*waves cautiously in the hopes of still being remembered*

... so my last year's plan of actually being around on LJ more went the way most plans tend to go these days. Oops.

In my defence, I haven't actually been up to much lately, other than sighing dreamily over Peter Capaldi (yes, I have now met him; he held my hand and looked at me and talked to me and had his arm around me and .. basically it's all a bit of a blur because I was floating in a daze of dreamy sighs that day and the days following, and he's basically the loveliest man in the world), and I'm doing that on Twitter these days, so...

Anyway. Another attempt? With picspam from this morning's walk? There is fog! and squirrels! and birds! and flowers!

( Cut for picspam.Collapse )

I will try to be around a bit more again, for picspam if nothing else, but I'm not sure I should really make promises... We'll see. :D

Yeah, so the SED plan isn't exactly working out. Days kind of tend to drift away from me these days.

Have had a profoundly unproductive week. Managed post office on Saturday (got my 5'' War Doctor figure, which means that together with the regeneration Twelve and the 11 Doctors set I got recently I now have at least one of all Doctors in 5'', and a book), did nothing on Sunday, worked hard on Monday, did nothing on Tuesday (Tuesday & Wednesday were days off - biggest public holidays we have), dragged myself out with mum to the cemetery to grandma.

Everything is very exhausting right now, and I can very much feel how much the lack of walking is getting to me. Still not in a great enough shape to even attempt daily walks, though. I'm okay at home (with two pairs of thick socks that provide padding, if not enough warmth - my feet are like permanent little icicles) but as soon as I have to put on thinner socks and a shoe, or even a rather loose sandal, I'm reminded that yes, my foot is still not totally fine. But it is getting better, if slowly.

Weather hasn't been remarkably great either. Have managed to spend all of half a day lazing on the balcony, reading; most other times, it's 12-14°C and windy and raining and not really very inviting for staying outside without moving around much.

On the plus side, I have read a book! And what's more - I was actually absorbed in a book. In the Woods by Tana French. Pretty much just what my current mood wants, it seems.

I've also watched all of Line of Duty and found that very good, too. Not particularly cheerful, but I have a feeling I'm currently into grim police procedurals with very few utterly "good" or utterly "evil" characters.

I've also finally been inspired to figure out how to make a collage in Photoshop, largely because I felt that having just one Capaldi in a red velvet jacket on my screen at any one time was not enough. It's not the best collage ever (well, it was my first try and I'm not the most patient of people) but I now have eight Capaldis in a glorious red velvet jacket as my computer wallpaper, so there's that. (It's also vaguely a problem since I keep minimising my work windows. For some reason.)

Anyway, tired. Woke up at five - a combination of a terrifying dream, pigeons cooing loudly on my balcony, needing the toilet and being overall far too hot. Shooed pigeons away for 3-4 times before I gave up, left the balcony door wide open and spent the next two hours occasionally dozing for a few minutes but mostly sleepily watching tits dart in and out of the room in search for peanuts (I'd left a pile on my desk, which was gratefully taken advantage of). I'm too old for five hours of sleep.

Oops. Missed a day again. In my defence, it was a very boring day.

Have had a bit less work the last two days, which is not a bad thing right now. Have also managed a short walk the last two days - to supermarket across the street yesterday, and that 1/3 of my usual lap today. Foot is doing better; only going down the stairs is a real problem now (up is much easier) and I can walk more or less without limping on flat surfaces, just need to take it slow and carefully to avoid stepping on it the wrong way or twisting it etc.

Need to go to post office tomorrow, which means a slightly longer walk. Will see how that works out... I don't even remember what it is I'm getting; that's the problem with preordering a lot of stuff that then takes at least three weeks to get to me after a send-off email, so I have no idea any more. Probably some books. Or DVDs. Or ... something like that, I guess.

Had a small visitor again today. As usual. It left a tiny present behind in the shelf, but at least those are easy to clean off.

... hey, look, a post! Squeezing it in just before midnight.

Not that I have anything to post about. Worky day was very worky, after that I ate, finished off Primeval S3, killed some zombies, drooled over various pics of Peter Capaldi (this is part of my daily routine now, it seems), and generally did nothing worth talking about.

Foot's been feeling a lot better today though. If cold. We're back to the kind of "summer" where I'm wearing warm fluffy socks over warm woolly socks and keeping my feet up on a folded-up fleece blanket instead of the floor and they're still like two little blocks of ice.

I hope the foot holds up tomorrow and that I'll actually get a breathing break during the day tomorrow, since I'm getting to a point where I sorely need a walk again, no matter how short.

Unlike yesterday, today was back to cold and rainy. So no temptation whatsoever to go out.

Foot was doing a bit better again though. Even managed a shower (not something I've braved every day these days).

As for something good today, we just beat San Marino in football (European Cup qualifiers). 2-0. YES!

And mum just found a peanut at the bottom of her mug of coffee. I wonder how that got in there. (Rhetorical wondering. She's had some small feathery visitors all day today.)

Had plans to go out for a short walk with mum today but as soon as I got out of bed this morning, I knew that plan was not to be. Foot's worse than it's been for a few days now - well, was quite irritating in the morning, back now to the somewhat more optimistic state it was in two days ago. Still, not a walking foot, unless I absolutely must, so... will see how it goes tomorrow.

Lovely weather today - first time it felt like summer, with temperature actually rising even slightly above 20°C and it being largely sunny (although quite windy too, so not really broiling hot). Spent most of the day at the balcony, reading, with my foot up.

Also, it seems to be baby bird season. ( Cut for a couple of pics.Collapse )

I'm having an officially work-free weekend. Have plenty to do for Monday but ... forget it. (Also not going in to the office this Monday either - skipped this last Monday due to foot being what it is, and this coming Monday I have an even better reason to not go - my computer's the only one in the office with a certain program on it, and someone else will need the use of that. So, yay, not having to do all the extra walking & multiple stairs everywhere.)

I think I missed yesterday with this. Sigh.

In my defence, I finished working at around 9:45 in the evening, and then was so tired I went off to watch an episode of Primeval and apart from that, generally just spent the remaining pre-sleep time sobbing at the beauty that is Peter Capaldi. (Who, I think, broke at least one corner of the Internet yesterday, when this six second clip of him in full Twelve outfit, complete with the new red velvet jacket, playing rock guitar emerged. Yeah.)

Right. Anyway. Other than working + drooling over a certain 57-year-old man with an absolutely fantastic figure (and hair, and smile, and hands, and, well, yeah), it's been a remarkably nothing-ish week. My foot is ... improving, if slower than I'd like (I think it might be a bit too much to expect a foot that is probably slightly broken to heal completely on its own in a week though), and I managed a short walk yesterday - getting so incredibly tired and achy from all the sitting that I just had to. It was about three times shorter than my usual ~25-minute walk and took exactly as much time as my usual walk, but it's progress.

Aaaaaand ... breakfast break (rather late breakfast, since I had urgent work to do the first two hours after waking up) over, back to work.

Something that made me spontaneously combust today. (Yes, I'm afraid this is more Twelfth Doctor.)

Not extremely spoilery pics as such but, well, pics from today's shooting for a Series 9 episode, so if you don't want to know anything, don't click. Otherwise... yeah. *fans self*

( Cut for two pics.Collapse )

...Today's SED was brought to you by Kribu's hormones. :o

I, uh, may have found out that more of the - far more expensive but front block seating guaranteeing - premium tickets for the Doctor Who Festival may have been released.

I, uh, may have taken a deep breath and ... uh, I may have bought those.

So now it's entirely possible that chilliconcarne and I will end up stuck with some rather expensive spare general admission tickets (Friday, 13 November, Doctor Who Festival, if anyone wants to join us and take them off our hands? :p ) since they're not exactly returnable ... but eh, I figured that even if we do, it's a really rather wince-worthy extra cost but hey, you only live once (well, if you're human, anyway), and there's a very good chance that this is going to be my one and only chance of getting this close, so...

Whatever. :D

In foot news, foot is now definitely better, if not actually okay yet.

Also, I was woken up by a wasp in my room at 5:30 this morning. There was only so much annoyed wasp buzzing that I could take, so I had to get up and open the window wide enough for it to get out.

Also, a tit came for a visit and left a small present on my pillow during the day. Sigh.

Oops - almost midnight and I nearly forgot. Too busy killing zombies...

Hmm. My foot is doing better! It's still not great, but it hurts considerably less, and where half my foot was still a sort of rather unpleasant shade of blue yesterday (of the kind that actually made me think a phonecall to the doctor - alas, not the Doctor, but just a local medical one - might be in order), today it's a not a lot more pleasant but a lot less alarming sort of murky greenish yellow, of the healing bruise sort.

So I'm thinking that it's actually healing. Still keeping an eye on it, of course.

Today, instead of complaining about how much NOT into reading I still am (I've managed all of 13 books so far this year and haven't felt all too enthusiastic about any, really), I'll just say that all this lack of reading is giving me time to catch up on various TV stuff - because I really didn't watch any at all for years.

Now that I'm still adoring our beautiful new TV, and now that Doctor Who got me back in the routine of watching things, I've been doing a lot more of that.

I've even got around to watching some stuff on DVD that I bought years ago, on a "maybe I'll want to see this some day" whim and then promptly forgot about - this is how I ended up watching the first two series of Primeval recently. It's really pretty horrible in many ways, but on the other hand, it's also quite a bit of fun, so I ended up ordering the remaining series and am now four episodes into series 3.

And I've bought & watched various recent UK crime/police dramas I kept hearing positive things about - the first two series of Broadchurch (I think my dislike of Tennant as an actor has finally been broken - I can't say I was utterly blown away by him, but I liked him in that one, and I'm now looking forward to S3), Happy Valley, and most recently, the first series of Line of Duty. Anything else worth watching that I've been missing out on in recent years?

I'm quite pleased with all this, really. Now if I could just find some kind of happy medium between Internet, TV and books, I'd be doing quite well as far as spare time entertainment goes.

I know, I know ... I've tried to get back into the LJ rhythm before and not really managed. Well, I'm going to try and make a proper effort this time.

Not the least because I've really, well .. missed a proper online place to hang out, which isn't 100% fandom-specific.

( Cut for all sorts of whiny stuff.Collapse )

Right. I didn't actually want to start this effort off with complaining, so here's the first edition of SED - with Something Good. I've already squeed about it on Twitter and G+ but anyway, I'm still in a state of excitement (even if a lot calmer than yesterday) - I've got a ticket to the Doctor Who Festival (official BBC-organised convention thingy) in London on 13 November. Missed out on the expensive TARDIS tickets (with priority seating & a goodie bag) as those sold out literally in two minutes, while I was entering my details, but hey, a ticket is a ticket. :D

I'm really excited - not just because of the chance to see Capaldi in the flesh (even if I can't get a photo thingy - there's probably going to be a rush for those tickets as well, whenever that gets announced, and it's just from afar!), but it's my first big, proper convention, it sounds like there'll be plenty for me to do and see anyway, and I'll get to meet both some new DW fandom friends as well as Chilli (going together) and hopefully ayerf, and ... well, it'll be a much-needed change-of-scenery holiday.

I haven't booked plane tickets or accommodation yet (will try to get that done this weekend) but right now the plan is to fly in on Thursday (Nov 12) and leave on Sunday (Nov 15), so there should be an extra day and a half or so for general London touristy stuff - and if anyone here has the time and inclination, for that, I'd be happy to meet up with people. :D

In less squee-ful something-news, I hit my foot on a table leg on Wednesday and it's still rather painful to stand or step on, although there's been daily improvement. It's rather annoying as it was a gloriously sunny (if cool - we're having a 13-15°C kind of sunny weather these days) yesterday and looks to be the same today, but while I can manage going from my room to the kitchen and back, I'm not at all sure I should try a longer walk. On the other hand, I do have enough work to keep me busy the entire weekend so perhaps that's all for the best.

Pätsu, 7 July 2000 - 30 December 2014

You were a wonderful friend and the best little mischief-filled cat one could ever wish for. I will miss you. So much.

Which Doctor should you travel with?

Obviously, I got Twelve. ;-) (Okay, to be honest, I did choose my answers with that outcome in mind, instead of picking the "he should be attractive" and "I want to smooch him" kind of options which, I feared, would make me end up with someone I most definitely would not find attractive or want to be smooching... But on the other hand, I'm happy to know that I know Twelve well enough to get him on first try.)

Send me three names + a number…

1. fuck, marry, kill
2. marry, cuddle, sleep with
3. fuck, take a bullet for, murder
4. adopt, be adopted by, marry
5. kill, betray, have on your zombie apocalypse team
6. seduce, steal from, serenade

There aren't a lot of fandoms I'm familiar enough for this, so it'll probably work best if restricted to Harry Potter, Skulduggery Pleasant and Doctor Who.

Apparently, The Dying of the Light really did remove that writing block I've been suffering from - I've already written three things after finishing the book.

They all contain spoilers, obviously, but anyway, just so that I'll have a note for myself and don't forget where I put them all:

Post-TDOTL set of drabbles.
And then there are two things posted on AO3, both Val/Skul, with TDOTL spoilers: Lighting the Fire (M) and Everything Changes (T, two sets of 11 drabbles each).

.... so, after Time Heist, I can't really deny this any longer: I now have a new favourite Doctor (okay, maybe still joint favourite with Three), and I will ship Twelve/Clara to the end of time.

Having this on my wall since my return from my trip with a Doctor Who Magazine in tow, in lovely A2 size, should have told me what I apparently already knew inside. Sigh.

Seriously, Peter Capaldi as the Doctor is just ... perfect. From his ruthlessness and his self-loathing/self-questioning to his hair to the way his long, mobile, expressive fingers caress things to the way he's totally, completely, dedicated to outdoing anything and everything any boyfriend or potential boyfriend of Clara's might manage ... yeah, no, I didn't really stand a chance, did I.

Back home. Well, technically since Sunday already, but I needed sleep so badly that Sunday evening and all of yesterday passed in a somewhat hazy state.

I have 3300 pics to look through. :-|

Brief summary: really enjoyed the trip, both the signings and the sightseeing. Wish I could have got more sleep, and also it'll be a long time since I'll as much as want to see either white bread or chips again, but yeah, overall it was great.

( Cut for a signing picture + signing talk.Collapse )

Holiday-wise, I wish my knee was okay (it's been really not great, especially with stairs, uphills, downhills, bending over, crouching or squatting - mostly okay when walking at a reasonably leisurely pace though - for a good six weeks now so I think it's time I see a doctor about it soon as it clearly isn't going to get better on its own after all) but all things considered, it didn't hinder me too much. Edinburgh was ... well, lovely, but really the worst two days for my knee.

Overall, I think as far as sightseeing goes, my best experiences were Glasgow, which I ended up finding far more interesting than Edinburgh (it might have helped that I wasn't in so much pain in Glasgow!), and a guided bus tour around the coast of Northern Ireland, which took us, among other things, to the Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, which, yes, I actually managed to cross (and also cross back again!) without fainting or getting sick. I'm so proud of myself. :D

So, off to the UK today. Internet access will probably be infrequent in the next ten days, although I think most of the hotels we're staying at have free WiFi. Have to leave for the airport in about two hours.

London, Sheffield, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast, here I come!

So after completely giving up on Doctor Who at some point in late season 6 and only watching the few specials since, I've decided to make a new effort with Capaldi.

After the first two episodes, my verdict: still don't care for Moffat's writing (more the first episode than the second), but I do like Capaldi and I think there's a good chance I might like Twelve very much indeed. Already liking him so, so much more than Ten or Eleven. I just hope the actual episodes continue to be at least somewhat watchable and not make me want to give up in boredom again.

Also, no matter how many hot young guys they wheel out for Clara, they're not going to stop me shipping Twelve/Clara. (Yeah, I know Moffat and Capaldi have both said "not gonna happen". So? :p) They've got excellent chemistry, which doesn't hurt.

Also, with the Skulduggery Pleasant canon now being officially over (bar the possibility of one more short story after the Theatre of Shadows live event on 27 September), it seems I have a newfound desire to write fic in that universe again - a desire which was basically killed after Last Stand of Dead Men. I really don't want to imply anything about how The Dying of the Light ends, or what happens in it, because that's something to be experienced first hand, but yeah, I've already written a thing and started another (although I'll need to gather my thoughts more for that one) and I think I'll write another one.

There are things to be said for closed canons. ~thinks of ALL the fabulous fix-it post-DH SSHG fic out there~

Oh dear. I don't know why this is, but for some reason I just .. can't seem to manage to keep up with LJ these days.

I blame the day the LJ plug-in for Firefox, which kept me up with friends page updates and what not, stopped working, those many, many months ago. (But really, that's no excuse, I know.)

The other thing is just that I haven't felt very talkative for some time now. I don't know if that will change - maybe, maybe not.

( Cut for Pätsu update.Collapse )

( Skulduggery Pleasant. Is over.Collapse )

So, yeah. That's really my life for the last several months in a nutshell - work, Pätsu + wibbling over the end of SP.

A post that is long overdue, I guess, but which I couldn't really make myself write until now.

Some of you who follow me on Twitter or Google+ already know this, but Kribu the cat is gone. Gone this past Monday - by our choice, not hers, at that. ( Cut for stuff. Not all of it pretty stuff. Feel free to skip.Collapse )

Oddly enough, it hurts a lot less now than I'd have expected it to, all things considered. I miss her; I will miss her for a long time yet - I still miss Musti, in spite of her being gone for nearly five years now - but I suppose in a way having seen her deteriorate in the way she did, and having seen those last few weeks of hers, I suppose that means it's been easier to accept that it was the right decision.

I've been terribly behind in, well, everything these days, not the least picspam posts - usually just don't have the energy and it's not like there have been a lot of pics taken lately anyway. Yesterday was an utterly gorgeous autumn day, though - sunny and at 10°C, relatively warm - so I managed to get myself to Kadriorg, where there were pretty trees and reflections to be seen and taken pictures of.

( Cut to spare f-lists. Trees, leaves, reflections, artsy stuff.Collapse )

Today started off sunny but is now considerably gloomier, and there might be rain ahead, so I don't suppose I'll be going out today...

I know, I know. It's been far too long again. I never even got around to the promised part 2 of the latest picspam post, a month ago now.

Sigh. Work and everything else has just really left me too exhausted to even think about blogging for a while now. Even Twitter seems too much an effort on most days, never mind Google+ or LJ. Anyway, now that I have some moments at last - not so much because I don't have work, because I do, and a lot of it, but because this work is in an excruciatingly slow program that I need to use over VPN and because moving from one segment to the next takes forever - I figured I should post something, just to avoid drifting away completely.

Anyway. ( Cut for work and Kribu the cat.Collapse )

In considerably better news, I decided that with everything that's been going on in my life this year I really do need a break, even though with all the recent unexpected expenses, I'm not completely comfortable with the idea of spending a considerable amount of money on travelling. Then again, I can afford it, I didn't travel anywhere last year, and I really do need a change of scenery, so...

( Travelling.Collapse )

Other than working, worrying and travel-planning, I've been reading. Lots of books, as usual (with being tired, reading a few hours every evening is all I've had energy for). Most significantly, I finally got around to giving a try to The Beekeeper's Apprentice and ... well, in the last two weeks I've basically devoured the first six books, I ship Russell/Holmes like a crazy shipping thing (may I say that it feels weird to ship something that is completely, utterly, canon?), and basically I've had to force myself to take a few breaks to read other stuff in between those books in order to avoid an overdose.

I'm perilously close to a new shiny obsession, yes. Not one I need at this point, but ... why did I never read these books before?? (Oh yes. Sherlock Holmes. I've never managed to enjoy anything Sherlock before, for some reason; needless to say, this has now changed.) It's like it's a series that's been written for me, to my personal specifications. Not perfect, no, but they're everything I could wish for in a book. In fact, the only thing I'd want a tiny bit more of is more romance (this is me, the person who usually complains about romance in books and doesn't want it!), but I'm happy with the little there is.

Whew. Right. Back to work...

Seeing as I'm on holiday now, I decided I needed a small break from sitting at home & worrying about Kribu (she wasn't doing that well yesterday but seems better again now - still healing; it's a lengthy process for an old cat) and mum & I went to the zoo instead.

So... yeah. Pics.

( Cut for various pics.Collapse )

Here's the other part of Sunday's walk's picspam. If the first part was mostly songbirds / park stuff, then this is all seaside.

( Cut for the pics.Collapse )

So. After complaining how much I've grown tired of taking pics, there are still a few things that make me get out the camera when going for a walk. Birds are one of those things. :p

Yesterday was a cool, overcast day - around +12°C and not raining, so for a walk, pretty perfect really. So mum and I went to Kadriorg park and amazingly, spring has finally arrived. As have birds.

( Cut for pictures. Mostly birdies.Collapse )

I had way too many pictures once again to choose from, especially chaffinches, but I don't think I've ever before got so close to them so many times, so... :-|

It's been a while again, so... went for a seaside walk last Sunday and didn't really have the time or energy to even look at the pictures properly until today. But anyway. Sea, ice, snow, rocks. The usual. :D

( Cut to spare f-lists around the world.Collapse )

(I'm very proud of my captions, I have to say.)

Long time no picspam post... so here's a few from the other day.

Snow close-ups, mostly.

( Cut for the pics.Collapse )

Thaw today. Meh. Streets were very icky earlier - all slushy, melting snow.

Another month is over, and so is this year's attempt at keeping count of the books I've read. I've done this for two years now and had fun with it, but now that I'm using Goodreads properly, I think this will also be the last of these entries.

Anyway. I didn't feel up to reading a lot in December, occasionally skipping reading entirely on several days in a row, but even so I seem to have managed to add eleven books to my list. Granted, one of them I didn't manage to finish and one was a re-read, but even so. Also, according to Goodreads, I've read 171 books altogether this year, which is... not too shabby, I suppose.

( Cut for the books and comments.Collapse )

So. Those were the books for December. Cinder was a joy and the highlight of this month but yeah, in general I struggled a bit.

Also, to recap the year... ( Cut for my list of top favourite reads of 2012.Collapse )