In my entry on the Christmas break back in January, I mentioned that I hoped to add some photos into the narrative. I've finally uploaded them into Flickr, and as the entry is so long ago, I've decided that I'd give them their own entry here;


Jill at Horse Guards


The New Model Terracotta Army


The British Museum


Parliament Silhouetted

Clicking through any of these links gets you into the photostream where you can see the other pictures.

Nathan has just got his first pair of proper shoes (size 3G, Start*Rite) rather than his Robeez moccasin style shoes. He looks scarily grown up in them, and is starting to take some tottering steps around with increasing confidence! It's scary how fast he's changing. I most get the Flickr site updated so you can all see.



His shoes are just like this, but navy blue! Image from the Start*Rite site.

The weekend just gone was a fun one, as I got to play games for the first time this year (in honesty, for the first time since I went to Furnace last year). Tom kindly hosted a weekend of gaming, starting with the boardgame Twilight Imperium (second edition) on the Saturday, and following up with me running my Savage 2300AD RPG conversion for the second time. It was great fun, and I really hope to make several of these weekends over the next year, even if it's only for a day at a time.


From Tom's Gaming Weekend album...

The position above (taken by Tom) shows where we where at the start of the End Game period. At this point, Tom's son Matt (white colour) and I (red colour) both started major aggressive moves against our neighbours. The end result was that I won, but only because my technology and trade base outstripped Matt's more expansive empire.

I last played the game around 2000, with Andy Lilly and some of the BITS crew after a Dragonmeet. It was great fun then (except for the fact that I was knocked out very quickly in that game). I'd traded up to 2nd edition after the game, but it had sat around gathering dust for the last five or so years. I'm glad that I got to play it, and would love to do it again. It combines politicking with trade and resource building and major space battles. What more could an SF fan ask for?!

The 2300AD game was also fun, but felt somewhat more like a dungeon crawl than the last time. I'm not certain if that was me, but the more times I've run the scenario, the more frustrated I've become with it. Savage worked like a dream and I was really happy running it.

Tom discusses this some more on his blog if it interests you for a second opinion! He and his wife Ann were absolutely gracious hosts, and I came home feeling more relaxed than I have for a while. It was a great escape from work etc. Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that Jill's friends finally agree a date for their pamper weekend so she can get away too!

Currently feeling: Happy.
Currently listening to: The Fan on the G4 PowerBook.
Currently reading: Avenues & Alleyways (a|state RPG) and LA Confidential (James Ellroy).

After a request from one of my friends, Tom, I have enabled the RSS feeds on the site. You should find a link at the bottom of the page on the right hand side so you can link up via your favourite feed aggregator!

I don't think Jill or I have had so many different colds and infections for a long time! Ever since Nathan has been to nursery, we seem to be magnets for the latest bugs that are going around. The usual cycle is Nathan to Jill to me, and it's been the same with the latest thing. We had two weeks with him off nursery with initially a cold and ear infection and conjunctivitis. The cold and ear infection escalated (by which time Jill had caught the conjunctivitis, also shared with his grandma) and Nathan was sent to hospital, but discharged pretty quickly. He was offered a role as ward mascot as he was ineffably cheerful when he was there. The initial infection was diagnosed as bronchiolitis, but on the wane. He does have a really nasty cough with it.


Nathan at Christmas, ignoring his cold and teething.

Since Monday's hospital visit, Jill has developed the chest infection, and I've developed the conjunctivitis. That's quite annoying, as I've done my best to avoid it so far, including wearing my glasses for most of the week. I suspect that we'll have a weekend of early nights as a result.

Jill's mum and dad are also ill, with nasty flu-like symptoms which sound horrible. As mentioned, my mum has the conjunctivitis badly, but is also suffering with her hip, which seems to have been overloaded following her knee operation. The hospital managed to forget to give her a 3 month follow up appointment (which should have happened) but after some chasing she seems to have finally got a date mid-Feb to see what the damage is and how her knee replacement is doing. I can't wait for this as she's obviously in a lot of pain.

My friend Tom is also on the mend, which gladdens meas otherwise I'd feel like a bit of a Jonah for him. Why so, you ask? Well, every time we try to organise a roleplaying game session something goes badly wrong. We've flooded Sheffield on one occasion to stop a session by Skype, and this time (a planned face-to-face session) he has been struck by a palsy. Fortunately, he seems to be on the mend and has been discharged from hospital. As I couldn't get down to see him, I've sent him some books to read. They're both favourites of mine from recent times - Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space, and Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the Mist. I hope he enjoys they as much as I have.

I've been musing what to do following the messing around with the connection to Pipex (which still isn't perfect) and I think that my next route will be to look at getting my own domain name and moving the email addresses and accounts over to it over the next six to nine months (the period I need to stay with Pipex to avoid any extra charges). After that, things become more portable and I can move at will, depending upon service. But what domain name do I go for? Do I go for a variation on cybergoths, which is an old nickname from University and has ties back to my past (thanks Jon!), or do I go for something completely different? I think I need to think about this before rushing in!

I'm also musing with switching this blog to Livejournal for the main blog here. That would mean that I would have been able to update this blog even if I couldn't connect at home. Decisions, decisions, but none that need to be rushed.