Beset. On the Solstice.

I don’t know if you think I make this up but I don’t.

Looking at you looking at me looking at you

Just after I had taken this photograph after going into town earlier (I do understand this is odd to start with, going round photographing cats), this cat bounded across, leapt onto the dusbins, miaaaaaowed me over, stood up, put its paws on my chest and licked my nose. And this after I had fended off a Hare Krishna nun with a gold nose, although not very successfully, as I now have a copy of the Hare Krishna Mantras and she has the last of my cash which I was wandering off with to buy lunch with from Greggs. It all worked out in the end actually, though, as the mantras are very interesting and I got a pastry from M&S while I was buying spaghetti sauce and put it on my card.

I must say though, I was a bit worried about that Hare Krishna nun. Looking at the expressions on the faces of the people doing their last minute Christmas shopping, I would say it was only a matter of time before someone said to her, Hare Krishna nun? That sounds a good idea. Let me get my handbag, and before she knew it she had not a donation but a grim-looking woman in Boden sitting at the communal table trying to get drunk on green tea, shouting, thank the Absolute I never have to look for another pair of socks for Uncle Jeffrey or cook that bloody turkey. I won’t take part in the chanting, thank you, but could someone nip out for a bottle of cava and show me where the TV room is so I can watch Eastenders.

Anyway. I wanted to say thank you very much to Julia and Omlair who have awarded me blog awards, thank you very much, ladies! (Aunty Kath tells me off via my mother if I say that, so can I assure you I mean it in a postmodern ironic but appreciative kind of way). And also to say that tonight is the Solstice, the shortest day, so we are sloughing off the old oh hooray, and welcoming in the new, which is why my thoughts are turning to Resolutions. As next year is 2012, I had a couple of ideas. Firstly, some people on Ravelry are knitting 12 things for themselves in 2012 (group here if you want to chat about this with people who do not photograph cats), and I thought that might be a fun thing to do although I would be splitting the 12 between knitting and sewing. And my other idea was that I would quite like to do ‘a brave or different thing every month’, possibly something involving leaving the house, gasp. So for January I thought I might do some mad kind of exercise class, for Feb I thought I might go to one of the millions of talks they have in Cambridge, Dan has promised to take me to a particular club night, I appreciate that none of these things sounds very wild initially but who knows, by October I may be bungeejumping. I’m afraid I have to do my anecdote here. My mother once resolved to do ’60 different things in a year’, and had a book in which she wrote them down. She checked her book after about 9 months and it contained the following entry:

1/ Tried a different kind of pants.

So I am worried this would be where I would end up. Anyway, we will see. Happy Solstice everyone, I wish you a merry sloughing of the old and seeding the new, and remember to be ware of cats as they seem to be particularly lively at the moment…