As holly pricks and ivy clings, your fate is none too clear

After dropping Sherlock off at school this morning John and I went for a jog. Was the sort of morning where your whole body hurts - fingers and feet are cold, skin is chilled by the wind, lungs ache because the air is so cold...

So naturally we had to find a large warming breakfast and hot coffee/tea!

I think I need to invest in some new thermal layers anyway. The bike trip yesterday was pretty freezing too. The wind chill is phenomenal. SO I should get something good for running as well as biking.


Sherlock is desperate to get decorations up for Christmas - which will most certainly wait until Mycroft is home. But we might encourage some home-made paper chains or something. And there's still bee-innards to be made. So even if it's freezing cold tomorrow, there's plenty to do.

November feels like it's lasted forever. But I can't believe it's only just over 3 weeks until Christmas. That just feels...stupid. Unbelievable. And having spent last year at Christmas with John and the boys...I can't believe we've got another one! We have traditions... it's great.

I am completely dreading the fact that next year it really really will be my turn to work Christmas Day.

Put on a ragged sweatshirt, I'll take you anywhere you want me to

Got over to see Mum today. Don't particularly feel like talking about it.

Saw a lot of flooding on the way. I hope everyone who reads this is okay, and the worst is over now.

It was quite nice, to open the bike up all the way there and back, even if it was just motorway riding. Freezing cold, but apart form that, couldn't have asked for better riding conditions. Really good.

Who was asking about Christmas lists? Obviously the first things I'd want would be world peace and everything...but after that, an amazing adventure bike, and a few months to travel the world on a lovely big bike...BMW? KTM? Something like that...

I know, I know, it's a BMW... Danger will never let me hear the end of this...

Anyway, I've got the next two days off, and tomorrow I intend to spend all of it with John, doing nice things.

If I Could Fly Like Birds On High

Well you all seemed to enjoy yesterday's post. So have some more abandoned places.

I've never been to these, either. But sometimes I think about them, out there in the ocean, battered by the weather, basking in the sun, watching the ships come and go, and all the time, every second of every minute of every day, deteriorating a little more, and being reclaimed by nature.

They're Maunsell Forts. They sat out there, with their...crews? Whatever you'd call them. Not only facing the waves, wind and weather, but also the Luftwaffe.

I imagine it was lonely, but at the same time, a place of great comradeship.

Anyway, there are lots of lovely pictures of them and similar, if you look them up.

Tomorrow I'm going to Bristol to see Mum. I'm...not exactly looking forward to it. But I think I'll feel better for seeing her. I'm trying not to get my hopes up much regarding what to expect.

Worn out places, worn out faces

One of the jobs I've got on at the moment is a bloke found dead in an old factory.

The factory's odd... I mean, it's not, it's like loads of places, but it's one of those abandoned places that just looks like, at the end of the working day, everyone just walked out, shut the doors, and never came back.

I like places like that. Have done since I was a kid. We used to climb in through windows, get into buildings. Nothing illegal, not really, but just...we just wanted to know what was in there. Find things, paperwork, old machines, pictures on walls, photos...clothes, boots... Almost looks like he could have been left there then. It wasn't a violent death. He's just sitting, leaning against the wall. Guess if you believe int hat sort of thing, it's where his soul abandoned his body.

Anyway, ages ago I found a website with a guy who goes about taking photos of places like that. So I thought I'd share one of my favourites.

I know i'm far from perfect, nothin' like your entourage

For those of you who missed Sherlock's complaints about me on John's blog - we were both feeling pretty crap, so he was all cuddled up on me on the sofa, and accused me of breathing noisily and having an unnecessarily loud heartbeat.

In trying to persuade John to join me on the sofa now Sherlock's gone for an early night I promised to subdue any annoying bodily functions, and John said:

I don't know, your heart's pretty loud... Guess I'll risk it though.

Which just made me think of this. Lovely voice she's got - fantastic writer. Wish I had even a quarter of her talent. I sang it to John...very quietly. But you can have the proper version.

Sorry, not up to much more of an update than that. My eyeballs feel like they're trying to burrow into my skull.

And your mind, your tiny mind

After breakfast today we walked through the city a bit, discussing the killing room sat Smithfield (used to talk to a bloke who worked there - he said when it was new the killing rooms were 15' square. When he worked there they were 10' square because of all the blood and gore that was never cleaned off the walls - they only sluiced the floors.) Discussed when they used to drive the animals down to the market, through London, alive.

Then ended up near Monument - which none of us had ever climbed before, so we did.

It's got one friend, That's the undertaker

Today the weather has been horrible. Rain, rain, rain, some more rain... probably the last gasp of hurricane Sandy - we always get it a while later.

Anyway, this meant, as always, we had one seven year old, hopped up on life, confined within four walls.

And who wanted to make many things...cake, biscuits, milkshakes, a pie, a halo, wings, shoes with wings, a degu run the size of the flat, a fort, a maze, a sausage-making machine, a new dance move, some prog rock involving a violin and a guitar, a new no1 Christmas song, some streamers, and the stinkiest stink bombs in the world.

When faced with such a list, John came up trumps. And presented him with this: