Lathany

Since we moved in, I've had two pin boards in my study. One has postcards and prints from TV, movies and computer games. I'm in the process of changing it over for the first time. The other used to be various bits and pieces that were useful or I wanted to keep. However, early last year, I made it a board of the 2018 things I did. I'm not quite ready to change it - I currently have nothing for 2019. However, here's a picture of it at the moment.



Over Christmas and New Year we saw two films. One was a disappointment and the other was enjoyable.

Mission Impossible: Fallout was a disappointment. I like the franchise in general and knew that this one was the one that the critics liked and also had the highest audience rating. Having seen the film, I don't know why they like it. It's essentially a remake of the previous Mission Impossible film. The chief Bad is the same, the female "British Spy" having spent the end of the previous film proving her loyalty to MI6 by turning her former boss in is... again having to prove her loyalty to MI6 by turning her former boss in. They're missing Jeremy Renner (most likely to the next Avengers film) and so have given his lines and usual role to Simon Pegg. It's safe to say, that some of said lines and actions don't fit Pegg nearly as well. Also - the IMF clearly hasn't recruited anyone new for two years. The same three characters Are It (in previous MI films, they did at least pretend they had others).

Wonder Woman was, fortunately, not a disappointment. I'd heard a lot of hype about it and, to my relief, it was pretty much worth that hype. It has decent casting, it's a coherent plot and I liked the atmosphere. I don't know how historically accurate the set details were, but that didn't matter.

I've been playing Detroit: Become Human. It's an interesting game; although I'm finding it hard enough on the easy/story mode! It's about making choices and finding clues. It's also about surviving the navigation system which seems clunky.

I was reading a post yesterday about parents and calories. It reminded me of a experience of my own - although somewhat different from that of the poster. And I thought that, as it’s about to be the season of dieting, I’d share it.

When I was at school I was overweight, the fattest girl in my class. So, I was on a diet from roughly age nine to age eighteen. My parents agreed I needed to lose weight - both were also on diets - and I entered the world of counting calories. It didn’t work too well and, until I reached university, I was constantly depressed about my weight and about all the negative comments I got. However, going off to university was when things changed. And, about a decade or two after I graduated, I put all the pieces together and worked out why.

There were two big reasons for the change. Both are somewhat linked to my mother taking up running in her early forties - pretty much as I hit my teens. Back at the start of her running career, I mean for the period that I was at home as a teenager, my mother progressed from fun runs to marathons.

As keen runners will know, running does interesting things to the rest of your schedule as you have to fit the runs in - particularly anything over ten miles. It plays havoc with meal scheduling. Combined with this, my mother was the cook of the family. At the weekend she would tell us that dinner would be at 1pm and then she’d go out for a fourteen mile run. She’d get back just before midday and have breakfast. 1pm would come and go and, about 1:30pm I’d get myself something to eat as I wouldn’t have eaten since a much earlier breakfast time. Then around 3pm, dinner would turn up. We had a plate-clearing policy and so I’d eat all that as well. This is the first of the two big reasons - I was eating more than three meals, particularly at the weekend.

The second big reason was something I mentioned near the start of my post. That my mother was also on a constant diet. The reason for this changed when she started running from wanting to look thinner to wanting to be thinner to run better times. And, consequently, whenever she dished up a meal, she always dished herself the smallest portion. However, size is a relative thing and so when she was hungry - usually following a long run - all the portions would consequently swell so that the smallest would satisfy her. And that “clear your plate” policy hit again here.

All this meant that when I left for university - and being away from home for thirty weeks of the year - I lost a stone without any dieting. When I moved to London after I graduated - I lost two more stone.

These days, I do keep an eye on what I eat and drink (I find I need less per day than when I was younger). All the early calorie counting is useful for this as I know what I’m consuming. It was also useful for the post-twins diet I went on to lose a couple of stone about fifteen years ago before going back to work. But I’ve never gone back to the depression of my teens.

Also, finally, I’d like to think that, had I gone back home after university, I might have become smarter about the situation. Taken over more of the cooking (which I also, much later, found out that my mother hated doing), ignored my mother’s announced times and gone with my own better judgement, had separate meal times and/or fought back much harder against the portion sizes and the clear plate policy.

It’s how long it took me to realise that strikes me now.

Happy Christmas everyone! I've got many, lovely edibles and several new computer games (Martin bought me Mass Effect Andromeda, Detroit Become Human and Pillars of Eternity II) and two books (The Sudden Appearance of Hope from Dom and The Ivy Tree from Liz). Also, I might post about my main present from Dom as it gets created.

Christmas dinner went very well - it helped that I prepared it whilst playing The Black Mages - a present from Krystyna from previous years.

Today I wrapped almost all the remaining presents. I finally put marzipan and icing on the Christmas cake. Plus we went for a walk in the nearby park.

And I got to see a familiar face from a computer game of long ago.



This is Nigel Danvers, protagonist of The Lost Crown. The sequel has been due out for nearly a decade. This isn't quite it - it's the first section of a mini-game that he's also worked on (called Silent Night), but it's good to see, all the same.

The advent window was a snowman. Actually Xmassy!

Today's advent window featured a man riding a horse.

In other news, I did my last day of work in 2018. I now have a couple of weeks off.

We have a new, weekly award in our team. The idea is that you nominate fellow teammates for it on the basis of having done Good Stuff. I won it for a presentation I gave last Friday. This means I get the cactus on my desk for the working days between now and the next team meeting.

Today was the team Xmas meal and trip to Gingerbread City at the V&A. The meal was Thai and the starter was good, but sadly the main was a Green Thai curry that was probably the spiciest Green Thai I've tried - which I didn't enjoy.

The City was really good though. Here's a picture from the City.



Today's window was a Christmas Tree.

Today's window was a postbox.

It was a reasonable day. Work has its ups and downs and I got stuff done whilst more things showed up. There was an issue with South Western Railway - but it didn't affect my journey home. Reeve wanted - and got - a warm, dry lap.

And only a week to Christmas Eve.

Today's advent window had horses in it.

Bea and I went shopping in Staines this morning for some warmer trousers for her. When we first went outside, we nearly turned round and went home again it was so cold. There was a biting, wet wind and it was really nasty. However, we stuck to the plan and Bea now has a couple of pairs of new trousers. And we hibernated for the rest of the afternoon.

The advent window showed a boat on a muddy river.

I went to see Ryan's play this evening - The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I enjoyed it, the students had adapted the script (added plenty of jokes) and chosen the music (including various bits I recognised). Ryan was the narrator for it and did well.