Of old adventures and fleeting snow

It's been a rather dreary November (and early December). Not that that's a wholly unexpected situation, but still. A lot of the days have been dark and wet and of course the days have continued to get shorter. On the upside, that's not going to last for too long! Another few weeks and it'll start going the other way!

There has been a bit of snow. But mainly of the rapidly turns to slush variety. Still, makes for a nice change when it does stick around for a day or two.

The weeks have rather started blending into one another a bit. It's been quite busy with work, somewhat unsurprisingly I suppose. Either way, I am very much looking forward to the couple of weeks off that are coming up. Especially now that I've rather reconciled myself to the fact that it's going to be a staycation over Christmas for the first time since 2013!

With the cold creeping in and the lack of hours of sunshine, we did start making a bit more of an effort to get out whenever there was some sunshine during the day. Aided by a return to full time working from home. And it's amazing how much of a difference even a short 10-15 minute walk in the sunshine can make to one's general wellbeing :).

I guess it's all about making the most of the now. Given that a work Christmas get-together is out of the question, there have been attempts at spreading some festive cheer remotely. There's a gingerbread house "art-piece" contest going on that I'm taking somewhat seriously :D. 

We'll see how entertaining that ends up being eventually, but in the meantime much baking of gingerbread has been ongoing and some sticking of said pieces of bread together with icing. I'm very excited about my little village so far :D.

On the reading front it's been a bit nondescript I suppose. The book club is beginning to wilt a bit in the face of stay at home recommendations and the general gloominess I suppose. In the absence of any clear reading direction, I decided to revisit some old favourites!

There was a period of time, when I was in my early teens, I suppose, when I was a huge Alistair MacLean fan! Fuelled by the availability of a seemingly unending number of his books at the school library, I devoured a lot of those adventures. With their stoic heroes and typically European (and thus completely alien) settings, it was a magical world. I wondered what it would be like to read those books as an adult :).

Not bad, I have to say. However, the passage of years has rather changed my perspective on life and, in many ways, my knowledge of the world. With that, the books feel quite different in some ways. A heavy influence of the Second World War, social norms from the middle of the last century and the occasional excessive touch of the melodramatic are all things I notice now, but was never aware of as a kid :). They're still fun reads though!