
Welcome to the week that was! Today’s topics: derby patches, spinning classes, baked bean tragedies and ice cream miracles.
This Instagram video sums up up my dream attitude towards 2018:
Derby Adventures and the Return of Spinning
It was a busy (and tiring) ol’ week for fitness: first spin cycling class of the year, another awesome roller derby session. Yesterday I also sat and watched the awesome Granite City Brawlers (Aberdeen team) do a coaching day, and got the chance to time penalties in the penalty box which was a fun experience and a great chance to use my LOUD PUBLIC SPEAKING VOICE. One more patch for the derby patch bag!
Next week: more spinning, more derby, and my local Elgin team Helgin Roller Derby are doing a ‘Learn to Skate’ free taster day that I’ll be helping out at. Really looking forward to seeing some new faces there, and it’s not too late to click the link and sign up!
Gaming
In video-gaming, I FINISHED PERSONA 3. It only took 9 YEARS and 135 hours. Holy smokes.
But I’m done now, and ready to move on… sort of. I spent the last week wanting to go back and do all the sidequests and get it 100% perfect. This felt like a terrible parralel between my gaming habits and my writing perfectionism.
By the end of the week, I gave in and finished every possible corner of the game, and sailed through the final boss entirely overlevelled… which doesn’t work as a writing comparison, thankfully, so phew! False alarm! No writing parallels at all here.
While playing, I stressed myself out to the nines worrying about wasting writing time. I felt so guilty. But by the end of the game, surprise surprise, I felt refreshed and re-energised with some powerful new story ideas.
Refilling the well is important! Video games are art, and even though it’s difficult to find the time to play them, it’s worthwhile.
Next up, I’ll be wrapping up a few small indie games and starting up Persona 5. I’m really looking forward to playing it without spoilers, without reading guides, and without stressing out about completing it. Just gonna dive in and let it devour all of my free time.
The part where I have STRONG FEELINGS about good ice cream
In this week’s foodie disaster I, despite all claims that “I am an adult, I can make beans on toast” am not an adult who can make beans on toast. It will only end in burning, first aid kits, and grated thumb knuckles.
But it was totally worth it because I got to enjoy BEANS ON TOAST. The lunch of champions! I satisfied a craving for tomato soup and cheese-on-toast, which is very fitting during the icy January.
Unluckily for me, I wandered into a Reddit thread discussing the best chocolate in the UK and got recommended to try Aldi’s Moser-Roth brand. I’ve tried it, and the unlucky part is that now I want to buy allll of it.
But the real awesome find of the week? The ‘Halo Top’ brand of low-calorie ice cream (which is legendary amongst American calorie counters for having a Ben & Jerrys style texture but a much more diet-friendly calorie count) is now sold in Tesco.
As a wee reward for a week well done, I finally tried it. After trying similar attempts—including Oppo, a UK brand that I found kinda weak—Halo Top’s cookie dough and cinnamon roll flavours blew me away. It’s expensive, but whew, it’s worth every penny. And unlike Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s I don’t particularly feel the urge to go through the whole tub, so it lasts a while.
Just a shame it’s not cheaper, honestly. That price point really does sting.
Books and Telly and Bloggity-Blogs
Star Trek Discovery returned after its mid-season break, and it was SO GOOD OMG. But this week for me was mostly a week of reading: I finished The Hate U Give, which was beautiful and heartbreaking, and finished A Short History of Nearly everything. Now, to look at the to-read pile and figure out what to tackle next…
Writing didn’t happen much this week, because I used up a lot of my word-making energy on my bi-annual performance review at work. But I kept up blogging, and I’ve been enjoying it! I hope you lovely lot are enjoying my posts too: I’ve been noticing a lot more comments on Facebook and Mastodon, and I really appreciate my small group of blog-reading buds. <3
I’ll leave you all with a Very Good Tweet about buses:
I needed this so much today pic.twitter.com/SFRhIVne3W
— Jade Hayden (@JadeHayden) January 8, 2018