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dolorosa_12I returned home yesterday via four trains (and a rail replacement bus, ugh) through four countries and two sets of border control, over seven hours. Absurdly, there were fewer transport connections getting from Amsterdam to London than there were getting from London to Ely (and the latter leg of the trip took longer in hours than the trip from Brussels to London).
Christmas with Matthias's family was busy and tiring — the usual chaotic whirlwind — but it was nice to see everyone and I think our presence there was appreciated. We managed to spend one evening at the really good Christmas market one town over, which is my favourite part about being in that part of the world at this time of year, so I'm glad.
The two of us broke our return journey with 36 hours or so in Amsterdam, which provided a good kind of mental divide between the frantic busyness of family Christmas and our return to the familiar stillness of home. I'd been to Amsterdam once, nearly twenty years ago, but Matthias had never been (apart from transiting through the train station), and we packed a lot into the two days we were there: visits to the Rijksmuseum and a fantastic modern/contemporary art gallery, a canal boat tour, and two really great restaurants (one was quite possibly the best Indonesian food I've eaten in my life, the other was an exquisite tasting menu with wine flight on the final evening). What I remembered most about Amsterdam, however, was how much it rewarded walking around. Every canal is beautiful, and every little lane is like a jewellery box of surprises — a quirky shop here, a great Scandinavian bakery there. I'm glad my memory proved correct (and current, twenty years later) — we had a marvellous (if cold) time, wandering, and discovering, letting our feet and whims lead us on.
And then it was back on the trains, to collapse with relief into our own bed.
I've now got four days of blissful, blissful rest and stillness. We've picked up supplies for our customary New Year's Eve activities of grazing and watching films, and other than going for a couple of swims and walks (and out for drinks with walking group friends tonight) I don't plan to leave the house until I have to go in to Cambridge to work next Monday. I'll be cleaning, reading (undemanding rereads like the last Benjamin January mystery, which I'd forgotten was set during the time between Christmas Eve and the first days of the new year, and The Dark Is Rising, which I'd been unable to start on the solstice due to travelling), doing long, stretchy yoga classes, setting up my 2025 bullet journal, and above all resting my mind and my body, which are both absolutely exhausted.
I'll talk more about it in my reveals post on 1st January, but I couldn't close this post without at least mentioning what an absolutely perfect Yuletide it's been this year. As a writer, my three fics (the main gift and two treats) have been very well received — all three received absolutely rapturous, detailed comments by the recipients, and one of them seems (by my standards at least) to have become something of a hit. When I was signing up, I was aiming to get assigned to any of these three specific recipients (and then write treats for the other two), so I'm really pleased that my intentions proved well founded.
In terms of my own gifts, I feel particularly grateful this year. My main gift was for a fandom (and pairing) that I've been requesting fruitlessly for ten years in ever exchange in which it's been eligible, since the first time I signed up for Yuletide. I'd almost given up hope of anyone ever wanting to write it, so the notification in my inbox on 25th December was extremely welcome — and the actual fic itself is fantastic. And if that wasn't enough, for the first time ever, someone chose to write an extra treat fic for me, about characters from one of my first, dearest, and oldest fandoms of the heart — something about which I have been fannish for close to thirty years. It was absolutely wonderful to receive this lovely piece of writing whose author clearly shared a lot of my own feelings about these characters, and this canon. I'll post them all properly with more comments in the reveals post on Wednesday, so that the authors can receive proper credit.
The one drawback about all the travel (and my general mental state) is that I have had literally no time to read beyond my own two gifts in the collection, and am unlikely to have the chance before reveals. I may come back and dip in, since normally I read and comment widely, and put together a recs post, but I don't want to promise anything given how utterly, utterly exhausted I am.
I will leave you with a couple of photosets from my travels: wanderings in Amsterdam, and the fog in the hills above my father-in-law's place in Germany, plus some Amsterdam spillover photos. I cannot emphasise how utterly fog-blanketed everything was for the entire time we were in western Europe (including the train journeys through Belgium and France). I love that kind of weather: it's as if winter is draping the world in a soft blanket, telling us to slow down and rest.
Christmas with Matthias's family was busy and tiring — the usual chaotic whirlwind — but it was nice to see everyone and I think our presence there was appreciated. We managed to spend one evening at the really good Christmas market one town over, which is my favourite part about being in that part of the world at this time of year, so I'm glad.
The two of us broke our return journey with 36 hours or so in Amsterdam, which provided a good kind of mental divide between the frantic busyness of family Christmas and our return to the familiar stillness of home. I'd been to Amsterdam once, nearly twenty years ago, but Matthias had never been (apart from transiting through the train station), and we packed a lot into the two days we were there: visits to the Rijksmuseum and a fantastic modern/contemporary art gallery, a canal boat tour, and two really great restaurants (one was quite possibly the best Indonesian food I've eaten in my life, the other was an exquisite tasting menu with wine flight on the final evening). What I remembered most about Amsterdam, however, was how much it rewarded walking around. Every canal is beautiful, and every little lane is like a jewellery box of surprises — a quirky shop here, a great Scandinavian bakery there. I'm glad my memory proved correct (and current, twenty years later) — we had a marvellous (if cold) time, wandering, and discovering, letting our feet and whims lead us on.
And then it was back on the trains, to collapse with relief into our own bed.
I've now got four days of blissful, blissful rest and stillness. We've picked up supplies for our customary New Year's Eve activities of grazing and watching films, and other than going for a couple of swims and walks (and out for drinks with walking group friends tonight) I don't plan to leave the house until I have to go in to Cambridge to work next Monday. I'll be cleaning, reading (undemanding rereads like the last Benjamin January mystery, which I'd forgotten was set during the time between Christmas Eve and the first days of the new year, and The Dark Is Rising, which I'd been unable to start on the solstice due to travelling), doing long, stretchy yoga classes, setting up my 2025 bullet journal, and above all resting my mind and my body, which are both absolutely exhausted.
I'll talk more about it in my reveals post on 1st January, but I couldn't close this post without at least mentioning what an absolutely perfect Yuletide it's been this year. As a writer, my three fics (the main gift and two treats) have been very well received — all three received absolutely rapturous, detailed comments by the recipients, and one of them seems (by my standards at least) to have become something of a hit. When I was signing up, I was aiming to get assigned to any of these three specific recipients (and then write treats for the other two), so I'm really pleased that my intentions proved well founded.
In terms of my own gifts, I feel particularly grateful this year. My main gift was for a fandom (and pairing) that I've been requesting fruitlessly for ten years in ever exchange in which it's been eligible, since the first time I signed up for Yuletide. I'd almost given up hope of anyone ever wanting to write it, so the notification in my inbox on 25th December was extremely welcome — and the actual fic itself is fantastic. And if that wasn't enough, for the first time ever, someone chose to write an extra treat fic for me, about characters from one of my first, dearest, and oldest fandoms of the heart — something about which I have been fannish for close to thirty years. It was absolutely wonderful to receive this lovely piece of writing whose author clearly shared a lot of my own feelings about these characters, and this canon. I'll post them all properly with more comments in the reveals post on Wednesday, so that the authors can receive proper credit.
The one drawback about all the travel (and my general mental state) is that I have had literally no time to read beyond my own two gifts in the collection, and am unlikely to have the chance before reveals. I may come back and dip in, since normally I read and comment widely, and put together a recs post, but I don't want to promise anything given how utterly, utterly exhausted I am.
I will leave you with a couple of photosets from my travels: wanderings in Amsterdam, and the fog in the hills above my father-in-law's place in Germany, plus some Amsterdam spillover photos. I cannot emphasise how utterly fog-blanketed everything was for the entire time we were in western Europe (including the train journeys through Belgium and France). I love that kind of weather: it's as if winter is draping the world in a soft blanket, telling us to slow down and rest.
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