The Girdle of Melian

nnouncing... Tolkien Reading Day , hosted by the Tolkien Society ! This year's theme is friendship, and the Society's page features videos from various scholars reading some of their favourite passages on that theme. Some of them are my favourites too, and I've always loved Leaf by Niggle . During the 2012 A to Z Challenge I blogged about my favourite books and quoted one of the lines I love ("'and my companion, who, alas! is overcome with weariness' - here he gave the other a dig with his foot"), which also happens to relate to friendship. Those moments of levity are always heartwarming. Here's another of my favourites: "Merry smiled. 'Well then,' he said, 'if Strider will provide what is needed, I will smoke and think. I had some of Saruman's best in my pack, but what became of it in the battle, I am sure I don't know.' 'Master Meriadoc,' said Aragorn, 'if you think that I have passed through the mou

eposting an oldie today in honour of the United Nations International Day of Happiness ! The International Day of Happiness recognizes "the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives." "You can participate in the International Day of Happiness by sharing your happiest song on the HappySoundsLike website and also through Twitter at #HappySoundsLike." I shared a couple of songs on Twitter , but here I go reposting some other great songs, from the 30 Day Song Challenge I did in 2011: ne month can go by really really quickly when you're doing one of those 30 day challenges! The 30 Day Song Challenge Day 1 - Your favourite song One song? How does anyone pick one song? Let's ignore the regular stuff altogether and go with Bilbo's Bath Song by J R R Tolkien : "Sing hey! for the bath at close of day /

ell, I've done it. I've deleted the list of 180 Books to Read by 2015 that had sat on the side of my blog for so many years. The original list came about when I finally catalogued our library, and made a list of the 180 books we owned (mostly) that I still hadn't read. Have I now read all the books? No. But there are extenuating circumstances, I swear! Mainly, of course, we moved, and many of these books are now in storage far, far away. Of course, for some of them, there is no excuse, as I could be reading the e-book version. I've added a new list below the 180 of " Books from the 180 that I still want to read ". The ones I haven't brought, I'll have to find e-versions of. This post is text heavy -- if you'd rather skip it, my previous post has photos of France! And feel free to skip over the German and Turkish and French titles. Here're the original 180 Books to Read by 2015 : 1. Austen, Jane Emma 2. Aiken, Henry David The age of

aytripping! Last weekend we visited Grenoble, France, a town in the Rhone-Alps region. Grenoble has a long history; one thing I learned is that it was the centre of glove-making for many hundreds of years. View from our hotel on the square. I tweeted about the brass band that was playing there in the afternoon Another view from our balcony Fountain inaugurated in 1897 to "commemorate the pre-revolutionary events of June 1788. Built by the sculptor Henri Ding, the Fountain of the Three Orders, which represents three characters, is located on the Place Notre-Dame. People in Grenoble interpret these characters as follows: 'Is it raining?' inquires the third estate; 'Please heaven it had[has?] rained,' laments the clergy; and 'It will rain,' proclaims the nobility" (Wikipedia) Les Bulles, or the bubbles, the telepherique taking visitors up to the Bastille (not that one!) A Canadian restaurant! Santa's sti