Lathany

After yesterday's fight with Word, I got into work this morning to find that the file system was down. What's more, it remained down all day. However, because I'd had a fight with Word over that document yesterday, I had a copy not in the main filing system. So I had something to work on.

This just feels fundamentally wrong in many ways....

chrisvenus and I attempted The Final Countdown dungeon on The Secret World yesterday. We didn't quite manage it as a duo, but it felt close.



Hopefully we can try again with the other two after Christmas.

Today we wrapped the twins' presents. This took a while as we did all the stocking ones as well. Going to the two sets of parents for Xmas means doing all the wrapping early. On the plus side, this means that later on everything is done. I still have a few other presents to do, but the bulk of them are finished.

I'm also making my way through the various jobs - washing clothes, cleaning the bathroom and tidying up a little. It's always a pain to fit in on weekends, but I find they make for good computer breaks when I'm on leave. Particularly, when the computer games are Talos: Road to Gehenna and Portal Stories: Mel. Both have been excellent, but give me motion sickness.

Last night I dreamed of Emily Marle, our cat, for the first time ever. In my dream we were somewhere high up with mountains, but oddly indoors. Emily purred, rolled over and general behaved like a cat. When I left, I cried.

Then I woke up feeling upset and strange. I knew Emily was dead and had been dead for years. Then I realised - it was exactly seven years - yesterday was the anniversary of her death. I guess my subconscious was way ahead of me. Here's our last photo of her.



I cried again this morning remembering it all.

And the Christmas event in The Secret World is back!



Apparently the next issue is out too, although I think we need to get further along with Star Wars before returning.

I'm again not feeling very well. It's not exciting, probably some sort of cold. I've got a temperature, some snuffles, some muscle aches and that feeling of being padded with cotton wool.
It's been a while since I was off sick from work (I think about four years), but it's a bad time in terms of workload. I'm hoping I'll be well enough by the morning to go in. That said, tomorrow is the Xmas party so it's a half day already. I usually quite like the party but the prospect of being there at the moment is not very appealing.

Computer game wise, I've been playing Portal Stories: Mel of late (I got it a couple of weeks ago I think). It's quite fun, although hard work and motion-sickness inducing so I have to do it in bursts.

I'm feeling better today than I was yesterday. Also, I managed to do cooking with Ryan plus the washing and ironing before the game started.

This was the third session of the second season (so to speak) of the Inquisitor Atlanor thread - featuring Marcus Vex (Alistair), Eli Mychir (chrisvenus) and Teneu Mordecai (quisalan).

Today's game featured:

• Three interrogations.
• A Tyranid.
• Captain "Awesome" Corthin (named as such by the players and he made his willpower roll when he found the Tyranid).
• An underground laboratory with an escape route by underground river.
• A chief engineer.
• Marmalade gingerbread.

All-in-all a good session, if not what I expected.

I then followed up yesterday's meal out with another one - this time Italian with the work team at Strada opposite St Pauls. This was also good, although in a very different style. From the Christmas menu I had Arancini (slightly greener than the ones from the usual menu), Roast Duck Leg (served with orange and pomegrante which I thought was an interesting choice, but I didn't like as much as I hoped) and then Fondant (chocolate and orange pudding with salted caramel icecream (good, although I wonder if caramel will ever be unsalted again...)). One of the team managed to turn up well over an hour late. Maybe I'll hear why on Monday.

From this week's game.



I've not really got the hang of this screenshot business in Star Wars yet. And it's harder as the tank.

After work today, I met a former work colleague for a drink. We reminisced about past work and colleagues and talked about Christmas and families.

When we first arrived, we were the only people in the pub (16:30), and I got to choose seats right next to the Christmas tree. When we left two hours later the place was heaving. I know that we moved from early finishing time to something much more normal, but it was impressive how much difference it made.