December was something of a blur – the first half of the month I was re-starting my Pilates and Fitstep classes and getting used to being out and about, again. I was also still in close touch with my daughter and her family, as we are part of her support bubble.
As usual, I was slightly behind and disorganised with my Christmas preparations – but that wasn’t a particular problem, I reasoned, as we were going to have a very quiet day with just Himself, me and my sister… Until the new measures that came in a handful of days before Christmas wiped out my daughter and the children’s Christmas plans – they were no longer able to go and stay with their other grandparents for a short mini-break. So I suggested that they come to us for the day. And was then rushing around to ensure we made it as enjoyable a day as possible, given particularly awful year they’ve had, with COVID just making a horrible situation a whole lot worse.
Christmas Day went off well – and then we were lucky enough to have all three children stay over for a couple of nights, which was full-on, given it was the first time two-year-old Eliza had ever stayed with us. But that was a success, with her remaining happy throughout.
Reading
I read sixteen books in December, with more wonderful reads qualitywise. My Outstanding Book of the Month was Lamentation – Book 6 of the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom and my Outstanding Audiobook of the Month was A Quiet Life in the Country – Book 1 of the Lady Hardcastle series by T.E. Kinsey.
My reads during December were:
AUDIOBOOK Machine – Book 2 of the White Space series by Elizabeth Bear. Review to follow.
Forged – Book 11 of the Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka. See my review.
Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. Review to follow.
Lamentation – Book 6 of the Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom – Outstanding book of the month. Review to follow.
Mistaken Identity Crisis – Book 4 of the Braxton Campus Mysteries by James. J. Cudney. Review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK Mark of Athena – Book 3 of the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan. Review to follow.
Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders: A Dominion of the Fallen Novella by Aliette de Bodard. Review to follow.
Scardown – Book 2 of the Jenny Casey series by Elizabeth Bear. Mini-review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK A Quiet Life in the Country – Book 1 of the Lady Hardcastle series by T.E. Kinsey – Outstanding audiobook of the month. Review to follow.
Inherit the Shoes – Book 1 of A Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series by E.J. Copperman. See my review.
The Woman in Blue – Book 8 of the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. Min-review to follow.
Bear Head – Book 2 of the Dogs of War series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. See my review.
Outstanding read of the month 
Outstanding audiobook of the month
Guilt at the Garage – Book 20 of The Fethering Mysteries by Simon Brett. Review to follow.
AUDIOBOOK In the Market for Murder – Book 2 of the Lady Hardcastle mysteries by T.E. Kinsey. Mini-review to follow.
Doors of Sleep by Tim Pratt. Review to follow.
Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley. Review to follow.
Writing and Editing
Given everything else that was going on – you won’t be surprised to learn that my work on Trouble with Dwarves, which is the second book in my Picky Eaters trilogy, featuring grumpy old dragon, Castellan, slowed down somewhat, though I’m happy with what I managed to achieve. I also completed a couple of editing projects for other folks, as well as continuing to work on my father-in-law’s project of writing his memoirs.
Overall, I wrote just under 30,000 words in December, with just under 14,500 on the blog, and just under 13,5,000 on my writing projects. This brings my final yearly wordcount to date to just over 506,000 words. I’m very happy with that – it’s been quite a long time since I was able to break the half-a-million word barrier for the year, and just goes to show how much my teaching duties had impacted my creativity.
Blogging
It was a frustrating month. I’d begun to really get back into the swing of my blogging rhythm – and then the last-minute flurry around Christmas, as well as some really miserable family stuff, and I went AWOL again. Apologies for the delay in replying and not visiting as much as I should! With everything going on right now, my blogging is going to be a bit hit and miss for a while. In the meantime, I very much hope you are all able to continue to stay safe, while waiting for your vaccination. Take care.x
Brainfluff 
I missed ye very much but I also very much understand. Hope this new year is going well for ye so far.
x The Captain
Ah – thank you, Cap! Let’s hope everything will start to improve very soon. In the meantime, I hope that you, too, will have a better year.
Your absence is completely understandable, under the circumstances. I’m hopeful of getting my vaccine in the next several months, but I’m afraid my age group will fall in the very last group. I also read Doors of Sleep and really loved it! I hope you have a nice week, and congrats on such an impressive writing word count😁
Thank you, Tammy – right now it’s hard to keep all the plates spinning and the blog is the one that keeps crashing to the floor… Let’s hope the plan to get the more vulnerable immunised first means that the pressure on the hospitals will start to ease, soon. I don’t know what it’s like in the States, but here in the UK, the new variant of COVID means our health service is stretched to the max…
Glad you also enjoyed Doors of Sleep, too. Have a peaceful, healthy week, Tammy:)).
You accomplished a great deal, girlfriend. I have no earthly idea of how much I read or wrote (only wrote blogs and worksheets, lesson plans, etc), but I know I stretched my “literary skills.” LOL
It’s partly the nerd in me – but also I need to know if my efforts are going in the right direction, which is why I monitor my wordcount. I allows me to make informed decisions on how to work smarter…
And I’m very aware that as a teacher, a great deal of headspace goes into the planning of lessons and the delivering of them. It certainly influenced by decision to step down from my teaching post… even though I horribly miss my students.
Your accomplishments astound me!
How kind of you to say so, Becky:)).
No matter how swamped you were, you still managed to accomplish a great deal – and it’s lovely to learn that you could enjoy as much family time as the dire situation we are suffering under allowed…
Let’s hope that we can all look back on it from a better – and more relaxed – point of view, and that this happens soon! 🙂
Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s crazy times and holidays are never quite the same a regular weeks.
No, you’re right, Anne. I tend to get a tad wound at times! Thank you for the advice and I hope you have a great week:).
I’m sorry to read things have been hard for you. I’m glad Christmas ended up being good though! And just take it easy with the blogging thing.. We’ll still be here 😉
Have a great week and happy reading.
Oh bless you, Maureen:)). Thank you for your kind reassurance! I hope you, too, have a lovely week with your daughter and get a chance to put your feet up!
I also went AWOL over Christmas and am now playing catch up – but it sounds like you had a fantastic family Christmas so well worth being behind a little.
Lynn 😀
Yes, it was really lovely. And we treasured every minute of it… Because you never know what’s around the corner right now.
A lot of us had to be offline for Christmas, I think, to focus on other things that matter. xxxxxx
Yes – absolutely. xxxx