Beyond Selidor

I've just come back downstairs after finishing today's yoga class — 35 minutes of slow, calming stretches, tucked up in the bedroom, watching the bare branches sway in the breeze and the clouds slowly fill the sky. This morning was much clearer — by the time I returned from swimming at 9am, the streets were full of people out and about and enjoying the bright winter weather.

It's been a weekend of good food. Matthias and I went out for our semi-annual joint birthday/Christmas present to each other: a meal at restaurant22_cambridge. These are tasting menus with wine pairings, and a really nice treat, in a lovely restaurant located in an old terrace house in Cambridge. This particular iteration was delightful, and for once getting in and out of Cambridge by train went as smoothly as it's possible to go, which was very pleasing.

Other than going out for dinner, it's been a typical weekend with the usual array of Saturday morning fitness classes, buying groceries at the open air market, the aforementioned Sunday morning swim, yoga and so on. I suppose this will be the last time for this specific weekend routine for the year — next weekend I'll be in Cambridge all day on Saturday, and then Sunday will be a whirlwind of Christmas meal preparation, cleaning, and so on, and I'm not yet sure what will be going on on the New Year's Eve weekend. In any case, I'm pretty happy with the normal shape of my weekends, the result of various changes and habit-forming behaviour I implemented at the start of the year, all of which I plan to continue.

I'm satisfied, too, with my contribution to this year's Yuletide collection. At the final count, I've written my main assignment, and three treats, the last of which I finished editing earlier today. Hopefully they'll be well received. I have an idea for a fic for Fandom Trees, but it's not yet ready to post, and hopefully I'll be able to make at least one more contribution to that fest on top of that (since the expectation is that each participant should receive two gifts, I try to contribute at least an equal amount back).

It hasn't really been much of a weekend for reading — too much time spent out of the house for that — but I did pick up a copy of Emily Wilson's Iliad translation from the local independent bookshop, and have made a start on that. This is I think my third attempt to actually read the Iliad in translation — on every other occasion I'd get bogged down and bored in the endless lists of names, and give up — but I really loved Wilson's Odyssey translation, so I have high hopes that this third time will be the charm. I've always felt vaguely bad that as someone who spends so much fannish energy devoted to the sort of fanfic Briseis I've created in my head, and who has such strong opinions about various Iliad retellings and reimaginings, I've never managed to read the actual original epic poem that launched these thousands of other things.

As well as this doorstopper of a book, I'll be turning my attention to various seasonal rereads that I always do around this time of year: Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma's novella 'Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night' (which I try to read on the actual day/night of the solstice), and The Bear and the Nightingale, the first, most frozen and wintry book in Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy (which really is suited to a much colder climate than these mild East Anglian winters). And then it will be time for Yuletide to open, and I'll bury myself in the collection, and read all the wealth of small book fandom fanfic that appears at this time of year like my own personal winter harvest.

Can you tell that, although I have a week more work to go, I'm already somewhat in holiday mode?

This evening, there will be an event which bills itself as a 'Eurovision pre-party', with a lineup including past and current contestants. Matthias and I will be watching, and if anyone else is interested in doing the same, the event is viewable online. More details here.

On to today's book prompt:

21. A book written into your psyche

( My answer )

( The other days )

I made a whirlwind trip to London on Friday, as I was attending a course on book conservation at this library. I really enjoyed it as it was hands-on, practical training. The organisers had damaged some books beforehand (all the librarians attending winced at this) and then taught us how to repair the various torn pages, broken spines and peeling covers. My favourite aspect of library work is the sense of making order out of chaos, of tidying things up into organised categories, so I think that book repair is going to suit me very well.

It was an interesting bunch of people attending - I'm used to courses at Cambridge, where everyone works in academic libraries, but everyone on this course worked at museums, cathedral libraries, stately homes and so on. I was the only one who didn't manage a special collection in some way, although one of the three libraries in which I work does have a large number of rare books.

I'd never been to Middle Temple before, but it's a pretty cool part of London, filled with odd little winding passageways and hidden old buildings. The library itself was very interesting, although there wasn't much time to explore it.

On Saturday morning I actually managed to have a Skype session with all of my four sisters. Mim, the oldest, was visiting our father, stepmother and other three sisters, and we had set up the session so that I could see Maud, the newest sister, in person. As it turned out, our other two sisters, Kitty and Nell, popped in and out of the conversation as well. Maud herself is super cute (although she looks disturbingly like a shrunken version of my dad), and it's a real shame that I'm not going to be able to see her in person until at least September next year. That Skype conversation was the first time all of my sisters and I have been 'in the same place' since Nell's baptism in 2008. This is, I suppose, one of the unavoidable side effects of being an immigrant.

There are a few fanworks and other pieces of writing making me very happy at the moment.

This short story by Rachel Swirsky retells the early parts of the Iliad from Iphigenia's point of view. This is exactly the kind of Iliad I like - one that's all about the women and their relationships, is filled with anger at what the men around them do to them, and doesn't paint Achilles in a good light. You should definitely read it, although be aware that it includes depictions of violence, murder and an extremely misogynistic society.

This story by notbecauseofvictories is basically the story I'm searching for every time I read: the interaction between human and non-human characters, in which each is overwhelmed and slightly unable to comprehend the other's nature. It's called 'Ten Things Gabriel Finds Fascinating About Humanity' and I highly recommend it.

There are some great Vividcon vids starting to emerge. My favourites so far are 'Bones' (Luther) by gwyn and 'Fembots' (multifandom) by Grammarwoman.

Also, I just noticed that someone finally wrote Romanitas fanfic, which makes me so unbelievably happy. It's by a_la_greque, and is Marcus-centric.

I hope you are all having marvellous weekends.