Happy holidays

[altariel]

An extremely nice Christmas and New Year.



Despite the onset of a cold on Christmas Eve, I had a very pleasant and restful Christmas with Mr A. We ate steadily from fairly early on in the day, and wound up watching Christmas Night With the Stars in a completely uncynical fashion, thus providing more evidence for my theory that the postmodern era died when Christopher Lee had the light-sabre fight with Yoda.

The inhabitants of Isle of Wight proved curiously unwilling to sell us food, with takeaway curry proving almost impossible to find, when we arrived very late and hungry after a three hour stay on the M25. The information services on our mobile phones told us that there were 17 curry houses within 15 miles of our seaside cottage - unfortunately, 15 of these were the other side of the Solent.

After this minor hiccup, the rest of the holiday was very relaxing: eating, drinking, reading, sleeping, playing LotR boardgames. LotR Risk is brilliant and loads better than the original - I think I must care more about owning bits of Rhovanion than bits of Eurasia. Also the Eagle figures look better than the cannons.

Walking along the beach near the house proved only for the brave-hearted. I ended up ankle-deep in clay; my friends ended up knee-deep. We fled the quicksand terrors of Brighstone beach for the more civilized sands of Ventnor on New Year's Day. The weather was warm enough there that I was without gloves and scarf. A mild attack of vertigo walking along to the Needles stopped me from going to high up the headland - I do hate it when the sky and land resolve themselves into 2D planes of colour.

We got back on Friday and I faced an inbox heaving with over 500 messages. Friends over for the weekend. I have been pretty efficient this week, nailing various bits of work and making good headway with this month's more pressing projects. Let's hope this burst of energy keeps up a while yet.

Comments

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Hi, Altariel! Happy New Year! That sounds a good time - I'm glad you enjoyed it. And I'm sorry, but I did giggle at the curry problems. :-)

I hope you made progress with the work you were going to take with you - is the deadline going to be ok? Good luck with it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year! We were giggling about the curry problems too - once we got our curry! My friend and I sent out the menfolk to do the hunting/gathering and stayed in front of the telly.

Deadlines are all looking fine at this point. Hope it's the same for you.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Deadlines are all looking fine at this point.

I'm glad about that. Keep going!

Things are pretty much as normal here. Yep, they really are that bad. ;-) The only good point is that (in most areas) the Department is as poor at insisting on deadlines as it is at providing resources. So there should be room for manoeuvre....

Btw, that light-sabre fight came up in a conversation recently. Luckily, I hadn't yet managed to launch into my vituperation when the other person exclaimed, "Isn't it great?". Going back to Mr A's comment, perhaps Father Christmas is alive and well, after all.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

the Department is as poor at insisting on deadlines as it is at providing resources

Huh. I suppose that counts as internal consistency.


Btw, that light-sabre fight came up in a conversation recently. Luckily, I hadn't yet managed to launch into my vituperation when the other person exclaimed, "Isn't it great?".

*mind boggles*


Going back to Mr A's comment, perhaps Father Christmas is alive and well, after all.

And coming out fighting, we can only hope.

[archbishopm.livejournal.com]

thus providing more evidence for my theory that the postmodern era died when Christopher Lee had the light-sabre fight with Yoda.

Hee!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It wasn't ironic or playful or any of that. It was just *bad*.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

LotR Risk is brilliant

Oh good, we got given two. Hoping to play tonight in fact. Does it take forever to finish it?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

They've built in a time-limitation mechanism: at the end of each person's move you move a little counter representing the Fellowship further down the board. Once this counter gets to the end of the map, the game ends. This final move for the Fellowship depends on rolling a four or higher, all of which adds up to some fairly frantic alliances and panicky attacks as you think (but aren't sure) whether or not the game is about to end.

Still, I reckon each game lasted somewhere between 2 1/2 to 3 hours, although I was playing with some fairly competitive people (me not least!).

If you don't already have a home planned for that second box, I'll happily make you an offer for it. We were playing with a friend's, and haven't been able to find it for love or money since Xmas.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

three hours. hmm. may put it off until the weekend then.

I'm afraid H already passed on the second box to someone else, sorry.

I'll keep an eye out for Lord of the Rings Monopoly.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Or play it over a couple of nights.

We got the LotR Monopoly from Ian (G.) but haven't had a chance to play it yet. I'm pleased that's it's possible to fortify Bag End, however.

The Trivial Pursuit is good too, and there are extra rules whereby you become the Ringbearer on answering a cheese question, and get chased around the board by a Ringwraith. Livens Triv up.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

All the games sound like a lot of fun! I'm glad you had some time over the holidays to relax and play them.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The benefits of being offline - suddenly I had all this time on my hands!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year to you too!

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely!

Happy new year!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It was good fun! We went with good friends.

Happy New Year to you too!

[kathyh]

when we arrived very late and hungry after a three hour stay on the M25.

You too, huh! There was a guy on the Today programme this morning saying that the M25 was becoming another suburb of London, and after our post-Christmas crawl around it I'm starting to think he was right. Happy New Year.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Was that on the 27th? We should have been alerted by seeing someone reversing up the sliproad, but we just thought he was mad. Until we saw the tailback.

Happy New Year!

[kathyh]

Was that on the 27th?

Yes, it was. We were coming back south from Lincolnshire. Our only comfort was that the traffic going north was worse!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

And it was grim enough heading south!

BTW, I have started the first Lymond book, and it is absolutely *brilliant*. I can see a major addiction heading my way - although they require a fair amount of concentration to get the maximum benefit... they're not skim reads, are they?!? Mr A. has been reading them over my shoulder and I think he'll be reading them next - a real triumph, since he's largely given up reading fiction these days.

[kathyh]

BTW, I have started the first Lymond book, and it is absolutely *brilliant*.

Oh Great! I'm delighted you're enjoying it.

I can see a major addiction heading my way - although they require a fair amount of concentration to get the maximum benefit... they're not skim reads, are they?!?

No *g*. The general reading pattern is that you read them once, then go back to read again to pick up the bits you missed the first time, then realise that you really need to read again just to be sure, then start out determined to take notes but get caught up in the book and re-read again accidentally...and so on *g*.

Mr A. has been reading them over my shoulder and I think he'll be reading them next

Wow. My other half took one look and said they were far too long for him. There are various Dunnett mailing lists around (and possibly even an LJ group) so if you find yourself truly addicted there are plenty of people to share it with *g*.

[ex-seasalt15.livejournal.com]

Is there an emoticon for *green with malignant envy*?
Deadlines, deadlines *shudders in anticipation*.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Which bit is making you envious? The productivity, or my foot's sudden and close acquaintance with a load of clay? Or the Hunt for Curry? ;-D

[ex-seasalt15.livejournal.com]

my foot's sudden and close acquaintance with a load of clay

Philistine. The joys of mud, clearly!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glorious mud! There's nothing quite like it for cooling the blood...

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! Glad you had a lovely break.

I hope you're going to give the Rhovanion back to Thranduil and Celeborn once you've finished with it. After all, they won it fair and square by Destroying all the Black Armies :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I suppose I could always cross Risk with Monopoly and lease back prime bits of Rhovanion real estate...

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

I think I must care more about owning bits of Rhovanion than bits of Eurasia.

Good news for the inhabitants of Eurasia, I'd say.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I have all kinds of ideas for the Aral Sea.

Happy New Year! I'm assuming you know that your blog is playing up?

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

And a happy New Year to you to. I'm aware of the problems with iainjcoleman.net, and am in the process of resolving them. Unfortunately, such resolution is dependent on the efficiency of third parties. Imagine my joy.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I can picture you gaily clapping your hands together.

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

Altariel!!
I can only hope that you're listening to the RVW from the "A House Divided" soundtrack I sent... I'm new to the whole LJ thing, but it's wonderful to see fanfiction friends here.

I hope that the new year is a prolific one for you!

~Thevina

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thevina! Welcome to LJ!

It is indeed from the CD that you sent - it arrived while I was away on the holiday I describe above.

For which, many, many thanks (and apologies for my slowness in letting you know it arrived safe and sound). In particular, I have been addictively playing the piece from 'Tous Les Matins Du Monde' for the past day or so!

Here's hoping to a productive new year for both of us!

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

YAY!! I'm so glad you like the "soundtrack." That one from 'Tous les Matins du Monde' is a fun one- it's also the only cut on the soundtrack by Jean-Baptiste Lully. He has always stuck out in my mind from my music history days because of the manner in which he died: he managed to pierce his foot with his conducting baton, it became gangrenous, and he died not long after. Ah, the indignity. ;)

I look forward to any of your new stories! I've actually been considering trying to find your Blake's 7 fiction, now that I have an idea of who the people are. "AHD" is being beta read and will probably be ready for public reading in a week or two, which makes me happy. The fact that "A Game of Chess" was the initial inspiration is listed in the Author's Notes. Hope you don't mind...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to track down the film. What a great story about Lully - dying in the name of his art!

Most of my B7 stuff is in paper zines, but there are links to some of the online stuff on my website. Those pages are a bit old, I hope the links are OK!

Good luck with the beta on AHD, and thank you for the credit, that's very kind of you!