"I'll have you know I am an agent of the British Secret Service."

This is Ulla Burton, martian, secret agent and all around dashed fine cove. She is one of the characters in the delightfully silly Larklight by Phillip Reeve which has been lifting my spirits wonderfully over the last few days while I have been seeing off some silly virus thing. I really wish they'd be polite enough to only bite when the sun is shining sometimes.

Christmas has been rather pleasant, we spent a lot of good time with family eating delicious food and playing very silly games. I didn't manage to get in touch with quite as many far flung sorts as I'd have liked but a goodly few appeared. New year was a nice quiet affair with ezekiel, doodle some disaster movies and pizza (about as social as I could handle and with room for me to huddle under some blankets in the corner ) and all is now well in 2009.

I'm not much for new years resolutions so this year I'm making wishes instead; good health for all of us, quiet success at work for me (because I like being good at what I do), for fate to throw eldest a frickin bone or two and ... and ... for the third book in the lies of locke lamorra series to be released!

Because that would make me very happy indeed. Merry new year everyone.