I know that it’s been a bit quiet around here for the last couple of weeks. For this, we can blame exiting one job, a holiday and a brief but busy few days off.

So instead of admonishing me for being slack (you) or feeling guilty about the long list of half-written posts currently in draft within wordpress (me), let’s pretend that I’ve been writing engagingly and intelligently about various things over the last few days, not least….

1. New product from those nice people at moo.com: Moo notecards

(I had a sneak preview order fulfilled a couple of weeks ago - and they are lovely. I can think of all sorts of uses, but yet again I find myself unable to contemplate giving them away. There’s something so powerful about a physical product…)

2. Making a moo minicard holder out of an Eclipse mint tin

(this involved lots of faffing around with scissors, and reminded me of a line from a poem someone once sent in to Blue Peter:

“Lesley Judd is really fantastic / making interesting things out of sticky-backed plastic”

Ah, Lesley Judd. A woman after my own heart - she always had a creative project on the go, and best of all she never needed to do the boring bits because it was all done for her: here’s one I made earlier…)

3. Horse Racing and Gambling in General

(What with my lucrative trip to Cork Races in Mallow over Easter (resulting in a tidy win of 18 Euro, thankyewverymuch):

and my sister’s recent happy flutter:

I feel like I’ve engaged more with the gee-gees in the last ten days than in the last three decades. Weird. Prior to this, the closest I’d come to the horses was being involved in a stable relationship. Laydeez and gentlemen, I’m here all week: try the veal.)

4. Easter in Ireland

(The weather was stunning: the scenery was amazing; the pubs were unsmoky and we managed to be the last to leave on at least one occasion (and in some bits of Ireland, at least in rural Co. Cork, the pubs close when the last punter leaves. And in our case, that was late); the roads were fast and emptyish (apart from tractors) and it was all good.)

In fact, the weather was so good that it deserves another photo:

5. Being in Private Eye

Nuff said.

There are a few more things I wanted to write about - like playing with my Holga, leaving Olympia and the advent of summer…but I really will finish those half-written posts very soon….

Tomorrow, though, I start my new job at The Guardian, which I’m very much looking forward to. Spring is all about new beginnings.