Rachel Coleman

I have about 15 minutes before I need to go to a school meeting, and I haven't updated in ages so:

Hockey

The inaugural season of Kodiaks 2 finished mid-May: we played 20 games and won 1. It was a bit last minute, but we managed to confirm enough ice time to continue with two teams next season, in time to submit our intention to the league by the 31 May deadline. Trials are next week and the week after, the WNIHL annual meeting is in early July and the next season starts in September. We had end-of-season awards, which I was late to due to having a pre-existing booking for formal hall with uni friends, and as manager I got a lovely personalised mug with a photo of the team from our last game, along with a card that made me all mushy and sentimental.

My summer training is still four times a week: uni x2, Warbirds and Kodiaks. Though summer ice for Kodiaks means we have to get a minimum signup from players and coaches to run, two weeks in advance, so it doesn't always happen.

Since the season end, I've had a couple of games with Warbirds, and a friendly with Huskies against Warwick Panthers. Warbirds won one and drew one, Huskies won. That's a nice feeling.

Media and culture

I finished all available seasons of Ted Lasso and very much enjoyed it, looking forward to the new season dropping later this summer. Tony and I have started watching Spider-Noir (we chose to watch in colour, and I am loving the colours). I've started watching Dollhouse with Owen, which is very very 2009.

A conversation about hockey musicals led to the discovery of "Score! A Hockey Musical" which can be watched on YouTube, but I cannot recommend the experience. The music is catchy but the lyrics are dreadful, not even "so bad it's good", and the musical itself can't decide whether to be serious or slapstick.

I thought idly last week, we haven't been to the ADC in a while (I only managed a couple of the plays on the list I made in March) and discovered an amateur production of Come From Away on last week and this. I took Charles last Saturday afternoon (the Huskies game was in the evening) and am meeting a couple of hockey friends to see it again tonight. It's still a very good musical, this is a very good company, it was nearly sold out when I got tickets and deservedly so. I cried, and will probably cry again tonight.

February is flying by, the university term-time intensity is very high, my life is work, ice hockey, occasional time with my family. I did switch things up and also try out a couple of kpop dance classes in a relatively light week (the university has a KPop society!) and they were exhausting and fun in the best way. Now to find the time to go back before the end of term.

Ice hockey

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Driving

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Percy Jackson

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I am the stage of being ill with a cold where it feels like I will never be well again, I barely even remember what it is to not cough, and all is doom. Woe, woe is me. [From experience, this stage is usually about two days before I actually get fully well, but try telling my feelings that.]

(brought to you by having to miss yet another hockey practice tonight, the penultimate one of the year, and being sad about it)

Cheering myself up with the news that Heated Rivalry comes to the UK on 10 January. I am going to be very normal about it. Meanwhile I await a delivery of Rick Riordan books from my dealer the buddy who got me into them, and Instagram is doing its usual creepily-accurate targeting, supplying me with Yorkshire Percy Jackson and advertising a PJ musical in Peterborough next spring.

The last two autumns I had covid and flu vaccines either simultaneously or within 24 hours, and felt flattened both times. This year I separated them by five days, and it's definitely the covid vaccine I'm blaming for side-effects. I spent Sunday mostly horizontal, with hips, knees, ankles and the tailbone I bumped (again) recently all complaining. In the early evening I started running a mild fever, which lasted most of the night, but fever and aches both eased off in time for me to feel well enough to work from home today.

I managed the afternoon school run cycle ride ok, but dropped out of Warbirds practice tonight. Being sensible is so boring, but making myself ill is even more boring.

I spent a chunk of yesterday afternoon/evening distracting myself from feeling ill by watching the first three episodes of Faceoff, the Amazon Prime documentary series about the NHL. My ice hockey hyperfocus has been all about the women, so most of what I know about the NHL is from fanfic and hockey romances, which usually have insufficient hockey. I am pleased to report a high quantity of hockey in the hockey documentary (I might just have skipped-back-and-replayed some of the more exciting bits of skating more than once), as well as a lot of genuinely new to me information about players, teams, fan culture, etc etc. It was also good to see Sarah Nurse (of PWHL Toronto and the Canadian national team) providing some of the commentary.

There are three episodes left but I have overdue library books I really do want to read, and an overdue assignment for the autism course which I'm probably well enough to do now, so I should get those out of the way first.

Dashing this off so I actually write something but setting a time limit so I actually go to sleep on time.

Last week:

• busy busy week due to office reorg
• N's school sports day, the children seemed to have fun, and I got to know some other parents a bit better
• my birthday: actual day spent at online conference, birthday "party" Saturday afternoon in a pub garden with many lovely people :-)
• despite not drinking, woke repeatedly Saturday night and Sunday was a bit of a write-off

This week:

• felt terribly unfit cycling Monday afternoon, turns out the bike tyres were soft, oops
• much work (3x interview panels, office move timetable became even more exciting)
• work conference in Newcastle Wed+Thu
  • opted for early start and fast train Wed am to arrive in Newcastle before 9am; still think this was the better choice over an extra night away, but I was feeling it later on ...
  • unimpressed by hotel gym, so sneaked off to the Gateshead instance of my gym chain in the weirdly long gap between talks and dinner
  • dinner did not finish until nearly 10pm, I did not stay for disco afterward
  • hotel room was about as big lengthwise as my entire house but had only 2 power sockets
  • accidentally won a conference award for "best delegate contribution", apparently I ask good Qs, go me
  • plan to work on train home thwarted by train being v full and me being v tired, listened to audiobook and watched scenery instead
• managed PT today but not much else
• discovered Witcher S3 is out now, discovered film adaptation of Red, White & Royal Blue is out next month, new challenge: find time to watch them (& reread RW&RB first)
• mini heatwave is tiring me, at least it should courteously cool down again by Sunday

time's up, let's post

1 episode Sunday night, 2 tonight, much patience from tielan when I failed to show Monday night (due to missing both a calendar reminder and her messages)

S2 E6

• DOOR (including entirely open space): 6
• sheep or friends: 3

no gratuitous shirtlessness and on at least two occasions a door was actually shut

People are actually starting to talk to each other, but only after the stakes are far too high

S2 E7

• DOOR: 1
• sheep or friends: 2
• gratuitous shirtlessness: 2
• implausible location for sex: 1

let's just expand the places for having intensely private conversations:

• staircases, for bonus points in other people's houses
• crowded parties
• crowded art galleries

S2 E8

• DOOR: 7 (and in a callback to E1, a horrible boys conversation on the terrace)
• sheep or friends: 3
• one sex scene, in a bed

FINALLY some actual conversations about what people really feel and want. Much gets resolved, enough is not to set up the next season. In conclusion, I think I love the sibling and parental relationships in this show at least as much as the romance(s).

S2 E2

• implausible locations: still zero
• DOOR: 1
• friendship or sheep? : 1

honourable mentions:

• fencing without gratuitous shirtlessness
• "let me show you where I house my elephant"

S2 E3

• DOOR: 1 (traumatic childbirth scene, really should have a shut door)
• full-body social awkwardness cringe moments: at least three, I think I preferred the sex scenes
• good DOG face: 1

Benedict is getting all the best lines this season.

Discovery of the day: the official Bridgerton playlist on Spotify, for all your string-covers-of-pop-songs needs.

Well, falena and I did it! We got through both seasons of The Witcher at 2 episodes a day, starting 26 December and finishing today. It was immensely satisfying and I have followed up with two things

• looking up whether there is going to be a season 3 (confirmed by Netflix as of 25 Sep 2021)
• looking up the books and publication order, and putting in a request for The Last Wish at the library

(I also intend to watch the 'making of' and other extra bits on Netflix, but not today.)

For those who don't know, The Witcher is an epic fantasy TV series on Netflix, based on a book series originally written in Polish in the 1990s and translated into English in the 2000s. I'm aware there's some computer games, and wikipedia tells me there was a previous set of film+TV adaptations called The Hexer, which author Andrzej Sapkowski didn't think much of. I noted he's credited as a consultant on the Netflix production.

I liked the series very much, with some caveats. Let's get those out the way first. (I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum.)

• It's very gory. Lots of bloody results of violence shown on screen. I am expert at focusing just off the screen so I don't have to see the gory parts very much but can tell when they've finished.
• There are multiple interesting older women characters and none of them look over 30. There's a canonical excuse for the mages, but none for the grandmother queen, who must be in her 50s. Meanwhile the men get to look all kinds of ages.
• A major plot point is a tremendously powerful woman being driven to desperate measures by her desire for a baby. There's also at least one tragic rape backstory for another highly skilled and powerful woman. I find these kinds of motivations ... tedious. It's not like we aren't bombarded with these stories everywhere else in life.

Caveats out the way, on to the things I loved.

The storytelling is delightful. Season 1 braided together three different timelines, with just enough hints along the way that I could figure out when we were (e.g. a character is Queen in one episode, referred to as "the young princess" in another), but also allowing it to do thematic parallels e.g. two characters undergoing a night-long ordeal some decades apart. The season's first episode is called The End's Beginning and the final episode brings the braided storylines together into a satisfying ending. Season 2 follows just the one timeline, but from many more viewpoints, really building up the complexity and depth of the worldbuilding. And it ended setting up a whole bunch of stuff for season 3 to get its teeth into.

Henry Cavill's Geralt is a delight. He's a Witcher, a supernaturally strong and fast magic-using monster hunter, who manages to convey a sense of So 100% Done With Everything while also repeatedly saving people and getting the job done. He spends a lot of time going Hmm in season 1, and also saying Fuck in a very resigned way when Things Go Badly. In season 2 he spends a lot of time sighing. (I had subtitles on, I reached the point of giggling quietly every time they said [Geralt sighs] even in the most serious of scenes.) Also he is a Very Good Dad in season 2, full marks for supportive parenthood at all times.

The women! Oh my goodness the women. I don't like Calanthe at all and especially not her very questionable parenting decisions, but I'm so glad she gets to exist as a character. I have my issues with Yennefer's plot journey but my goodness I became fond of her. Renfri, Tissaia, Triss, Fringilla, Francesca, Nenneke: all distinctive characters with their own motivations, and very little stupidity-for-plot-reasons. And of course Cirilla, teenage girl and centre of both seasons.

Last but not least: Jaskier the bard. I discovered the Toss A Coin song through fannish osmosis, and I've read some fic versions, but honestly I really enjoyed every moment he was on screen, being obnoxious and annoying and hilarious and occasionally meta. Season 2 gives us canon bisexuality as well.

If you liked it and want to enthuse about particular favourite parts, please do so in the comments. If you want to recommend favourite fanfic, ditto. (I have read all of dragonlady7's Meet Death Sitting, which I've enjoyed very much even without knowing canon, but not much else.)

I'm done with work for the year. (Almost) all the presents are wrapped and under the tree. The stocking contents are ready to load. I have to go get cash out for a few presents I'm giving on behalf of my mum, but I'm probably going to do that in daylight tomorrow morning. My brother J will be coming round for our usual eat-too-much, open-presents, watch-TV-and-play-games family day tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I've got ten days off work, and I intend to go skating every day the rink is open (which is almost all of them). I've planned some Witcher-watching sessions with falena, which I'm really looking forward to, and I've been invited to an outdoor get-together with liv, which ditto. The new cycle bridge over the river which I have been eagerly awaiting all summer has finally opened, and I should get to try it out on Sunday.

I got one of my presents early: a new Fitbit, which does fancier things around heart-rate monitoring for exercise. This has been encouraging me to go for brisk Pokémon walks while I'm not clocking up cycling minutes on the school run. I was very into PoGo for a while, and then stopped playing for a couple of years, and then J got me back into it almost by accident a couple of months ago. I'm glad, it's been giving me a lot of fun lately.

I am braced for the rink closing & hockey practices not resuming in January if the government brings in a reversion to Step 2 restrictions next week. Certainly when we were last in Step 2 rinks were shut to the general public and only "elite" adult teams & children's teams could practice ice hockey under "organised sport" rules.

Things other than weird Covid test results have been happening!

I watched another two episodes of Bridgerton, and my goodness they included one of the most romantic speeches (the one about not love at first sight, but growing friendship), and one of the most romantic sex scenes I can remember seeing. More TV watching this weekend: we have three episodes left and should have time to get through at least two of them.

Tony got offered a new job, and after some careful thought and back-and-forth about details, has decided to take it. He's very happy about it, I'm very happy that he's happy, his genius is recognised, etc :-)

We also did some shakeup of the household routine over the last month, with Tony experimenting with whether taking on the morning school run from me was feasible. It's turned out to suit him, so I now have rather more flexibility in my mornings, yay, and five fewer bike rides in the week. So that in turn is prompting me to think about my daily/weekly exercise habits and whether/how to tweak them a bit.

We had a weekend visit from Tony's mum and her dogs - they stayed overnight at the nearby Travelodge (one-off fee per animal, max two animals) and hung out with us during the day, and it was really lovely to see her, to make friends (again) with the dogs, to have a lovely walk in the cold bright weather last Sunday, during which the smaller offspring and the puppy chased each other around and wore each other out. Pure joy.

I was off work last Friday (using up my leave) and managed to time my trip into London to meet my dad for an hour or so. While I managed to get time with my dad at half-term, he cunningly arranged for his cousin to meet us, and I hadn't seen her since before the pandemic. We didn't do anything other than stand around and chat, and then ride a train to Streatham and chat (and then dad and cousin went back to Paddington together) but that was in itself a great pleasure.

I'm on strike today and tomorrow. Strike action runs Wed-Fri this week, but I don't work Wednesdays anyway so I think I wasn't on strike then, at least for paperwork purposes. Between strike and pointedly using up all my annual leave (my department's leave year runs Jan-Dec unlike much of the university which runs on academic year) I am only working nine days in December: two next week, three the following, four the last week before Christmas, and then everything shuts down until the fourth of January. I am tired from this year and I don't think I'm alone in that. I just want to get through those last nine days, do what I can, and have a rest.

Skating lesson this morning, followed by some practice skate, a bit of errand running and then back to the rink for some public skating until I was thoroughly worn out.

On the way home it was very convenient to drop in on Forbidden Planet, theoretically so offspring could look at the Transformers offerings. However, they came out with nothing and I came out with a pile of art books, and a paperback of A Memory Called Empire. I almost never buy paperbacks these days, it's ebooks or, apparently, giant hardbacks of art that need to be read laid out on a table anyway. But I love A Memory Called Empire enormously.

Behind the cut, three pictures: paperback copies of This Is How You Lose the Time War (some other new releases also visible); the surprisingly large display of signed books; what I actually bought and brought home (a giant hardback book of Black Widow art, artbooks for both the new The Lion King and an animated film Ferdinand, and a flyer for a signing next month by Una McCormack of her Picard series tie-in novel.)

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The FP staff are very nice; we had a chat at the till about Una McCormack and how great her books are and how nice it is to have local authors come in for events and how the signing is conveniently timed for post-skating. I am now about 500% more motivated than before to actually watch Picard, and hopefully I may even like it.