lathany

Yesterday afternoon, we drove to my parents to belatedly celebrate birthdays (a rather yummy Thai meal at Thai Rack which I've raved about before), exchange presents and collect twins (after staying overnight).

Whilst there, we asked about the hedge as it was still full of dead leaves - rather an odd thing for spring. My father explained that it's a beech hedge and beech gets upset when pruned and then doesn't shed its leaves until the new set come in. He also explained that the leaves colour in the autumn as that's where the toxins go to be expelled from the tree (I suspect some of my F-list already knew this...).

We watched Spectre that evening. I liked it better than I was expecting, having heard bad reviews. I think I see what they mean - scenes and plot were cinematic rather than rational. That said, it's Bond (and there was a tiny bit from Judi Dench :-) ).

I've seen two other films recently:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - This was rather disappointing as it didn't follow the story properly and seemed more as though Jackson (and his co-writers) had produced some Hobbit-based fanfic.
Mad Max: Fury Road - As has often been said, this was one long car chase. However, it was an enjoyable and epic one!

I've also finished the first of my list of Things I hope arrive in 2016, namely Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre. I have mixed views on this. It's a good story, nice to see Jack in action and a decent plot concept. Where it falls down is that I found one of the characters remarkably similar to one in the previous book and also, I've read enough Brookmyre that I'm now spotting early plot points.

The next of my 2016 things is likely to be either Dreamfall Chapters part five or Blackenrock. All the evidence suggests that they're going to appear at about the same time (late this month or early May). Actually, Heroes Reborn is already out, but the reviews are sufficiently poor that I'm going to leave it until the price drops (and I'm less interested than I expected to be).