By Slanted Light

Well posting comments may be really slow at the moment, but posting pictures is virtually instantaneous - wow!

Christmas day started here with grey skies and rain, which was okay cos I contributed to the death of the planet by putting on all the pretty fairylights I have (bad, bad, bad...) and then the sun came out, and it was glorious and even warm.

Of course about an hour ago I heard a very odd roaring sound outside, and when I went to look, I was all but slapped in the face by rain and wind (which didn't at all sound like rain and wind!), but that's also okay, cos I have my flannel (sorry, brushed cotton) sheets on the bed, and my hot water bottle. Not that it's cold, actually, just blustery.

Anyway - it's been a nice wee day. I nipped around to Landlord to take them some fudge, so I even got to speak out loud to real people, and then there were lots more people on lj than I'd been expecting (hurrah!) and I was busy with the Christmas day posts and making Christmas dinner (delish Christmas nut roast from Riverford - I was worried they'd changed the recipe from last year, but they hadn't), and opening what turned out to be lots of dvds and a quilting book, and coffee (that's me sorted *g*) and then watching all the telly. I even watched Frozen (well, most of it)!

Oh! Doctor Who! *g* I liked it! I usually do, I'm pretty uncritical when it comes to the Doctor generally having a good time, and now that wossername is gone, it's all good. I had a brief frown when it turned out he was mourning a loved one - but of course that was River Song, cos that's the last time we saw the Doctor! Anyway, jolly good. *g* Anyone else watch?

Hope you all had a lovely day - I can't believe that's Christmas for another year!

...and I've been wanting to post all through, and taking photos and starting posts and somehow it's just not happened - ack! So even though I have something that I really really really have to do today, I'm going to post here as well! Cos this definitely feels like left-overs!

( Christmas NT... )
( Winter walk... )

So - it's been Christmas... *g*...and this is what Christmas Eve looked like in my new place!

I've not been nearly as Christmas-y feeling as I'd planned to be, and I've only read one and a bit Christmas-y books instead of all the ones I wanted to, and I've not even kept up with the ci5hq advent calendar properly - and I've got two Dialj stories to catch up on, but I do have a reasonably tidy home, with most things put away at last, been discharged from my two Cambridge hospital thingies (just keep taking the pills, comrade *g*), have been to my first book group-that-was-the-Christmas-meal-and-book-exchange, a mulled wine postcode party, and... blimey, what else? Just about kept up with work, done a bit of writing, which I'm quite pleased about, and am planning to do much more over Christmas (well I'd better, my Dialj day is Boxing Day... eeep!) (See - I wrote that bit of the post the other day, and did it get here? No!). I even managed to find a Christmas tree that fit in my empty space, and decorate! And Riverford sent mistletoe! In fact I've never seen so much mistletoe around that people actually do use it to decorate - I really have never actually come across that in real life, but it's all over the place down here - properly Christmas-y. You can see my wee bunch just to the left of the door in the first picture... *g*I even found red berries on a holly bush a few weeks ago - properly Christmas-y (I left them where they were, cos it was a National Trust place, and they wouldn't have been happy!) And the nice Christmas-tree-man let me have extra off-cuts to take away, so I've hung more greenery around too (you can just see some to the right of the first pic...) *g* I haven't got everything put away properly yet, but I do have things mostly on shelves or in cupboards or pretending to be put away, so it's tidy for Christmas and all, which is good. I have many shelves (though still not enough for all my dvds - I think I need to build up and over the telly when I've saved up some money again!)

So... Christmas yesterday was a bit odd, on my own for the first time in years, but it was nice to be on my own in my own place, so that worked! It was less nice that Santa brought me face-ache that got progressively worse over the day (and is back again now that I've had breakfast - waaah!) and mucked up my plans for much writing, but otherwise I had surprise-emails and happy-emails and my sister sent me a present that in the old days would have been a book token, but is now an Amazon token. So effectively still a book token... *g* And I made nut roast and roast veg for dinner, with carmelised onion gravy, and that was yum, although face-achey, cos it's tooth-jaw driven. Just bloody ow!

( The prettiest bath... )

Well, my Doctor Who was a bit pixelated on my current two-bar-one-bar-two-bar wireless connection, but it didn't stutter, and it did play, which is so much better still than the Cambs. connection!

( Forest of the Night... )

Well - that felt rather old school Doctor Who to me in some ways...

( Time Heist... )

...all I want to do is go to bed to sleep, and that was all I wanted last night too - what a waste of being in London (which I'm not any more...)

My cold just got worse and worse, and though I dragged myself out for a walk to the river after the course...
...and paused at Amico Bio for a veggie dinner on the way back, I was soooo tired, and I just took myself back to my hotel room and collapsed.

Today was almost as bad - though I was a bit more awake for longer, which was good, becuse I decided I couldn't possibly force an entire YHA dorm room listen to me cough and sniff all night, and so I drove home instead of having an extra free day in town.Drove through pastures new too - the North Circular (Hangar Lane!) out to the M3, which was going west not north. The sun was spectacular - after being grey and flat all day, it peered out for some evening drama. I reckon... a dragon! *g* Then it was all gorgeously mellow and misty all the way back to Somerset...

Got back to WH safely, even stopping at the big supermarket in nearby town to pick up some more tissues, only... I knew there was a music festival here this weekend, and that was one reason I was planning to stop in London. I figured I'd eardrop and cottonwool my ears and let the tinnitus take over. Not ideal, but hey-ho... What I hadn't thought about was that everyone would have nicked the parking! Gargh! So I've had to park in the carpark that threatens numberplate recognition and dire consequences on all who park there overnight. Cross fingers for me - they'd have to be pretty tight to punish me because the organisers haven't arranged parking so as not to disrupt residents, right...?

Turned out S was home too, and watching telly loudly in her room, but she didn't do more than call out hi when I did, and I don't want to breathe my Horrid Germs all over her, so I put my earphones in to watch Doctor Who on iPlayer, and hid with a medicinal glass of Drambuie (which I can actually taste!) I feel bad that I'm going to be coughing all night, but...

Also - Doctor Who!
( Spoilery bit about Robot Of Sherwood )

I expect everyone else already knew this years ago, cos I'm always the last to clock on, but this is to remind me, cos I know I'll forget. New Doctor Who at last, on the 23rd August! And an incredibly brief trailer...

I'm very much looking forward to Capaldi now, but I must admit that Clara has never done anything for me, as a companion. She's pretty enough, but... I'm not quite sure who she is beyond that, for all they keep telling us that she's the girl who's saved the Doctor forever... I think she would have been much more interesting if they'd stuck with (apparently) Gaiman's original idea that she was a Victorian governess travelling with the Doctor (which I've only just read in wiki), I'm a bit bored with ordinary 21st century every-girls who are full of sass as his companions. He's got the whole of time as well as space to pick someone from - sometimes I miss the days of Leyla and Romana and Adric and Nyssa and all!

Maybe I just need to re-watch some eps... If I can get this stoopid work done. Where's a Tardis to take you away from all this when you need one?

Doctor Who - brilliant
Digital television - gaaaaaaaargh!

Is it just me? Why is it that digital television spends half its time falling apart into little squares (ha - invasion of the Power of Two...) and making the sound go all juddery at all the vital moments? Bring back terrestrial! Also, it occurs to me, if everywhere's digital, and I lived in a shared house type community place, could I pick up tv in my room without it being wired in? Like you could in the old days of aerials? And even if they were a wee bit fuzzy sometimes, I swear they didn't fall apart into little squares at least once every programme you watch...

Seriously - just me?

I liked The Power of Three though - I wasn't sure I would, cos Amelia Pond usually just makes me roll my eyes, but it totally worked. And I like Rory. And Rory's dad. And whassername-Stewart, in charge at UNIT. And ooooh for the trailer for next week! Oooooooh!

I so need to write a drabble (and do yesterday's CI5hq rec cos I am that rubbish) but... just before I do... Does anyone, by any chance, have the Doctor Who Never Mind The Buzzcocks Special and could you please please please send me a copy if you do, and why can't I download to RealPlayer from YouTube any more?, and... and... and... and heeee Cher and Dawn French on Graham Norton, and I did quite like The Script, and... and.. the weatherchap says we're not going to get more snow tomorrow after all, it's going around us, and... just...

*explodes in Friday night type tv watching frenzy*

But really, the DW Buzzcocks? Cos I don't have Eddie Izzard's wolves driving a Cortina across the savannah, and the DW Buzzcocks made me laugh nearly as much, so...?

And hello, how're you? *g*

So I just re-watched Saturday's Doctor Who ep (and I love it just as much *g*) and I went googling to find out whose song played near the end, and I discovered this instead, which... good news? Scary news? I don't know, but...

New series of Torchwood secured by "international partnership"

...which just... I liked what BBC Cymru Wales was doing with it! I don't want it to suddenly be the commercial arm of the BBC and an American tv channel that can't spell Stars properly... The sentence that really made my heart drop? this new instalment will see storylines widen to include locations in the US and around the world... Just... gargh! Did they not watch The New Professionals? I'm crossing my fingers, I really am, but... eeep!

Anyway, I found the song too... (It's bound to be very uncool, since I still rather like it...) *g*