Winter 2009
I do hope you are all feeling warmer now the
big freeze is over, or maybe you enjoyed the snow and
revisited your childhood with sledging and snowmen. We
actually got snow here too in Almeria. Okay, it barely lasted
ten minutes but it was real snow, unheard of in these parts.
There’s plenty on the sierras of course, full of people
skiing.
So what have I been up to since last we chatted? Well, David and I have celebrated our Ruby Wedding. 40 years! Gulp. You should see the picture of our 1960s register office, quite the trendy thing to do back then, with my Princess Anne style hat. Do you remember those big brimmed things? And the mini of course. What memories. Where did the years go?
We celebrated with a cruise, or rather a crossing on Queen Mary 2 to New York. Taking a trip on one of the luxury liners was once only for the rich and famous of the ilk of Cary Grant and Dorothy Lamour. Now such treats are within the reach of mere mortals, although from the moment we joined the ship at Southampton to find a bottle of champagne waiting for us in our stateroom we could pretend to be rich. And sailing into the Hudson River with that first early morning sight of the Statue of Liberty made it a voyage to remember. We’d both packed several books, not wishing to be left twiddling our thumbs for six long days and nights. As it turned out, finding time to read was the problem. Despite there being an excellent library on board there’s also a swimming pool, cinema and theatre, plus TV in the stateroom, lectures, workshops, quizzes, a gym, and such delights as Pilates, yoga, line dancing, you name it. And yes, with ten excellent restaurants to choose from I’ve been dieting ever since. Loved the chance to put on the posh frocks, dance till the early hours, and for a whole blissful week enjoy being waited on.
Book
Crossing
I wondered if any of you were aware of Book Crossing. It
started back in March of 2001 and now gets about 300 new members
every day, is mentioned in Wikipedia, and has given the Concise
Oxford English Dictionary a new word. Over the past 7 years,
BookCrossing claims to have captured the passion and imagination
of over 740,000 people
worldwide who help to spread the love of books through
http://www.bookcrossing.com/
So what is book crossing exactly?
Pick one of your own books you are willing to give away. Click on
"register book" under the "My Shelf" tab. [If
you can't see the "My Shelf" tab at the top of the page,
you may need to log in to the site.] Follow the prompts to
register the book and generate a BCID (BookCrossing ID).
Write the BCID in ink inside the cover. Add a label or write the
BookCrossing info. You can add some additional markings, stickers,
notes, etc to make the book noticeable, if you wish. One Book,
One BCID.
Release the Book into the wild.
You’ll receive email notification whenever someone makes a
journal entry on a book you've released. You can also check your
Bookshelf page on a regular basis to see all the entries on your
books. And if you find one yourself, you can read it, then send it
on its journey again. Great fun!Several of my books are out there
in the wild, and I love to get notification of how far they’ve
travelled. There’s a copy of Dancing on Deansgate which was
released on 24 October at about 3pm. At the Visitors Center in
Aberfoyle,