Musings of an aging fan

I am very weary, and desperately trying to stay upright and awake. (Well, both for preference, but at a pinch just one of them would do).

The Secret Santa I organised at work happened this morning. I received a bottle of red Bordeaux, a Snoopy tie, and a firefighter's kit.

We are going to see The Hobbit tomorrow. I cannot help thinking that a trip to a cinema right next to a major shopping centre, on a Saturday in December, will turn out to be a mistake.

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What are you doing this weekend? Have you got anything fun planned? Do tell!

Program for today:
(a) watch the rugby, while
(b) eating home-made apple muffins; then
(c) go to Dyrham Park, and then
(d) go onto Wootton Bassett to see the Vulcan fly over!; while all the time
(e) trying not to think about either yesterday's referee or the disciplinary panel.

Central library.
Discount bookshop.
Oxfam bookshop.
Browns restaurant. The building used to be a museum and library. Anyone starting to see a pattern here?
The Red Lodge museum

I can't sleep. Again.

And I've got a sore throat.

OTOH, Australia are 130-5 (although what are we doing, letting them put on fifty-plus for the sixth wicket?)

And we're going to get snow today.

New job
It looks okay so far - I'm enjoying it. There's a lot of development work to do over the next three / six months, but it should be within my capabilities. And next week, I get a permanent desk!
I went to a Bristol Actuarial Society session on mortality improvements by cause yesterday; interesting, but there is more work to be done on this area.

New house
Well, all the boxes are unpacked and disposed of. And all the books are on shelves; but not in any order. Next job: get the PC set up, and hopefully even connected to our new wireless network (thanks, foradan), so we can get on with things like the Supplement to the 2005 Proceedings. But this means clearing some space in the junkroom study ...
We are giving back the keys to the rented house tomorrow.

Visitors
The house was duly warmed last weekend.
We've got my father coming down this weekend, and I hope that my sister and her family will be able to come over on Saturday as well.
Later in the month, we hope to play host to MastermindChampion, and then to adaese's sister and her family.
And next month, we have GlassLady coming down, to see the opera - reminder to adaese, book the tickets!

Reading
I have finished the latest George RR Martin, A Feast for Crows, and am about to finish have now finished Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. Then it will be back to the collection of SM Stirling short stories, Ice, Iron and Gold; and also the backlog of magazines, including the latest Amon Hen and Mallorn (both of which I've only skimmed through so far).

Listening
I have been listening to the new Dave Nachmanoff / Al Stewart live CD Uncorked. It is truly excellent - the selection of songs, the performances, and the production are all outstanding. And it's signed by Dave Nach :-)

Also to do
Put the last seven months' worth of photos, negatives and CDs in albums.
Sort out what we're doing on weekends in November. (NB could some kind soul remind me of the date of the next bout of Committeedium?)
Now that I've joined the gym at work, I need to have an initial fitness assessment (which will be embarrassing), then I can start using it.

And what have all of you been doing?

As those of you who read my previous post will know, I can't read my friends' pages at work (although I can read / post to my own; odd, that). We're using a nearby hotel to skim other pages and email, but I'm sure we're not catching everything. So - if there's anything happening in your life right now that you would like to share, please put it in a comment. Hey, even if there's nothing happening in your life, please put it in a comment! :-)

We went for a walk on Sunday, and found a ruin, a pond (with dragonflies) and some blackberries, none of which we knew about.

I am getting on with sorting out our photos of Norway.

The new Al Stewart CD arrived this morning; so far (ie after two tracks!) it's pretty good.

We are going to see MastermindChampion and the rest of adaese's family on Saturday.

It's only nine days until Oxonmoot.

And eighteen days until the Al Stewart concert.

Number of books put on eBay: twelve, to add to the five I put up last Tuesday (please take a look! - there's some good stuff there)
Number of books about Tolkien picked off the shelves to dispose of: thirty-five (comment here, or drop me an email, if you'd like to see the list in advance of them going onto eBay)
Number of pictures hung: nine
Number of lengths swum: sixty-two
Number of new crowns getting used to: two
Number of members of the didiusjulianus family entertained to tea: two
Number of pieces of chicken in cornflakes eaten: two
Number of blackberry and apple crumbles eaten: one-quarter

... just away from home.

Thursday: collect hire car; put air in tyres of hire car; up to Leicestershire; be bounced on by small boys.

Friday: to Lincoln; buy whisky, beer, fudge, food, and three lots of books; look round Cathedral. Parents take us out to dinner.

Saturday: take elder nephew to Newark air museum; lunch at grandparents; into Grantham to see aunts and uncles.

Dream two nights ago: at the dentist. Had gas - breathed deeply, felt woozy, went to sleep, woke up, nearly done, but the treatment hadn't quite worked.

Someone who works at our office - and who I don't know, except to nod hello to - was there. Whether as nurse, patient, or stranger, I'm not sure.

Dream last night - I found a book of Pratchett miscellanea - sort of "Once More, With Footnotes", but an earlier version. I couldn't work out whether this was some great prize, a one-off which nobody knew about; or something which everybody in the world knew about but me. Weird.