Scary Story!

Halloween has prompted a new story on Quirky Tales today. It's a creepy one, called 'Night Walking' - that should give you a pretty good idea! It comes with a warning: it's not one for the young or the nervous. Read at your own risk!
http://www.quirkytales.co.uk/stories/nightwalking.php
Hope you enjoy it, and remember, it's only a story!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is fast approaching. My favourite aspect of the festival is the smell of the Jack-O-Lanterns once their candles have been burning for a while. 

We carved ours this afternoon, with a certain degree of stressing, muttering and the odd bad word on my part! Hopefully they're suitably spooky without being scary enough to terrify the little children.

Property of the Week

Here's some good news for those FTSE100 company bosses who are no doubt puzzling over where to invest this year's stonking great pay rises: Santo Spirito, an island in the Laguna Venezia is up for sale, and what's more, they only want 20 million euros for it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-27/yours-for-28-million-venice-island-with-its-own-convent-ruin.html
Seems like a bargain to me, there are probably few better places to witness the excitement of rising sea levels, and you get your own ruined convent too!

Lapland: Heart of the Social Network

Facebook is opening a data centre in Lapland. Apparently the location was chosen for its natural cooling abilities - data centres get pretty hot, Lapland gets pretty cold, Facebook can use Lapland's cold to stop their data centre getting too hot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15477194
It all makes perfect sense, but I just can't quite square it with my image of snow dusted trees, sleighs and reindeer.

MOD PR Machine?

I think the MOD needs to take some beginners' lessons in public relations. Or possibly they could be held up as an example in such lessons of how not to do it. The family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan have been told they must repay £400 worth of wages that their loved one received before his death.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15464889
Makes you so proud, doesn't it? Good to know we take such good care of our soldiers and their families!

Dear Father Christmas ...

Ahh, how I remember that excitement of the countdown to Christmas. As I gazed at all those windows on my advent calendar on the 1st December it seemed as though the big day might never arrive. And the presents I dreamed of, longed for! Lego, colouring pencils, perhaps a new tractor for my toy farm, bits and bobs of stationery all wrapped in bright paper - all the things that made a Christmas stocking wonderful.
The Toy Retailers' Association has drawn up a list of this year's must haves and I suspect Santa is sitting in his grotto, shaking his head sadly and wondering where it all went wrong. Of course there are the expected items, Lego, dolls, Fireman Sam, but also prominent on the list is 'Doggy Doo' - a game where the players have to scoop as much plastic dog poop as possible. How very festive!
The least said about the toys that play themselves, such as the never-ending stream of robots and dancing animals, the better. I always hated that sort of thing. I wanted to play, not sit and watch!
So, my Christmas list for this year (just in case Father Christmas is following) pens and pencils, more notepads (I keep filling mine up, then forgetting where I've put them), an old fashioned family game (please, no dog poop), a nice box of jellied fruit, and a good book. I'd ask for Lego, but I suspect Father Christmas might think me a little too old for that now!

For this year's predicted Christmas list click the link, and start saving - the price range is £20 - £90!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15449862

A Residence fit for a Dormouse

I tried to resist, honestly I did, but some things are just too cute to pass up:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-15443687
An excellent use for a pumpkin, in my opinion. I may opt for making a dormouse home out of mine this year, and forget about the Jack-O-Lantern!