Mistletoe's Musings

Hmmm. That lacks a certain oomph factor. It is certainly a grey day revealing little anyway. I can still see little bits of snow at the edge of the fields, so that in olde wives' terms means more to come. As long as it waits until late next week, I won't mind.

Small sports update. Sunderland now have two more injured players. David Meyler who just came back from a serious injury before Christmas, tore a knee ligament and is out for the season again. Poor lad. That will be over a year he has missed. At least he's young but he's such a good player with Henderson it limits our resources. Then Danny Welbeck tore his hamstring and that is usually a month to recover. So we now have around 10 first team players unavailable: You're only allowed 25 players plus youth team nowadays so we can barely get a bench out. At least it is the cup on Saturday. Bruce may wash his hands of that with all these injuries. We don't want our resources stretched any further.

Out: Turner, Welbeck, Meyler, Mensah, Cattermole, Onuoha, Campbell, and Zenden suspended after two yellow cards last night. All of them are starters or first alternate if someone is injured. I hope it doesn't scupper our best season in 10 years. We have had to shuffle all of the defence and we still have 11 clean sheets out of 22 games played. That is only equalld by Manchester City. It's better than Manchester Utd. and they are top!

The other news today is that Paul Collingwood is retiring from Test cricket from tomorrow, the last day of the Ashes series. It's a good way to go out and the best time as he has had a disappointing go with the bat this series. He is an excellent fielder though and that will be hard to replace. Also as a part time bowler it's nice that the last ball he bowled took the wicket of Michael Hussey who had been a thorn in England's side this series.






Now I'm sure you're all aware, because I tell you every time I post about him, that Paul was a pupil at the school where I worked and I knew him and his brother very well. In fact, the last time he was in school to do a bit of coaching, he recognised me and spoke. (I'm such a fangirl). So this feels like the end of an era as he is the last of the famous people who went to our school. Let's hope the Sports College status pays off in the future, because we were just an ordinary comprehensive when he attended. My friend Trevor, who I used to go to the football matches with, taught him the GCSE years and so he has got a pass in GCSE English should he need it.

David Gower was very complimentary about how well Paul spoke this morning when Nasser Hussein interviewd him and it was a really good honest self assessment of what he had achieved in his Test career including his short comings. He was never a fluent batsman and most of his innings were built on graft and determination. His best was a memorable 206 in Adelaide in the last Ashes tour when England were whitewashed 5 - 0. It was definitely the stand out moment in that terrible series. He has also taken some magnificent catches including one of many one handed leaps to get Ricky Ponting in the last test. Here are 3 examples to show the skill.






Good luck Paul, and I look forward to you turning out more for Durham this season. He might get to a few Sunderland matches too. He is a fan.

I didn't do a video on Sunday as it is a new year so I have changed my ways ;P. So here's one on a Wednesday instead!



I see Gerry Rafferty died, which is sad as it got me thinking about the 70s, when I was at school, then university, then work. What a packed decade that was! Sunderland won the FA Cup for one thing; I went to live in Cardiff, then Hull, then Whitby, then here, although that happened in the early 80s actually. I was working here in the 70s though, so it still counts.

I liked this song, and apparently, I still do.


There we are friends of the online variety. Doesn't matter that I've never met you, this song still stands.

Bonus icons as I'm in vintage mood.

                 

The workers in education went back today and I count this as my official 1 year anniversary of being retired. \0/. That year started being trapped in the house by the snowy weather, so it all felt somewhat surreal while the snow lay around in heaps for what seemed like weeks on end. None of that this year as the snow came in November and lay around for weeks on end. It was milder today, a heady 5 degrees, so I went to the parents' house and took mam to Morrison's to buy supplies for their New Year's Party at the Modern and Sequence Dance club they run on Thursday. My mam does the catering so there were salad stuffs and cheese and ingredients for coleslaw and Waldorf salad purchased in record time.

Came up home around teatime and I finished rewatching Downton Abbey. Great series. I see PBS are cutting 2 hours of it in case the American audience doesn't understand the entailment plot. No one understands the entailment plot. Basically it just means that the title can't be inherited by the female line: there must be a male heir. The only complication in this story is that the Lord's wife had her own fortune which became part of her husband's estate, so when he dies she will be penniless. It's all legal stuff and if it's not in then the presence of Matthew Crawley makes no sense. If you can, get the DVDs for the whole story as it was meant to be seen.



One or two recs today, written by friends or people I know of in the Bones crowd. I hope it's all right to pimp abroad. Still, as this is a friends only post, most of you will  know them already. Anyway, please say if you don't approve.

First one is a 3 chapter piece by bite_or_avoid . It is set after The End in the Beginning and is an AU look at what Booth's illness might have meant to Brennan once she had time to think about it.      Resonance 

This one by cupcakebean is a reminder of simpler times. It's called The Definition of Normal.

Finally, another AU by Anna that I think is so very clever because it all could have happened like that. The Road Not Traveled Leads to Here

If you haven't read them before, please do. If you have, give them another look to remind yourselves what great writers there are in the fandom. And feed the authors!

See you tomorrow.

Nice day. Only one friend out for lunch. I had a very tasty steak pie.





I feel in need of a Booth fix. In keeping with the current month's theme I'm going to look at who Booth encounters in Season 2 that could have been a friend, but wasn't.


( The real Seeley Booth: rivalries in the workplace. )

There will be a shorter coda to Season 2 to come.

RIP Pete Postlethwaite. He was a consummate actor, with a remarkable range, from Father Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet to Danny, a dying miner and brass band conductor in Brassed Off. He was Oscar nominated for his role in In the Name of the Father. I found him magnetic to watch.

Some language in this extract so NSFW. Here the colliery band have won the national championship at the Royal Albert Hall. His speech says it all.

I have had cheese and crackers for lunch Omnomnom. That may sound unappetising, but if I tell you the cheese was Bleu d'Auvergne and Camembert while the crackers were Asda's best quality and were charcoal and sesame and pumpkin seed you may see I was ingesting the food of the gods. Oh lovely.

Now, I've been on busy so here are a few icons and 2 friends only banners. I haven't made them before so the sizes may be all wrong. You can make them smaller I would imagine.


           

2011 that is. Flushed with the success of November NaBloPoMo I have decided to do it again. How rich my life must be.



That is the theme of the month, so I will attempt to mention friends, real and imaginary, each day.

Let's kick of with imaginary friends i.e. I think  of them as my friends and they don't even know I exist: my sporting heroes at Sunderland AFC. After a disappointing Christmas period with two defeats, order was restored today when my boys thrashed Blackburn 3 - 0. Another clean sheet marred only by the fact that my Fantasy Football defender Onuohua was unfit, so I didn't get 3 points there. However, the team did and that moves us up to 6th only 4 points behind Chelsea. Admittedly, we have played 2 more games than them, but one of their games in hand is against Man U and we've already played them twice.

The other good point about this was that all three forwards scored, so my man Darren Bent is back on the goal trail after firing blanks for 5 games. Yee ha. Danny Welbeck got the first and Gyan the third late on. We have the FA cup next week so a little respite and a chance for some players to get fit, although we have held our own with key players missing. Today we were without Turner (long term knee injury) and Lee Cattermole (suspended) yet still held out very well. We are away at Aston Villa midweek, who are sputtering so we could have a chance there. After the cup it's Newcastle at home. This is a key game after the drubbing we took at their place. Mind you that seemed to affect our lads very positively as we went on to thump Chelsea in our next away game. I am sure that Bruce wants to put things right for the fans at home though.

The next home game after that is Chelsea. I would be delighted if we could do the double over them. The other two key home games are Tottenham and Liverpool. Good results there and we have only Man City and Arsenal away that would worry me. Europe here we come? 5 of our last 10 games are against teams in the bottom 6 which have their own pitfalls when teams are desperate for points. However, we are not the old Sunderland who had nothing to play for, or relegation to stave off ourselves. This could be the start of something big!

Here are some silent highlights of the greatest night of football I ever witnessed at the Stadium of Light. 2 goals from Niall Quinn; 2 goals from Kevin Phillips (the first, one of the best goals I have ever seen live) in 1999 against the team that put 7 past us on the first day of that season. Memories are made of this.

Here's a fashion statement. Or something.....

Only two delivery days left before Monday so it looks like I won't be giving gifts this year. Damn you weather!!

Instead I'll have to pop over here and spread the love with virtual gifties.

Why not join in?




Take a break from those roasting chestnuts!

Booth needs to have his time in therapy finished off this week. The season is winding down and focus is once again on Bones, this time in her relationship with Sully, so Booth takes a back seat and I am looking for crumbs again.


( An analysis of Agent Seeley Booth: "Observation isn’t just seeing, Dr Wyatt, it’s experiencing. Ideally I'd prefer being inside Booth’s head. You know, seeing and feeling things the way he does. Then maybe I’d understand." )

The final bits of Season 2 will appear in the next edition of Booth A man for All Seasons. After that I feel there will be little to add in Season 3 beyond a refining of some information as the focus becomes more obviously based on the present relationship between Booth and Brennan. Season 4, however, is another matter.

Here are my entries for this month's challenge at bones20in20 . The chosen focus was Booth in Season 2.

Tasters:


( Booth in Season 2 for Bones20in20 Challenge )