Michael's Meanderings

Started Cold / Flu / Allergies at the beginning of the month which continued through to the end of the month. Did see a Doctor, and prescribed medication.
J Returned from S America, so was able to dance with a partner once again. Went to 2 Saturday dances, one in BH one in Crawley, the latter being the Summer tea dance with Tea and Dance Demo
Continued line dancing, 10 weeks to last class in the month. Yoga had a 2 week hiatus at end of the month due to low numbers
Saw Wonder Woman at the cinema, best DC movie since the original Superman!
I had to transfer domain dendarii.co.uk from Just the Name to 1&1 (JTN stopped trading), transition went without a hitch.
Completed all Mandatory online training at work. Had problems with the IP phone system (made difficulties for a service desk!)
D has decided to move back to Holland, and intends to be gone in August (hopefully after I get back from Worldcon)
Continued to listen to audio books, finished Sorcerer to the Crown, Winter Tide, Mira's Last Dance, & Storm Front: The Dresden Files.
Summer finally arrived with record temperatures, of course this only lasted for about a week!

Yoga class has still been reduced to 4 students and last week there was no class. Decided to add an additional workout and have now started line dancing on Wednesday evening.
Watched 3 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
At work the merger between SE CSU and NEL CSU was completed first week of the month, (IT merged last year). IT Team has new installed Skype for business (IM Service from NHS Mail).
In ballroom dancing learned new sequence in Waltz, and new sequence dance the Veleta, social dance on last Saturday of the month and 2 additional practices on 2nd & 3rd Fridays.
Got some sad news too. Dance partner J's Dad died, after some weeks of ill health. Had a DNR authorisation.
Stared final migration from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth, including all my posts and as many contacts and feeds as I can. I started posting to LJ on 11 April 2007 and it seems appropriate to finish 10 years later. This will be my last post at LiveJournal, my next post will only appear at Dreamwidth.
On the 8th I treated myself to a day at the Theatre Royal in Brighton (as previously noted) Walking back stage (and on stage), getting to see all the props for the afternoon performance was really cool. It's also really small, I've also been backstage at the Hawth (a much more modern theatre) which has much wider passageways and rooms. But then the Theatre Royal was built 210 years ago.
In the afternoon I attended a matinee performance of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" based on the movie (which I saw many years ago) with a delightful performance by Joanne Clifton as Millie.
The following Monday the SF Book club discussed Crashing Heaven by Al Robertson, which I hadn't finished on the night, but did complete the book a few days later.
Took my birthday off work and spent the day with my family (it is my sister's birthday the day after mine so we usually celebrate together), walked the dog together! Chinese meal for lunch.
Eastercon was in Birmingham NEC - stayed at Arden Hotel And Leisure Club about 20min walk from the con hotel (but cheaper!) used its Leisure club facilities a number of times
Registered for Innominate and collected program pack and badge, used app to select program items of interest (the one do not miss was ""Vorkosigan's Law: Legal Concepts from an Imagined Universe - this compared and contrasted the fictional universe with example in the British Legal system - SB was in the military and has since become a barrister!)
The program opened with a bang as Dr Emma J King, educator from The Royal Institution explored the history of the institute with added explosions!
The trek to and from my hotel was a bit of a pain, but the room cost were almost half that of the con hotel so.... (and it was good exercise).
The other program items that I didn't was to miss was the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, which was one of the best attended and started with free jellybabies! And the Easter Morning Service, which was non-denominations with a CoE backbone.
I did attend a least one program item with each GoH (Pat Cadigan, Colin Harris & Judith Clute. I also supported the Dublin worldcon bid.
My journey home was also somewhat fraught, as I caught what I thought was the Virgin - London train, but which I discovered, at Winchester, was going to Bournemouth! I did get off at the next stop of Southampton Central, then had to take a train along the south coast from the Isle of Wight to Brighton, before getting home some hours latter than expected (I still managed to got some shopping before going ballroom dancing!)
I finally topped up my iPhone, with £10 credit (may have been a year since my last £10) got one month addition £20 credit for free. BUT I have to use it before 24 May
Had my bi-annual dental checkup and will have to return for another filling, but generally speaking my teeth are OK!
D & I did a major spring clean of the kitchen (may be the most comprehensive clean since it was re-built!) Floor was bushed and mopped and scrubbed, all the counters were cleared and cleaned, the bins emptied, the sink and cooker tops cleaned and the freezer was defrosted!
I will have to buy replacement dish racks now though.
And this is the end of my posting to LiveJournal, all future material will appear at Dreamwidth anyone who wants to follow me there feel free, please comment there rather than on LJ. All my previous LJ material and comments have been imported into Dreamwidth.

So the first week end of this month I was in Marks Tey for Quoi de Neuf - The 29th British Filk Convention. I arrived Friday afternoon and left Monday morning (taking 2 days leave.)
GoHs were Jackie Mitchell and Cecilia Eng. Second time I'd been to the Best Western in Marks Tey. Bungalow Diner had been refurbished - but still had very good value meals.
The program followed the normal pattern with concerts, one shots and a musical + nMC (http://www.contabile.org.uk/quoideneuf/)
Ballroom classes on Tuesday, revised Foxtrot, Samba, Waltz, Tango & Quickstep (working on technique)
Got a hair cut! Went to PicoCon 34, but had to leave early as J & I were going to Strictly Dance Magic in BH.
After over 3 decades the villa in Spain was finally sold, C&L flew out to finalise. How the money will get back to UK with Brexit etc we aren't sure!
Yoga class down to 4 students, but still ongoing
Visited family for my Dad birthday, day off the day before (as the actual birthday my niece & her husband started moving into their brand new house).
Last Saturday of the month was Social Dance with J. Finished 5 minutes early!

Went dancing most Tuesdays (though missed the Friday practice as J was ill). Went to a Sunday Christmas Dance with J in addition to normal classes.
Train Strike caused further delays, and cancellations, so had to take some time off work. Also got a number of delay repay refunds.
SF Book Club meeting, in Brighton, included a earlier start and a Christmas meal (I had cod and chips!) and then a slightly lest rigorous discussion of The Stainless Steel Rat.
Got my garden patio replace and an additions fence installed, this took over 2 days and has made a significant difference to the garden.
I had to make an excursion to a clinic I hadn't visited before to get my hands ultrasound scanned, weird feeling with warm blue jelly dotted over the skin. (I have had contact with this location before as part of my job (IT support))
Continued with yoga class, when there wasn't a strike, (or over the Christmas holiday).
Over the long Christmas weekend, stayed with my family (Mum & Dad, Sister & BiL, Neice & NiL) got a nice scarf and a few other bits an pieces.
Helped my sister with meal prep on Saturday & Sunday, which was quite fun.
Booked hotel for Eastercon & Worldcon 75, and flight to Helsinki
Went shopping with D on last Wednesday of the month and then on Thursday D fixed a Christmas dinner for us both, I prepped the veg!
On Friday I went to The Dome in Brighton to see Flip FabriQue in Catch Me (Attrape Moi) in the afternoon.
Big New Year's Eve social dance with buffet meal, followed by cheesecake and coffee. Demo by Matt Duffin & Kayleigh Andrews, and then at midnight we cheered the New Year in!

So my replacement Amazon Fire Tablet (replacing the one I left on the train) arrived and was restored from cloud backup.
A few weeks later I got notified that my original tablet was available for collection at Victoria lost property!
Dance class continues every Tuesday and Practice night every other Friday (1st & 3rd week) Social dance on the last Saturday. started to learn new steps in the Tango.
Due to strike action by Southern Rail I missed two weeks of yoga, but was allowed to just pay for the two weeks that I could go to.
SF Book Club discussion was deferred as we learn that the Paul (the organiser) had dies the previous day ;-(
The Delay Repay scheme - allowing refunds for delayed trains has been revised to allow payment in eVoucher & via PayPal! as well as the prior paper versions.
Replaced my Brighton & Hove library card, to allow access out of hours! Historical records for my Overdrive ebooks weren't copied, so logged a query and got a result in minutes!
After three years in one place at work, I have relocated closer to the the window and with colleagues closer.
My backup copy of all my ebooks (kept on a USB stick) is managed using Calibre. and currently has 1973 items saved, mostly ePub (or converted to ePub).

So with the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, I thought I'd re-read the whole series first. I managed to borrow 6 out of the 7 books from the library as ebooks (pottermore.com editions) so they were the current version. It also meant that (especially for the later tomes) I didn't break my wrists! I read tPoA as my Paper edition over a w/e (the book was on loan when I wanted to read it.)
It was quite interesting to re-read the books for the first time, especially after having watched the films a number of time so the visuals were usually taken from the films. However there were a few occasions when there were differences. In the book Aunt Petunia is blonde (and in the movies is brunette)
As a result of the casting choices for HP&tCC I did specifically check for any referenced to if Hermione was black or not. The only evidence that she was not back is that Malfoy and the others in Slytherin (or anyone one else) never made any comment on her skin colour. Shacklebolt is described as black.
It was also interesting to read them one after the other, rather than with a year gap between each one.
I finally got around to ordering a new pair of dance shoes, these were Latin style and not patent leather.
Once again I got a significant refund on my train season ticket due to delays & cancellations. Over £120 over the last 4 months!
Went to Continental Circus Berlin, which had some good jugglers and an awesome laser light show - where light was bent and used a light sabre!
I also went to the Crawley Circus Festival - unfortunately the weather wasn't as good as it had been the previous week end. However I did managed to do some juggling and did a Poi workshop and learnt a new sequence!
I have been saving towards my retirement for about 20 years, and with recent changes in the rules I could have taken early retirement on my 55 birthday. I have decided not to do so while my current employment continues, but once it ends I'll retire rather than go on the dole!
It does mean that I can take some money as a lump sum and since I have a number of upgrades to the house and garden I will have to do so.
And the final event of the month to recount was that last Wednesday Mark Oshiro (of markreads.net) was in Brighton, and I was one of 4 people who turned up, Mark read from his own new novel (not yet finished) and discussion occurred. He was feeling peckish so i suggested Fish and Chips (traditional at the seaside) and we decided to visit the pier and eat there!

Ballroom Dance classes every Tuesday revised cha cha, tango & rumba. Finally started on learning a new jive sequence
This month train travel was severely disrupted due to "staff illness" & strike action. This was also the case with the previous month. I got a £24.20 refund!
Ordered an Amazon Fire Tablet for my younger sister & brother in law as an anniversary (and birthday) present.
Yoga is continuing though the numbers have been down often only 3-4 students. At least I didn't miss any classes due to rail strikes this month.
Took a day off work so I could go to a Library talk "Discovering family history resources ancestry"
Brighton SF Book discussed "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" this time I didn't re-read the book!
I posted my EU Referendum voting papers, in advance of the deadline. Which meant that I could discount all the noise & fury leading up to the Day.
Sad that "the people" decided to leave the EU, hopefully we will survive the experience, even if the the government doesn't!
The people next door have decided to extend the lower floor of their house into their garden, it a bit of an eyesore and caused some damage to my fence!
All the downstairs lights went off mid month, when the external light (which had been on for 3 years) stopped working!
I was notified of my annual asthma review in May but finally got around to it at the end of this month. all is under control!
I made a backup of my Calibre ebook library on to a USB stick, over a thousand books in that collection.
The end of the month social dance, was not very near the end of the month, it was also more lightly attended then normal, but then it is "summer".

With Barnes & Noble / Nook leaving the UK market (only one book I bought has been transfered to Sainsburys), I decided to root my Nook - It was out of warranty anyway.
It was relatively straight forward; using NookManager, allowed me to finally browse the net on the Nook tablet, I've been unable to run the kindle app on it but the Kobo app seems to work. and generic epubs can be easily read.
Went to see Zootropolis which was a sci-fi, cop buddy, animated feature. well worth a watch
Dance classes continued every Tuesday, and this month we had an extra Saturday dance mid month. Finally started to learn some new Latin steps (in Cha Cha)
It was my 55 birthday this year, so I can technically take early retirement - I decided not to. But the family got together for a meal the Saturday before.
The second Monday is SF Book Club and as this was on my actual birthday I ate at the pub (rather than the cheaper Burger King / Subway) drinks were also purchased for my fellow readers.
Also for a change I had just completed reading " "Station Eleven" by Emily St John Mandel, this month book to read. Once it got going it was an interesting example of Literary SF (it won the Clarke Award last year)
The following day went to lunch with J before we went dancing, extra long weekend!
Started listening to Audible; audio books; again (after not listening at all during March). Especially the Noctis Magicae series by Sylvia Izzo Hunter - looking forward to the 3rd in the series.
I have a belt bag that I keep all the stuff I need every day (keys, wallet, pen etc) it was hand made a number of years ago. While the leather is still in good shape the seams have been coming apart. I returned to the shop (Clever with Leather in Brighton) and they repaired all the seams and replaced the belt attachments for £5!
As a belated birthday present I decided to buy myself an Amazon Fire Tablet for £49, it arrived only a few days later and was a delight, nearly the size of a paperback (though thinner) and with the ability to read kindle books aloud, download and read epubs (inc library books) watch video and of course browse the net and check email, it even has a pair of cameras (though not the greatest quality).
Finally uploaded my Eastercon report to LJ!

Ballroom Dancing with J all month (on Tuesday evening) practicing Foxtrot with some Tango revision. J's mum in hospital
Visited parents and sisters family, setup iPad for my Mum. Gave gad his belated birthday card. J's mum died.
Updated The Bujold Nexus a bit. Ordered some books from amazon, collected then from the Amazon locker in town
Yoga class every Wednesday after work, now paid for by the students at £6 per week
Bought short book for £1 for World Book Day. The SF Reading group met to discuss Anima by Brett Davidson a book that has not yet been officially published by our fearless leader!
Barnes and Noble are to stop supporting the Nook ereader in the UK, uk Nook users can automatically transfer their library to Sainsbury's Entertainment On demand. I tried and only one book was copied.
As it stands my Nook Wifi is not longer of any use so I will have to "root" it to turn it into an android 2.1 tablet and be able to use wifi again.
Decided to re-read all Diane Duane's Young Wizards as part of Mark Reads
Printed my 2015 Diary via Doxdirect, it appears to be slightly longer than the previous volumes.
Cut the front lawn for the first time this year, exhausted me, now I have to mow the back lawn!
Social dance was a week early due to Easter using that week end.
For the first time since I started at work I was on the very early shift 7:30-3:30 (I did say that I was available for this time slot) Unfortunately due to train time I actually gt to the station 7:28 so I have 2 minutes to get to the office and get setup (with a cup of tea), this work out OK. - no late trains.
Did some overtime - setting up new account to allow GPs to use WiFi. iPhone iOS updated to ver 9.3
Remembers to nominate in the Hugos this year!
Eastercon 2016 - Mancunicon

After the New Year's Eve Dance, I stayed over with J, and finally started watching Game of Thrones! Actually finished watching series 1 and started series 2.
I ordered two print on demand books, one collecting all my LJ posts and comments, the other all the books I've read since March 2007 (when I started using LibraryThing to catalog books owned and read.
The LJ material actually generated something the size of a normal novel! I've also finished editing my 2015 diary but I am waiting for a discount code before sending it to print.
Finally bought my membership for Eastercon in Manchester this year.
Dance classes continue on Tuesday with J. Learned new steps in Tango. Started working on technique.
D finally fitted new shower, much improved over the previous unit. Bought new digital blood pressure monitor and scales - bluetooth enabled. Now I can measure both my Blood Pressure and my weight accurately
Yoga class restarted. Funding for this ends the first week in February, but we intend to continue classes self funded.
Discussed "The Androids Dream" by John Scalzi at the SF Reading Group. Once again I fail to finish the book before the meeting. Still enjoyable though.
Saw Stargazing Live (recorded ;-)) with first British space walk - Tim Peake born in Sussex!
Used my new scales and BP monitor to record weight and BP every hour on one Sunday, quite surprising the fluctuations and consistencies.
Temperature finally dropped below 0°C for the first time, we even got a light dusting of snow!
Decided I need to go to the theatre more often (especially as I currently can get there for free) so booked 3 performances at The Theatre Royal - Brighton. Saw the first one "The Mousetrap - 60th Anniversary Tour" on the last Saturday as a matinee.
Got a copy of Gentleman Jole & the Red Queen from Lois McMaster Bujold personally signed.
On the last Wednesday in the month went to London. Saw the Alice in Wonderland exhibit at the British Library. Then to the Science Museum to see the Ada Lovelace exhibit. Returned to the Science Museum for SMLates. Main reason wa to see the "Cosmonaut" exhibit which was excellent.
Ordered the Audio version of LMB's GJ&tRQ - I have all the others, though I haven't listened to all of them.