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lathe of heaven
so, i’ve been writing posts, but not getting round to publishing them…! oh well. anyway, i’ve finally got round to this one!
I recently read the lathe of heaven. I read it mostly because of a made-for-tv version I’d seen with lucas haas, james can and lisa bonet (I don’t know if anyone else has seen it). I really enjoyed the film and was looking for a similar kind of thing – which is something of a theme at the moment, as I’m busy reading the bourne identity for the same reason!
well, the book is quite different. most people who’ve seen the film after having read the book don’t like it too much, as it simplifies the plot too much. they feel that it isn’t essentially true to the story. I was rather caught off-guard by the extra stuff, and actually felt that the film was pretty true to the essence of the book.
my summer so far
friends, shamanism is not without its responsibilities, so i am sorry that i have been invisible for so long again. to put it simply, i have been working my arse off. and then, on top of that, we are still without the internet at home.
we have managed to arrange a new computer, though, which is currently at charlotte’s mom’s house – but its been there for over a month now and we haven’t had a chance to go and get it!
apart from working i have been having some fun too. i’ve been to the movies a few times, which is about 3 times more than I did last year! i saw watchmen, star trek and terminator salvation. i thought watchmen was okay but too much of a fanboy movie. i loved star trek and enjoyed terminator quite a lot. in terminator i particularly liked sam worthington’s performance – he was the perfect mix between vulnerable and capable. capable seems an odd word to use, but that’s the word that was going through my head the whole time. he just exuded capability – i thought to myself, “now there is a man!”
of course, i’ve been reading lots too and have read some good books and some less good books. i’m planning to blog about them very soon – come hell or high water (the latter being surprisingly likely with our english summers!). i’ve decided that i will take a gonzo approach to my book reviews as part of the reason that i post so few is that they take me so long to write. so I hope you don’t mind the change in style!
i am now a shaman
well, sort of. well, not really. in the warcraft sense.
some of you may remember when i posted about being a peon two years ago. that was when i was quite new to my job. the good news is that i’ve slowly moved up a bit, but very sneakily.
i wanted to post about becoming a grunt or a headhunter or a witch doctor, but my elevation was never as clear-cut as that. i was sort of like that little unit you have when you sometimes play, who ends up doing little extra jobs that you don’t expect – like the villager who takes up arms, or the lone marine who defends a structure when really you need a tank there or something. and then you play on and play on and surprisingly that little lone unit survives.
cupcakes and marzipan mice
to my good fortune charlotte is still happily baking away! since the last cake she has made three more forays into the kitchen and she promises there are many cakes still to come! 
snow!
we’ve had a lot of snow here in england recently and it’s been quite exciting! it’s also caused chaos! while it does snow here once or twice a year it’s always very light and if it settles its barely a few inches thick. this time it was about 6 inches thick and britain came to a standstill!
my wife baked a cake!
charlotte has often said how she used to bake a lot as a child but in the 5 years that we’ve known each other i’ve never seen any of this baking. she often said she fancied baking again but it never happened.
then the other day she actually started to write lists of what she’d need to get and even bought a book. she started planning what she was going to bake and on sunday we actually went and bought baking trays! the moment we got home she started fussing about the kitchen like mr. tumnus and before i knew it she was dancing about and madly babbling instructions to herself.
i wanted to use the title “i aten’t dead”
but as fun as it would be to use it, in the light of our dear friend terry’s plight it would seem rather inappropriate.
however, i will say that in the most light-hearted possible way i am indeed not dead!
moo!
good morning!
this is what i saw this morning when i parked my car by the meadow. its a beautiful open field, part of which is used for grazing, however its seldom that you see animals at this part of the meadow. so this morning it was a nice surprise to be greeted by the cows when i walked to work!
the hunt for the city of ember
… oh, us book lovers can be such a pedantic lot, can’t we!
so i’d read loads of fun reviews on carl’s once upon a time review site, and decided on one book that looks just wonderful – THE CITY OF EMBER.
i read the review on fuzzy cricket and was just captivated. thank you so much fuzzy cricket for a wonderful and mouth-watering review!
so now i want to buy it. but… i want that exact copy!
the rage
i forgot about this aspect of driving. how really little things can irritate you…
so this morning i park at the top of beaumont street, opposite the randolph hotel, to drop charlotte off. i’m sitting there waiting to get back into the traffic. then this bloke does this weird u-turn move in the middle of traffic and squeezes his nose in the small bit of loading-zone space in front of me.
i’m expecting him to carry on his weird 6-point turn manoeuvre, as he can’t possibly be wanting to park there.
can he?
no.
the bastard. he is indeed trying to park there. so i look at him incredulously. and then i think, well lets help the guy out, i’ll reverse a little and then he can manoeuvre himself into there.
welcome to chez de rosnay!
there’s my new house! isn’t it pretty?
we’ve really loved being there so far and are settling in nicely. its taking some time to get used to country life with so many little things being different, like the heating, the water, the no internet, the bad tv signal, the no shops nearby and did i say the no internet!!!!?
but there are many other wonderful things about living there. its very beautiful and very quiet. we really like the house and i especially like the high ceilings and the space.
the village is also very cute and has a lot of character!
we have car!
since i’ve come back from south africa and found out that we had to move out of our flat things have been rather hectic at home. we’ve been searching frantically for a new place and the whole thing has been made more difficult by the fact that we have the cats.
in all our searching we literally only found 3 places in oxford that allowed cats! as it is we were quite lucky that one of them was suitable - the only complication was that it was just out of reach of public transport, which meant that we had to get a car. cue more frantic searching and hence my sporadic blogging and presence on your blogs of late.
papier is geduldig
my mom wrote me an email yesterday and in it she was doing her usual stream-of-consciousness thing, just spilling her thoughts on the page.
after a while she commented on how nice it is just to ramble on and quoted a beautiful old afrikaans saying: “papier is geduldig”, which translates as “paper is patient”.
paper is patient … i really like that.
back in south africa
… again.
its funny how its worked out – in april i hadn’t been here for 2 and a half years and then since april this is my 3rd visit in 9 months! january is also a glorious time to be here as its in the middle of summer! 
i arrived last week and have had a good time seeing my friends and family. i also finally met little liam (my friend quintin’s son)! i say, finally, but he is still only 8 weeks old or something… but still, i was so looking forward to meeting the little guy from the moment he was there! and, as you can see from above, he is the cutest thing!
i took some more photos which i’ll hopefully be posting soon! i don’t know what my blogging will be like over the next week, but i’ll try at the very least to put up pictures and i’ll do my best to give you guys a visit!
the rest of the time my mom and i have been hanging out, which has been really nice. we mostly watch “buck rogers”. some of you already know that one of the main ways in which my mom and i connect is through science fiction, particularly science fiction tv shows. so its always really nice to watch that kind of thing with her.
buck rogers is particularly special. before i start getting lyrical about that now (’cause i hope to write a proper post about it!) i’ll just say that it was one of the first shows we used to watch and i was really tiny when we started watching it. i think we may have caught it when there was a re-run a few years later, but other than then we haven’t seen it for, oh, about a good 20 years!
then last year i found it on amazon and started working out when i might be able to afford. it turns out i didn’t have to, ’cause when i visited my mom in october we just happened to stumble upon it in a dvd shop and she immediately snapped it up (along with a jacques brel dvd for me as well – she really is good to me!).
and so, i brought the dvd set back with me and we’ve been watching it all holiday now…!
you gotta love buck rogers!
dear me, the Christmas Busyness has descended
what a busy week its been! and the next week will be equally as busy.
as such i haven’t had any time to spend on the internet, never mind my blog or the blogs on my blogroll. i hope you’re all having a wonderful christmas season and that all your preparations are running smoothly.
have you done all your shopping? i’ve done most of mine, but i’ve got to get charlotte’s today. i ran out of money and so had to wait till my pay day before i could get charlotte’s pressies!
so whats happening? well: tomorrow we’re going to charlotte’s mom for the day, monday we’re getting the food ready and doing all our last minute preparations (and cleaning the house, charlotte has just informed me) for christmas day. then its christmas, of course, which we’ll be spending at home with our friend ilse. poor old ilse doesn’t have anyone else to spend christmas with, as her family are all in south africa. and then its boxing day. i reckon we’ll all just lie around like lazy pythons.
and today? well today, apart from food shopping and charlotte’s christmas presents, today is mine and charlotte’s one year anniversary! one year. we’re going to “the old parsonage” for dinner to celebrate.
this illustrates how busy and jolly our christmas preparations are: charlotte just said that she’s worrying about the fish. the fish? whats to worry about? i don’t know why she’s worrying about fish? and how is worrying about it going to help matters? will it make it better? but its fish thats on her mind.
for now. and then its something else on her mind. like… i don’t know, the fact that the rug needs to be vacuumed… hmmm… how long the meat needs to be cooked… uh… what she’ll wear!! how could i forget about that! oh, my little charlotte… such a worry wort.
so i’ll be a little elf for the next few days (have been for a few days already) running up and down, being in all places at once and carrying an elephant in one hand and the cat food in the other… and being told over and over about how women can amazingly do 20 things at once! 
but thats christmas at chez de rosnay… at least after christmas lunch we’ll be able to relax. we’ll both eat so much that i don’t think we’ll be able to do anything but relax afterward!
and because i don’t know whether or not i’ll have time to post a new blog or visit your blogs before christmas i just wanted to say that i hope all your christmasses turn out as you hope, that your turkeys are all cooked to perfection, that all your shopping gets done in time and that you get to spend it with all the people that you love.
guess what arrived today?
in defence of matewis
my mom emailed me in defence of matewis and i found it so funny that i thought i’d share it with you:
Matewis has more than 2 expressions, you scare him, all the time, you are too tall and your voice too deep
And he does “leopard crawling”, so there must be a huge cat hiding inside there somewhere.
The leopard crawling is an army expression, look it up in your dictionary.
That is the movement when he looks like a mop gliding over the floor.
But he is not a mop he is a leopard and your brother.
hahaha
that illustrates the weird stream-of-consciousness style in which my mom writes to me.
i’m an uncle!!!
last tuesday, at exactly 5pm, liam fourie was born! i’m so happy!
this might come as a surprise to my family and friends, as i’m notoriously scrooge-like when it comes to babies. i just really am not interested and i can’t pretend to be. i look at a baby and i see… a baby. like a seed. and i don’t get excited about seeds. Read more…
