by via the hot topics I was urging you to consider in my weekly Rambles. Ready? Goodo!

January's Post

The first half of the year was spent editing. (That's f***ing editing, to be exact.) It was January when I started receiving beta reader-feedback, which threw up some interesting patterns. It seems there's some mistakes I make more than others. Click the link under Marge to see what they are, as well as joining the age-old debate about the correct slang for toilet time. 

February's Post

In February it was almost two years since I'd been introduced to the Hot Priest from Fleabag and yet he was still living rent-free in my head. It made me think about the other perfectly formed characters that are hard to shake off when the book, TV show, or film is over. Click the link to see who keeps me constant company, despite being the product of someone else's imagination.

March's Post

March 8th was International Women's Day and then March 9th was when a serving police officer was arrested for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. The never-ending debate surrounding women's safety was front and centre once again. Even when it drops out of the news cycle, it doesn't go away. I wrote this in an absolute fury. 

April's Post

After being solely responsible for my niece and neph for thirty hours in April, I felt compelled to address the myriad questions it raised. These were mainly to do with sleep, to be honest. 

May's Post

Even though, come May, I was still bogged down editing out my superfluous commas, the book cover for Assembling the Wingpeople was being... well, assembled. Here's the lowdown on how it came about. It turns out, I am not the person to try and design it, OR even share my ideas with someone that knows what they're doing. 

June's Post

In June, I emerged from the more stringent of COVID restrictions and celebrated the wedding of some lovely friends. But a weekend away meant my Monday morning blog was quickly thrown together. Fortuitously, it felt the right time to drop an extract of the new book. (This took mere minutes to do, instead of the usual hours of waffle I upload.)

July's Post

July 2021 was when the 2020 Euros happened. I know, right? But with Southgate's England Men we saw some excellent teamwork along with promotion of all the right ideas. This flew in the face of some sections of the public who favoured racism and violence over eradicating prejudice and inequality. It takes all sorts, I guess. 

August's Post

Look, who knows what we'd do if we had billons of spare cash in our back pockets? Who can ever really know for sure until it happens. In August it felt like all the rich men of the world were nipping up to space for a bit. I didn't really get it. 

September's Post

The date in everyone's diaries this year was 22nd September 2021. Yes, that's when Nicky Bond and Writer's Ramblings turned five years old. Hurrah and huzzah! As a special treat for the world, I collated some good news events that had happened during the life of the blog. It was reassuring to see it's not been purely political division and pandemic hell.

October's Post

October was about one thing and one thing only. Assembling the Wingpeople was published! It was marvellous and fantastic and pride-inducing and gratifying. Also, the format of the weekly blog posts changed. Just a tad. Once a month I would continue to write a rambling ramble about rambly stuff, whilst the other three weeks were more organised. You're welcome!

November's Post

My first rambly Ramble was in November. Having struggled for years to categorise my writing in the correct genre, I finally did it! Uplit was what I wrote. Yeah, Uplit! Read all about it here.

December's Post

We made it to the end of December and the end of 2021. Just one week ago when I wrote this post, we were still pre-festivities and hoping for negative LFTs all over the show. Plus, I was making big claims about posting real life pics on insta, or even avoiding social media altogether. Did I manage it? Only you can decide. 

For now, let's look forward to what we can only hope - FTLOG let us hope! - will be a better 2022. Let's forget we were uttering the same sentiments this time last year and keep the faith. Happy New Year to you and yours! Let's make it a good one!

Have a lovely week folks.

Season's Greetings and All That Jazz...

It's Christmaaaaaas! Well it will be in a few days. Not feeling the joy? Have a listen to this. A beloved-yet-modern carol, a quirky violin part, a key change, and all in Icelandic to boot. Pop a mince pie in the microwave, settle on the sofa, and have a listen. It's my seasonal present to you all.

Or if that's not enough, how about this? My attempt at creating a blog tradition continues. For Christmas week I share an old photo of myself from Christmasses past. This year's no exception. I'm determined to get this tradition off the ground. One day people will actively request my Christmas snap in their hordes and refer to it as the real meaning of Christmas. One day. Anyway, here's 2021's offering.

Even though Instagram wasn't around in 1981, some things never change. I think I've reached this year's quota of 'cute child looking up at christmas tree' pics. How about you? Yeah, I know. I'm sorry for adding to the pile. But at least this photo wasn't trying to sell you merch, or portray a lifestyle, or get loads of Likes so that companies might send out free stuff. Nope, this one's just an old fashioned family photo for an album. Which is presumably why the sideboard has all sorts of shit on it. I count three fruit bowls, two candles, my dog kennel money box, and one of those things on a stick that's supposed to spin in the wind. A wind spinner? Who knows? 

So over Christmas I'm going to metaphorically embrace my own messy sideboard. I'm going to post pics of real stuff rather than amazing stuff. Or I'm going to leave off posting much at all. There'll be too much cheese to eat to fully commit to all my timelines.

If you celebrate Christmas, then I hope it's lovely and everything you want it to be. If you don't, then I hope you get to enjoy some time off, and have a lovely weekend.

Feliz Navidad, Nadolig Llawen, God Jul, Frohe Weinnachten, Joyous Noel, and so on and so forth. Oh, and if it's possible, I hope you...

...have a lovely week, folks.

Party Food FTW...

Morning, folks. Today's the feast of St Lucia, which I know about, like an expert. This is because I've watched the Netflix show Home for Christmas (season two covers it) and because I subscribe to Scandikitchen's weekly newsletter. Basically, I might as well be Swedish. In other/related news, we're twelve days off the big one. If you're gearing up to celebrate Christmas, then I hope that's going well for you. If you're not, then I hope your December is treating you beautifully. Onwards and upwards to us all.

The view from my desk last week,
If only I'd taken it straight on,
 incase I used it online for any reason.

Writing News

I'm still technically on leave. Ha, ON LEAVE.  I like saying that, because it sounds like I have a proper job instead of merely being between writing projects. Perhaps I should change my email to say I'm out of the office and will be back at my desk in January. Except I'm typing this at my desk so that doesn't work. Anyway, it's all quiet on the writing front and I'm loving having some space in my head. 

Rita Moreno's in
both versions!

Culture

Last week's cinema visits saw me watch Boxing Day (not bad) and West Side Story (mesmerising). TV wise, I'm hoovering up Succession, (last episode tonight!) Impeachment, and Only Connect in real time, whilst filling all other viewing gaps with Netflix Christmas films. (Single All The Way is my current new fave.) Podcasts in my life have been represented by Out with Susie Ruffell, The Shift on Life After Forty, and Brett Goldstein's Films to be Buried With. All interview-based, and chattily informative. They make every car journey, meal prep, and make-up application time, fly by.

Food and Drink

Saturday night saw a long-overdue catch up with some mates. I could have cooked or ordered a take away, but nah. I went with the only choice at this time of year. Markies Party Food. The Chicken Doughnut Dippers flowed and the Banging Cauliflower Nuggets were nicer than I'd assumed. Good times. In other culinary news, I've become obsessed with looking at pictures of German Christmas baking. There's a recipe book called Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas  that I wish I'd had in November. That's when I had time to bake up a storm. Right now it's too late, so I'm consoling myself with the thrill of a steeped cranberry or a slab of gritty marzipan via Instagram. One must do what one can when the circumstances are trying.

 Who knew there'd be a Sainsers gif?
Apparently, this is it!

Out and About

I mean, what can I say? It's been a quiet one. Sainsburys has seen a lot of me. There was a quick nip to Tesco and then that one time when I dashed into Asda. And, of course, Marksies had to deal with my pillaging of the party food aisle. It seems I'm quite ecumenical when it comes to supermarkets. Slightly more excitingly, I had the full-throttle IKEA experience when it transpired I needed more plates, wine glasses, and forks for Christmas. So yeah. That was fun.

All in all, it's been a chore-busy week. It's that time of year, I guess. Hopefully there'll be less chores and more fun in the week ahead. LOLZ. Who am I kidding? 

Have a lovely week, folks.

Moral Dilemmas, Picky Teas, and Sparkly Eyeshadow...

The palette of Christmas
dreams. Four years old
 and only ever sees the
light of day in December.

Hello December! Whether the 1st saw you commemorating World AIDS Day, celebrating the start of Advent, or - like me - marking the beginning of a month that will involve daily sparkly eye shadow in a variety of 'jazzy'* colours, welcome to the final twelfth of the year. Yeah, we're doing fractions. Handle it.

One of four new desk
corners I now enjoy.

Writing News

The office space is done but I'm letting the creative juices for Book 4 stew a while longer. No official writing has begun but a new planning notebook has been ordered. Progress! The thing with not thinking about Assembling the Wingpeople during every waking moment, means other thoughts are free to bubble to the surface. Last week I found myself waiting for a train and hurriedly typing a snippet of dialogue that had popped into my head. It may well feature in the next novel or be cut in the subsequent edit. Either way, thank you to Widnes station. The juices are flowing! (Me and Paul Simon being twinnies, as per.)

Fuller before he
 was Roman.

Culture

My Christmas film schedule's started with a bang. As well as the Netflix stuff that fills the gaps, last Wednesday saw me go to the cinema to watch Home Alone. Hurrah! Always a thrill to see a much-loved and multi-viewed film on the big screen. I settled into my recliner and waited to be flooded with joy. Unfortunately a few seats along was a small child armed with approximately 56,854 questions about the plot. She asked one every ten seconds, like carefully timed water torture, leaving me with something of a moral dilemma. On the one hand, I'm watching a children's film on a Wednesday afternoon and should really live and let live. On the other hand, 'Shut TF up, Kid! You're spoiling my tingly nostalgia!'  Happily, by the time Kevin was abusing two grown men with household paraphernalia, she was laughing too hard to ask anything else. No more, 'Why's he doing that, Mum?', on a loop ad nauseam. I grew up and got over it. In hindsight, I had a lovely afternoon.

FIT.

Food and Drink

Excitingly, there's a new shop down my way. My favourite genre of food is - as I'm sure I've mentioned before - Picky Bits. And my favourite type of shop is somewhere that stocks a range of cheeses, nice wines, and accompanying bits to put on a platter. So imagine how thrilled I was last week, when such a place opened a mile away from me. The Wine Club shop is somewhere I'll be popping by whenever I need lovely things in my life. So far I can attest that the smoked almonds, quince jelly, manchego, and gordal olives are an absolute treat. 

Out and About

A bumper week for being out and about. As family get-togethers consist mainly of noise, bustle, and fractious tears (and that's just me, ba-dum-tish!)  it's hard to bond with the smallest members. First off, I caught up with my youngest and most local nephew. He pottered about, seemingly happy (or perhaps simply unarsed) at my presence. So far, so good. Then on Thursday I drove to Warwick to see my Niece. We had one-on-one bants, despite her clearly pained response at my attempts to make her laugh. Then two days later I was in Wales for my Mum's birthday. It was standard Bonds en masse stuff; food, drink, and a Travel Lodge room. All the family gathering traditions. Classic.

So whether you're inspired to have a Picky Bits tea, apply sparkly make up, or rewatch Home Alone without a small child's running commentary in your ear...

...have a lovely week, folks.

*Stand down, folks. 'Jazzy' means anything other than beiges and browns. I'm not about to turn into Brenda from Watching.