When I was 47...

Sometimes I wear a BIGGER hat

I've just suffered my 48th birthday so this year, as every year, I'm totting up a list of all the things I've done for the FIRST TIME EVA. Am I getting old? You decide!

When I was 47, for the very first time...

• I got a speeding citation, goddamnit. It was the end of a five-hour drive and I got clocked literally one minute from my home, doing 35 in a 30 m.p.h. zone.

•  I put up Xmas lights outside my house:

A strong sign of old age...

•  I acquired a tablet. I played Plants vs. zombies all the way through! It's pretty much the only thing I've done with the tablet, I admit, apart from use the lovely lovely sat nav :-)

• I rode a Segway, and loved it.

• I decided I liked Marmite after all, and that scones taste best with just butter.

• I met Shanna Germain at last! (And visited the British Library on the same day)

• I grew a beard. Not just one beard either. It's amazing how fast I got used to it.

• I gave up on IPL. It doesn't work (for me).

• I recorded a couple of podcasts. Well, other people did the actual recording. I just talked.

• I set up Amazon Author Pages ... (more stuff to fail to maintain, frankly)

• I had my back garden covered in plastic lawn. You have no idea how much I love it, now winter is here.

• I visited Carcassonne in France, and the island of Bermuda - where I SWAM IN CAVE!

• I visited the awesomely wonderful Talliston House and crawled under the sideboard there.

• I bought an eyepencil sharpener. They are not just the same as normal pencil sharpeners, it turns out, and are well worth it if you use eyeliner. Who knew, eh?

• I watched a pig race.

•  I played Plants vs. Zombies - the first computer game I've ever downloaded and played all on my own.

• I finally managed to see Deliverance and The Big Lebowski.

• I paid £8.55 for a glass of wine in a hotel bar. Jeez. I'm still suffering flashbacks.

• I ate a gin-and-tonic flavoured cupcake!

• I kept a phenology log.

• I took up oasis sculpting:

It's not the best medium to make sarcophagi out of, tbh.

PLUS:

Having spent all 2012-3 writing Cover Him with Darkness, Fierce Enchantments and Summer Seduction, which went one by one to three different publishers ... In 2014 I saw them all published within a month of each other. *rolls eyes*

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.