the weather is abnormal.sea the wave is big and flowing rapidly. sea swimming of prohibition against

I've got some Christmas shopping done! Not all of it, but a large chunk. I've also got some Christmas cards, and I've got my brother's birthday present. \o/ And on the subject of Christmas, seshat1 made me this Santa hat icon! It's a bit early for holiday icons yet but I had to use it!

I've been spending quite a bit of time recently converting my old cassette tapes to mp3's (that's what I was doing when I wrecked the sound card in my laptop). They're not any old cassette tapes - they're my Story Teller tapes from the early 80's and I don't want to lose them forever when the tapes finally give up the ghost, so I thought I'd get them onto CDs. Did any of the UKers on my f-list have them as a kid? (I know my anonymous lurker friend did.) They were 'a collection of the world's best children's stories' which were out fortnightly and they came with an illustrated magazine so you could read along with the story. I'm sure that my love of reading and stories came from having these from the age of about two. They were my first exposure to loads of classic stories - Gobbolino, the Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Heidi, the Happy Prince, the Anansi stories and so many others. Grogre the Ogre was my absolute favourite though - when I was three, the nursery nurse asked me what I was painting and I told her that it was a slime monster with tentacles. Hee! I'm having such fun listening to them again.

And finally, a hilarious Engrish sign about swimming at the beach.