* The French - not all of them, just the ones who barricaded the port of Calais. My MacBook is trying to get through, asshats.

* Blogger - they may be free, but moving to Blogger Beta has ballsed up my individual post pages. They no longer publish with a .html suffix, which means that the links from my feed don’t work either. Oh, and Blogger Help didn’t reply to my mail.

* My hair - it’s just blah again and I don’t know what to do with it.

Today is Stir Up Sunday, the day when you traditionally make the Christmas Pudding. Everyone has stir of the big bowl of dried fruit, spices and alcohol and makes a wish before the mixture is packed into the pudding basin and cooked.

However, Sam made a fleet of puddings last year, so this year we’ll be eating one she made and have no need to make our own today. Typical, one of the few years we actually remember that it’s Stir Up Sunday before it’s too late and we don’t need to do any stirring.

I still wanted to do something festive today though, having had my seasonal merriment awakened by Soulemama’s pretty window arrangement. I saw this soft tree on BellaBlue’s Flickr stream and decided to have a go at making one myself. The simple pattern is available from Little Birds Handmade.

This is my first attempt - not bad, I thought. The fabric is from the sleeve of an old party dress and the gold beads (on wires) are from some Christmas crackers from last year. There’s enough red material to make another tree and I have some other different coloured scraps lined up too…

The realisation that I’m no longer 18-24. Oh, the pain. I so very nearly clicked the “Prefer not to say” button.

Christina wanted to know 10 things…

1. It seems that I’m a total lightweight. I’ve finally found a way of drinking coffee that I actually enjoy (milky and with 2 sugars), but with each small cup I consume I get this little buzz that makes me feel as though everything’s alright with the world. Then that passes and all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep.

2. I’m back into knitting for the Dulaan Project. Having received a variety of balls of wool for my birthday (including two enormous 400g balls from Suzy), I couldn’t resist going to eBay to see what I could find and bought 3 balls of this to share with Mum.

3. I need new glasses, but choosing frames is not my favourite way of whiling away the hours. Maybe I’ll get Lauren to do it for me, she seems to enjoy it.

4. Every now and again (heh, usually after reading blogs) I decide that I’m going to change x, y and z in my life, or in my approach to life. But because I never know exactly what x, y and z represent, it doesn’t get done and I bumble on as before.

5. There’s a pile of work receipts on my desk. I’d like to think that I’ll file them away soon. Actually, that’s not quite true. I’d like to think that someone else will file them away soon.

6. I ordered my new MacBook some time ago and she arrived the day before my birthday. However, while she was on her way to me Apple brought out the new MacBooks with faster processors. I didn’t unpack the laptop and arranged a return with Apple, who were incredibly helpful. I explained that I only wanted to return the machine in order to get the newer, better version and they waived the restocking fee.

7. The refund of the cost of that original machine cleared on my credit card today, so I’ve just ordered the new one. I’m getting a faster processor and a 20GB larger hard drive … and saving £235. Worth the wait I think.

8. I keep trying to come up with a grand idea that will net me millions with very little work. Unfortunately, inspiration has not yet struck.

9. Mince pies from Asda supermarket are delicious and this year we’ve made an executive decision that we don’t need to wait until December to start gorging ourselves on them. Roll on shopping day!

10. For someone who likes to talk about herself so much, finding ten things of interest is surprisingly difficult.

So, today I wrote a post. Then I thought I’d wait until I’d finished loading all my photos onto Flickr before I published it. Then I had to restart my machine. Only, I hadn’t published the post. Bum, tit and willy, say I. Now let’s see if I can recreate the magic that I denied you in my forgetfulness…

I went for a walk yesterday and although I didn’t go very far, I was a bit knackered on my return home. I need to get back into the habit of going on my meandering walks. Though finding some less muddy routes would be a good idea now that winter is here and sticking itself to my boots with gay abandon. Is it winter yet? Or is it still autumn? I have no idea.

I had gone out for the express purpose of admiring the beech trees that overhang a particular path and they were indeed resplendant in their autumnal colours. However the photos I took of them couldn’t help being remarkably similar to those I took in the same place last year (actually 1 year and 2 days before!). I was thus cheered as I came down a farm track to meet some new models to pose for my camera.

In the field to my right were a group of little goats, who were delightfully inquisitive and keen to stare at me. One brown and white beauty was also satisfyingly keen to do said staring while posing in the perfect afternoon sunshine.

Then on my left was a field accommodating a few Shetland ponies and a donkey. Having shied away from me at first the donkey soon returned to the fence after seeing that I was making a fuss of the sweet white Shetland. The animals seemed to enjoy the company of their paparazzo visitor (despite my lack of sugar lumps) - and posed just as beautifully as the goats.

Click for the set

I really do need to hurry the hell up and finish telling you about my travels which took place, let’s see, 5 months ago. After all, I have vague wafty plans to be a favourite with a different set of sailors next year and it would be nice to think I’d finished my Ecuadorian tales before then. So, where were we? We’d visited the market and now we were off to the next stop.

Sofia took us to the home of a musical family in Peguche. Sr. Alfonso welcomed us and we sat on low benches at the rear of his house while he demonstrated various traditional instruments peculiar to the region. His two young daughters then appeared dressed in traditional costume and danced for us. Sofia must have been to the house many times, but she couldn’t raise a smile from either of the girls, “they’re so serious” she told us.

After the demonstrations were over we were free to take photos and admire (and buy) the many instruments hanging on the walls. Suzy and I bought a bracelet each - mine with green beads, Suzy’s with cream. There was also a CD available of the music played by the group “Nanda Manachi”, of which Sr. Alfonso is a member. That’s something I wish I’d bought.

On the way home in the minibus rain fell for a while and then we were suddenly treated to an enormous rainbow spanning the valley below. I tried to take a few photos through the window as we went along before Sofia spotted me and the bus driver pulled over to let me out to get a proper shot. I thought it wonderful how both in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands our guides were so keen for us to take photographs of what we were seeing, or to take photographs of us in our new surroundings. Incidentally, the Ecuadorians also believe in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - and you shouldn’t point at a rainbow either, or it will go rotten.

We were dropped back at the hotel and as we began to pack our things for the next day’s flight home, Suzy and I kept stopping to stare at each other, asking “can you believe how much we saw today?”. After shoving what we could back into our big rucksacks we headed out into the town to get some food. We went straight to the same restaurant as the night before. A nice lady was our host this time, helping me with the menu. I ordered ricotta ravioli in a tomato, mushroom and mozarella sauce … and just typing that makes me want to go back.

After a while the same couple who had been in the restaurant the night before came in. We greeted each other, amused at our respective returns to the same trough. Portishead were on the TV on the counter behind me for a while, but then the show changed to The Corrs live at the Albert Hall. I bopped along happily to the music while I ate.

After eating our fill we paid the bill and had stood up to leave when The Corrs started to play “Runaway”. I informed Suzy that I couldn’t leave and grinned at the restaurant lady, saying “one more!” As we sat watching the performance, she came over to us and said, “This is for both of you as you’re going home tomorrow” and laid a highly dubious-looking copy of the DVD that was playing on our table. Such a sweet gesture and it plays fine once you get past the slightly scrambled menu.

Finally we left the restaurant and the guy at the window table called to us “Hasta mañana!”. ‘Fraid not, I thought. We’ll be up in the skies when you’re sitting at your table tomorrow.