(no subject)
I was irritatingly awake for about an hour and a half in the middle of the night last night and the wireless box was misbehaving, but 4 in the morning, I can't get up to reset it.
Then I felt pretty off most of the morning and had horrific cramps all afternoon before coming home and disappearing into the bath for a couple of hours with Sherlock Holmes.
I picked up the Adventures last summer at an airport and enjoyed it. Partly because a collection of short stories is handy when you're flying and then getting a train across the continent - you don't need to worry about getting lost in a long novel, you can just sit for five or ten minutes and read a little story. I was astonished at how readable it was - I still am. I don't tend to enjoy "the classics" but that worked for me.
I have since acquired the rest of the books and they have sat unread. I took two of them to Norway, along with One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing (I do recommend Jasper Fforde - good cracky book-loving fun), finished the Thursday book at the weekend and devoured the entirety of the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes in airports/on planes before starting on the Memoirs at the coach station.
I've finished the Memoirs since then and read the first of the Return of Sherlock Holmes. I'm constantly astonished at the little details from the books that keep appearing in BBC's Sherlock and Benedict Cumberbatch does sort of fit Conan Doyle's descriptions. One thing that does make me chuckle. London has clearly grown a lot since those days. I keep coming across places that I regard as being in London, which to Holmes and Watson are either green, leafy suburbs or full-on in the countryside. And considering how much Baker Street is linked to them, they actually spend a lot of time taking the train all over the south of England.
Then, for no reason I can see, my sister announced to me that Kate Humble was on the radio earlier and do I know what her favourites books were when she was little? Arabel & Mortimer! I didn't know, and I wasn't sure that I really cared. But it did make me think for quite a while about who wrote the books, because a selection of my books are in alphabetical order (with a chunk of more grown-up books in the middle of it all which definitely are not in order) and if I could only remember who wrote them, I'd be able to find them. And then I remembered and I pulled out my Long Way Round books which are hiding my Aikens and there was one of my favourite books ever - A Handful of Gold. It's a short story collection, sort of fantasy for children. I love it. I'd forgotten I love it. There's several stories about a family who have a succession of magical pets - a unicorn, a griffin, I think they're the ones who inherit the robots too. I always felt like there should be more stories about them and maybe I just hadn't found the books with them in. I clearly have to re-read that. Maybe see if I can get hold of A Necklace of Raindrops too, because I remember loving the story but I'm pretty sure I haven't actually got the book.
Tomorrow... we will see how I feel. I would like to go to PC World and play with an HTC Flyer. I decided one day that I would not get an iPad, I would get the HTC version. I was astonished, only a couple of weeks later, to discover it actually existed, or it would do soon. And it's nearly a month overdue and it's far more expensive than an iPad and I can neither afford nor justify it (because what on earth can I do with it that I can't do with my laptop/netbook/phone?) but I feel the urge to go and play with one. I had a brief moment with one at Gatwick last week but only a moment because I had a flight to catch and there was a man and his son playing with it already, only they weren't interested in anything except taking their own photo and then using the built-in effects to distort them, despite me standing over them, drooling over this thing and tapping my fingers in a get-out-of-my-way-I-need-to-touch-this-and-I-haven't-got-time-to-wait-for-you way. It's outstandingly beautiful and I want one so desperately. But £600! That's obscene! And it's only 7 inches! I admit, I have always felt that despite its beauty, the iPad is a little large and unwieldy, so I do prefer the 7 inches but you'd think the smaller tablet would be less expensive than the larger tablet, surely? Even the wifi-only version (which isn't out yet) will be £479, which is... it hurts. At a more reasonable price, I might have been able to do the man-maths and justify it. So tomorrow I'd like to go and have a good play with one. And I need to track down a copy of TGO Magazine, which apparently none of the newsagents in my town have. Although I went on Wednesday (which was June 1st) when their website said on Thursday (2nd) that the new issue is out now, so maybe if I'd left it a day I'd have had more luck. But work sent me to the bank on Wednesday! The town centre is a pain to park in so I never go on my own time! Anyway, if I'm not feeling quite so much like I've been run over tomorrow, I'll go to a bigger town with a bigger Smiths and try my luck there.
And finally... I still itch! My elbows are still covered in a nice rash but it's gone from my forearms and all I've got on the back of my hands is a sort of scaly dryness. It seems to be responding reasonably well to the itch relief cream, which is good because I'm reluctant to use the hydrocortistone until I have to but I don't tend to put it on in the evenings and then I itch like crazy all night. That's probably what kept me awake last night. At the moment, it seems to be my knuckles and my legs and my head that are the itchiest and I can't wait until it all calms down again. Wish I knew what set it off in the first place. I was blaming the soap in Lithuania but when it started all up my arms in Norway, I decided it must have been all the warm layers. But my knuckles? Really? And my legs? I admit, my legs have had a tendency to itch for the last five or six years but they've been so much worse this past week, ankles in particular. That might be the socks in the hot weather, though. I have come home every night this week, kicked off my shoes and then pulled off my socks right there in the kitchen.
I have rambled enough! In short - Sherlock Holmes books are surprisingly enjoyable, Joan Aiken is brilliant, the HTC Flyer is gorgeous but unaffordable and I itch.
Then I felt pretty off most of the morning and had horrific cramps all afternoon before coming home and disappearing into the bath for a couple of hours with Sherlock Holmes.
I picked up the Adventures last summer at an airport and enjoyed it. Partly because a collection of short stories is handy when you're flying and then getting a train across the continent - you don't need to worry about getting lost in a long novel, you can just sit for five or ten minutes and read a little story. I was astonished at how readable it was - I still am. I don't tend to enjoy "the classics" but that worked for me.
I have since acquired the rest of the books and they have sat unread. I took two of them to Norway, along with One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing (I do recommend Jasper Fforde - good cracky book-loving fun), finished the Thursday book at the weekend and devoured the entirety of the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes in airports/on planes before starting on the Memoirs at the coach station.
I've finished the Memoirs since then and read the first of the Return of Sherlock Holmes. I'm constantly astonished at the little details from the books that keep appearing in BBC's Sherlock and Benedict Cumberbatch does sort of fit Conan Doyle's descriptions. One thing that does make me chuckle. London has clearly grown a lot since those days. I keep coming across places that I regard as being in London, which to Holmes and Watson are either green, leafy suburbs or full-on in the countryside. And considering how much Baker Street is linked to them, they actually spend a lot of time taking the train all over the south of England.
Then, for no reason I can see, my sister announced to me that Kate Humble was on the radio earlier and do I know what her favourites books were when she was little? Arabel & Mortimer! I didn't know, and I wasn't sure that I really cared. But it did make me think for quite a while about who wrote the books, because a selection of my books are in alphabetical order (with a chunk of more grown-up books in the middle of it all which definitely are not in order) and if I could only remember who wrote them, I'd be able to find them. And then I remembered and I pulled out my Long Way Round books which are hiding my Aikens and there was one of my favourite books ever - A Handful of Gold. It's a short story collection, sort of fantasy for children. I love it. I'd forgotten I love it. There's several stories about a family who have a succession of magical pets - a unicorn, a griffin, I think they're the ones who inherit the robots too. I always felt like there should be more stories about them and maybe I just hadn't found the books with them in. I clearly have to re-read that. Maybe see if I can get hold of A Necklace of Raindrops too, because I remember loving the story but I'm pretty sure I haven't actually got the book.
Tomorrow... we will see how I feel. I would like to go to PC World and play with an HTC Flyer. I decided one day that I would not get an iPad, I would get the HTC version. I was astonished, only a couple of weeks later, to discover it actually existed, or it would do soon. And it's nearly a month overdue and it's far more expensive than an iPad and I can neither afford nor justify it (because what on earth can I do with it that I can't do with my laptop/netbook/phone?) but I feel the urge to go and play with one. I had a brief moment with one at Gatwick last week but only a moment because I had a flight to catch and there was a man and his son playing with it already, only they weren't interested in anything except taking their own photo and then using the built-in effects to distort them, despite me standing over them, drooling over this thing and tapping my fingers in a get-out-of-my-way-I-need-to-touch-this-and-I-haven't-got-time-to-wait-for-you way. It's outstandingly beautiful and I want one so desperately. But £600! That's obscene! And it's only 7 inches! I admit, I have always felt that despite its beauty, the iPad is a little large and unwieldy, so I do prefer the 7 inches but you'd think the smaller tablet would be less expensive than the larger tablet, surely? Even the wifi-only version (which isn't out yet) will be £479, which is... it hurts. At a more reasonable price, I might have been able to do the man-maths and justify it. So tomorrow I'd like to go and have a good play with one. And I need to track down a copy of TGO Magazine, which apparently none of the newsagents in my town have. Although I went on Wednesday (which was June 1st) when their website said on Thursday (2nd) that the new issue is out now, so maybe if I'd left it a day I'd have had more luck. But work sent me to the bank on Wednesday! The town centre is a pain to park in so I never go on my own time! Anyway, if I'm not feeling quite so much like I've been run over tomorrow, I'll go to a bigger town with a bigger Smiths and try my luck there.
And finally... I still itch! My elbows are still covered in a nice rash but it's gone from my forearms and all I've got on the back of my hands is a sort of scaly dryness. It seems to be responding reasonably well to the itch relief cream, which is good because I'm reluctant to use the hydrocortistone until I have to but I don't tend to put it on in the evenings and then I itch like crazy all night. That's probably what kept me awake last night. At the moment, it seems to be my knuckles and my legs and my head that are the itchiest and I can't wait until it all calms down again. Wish I knew what set it off in the first place. I was blaming the soap in Lithuania but when it started all up my arms in Norway, I decided it must have been all the warm layers. But my knuckles? Really? And my legs? I admit, my legs have had a tendency to itch for the last five or six years but they've been so much worse this past week, ankles in particular. That might be the socks in the hot weather, though. I have come home every night this week, kicked off my shoes and then pulled off my socks right there in the kitchen.
I have rambled enough! In short - Sherlock Holmes books are surprisingly enjoyable, Joan Aiken is brilliant, the HTC Flyer is gorgeous but unaffordable and I itch.