I recently re-read Dan Brown’s novels and had actually forgotten how much I enjoyed the Robert Langdon books – the whole cypher solving and religious aspects, the holy grail etc etc. I wanted to read more books in that general sphere so I consulted both the library and my new friend goodreads.com and have started reading the Cotton Malone series by Steve Berry.

In turn this has got me fascinated by the history and mythology surrounding the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail and Freemasons. How a fairly basic order designed to protect travelling pilgrims during the crusades only to become so powerful and rich and then their ultimate downfall has become such a ongoing and lasting mystery and how they still have such an impact and intrigue today is compelling. How even the order themselves were involved in starting the rumours and propaganda around them and how they’re linked to the superstitions around Friday 13th. It’s completely sucked me in.

Goodbye to-do lists, goodbye to-read pile.
Hello new interest!

I’m already collecting lists of books – both fiction and non-fiction – I need to read and movies that I need to see. I’m such a geek and am getting pages of notes. God bless my love of stationery and colourcoding. Yes, I am aware of how this sounds. I’m waiting impatiently for reserved books to come in the library, for DVDs to be shipped from lovefilm.

So now I’m going to throw this open to anyone reading who has any suggestions on any/every resource about the order. I’m especially interested in fiction books based around the order, similar to Steve Berry, Michael Jecks and Raymond Khoury. But really, anything and everything will be happily devoured.
Thank you

99% of the time I have no interest whatsoever in sport. This changes for about two weeks in June, the Wimbledon fortnight and I get very excited indeed about tennis. I’ll have the BBC Sport news feed open all day on my work computer and random people from all over the office call the switchboard to simply ask the score/s of certain match/es. I even recall actually ‘borrowing’ a meeting room that had a television in to watch the Mahut and Isner match – and wasn’t that amazing?

This year, I seem to have been sucked into the French Open. I’ve been on the edge of my seat watching Andy Murray play. I had the video feed of his match against Chela playing most of the day – and of course was then complaining about how slow my computer was. Rather than turning it off though, what did I do? Simply stopped working for a while and enjoyed the tennis.
Yes, I’m a naughty girl but it’s not like my manager (and his manager) aren’t among those who use the ‘Megs Wimbledon Hotline’ on an annual basis.

My heart has however sunk with the realisation that Murray’s semi-final is going to be against Nadal. And oh how I’m looking forward to Federer vs Djokovic!
I’m genuinely not sure if I want a Nadal vs Federer or Nadal vs Djokovic final – I think either way is going to be amazing!
Tomorrow I’m looking forward to Li vs Sharapova.

I’m wondering if maybe I’m more of a tennis fan than I ever actually realised!

I was going to write a blog post about the concept of role models, something I’ve thought about for a while but then I looked at the date of my last entry and oh my, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s also been a long time since I’ve even been on the internet as well.

I don’t even have a good excuse… just… well, life, I suppose. I’ve been busy with work and school, and really the last thing I’ve wanted to do when I finally got time to relax was boot up my computer and do what felt like more of the same. As a result, I’ve done a lot of reading which is always good.

My plans for the second quarter is definitely to get back into blogging – both here and on my livejournal, as well as to continue working on book reviews and short stories… at least if I get a chance to. I’m also painfully, embarrassingly, far behind on all of the television shows I watch. I’ve seen very little of my friends. Just call me Megs The Hermit!

I did however get down to London last weekend to see Steve Carlson play at the Halfmoon Putney and can I just say that he completely blew me away. His CDs simply do not do him justice. He made mention of the show being recorded so I’m going to sit here with my fingers crossed for a full band live album. That would be incredible.

That’s really it from me.
So, how have you been?

I seem to have a huge pile of books to read gathered on the floor, piles of them in front of my bookcase. I dread to think how many of them there are. A good couple of hundred I’m sure. They’re taunting me. I’ve had very little time to read for pleasure lately and these books… I swear they know it and are multiplying. Or maybe I just need to keep clear of ebay, amazon and waterstone’s sales hah!

One thing I would like to accomplish this year is one of those 50 books challenges.. the 50 books in a year. Normally it wouldn’t seem such a daunting task, that’s less than a book a week. Maybe I should just worry about the first few weeks?
OK, the top of my pile consists of:
A. N. Roquelaure – The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy (yes technically this is 3 books!)
Stephen Donaldson – Against All Things Ending
Maria Landon – Daddy’s Little Earner
Michael Jecks – The Death Ship of Dartmouth
Josie Lloyd & Emlyn Rees – Come Together.
I aim to have read these – and posted reviews – by the end of February.

That certainly sounds doable… any one have a time turner I can borrow?

Kant said that we require three things by which to measure happiness: someone to love, something we like to do, and something to look forward to.

I’m not in a relationship so I don’t love anyone in a romantic sense. That’s not to say I don’t love people in a familial or platonic way. My friends and family are incredibly important to me. I also love my cat, Cookie, who is my constant companion when I’m home.
I know there are people who believe that I couldn’t possibly be happy without ‘someone to love’ but I don’t feel I’m missing anything in that respect.

One of the things I love doing the most is simply curling up on my couch with a good book and losing myself for a few hours. It’s something that in an ideal world I would do everyday but in reality only have chance to do 3-4 hours a week. Cookie usually curls up with me too.

I’m failing at having something to look forward to. I pretty much live in the today, I take each day at a time rather than wishing my life away waiting for something. You could say I look forward to tomorrow to see what it will bring.