In hibernation

It's Easter time :-)

Which means the first good chance I've had since Xmas for a much needed break. The stretch between December and April always tends to catch up on me but this time the break is needed more for healing than for getting my energy back.

This skin condition is still there, I dunno if it's better or worse than before Xmas. Actually, I know it's improved because I have shoulders that feel like they have proper smooth skin on instead of bark. There's still some bits of me that are spectacular though. That's where the holiday is helping, as it means I can keep the bad bits cleaner without interference from things like suit trousers. (Yep, I'm not stepping outside much and the heating is turned up)

Yep - it is improving but as far as cricket goes, there will be two things that stop me play :

Skin recovery - it's still taking a long time. If there's still any bad bits, I can't play because of how much I throw myself around on the field.
Internal damage - I'm getting old. At 38, I'm getting stiffer and stiffer and should really be looking after myself better. My hips won't support dodging around for that much longer. However, a slow me is still faster than a lot of people on a cricket field.

That said though, my legs aren't as swollen as they have been and I have bony ankles again :-) Yey. I'm also pasty white over much more of me than was the case a month ago. What I need to do is leave myself alone more so my body can heal itself. It seems to want to do that now that I've cut out a lot of the healthier stuff and gone back to a diet closer to what I had before the original leg infection.

But that's enough about health.

Easter is also about munching as much chocolate as you can get away with :-) Been doing my part there. The bad skin thing is actually helpful because it means I've not done that "just in case there's offers going" run to the local shop for more easter eggs. That said, I'll need to do a run in the next couple of days to get more apples. Nearly out of those again.

Also been catching up on recorded stuff, I've almost caught up on the unlistened to music and have been on the games again.

Recorded stuff :
From the Earth To The Moon is a decent series about the Apollo missions. I enjoyed watching this one again and having more time let me finish it off.

Series about actual events seem to be the things catching my attention at the moment. Series like those out of the Deadliest Catch stable. The latest ones are Yukon Men and Mountain Men, stories of people on the frontier. It's a simpler life and quite appealing, although I know I'm not healthy enough to survive out there. There's a sense of immediacy though about these stories that makes them compelling. Genuine danger lifts them above the artificial procedural fiction shows.

Music wise :
I had a wander through the Mall again last week, which means lurking in HMV for a while seeing if there's any attractive items on sale. Over the tannoy comes an unusual singer, with the Shazam iPhone app telling me it's Beth Orton. Weird how they'll play music over the tannoy that you can't buy in store. So I bought it from Amazon instead. Not bad - unusual, imperfect and quite charming. I may be checking out more later.

Games :
I completed the first step in the Mass Effect trilogy run that I started I dunno how many months ago. Mass Effect is a trilogy set in a scifi world a couple of centuries ahead of where we are now. It's dark and gritty, made darker and grittier by impending invasion by an implacable and relentless machine race of destroyers. This will be the first time I've replayed the last game since the first play through.

Few comments there - Mass Effect 2 is the better game of the 3. It has tighter combat and more varied (if not as open) areas than the first game. The bits that tie the game together (like the quest log) are tighter and less buggy. The third game should have built on that but fell short. Yes, the areas and levels were better but it felt like they allowed bugs in that shouldn't have been there. And one premise of the 3 series was that decisions made in the earlier games would have significant impact in the third. You didn't really see that as it felt your decisions were overridden in the third.

Still, it's one of the more epic trilogies in games. I'd rather play through Mass Effect again than finish the static Skyrim.

Talking of gaming, that's what I'm about to do now ... Not Mass Effect though, I'm gonna take over the world in Civilisation 4 :-)