Marking a century

My granddad would’ve been 100 years old today.  Happy Birthday Poppa!

That’s the two of us together when I was small.  He died a few years ago now, and for another few years before that wasn’t really ‘himself’ due to Alzheimer’s, but other than that he was busy and active his whole life.  He was a fireman in London during the Blitz.

He then stayed on in the fire service for the rest of his working life.  He’s on the far right in the above cartoon – I think the date on it is 1949, but it could be ’48 or even ’40.  I won’t go into some of the stories he had to tell now, but there were some dramatic ones!  He travelled a lot, too, I think mostly after he’d retired.

So that’s it, really – happy birthday to you, Poppa, and Happy Centenary!

Happy Birthday Noxie!

Today is my lovely friend Noxie‘s birthday, so much love and happy returns to her!  We originally met through both being fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and are still friends twelve years on!  Isn’t the internet grand?

As for me, I’ve spent the day plying and knitting again – some progress made, nothing finished as yet!  Hopefully I’ll have more to report tomorrow.

I is for Identification

Not ID: that which establishes the identity of a person; but: to identify with.  I finished the first book of Rachel Caine’s Outcast Season series yesterday and started the second one, and I find myself surprised to find that I am identifying more with the ex-Djinn (this is urban fantasy, roll with it) protagonist Cassiel than I do with Joanne, the human protagonist of the original Weather Warden series that Outcast Season has spun off from.  Is that weird?  I think that may be a little weird.  But the thing is, while I like Joanne – and liked the glimpse of her we got in Undone (OS#1) through Cassiel’s eyes – she’s just too girly for me, I think.  Joanne refers to shoe brands and car models that mean about as much to me as they probably would to Cassiel.  Perhaps because more things have to be explained about Cassiel’s perspective on the world (whereas the reader is already assumed to have a common starting point with Jo?) as having been an “Old Djinn” who’d never even bothered before to take on a human shaped body, it’s easier to get inside her head.  At any rate, I like her logic, and I like her developing relationships with the Rocha family.  I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of this series.

H (I knew I’d think of something later on) is also for HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!! My brother is celebrating his 30th today.  Yaaaaay!  That’s 30 whole years I’ve managed to go without “accidentally” shoving him off a cliff.  Our parents raised us right.  Seriously, I love my little bro and think he’s all kinds of awesome (it probably helps that we have more in common than apparently looking rather alike).  We’ve celebrated once this evening, and are doing so again at the weekend.  I hope the weather is going to comply, since it’s supposed to be a barbeque…