(July 2 – July 8)

It’s the second half of the year–already!–which means it’s time for a slight change of format on this blog. As usual, I haven’t quite decided what that new format will be yet, but my current plan for the rest of this year is to try and find one theme to focus on for each week. Or possibly to find a way of linking some disparate observation from my week into a single overarching narrative.

Or not.

Either way, if you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll already have a pretty good idea of the minutiae of my daily/weekly routine, so there’s no need keep on prattling about that any longer. Which brings me nicely to this week’s topic.

This is not only the middle of the year–and, most pertinently, the dawn of a bold new age on this blog–it is also the start of the school holidays. For many parents this brings a deep sigh of dread; heralding two weeks of having to find fresh ways to keep the kids entertained; two weeks of arranging and/or paying for daycare so you can continue going to work and pretending to be a productive member of society; two weeks of bored kids who have not had their energy reserves drained by a day at school.

For me, however, it means two weeks of not having to get three humans (including myself) out of the house to a strict deadline five days a week. It’s two weeks of not having to make lunches. It’s two weeks of waaaay less traffic on the roads. It’s two weeks in which I can take an extra half hour each morning to do writing if I want to.

It’s two weeks of awesome! Bring it!

Update: I’ve also, randomly, decided that each of my posts for the rest of the year shall be accompanied by an entirely context-free photo that I’ve taken during that week. For the first such example, see above.

Watching

This week I started watching Killing Eve, and loved it immediately—literally within the first two minutes. I’d been holding off watching it for a some time, mostly in case it didn’t prove to be as good as I was expecting. In the end it was every bit as wonderful as everyone had made out; way better, in fact, than I expected or even deserved it to be. A real treat.

The week was also capped off by a weekend of watching films with the Elderbeast, starting with Fridate horror (for which the Elderbeast was the guest of honour). This week we watched Final Destination 2 which was, if anything, even more fun than the first one. It had all the smarts of the first one, but with a knowing wink and a nod, and everything turned up to 11. Enormous fun.

On Saturday we watched Star Trek: Beyond. As I may have written previously, this was a movie that I had originally dismissed due to the marketing but am now thinking that it might be my favourite of the new Trek movies. It’s got the fun and action, it’s got the classic Star Trek values, and it’s kinda pissy that Paramount got themselves a perfectly good Trek film and then cocked up the marketing. Anyway …

On Sunday morning we went out to catch Ant Man And The Wasp, which was awesome and eminently delivered on the promise of the first movie. I’m already looking forward to the third entry.

Reading

I’m sort of in between books at the moment, having drifted away from Endurance (by Scott Kelly) after being irresponsibly distracted by Buffy Season 8 comics. I nearly started reading The Only Harmless Great Thing, the new novella by Bo Bolander (who wrote one of my favourite short stories of the last few years) but I opted at almost the last minute to continue with Buffy Season 8. Yes, I am weak. In my defence, I enjoyed the first half of season 8 so much that I decided it was best to continue riding that wave, safe in the knowledge that Bo would be waiting for me on the other side.

I’ve also been continuing an unplanned voyage of discovery into the world of audio books, thanks to a recent Audible promotion. My latest listen has been a dramatisation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses which, unbelievably, was absolutely free. It’s an abridged reading performed by the cast of a recent theatre adaptation and has immeasurably enlivened the drive to and from work over the course of this week. High point is absolutely Janet McTeer’s reading, dripping with haughty scorn as the deliciously wicked Madame de Merteuil (the role played by Glenn Close in the movie adaptation). I’m now keen to revisit the films (yes, films) all over again. Eventually …