Currently...

Pleased...
... about finally getting through to the hospital today.

I left a message on Sunday, knowing they were closed but not sure when they were going to reopen. Another call yesterday and then a round of phone tag this morning and we've finally been able to get an appointment scheduled to pick up the first lot of drugs we need.

I didn't realise just how wound up the uncertainty was making me until I got off the phone and went to tell my manager which day I needed off. It really was like a weight had been lifted from me. I'm feeling very relaxed right now.

Reading...
... my main Christmas present from Mr Click, the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Sadly it's not the most portable of books. It's huge and I can only wonder how big the later books are going to be. Massive if my illustrated Lord of the Rings is anything to go by! But there's something very comforting about sitting up in bed and reading it at night.

Plus there's so much to see in the pictures. It's like every time I look at a page, I notice something I didn't see before in the image. It's beautiful.

Watching...
... 24 and The Muppet Show.

Not both at the same time, obviously.

A friend at work came over to me a couple of months ago and asked if I'd seen 24. When I told him no, he showed up at my desk a few hours later with the complete box set of it and told me I had to watch it.

So far we're into the second episode and I'm kind of reminded of Spooks and Die Hard but I'm enjoying it. I'm planning on us marathoning it to get through it as quickly as possible. It's kind of funny how dated it looks. As soon as it started I commented to Mr Click that you could tell it was early 2000s; I couldn't tell you exactly what the early-2000s look was, but the people in this series have it!

We still have another series of Criminal Minds to watch but I'm wanting something a bit lighter during treatment; clearly terrorists is easier viewing than serial killers.

To help balance it out we're watching The Muppet Show on DVD before bed. We've watched most of the first series before but it's really easy bedtime viewing and I'm sure we've missed a few episodes in the past.

Are you watching anything new (or new to you)?

Books 11 & 12 of 2016: Young Single Homeless by Rachel Cumming & Wicked Pleasures by Penny Vincenzi

In March last year I read the ebook Young Single Homeless by Rachel Cumming. It follows the lives of several of the young people living in a hostel for young people, along with their case worker. Showing their experiences over the course of several weeks as well as the politics which they must deal with to keep the hostel running.

This book did have potential and I thought it was an interesting subject but I can't say that I enjoyed it. I almost felt like I was reading a first draft, as opposed to the fully completed story.

It was very much all telling, no showing, which is one of those weird things which you only notice when it's not being done right. I felt that it was all 'this happened, then that happened, then something else happened' without much depth. I would've enjoyed it a lot more had it gone into a little more detail about what was going on, without outright stating everything.

I also felt like this was the sort of story which should have provoked a definite emotional response in a reader, but I didn't feel anything like that when I was reading. Perhaps it was because of the way that things were told rather than described, it felt very clinical. I think that perhaps I might have engaged with the story there if there was something in it for me to connect with.

There was also an arc with the Smith brothers which felt sort of tacked on, as though it was trying to pack in more drama which was really unnecessary as there was enough going on in the lives of the other characters without that.

In short, this is a book which does have a good underlying story, but it needs a little more work to make it into a polished read.

I followed this up with Wicked Pleasures by Penny Vincenzi which I acquired in a big bag of books the year before and never actually got around to reading until the end of March. It took me nearly three weeks to read, in part because I was going really slowly, but also because it clocks in at 804 pages!

It's a story which takes place across two families, a wealthy American family and a titled British one when the offspring of the union learn that the man they have called 'father' is not in fact their father. Not only this, but they all have different fathers. The story follows the children as they seek to learn just who they are, as well as the past which led them to this point.

Alexander, the Earl of Caterham, was an awful, awful man. In fact, I found most of the characters unlikable, but Alexander was definitely the worst, literally, pure evil.

I'm surprised at how much I actually enjoyed this book considering the fact that I couldn't relate to a single one of the characters. They were all really wealthy and spoiled. Normally I look for myself in the characters of the books that I read, but there wasn't a single character that I could see myself in. It made it hard to sympathise with them when I'm guessing I was supposed to.

At the beginning it felt really slow going. The book begins by going right back to the very beginnings of the Praeger dynasty. The book jumps around between Virginia's youth, her children's youth and her children as adults, which took a little getting used to at first, but I liked how it worked at the end.

It's unlikely that I'll read it again in the future, but I found it strangely hard to put down while I was reading it.

Catching Up...

I'm still getting back into the swing of things after being away, then spent an extra two nights away from home for New Year with my in-laws, so I'm a wee bit behind on my blogging (and let's not even mention my plans for vlogging, which so far have gotten as far as practicing setting up the tripod and making sure the camera works).

And it's back to work tomorrow.

That's going to be a bit of a shock to the system after so many days of staying in my jammies until nearly lunchtime!

I'm kind of glad that it's a short week to ease me back into it gently.

So here's a little heads up of what'll be coming in the next few posts:

• Our unexpected early departure for Wales and the very interesting hotel which we stopped in along the way.
• The rest of the journey, which thankfully was a lot less stressful than the actual leaving the island bit.
• Christmas, which was generally awesome, as well as all the other things we got up to in Wales.

• The return from Wales, which was a breeze compared to getting there and the (almost) luxury hotel we stopped in (compared to the previous one we'd been in).
• And my new Bullet Journal and how that's going.

How's your New Year going so far?

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone has woken up feeling ready to face whatever 2017 will throw at us.

We took a nice, brisk walk this morning while the sun was coming up and so far, aside from a dead blu-ray player, the year is going pretty well.

I'll be getting caught up online this week. Check back for some more blog posts soon.

Books 9 & 10 of 2016: OMG by God (with David Javerbaum) & Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs

I decided to go with a funny book after Undercover so I grabbed one from my Kindle which I've had on there for ages. It's called OMG by God (with some help from David Javerbaum).

This was a Kindle freebie sampler for the longer book The Last Testament. It's supposed to be God's own story about how He did the things in the Bible.

I don't know just how many pages this book had but it couldn't have been many. I was done with it within about half an hour. I actually found myself wishing it had been longer. It's based on God Twitter account so I'm guessing you could follow along there for a daily dose of funny.

It was definitely my sort of humour. If I saw the longer book I'd be inclined to pick it up because there's something about it which appeals to me.

I'm always impressed by good parodies because in order to parody something effectively you have to kind of have a handle on just whatever it is that you're parodying. This did it well, right down to the Chapters and Verses which was a good touch.

It was after reading this that I decided I'd keep an eye out for more funny little samplers on my Kindle; normally I want the whole book or not at all. It'd whet my appetite for the longer versions but also because this sort of thing is a nice pick me up for a chilly spring morning!

I followed this up with something which was the complete opposite of a quick, funny read; Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs.

This is the first book in the Tempe Brennan series. It introduces the forensic anthropologist in her role in Montreal where she works for the medico-legal lab in their work solving crimes. In this she works a case which involves someone who is murdering young women and which places herself, her daughter and her best friend in danger.

It felt like it took forever to get through this one. In reality it was only 13 days but considering the first time I read these books I devoured the first three books in almost as many days. To be fair, I was travelling a five hour commute each day so I had a lot more time for reading then than now, but I still felt like I was moving so slowly on this book.

Normally I think I go slower on these crime book rereads because I'm familiar with the story and I know who did it. Usually that takes away the regular sense of urgency. This time around I was struggling to actually remember what happened and who did it, so I can't blame that for my speed. I enjoyed this read, perhaps because I couldn't really remember who the killer was.

One thing which did really stick out on this go through was the way that certain things are explained. This was published way back in 1998 when email wasn't quite so ubiquitous as it is now, so that's just one of the things which gets a detailed explanation, along with other things like picture editing software and modems.

I wouldn't say it bugs me, because it's just down to when the book was written, but it's sort of interesting to see it there in the middle of the story. I guess the biggest problem with it is that it so obviously dates it, rather than just saying 'I opened my email' and letting the reader figure out what that is on their own time so they can move on to the real events of the story.

I think that's something which is only going to get worse with time!

Silent Sunday: Nadolig

Christmas Eve, aka Happy Anniversary!

Since it's Christmas Eve, it also means that it's Mr Click and my anniversary. So it's time to trot out my old Christmas favourite.

This is the Jim Brickman and Wayne Brady Christmas version of Beautiful. It's our song.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas Day tomorrow.