And I'm back!

After listening to my dad make another comment about his blog, I realised with a pang of shame that I had left this one to gather dust.

Well - now that my room is finished (yay!) I can continue the work on my own life. Things that are worth noting about my year so far (happy 2010 by the way):

1) I am back into uni. Definitely :) happy days.

2) I completed the Edinburgh Half Marathon on the 23rd May and raised over £500 for St Columba's Hospice in Edinburgh.

3) I saw Derren Brown! I have also seen Hairspray in Glasgow and Les Miserables (twice!).

A few things that have drawn my attention this year:

* This god-awful article by Janet Street-Porter

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1278510/Depression-Its-just-new-trendy-illness.html

* My dad's wonderful response to the above

http://einekleinenichtmusik.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-this-woman-for-real.html

More detailed posts about a few of the above to follow!

Some nice music

On repeat on my iPod at the moment:

- the Taken By Trees version of 'Sweet Child o' Mine'. I love the original, but this is really lovely...

- 'Bring On The Wonder' Susan Enan. Any fan of Bones may well know this one. It's from the episode 'The Boy In The Shroud' and is gorgeous (as is David Boreanaz, but there are many more reasons to watch Bones than that!)

Disney gets creepy again - not a spinning wheel in sight...

Just come back from the cinema, having seen 'A Christmas Carol' (the new Disney 3D version) with my younger brother. It is absolutely amazing. The animation is typically Disney-beautiful, the 3D just making it more stunning - animators seem to be finally grasping the use of 3D to enhance rather than as the main point of a film.

Jim Carrey, though sometimes wildly annoying, is a hugely talented actor. I have known this for a while of course (as has anyone who has ever seen 'The Truman Show') but he really demonstrates his talent with voices and accents in this film - voicing Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present (Present being a particularly delightful experience!).

But wait a moment - this film is creepy! And I mean really quite scary. Now I know that the original material was hardly Disney-esque, but having grown up with the Muppets version I wasn't totally prepared for Jacob Marley to make such a freaky entrance! It is wonderfully drawn out, and hearing Marley approach dragging his chain is genuinely frightening. It reminded me of the stories of Charles Dickens doing his public readings and causing delicate women to faint when he described Scrooge's door knocker turning into Marley's face... However, I refuse to make any comment on this creepiness being unusual for a Disney - the scene where Maleficent bewitches Rose in Sleeping Beauty is scary too!

Dexter (such a charming killer!) and hippos

I realised today that I never explained why I called my blog 'Handbags and Hippos'. Well - handbags should really be self-explanatory - I'm a woman, I love shopping. I adore handbags. I have many more important things to think about, true, but I liked the idea of the title 'Handbags and Hippos'. The hippos part of the name - less obvious. It's a tribute to my boyfriend, a joke we have continued from one silly little comment made in passing nearly a year ago. But now we are the proud owners of two cuddly hippos (believe me, they are harder to come by than you would think!) and I love it. So, rather than trying to make some abstract political comment or be witty with my name, handbags and hippos combined seemed to me to be a fine solution. That and no-one else is odd enough to have called their blog that!

Today, I watched some more Dexter holed up in bed with the afore-mentioned boyfriend. Due to his lack of central heating (and his reluctance to chase his landlord up about same) we were wrapped in two winter duvets, many layers of clothing and with a little fan heater pointed directly at the bed. So not the sexiest scenario, but a very nice toasty warm one. I love Dexter, and I love the fact that my boyfriend is willing to watch many episodes in a row with me. He's a nice serial killer! (Dexter, not my boyfriend as far as I know) I enjoy the absurdity of that basis and the wit that the show is written with.

This show is never going to knock 'The West Wing' off the top spot for me though! There is nothing to rival Aaron Sorkin's writing or the characters he creates. Except perhaps Joss Whedon, who is a similarly talented man - and incredibly funny. There is nothing to rival an intelligent, funny man. I mean, ideally he would have a beard and either resemble or actually be Viggo Mortensen or Johnny Depp, but hey. A girl can't have everything. Go figure that the man I've chosen won't grow a beard. Not even for me. Huh.

Oh wow.

This is just - wow. Oh dear.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

Redecorating My Life

So - we are currently in the middle of redecorating my bedroom and I figure now is as good a time as any to face up to the mistakes I've made and actually sort my life out once and for all. So I'm going to redecorate my life at the same time - though this might be more of a renovation than a redecoration!

Having spent the day purchasing Christmas decorations and little (read: useless) Christmas trinkets I feel very festive. Which is always nice - so the Christmas music is on, the lights are up (in my room anyway, the only place I'm allowed complete free reign!) and I'm planning the food to feed my family. I don't seem able to focus on the important aspects of this - like the main meal for Christmas day or any following or preceding days. What I am focusing on is an abundance of Christmas baking! Mince pie cupcakes with brandy butter icing anyone? No? How about a Christmas cake with white chocolate icing; mulled wine jellies; cranberry and lemon meringue pies or fudgy almond cake? I wonder - is it normal to be this excited by baked goods? My family and wonderfully long suffering boyfriend make bored noises whenever I plan my next batch of baking (though they get suitably interested when it becomes apparent they get to eat the results).

I think I shall make a little trip to the supermarket tomorrow - after all, it's never too early to start experimenting with Christmas recipes...