I have bought a Fitbit and have become totally obsessed with it. This is a good thing because it’s making me more active and a bad thing because I’ve slightly fallen in love with it. Okay, I’m totally in love with it. I know I’m late coming to this gadget – folk have had them for a year or so – but now I’m one of the gang, it’s great: I must check my stats at least five times a day. Added to that is that I’m doing a walking challenge at work so I have that website to update too. Having a little gadget on your wrist telling you to do more activities might seem like a horrible thing to some, but I like it. It’s sort of comforting to know that this strip of black cares that you need to be healthier. It’s become a sort of pet. Sad, I know.

Anyway, how’s your week been? Mine has been alright. Just working and staring forlornly at the twin mountains of ‘Dirty Washing’ and ‘Ironing Pile’. It’s surprising how well I manage to ignore the latter. As regular readers of this blog will know, I hate ironing and will do almost anything to get out of it. My ironing is currently sitting in a massive pile (one on a chair and one in a basket) in the living room taunting me as I write, but years of putting this activity off has lead me to almost not see it as watch telly or read books or write this blog in this room. I cannot, however, ignore the mountain of ‘Dirty Washing’ as it’s lying festering on the kitchen floor. Normally I can keep up with my washing, but because I gutted the boy’s room (uncovering a large secret treasure of dirty pants, socks, jeans, t-shirts and other items of clothing) and found the missing clothes, it’s a huge pile again. Sigh.

Still I will not become depressed by it. I’ve just come in from taking the dogs a walk along the riverside and it was fab. Despite it being quite cold outside, the sun in shining and all seems well in the world today. It’s my favourite type of winter’s day: cold to the point that it’s almost frosty, but sunny and clear. If I didn’t have my house to clean and the two mountains to tackle, I would say today is almost perfect. The dogs loved it too…they had a good old run about and found lots of interesting sniffs on the beach and in the grassy areas. I let Casper off the lead because he is a good boy and comes back. I kept Millie on the lead because she is a wee besom who will not do as she’s told…ever. I let both of them off the lead last weekend and myself and the boy spent about half an hour trying to get Millie to come back. We only caught her when she stopped to pee. Just as well she is so cute!!

Talking of Casper, we in this house have decided he is actually a cat in disguise as he loves walking along and lying on the arms and backs of my Chesterfield sofa and chairs. The girl also caught him climbing on the bookcase next to our sofa. Is this  normal for a Yorkie? I don’t think so. Millie we already know to be a bit of a climber. If it wasn’t for the dog breath and terrible pong when they let off, I would suspect the both of them were cats in disguise! 🙂

I had a bit of a heavy heart yesterday…I finished reading The Princess Bride. Westley and Buttercup no more. I really enjoyed the book. William Goldman is a great writer and I loved his interactions with the reader in his role as ‘editor of the original text’. Basically the book starts off with Goldman saying he’s abridging a favourite book of his from childhood called The Princess Bride which has been written by another (fictional) writer. And in between the story itself (which the film is quite an accurate version of), he intersperses the action with comments from himself. It’s a lovely lovely book and now on my list of books I will read many many times.

I’ve also finished Relish, so am now in a quandary about what to read next! There’s no problem about books in this house (I am lucky enough to have loads), just which order to read them all in. Oh dear, I will have to spend a happy half an hour scouring my bookshelves tonight! That’ll be torture…not!

Joy of joys, Miss Pettigrew’s Home for Peculiar Children was finally released on DVD and we watched over two nights this week. I wasn’t gushing about it after seeing it in the cinema, but I was right about it being a grower on me. Really enjoyed it. Eva Green is great in the lead role. It’s a lovely film. Scary in bits, but lovely.

Right, I hear my washing machine winding up it’s latest programme so I must go and bravely scale Mount Dirty Washing and then clean the house from top to bottom because it desperately needs it. Til next time!

Dawn xxxx