Presenting Professor Amelia Brown

As some of you probably know I've spent much of the past two years honing my writing skills over at ff.net, the result of which being Dreams and False Alarms, a Harry Potter fanfiction, and its sequel, which is about two-thirds done and as yet nameless. In DaFA, my main character is an OC (original character, for those non-fanfiction officionados out there) named Amelia Brown. She teaches Muggle Studies at Hogwarts, and her main purpose in life (as far as I was concerned) was to burst into the Shrieking Shack at the end of PoA and smack Lupin around the head for forgetting the Wolfsbane Potion. That was the idea, anyway, but any of you that have read the story will know that it didn't quite turn out like that... hence the sequel, really. Anyway, a few months ago I contacted a friend of mine, Limlight on dA to draw her for me (in exchange for knitwear), and she's just sent me the first draft of Amelia (Limlight and her young man have a blog here, by the way). As you can image, I'm really, really excited about this :)



So here she is, in the flesh (well, the pencil): Professor Amelia Brown!

Tiny Shoots

The seeds I potted in the propogators are getting bigger and bigger (the nasturtiums have now pushed the lid off their propogator and are engaged in taking over the windowsill), and being as I was off sick with nothing better to do (and this could be achieved sitting down) I took some pictures of these brave new shoots :)

Here we have French Marigolds (left), Cleome (centre), and Nasturtium (which is now about four inches taller)(right)... you can just see some Alyssum behind the Nasturtium, and more French Marigolds.

March-ing Ever On

So I finally got round to ordering my plants and seeds for the year, and have now planted my first earlies, garlic, onions, shallots, carrots and some flowers. Had some help at t'llotment this week in the form of Bones (of GoodForNothingCrafters fame), meaning that Niall felt an excuse to sleep :) Bones put in some raspberry canes for me, and helped us riddle some soil for the potato patch, so the allotment is looking good for the minute, though there will be more to do shortly, I'm sure.

In other news, I got a job! It's only part time, but it's good fun and the people I work with are lovely :) I also dyed part of my hair purple again, which is awesome (well, I think it is, at any rate). (and apparently impossible to photograph - I swear these weren't nearly this blurry when I took them!)

Spring a-Springing

There was a massive clearing day up at the allotment this weekend, loads of people came to help get several decades worth of accumulated fly tipping off our gardens and into a bin lorry. Under the rubbish, signs of life are beginning to emerge in the form of snowdrops (yay!) and bindweed (sigh). We shifted several bin lorries' worth of stuff, as well as filling the scrap lorry three times over - as you can imagine, the site looks a hell of a lot better now. We finally got rid of the two fridges and wheelie-bin full of glass, the pile of foam and the least usable tyres - the difference is enormous :D We're even considering putting in a pond!

Elsewhere on site, drastic measures are being employed to discourage more tipping... heh heh heh. Makes me laugh every time I pass the thing!



I've been busy writing recently, too, mostly fanfiction, but also some funding application stuff for a potential PhD. Been sewing too, but since that's a present, I can't talk about it just yet - suffice it to say it went well and was fun to do!


I got the call that the trial was starting up again in April. I'm a bit sick of it hanging over everyone now - I mean, I know a lot of people were affected a lot more than me, but it's just always there in the back of your head, and I've had enough of it now.

Photos: Fridge-lessness; snowdrops; drastic measures

Absent Minds

Wow it's been a while since I found time to post... in fact the last post was the last time I saw Miss Jamie before she went back home to Kentucky (sad face). It's been a busy few months, what with dissertations, family illness, hunting for work (not going so well), crafting and writing a ton of fanfiction. Of course, it being winter, I've not been out to the allotment much, but as you can see, it's hibernating (like me) :D

The big news, insofar as there is any news, is that Bones and I are starting up a new blog on crafting, archaeology and general misbehaviour... more information to follow. Hope you're all well and such!

xx