As someone described it earlier this week, this January has felt like a super sleepy month. Grey, wet, and a feeling that it's moving really slowly. At the same time, it's already nearly over :). Yeah, so what's new, right? :D But there have definitely been some fun bits in between!
The snow for instance. As expected, we returned to some fairly nice amounts of snow, but more followed soon after! Which meant we going get going with the cross-country skiing! A couple of trips later though, the temperatures rose unseasonably and it turned to rain instead of snow :/. One lives in hope however, as the winter is long.
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| night-time, daytime! |
In many ways this is already a pretty nice time of the year, because the lengthening of the day is already becoming noticeable. I think for me personally, the earlier dawning of light as I'm heading to work and the light staying longer as I'm heading back from work feels like quite a big deal. On top of that, despite the rain, most of the world around us is still covered in snow, so happy days.
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| and again! |
Except the bits when enough of the snow melts and then refreezes overnight as ice, so I find myself slip-sliding down the hill on my way to the train in the morning semi-dark :|. Oh well, I guess you can't have it all :).
I think part of why I find myself in quite a good mood today is that a break is coming up! Next week we have family visiting, and while the time we spend here may well not yield much cross country skiing, the plan is to then head off to the mountains for half a week of downhill! Which I'm looking forward to a lot! Hopefully everything we've been getting as rain has been falling as snow there :D.
On the books front, despite my concerns, I did manage to finish The Game in time to be able to return it without too much delay! However, the ending really didn't sit well with me! I mean, I was really getting into the story towards the end there! Fast paced, tumbling through one twist after another. But the way things got resolved (or not!) in the end felt like a major let down.
Turns out I was not the only one! There was quite a long and spirited discussion around the book at our book club meeting, and turned out that one of our number had already read all three books in the trilogy. The general feeling however, was that he had potentially wasted his time, and no one else was going to bother, myself included :). I suppose that's part of the fun of the book club though, being able to share opinions and find out how others reacted to the same story.
Before getting into this month's book though, I thought a bit of a break from book club books was in order. I'd offered Altered Carbon as one of my options in the past, but it had never been picked. The blurb seemed interesting though, so I decided to give it a go. What an excellent choice!! :) I practically devoured it in a week!
I think I really liked how the characters came across. Yes, Takeshi isn't the most likeable chap, but there's a definite pull to how his story plays out. There was a really good mix of action and contemplation. The Hendrix was particularly fun and reminded my a little bit of some of the space ship AIs from the Culture series :).
Would I read the rest of the trilogy though? Seeing how I'd have to order them from other libraries, maybe, but I'm in no rush.
In the mean time I've been first plodding, then rushing, and finally dragging my feet through Cod. I mean, it's alright I guess, but I'm really not that into non-fiction. And while the whole ecology and conservation angle blended in with the broad arc of historical consequences does play well together, somehow, I find it difficult to feel too enthusiastic about it.
I'm almost done though, so while waiting for the next book to arrive, I'm contemplating a dive into one of Mark Lawrence's completed trilogies while waiting for the last book of The Library Trilogy to appear :). The author comes highly recommended, and I've heard absolutely nothing of him previously! But hey, recently, that's worked very well for me, so why not try :).
As for the rest, there's the sort of semi planning of potential trips for Easter and early June. Road trips no less. In Norway though. It's nice to have things to look forward to, and even more fun when that involves seeing friends. In the mean time, here's hoping for more snow!
