Update

[livredor]

I'm really enjoying the resurgence of people doing little potted summaries of what goes on in their day-to-day lives, so I think I might give that a go.

Reading: The invisible library by Genevieve Cogman. This was a present from Ghoti, and it was pointed out that with a name like that Cogman really ought to be writing steampunk, but in fact this is more like urban fantasy. I have read a couple of chapters and I am already in love with the premise of a librarian-magician-spy travelling between parallel worlds to steal rare books.

Social:

• A service and food to celebrate the tenth anniversary of my community moving to a new building. I have Thoughts about it which should probably go in a locked post, which is why I've been procrastinating on posting about it.
  
  
• Judith's eighth birthday party, which was Disney themed and had excellent food and activities and loud happy children. Apparently Judith is too old for party games, but her friends, who cover quite an age-range, from toddlers to young teens, are remarkably self-organizing.
  
  
• Poly meet Christmas party. I don't really go to the poly meet because it happens on weekday evenings when I'm out of town, but I know half the people and the rest seem like my sort. I really enjoyed the part where we milled around talking and there was a bring-and-share buffet, I was less keen on the part with karaoke that was a bit too loud for those of us not singing to talk.

Food: Nothing much, I'm finding myself completely unmotivated by cooking lately. I managed a cheesy mushroom pasta bake for my date with Ghoti, but other than that I'm mostly living on whatever can be prepared with minimal effort.

Games:

• Finally got a chance to try Codenames in a quiet-ish corner at the poly meet, and we only managed one round before the noise was too overwhelming, but I like it just as much as I hoped I would. It's really nice to play in a mostly co-op way, without being hugely competitive; like Apples to Apples I feel like it would work less well if you really cared about winning.
  
  
• Smallworld with
  jack and Dominion with Ghoti.
  
  
• Tobago on BoardGameArena. I am not enamored of the site, it has an interface I find unnecessarily elaborate and confusing, but it has a great range of games including Eurogames which are not on my preferred online asynch site, Yucata. And I was browsing through and it turns out that Tobago is a game I played once years ago and am excited to rediscover. The idea is that you explore a hex map and play "clue" cards that define the location of the treasure, which isn't actually pre-determined but gets narrowed down as players add more clues (which have to be consistent with existing ones.) Great mechanic, and I'm considering acquiring a physical copy if I'm not bored after a few online plays.
  
  
• Still poking at Pokémon Go occasionally, I'm a bit tired of it especially as it tends to crash my phone, but I'm slightly motivated by the possibility of Christmas and Gen2 Pokémon (haven't found any yet).
  
  
• Rediscovered the lovely remote Pictionary app, Draw Something. Username ewerb on there, if you'd like to play.

Watching: I wanted to watch a film with Ghoti but all our futuristic mechanisms of instantly hiring what we wanted to see failed, so we ended up watching an episode of Gilmore Girls. I didn't really do it justice by grabbing a random episode in the middle of the seventh season, but it seemed like a pleasant and not too cringey sitcom, so I might get round to watching more of it.

Listening: I'm beginning to pick up bits of Christmas choral stuff on Radio 3 and Spotify, but other than that nothing much stands out.

Nuisance:

• I had my wallet lifted from my handbag on Sunday evening. My lovely
  jack came to the station to rescue me with hugs and enough money to get the train back to Keele, and I cancelled all the cards, and I am grateful that I won't actually go hungry for the loss of a few tens of pounds in cash and train tickets. But really really annoying, all the same.
• It's the end of term, therefore everybody feels they have to come into work while infectious because there's no way we can reschedule teaching or meetings, and of course I have caught the horrible cold that's going round.

Anyway, term ends Friday, I'm heading back to Cambridge for a full three week block, and I am looking forward to Blue Christmas and Christmas and Chanukah and just relaxing with my people without any more travelling for a while.

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