Christine at Bookishly Boisterous started this meme – get amongst it.

1. There’s a lot of ‘Best of 2013’ book lists out… Don’t these people read in December*?

2. Finished two books on the same day this week – Back to Back by Julia Franck and Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. Unless you’ve read both you won’t understand how weird it was to have chosen those books to be read at the same time. And to finish them within hours of each other.

3. Just a little bit excited (already) about this Markus Zusak event in January – I’m thinking that if Zusak is willing to talk to audiences about the film version of The Book Thief, then he must be happy with the result.

4.The 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award shortlists have been announced. Pleased to see Burial Rites by Hannah Kent there – it’s probably my favourite book this year*.

5. Started signing up for 2014 reading challenges (even though I haven’t finished all of my 2013 challenges….).

Okay, enough bookish stuff.

6. This is reassuring – Gin. London. #planningmyitinerary

On my to-do list is the ‘Goldfish in a Bag’ cocktail at The Folly. It’s described as a mix of Little Bird gin (distilled in Peckham), Hangar 1 mandarin vodka, rhubarb bitters, pink grapefruit ‘fish,’ Fever-Tree tonic and edible lily pads. They also serve a chicken club sandwich. I may as well move in there RIGHT NOW.

7. Every year I go through the farce of making a gingerbread house with the kids as part of our festive activities. I say farce because the exercise usually ends with me shooing the kids away, flinging icing all over the place, and muttering “This fucking thing…” quietly to myself as I stand as still as a statue, propping up gingerbread walls until icing sets. So I probably shouldn’t attempt a gingerbread Guggenheim quite yet, should I?

8. Have I mentioned how much I love my mothers group? I’m exceptionally lucky – they’re all ace. After eleven years, we (just the mums) still meet once a month for dinner and go away for a weekend together each year. At Christmas we let the kids and the dads join the fun (I know, generous). This year we had nine mums, eight dads and 23 kids all in the one place – champagne, pizza, swimming, cricket and our annual photo all happened. Hope we’re still celebrating exactly the same way in another eleven years.

9. A friend put me onto this bag. By now you probably know I love a bag. This one might actually change my life. And it’s a wristlet. Probably need one in every colour (except purple – urgh).

If you’re not exactly sure what’s so special about this bag, know this – it charges your phone. Huzzah.

* There’s still 26 reading days left in the year people.