It was an odd but wholly anticipated feeling, the temperature drop when we came back from India via Doha to the tail end of a somewhat short Norwegian winter. What I wasn't anticipating, however, was how quickly it warmed up thereafter! By mid month the temperature was regularly hitting the teens and now we've had 20's for the last week! Utter craziness! To think there was loads of snow still on the ground when we came back!
I can't say we've been rearing to head out into the growing daylight on our bikes or anything though. Laziness is a potent force, alas, and it will take some more concerted effort to get back to running and cycling and all that. In the mean time, for the Easter break, we headed down to Germany to see some friends. In a car. My car, more specifically, and of significant importance was the existence of a stretch of de-restricted autobahn on the way :D.
It was a lovely week or so! Loads of sunshine, lazing about, strolling around beautiful towns and beaches and loads of amazing food. The coastline near Husum was especially interesting for me because of the extent of variation in tide heights! To be fair, I'm not really sure if 2-2.5m of variation counts as a lot or not, but the fact that the land slopes very gently means that this height difference leaves what looks like miles of landscape exposed at low tide that disappears again at high tide. Twice every day!
Since then the summer has more or less properly begun. Colours everywhere, including flowers in the garden! Although I am mildly let down by how quickly crocuses come and go. But such is life. I do wonder how hot this summer is going to end up being. Hopefully not too dry. Seems there's already some forest fires starting :|.
The one thing that is continuing unabated is my journey through the tales of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. A couple of months since I wrote about them last, and I've managed to finish Midnight Tides and The Bonehunters. Complete craziness! That was the overriding feeling in my mind when I finished with the latter a couple of days ago!
Without going into the specifics of events, (even given the almost non-existent audience of this space, I would hate to give spoilers for what I think is a fantastic story :)) I can perhaps reflect a bit on what drives me to read at a faster pace than I have in years! Especially given that the reading is mostly limited to the commutes to and from work. There are all the different people, the different places and story-lines and all that. But out of all that, there are the characters that seem to keep growing!
There are the bit parts and the ones flitting through the stories. There are the more stable presences. But no matter what type of character, they have more or less most of them the ability to surprise. As I suppose is the case with real life, people change. I'm not sure whether this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but I think I've come to accept the death of beloved characters a bit more compared to that first time I read A Game of Thrones. Note that I say stable and not permanent earlier in this paragraph :). I wonder if I was accepting of deaths of major characters in this series if I hadn't read some of Ice and Fire first. I guess we'll never know!
Of course, with something this size, there's always chances for some inconsistencies here and there. But for me, there's enough to like where I'd rather use my imagination to resolve it in the best way possible than try and pick holes in the story :). But maybe that's just me. In any case, six down, four to go. And of course then there are the Novels of the Malazan Empire, Path to Ascendancy, Kharkanas, Witness... I could be in this for some time :D.
