Happy Birthday 'Petra!

 Dear 'Petra's in London this evening, having managed to get Kylie to perform especially for his birthday. I believe Kylie acquiesced rather easily, probably as she didn't fancy a repeat of last time's tongue-depressing/kidnapping/drowning/boob-punching.

 Anyway, looks like our 'Petra's got the half-time refreshments all sorted out:
 

Just out of shot: 'Petra, on her back (quelle surprise) under the Champagne cooler with her mouth open.

 When you come up for air, 'Petra: Happy birthday! We hope you have a fabulous day.

The Pudding Debacle*

I know, it's not Hallowe'en yet, but I've been reading through some old Coven blog posts and stumbled across this horror from 'Petra:

Cooking for dummies - The 12 step programme

The Elephant Man in chocolate pudding form?

V for Vienetta Vendetta!

It's almost enough to put one off chocolate for life (and the afterlife).

Here's what some of us thought at the time:

Come back this time next week for another 'Petra-fying adventure 

(or possibly a little earlier as it's nearly 10pm now...)

* Post title from here.

 

Mindgrapes

Witch Fingers
Not to be confused with Mindgrapes

 What are they?

 What do they do?

 Are they bunches of ideas waiting to ripen?

 Is there the possibility that they'll ferment into wine?

A dangerous career change?

 Inexcuseable's got herself a new job.

 She'll be working at the vetinary surgery up the road. I'm not sure that this is a very good idea due to the unusual pets people seem to keep around here. I think it's something to do with the couple of Cusp portals in the area that have worn a bit thin. Although I can't think how this happened...

* cough cough *

Who's a pretty boy, then?

 Ahem. Anyway, for starters, and just around the corner on the Northrepps road, there's Mrs Patel's herd of cow. Yes, that's correct: cow singular. It's technically just the one cow but with 16 heads and eleven tails. Don't even ask how many udders. Milking that thing is a nightmare, or so I've been told.
 Then there's number 34's griffin. Usually it's pretty placid as long as it's got enough cuttlebone and a dangling mirror to peck at. Most people in the neighbourhood know not to leave their kids and/or pets in the garden unsupervised when its cage is being cleaned out (and we know when this is about to occur due to the delivery of a lorry-load of industrial strength sandpaper to line the bottom of the massive cage).

 I hear they also de-flea Black Shuck and try and get a de-worming tablet down his throat every six months or so. So far they've only lost two nurses, which is a pretty acceptable loss if you ask me. Ooh, I wonder if that's why Inexcuseable's got the job...?

 

Something from the garden...

Echinops

Cleome

Foxglove

Dahlia

Gaura

Zantedeschia

... while we're waiting for MJ to return and host her

annual Garden Photos Event.

 

Sure you want to let Mr Fabulous drive?*

 Continuing from where we left off, only without the details of how I came about these books, or why I decided to read them as they're all sequels or part of an ongoing series.
 

20. Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde
 This is the second of the Thursday Next novels. In this one, Literary Detective Thursday Next has to deal with her arch nemesis' sister, Aornis Hades; the elimination of her husband from time; Great Expectations' Miss Haversham's driving; surviving a book sale; and indeed getting lost in not one, but several books, good or otherwise.
 Much like the first and seventh books in the series, this one is clever, bittersweet, touching, well paced and, perhaps most importantly: easy to get lost in! I can barely wait to start on the third one: The Well of Lost Plots.

21. Second Nature (Star Trek: Seekers 1), by David Mack
 This is the first of a new series of Star Trek novels: Seekers. It follows on from the events in the Vanguard novel series and the final episode of The Original Series.
 Rather unusually, Seekers was inspired by the faux cover art of Rob Caswell, who was in turn inspired by the cover art of James Blish's Star Trek novelisations from the '60s and '70s. 

* Post title from page 31

22. Dragonquest, by Anne McCaffrey
 This book almost had me in floods: The despair and loss of the queen dragons Wirenth and Prideth as they went Between forever, and the resultant heartache and numbness of poor Weyrwoman Brekke, Wirenth's rider. Then there was the joy of young Lord Jaxom helping the runt white dragon Ruth hatch from his shell only to Impress him.
 When this book was good, it was very, very good, but when it was bad, it was horrid bland. While re-reading this book, I realised that character development seems to be something reserved only for some of the main stars, such as F'nor & Canth, Brekke and, to a lesser extent, F'lar & Mnementh, Lessa, Lytol and Robinton. Poor Kylara emerges from her single dimension only when alone with her dragon Prideth, and she's promptly ignored once Prideth dies. I think there has been a missed opportunity to deal with why Kylara was such a self-absorbed, manipulative cow! At least she got a second dimension, however briefly. The majority of Lord Holders (Meron et el) seem to be steeple-fingered, cackling, evil charactures. Mr Burns certainly wouldn't be out of place as a Lord Holder of Pern!
 I'm still going to re-read the rest of this series of books, though. 

23. Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found) (Star Trek: Deep Space 9), by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann
 Meh. This tale revolving around Quark was OK. It didn't bring anything new to his character, though. Instead, it delved into the whys and wherefores of the Vulcan Love Slave holoprogram, something that I feel would have best been left to our imaginations - a bit like the Noodle Incident was never explained in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip.

Next: The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde and The White Dragon, by Anne McCaffrey