Lathany

We went to Christmas at Kew for the first time this year.



Lights, trees, food and loaded alcoholic hot chocolate (rum, cream and marshmallows).

It was my team Xmas do today.



A rather good pub meal and mini golf.

It turns out that 6pm is the perfect time to leave for Kempton Fireworks.



We managed fresh doughnuts and everything.

Today was our awayday.



Speakers were excellent, food was tasty and I've never been here before.

Ever since we got Reeve, Dom has been responsible for his vet trips, essentially annual. It made sense as Dom was self-employed and worked from home. However, now he's employed I'm the one with the shorter, more flexible hours. So, from this year, I agreed to take him. Better yet, Beatrice was around and would come along.

Reeve never liked his annual MOT. He didn't like the injections, nor being weighed and he sometimes had the indignity of a thermometer up the bum. But it was a one-off, right?

We went off with our puss three weeks ago. I found the place and drove in without wanging the car (the drive is narrow). We took him in and waited. Unfortunately, this wasn't going to be a smooth trip. He was underweight, so the vet wanted to take a blood test for his thyroid. However, Reeve Was Not Up For This. She called in the receptionist and three of us wrestled him (Bea wisely backed out) and failed to get a good sample on both shaved paws. At this point we had a very upset animal, so we were packed off with a tranquiliser pill and an appointment for two days later.

We went back, with a much more docile animal and handed him over. This time she had another vet to help and Bea and I were sent out for a walk. Twenty minutes later we returned and it was done, but apparently he was "wriggly".

A phone call that afternoon confirmed that the poor puss did have a thyroid issue, so I went back the following day, alone, and collected his medicine.

Today was the three-week follow-up appointment. Reeve was more perky and, having explained the appointment needs to the receptionist on the phone ("I remember him!" she said immediately) there was an assistant. Bea and I were sent out and they managed to get a blood sample fairly quickly.

This afternoon's call was confirmation that he has improved but needs to put on more weight so his dose is upped to three times a day (which, incidentally, he also doesn't like, but doesn't involve the cat spaceship).

I'm pretty certain all the yelling from him in the car on the way home was a mixture of swear words and a request to get Dom back.

Today I belatedly had my birthday present - A Hawk On The Wild Side experience. My half-day experience was great. We were able to handle five very different birds. The team told us all sorts of things about them ranging from their upbringings to how that species worked (or not) with others of their kind. Plus some fun facts, including the vulture that was a star at the Barbican, and how some phrases come from falconry (eg. under your thumb) and Shakespeare was fond of using them.



Whilst other people in the party would have kindly taken pictures with me and the birds, I was happy enough to leave the pictures to the birds.

Back from the Forest of Dean, I have many photos. We had a good time. It rained, but was a decent temperature. We got to see lots, eat lots and generally relax.



I think Clearwell Caves were my favourite things, but there were lots of close seconds. Our actual holiday home, a bungalow, had an excellent view.

Ryan's end of course ceremony - he's in the distance collecting his piece of paper.

I played Mass Effect Andromeda after I finished the original Mass Effect Trilogy. I had been told it was a rather different sort of game, so that part was not a surprise. Whilst there was plenty I liked – enough that I did finish it – there were also a number of problems and, more crucially, disappointments.

First up, the good. I thought the premise behind Andromeda was creative. That they were exploring in another galaxy and particularly how this ends up being tied back to the original trilogy. I liked that Ryder was a different kind of character to Shepard. I enjoyed going through the vaults and the different worlds. I also did like exploration as a theme. Some of the missions, generally many of the squadmate missions, were very interesting and different and I tended to look forward to doing them. Also, I liked that the fate of the Arks were very varied. Finally, the space travel was gorgeous.

Now the mixed. The new squad was OK. Some of them were great (generally the non-humans), and others not so much (generally the humans). Ditto people on station and on the ship. Whilst some missions were interesting, lots of others were samey. I was disappointed that the weapons and armour systems were not more interesting. And where were my tropical fish? I missed those and didn't consider the hamster nearly as good. Plus, why does the Pathfinder end up making all the decisions? What's the actual point of those other people who technically have command roles? Finally, the various "moral" choices that Ryder makes are interesting, but I was less clear about the consequences.

Onto the annoying. Too many of the “little” quests involved skipping from planet to planet when a big deal had been made about giving the main character an actual ship. And those quests were tedious, there needed to be some sort of delegation system. Plus, there's only so many times you can buggy in your Nomad across the same parts of planet without getting bored. Then, whilst I can see they wanted to make a big deal of the 3D nature and the jump packs... I got lost far, far too often in places with multiple levels. They needed signposts. Oh, and the bugs. Why are there still game-breaking bugs Bioware / Electronic Arts? (With side comments about EA itself demanding its own game launcher on my PC.)

And finally the really bad. Namely, what happened to the plot? The game got underway, rather promisingly, with three different plot strands other than the actual Pathfinding. One concerns the other races you find in Andromeda, a second is about the ancient – now vanished – race (Remnant) and the third is about how the Andromeda fleet got its backing and what happened to the original leader. It was the second two that interested me the most, particularly the last one... and they aren't answered in Andromeda. Instead the game was clearly written with the idea of it being the first of a series. This was really annoying, particularly as the plot content felt very thin on the ground anyway compared to the original trilogy (which did have a satisfactory ending to its first instalment).



So overall, decent but disappointing. It always had a lot to live up to, but I felt fell much further short than it should have done.

Dom and I went to Elle & Fee's for lunch.



I had Eggs Benedict and a cocktail, he had a veggie burger and a diet coke. Both were excellent.