Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett

This is the latest addition to the Tiffany Aching series.
This Young Adult series is set on the wonderful Terry Pratchett creation, the Discworld.

Tiffany once again deals with human created "stories" in this tale about the changing seasons. It also involves young love, er... maybe not so young in the case of the Wintersmith, ice roses, limbo and the irrepressible Nac Mac Feegle led by Rob Anybody.

There are themes running through these books, one of which is taking responsibility for your actions; which is what witches like Tiffany do. They take responsibility for and deal with not only the mundane things in life, like going "around the houses" and tending to the sick and dying, but also standing up to elementals like the Wintersmith or the Queen of Fairyland.

And throughout it all, Terry Pratchett throws in his usual dose of light relief in the form of the Nac Mac Feegles and a range of very witty one-liners and sly observations.

I have never yet read a Discworld book that I did not enjoy. Some are more memorable than others, as you would expect, but I have never felt let down. This follows on through this latest addition. You can't really go wrong with a book when you find yourself reading passages aloud to your other half because you laughed so much you just felt the need to share the humour.

In saying that, I don't rate this story amongst the most memorable - Wee Free Men, definitely; The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, of course; and Pyramids, completely. Don't get me wrong, this is a good read, if somewhat predictable. And to be fair, predictable should be the norm when the story is about folk stories. If you are a Discworld fan you'll be getting this book from the library or the bookstore no matter what I say here, but if you're a neophyte then I recommend starting at the beginning with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Work your way through the series until you have met Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, then jump over to Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. It will make much more sense if you are familiar with Granny and Nanny, and the way of witching on the Discworld.

So my rating is a 3 out of 5 for this Discworld adventure.

And before I go, I want to "read aloud" some passages to you:

First is the general outline of the Feegle's approach to life...

'Ach, people're always telling us no' tae do things,' said Rob Anybody. 'That's how we ken what's the most interestin' things tae do!'

Then there's the Feegle way of life.

'See...first ye get the boozin' an' the fighten' an' the stealin', O.K. An' when you get back tae the mound it's time for the tappin' o' the feets - '
'Ooooooo!'
' - an' the foldin' o' the arms - '
'Aaaargh!'
' - an', o' course, the pursin' o' the lips and - will ye scunners knock it off wi' the groanin' before I start bangin' heids together! Right?'
All the Feegles fell silent, except for one:
"Oh, waily, waily, waily! Ohhhhhhh! Aaarrgh! The pursin' ... o' ...the -'

And finally, the Feegle outlook on the Underworld and crossing over with the Ferryman. [for neophytes, Death in his many incarnations, speaks in capitals]

The Feegles swarmed aboard the rotting boat with their usual enthusiasm and cries of 'Crivens!', 'Where's the booze on this cruise?' and 'We're right oot in the Styx noo!' and Roland climbed in with care, watching the ferryman suspiciously.
The figure pulled on the big oar and they set off with a creak and then, regrettably, and to the ferryman's disgust, to the sound of singing. More or less singing, that is, at every possible speed and tempo and with no regard at all for the tune.

'Row row your row boat boat
row yer boat down the merrily stream
like a bird on the boa-'

WILL YOU SHUT UP?

' - bonny boat row stream stream
boat boat row yer boat down
the merrily stream row merrily merrily boat - '

THIS IS HARDLY APPROPRIATE!

:D But it is totally Feegle. Irreverant, individualistic and "damn the torpedoes". That's what makes this series a good read.

Hearts and Family

I thought I would put a short note in here so that you don't think I have disappeared into a Spring hibernation.

On the weekend just past my parents were on their way home from holiday in Fiji. On the flight to Auckland my Dad experienced chest pains, and on landing was taken to the local hospital for precautionary care. A heart attack being the obvious initial potential. Apparently this wasn't the case, as there was no sign of an indicative protein in his blood tests, but the chest x-rays have a "shadow" that will shortly be investigated further with a CT scan. Angina is the current suspected culprit.

We will all know a little bit more next week after the scan has been completed. He is in no discomfort currently and has more tablets and sprays than most pharmacies.

As an obvious result of this, I have been busy with things other than writing this blog. And it turns out that life will be changing, irrespective of the scan results, as my Dad has decided it is time to retire. The regulars will know that we run the family business, so this change will have an impact on life for John and I. What and how is not quite clear, but the time frame starts now.

Anyway, just in case I don't manage to sit in front of the computer as frequently as usual, I thought I would let you know why I may go a bit quiet for a while.

Hugs & best wishes to you all.

The Full Cupboard of Life - Alexander McCall Smith

Another lovely book from the The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
This is the fifth installment in the life of Mma Precious Ramotswe.
In this episode we are given more time in her private life and amongst the main characters.

McCall Smith's writing is still soft and welcoming. It is like picking up a quiet conversation with an old friend. There is no drama, no hurry, and there is a companionable feeling to the whole reading process. I still find the main characters charming, and the reading completely effortless.

There are small moments of philosophy and profound comment scattered throughout the book. But for a Professor of Medical Law involved in bioethics, it shouldn't really be surprising to find that the author has thought a lot about humanity and community values.

I have excerpted some passages I enjoyed below:

'They almost didn't believe that boy,' said the cousin. 'He was a boy who was always telling lies.  But happily somebody decided to check.'
'That boy will grow up to be a politician,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'That will be the best job for him.'
The cousin shrieked with laughter. 'Yes, they are very good at lying.  They are always promising us water for every house, but they never bring it.  They say that there are not enough pipes.  Maybe next year.'

The difficulty, of course, with standing up to women was that it appeared to make little difference.  At the end of the day, a man was no match for a woman, especially if that woman was somebody like Mma Potokwani.  The only thing to do was to try to avoid situations where women might corner you.

 She had never been able to tolerate dishonesty, which she thought threatened the very heart of relationships between people.  If you could not count on other people to mean what they said, or to do what they said they would do, then life could become utterly unpredictable.  The fact that we could trust one another made it possible to undertake the simple tasks of life.  Everything was based on trust, even day-to-day things like crossing the road - which required trust that the drivers of cars would be paying attention - to buying the food from a roadside vendor, whom you trusted not to poison you.

This is a great series of books for those who want to experience a bit of a difference in their choice of prose, but still be drawn in to the lives of the book's characters.  I took the first two of these to Fiji on my last holiday and absolutely romped through them in a couple of days.   I was hooked. 

If you are interested in reading the book cover excerpts, the author has a website here.  When you decide to go ahead and try the series out, start at the beginning, it will make all the difference to your understanding.

My rating:  4 out of 5.

Papamoa Beach

The weather was lovely yesterday afternoon, so on my way home from work I pulled over just before my turn-off and took the short walk to the beach.

This is what is at the end of the cul-de-sac I parked up in...



And walking over the dunes you get to see flowers like this...



Finally you get the view "north" to Mount Maunganui - yes the beach does stretch all the way to the Mount.


Then you get the view "south" and get some idea of just how darn long this white sand beach actually is.


I use the term north and south loosely, as I am not a girl guide and don't actually carry a compass with me. I am guessing that north is more, or less, straight out to sea. But it orients you "up the coast" and "down the coast".

Not too shabby, huh?

Lost in Translation - The Shipping Industry

Those of you who have tip-toed through this blog, or have generally loitered in the corners while I have been writing away, will know that my business is marine safety stuff. (Shameless plug for work website here.)
Most of our business is "B2B" with large shipping companies, ship managers and their ilk. Part of my job is to keep tabs on the vessels calling in NZ and that entails spending a lot of time chasing down potential clients and keeping our contact records up to date. Now this is usually pretty dull stuff. Routine, in fact.
But you may not have factored in the idea that many vessels are owned by non-English speaking companies. Can you see what's coming?
Yes, this is the quirky, funny and plain bizarre world of commercial ship names.
I kid you not, all of the below names are actually painted or embossed on the rear end of a commercial ship somewhere near you.

Note: If at first you don't get it, repeat the name faster and with a slight slur.

• Deja Bhum


• Kang Fu


• Mass Wits


• Peng Wen


• Yong Tong (almost a Goons moment)


• Bum Ik


• Sobre World (hopefully on this vessel anyway)


• Pu He


• Millennium Falcon (for the sci-fi buffs out there)


• Please Please Me


• Joyoboyo 1


• Funky (and it's sister ship...)


• Smarty


• Fart (this is a very old tug(1907), from Finland, perhaps the age explains all)


• Man Kee (for those with an appreciation of Scots slang)


• Man Shun (for those without spellcheck)


• Sunko (maybe not such a good choice for a ship name)


• Itchen


• Monkez 1


• Flipper (great for a dolphin, but just asking for trouble as a ship name)


• Santa Claus (a chemical tanker of all things! Whatever he's bringing, I don't want it.)

And this is just from my whip around the 'net today.
Feel free to share any "lost in translation" items in the comments. I'm sure my industry isn't the only one with quirks of translation.

A week in the country

Well that's a bit misleading.  And a bit of a JAFA moment, if truth be told.

The "country" being the Bay of Plenty, specifically Tauranga, even more specifically Papamoa; and I'm here for the week while my lucky parents are having a sunny time in Fiji, in company with John's folks.

My job is to house-sit their home and business-sit our Tauranga branch office.
And as I am currently typing away on dial-up internet, entries and comments may be a bit thin on the ground this week.  Please don't think that I am ignoring you all.

Other than the diabolical dial-up internet, there aren't too many down sides to this week away from home.  I get a bit of peace and quiet in the evenings and I get to forget the horrors of housework.  I'm also able to make some headway on my current work-in-progress, Fantasy Triptych. 
The other major upside is access to Sky TV.  Well, the Food Channel on Sky, actually.  As someone who loves to eat, this is great fun.  Unfortunately, I am embarrassed to say, John is hoping a week of access to such culinary inspiration will do something to improve my rather feeble gastronomic efforts at home.  He insists that I am a good cook, just that I don't cook often enough.  I keep trying to convince him that I am a "three meal wonder"*, but he just doesn't seem to want to buy that.  So, this week I am cosying up to Jamie, Rick, Nigella and anyone else who looks like making an interesting bit of nosh. 

On the work front, our Tauranga branch is a pretty quiet place too so I am actually getting to do all that important work stuff that gets run over and squished by the very pushy "must-have-your-attention" things.  You know the sorts of things I mean. Customers. Suppliers. Petty annoyances like those.   Instead I get to read and plan and gather information.  And pretend like I know what running a business is all about.  And while we're on the subject of business (briefly, I promise), I've just signed up to start a BBS.  Part-time. Slowly. Back into study-mode.  Noticeably, just like interest rates I appear to have an educational cycle of approximately 8 years. Almost exactly 8 years after completing my BA, I rejoined the educational establishment and did a post-grad diploma.  Now it is once again 8 years on and I am signing up for the big brother of that diploma. Hmmm.  Predictable, who's predictable.
At this rate I'll manage a PhD by the time I'm 60.  8O

Okay.  That's enough for one entry.  This dial-up thing is gonna kill me.
If the weather clears up, I'll head the two minutes up the road to the beach and take a couple of snaps for those of you who aren't familiar with this part of Godzone.  Trust me, if you like beaches, this is the place to live.

---
*  Lentil Shepherds Pie (to die for, even if you're a carnivore)
*  Sweet and Sour Chicken (an ancient recipe, but you can't go past fresh pineapple in SnS sauce)
*  Homemade pizza (crispy, chilli-spiced crust, with pesto^ and/or tomato base, and any luxury topping you can think of)

^  Idea stolen from Becky.

Good Manners/Bad Manners

Oh boy, this is a doozy of a topic for me at the moment.

The manners to which I am referring relate specifically to Family History research, but could just as easily apply to many other hobbies involving lots of personal time and research.

I have recently become a victim of an ill-mannered, and thoughtless individual.
At least, I hope that is the type of individual he is. Otherwise I might have to use words like mercenary, selfish, self-centred and any other word applicable to a male that would involve me using @#!*% symbols in order to keep my blog entries family friendly.

Here's the story of this Bleat!

I belong to a pay-to-join genealogy website.
The premise of the website is that you enter your data, as does everyone else, and then they have a search function that looks for individuals with the same names and dates in other people's trees. Very efficient it is too.
On top of that, your communication with other members is through the website so your email and information is secure. This is also nice.
Once you establish with another person that you do have a common ancestor, through the site's mailing system, it is up to you to allow your correspondant to see your tree or not. So here is where the real Bleat! begins.

I've been accumulating research on my family for 20+ years now. And I am most happy to share that with family members, both close and distant.
I'm such a trusting soul. I'm also somewhat of a fool. After hearing other people's tales, it still didn't really strike me as likely to happen to me.
But now it has. **

I've had my 20+ years of research "harvested" from my online tree by someone who told me that he was "related by marriage" to a shared distant ancestor. Thinking no ill of the man, even though the correspondance was extremely basic, followed by a brief "can I see your tree?", I consented believing him to be a distant cousin. I asked for the same privilege in return, which was granted. I had a brief look and wasn't clear on how we actually related, but life got busy just about then and I didn't have the time to sit peering through this man's tree. I also didn't think that it was a big issue to leave my tree open to him.

So now, some months later, I have time to pursue things again and find that he pops up on my Matches list with an individual who might be useful in identifying a missing relative. I do a quick check, and his tree is closed to me unlike mine which is still open. So I close my tree, on the back of a bad gut feeling.
Then I send off an email to this man with a simple question - "I have someone with the same name, born in the same year, can you please tell me who your individual's parents are?" (So I can eliminate him quickly, before asking about finer detail and wasting anyone's time.)
The response received? "Can you please open your tree?"

Uh, no.

I'm now highly suspicious, but decide to give our man a few days to send the really short email that this sort of question normally elicits from members of this site..." X Smith and Y Jones".

About a week has passed, and I'm thinking nothing of it. So he's not the usual friendly type that you meet when doing genealogy, I can live with that. Each to their own.
Then a couple of days ago the site's regular "Matches" email arrives and who should pop up with another 5 matches with my tree? You guessed it. Mr Unfriendly.

What has disturbed me, and continues to do so as I work my way through this, is that the 5 names on the list are: Me, my mother, my father and two of my grandparents.
Once I pulled my jaw back up off the floor I took a look at our full matches list and find that we now have 71 matches in common, where a few months ago we had maybe 2.

Hmmm. Manners? What manners?
Permission? What permission?
Privacy? What privacy?
A specific clause on this site indicates that all living relatives must have given you permission to list them (which I have received for my use). This guy wouldn't know me or my family to fall over on the street. He has even listed John, and half of my paternal family tree which has no bearing on the supposed shared ancestor, who is on my maternal side!

[Parental advisory notice: expletives unsuitable, though probably used regularly by your children, follow.]

Can you say "outraged"? Can you say "seriously pissed off"?
Can you say "needs a bloody good slap up side of the head"?
Can you say "bloody bastard stole my information and has reproduced it in a manner which would lead others to believe that it is his hard work and time that generated it"?
Can you say "no reply to my 'why am I listed on your tree along with other close members of my family? email' "?
Can you say "tosser" ?

Can you say...."ouch, Lynn is seriously angry, back slowly away towards the door without losing eye contact and no one will get hurt"?

Yup. Not a happy camper sitting writing this. Not at all.
He's getting one more day to give me some sort of answer and then I'm calling in the abuse cops (site admin).

Just for the record, I've met a number of distant relatives here and a couple of closer ones. Not one of them, although they have had completely open access to my tree for months, has reproduced my information on their online trees.
The manners involved here are not just copyright ones, ie giving credit where credit is due, and not giving the impression that information displayed is your own, but also of common courtesy like politely asking if it is okay to reproduce the information before doing so. And verifying what the supplier of information is happy for you to use it for, and where it will be used.
All information that I have collected from cousins over the years are clearly documented in my notes, and sources are listed in all the reports my software generates. If I find new family members, I introduce them to my other distant cousins too. See my sidebar for two such groups.

But apparently for some individuals in our societies, the "common courtesies" are not "common" to them.

But you know what? I'm a great believer in karma, and it's slightly less "multi-lifed" version of "what goes around, comes around."
Mr Unfriendly will no doubt get his comeuppance in due course.

Here ends the Bleat!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**(See my previous work-based Bleat! about the "It won't happen to me" attitude. They do say pride comes before a fall, after all.)

Over the Hedge

This was our DVD choice last night.

The trailers for this film looked promising, and since we both love animated children's features we decided it was time to get this one out of the video store.

It is the story of a raccoon (RJ, played by Bruce Willis) who gets on the wrong side of a bear (Vincent, played by Nick Nolte), and then goes about using the naïvity of a family of critters who are newly awakened from hibernating to get himself out of trouble.

Interestingly both raccoons and possums are meant to be nocturnal animals, and as far as I know the possum doesn't actually hibernate and I'm not so sure any of the other animals in this animated family group do either. But in the interests of film-making that is pretty much ignored.

Perhaps I'm feeling a bit grouchy this weekend, or perhaps I'm a little bit jaded over the anthropomorphising of animals. I don't really know.

Actually, I do know. This movie is a rip-off of Ice Age, which incidentally, was the Saturday night movie on TV last night. The morality theme was pretty much identical - that of using people for your own means followed by the awakening of a "spirit of family". It is also the second movie I have seen this year that uses the hyped-up squirrel motif in conjunction with caffeine intake - see a much funnier version in Hoodwinked.
The casting didn't really do the film any favours. For the most part the main characters were fairly blandly voiced, with the exceptions of Wanda Sykes (Stella), William Shatner (Ozzie) and Thomas Haden Church (Dwayne).

I'm getting fussy in my old age. I've been spoiled with the cleverness, intelligence, uniqueness and inventiveness of the Shrek and Ice Age franchises, and then on to the parody that is Hoodwinked. These really are films that both children and adults can enjoy. Over the Hedge is a pale imitation of any of those predecessors.

My rating:
Despite all of the comments above, this movie has some very funny moments and for kids they probably won't care about some of the stuff I have mentioned, so I'll rate it a 2.5 out of 5.
For adults wanting to enjoy a movie alongside their kids, and hoping for a multi-levelled offering, I have to rate this a 1 out of 5. This one won't be an addition to my DVD collection.

Family History: A New Blog

I was wandering through Papers Past on the National Library of New Zealand last night, and I thought to myself, what a wonderful source of community and family history.
I have been looking for relatives for other people in these archival papers and in the process decided to transcribe a few of the articles and relevant sections to send to a couple of New Zealand Rootsweb lists that I belong to. Through doing that I discovered that not everyone is able to access the information, or at least not in the fullest manner possible. And I have to confess that I get great pleasure reading what was going on in our communities over 100 years ago. Our ancestors certainly had a good dose of humour judging by some of the writing.

Personally I have family who were in "trade" and I would love to be able to find any reference to them in their local papers, so I thought I could "pay it forward" to those looking for information to flesh out their family history in New Zealand.
I was also encouraged by Lorelle's posting about her plans to use the blog structure for her family's genealogy. In no way am I creating anything on the scale that she is planning. My pretentions are only to provide a place for people to visit and maybe leave comments about the archival newspaper entries or the named individuals. A bit of a glorified webpage really, but hopefully one that will encourage others to participate in making some of our wonderful community records available.

It will be a learn by the seat of your pants experience (and blog) so if you do visit, please be patient as I develop it. At the moment it is one entry big, with an About page. The tags will be the Newspaper's name, but perhaps in time this might need to be changed to include the year of the entry.
But considering the search facility available with Wordpress.com I don't think finding an entry with your family name attached will be too difficult. Maybe a lot to go through (once I add more transcriptions) but that's not a bad thing in genealogy.

Any feedback on how you would search such a blog - by surname, location, year, etc. will be willingly accepted and considered.

Now on to the blog. It is called rather unimaginatively, but accurately "NZ Newspaper Articles - For Your Family History Research". And it can be read here and clicked to through a link in the sidebar of this blog. I hope that in time it will become of use to some of you.

Family History: Tiffney

I have once again updated the Family History page.

Today I have added a page about my Tiffney family.
One thing about this new Wordpress theme is that I don't have to compromise on the ugly box of sub-pages in the sidebar, which is great.

To access all the family information, just click on the tab at the top of your screen that says "Family History" and then choose the family links on that page.

Currently the following families are available:

• Beattie / Betty


• Lunn


• McWilliam


• Steedman


• Tiffney

If any of the other names are of interest to you, please leave a comment and I will get in touch.

What's On The Bookshelf? - III

The beginning of this, the third installment of What's on the Bookshelf, are the books that perch on the edge of the shelves. Followed by the regular inhabitants of this shelf.

Third Shelf, Small Bookcase

• Materia medica


• Roget's Thesaurus


• Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions - Jean Paul Sartre


• Women and Power - Rosalind Miles


• How to stop worrying and start living - Dale Carnegie


• Man and his Symbols - Carl Jung


• Four Archetypes - C.G.Jung


• Memories, Dreams, Reflections - C.G.Jung


• What Not To Wear - Trinny Woodall & Susannah Constantine


• Fast Feng Shui for the Soutehrn Hemisphere - Mai'a Martin


• Whose Body? - Dorothy L.Sayers


• Mansfield Park - Jane Austen


• The Dark Room - Minette Walters


• Your Money or Your Life - Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin


• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R.Covey


• Early Socratic Dialogues - Plato


• Three Men In A Boat - Jerome K. Jerome


• The Magician's Nephew - C.S.Lewis


• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S.Lewis


• The Full Cupboard of Life - Alexander McCall Smith


• In the Company of Cheerful Ladies - Alexander McCall Smith


• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - Alexander McCall Smith

The Alexander McCall Smith books are on loan from my mother, but I just love the Precious Ramotswe stories (The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series) that I know I will add them permanently one day.

• Striding Folly - Dorothy L.Sayers


• Hangman's Holiday - Dorothy L.Sayers


• Magician - Raymond E.Feist


• Practical Thinking - Edward de Bono


• The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff


• Get Rich, Stay Rich - Martin Hawes & Joan Baker


• The Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton


• Walking the Talk - Carolyn Taylor


• The Wicked Day - Mary Stewart


• The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart


• The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart


• Stormy Petrel - Mary Stewart


• Madam, Will You Talk? - Mary Stewart


• Nine Coaches Waiting - Mary Stewart


• The Lord of The Rings - J.R.R.Tolkien

There ends Shelf Number 3 and on an epic note too.

I note that the theme of having at least one book per shelf with stories about animals, or small hairy creatures continues. And we see the start of my love of last century whodunnit authors. At one time I had the entire collection of Agatha Christie novels in hardback, but I have since divested myself of those.

I have to confess that at first I thought this would be a quirky, but interesting way for you to get an insight into my world. But now I have discovered a desire to set aside a pile of books for re-reading, finishing and in a couple of instances actually starting.

Hmmm. Maybe the next few book reviews might be Ex Libris.

If you missed the first two shelves, they can be found here:
Shelf One
Shelf Two

And if you are keen to see the full list I have added my library to LibraryThing. You can search for me in the "Search users" box by the name Twoflour. Be warned, I haven't tagged or rated everything yet, but I am planning to get there.
A big thanks goes to Vicky from Gone to the Dogs who mentioned LibraryThing in her post My night-time reading canon.

May you all have many happy hours reading.

Back To The Gym

That was the story from this morning.

John said that he was going to go and I struggled with my conscience before finally getting out my trackpants and running shoes. Struggle? Conscience?
What actually happened was I had an internal argument with that part of my mind I like to call "The Cellulite Queen".

The CQ is that part of me that likes to sit on the sofa watching old movies eating caramel popcorn, or if pushed to effort then sitting in front of the computer with a cup of coffee and the maximum exertion involved in mouse-clicking.
She is my evil twin, convinced that sweating is something other people should do, but not us. Provoked by suggestions from my conscience that perhaps it is time to start the process of getting back on the fitness bandwagon, I had to put up with excuses and delaying tactics from the CQ.

• Oh, I don't feel up to it.


• It's really early, maybe later today.


• I'm tired.


• I wanted to do...[insert any activity imaginable]

But I am pleased to report that the CQ did not win this battle, and off to the gym I went. But I won't lie, I was nervous about what six weeks off was going to do to my fitness level. And what the pain level was likely to be.

I reprised my first "speed inducing" workout from Cris's schedule. Not much speed to be had, I have to admit. My hatred of the exercycle continues; burning thighs, lowering the level and just sheer stubborness got me through the warm-up. I was gutted, but not surprised, that I had to lower and then raise the intensity level just to get through five minutes. Aargh. Not a good confidence boost then.

I got off the evil exercycle and felt like I'd been sticking needles into my thighs. Good grief. Six weeks. That's all I've been away for, and I'm a wreck.
Once my legs stopped burning I waddled over to the treadmill to start Phase II of the warm-up, walking on a 10% incline. I was more than a little dubious about this on the back of the exercycle incident but managed pretty well and unlike the evil cycle there was no nasty burning.

And finally I arrived at the running bit of the session. Thankfully this is on a zero incline and was only to last a whole twelve minutes. I was a chicken though. I did the first half a couple of speed levels down from the target. Just before the halfway mark I finally convinced my Internal Doubter that the worst thing that could happen if I tried to run at target speed was that I would have to slow down again. And with that I ran the remainder of the time at full speed.

Not only did I not keel over at the end, I even managed to do most of the obligatory stretching. And I surprised myself by still being able to reach my feet during the hamstring stretches.

However, I will try not to feel too smug about surviving the start back session until I have survived the next three days of what is euphemistically called "delayed onset muscle soreness". Normally this is visited upon us mere mortals as walking like we've been on a horse for a week, and not being able to tackle steps in any form - up or down.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Fantasy Triptych - September Progress

Here is the work in progress as of this morning.
The left-most tower is pretty much completed, and so is the neighbouring one. It's not nearly the amount of progress I had wanted to make, but at least it is progress. I guess. :|



All up it is probably only a couple of hours worth of stitching and blending time which I figure I could do each week, but I seem to manage to distract myself with other things instead. You know, small things like work and sleep. :P

So I have decided that September is the end of the excuses. No more updates claiming work or life getting in the way of a bit of stitching. I will publicly state that this time next month I will have managed to complete this section of the design (no not the entire castle - just this section on the chart) which should mean that another three and a half towers are complete. That should take the castle to being half finished in total.

Am I mad? At my current stitching speed - completely!