All singing, all dancing catch up

So, blogging has been a little sparse of late, for which I offer my apologies.

Last week, I had some time off and managed to spend a fair proportion of it playing Fable II, which is an excellent and highly involving game. It is possible to rush through the main story in a matter of days, if you are so inclined, but the real pleasure for me is in exploring the world, interacting with the inhabitants, searching for buried treasure with my trusty dog, buying and selling goods for profit, pulling pints in a pub and then saving up enough gold to buy said pub for myself. I’ve been playing as a female character, and have earned the right to be called ‘Lionheart’ although I actually prefer for folk to call me ‘dumpling’. I’ve been married twice, once to a middle class lesbian housewife who ended up getting killed by bandits when she followed me out of the city gates when I went on a bounty hunting mission, and the second time to a wealthy aristocrat who complained until I bought him a nice house and upped his house keeping to 90 gold pieces. I’ve had  baby daughter who I left at home while I went off to fight in the Crucible tournament assisted by a warrior from another world (also known as Jamie on multi-player co-op). Great fun.

On Sunday, we went out to see Quantum of Solace, which very much follows the formula of Casino Royale with the obligatory car chases, roof top chases, globe trotting and M being furious with Bond and cancelling all of his credit cards. There are only one or two niggles – the ‘Bond girl’ character in the middle section of the film seems peculiarly out of place in the world of this version of Bond, and the exploding hotel at the end makes no sense whatsoever. It reminded me of an old episode of Thunderbirds where a car crashing in an underground car park turned the whole building into a raging inferno in a matter of minutes. Hey ho, they are petty cavils and it was a fine bit of escapism for a rainy afternoon.

Monday was yet more trouble with the boiler, with the persistent water leak turning from an occasional drip to something a bit more worrying. The gas man traced it to the heat exchanger, which he replaced on Tuesday – a £500 job which was fortunately covered by our service contract. Touch wood, it seems to have done the trick. I think most of the boiler has been replaced at some time over the last eight years, apart from the cover and the control panel.

Tuesday night was the election, and I listened to some of the early returns coming in around half past midnight before nodding off and waking up at four for the declaration of victory. My sensible head says that Obama is really just a figure head, and that politics will go on pretty much the same as before, but my sentimental heart did feel a strange emotion for a brief moment – what was it now? Hope, or something like that? Anyway, Mark Steel made a good point – it is not the man himself who will make a difference – it’s the aspirations of the millions of ordinary people who put him there that count. Anyway, it will be a refreshing change to have a President who is articulate and intelligent, rather than the folksy dullard we have suffered for the last eight years. It's just a shame that hate filled religious bigots of California and Arizona came out to play.
 
Last night I got home late after being stuck in traffic, and after walking the dog and helping Jan to shift the washing machine and work top back into the utility room wasn’t fit for much more than zonking out on the sofa. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more energy tonight, although I seem to have a persistent sore throat from the cold I had a couple of weeks ago.

One excuse for the lull in blogging is my nanowrimo activity, over at La Serenissima. I’m enjoying it so far and I’ve even had a couple of very nice comments from Nancy. I didn’t plot anything in advance, other than having a vague impression of mist drifting up Venetian canals in the dead of night. So far, it’s turning out to be a mix of Tomb Raider II, James Clavell’s Noble House and a touch of Ash by Mary Gentle thrown in for good measure. The plot is turning out to be quite surprising, with one of the main characters appearing from nowhere in chapter two. I’m a bit behind schedule according to the word count targets on the main site (8127 words so far, fact fans) but I’m aiming to catch up at the weekend. We shall see.