Rachel Coleman

Oops, it's been about three weeks since my last update of substance: I was in Czechia with C, and anticipating the last five games of Women's Worlds. I think literally none of those last five games went the way I wanted, but I'm very glad to have watched them and been part of the highest attendance ever for the Women's Worlds tournament. (Breaking audience records for women's sports! yet again!).

Sunday night, after the gold medal game, we hung out with some new friends in a bar. Afterwards, very slowly saying goodbye in the main square (I'm on a groupchat now, yay), we saw pretty much the entire Finnish team walk past dressed to the nines and wearing their bronze medals. I went to bed far too late given the time we had to get up in the morning, but no regrets.

Monday (Easter Monday), we left České Budějovice on a train at 8am, changed at Linz, had nearly four hours stopover in Frankfurt (boat tour, discovered the Too Good To Go app works there and thus picked up some delicious curry for dinner) and arrived in Paris at 11pm, checking into a hotel a very short walk from Gare de l'Est.

Tuesday we walked up and down the steps of the Eiffel Tower (to the second floor, they don't let you walk up the really high bit), took a boat tour with a really mediocre audio guide, had the most delicious lunch in a very cramped restaurant on the Île de la Cité, got fancy ice cream from the Île Saint Louis and walked from the Seine right back to our hotel for the luggage, onward to Gare du Nord and the Eurostar and home.

Wednesday morning I was back at work, the children were both back at school, and Wednesday evening I was back at hockey practice. And since then my life has reverted to the usual whirl of work, family, ice hockey, with a new summer addition of cricket with the West Cambridge team. (Obviously one sport with a concussion risk was insufficient.)

České Budějovice seems like a world away now, nearly three weeks ago: I am very glad I went, I am very glad to have had C's company on the trip, and I'm very grateful to Tony for keeping the lights on and taking care of N at home so we could go. I could write several long posts just about the tournament to be honest but the short version: it was really good ice hockey, it was an amazing experience, it was exhausting and slightly crazy. Czechia treated it like a serious tournament and the fans showed up in response. I very much want to go to future Women's Worlds, if I can afford to.

I miss that little city and the beautiful, very walkable, historic centre. Like but not like Cambridge in a lot of ways. The hostel worked well for us, the weather was lovely almost every day of our stay, and we got the budget about right. Six months of Duolingo Czech was very far from sufficient, but I could at least manage please and thank you and simple food & drink orders. I still want to do better, and I'm going to Prague for a hockey camp in June, so I'll keep persevering I guess.

I've had two weeks off work: my Friday-to-Friday holiday in France, and then theoretically a week at home with the children. The children frequently preferred to do other things than spend time with me, so it's been a fairly chill week, very restful, lots of reading. I did the scoreboard for a local rec team game Sunday night, managed to turn up far too early because I'd put the game and my cycle time into my calendar while I was on French time and failed to notice the discrepancy at any point after arriving back in the UK. At least I didn't have the time wrong in the other direction!

The Worldcon Discord opened up last night and is quite busy, so that's been entertaining. fanf and I will both be attending remotely after all this year, which is a bit sad, but the best solution for us in the circumstances. I managed to catch some of the Olympics women's football this afternoon, and right now I'm half-watching a women's ice hockey game between Ohio State University and the Sweden Olympisk Offensiv team (a training team for future winter olympics, I think).

I am not exactly looking forward to what awaits when I log into work tomorrow, but Friday is usually a relatively quiet day and should mean I have a chance to beat the inbox into submission before stepping into the full firehose next week. I have hockey in Streatham to look forward to Friday evening, a skating lesson on Saturday, and a trip to see naath on Sunday. And maybe more Olympics as and when I can.

I had a week and a half off work, two very different holidays back to back.

First, a huge family holiday with all of my in-laws (Tony's mother, all of his sisters and their spouses and children). We went to Skipsea Sands holiday park, between Hornsea and Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast. ( Read more... )

Last Friday we set off on the first bus from the campsite to Bridlington, at 07:45, and then made our way by train to Cambridge, getting home soon after 13:00. I took a bit less than an hour to unpack, transfer some things into bags I had prepared earlier, and went back to the station with my ice hockey gear, leaving Tony and the children behind for the long weekend. I was off to Stansted to catch a plane to Biarritz in order to attend Le Draft Tournoi, a mixed-gender mixed-ability ice hockey tournament, and my first ice hockey games (rather than training) since concussing myself in February.

The tournament was great: I was so happy to be back playing again, I got drafted to the team with the most glorious hockey kit that has ever existed, and my team won the tournament. ( Read more... )

So I guess that's a theme of two nice holidays, but both with definite notes "to do better next time".

I am currently in Greece with the children, renting an apartment for the week in the village of Stoupa, where my mother and stepfather bought a house earlier this year. It was on their way to take possession of the house that my mother fell, broke her shoulder, and began the stay in hospital where eventually she died. Mick decided to complete the move here anyway, and this has been my first chance to see the place where Ruth wanted to live.

Tony is not with us as he has work-related conferences the next two weeks and felt that three weeks away on the trot would be a Bit Much. My brother Matt came out on the same flight and is staying with Mick. Our apartment has two bedrooms and is part of a small group of apartments sharing a little swimming pool. We are about 15 minutes walk from Mick's place, and five minutes walk from the beach. The children have both spent a lot of time in the pool, and Nico has also spent a lot of time in the sea. Mick's usual lunch place is right by the beach, which allows the small child to be in the sea all the time except when actually choosing and eating his food. I joined him in the sea this afternoon after lunch and enjoyed it very much.

The seawater is warm and clear and the beach is a wide sandy arc, dropping away quite fast to allow easy swimming within a few steps from the wave edge. There are cafes and restaurants all along the beach, and mountains rise dramatically behind the village. It's all very beautiful and of course very warm by comparison with England. The food is good, and good value even with the recent dramatic change in exchange rates, so we're mostly eating out. If we get tired of swimming, we have books and wifi. Hopefully this will be a low-key relaxing holiday for all of us.

• Sleep in - DONE
• Apply for train refund - DONE
• Figure out how buses work in this town
• Walk to the local supermarket and pick up some basics; for bonus credit investigate what google maps think are local laundrettes
• Go see some ice hockey

This apartment is pretty nice, plenty of room, nicely furnished (with the sad exception of the washing machine and dryer, which a stern notice says guests may not use). Lovely shower. It's in the basement of the landlord's house, so the windows are at eye level for me and ground-level outside. Lots of ventilation. Walking distance from the station and the city centre, but the street itself is quiet. I can hear traffic noise but it's not too close.

I slept like a very tired overheated log last night and am taking it slow this morning. Theoretically it's a half-hour walk to the rink but I am tired enough to consider trying the bus, if I can figure it out. (I may not have much Danish but I can usually speak public transport.)

As a kind of compensation for the trip to visit family we should have had this week, I organised a visit to Hamerton Zoo Park, a short way north-west of Huntington. It requires a car to visit, so I hired one; theoretically it should take about 40 minutes to drive each way but in both directions we got a wee bit turned around between the A1 and the park so it probably took longer. Also on the way back we had TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR so I went somewhat slower on the A1/A14 than I would normally.

The driver for picking Hamerton was that they have wombats, who turned out to be deeply asleep when we found them. The park also has many other animals and birds, which we found generally delightful: I loved the aviary of finches and budgies who share space with the wombat area, although the delightfully bouncy parma wallabies probably come a close second. Nico loved the meerkats and Charles dug the small wildcats. It's really a "few hours" kind of place rather than an "all day long" one, which is fine, we were figuring it out. The cafe food was basic but decent, and all the tables to eat at were outside - some under shelter and some not, but all well-ventilated. There's a really rather good children's play area next to the cafe too.

We had the full authentic English day out experience, with sunshine and showers throughout the visit (I had packed umbrellas and coats), including during one of our snack breaks. I think we timed our departure well, as it would have been a lot less fun in torrential downpour. While driving in same was also no fun, at least only I had to worry about it and we were all warm and dry.

(Also, C commented that it was very funny listening to me swear while driving: "you almost never swear but you did loads while driving"; yes well, there is a reason I prefer to organise our lives so I don't have to drive.)

I am off work for a week, and this will probably be the only "holiday" I take this year. (I have a generous leave allowance but it's mostly going to go on single days here and there, given everything going on.) I actually shut down the work laptop Friday evening, woohoo!

Yesterday turned out quite busy. I started with a nice long walk out through Girton to the busway, and back home via Histon. Not too many people around, but my goodness the roadworks on Histon Road are ... extensive. I saw a work colleague passing by bike in the other direction and we waved at each other but didn't stop.

I didn't go into any of the local shops but I passed them on the way in from my walk and they were moderately busy. Everyone I saw was either wearing a mask or was putting it on to go in, or taking it down on coming out. The charity shop already had its "sorry, no donations right now, we're full" sign out.

The Steak and Honour van was parked at Eddington at lunchtime, and we'd put in preorders which I biked over to collect. I observed the weather forecast and brought extra waterproofing for the food - this turned out to be a Good Decision as it rained Very Hard when I was half way back. I can't remember the last time I had a S&H burger and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The children are both converts, although Nico and I agree that next time we will probably split a burger rather than eat a whole one each.

I ran a lot of washloads. Friday evening I started sorting out some clothing storage on impulse, and unearthed a massive amount of clothes, most of which either will never fit me again, or I will never wear again even if they do fit. The trove of geeky tshirts marked "TOO BIG JAN 2014, CHECK JAN 2019" was particularly hilarious. (one: it's not Jan 2019 and it's taken me this long to find it again; two: I had awesome taste even if I'll never wear them again). However most of the clothes I was sorting, were either a bit dusty or a bit musty or both, so I washed and dried everything over Saturday and bagged and stacked them up for eventual donation. I'm thinking max one bag a week to the local shop, and only when they've got capacity. I briefly considered attempting to sell them; the cash:time balance of my life suggests it's better to donate them and let the charity make the money.

The other amusing trove was a lot of mostly unused nursing bras, which had clearly been carefully organised with the intent to ebay them. I vaguely remember that I bought bundles of second-hand nursing bras, used what fitted, and intended to sell the rest on at similar prices (and this still worked out cheaper and easier than buying nursing bras new in shops). I really cannot face doing the selling part now, so I went hunting for sensible places to donate bras, which appears to be M&S Schwop Drop bins. There may be also a Bra Bin in John Lewis. I intend to go on a recce on Monday.

I had long phone chats with each of my parents, which was lovely and indulgent of them both (and I would say that even if I didn't know you both read this blog!) :-)

We got an Ocado delivery, and put it all away, and then I spent another hour at least sorting out the back room overflow food storage. This started off pretty organised earlier this year but drifted into "sorted by when stuff got delivered and I couldn't fit it in the kitchen". Food shopping etc is probably a topic for another post, but anyway, I got the overflow storage wrestled into a much easier state to see what we actually have and for People Not Rachel to find things.

After all that I was Quite Tired, and I started reading A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher while waiting for the last laundry load to finish drying. It made me laugh on the first page, and I'm now about half way through and alternately gripped and scared.

• visited York's Chocolate Story
• found a local playground for the children
• found a man blowing enormous bubbles near the Minster
• had lunch in the basement cafe of the Treasurer's House
• found our way to Rowntree Park, and back again via the Millennium Bridge
• took an evening boat tour
• visited the National Railway Museum
• took the bus to Castle Howard and spent a lovely day wandering the grounds
• had a delicious meal at Mason's with an incredibly nice server
• visited all three of the Barley Hall, Richard III Experience & Henry VII Experience, and walked around a large portion of the city walls