chesilbeach

Nice to see so many people entered the competition - let's just hope one of us wins! Good luck, everyone.

The red paint is my favourite colour in the whole house. It's a natural pigment blood red colour and it's very matt in texture, almost chalky to the touch. I love it! However, I have to be honest and say the lights were put up for Christmas about 6 or 7 years ago, and we never got round to taking them down It's much easier to leave them in place, and they're a flower design so don't look too Christmassy!

Thanks everyone! The one of the five ladies was only the second piece I'd ever done. My very first piece was a little acorn design in a card from a NT shop when I was on holiday, just to see if I liked it. I loved it so much that I picked up my first copy of New Stitches magazine and saw the first two Victorian ladies, and knew I wanted to sew them. When I realised you could sew them all on one picture, I decided I would give it a go - never mind the fact it was a massive picture compared to my first little card! I have so many threads and fabrics in the house still, but I have just completely lost interest in it.

Hi Fiona

Thank you. That's exactly how I feel, and much better expressed than I could put it. I just needed to vent my annoyance when I wrote the original post.

Hello Tikkititi

Thanks Charm - I've passed on the compliments to my OH who built them all (although I did do some of the painting )!

Eclipse is my favourite too. I'd love to be reading it for the first time again - hope you like it Nici.

I don't remember anyone ever inspiring me to read. However, I attribute my love of reading to being an only child, so needing to provide my own entertainment, and books were the obvious choice. My mum made sure I could read before I went to school*, and books were always a treat or reward for any time I was good and well behaved. Although my parents weren't big readers themselves, and I don't remember them ever reading to me, I also can't remember a time when there weren't shelves of books in my room, and I was always encouraged to read. Therefore, I have to conclude that my mum was my inspiration to read, as she provided me with the building blocks to becoming an avid reader. Having said that, like Mac, my English teacher ('O' level in my case), was one of the best teachers I ever had. I wasn't in the top set, and I was in a fairly disruptive class, but he was a great disciplinarian, he was the deputy head of the school, and he loved his subject. This meant he introduced me to some great writers, who I still love today. Although he's retired now, I still occasionally see him in the village, and he still remembers me, so I hope I made a favourable impression on him as well. *Having said that, she also made sure I knew my timestables (family members say I could do my 1 - 12 times tables when I was three), and maths was always my favourite subject at school. It's just more difficult to make maths into a hobby or entertainment!

Thanks Chrissy! I need to have colour in my home - I couldn't live in an all white/magnolia house! It looks lovely, but not for me.

You're welcome! I've just shown it to my OH, and he's keen to see it as well now. He's read the book and has said I would enjoy it, so I think I'll have to give it a go before the film comes out.

I've never read the book, nor have I ever seen any of the other film adaptations, but if Messrs Burton and Depp are involved, then I'll be at the cinema to watch the new one! There's a brief interview and some clips from the film on the IMDb 2009 Comic Con page: http://www.imdb.com/features/comic_con/2009/videos#Day_3_Videos

We always stayed in a caravan on holiday when I was a kid, and I can still remember being woken at the crack of dawn as the seagulls would come in to land on the roof of the van!

I haven't done any cross stitch for four years now, but for about 10 years before that, I was completely addicted. I've only got two pictures on display, plus one that was handy, so I've taken some photos of those, but there are many others stored away as well. I used to mainly do large projects, so everyone would get a large picture or cushion for birthdays and Christmas, plus at Christmas, I would make about 50 cards every year for family and friends. Most of the projects I did were from Mary Hickmott's New Stitches magazine, which I used to get every month. The last piece I stitched was as a thank you for some special people, and since then I've completely lost interest in it as a hobby. Maybe one day I'll start again, but I can't see it at the moment. As I had the camera out, here are the photos of the pictures that were to hand (apologies for the dust!).

Thanks Gyre and Chimera - the shelves here are the downstairs shelves and have about a third of our books on them. There are more upstairs and some boxes in the loft!

I'm so impressed with how tidy your bookshelves are Kylie! I've finally got round to taking some photos of mine. This is a selection of our bookshelves at home (there are some more in my profile in the "Bookshelves" album, but some are in too awkward a position to be able to photograph!).

Is it just me, or is anyone else bewildered with the increasing number of sections within the fiction areas of the big book chain stores? Yesterday, I went into a largish Borders shop, wanting to get a copy of Stolen by Kelley Armstrong. I've not looked for any of her books in this particular shop before, so I start in the Fiction section. No luck, so onto the Horror section. Nope. Next tried the Fantasy section, but still no joy. I then tried the Sci-Fi section and the Romance section. I then look around the entire ground floor, including the Bestseller Chart section, the Special Offer tables, the Crime section and even the Manga section (I did draw the line at searching in the Classics, Poetry and Drama sections). Eventually I find her books on the opposite side of the Manga section, underneath the stairs in the Paranormal Romance section, only to find they didn't have the book I wanted anyway! How difficult was that? Why on earth we can't just have good old fashioned Fiction, with the books stored alphabetically by author, I don't know.

Hi Fev, I'm not sure if anyone's doing it as a challenge, but we have got a thread discussing the top 100 books and how many we've read here.

Well done, BookJumper. Excellent result

I've just finished Consequences by E. M. Delafield. I've previously read the Provincial Lady books by this author, which I found light-hearted, amusing, witty and great fun, but had never seen any of her other books. This novel is one of the Persephone range, and was a completely unexpected read for me. I know that authors can write different styles of books, but this one is so full of melancholy, I was taken aback by how different it was. This is a small scale tragedy of the life of a late 19th century young woman, who with everything going for her, including wealth, looks and breeding, manages to lose her way on the path of her own life. A seemingly innocuous game of Consequences amongst the children of the Clare family starts the book, but sets the scene for Alex, as she herself has to suffer the consequences of the mistakes she makes from childhood throughout her adolescence and into womanhood. A sad tale, but beautifully told.

I would definitely go for the copy to match the book you've got. If it's something you know you want to keep forever, if you go for the cheaper one, you'll regret it further down the line and will always be annoyed/upset/frustrated by it, and you may even end up buying the more expensive copy at a later date, so the cheaper option would end up costing more in the long run! (I know that's what I'd end up doing) If you can bear the wait, then at least if you go for the Forbidden Planet book, it's not that much more expensive than the mass market paperback version, and 21 days isn't that long to wait ... it'll give you something to look forward to.

That's why I've steered clear of Mr Pattinson for mine, there are enough used by everyone else for me to look at. I've stuck with my other favourite, the delightful Mr Tennant, which I know you approve of

Thanks for this Janet, I popped into Waterstone's and got myself one of these yesterday, and it was brilliant for reading in bed! My beside lamp is not great for reading with (it's an uplighter and doesn't give off enough light), and the booklight was perfect! I'm going to get another one to keep in my bag for the dark corner I sometimes end up in at the coffee shop in Blackwells (it's in the basement with no natural light and the best tables for lights aren't always free). I might be facing the wrath of some other members, but I love his work, at least it's better than books getting pulped (when the publishers can't sell them) or burned (and yes there are some people out there who still suggest the burning of books they think are offensive or corrupting).