Obviously Britain has even more talent than was hitherto suspected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

Last Tuesday I received my PIF (or rather pay it back and forth) gift from gabrielladusult. She has recently taught herself to crochet and has made me this lovely cozy scarf. I was going to struggle through some photography this weekend but fortunately for me, Amy had already taken a photo and posted it (in the middle of moonette01's birthday Magical Mystery Tour, so you may have missed it) and has let me steal use her photo. This puts off my photo tutorial to yet another day, thank goodness.

Thank you so much, Amy. It was a lovely surprise. I know you've had a very busy and difficult year so I am extra grateful that you made time to make me this.

( My scarf, a photo )

Hippo Birdie,
Two Ewes.
Hippo Birdie,
Two Ewes.
Hippo Birdie,
Moonette (and Igor).
Hippo Birdie,
Two Ewes.

Last September, crumplehornedki asked for another essay. I immediately jumped into action and asked for some “expert” commentary to quote. Now, only seven months later, here is the result. Thank you to everyone who has contributed, especially to stmargarets for her usual marking (or should that be unusual marking!) and to mrstater who hasn’t participated in my essays before. She actually wrote loads for me but I only used one line because it was just perfect. If any of you enjoy Remus-Tonks fanfic, I suggest you go and check out her writing. She is also writing a lovely Lark Rise to Candleford story which is making me very impatient to get the second series on TV here.

ETA Thanks also to rosathome for her brilliant comments and for being such a good sport as to lay herself open to all the digs that Mary and I made.

For those interested, my previous essays can be found here:

Project Crumpet http://tdu000.livejournal.com/1957.html

Mary Sues http://tdu000.livejournal.com/2321.html

Neville Longbottom http://tdu000.livejournal.com/7490.html

( All was well! )

From rosathome. A few weeks ago, Ros decided to participate in "Buy a friend a book week" and of all the people who volunteered to let her buy them something, I won the draw. Yesterday my book arrived. She managed to find me an out-of-print book she knew I wanted to read. I did wonder when she mentioned buying it on ebay whether it would be by this particular author.

Some of you may have noticed that rosathome and jo_blogs argue occasionally about who is the greater fan of Antonia Forest's books about the Marlow family. The jury is still out although each has claimed victory! I became curious and read the first one, The Autumn Term, which I enjoyed very much. I was wondering how come I didn't read these when I was a girl as I loved the British boarding school genre of books. A bit of investigation showed that they have been in and out of print a great deal and my youth corresponded with an out-of-print period whereas Jo and Ros, being somewhat younger than me, were able to buy them. Currently they are all out of print, except for the first one, and my local library doesn't stock them so I wasn't expecting to read any more. Consequently it's lovely to have received End of Term as a gift. Not only was it lovely and generous of Ros to decide to buy a friend (ME!) a book but she put so much thought into what book to buy.

Thank you, Ros!

Apparently they have cast Bill for the film, are negotiating with Clemence Poesy to play Fleur and have located Shell Cottage on the Pembrokeshire coast. I'm wondering how they are going to explain writing them out of the previous books and then having the wedding at the begining of DH. I suppose that replaces wondering how they were going to manage without them. Bill will be played by Domhnal Gleeson, son of Brendan Gleeson who plays Mad-Eye. They have also, it seems, cast Dung.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JTc9IvPybc

I'm afraid I couldn't get the video to appear properly. Go and watch it as it's well worth it.

This is such a beautiful image after all the terrible ones our papers and TV have been fiiled with this last week. The fireman has been given a "Hero to Animals" award by PETA.

First of all, thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes and for the posts in TDU_ltd. My birthday itself was much like any other Sunday but we went out on Saturday to see the Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Wars of the Roses. This was all eight of Shakespeare's plays from Richard II to Richard III condensed into two plays. I was surprised that none of it seemed rushed other than Henry V. Cate Blanchett starred as Richard II and was, of course, superb. It was Little Tyke's first introduction to live Shakespeare and she enjoyed it, although was flagging a little by the end. She was very keen to go as she is studying this period in History at the moment and her teacher (who might possibly be able to walk on water, but we don't have definite proof yet!) recommended that they go. I had been wondering about going anyway so we decided the tickets could be my birthday treat.

And, far more importantly, I've spoken to CHK on the phone. She is quite relaxed (considering!) and the wind has eased so it looks as if they won't have to evacuate unless conditions worsen. And of course, living on an army base means she's with people who know exactly what to do in an emergency. She has my mobile number so hopefully she'll be able to phone me with more information if she can't get online.

I seem to have acquired some coaching work, without even loking for it. (Little Tyke has just started some English coaching and the bloke who's doing it has asked if I'd be interested in some primary school coaching for him.) I'm busy looking up lesson ideas on the internet and there are a lot of US sites that are quite good. I'm not sure, however, whether the US grades equate to our Australian ones so I would like some one to give me what age range is covered by which grade - just the basic, I don't need to know whether children can 'start young' or whatever. I need to know up to the 11-12 year old grade.

Thanks in advance.