The days are too short

No Road

Yesterday I went to watch All Is Lost, a film which someone I told this today aptly described as "Life of Pi for adults". A grim movie indeed, marred only a little bit by the ending. Unique in many respects: to start with, the size of the cast, which consists of exactly one person. As the same person said, if that one person is Robert Redford, who's going to complain?

At the beginning of the movie, where they explain why it is rated the way it is, it said: "One Instance of Strong Language" to justify the age-twelvc minimum admission age. They might as well have made that "One Instance of Language" - dialogue was obviously out of the question, but where I find myself talking to myself quite a lot during the day, Robert bears the hardships of foundering alone in silence - except, indeed, for that one instance of (strong) language.

On my way back I then almost foundered myself trying to take my usual route along the river. Yes, it has happened! While I was getting soaking wet on Wednesday evening, the same must have happened all over the watershed drained by the Ouse. Knowing that this occurs regularly is one thing, seeing the river in full flood with your own eyes is quite another. This morning I went back to witness it at daylight, and indeed: the path along the river where ordinarily runners run and dogs are taken for a walk is now a watery domain.

Today was a short day. After strange dreams and waking up in the middle of the night for no clear reason, I actually fell asleep again (which is rare) and consequently overslept. When I got into the Hub I immediately met Richard Paige in the entrance who without preamble asked me "when and where?" My answer of "ten o'clock" - this being the time at that moment - turned out not to fit the context, as the question had really been about the time to get a drink after work - a time that was then fixed at 16:30. In other words, from 10:00 to 16:30 was all the time available today - and I had so much planned!

Hey, That's My Fish!

The original plan for the evening actually involved the games club, to which I had invited Adolfo (the EngD student who also joined me to Howard's Hallowe'en two months ago). The after-work drink therefore had to be limited to just one, maybe two: games playing is a serious business. Though you might not think so from the title of "Hey, That's My Fish!", another new one we got to know tonight. (you are three penguins trying to maximise your food supply). We then  sat down for a much longer game, namely an expansion of Agricola called Farmers of the Moor. Not for the faint of heart this, in fact we did not manage to finish in time and had to call it an "honorouble draw".

Afterwards we discovered what game players do after hours: they go to a bar. The Friday evening club times of 17:00-21:00 mean that you have to get your food either too early or too late: the preference turns out to be too late. Makes perfect sense to me, but because I would like to avoid another bad night I kept myself to wraps and one beer, maybe two.

I collected some tips about cycling in the neighbourhood. If weather allows I will try one of them out on Sunday. A week from now Floris will pay a visit: no major cycling tours that weekend - it has to be either now or in two weeks, after that it will be end of story.

The water level has not declined (check it out for yourself), but it turns out the west bank is some meters higher than the east. I did not have to brave the main road.