Calm before the storm

[liv]

Heartfelt thanks to all of you who took the time to make supportive comments when I was feeling down. I am incredibly touched by so many people reaching out.

I have only a little gap before Passover chaos sets in, but I don't like leaving depressing stuff at the top of my journal, so have a general consumption update:

Eating: I went to Leicester for a medical education conference. Leicester is generally a lovely city to wander in, and also has the best curries. I would say I got lucky but actually I've never had a bad Indian meal in Leicester.

I came up the evening before the conference, and ate a magnificent thali at Shivalli. It's a purely vegetarian S Indian restaurant, which provides the kind of food that makes me really happy for surprisingly cheap prices. Service was excellent too, attentive without being intrusive. The thali was a good idea, since it meant I got to sample lots of different dishes rather than having to choose, often difficult when you're eating on your own. But it was also really a lot of food in volume! Then the conference finished fairly early, so I had time to get dinner before heading home, this time at Kayal, mostly since it happens to be near the station. Kayal was less good (and more expensive) than Shivalli, but still very good compared to my general baseline of non-Leicester Indian food.

And when I got back, my work colleagues organized a spontaneous trip to the local Pieminster, since several people had never eaten there. I don't always manage to go out with colleagues like that, but it's a fairly quiet week as we're approaching Easter and it was really nice to be a bit more relaxedly social. With only a little bit of shop talk!

Playing: The Leicester trip and the Easter vacation gave me the excuse to work from home in Cambridge at the beginning of the week, so I've managed to fit in a bit more gaming than usual.

Still enjoying Tak; I introduced it to Judith and cjwatson and we're starting to figure out strategies.

I gave the OSOs and family Lanterns for Christmas, but hadn't had a chance to play it until this week. And I'm quite impressed; it's very pretty, it's a small self-contained little game that works well as just a casual tile-laying thing, but has a certain amount of tactical depth if you really want to get cut-throat about it. And it's nicely pared down with little danger of dragging on.

And I made it to alextfish and woodpijn's games night, where I finally got a chance to play Hanabi, a game many people have recommended to me. Well, they were right: it's a very Liv sort of game, as much about communication as Codenames is, with some interesting logic to deal with partial information. I am planning to get a copy and look for more opportunities to play it!

Watching: The new CBBC The worst witch with Judith. (She's also reading the books!) I like it a lot, it's very low budget and features some not amazingly experienced child actors, but it's generally lovely. And I like that they don't assume that all characters are white unless specified otherwise. They've upped the drama a bit compared to the books, and incorporated some slightly obvious Harry Potter borrowings, but it does feel in the spirit.

And I managed to catch another episode of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with jack. I'm watching it really slowly, but enjoying it when I do have a chance to see another installment, and since it's a book adaptation I don't feel too disconnected if months go by between episodes.

Comments

[shreena]

Our family favourite in Leicester is Bobby's - lovely vegetarian Gujarati food. The elderly owner shows you photos of his wife and tells you the improbably large number of years they've been married.

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

Thank you for introducing me to Tak. Also, we no longer have Hanabi because we found it too difficult and frustrating. I'm told this is because it works better with bigger groups, also, one should make notes and we weren't. But if you want to play it enough to acquire another copy either for yours or ours, I'm reasonably happy to give it another go.

[sfred]

Shivalli is my Leicester-living partner's favourite restaurant so I've been there quite a few times and always enjoyed it.

[rowan]

Hello! Here from browsing 2017revival. Added to circle as I find your writing interesting (and I believe I met you at a party once, albeit at least a decade ago so I wouldn't expect you to remember.)