Anna's PALS

Making a start...

2012-01-07T17:29:00.002Z

In an effort to both 1) keep up with my one and only New Years resolution and 2) try not to fall behind on putting issues of PALS together, I have spent a decent part of this weekend starting Issue 46 of PALS and writing letters - and even posting those letters!

Issue 46 of PALS won't be a Special Issue, so there'll be a range of articles to read. I've made a start by putting together the Creature Feature article, the text of which is kindly written for me by one of my pals. Which means all I had to do was find some images. The text for this Creature Feature is pretty short, so I thought it would look good to include more than just the standard image. In hunting for pictures I came across a really beautiful one, so I hope everybody else likes it as much as I do when the next issue of PALS is released! That won't be until the end of Feb though, so you'll have a bit of a wait..

Also, don't be surprised if you hear from me asking for contributions to a couple of articles over the next few weeks. I know what I'd like to include but can think of a few people who are better placed to write them than me - mostly because they know more than I do! Hopefully if you're one of those people you'll be as enthusiastic as I am about the ideas I have.

On to my New Years resolution... which was basically not to take forever to reply to my pals when they write to me. Last year some people were waiting 8+ months for a reply from me, which is truly rubbish. Just to clarify - I understand when people do that to me, and don't mind at all. I know we're all busy. But when I leave it that long I feel really bad! So of the four letters I received over Christmas, I've now replied to two and have two left. I'm aiming to reply to any letter I get within a month, and within 3 months at the outside. I needed to have something of a realistic goal to force me to do it, and also didn't want to reply to people so quickly that I had no real news to give. I figure something interesting usually happens within 1-3 months! Anyway, so far, so good. But then it is only Jan 7th...

Issue 45 online

2011-12-29T22:51:00.000Z

Having just looked at my PALS blog, I feel a little guilty. The last time I posted was two months ago, when Issue 44 was released. In fairness, I've not had much to say since then. Issue 45 was relatively easy to put together, as it is mostly all about our trip to Cuba last December. And whilst I've spent a lot of time watching movies (see my Anna's Films blog), and doing other useful things like attempting to buy a house, I've not spent a lot of time thinking about, or working on, issues of PALS.

I would claim that writing more blog posts will become a New Years resolution - but my one and only, related, resolution this year is to be far more efficient at answering my pals letters. I aim to answer any letters preferably within a month, but certainly within three. I figure that's far more important than blog posts, and don't want to make so many other resolutions that I can't stick to that one!

Anyway, on to the point of this post - Issue 45 is now ready and online! As already mentioned, this Jan/ Feb issue is a Cuba Special. I hope you enjoy it.

Issue 44 online

2011-10-29T23:37:00.002+01:00

Issue 44 of PALS is online. This issue has something of a photo theme, with two pages dedicated to photos! The first follows our 'gorilla trail' around Bristol back in August of this year, whilst the second is a selection of Christmas photos from 2010. And that brings us on to the second theme of this issue - Christmas and New Year. As well as the photo page, the Events section focuses on New Year. The Calendar of Events has now run for a full two years, so PALS is going back to focusing on specific events each issue.

And there's more... you can also read about the Malayan Flying Lemur in this issue's Creature Feature, and learn more about the movie Mary and Max and how it's related to penpalling. If you've never heard of the movie and enjoy penpalling, it's definitely worth a read!

Enjoy the issue and look out for Issue 45 when it's released in late December.

Photos of Canada finally online

2011-10-08T01:22:00.003+01:00

As promised last weekend, I've finally got around to adding some of our photos from our trip to Canada to our photos website. I especially love the ones from Algonquin National Park, so scroll down to the bottom of the page to see those ones!

I've also started writing a piece on our trip to Canada - I'm only a quarter way through, having just finished writing about our time in Toronto, but that's another job for me this weekend!

Five things... Canada

2011-10-02T22:29:00.000+01:00

It's taken me a week to write this (things have just been a bit busy), but here are my five things about our trip to the east coast of Canada in September:

1. A great atmosphere and brilliant movies at the Toronto International Film Festival
2. Properly mulitlingual cities where you could happily speak French or English
3. Some great traditional food and drink - maple syrup, ice wine, ice cider...
4. A chance for me to drive abroad, on the wrong side of the road and in an automatic car, for the first time
5. Stunning scenery in Algonquin National Park

I've also not yet had the chance to write a piece about our trip, or sort through/ upload any photos. They are coming though - hopefully by next weekend!

Issue 43 online

2011-08-28T16:41:00.004+01:00

Issue 43 of PALS, the third and final Spain Special, is now online. The issue follows our journey through the South of Portugal, from Faro, to Zahara de los Atunes in Spain, where a friend's wedding took place. As usual, there is also a calendar of events on page 2.

This newsletter was a fairly easy one to put together as I had a lot of the content already - the only stressful thing was getting the pages to look right in web browsers! Some strategic use of tables and giving up and starting again, thankfully, fixed a lot of the problems...

A week in the life...

2011-07-31T19:29:00.000+01:00

Bit of a tenuous link to PALS here, but some of you may remember Issue 24 - A Week in the Life Of... Special, where 3 people (a careworker, an English teacher in South Korea and an office worker) blogged about their weeks at work. Well, Library Day in the Life Round 7 is basically the same idea, but designed for librarians to tell other people what they do via their blog, Twitter, photos, videos - or any other way they can think of. You have to tell people about a specific week though - the dates for Round 7 were 25 July 2011 to 31 July 2011.

So, I tweeted about my week. If you're curious and not a Twitter user, what I said is below (times are guestimates):

Sunday 24 July, 7pm
Just back from a family-filled weekend in Exeter - getting ready to spend a week tweeting about my role as repo manager for #libday7

Monday 25 July
7.30am: Off to Leicester Uni to chat to repo manager and team about technical skills you need when working with repositories #libday7

5.30pm: Not had much of a chance to tweet today as busy meeting the Leicester Uni repo team. Useful day-learnt lots! More tweets this eve #libday7

9.30pm: Spent this morning learning about Leicester's repository - academics add research papers, then viewable by anyone searching Google #libday7

9.35pm: Reassured that many repository managers have web developer help - us managers know a bit about editing web pages, but not a lot! #libday7

9.45pm: Had interesting conversation with Leicester staff about challenges of integrating repository with a university-wide research system #libday7

9.55pm: Caught up with #CILIP Update on train – reading articles on digital preservation & how researchers discover things with metadata #libday7

10pm: Long day today: Leicester is 3 hours train ride from Bristol. Tired, but got lots of useful advice. Back in the office tomorrow #libday7

Tuesday 26 July
8.45am: Planning on catching up with those e-mails I've been avoiding and putting together slides for library teaching sessions #libday7

10.15am: Brain working overtime - have never delivered library induction sessions before so learning as I go! #libday7

12.30pm: Phew! Finished sample searches for new student inductions. Steep learning curve. Now, what about that repository?... #libday7

13.30pm: Transcribing an interview with an academic for Open Access week: 24-28 Oct (being prepared)! Still not dealt with those 75 e-mails #libday7

16.50pm: Wow! Fried brain today - thinking hard! Off to Cardiff libraries tomorrow for Assistant Librarians Away Day, but off home now #libday7

Wednesday 27 July
8.45am: Stood at bus stop waiting for the minibus to Cardiff to visit libraries there. Nice change from the day job! #libday7

Midday: Just had interesting tour of National Assembly of Wales and it's library. It's a different world to HE! Now enjoying the sunshine. #libday7

13.30pm: Lunch and a meeting in the park. If only all work days could be this relaxed! #libday7

16.00pm: Just visited Cardiff central library. Very colourful, great ideas -makes me want to live there so I can use it! Back 2 Bristol now. #libday7

Thursday 28 July
9.30am: Just had a quick e-mail catch up and now testing out the LIFE predictive costing tool for digital preservation #libday7

11.30am: Just finished showing our work experience student how to check if we can to add full text of published PDFs to the repository #libday7

15.45pm: Had a 1-2-1 meeting with repository adminsitrator, now transcribing interviews for Open Access week again - not a quick task! #libday7

Friday 29 July
10.30am: Finished transcribing interviews, talked to work experience student about advocacy material. Really need to tackle those emails now #libday7

16.15pm: Had a quiet day today. Said bye to a colleague who is going to work at another campus, and finally caught up with some e-mails! #lidbay7

Saturday 30 July
10.30am: No work tweets today. I work in a uni library, but not on any desks, so I get weekends off. Off to visit friends in Birmingham! #libday7

Now I'm wondering if this could make it into a future issue of PALS, in one form or another...?

Now working on Issue 43

2011-07-16T16:47:00.000+01:00

I've finally made a start on Issue 43 of PALS - this will be the third in the Southern Spain series this year (Issue 39 and Issue 41 are numbers one and two in the series). This issue is going to cover our road trip to Portugal and Southern Spain in September 2010. It's still in the process of being put together, but to give you a taster of what it will include here are my "five things" for this trip:

1. Impossible-to-find Portuguese campsites
2. Beautiful, but extremely busy with a festival atmosphere, Ronda
3. Driving through stunning mountain passes in Southern Spain
4. The beautiful long, sandy beaches in Tavira, Bolonia and Zahara de Los Atunes
5. A beautiful wedding ceremony in stunning surroundings with far too much food!

Issue 42 online

2011-06-25T23:30:00.003+01:00

Issue 42 of PALS is now online and ready to read. This issue features articles on Paris, the Emperor Angelfish and a PALS Q and A on the length of your letters. It was relatively easy to upload this time - the only thing I really had a problem with was adding links to the picture credit on the Creature Feature page. However, this seems to be because the pages the credit is meant to link to no longer exist - if this is wrong my apologies to the photographer! For now I've removed the direct links but left the references there, just in case.

I hope you enjoy the read and PALS 43, the third and final Spain Special, will be released at the end of August 2011.

Anna's Library Thoughts

2011-06-20T16:27:00.005+01:00

This isn't related to PALS at all, but I thought I'd let you know I now have another blog. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

I created the blog as a result of the "cpd23" course that's just started running, and is aimed at library and information professionals. The idea behind it (well, MY idea behind my new blog) is that it's a place for all the professional-type things I wouldn't want to include on my other (and quite frankly, more fun) blogs. Although obviously I'll do what they tell me to as part of the cpd23 course too - and that'll form the majority of posts on that blog, at least for the first couple of months.

Although I'm already failing because "Thing 2" is to read other people's blogs, comment on them and reflect on who you've met in the blog-o-sphere. I'm totally daunted by this because there are so many blogs, and I'd have no idea what to write as a comment on any of them. I read lots of people's blogs but don't tend to comment unless I really feel I have something worthwhile to say. Presumably this paragraph actually belongs on my new blog, but I feel safer writing it in what I view as a more friendly, familiar environment!

Anyway, if you are a librarian/ information professional/ interested/ sucker for punishment, you can view the blog at Anna's Library Thoughts.

PALS Issue 42... nearly there

2011-06-12T00:36:00.003+01:00

I'm just in the process of finishing writing Issue 42 of PALS, ready to upload it in a couple of weeks time. In this issue, I've managed to include an article about our recent trip to Paris, which is good for two reasons:

1) I get to relive our trip to Paris, which I really, really enjoyed! I was shying away from writing the article because I thought it would be hard work, but I actually enjoyed re-reading about it. And it wasn't really hard work at all!

2) I've actually managed to write about a trip we've made in the last 6 months in an issue of PALS, meaning it's a pretty up-to-date article. It usually takes me years! I could have included an article about Venice, which we only visited last month, but I have quite a few articles on Italy now so am hoping to turn them into a future issue...

Anyway, look out for the Paris article, amongst other things, in Issue 42 which should appear before the end of June.

Venice photos

2011-05-28T23:24:00.004+01:00

OK, I admit it's taken a while to get these on-line... but we've been a bit busy since we got back from Venice! I've finally had an evening spare though, so have managed to upload some of my favourite Venice photos. Other than it taking a while (as usual - I guess that's just what happens when you have to look through, choose, resize, organise and upload photos) it was actually a fairly painless process this time around - even photobucket has restored itself to be easy to use! Possibly even easier than it used to be...

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics!

Five things... Venice

2011-05-18T16:22:00.002+01:00

So, we just got back from Venice yesterday. Here's my list of five things that I think sum up our few days there:

1. Not knowing anywhere near enough Italian to communicate with the apartment owner or speak any complex sentences. At least I could order beer and wine.
2. The incredibly peaceful feeling of floating along the canals on a gondola ride
3. The massive number of bridges everywhere you went. We counted walking over 40 one day
4. Not having to deal with any cars at all
5. How expensive everything is in Venice – to sitting down in a café to drink beer, to paying for the toilets, to the cost of the museums

I've managed to write a piece about our trip for a future issue of PALS, which I'm planning to add to an Italy Special (we've visited enough times now so I can create one fairly easily). Although there is still another Spain Special to come this year so it might not appear for a while yet...

Photos are also on their way, but have yet to be sorted through!

Press Release: Call for Contributions for Issue 42

2011-05-01T00:22:00.002+01:00

HOW LONG ARE YOUR LETTERS?

For the PenPal Q and A to appear in Issue 42 of PALS I’m asking you to tell me how long the letters you write - and the ones you receive – are. This issue is due to be released at the end of June, and any comments I get will make it into the article.

I’m also asking if you have any ideas for future PenPal Q and A articles. Is there anything you’d like to know about pen palling that other people do? Or anything you’d like to say? Any and all ideas are welcome!

If you’d like to respond to anything above, just respond to this post and let me know. It doesn’t matter if what you have to say takes a sentence, a paragraph or a page!

With thanks, and in anticipation...

Anna

Issue 41 on-line

2011-04-30T23:54:00.003+01:00

Issue 41 of PALS, the second of this year's Spain Specials, is now on-line. Uploading it wasn't too tough this time round - the problems were the same as normal, so at least we now know how to fix them. Although Publisher clearly still isn't the best thing for the job... The main problem was finding the time to do it. Enjoy the issue!

New Poetry: Ending

2011-04-24T23:37:00.005+01:00

I've now updated my poetry website... for the last time. At least for a while! A number of my poems have now made it onto the website, and, mostly due to my inability to be very prolific in my poetry-writing in the last few years, I've decided to leave the poetry website static for the foreseeable future. There's a bit more info on the Welcome page of the poetry site.

For now though, I've added a few new poems (just four this time), all with an "ending" theme (some are rather more blatant than others). I hope you enjoy what's there!

Fixed

2011-03-15T21:40:00.002Z

I noticed earlier today that some of the links to our Photos Homepage (on the pages for pictures of specific things - e.g. on the "Paris, France Photos" webpage) linked back to an old Photos Home Page. This wasn't exactly a problem because all the links still worked (meaning you never ended up being taken to a broken link), but it was wrong because I've updated the Photos Homepage a number of times since then!

The problem was simply that I'd renamed the Photos Homepage and failed to rename the link. It was easy enough to fix, so now all the links take you back to the right Photos Homepage! In the process I discovered a couple of out-of-date statements (things like "we live in Aberdeen" and "Anna works at the Audit Commission"), so have updated them as well!

Paris photos

2011-03-12T17:09:00.004Z

Well, it's taken 3 hours, but I've finally got around to looking at, organising, choosing and uploading photos from our trip to Paris to our website.

Note to self: steel yourself if using Photobucket. It's "improved" it's website so it's impossible to find/ do anything easily.
Note to Dan: find a better website to use than Photobucket please.
Note to others: if you spot any errors, don't tell me - tell Dan and he can fix it.

I hope you enjoy looking at the pics as much as I did (rather than as much as I enjoyed uploading to the website...)

Next step: write up about our trip to Paris for a future newsletter article. I think that can wait for another day!

Five things...

2011-03-09T21:20:00.002Z

I've decided to begin a "five things" section, both on this blog and in my newsletter. The aim is to give an impression of some of the places I've visited, or the things I've been doing. I'll make these "five things" introductory articles for the special issues of PALS I write, but would love to see your "five things" choices as well!

If you have visited somewhere recently, or have five things to say about something specific that you're interested in, just let me know. I might add your lists to a PALS special if they're about somewhere I've visited and am planning on writing about anyway. Alternatively, if you have some related photos (or lots of people write "five things" about the same thing), I would happily turn them into individual articles.

To get you started, here are five things which I think sum up our recent visit to Paris! These will, eventually, make it into a future issue of PALS, but I'm hoping my "five things" lists might be a nice (slightly speedier!) way to give an impression of holidays/ visits/ trips I've been on before they make it into a newsletter issue...

Five things: Paris

1. Excellent restaurants. Incredibly friendful, helpful staff, amazing food, and cutlery/ crockery I wanted to steal everywhere we went!
2. Queues everywhere. For the Eiffel Tower, for the Louvre, for the Catacombs, for (all) the toilets...
3. Stunning views - from the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse Tower and Sacre Coeur
4. A great, but very busy, metro system
5. World class museums, worth the crazy queues - including seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and lots of Monet at the Musee d'Orsay

Photos are on their way, but may take a few days!

Issue 40 on-line

2011-02-27T16:32:00.005Z

Issue 40 of PALS, which has something of an Easter focus, is now on-line. Thankfully it was as easy as I anticipated, having done all the hard work of making it look right last week!

Easter isn't until the end of April this year, so some of the articles may feel a little early. On the bright side, maybe it will give you a chance to make the Easter nests on page 6 in plenty of time for Easter!

There are, however, other articles to keep you going until Easter as well - this time around there's a PenPals Q and A on posting letters, a Creature Feature on the greater glider, and, as ever, a new events calendar.

Issue 41 of PALS, due out at the end of April, will be the second in this years Spanish-themed newsletters - this time around focusing on Southern Spain, primarily Andalusia - including Seville and Granada.

As always, if you have any suggestions or ideas for future issues please do let me know! But for now, enjoy Issue 40.

Nearly there...

2011-02-20T20:09:00.002Z

I've spent some time this weekend finishing off Issue 40. It was already written, but as I had a couple of spare weekends before the end of the month, I figured I would work on making it ready to be uploaded. It's probably a good thing I did as it took a while to make it all look good enough to put online! I'll actually upload the issue next weekend (it's due out at the end of Feb), but at least I know it should be a fairly simple task (although that could be those famous last words?). Now I just need to start thinking about Issue 41...

Issue 40 started

2011-01-22T21:46:00.003Z

Now that I've had time to play catch-up over Christmas, I'm making an attempt to stay on track with future issues and updates for PALS. So far this has proved pretty easy as I seem to have had plenty of spare time in January - something of a rarity normally, but nice for a change!

Today I made a start on Issue 40 of PALS. I should have been spending time celebrating (the first of this years many) 30th birthdays this evening, but catching a crappy cold meant I thought it safer to stay at home and not annoy everybody else by giving it to them! Making a start on Issue 40 seemed like a sensible, and fairly easy, relaxing, alternative.

I've begun by writing a couple of articles on Easter in the UK, including one on some of the things I like to bake around that time. It did end up making me quite hungry for chocolate cake and mini eggs though...

New Poetry

2011-01-03T00:48:00.005Z

The last thing I had planned to update on the website over Christmas was my poetry section, and I've finally got around to doing it! Take a look at the nine new poems I've added and see what you think.

Issue 39 on-line

2011-01-02T18:21:00.006Z

Issue 39 of PALS has finally been uploaded! It's actually only a couple of days late, but considering I was planning on having it ready about 2 weeks ago, it feels to me like there has been a bit of a wait.

This time around, it's a Spain Special; hopefully giving you some sunshine think of in the winter months! It focuses on our trip to Andalusia in February 2009 and our weekend in Madrid in December 2006. I hope you enjoy it, as there are plenty more Spain Specials to come - this is the first of three this year.

Cuba photos

2011-01-02T00:52:00.005Z

Firstly, I need to apologise for the ridiculously long amount of time it's been since I've posted to this blog. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know I feel suitably guilty. I can't even claim it's because I've been working hard on writing PALS, because as you may have noticed, I've not yet uploaded Issue 39 - which was due out at the end of December. And now it's 2011 already.

Having said that, it is on it's way! I still have two days off before work begins again, and I'm slowly catching up on all those things I've failed to do in the past few months. Along with watching plenty of bad TV, of course!

So, hopefully this will be the first of a selection of posts over the next few days...

The second thing I need to apologise for is the length of time it has taken for these photos to be uploaded. We went to Cuba at the end of November, and returned nearly a month ago now. But I have finally gotten around to uploading them to our website, so please do take a look at our Cuba photos!

Issue 38 Online

2010-10-29T19:58:00.004+01:00

I've now uploaded Issue 38 of PALS. It was actually, for a change, a completely painless experience. I think that was a combination of changing things because of the problems I had uploading the last issue, good pre-planning, and luck. Oh, and a little bit of thinking "well, it's good enough" when there were extra white spaces on some of the pages! White space is good though right - nobody likes clutter?!

Anyway, enjoy the issue! I've already begun thinking about Issue 39, which will be a Spain-related Special. Oh, and I've even written a couple of letters in the past few weeks. It's good to still be managing to keep up with it - although (as ever) I know there are still a few of you waiting for a reply...

Issue 38 nearly there

2010-10-23T17:52:00.003+01:00

Yet again, I've been a bit busy to be working on PALS - but I have finally got around to finishing off the latest issue, ready to upload it next weekend (I'm not doing it now - I've sworn at my computer enough for one day). To make this issue look good, I've even put some effort into baking Christmas-type cakes long before Christmas!

I've also been having a bit of a think about what will go into the next issue - as I mentioned before, there will be something of a Spanish feel to next years' PALS. I've just got to write them now!

Just working

2010-10-03T21:03:00.002+01:00

I know I've been quiet for a bit, but that's just because I've been getting on with things! I've now written the majority of Issue 38 of PALS - it's not due out until the end of October, but it's good to have it mostly complete. I just need to add in some photos - one of the articles is on Christmas baking, but I currently don't have many useful photos. Seems like a good excuse to do some (very) early Christmas baking to me! So that's next weekends task.

Although, just in case you wanted to know, there are now only just under 12 weeks to Christmas. Unlike last year (where I was wrapping presents on 23 Dec, the day we went back to Exeter), I plan to be a little more organised this year! I need to be, because at the beginning of December (when I usually do a lot of the planning), we'll be in Cuba. Yey! Maybe I can get pressies there? For those of you getting presents, if you get cigars, you'll know why...

Anyway, I think I'm digressing a little! Other than working on PALS, I've actually been managing to write some letters in the past couple of weeks. I've started setting some time aside on Friday evenings for this. I used to try and work on Friday evenings (towards my Chartership qualification) but I'm just never in the mood after a busy week at work, and writing letters is so much more enjoyable, and a great way to end the week - it gives me something to look forward to when I get home from work! Having said that, the last few weekends have been pretty quiet socially, so we'll see if the trend continues on weekends where we're busy. I hope it does, because at the moment I'm very nearly up-to-date with my letters (although apologies here to the three of you are still waiting for my reply)!

Spain and Portugal photos on-line

2010-09-09T16:20:00.007+01:00

I was planning on uploading these pics four days ago now, on the day we got back from our holiday. But unlike most people who go to sunnier places to cure a cold, I managed to catch one two days before we left. The final day and the journey home were no fun, and the last few days have been pretty rubbish too! I finally feel capable of looking at a computer screen again, so have spent the past couple of hours uploading pics from the holiday to our photos website, in the Portugal and Spain section.

There aren't any pics of the wedding we went to over the weekend, as I'm going to post these on Facebook - it seems fairer on the friends who were getting married as that's where they'll look. But if you'd like to see them and aren't on Facebook, let me know and I'll send you some copies. They're lovely pics - the bride looks stunning!

I've also written up a piece on our holiday and am hoping it will find it's way into a issue of PALS in the near future. I actually have lots of write-ups from Spanish holidays (we've now been to Andalusia three times, in 2006, 2009 and 2010, and Madrid once, in 2006), so am thinking next years PALS Specials may well have a Spanish feel to them (and there may have to be a few more specials than normal to accommodate that)!

Poetry update

2010-08-30T01:21:00.004+01:00

I've now managed to update the poetry part of our website - have a look to see some new poems. Some are even properly new and were written this year! I hope you enjoy the poems.

Issue 37 now on-line

2010-08-29T14:17:00.003+01:00

Issue 37 of PALS is now on-line and ready to view. This time around, it's a Lincoln Special, written by Tracy Knight. It's the second of two Special Issues in a row, both to try and have a bit of a "catch-up" and to change which months regular features will appear on. Next issue (#38, in Nov/ Dec 2010) it'll be back to a standard issue.

Happy reading and I hope you enjoy the issue!

Fixed!

2010-08-12T21:05:00.006+01:00

After, erm, a month (I've been a bit busy, sorry!) I've finally got around to fixing the front page of Issue 36 so it claims that what is inside the issue is actually in the issue! See the new text here. It was nice and easy to do (well, almost easy - it messed the picture on the front page up and I had to get an unwilling Dan who was obsessively trying to play computer games to come and help), and meant I got to play with Dan's new superfast computer for a bit... it seems to do everything I want it to, which means Dan installed all the right stuff for me first time round. Now that's a first.

I've also nearly finished putting together Issue 37 of PALS, which will be released at the end of the month. Now I just have to wait for Publisher for open it (the perils of using Publisher 2000 and Publisher 2007 on two different computers for the same document - don't do it; I get the feeling I will be re-adding photos many times...), and write up one final page. So it should be ready on time, which is good because it was looking like touch and go there for a bit!

Oops

2010-07-11T20:37:00.003+01:00

As I was starting to write Issue 37 of PALS earlier today, I noticed I'd messed up the front page of Issue 36 slightly... those keen-eyed people amongst you may have noticed that in the introductory text on the front page I stated that Page 2 contained an "all-new" list of events that didn't appear in earlier issues. Well, it didn't... instead it was a feature on Summer Bank Holidays. This happened because I was getting slightly ahead of myself - I plan to reintroduce an event listing in the Nov/ Dec issue (# 38) of PALS. I realised this before writing the article, but not before writing the intro!

If I get a chance at some point I'll change the intro to Issue 36 and re-upload it, but for now feel free to be amused at my rather random mistake!

Issue 36 on-line

2010-06-25T23:13:00.004+01:00

Issue 36 of PALS, a Shetland Special, is now on-line. It's all about our week-long holiday back on the Shetland Islands in 2008. I know it's a couple of years late, but we did go in late June/ early July so at least it's at the right time of the year! Enjoy the read and PALS will be back with another Special (two in a row this time around) in late August...

Holiday snaps

2010-06-12T17:46:00.006+01:00

Have just uploaded some pics from our narrowboating holiday last week to our photos website. They are mainly of birds and their babies! I'll write a piece in the near future that will probably make it's way into a future issue of PALS, but for now to suffice it to say it was fun - if a bit cramped and a bit tough to stay feeling clean! And a bit wet at times - although we did get some sunshine...

How do you post yours?

2010-06-05T17:25:00.000+01:00

Letters that is, not blog posts.

Anne has writtten a post on her blog all about the issues she has with buying stamps and posting letters - see my comments for how I feel about the same issues!

Her post has also inspired me to think that this topic would make a good Q and A for a future PALS issues - perhaps the Nov/Dec one as the next couple will be Specials. If you've any thoughts on the matter (perhaps you're from a different country where things are very different? Maybe you live in the UK and have a totally point of view?) let me know and I'll incorporate them into a future article!

Slacker

2010-06-05T17:22:00.000+01:00

Me that is, not you.

I've just looked at my blog and realised I haven't added a post in over a month. But, well, I've been busy - doing things that have nothing at all to do with writing PALS. Like going to library conferences, travelling around the country visiting friends and planning holidays.

I've got my act together (a bit) today and done some work on Issue 36 of PALS - I've had to add in an extra page to make it all fit, but now it should be ready to upload at the end of the month! It's not quite finished yet, but I do actually have some free time in June, so there should be time...

Issue 35 on-line

2010-04-23T17:11:00.004+01:00

Issue 35 of the PALS newsletter is now complete and on-line, and actually happened with very little fuss - for a change! It took me a few minutes to sort out the links, but I'm pretty happy as that was as difficult as it got. So enjoy! This time around there are articles on the snow leopard, our weekend away in Dorset and Flag Day in the USA, amongst other things.

Issue 35 complete

2010-04-16T21:00:00.003+01:00

Well, I've managed to finish writing Issue 35 - all it needs now is to have some links added in and be uploaded to our website. This won't happen for another couple of weeks though, until the end of April.

I've decided not to include the piece on preferred pals for now, as although it's complete it'll make a good article for the 38th, Nov/ Dec issue, and it means I'll be able to incorporate any additional comments I get into it before November. Instead there's a 2 page article on my recent long weekend in Dorset, which happened back in March.

Now I'm going to have a week off before uploading this issue!

Poetry update

2010-04-05T13:42:00.003+01:00

Finishing off my PALS and website updates for the Easter weekend, I've now added nine new poems to my poetry website and removed the old ones. Enjoy!

Continuing with Issue 35

2010-04-05T00:13:00.003+01:00

I spent a little more time working on PALS this evening. Firstly, I've finally gotten around to writing up a piece about our trip to Palermo last May, after discovering I hadn't written one. That's to go in an as yet undetermined future issue of PALS, which I'm hoping to turn into an Italy Special - or at least a Sicily one!

I've also worked on creating an article about our weekend in Dorset, after writing up a piece about it yesterday. At the moment it takes up two pages in Issue 35, making the issue one page longer than it normally is. I'm currently considering whether or not to abandon another article, on penpals preferred pals, at least for the time being, as I've had very few responses to my press release for comments about that. For now I think I will try to write that article, but maybe include it in a later issue, after I've hassled people a little more for some comments! I have a few weeks to decide at least so I don't have to make a decision right now.

On the bright side, Issue 35 is now looking fairly close to ready - there are only a couple of articles left to write!

Dorset photos

2010-04-04T13:55:00.011+01:00

After some swearing at photo packages, I've now uploaded photos from our weekend in Dorset at the end of March to our Photos Website. There are pics from Chesil Beach, near where we stayed, to towns slightly further afield, including Shaftesbury, Lyme Regis and Sherborne. I've also written up a short piece about the weekend to go in a future newsletter - I may even try to fit it into the May/ June edition in an effort to start making sure things appear in the newsletter closer to when they actually happen. But for now, enjoy the photos!

Press Release 19 March 2010

2010-03-20T00:51:00.001Z

PRESS RELEASE – 19 MARCH 2010
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS – PEN PAL Q AND A

For the next issue of PALS, due out in May 2010, I’m seeking your opinions on any preferences you have for the sorts of people you correspond with. Any comments you’d like to make, from a short sentence to a few paragraphs, would be much appreciated. To get you started, I’m asking:

- What age group/s do you prefer to write to?
- Do you have a preference for male or female pals?
- Are there any other preferences you have when it comes to corresponding with people?

Even if the answer is “I’ll write to anyone, from anywhere” I’d still like to hear that. If you’d like your comments to be anonymised I’m happy to do that too.

If you’d like to contribute, just e-mail me or leave a comment on the blog.

Thanks in advance
Anna

Issue 35 begun

2010-03-20T00:44:00.004Z

Well, it's nearly 1am but I have got a lot done this evening! I've started planning and writing Issue 35 of PALS (including picking colour schemes and writing up the latest Creature Feature), I've updated the front page of our website (which it really needed - it was so out of date), I've posted on my Film Blog and I've gotten my in-box down to an acceptable amount of e-mails.

I've even managed to do some properly useful things like plan cinema visits and trips to London and Manchester. Now I'm going to go and check what else I should have done but haven't got around to, then I think it may be bed time!

Fixed?

2010-03-02T22:32:00.003Z

After A LOT (an hour and a half worths, this evening alone) of fiddling in Dreamweaver, Seamonkey and Publisher (2000 and 2007), I have finally got Issues 33 and 34 of PALS to look almost as they should in both IE and Firefox (not that Firefox was ever a problem, to be fair). I say almost because I've left Pages 3-4 of Issue 33, which Dan had added polls to, alone - I got the impression he really didn't want to have to deal with them again! The result is that one or two lines of text are slightly cut off, but I'm really not too bothered by that.

Turns out that the solution was indeed to go back to using Publisher 2000. How rubbish is a new system that isn't compatible with Internet Explorer? Unimpressed. At least I know that in the future I just have to stick with doing things old school. It might take 5 minutes longer to add the links in and check the pages look OK, but it WON'T take 4 hours of fixes that don't work every other month.

And my brain was clearly getting a bit frazzeld towards the end as I was changing things and wondering why it wasn't working when I uploaded them. It took Dan to realise I hadn't changed the links from the old 2007 Publisher links to the new 2000 Publisher links. If that makes any sense at all? I know what I mean - just rejoice that it now works and you should be able to read it any web browser. And I won't have to write any more of these blog posts - and you won't have to read them!

See the all-new, mostly sparkly Issue 33 and Issue 34 here!

My techie isn't very good. Anybody else want to volunteer?

2010-03-02T16:16:00.003Z

Sigh...

I was just having a quick check at work to make sure that the work Dan and I had done on PALS at the weekend looked OK on work's versions of IE. Conclusion: it doesn't. It still looks pants. Pages from both Issues 33 and 34 look totally wrong - sometimes it seems to be due to graphics, sometimes due to links I've added. On the bright side, the tables Dan spent so long fixing DO work.

There is one bright (ish) side to this. It's ONLY Issues 33 and 34 with problems. I spy a fix... I used Publisher 2007 to write both of these newsletters, and none of the ones before them. So my next job is convert them back into the old Publisher (it may well be 1998, it could be 2003, not sure) and use that to upload them. It means going back to the old school way of adding hyperlinks to the Dreamweaver document rather than just adding them in the Publisher document, but quite frankly, it clearly doesn't work properly in the new Publisher anyway.

Just a tip: if any of you are thinking of purchasing Office 2007, DON'T. There are no decent extra features, and so far all I've found are extra problems and stupid bugs - in both Word and Publisher. A complete waste of money. And now, time! This evening will probably be spent trying to fix this - which is doubly annoying because I have a headache that using the computer probably isn't helping, but I really want to get this fixed now!

Feeling a bit more positive

2010-02-28T18:45:00.002Z

After a decent nights sleep things aren't looking so bad! Issue 34 (and Issue 33) are still appearing on-line the way they should be, so I'm going to forget about it now and move on.

I've spent a couple of hours today coming up with ideas for content for Issue 35. I did make a start on it yesterday but was in such a foul mood it wasn't really very effective. I meant to spend about 10 minutes tweaking it and adding info today, but I got a bit carried away with lots of new ideas. Of course, this means giving myself a whole new pile of work!

Not only did I write the contents list for Issue 35, I also came up with ideas for Specials going into the next 3 years... a lot of these were ideas I already had/ things I have already half written, but I was organising my thoughts - and discovering more things that need writing. So now I have a new To Do list. Yes, another one. Thankfully, it's not exactly urgent, as most of the issues I need to do things for are unlikely to appear in PALS for another couple of years or so!

Some of the ideas I've been working on are an Anniversary Special (with pieces on our honeymoon and anniversary celebrations), a Weekly Routine Special (about how my weekly routine has changed over time as my career has progressed - an idea that can also be adpated for anybody who wants to write about their career), and an Italy Special (I've visited Italy a few times now, but realised I never wrote up a piece about our trip to Sicily last year, that would appear in this issue).

But right now I'm going to stop thinking about it and go and cook dinner!

Issue 34 online...

2010-02-27T18:15:00.002Z

Finally!

It has taken Dan and I two hours to get this up and working, and Issue 33 (mostly) fixed. I hope you enjoy it, because quite honestly I'm not sure I can be arsed anymore. It's meant to be easier than THIS.

Anyway, in case you care, Issue 34 is all about Croatia. Thanks to Tamara for the text - the only easy part of my job, writing the actual thing!

Issue 33 is as good as it's ever going to be. I wish I'd never looked at it in Internet Explorer, and I never would have known about all the problems. If you ARE using IE to look at it, there's a link to the polls at the top of the newsletter. Some appear in the correct places, some just don't. We have at least managed to remove all the odd looking text - thanks for your suggestion Andy, but removing all that text deleted the entire content from the page. Uploading the page again worked, for no obvious reason. Dan's solution to the whole scenario, which seems like a pretty good idea, is to shove a red hot poker up Bill Gate's arse for writing such rubbish software.

I'm meant to make a start on Issue 35 soon. We'll see. Dan certainly never wants to deal with PALS again.

Oh no! I need a techie...

2010-02-23T18:50:00.003Z

Hmmm...

I've just been checking Issue 33 of PALS, and in Firefox it looks fine. But in Internet Explorer it looks like this:

I suspect it may have something to do with the questionnaires Dan added, as it mostly seems to be those pages it affects. I have no idea why though, and don't have time to investigate properly now. Another job for the weekend - with Dan's help required (yes Dan, you are the techie)!

If you've been trying to fill in questionnaires on this issue and seeing this screen instead, I apologise for nagging! I know I said I didn't want to hear about any problems with the appearance of PALs, but I was lying - I do really! :) (If they're big and very annoying, like this, that is. Heh!).

Theatre visits

2010-02-13T20:22:00.002Z

Although I've finished Issue 34 of PALS (due to be uploaded at the end of the month), I was feeling inspired to write a piece about my past theatre visits (especially those in London and Bristol), so I spent a couple of hours doing that this afternoon.

I wasn't expecting it to take quite so long to write, but I had to trawl through old diaries in order to remember what I had seen, where and, sometimes, whether or not I had enjoyed it! Remembering what I had seen was enjoyable - sometimes even remembering how awful the bad ones were was good fun!

Another reason for me being in a bit of a hurry to finish it was because I wanted to go and make Valentines Day cakes as a surprise for Dan (albeit one he half knew about, as he was in the house when I was making them). I expect there will be a post about them on our (his?) Gastronomically Terrific blog soon!

Anyway, the plan for the theatre write-up is for it to appear in a future PALS Special, although it may not be for a few months yet. If you're a keen theatre-goer and would fancy writing a piece about any/ all of the shows you have seen, I'd love to see it - and am sure I could incorporate it into the PALS Special!

Gastronomically Terrific

2010-02-09T21:17:00.002Z

Just a quick non PALS-related post to say that Dan has started a new blog -with some input from me! Titled Gastronomically Terrific, it's about our experiences cooking new things - anything from starters to mains to some (often very tasty) puddings and cakes!

We started the blog in December 2009, so unsurprisingly it starts with Christmas cake. I've put a link in the side bar on this blog, or just click here to look at the blog!

Avatar issues

2010-02-04T22:23:00.002Z

Not sure what was happening here... I've been having problems getting my Avatar to show up on this blog, although it looked fine on the Yahoo! site, and I was able to update it.

Anyway, following the good-old standard IT advice, I did the equivalent of turning it off and on again (i.e. deleting the HTML and replacing it with what was on the Yahoo site), and that seemed to do the trick. Not sure if Yahoo had updated the HTML, because it did look a little different. Either way, it now seems to be working again and hopefully will continue to do so!

Issue 34 nearly ready

2010-01-31T13:25:00.001Z

Just a quick update to say that I've managed to finish writing Issue 34 - a month early! I've spent this morning learning about the Songkran Festival in Thailand, something I knew very little about before this morning. So it's been educational! I'll upload the issue towards the end of February, so it'll be nice to have a couple of weeks break from working on the newsletter. Not sure how often that means this blog will get updated, but if I have any news it will make it's way onto here!

Being productive

2010-01-23T17:36:00.003Z

I've actually had quite a productive PALS-related week this week.

First off, thanks to Tracy for sending me a whole range of new Creature Features, and a Special article on her holiday to Lincoln last year. This is great news as I (still) haven't had many responses to the questions in Issue 33 of PALS, so at least it gives me an idea of how to continue with the newsletters in the future! More on that in Issue 35.

Other than that, I got a little carried away with writing up Issue 34 and have now managed to almost complete it - there's only one page left to write. Thanks to Tamara for that as she did all the work writing the article about her holiday and providing me with plenty of pics!

All this means the next issue is actually ready almost a month early - but at least it means if I end up being horribly busy in February it won't matter!

Issue 34 begun

2010-01-16T23:47:00.003Z

I know I haven't posted on this blog for some time now (nearly an entire month, in fact) but, well, I've been busy! First there was Christmas, then there was New Years, then I left my old job, and then I started my new job 2 days later... so that meant that I've had no time to work on PALS, let alone update my blog - meaning that even if I had been writing my blog, I would have had very little to say!

However, now I've been in my new job for a week, am on my first weekend, and have finally made a start on Issue 34 of PALS. This will be another Special, this time on a penpal's holiday to Croatia back in summer 2008. It's taken me some time to get around to making this into a Special as I've had so many other Specials to add, but I'm finally able to!

I've not yet had many responses to the queries in Issues 33, so if you've yet to answer the questions on pages 3 and 4, please take a minute to do so. All you need to do is click a button and press submit! I'll have a bit more of a think about how future issues are going to look once I've (hopefully) received a few more responses, and when I come to writing Issue 35 in March. That issue will include survey results, if I have enough.

Well, it being midnight I should probably go and get some sleep... but I'll do my best to update this blog a little more regularly, and keep working on Issue 34!

Poetry update

2009-12-21T22:38:00.004Z

I've finally found some time to update the poetry website. It was last updated in August 2009, so was a good 4 months ago now. You can see the 9 new poems on the poetry part of our website. A lot of the good poems have appeared on there now, so I need to have a think about what I will do in the future - short of just writing more poetry!

Issue 33 on-line

2009-12-19T23:28:00.005Z

Issue 33 of PALS has now been uploaded and is ready to view. It's a week or so early this time around, what with it being Christmas in few days time! I have a few days spare before we head back down to Exeter, and then I'm likely to be busy right up to New Years, so thought I would get the issue uploaded now whien I knew I had time.

This time around there are articles on Waitangi Day in New Zealand, a Creature Feature on the Kookaburra, and an article about possible changes to PALS in the New Year. There are a couple of (very!) short surveys about changes to PALS (literally, you have to click one button) on pages 3 and 4 of the newsletter, so please do have your say about how you'd like future PALS to look. I have to admit, I did have to enlist Dan's help with that part though...

Otherwise the upload went incredibly smoothly - I did all the hard work last week so this week has been pretty easy!

Just need to upload Issue 33 now

2009-12-12T22:25:00.002Z

I've just finished writing up the last article for Issue 33 of PALS - using Publisher 2007, which was a bit of a treat! It certinaly seems to have more features than my old version of Publisher, which is now really old - so old in fact that I can't add hyperlinks easily. Thankfully not so with the 2007 version! The real test will come next week when I actually need to upload the issue to our website, but for now everything seems quite easy...

I'm not going to tempt fate by taking it any further this evening though as I have managed to catch a cold and frankly, don't want to face it when it all goes wrong! So I'm leaving that for next week...

Issue 33 getting there

2009-12-05T21:57:00.002Z

I've finally managed to sit down and make a concerted effort to write the majority of Issue 33 of PALS.

I had been waiting for a while to get some more contributions to people's favourite books and movies, but haven't received any. I'm hoping this is because you're all too busy Christmas shopping, or simply don't have much to say about your favourite books/ movies (if you even have any), rather than because you're bored of reading PALS!

Anyway, it turns out I had a fair bit to say relating to plans for changes to the newsletter (certainly enough for two pages), and enough contributions to fill one page of the newsletter, so with a bit of editing and rearranging, the newsletter is now nearly complete! I have one last article to write, but 2 and a half weeks in which to write it (only 6 of those days when I'm at work - heh!), so it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Watch out for the article when it is released in late Dec!

Newsletter updates

2009-11-19T21:48:00.003Z

I've been making some progress on Issue 33 of PALS, writing up a piece on things that have changed in relation to PALS recently, and things that I'm considering changing in the future.

I'm hoping to incorporate some "quick polls" into this article, asking people for their opinions on certain things. After talking to Dan, this is possible using a web editing package like Dreamweaver, so setting it up will have to wait until I'm basically ready to upload the issue. But it can be done, so that's good news!

I had quite a lot I wanted to say, so it took a while to fit it all on the page, but I got there in the end. Now there are just another 4 articles to write - but I have until mid December so I should be OK! And I'm still waiting on people's favourite books or movies (I've had nothing, so anything would e good right now)!

Press Released 13 November 2009

2009-11-13T22:59:00.001Z

YOUR FAVOURITE BOOKS AND MOVIES

Do you have a favourite book? Or a movie that you really love? If you do, how would you like to write a paragraph about it (if you have a favourite book or movie, feel free to write two paragraphs, one about each) for the next issue of PALS? There will be two articles in Issue 33 of PALS – one on Best Books and one on Best Movies (better, alliterated titles for this article are also welcome)!

If you’d like to contribute, please e-mail me with your sentences/ paragraphs. I’ll make sure they make it into the next issue of PALS!

Thanks in advance
Anna

Carnival photos

2009-11-11T23:44:00.003Z

After a little bit of swearing (thankfully not too much), I've now uploaded some of the photos from our trip to North Petherton Carnival in Somerset last weekend. The carnival has a number of the floats Bridgwater Carnival has. Trust me, there are plenty of floats; it took over 2 hours for the carnival to go past. You can find them in the Bristol section of our photos website.

Issue 33 begun

2009-11-06T13:38:00.003Z

Not much to say really, other than now that I've created a content list, I've managaed to make a start on the next issue of PALS.

I've just been doing simple things like choosing a colour scheme and typing up the Creature Feature article - always easy as somebody else has done the hard work for me by writing the article! I had planned to change the format of PALS slightly for the new year (full details will be in Issue 33- that's an article that is going to take a little longer to write), but have discovered I actually have one more Creature Feature than I thought - so the changes might have to wait a few months.

PALS updates now on Facebook

2009-11-02T22:06:00.002Z

For those of you on Facebook, this might be of some use... with a little help from some friends, I've managed to (finally!) figure out how to import notes from this blog onto Facebook. That means that when a new issue of PALS is uploaded, and I add an blog post about having done it here, that post will also appear on my friends Facebook feeds.

In order not to spam friends who aren't into penpalling and don't read PALS, I'll be deleting any posts (like this one) off of Facebook - only ones advertising new issues will appear. Hopefully it will also mean that some people who do enjoy penpalling, but aren't on my e-mail lists, will get to see the posts. If you know of anybody who you think might enjoy reading PALS and you can figure out a way to get them to see my notes if they are on Facebook, feel free to pass them on!

No news

2009-11-01T12:13:00.002Z

I have to admit, I don't have a lot to say... I've done nothing with PALS, and I even failed to put up a Halloween avatar. I blame it on work making me work a 5-day week - I'm not used to that!

Luckily, there wasn't a lot that needed to be done PALS-wise. Last week I wasn't planning on uploading Issue 32, but it turns out I made the right decision in doing so, as I wouldn't have had time to do it this week. Although writing this has reminded me that I was going to look into how to add a note on Facebook saying it had been uploaded... that may be a job for Dan to help me with when he gets home later! I also need to start making plans for the next issue of PALS - what articles to include, when to write them, who to beg for help etc...

Right, it seems I have things to be getting on with then!

After 2 hours... Issue 32 on-line!

2009-10-23T15:54:00.005+01:00

I'm probably making that sound a lot worse than it really is (or than it feels at least)...

Basically, I just kept doing stupid things when uploading this particular issue. There's a lesson in thinking before you act here, I feel. Originally I wasn't intending to upload Issue 32 today - I have plenty of other things to be getting on with, like packing for the weekend and sorting out the washing.

But I sat down to write the last article (an events article on Bonfire Night) and found myself quite enjoying what I was doing. It was also quite quick to write, being that I know enough about the event not to have to do too much research. That took 15 minutes. So I thought "why not start getting the issue ready to upload?" At least that way I'll have a bit less work to do next week... well, one thing led to another and it seemed silly to only do half the job.

When I started to upload the newsletter things looked a bit odd, but that was easily fixed by giving up with Seamonkey and using Dreamweaver (often infinitely superior it seems) to add links instead. Then pages weren't appearing where they should be... but that was all down to me failing to specify the target page, it seems. It took me 10 minutes to figure that out.

Then I thought I'd finished. It all uploaded easily enough, all the links worked, nothing looked out of place or odd... then I noticed the date. I'd written Sept/ Oct instead of Nov/ Dec.

Initally thinking I was going to have to upload the entire thing again, I realised soon enough that I could just upload the first page and leave everything else as it was. Unfortunately that meant having to re-do all the contents links on the first page, which I did. But the date still hadn't changed - whyever not? I definitely changed it. I deleted the first page with the intention of trying again... only to realise that things weren't as complicated as I had at first thought.

The part with the date in it is a picture, and all I had to do was recreate the picture (which I had already done in about 2 seconds) and just upload that. Great! Except for the fact that now I didn't have a front page (yes, because I had deleted it) so I needed to upload it and add all the links back in again... for the fourth time. And only one of those times was it actually needed. Very much a case of human error here, I feel. *sigh*

Anyways, Issue 32, a Hot Air Balloon Special, is now online and ready to view. I hope you enjoy it - I think it looks quite good!

Oh so quiet

2009-10-15T19:28:00.004+01:00

I've not really got any news to speak of in relation to PALS - I haven't touched it since I finished the hot air balloon piece a couple of weeks ago. I do only have the events piece left to write before I tidy it up and upload it though, all of which I'm hoping to do next weekend when I actually have a few spare days!

The lack of work on PALS hasn't really been done to laziness - more just busy-ness. Last weekend we had friends stay over Thurs and Fri night as we spent Friday at Alton Towers, which was great fun - but meant I only had one day rather than my normal four to do things like the shopping and the cleaning!

This weekend we're off to another friend's wedding - we're helping them set it all up tomorrow, friends are staying over tomorrow night, then the actual wedding is on Saturday and we're staying over Sat night. I do have Monday off work but once again, I need to do mundane things like wash clothes etc at some point! I guess I could have worked on the newsletter today, but I was doing far more important things like getting my hair cut and buying new coats...

Not to worry, there's plenty of time next week to finish off PALS! I'm off to cook dinner...

Central Europe pics

2009-10-02T16:09:00.006+01:00

Well, we're now back from our travels - never mind! I've uploaded pictures of our holiday to our photos web page, under a Central Europe section. Enjoy!

I've also spent the last couple of hours working on the latest issue of PALS. I've actually ended up increasing the length of the issue by 2 pages, making it 9 apges in total. But don't worry, a lot of that is photos! It's a Hot Air Balloon Special so I wanted to make sure there were plenty of pics to help tell the story, but didn't really want to remove any of the text. I did end up removing the piece about the Bristol Balloon Fiesta we went to this August though, as it just didn't fit. It will appear in a future issue I'm sure!

Now I just have the events piece to write and some standard links/ tidying to do, and the issue will be ready to up-load. I have 4 weeks before I need to upload it so I should be fine.

Issue 32 begun

2009-09-12T23:47:00.003+01:00

Not much news this week really - yesterday I made a start on Issue 32 of PALS, which will be a Hot Air Balloon special. There's a lot of text to fit in though (it's a long story - a saga, if you will), so I'm going to try not to make the text too small, and fit in photos, so it doesn't get too long or overwhleming. I may have to do a proper editorial job and actually cut down on the text if it gets too bad!

Most of this won't happen for a while though - I have a couple of days left at work, and then on Friday Dan and I are off to Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Austria and Hungary) for a couple of weeks, or thereabouts. Expect lots of photos when we return! Hopefully I'll have a bit more time to work on the newsletter in Oct...

Been a bit busy

2009-09-03T21:50:00.003+01:00

Hmm, it's been a bit quiet on this blog recently (just saw the last post was nearly 2 weeks ago) so thought I should say hi! I don't have much to say really - I've not worked on PALS at all since I posted Issue 31 a couple of weeks ago.

Last weekend was taken up with heading back to Exeter to make our car look red again (it worked too - nearly like a new car!), and I'm back in Exeter again this weekend, in order to avoid a stag do taking place (partially) at my house. Just as long as the house is still standing when I get back...

Next weekend will (hopefully) be somewhat quieter though, so I intend to make a start on Issue 32 too then. I already know basically what will be in the issue, making my life somewhat easier. I just need to find some time to start working on it!

Issue 31 On-line

2009-08-22T00:59:00.005+01:00

Issue 31 of the PALS newsletter is now available on-line. This time around there are articles on the two-toed sloth, where your pals come from and top travel tips. Enjoy the read!

New Poetry

2009-08-22T00:54:00.004+01:00

Had a bit of a productive evening (well, night!) today. First off, I've updated my poetry website. There are nine new replacement poems available to look at now, ranging in date from 1997 to 2009... enjoy!

Bristol Balloon Fiesta

2009-08-13T23:37:00.003+01:00

A short piece will probably go in a future issue of PALS about our day out at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta (probably the same one as the Special I plan to create about our balloon trip, possibly even in the next Special), but for now I've uploaded some pictures into the Bristol section of our photos website, just so you can see what went on. To be honest, the photos tell most of the story anyway!

Issue 31 nearly done... and issue 33 started?!

2009-08-06T23:30:00.003+01:00

Knowing that tomorrow will mostly consist of baking and cleaning the house (oh, the exciting life I lead - good job I like baking), I decided it might be wise to get on with writing bits of PALS this evening. It turns out it was a pretty good decision and I was actually fairly productive - there's now only one page left to write.

I had to remove a half written article and make another article longer, thanks to a plethora of really good comments relating to travelling from one pal (thanks Bev)! The article is, I think, a pretty good one now, and is basically finished (it either needs a couple more comments or some quotes but other than that it's done). All this resulted in me planning most of what was going to appear in Issue 33 (as 32 will be a Special), as the removed article will appear there now. It will make my life easy in Jan at least I guess!

Anyway, it's all on schedule for uploading at the end of August! Now I might go to bed... or continue being productive as it's going pretty well right now. ;)

Finally did some work!

2009-07-25T23:47:00.003+01:00

I've spent most of this week managing to avoid writing the latest issue of PALS - not sure how or why, but things just somehow kept getting in the way of updating the newsletter. Probably got something to do with uploading all those photos...

Anyway, this evening I made a concerted effort to sit down and actually write the majority of the newsletter, especially as the next couple of weekends are looking pretty busy and there won't really be much time for writing PALS. I've had a fair few comments from pals now too, so have been able to put together decent articles for the majority of the newsletter. Still waiting on a couple of requests, but the newsletter is much closer to being finished than it was a couple of days ago!

Now there's just the film blog to sort out...

Hot air balloon photos

2009-07-23T23:49:00.004+01:00

Well, I've achieved one of the things I intend to do this weekend! I've finally put up the photos from our hot air balloon ride. You can see them on the Bristol section of our photos website.

There are still a fair few things to do though. I've now started to have responses to questions for the next issue of PALS, so I need to start adding them to the newsletter. More are always appreciated though! I've also been watching a fair amount of films in the last few days, so I need to update my film blog - I'll try and do that in the next day or so, so I don't forget the films I've seen!

But right now it's midnight so once I've finished with these photos, I'm off to bed...

Snowdon photos

2009-07-20T22:18:00.005+01:00

There are now pics of our climb up Snowdon in the British Landmarks section on our photos website. I've also written a piece for a future issue of PALS - I'm hoping these "special" pieces will start to make it into the newsletter a bit sooner than they have been recently, but more on that in a future newsletter piece... suffice it to say for the moment that it's likely to make it into a Wales special!

There are also photos of our hot air balloon flight, which (finally) happened on Thursday, to come - and pics will appear on Facebook in due course too. I just ran out of time (and energy!) this evening, so stopped after I've sorted the Snowdon pics!

Busy, but not writing PALS

2009-07-16T21:25:00.002+01:00

I did mean to work on PALS this weekend, but it's looking unlikely... it's been a long day today because (and this is good news for us!) we finally went up in a hot air balloon! The flight was an AM one though, so I've been awake since 5am. Which means I'm somewhat lacking in motivation to write interesting articles right now. On top of that, I'm currently not getting very many (well, any) articles to add to the next issue of PALS - so it may be a very short one... If you're reading this and have anything to say on any of the topics (see the Press Release below), I'd really love to hear it! I know I've abused some of you with e-mails/ requests in letters - please respond!

The other reason for not working on PALS this weekend is because we're now going to be spending most of it in North Wales, hopefully at the top of Snowdon (although considering the weather we may give in and catch the train - or stay in the pub). Being that we'll be in a tent/ on a mountain, I won't have much computer access. I'll do my best to catch up next week, but right now I think I need some sleep!

Oh, and there will be photos on our website in the near future, probably of both the hot air balloon flight and Snowdon. Watch this space!

Bit tired now

2009-07-10T14:45:00.002+01:00

Well, I've had a productive day at least! In an effort to get all the things done that I've been failing to find time to do, I got up before 9am on my day off. Yes, that is a rare occurence. So far I've managed to find time to hunt for jobs (there are still none), fit in some piano (OK, keyboard) practice, learn some Italian, reply to a whole heap of e-mails and work on the next issue of PALS.

Most of the work on PALS has involved putting together begging letters for contributions to the next issue, but I also wrote up the next Creature Feature, which was quite enjoyable. I didn't have to think about what I was writing for a change (as I was just copying out an article written by a pal), but I did get to learn a reasonable amount of info about the two toed sloth. Seems somehow appropriate considering I went to see Ice Age 3 on Wednesday!

Anyway, if I've sent you e-mails about it recently and you haven't sent me contributions for the next issue of PALS (not many have), don't be surprised if you get a begging e-mail in the next week or so - or I'll have nothing to put in the next newsletter!

Bristol Photos

2009-07-04T00:30:00.003+01:00

Last weekend Dan and I went on an 18 mile walk around Bristol. Crazy, I know - especially in that humidity! Needless to say we got very hot and sweaty. But we did also manage to take lots of photos of the city, from the train station to castle estates to pretty churches. It's taken me a week or so to get around to doing it, but you can now see some of those photos on the Bristol section of our photos website. Hope you like seeing a bit more of the place we live in!

PS Oh, I wrote a piece on the walk for a future newsletter too - it's 3 pages long so a bit too much to say on a blog post. It took us 10 hours, so I think 3 pages is justified, considering how far we went!

Press Release 3 July 2009

2009-07-03T23:01:00.004+01:00

I've had to come up with a few ideas for the next issue of PALS that will hopefully involve a number of contributions, as this time around it isn't a special - and I wasn't sure what to put in it! Therefore, the Press Release detailing the kinds of contributions I'd be interested in receiving are below - anything you'd like to say I'd love to hear!

Other than that, I have made a start on Issue 31 - just formatting things like colours and pages, ready to start adding content. When I have some!

PRESS RELEASE – 3 JULY 2009
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS – A 3-PARTER!

For Issue 31 of PALS, due for release at the end of August, I’m looking for opinions on the 3 subjects below. If you have anything you’d like to say, please let me know by e-mailing me at the address below and I’ll make sure I include your comments in the relevant article:

1) Where do your pals come from?
This time around there will be a Q and A article on where in the world people write letters to. Where are most of your pals from? Is there a particularly unusual part of the world you have a pal in? Is there somewhere you’d like to have pals in, or somewhere you have a pal that you’d always dreamed of having one?

2) Travel advice
Do you enjoy travelling? I know a lot of us do! Do you have any tips on how to make travelling a better experience – anything from good ways to pick hotels to ways to make long airport visits more bearable?

3) Movie/ book suggestions
Do you enjoy reading, going to the cinema or watching DVDs? Are there any books or films that you love? They can be in the English language or not, it doesn’t matter. One article will focus on the things in popular culture that you enjoy, and the reasons you love it. It doesn’t even have to be a book or movie necessarily – it could be a piece of art, or a song you love. Anything you like!

If you’d like to contribute to any of the above articles (and I’d love to hear all your stories and thoughts), just e-mail me at acevenusbabe@yahoo.com. It doesn’t matter if what you have to say takes a sentence, a paragraph or a page!

Anna

Issue 30 of PALS on-line...

2009-06-25T16:10:00.005+01:00

Eventually. A large part of me wants to sell anything that relies on electricity (except maybe the fridge and oven- oh, OK, anything that's electronic and designed for "pleasure") and just buy a piano. Well, it's a dream...

After many hours of swearing at Dreamweaver for refusing to do the simplest of tasks (in order to create links on the latest newsletter, I had to resort to copying and pasting text from old newsletters that were already links, as apparently adding links to pre-generated text is NOT ALLOWED). Hence my now very frustrated mood, which results in things being thrown... it was nearly the computer itself...

Anyway, Issue 30 should now all be working and available to look at. If you find any problems, please keep them to yourself. I am wasting no more time "fixing" it! The actual newsletter was fun to create this time around - it's all about my pal Katie's trip around Western Australia back in August last year. Enjoy the read more than I enjoyed the upload!

New pics

2009-06-19T00:01:00.005+01:00

Haven't really had much to do with PALS this week - the latest issue is ready to go, so it'll get posted on the website next week.

I have had a chance to add a few pictures to the Bristol section of our photos website though - all from our visit to Ashton Court, the Suspension Bridge and Leigh Woods with Dan's family last weekend. Enjoy!

Cornwall photos and PALS update

2009-06-12T23:23:00.004+01:00

I've (finally) had a productive day PALS-wise - or at least website wise! I spent some of the day finishing off writing Issue 30 of PALS, so now it's just a case of doing a quick spell check etc and then uploading the newsletter to the website. That'll happen either next week or the week after, depending upon how much time I have.

I've also added some photos from our recent weekend camping in Cornwall with our friends Anne and Andy, which you can see on our photos website under the Camping in Cornwall section. There aren't many as we were only there for 4 days, but hopefully enough to give a flavour of what we got up to! Now I just need to write up a bit about what we did, and hopefully include it in a PALS issue on our holidays in Cornwall sometime in the future...

Oh, I had to remove the Aberdeenshire photos to make way for the Cornwall ones too, so if you want to see them again you'll have to ask me or Dan!

Quick Update

2009-05-29T17:14:00.002+01:00

Not much news here as I haven't really had time to do anything PALS-related, but I thought it had been a while since I last posted on here, so had better let you know I still existed! I have managed to do a bit to Issue 30 today - just a page or so. It's fun getting to do something a bit different - not having to worry about the words but just how the pages look! Although fitting everything on in an interesting way can sometimes be a bit tough... thankfully I have lots of photos for this one, which makes it easier!

Well, I'll make this short - I have a cheesecake to go and finish off (because it needs more chocolate?!), and am waiting for a friend to arrive so had better go and do it before she does!

A couple of adjustments

2009-05-21T12:50:00.003+01:00

I've just (finally) spent a couple of hours working on the next issue of PALS - last time I was working on it I was a bit rushed, so I had a few adjustments to make - like remembering to change the date to 2009! It's fun reading the newsletter too, as it was written by a pal, about her visit to Western Australia last year. As I visited a number of the same places back in 2003 when we went travelling (was that really 6 years ago now?!), it's nice to hear somebody elses opinion of the places we saw.

I've also fixed the photos on the Sicily page of our photos website - a couple of the images weren't linking to the right places. It should all be right now though, so if you haven't yet (or it all looked a bit odd when you tried last time) please take a look!

Sicily photos

2009-05-16T22:28:00.006+01:00

I haven't had much time to write PALS this week, as we've been off in Sicily enjoying ourselves, but I have found time today to add some photos from our trip to the Sicily page of our photos website - feel free to take a look!

I've also managed to write a short piece about our trip; although I am a little tired so I may have to check it in a few days to make sure it makes sense! Not sure when it will make it into an issue of PALS, but it will be there sometime in the future I'm sure...

Made a start

2009-05-04T17:47:00.004+01:00

I haven't done much with PALS or our website since my flurry of activity at the end of April, but hopefully enough happened then to keep you all entertained for a while!

I have just managed to make a start on Issue 30 of PALS - it'll be released at the end of June, so not for a while yet, and this time around it's a Special on Western Australia, written by one of my Australian pals. So all I have to do is make the pages look pretty! It does take a while (so far I've done one page), but it's nice to have something a little different to do from writing articles (and thinking of decent things to say!).

Otherwise I've not been up to much - although I have been watching plenty of films lately so check out Anna's Films for lots of film updates!

New Photos

2009-04-24T16:43:00.002+01:00

Final post of the day! I've just added some photos of our recent trip to Longleat to the Bristol section of our photos website - not loads, just 10 or so. But if you have any interest in seeing the lions, onyx, meerkats etc., have a look!

Issue 29 on-line

2009-04-24T15:44:00.005+01:00

Without too much suffering (apart from my eyes now having gone fuzzy for having been staring at a computer screen a little too long - sorry mum), I have now uploaded Issue 29 of PALS. This time around it's not a special, so there are a variety of articles inside, including a Creature Feature on the okapi, an article on a trip to New York and info on Victoria Day, celebrated in Canada in May.

I hope you enjoy the issue and will get working on Issue 30 in the near future!

Updated Poetry

2009-04-24T12:28:00.007+01:00

I've been neglecting updating my poetry on the website for a while now, knowing that it was going to take me a good 2 or 3 hours to do once I finally got around to it. Well, today is that day!

I have a whole load of Internet-related things I need to do today (including upload the next issue of PALS, add some photos, update my film blog - not to mention other totally unrelated things like sorting out the online book club), so I thought I should start as I mean to go on and get the most complicated thing done first!

So, I've added 9 new poems to the Poetry Website, and finished off "The Lovers" poetry story - last November's instalment was the last chapter, as it were. Next time I will try to stick within the 4 months and get some new poetry on there before the end of August!

Our Easter Week trip photos

2009-04-13T00:13:00.004+01:00

I've just finished adding photos to our photos website of both our trip up north last week, and our failed hot air ballooning trip yesterday (Easter Saturday). During our trip up north we visited Liverpool, the Lake District, York, Hartlepool and Kettering, so photos of the most interesting places are under the Easter Weekend 2009 section of the website. The same section has photos from our failed hot air ballooning trip.

I've also written articles on both escapades to appear in future issues of PALS, but it may not be for some time yet - one article is largely dependent on when (or if!) we ever get up in a hot air balloon...

I'm back (for now)

2009-04-03T18:20:00.004+01:00

I realise I've been neglecting PALS, and this blog, a little - I just saw my Avatar, which is now 3 weeks old, and realised quite how much. I've been a little busy since then, what with doing 4-day weeks at work (I know, it's still not full time, but it's a lot to me right now!), spending weekends with friends and planning a trip up north to see friends and family. Yes, we'll be gone again on Sunday for a week. Thankfully we have a spare day to pack and get ready to leave before we go!

However, I have got my act together a little today and have managed to finish writing up most of Issue 29 of PALS. Which is a good thing because it seems I don't have a spare weekend now to finish it before it's due to be released! But it will be released on time.

I've also realised that I haven't updated my poetry website, and that should have been done in mid March. I fully intend to have it done by the end of April, as I have (currently) at least one group of 4 days with nothing planned in it!

There'll be no news for a week or so, but hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll have time to post some pics of our most recent holiday and let you know about them on here.

No news is good news?

2009-03-19T20:06:00.003Z

I've not really had much time for PALS in the past week or so - too busy working, at work conferences (table tennis at lunch, at least, was fun) and, tomorrow (for the weekend), heading off to London for a bit of a break!

However, I have had some responses to my request in the last press releases for quick quotes about what you enjoy writing about when you write to your pals, so I'll be sure to put together an article on that issue, incorporating some of those quotes, in the near future. Thanks to those of you who have contributed, and if you still have something to say, please let me know what it is by mid April! You can view the full press release below.

Not much else to say really, other than I did at last get around to writing one letter, and I hope to have a bit more time to work on PALS next week (and maybe even write some more letters)!

Issue 29 begun

2009-03-13T11:08:00.002Z

It's been pretty quiet for me PALS-wise in the last couple of weeks as I've been busy doing, well, everything and anything else really. I still have a rather long list of things to do as well (admittedly that list may well include playing on the Wii for long enough so that I can beat Dan at a variety of games).

However, I have finally made at least a little effort and begun to put together issue 29 of PALS. Actually, I'm perhaps being a bit unfair on myself as after I got into it this morning I managed to write half the newsletter already. In the process I have learnt a fair bit about okapi too...

I'm still looking for quotes on what you enjoy writing about when you write letters too (see the Press Release just below this post for more info), so if you have anything to say, please let me know! Right, my next task is to sit down and write some of those letters that have been slowly piling up in my letter rack... but maybe just a quick go on the Wii first...

Press Release 26 February 2009

2009-02-27T16:06:00.001Z

YOUR FAVOURITE LETTER WRITING TOPICS

Would you like to have your say about the things you most enjoy writing letters on? One of the articles in Issue 29 of PALS will be a PALS “Q and A” article about what we write about most when writing to our pals, and what we most enjoy writing about (whether they are the same things or not)!

If you’d like to give your opinion – whether it be a sentence, a paragraph or a page, just e-mail me at acevenusbabe@yahoo.com with your thoughts, and I’ll make sure they make it into the next issue of PALS!

Thanks in advance
Anna

Issue 28 on-line

2009-02-27T15:55:00.006Z

Issue 28 of PALS, an Adventure Special, is now on-line. It's been ready for a while so yesterday it was just a simple case of uploading the newsletter - nice and easy for a change! All the "Adventures" featured are various types of sports I've done over the years - hope you enjoy reading about them. And if you feel inspired to write about some of your own adventures, I'd love to see anything you have to write! Anything you write will make it's way into a future of issue of PALS - possibly another Adventure Special if enough people have done exciting things...

A few new photos

2009-02-22T20:09:00.005Z

Just had a very fun weekend with lots of friends coming down to Bristol to visit us. It involved lots of beer and food, but also some kite-flying, which was lots of fun - and a bit different! The result (other than actually managing to fly the kite) was a few new photos on the Bristol section of our photos website...

I'm trying - and new photos

2009-02-20T14:22:00.006Z

Why is it nothing is ever as simple as it should be? I sat down to sort out Issue 28 of PALS, thinking I would get ahead on uploading the issue by ensuring all the links were sorted and all I had to do next week was upload the newsletter and let people know it was there...

Very funny. It's never that easy. This time around it's becasue instead of using Dreamweaver I'm using Seamonkey, due to Dan's (not particularly cunning) masterplan of having the old laptop downstairs and my computer, with Dreamweaver on it, upstairs where the Internet connection is, to be frank, rubbish. It being the middle of the day on a Friday, I now have to wait for him to come home so I can see if he can figure out how the hell Seamonkey works, and if I can even add links where I want to. So I've given up for the moment.

In fact, Seamonkey has caused me no end of grief - I've only used it about 3 times and I hate it already. Yesterday I uploaded a whole load of photos from our trip to Southern Spain last week - you can see them on the Southern Spain section of our photos website. It took hours though becasue Seamonkey does some pretty daft stuff. But the photos themselves are good, hope you enjoy them!

A bit of thinking

2009-02-07T17:10:00.005Z

I haven't really needed to do any work on PALS today, but due to the extremely icy roads outside making us think going down to Exeter for the weekend was a bit of a daft idea, I've had time to fiddle a little!

I've put the finishing touches to Issue 28 (little things like changing the title pictures) before uploading it at the end of the month, and been having a think about what to include in Issue 29 - and successfully coming up with ideas too! I'm too lazy to start actually creating it yet though. Besides, I'll get confused...

I've also added some pics of the snow we've had in the past few days to our photos website , under a new Bristol section.