Present or correct

Here we are at the start of February, having seemingly skipped winter altogether. The weather in Yorkshire's been a long wet autumn and the garden's still flooded.  It may not be the drama and catastrophe of the Australian fires, but our weather pattern is deeply messed up. The water in the poultry drinkers has only frozen 3 times. It used to be a regular occurrence.

My plans of a wildflower meadow may be doomed this year - having carefully collected yellow rattle seeds in August, the bottom of the garden has been either sodden or actually under several centimetres of water and we haven't had the succession of cold snaps needed to germinate the seeds.

Less a garden, more a swamp

Yellow rattle is a semi-parasitic plant that draws much of its energy from hijacking the roots of grasses, so it's a useful tool when wanting to diminish a lawn's vigour and allow native plants to flourish. I was so pleased to find some in a meadow to harvest, in the hopes of making the garden a more wildlife friendly habitat. Ah well, we'll see how it plays out.

My wildlife camera has been a bit of disappointment so far. Plenty of action, almost all of it Gonzo. Just the occasional clip of Isaac, or rain heavy enough to trigger the motion sensor. I'm hoping spring will bring a little more variety.

Not the wildlife we were hoping for

Ballet Weekend rolled around again and if anything it surpassed itself. On Friday I took myself to see the uplifting and delightful Come From Away. It's basically a hug in theatre form. Saturday afternoon I treated my Very Excellent Mate Bon to her first trip to see Hamilton. New cast for the third year, so I got to see some different interpretations of the roles, and Bon was (obviously) absolutely smitten. It was brilliant. Then Bon treated me to The Red Shoes at Sadler's Wells. I actually enjoyed it more this time - having never seen the original film I was a bit lost on our first viewing. All in all the weekend was a wonderful break in an otherwise challenging month,

Sitting in The Room Where It Happens once again

I confess I loathe January and am glad to see the back of it.  It's got too many birthdays. Typically, I've used up all my gift ideas (and money) at Christmas. However from December 23 to January 29th I have a stretch with my father-in-law, daughter, eldest niece, younger niece, brother, mum and son to buy for - and celebrate with - where appropriate. Mum's birthday was difficult but at least we're past it now. Zach's was lovely - deferred celebration until his mock exams were over, and he has such a lovely gang of friends.

So here we are, the plethora of birthdays over until the April cluster (me, Dad, Luke) and the days lengthening enough for the hens to start laying.  This is good. Spring's not far away, and everything is better in the spring.

Something odd happened last week. I was fannying about on an internet forum - OK, Mumsnet; I came for the radical feminism and stayed for the craziness of the AIBU board - and responding to something about mothers, I wrote "My Mum loved that too."

Loved.

Past tense.

That's the first time I used the past tense without having correct myself from the present. It jolted me. I've been saying "Mum's got those shoes; Mum hates risotto; Mum sews her own clothes; Mum likes musicals but not opera so much..."  for months now. Yes, obviously I know she is dead - and I had to write to the people who hadn't heard when the Christmas cards to "Kate and Bri" arrived. But I hadn't  - oh hell, I don't know - adjusted to it? Acknowledged that she's in our past not our present, maybe? Each month that takes me further away from her feels like a betrayal. I'm not sure by whom, her for dying or me for living.  Grief isn't terribly rational.

But suddenly there is was, a past tense. An admission that Mum's not here, that it's memories not current events. I think it's probably healthy. I'm sure it's normal. But I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

Time After Time

October 7th, 2018. 8pm.

That's when Doctor Who returned. Well, sort of returned. New face, new sex, new friends, new writers. Probably a new TARDIS, sonic screwdriver and title sequence too. Regenerating in every way and still being the same.
Got to love Doctor Who.


In late August the magnitude of my Hamilton overspend hit me; over £450 for one night out.
Oh.
Even in the cheapest of cheap seats, that's 5 tickets, 5 rail tickets to London, 2 hotel rooms needed.  That's before dinner, breakfast and lunch for 5 and spending money.  I decided to recoup it as best I could. I listed toys on eBay and Facebook, washed and dried many kilos of Lego, looked for anything else of value that wasn't needed. It went well, and I raised a good chunk towards the costs.

Mark suggested getting rid of a lot of the DVDs and CDs sitting crates in the office. He sold them in a bulk lot, making us over £100, but we all had a check through the boxes to make sure nothing vital was being disposed of.

The lunatic had only gone and included my DVDs of Doctor Who.

(Yes, I know they are all online at BBC iPlayer and Netflix, but it's not the same.)

Rescuing them from the crate, I thought it might be fun to re-watch every episode from Rose through to Twice Upon A Time, in time for the arrival of Jodie Whittaker's Doctor in October. So many great episodes, it will be ace, I thought. There are probably about 60 episodes or something, I can definitely do it. Rose! Donna! Amy and Rory! Angels, Cybermen, Daleks, Ood, Adipose, Silurians! It will be a blast.

No, Jay, you twonk. There are 166 episodes from Christopher Eccleston's Doctor grabbing Rose's hand and saying "Run" to Peter Capaldi meeting himself in the form of David Bradley in the snow. That's an awful lot of telly viewing to cram into 6 weeks. I didn't start counting until I was already 20 episodes in, and I'd kind of committed to it by then.

Series One:
Ah, the joys of the Eccleston year. I love this season with all my heart. Eccleston is a delight to watch, Billie Piper converted me from thinking "some vacuous pop pixie" to "I love her forever, even though her mascara scares me". The delightful Captain Jack, the massive story arc in the Buffy style. Sobbing fit as the Doctor kissed Rose and changed. He really was fantastic. It was even more fun than I'd remembered, although I still can't be doing with the Slitheen.
Never did like a fart gag.

Series Two:
That magical boy from Taking Over The Asylum and Casanova - isn't he a delight? A less than wonderful Christmas special and a few absolute duds (Absorbaloff? seriously? was it a dare?) but my goodness there are some right belters. Werewolves, alternate worlds, the Satan pit, the glory of a Dalek vs Cyberman standoff. I love the humour ("Look at me! I'm a chav") and the glee of this series.    Sarah Jane Smith comes back - hurray!
Again, my heart broke. Cried buckets, the sentimental thing that I am. Lots of people hated that but tough luck, cynics. Love and sacrifice are great stories.

Series Three:
Oh dear, the difficult third album.
Martha drove me nuts the first time because she was mooning about like a lovestruck groupie instead of being smart and focused. Second time around, I wasn't in mourning for lost Rose, so could view her more compassionately. She still got on my wick but I felt she'd had a revelation in the Family Of Blood two-parter; even when the Doctor was free to fall in love, he didn't fall in love with her. I think it finally clicked and she moved on. I did hate the "it was all a dream Pam had, Bobby's really in the shower" bit about rewinding the last couple of years in the final episode, though. It felt stupid.

Series Four:
The mates.
Donna was a wonderful companion. They were sparring equals, they were drinking buddies, they were glorious. She never once let him get away with ego, and she was fantastic fun. The adorable Adipose - please can I lose weight like that? pretty please? - the Oods, the Daleks, the reappearance of  Rose and the gang... one of the strongest series of the lot.

Series Five:
Amelia Pond, name from a fairy tale.
Matt Smith, a man with insufficient control of his limbs.
I loved the moral quandary of The Beast Below, the Vincent episode was lovely, and obviously Rory is everyone's relationship goal. He's utterly wonderful. Amy is fun and stroppy; James Corden does a corking job as lovelorn Craig in The Lodger.

Series Six:
Strong start - murdering the Doctor in the first episode.
Unfortunately this series featured very annoying voiceovers in the opening titles that felt like nails on a blackboard every single time. Loved the eeriness of drawing a line on yourself every time you see The Silence, it was properly disturbing. Completely DON'T love the over the top Look How Zany I Am stuff Matt Smith was forced to do. He wasn't so much a Time Lord as a Time Toddler on a sugar rush. Grow up, man, and calm the heck down.
The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People was the best story for me. Mark Bonnar and Marshall Lancaster never fail to charm me, and Raquel Cassidy was superb.  It actually made up for the stupid Pirate episode. The Doctor's Wife was brilliant (because OF COURSE Rory is The Pretty One)  and the reappearance of Craig with baby Stormaggedon was great fun.


Series Seven:
Goodbye Amy and Rory, Hello various incarnations of Clara Oswin Osgood.
No stupid voiceover, now a great opening sequence with the Doctor's face, like the 70s and 80s.
Like the sentimental fool I am. I was distraught at Amy and Rory's estrangement, delighted by their reunion, and loved Souffle Girl. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship's only redeeming feature was the accidental kidnapping of Mark Williams as Rory's dad. I actively dreaded Angels Take Manhattan because I knew I'd miss Amy and Rory, and I wasn't wrong.
I didn't take to Clara at all. Sorry.
However, the Cold War episode with the ever-lovely Liam Cunningham was a stand-out episode. I swear I could watch that man read aloud from a phone book and be charmed. Really not fussed on The Great Intelligence and the Trenzalore rubbish. It was entirely too convoluted for my taste.

Day Of The Doctor
Happy 50th birthday, Doctor Who!
I was at a wedding when this was originally screened. We came home and watched it in the middle of the night, then again the next day. I love it.
John Hurt punctures the manic gibberish of Tennant and Smith magnificently. His calm, weary stillness throws Matt Smith's gurning into stark contrast. I'm as much in love with David Tennant as I ever was; is that man ever anything but charming? I loved the Zygons as they were my first Doctor Who memory as a child and they scared the bejeezus out of me back then. The wonderful Osgood and a reappearance from Billie Piper were marvellous.

Series Eight:
Look, it's a grownup!
Hello Peter Capaldi, how lovely to see you. Although not as a demented twerp belched from a dinosaur, running around and shouting, having a deeply weird relationship with Clara, and watching the moon hatch. This was a real low point. The moon hatching was definitely the thing that made me most angry, for such a daft reason... It got heavier.
It was an EGG. Eggs don't get heavier, because there is no new matter (ie food) going into it. it's not like a placental mammal, getting nutrients piped in. Eggs containing chicks ready to hatch or wee crocodiles are NOT heavier than when they were laid. It drove me insane.
The overnight forest was also stupid, while I'm having a moan. I did like the Cybermen and Missy, though. Chris Addison as an irksome afterlife civil servant was perfect.


Series Nine:
The best of times, the worst of times.
I'd totally erased this from my memory, had thought there was a Clara series and a Bill series. Would that it were so.
First up, the good bits: The Christmas Special with Nick Frost as Santa with a pair of bickering elves was a corker. Fun, frightening, made sense (not always a given in the Moffat years) and as festive as it's possible to be. Davros and Missy meant a cracker of an episode in the Dalek city - indeed Missy's dialogue throughout is a joy. "See that couple over there? You're the puppy." Top quality snark, it was great.
Otherwise? hmmm. Clara overstayed as a companion, there really wasn't anything good to do with her. Jenna Coleman was fantastic in Victoria, I honestly don't dislike her as an actress. I did loathe Clara, other than as Souffle Girl, because she was such a cipher. She brought nothing but big eyes and shiny hair to the party. I've missed Amy, River, and especially Donna so much in this series. I felt Moffat had created a character he was in love with, and didn't bother to explain to us why we should love her. RTD *showed* us why we loved Rose and Donna. Clara just stood there and we were expected to see something in her that I didn't.
The other significant character, Ashildr, had some interesting moments but didn't hold together that well (not Maisie Williams's fault, she was great). The only bit that really worked for me was the two of them riding off into space and time together, the long way 'round.
The antepenultimate* Heaven Sent was so nasty I could barely stomach it. The merciless terrifying and torturing of the Doctor again and again, clambering out over his own skulls... just NO. (Luke disagrees, by the way, because he loves a time loop.) I felt like I do when I see Dumbo - complicit in the bullying of someone. For god's sake, Moffat, seek therapy, ditch Clara and move on!
He does move on, and then it gets better.
The Christmas episode that followed the series, The Husbands Of River Song, was marvellous, and the superhero boy in New York for the following Christmas was the sort of episode that made me love the Doctor when I was young.

Series Ten:
Hello Bill! Love Bill, me.
This was the Doctor Capaldi was meant to be. He's fantastic - he looks at ease with himself in the role at last and his band of Bill, Nardole and Missy sparked off each other beautifully. The Pilot was a wonderful start, the emoji robots were suitably menacing, I love any excuse for a Frost Fair, and the final battles with Missy and The Master were super. I loved that they went to look for the lost Ninth Legion to settle an argument (although Kar being the reason crows saw Caw was stupid and irksome). A few sluggish episodes but on the whole a massive return to form. I even got over a smidge of my Moffat-dislike.  I don't think he's terribly good at writing women except in relation to men, so Bill was a refreshing change.
I'm also glad so many got a happy ending - Nardole with his Hazran, Bill with Heather and in a funny way, the Master and Missy destroying each other.
The final episode, featuring the masterful David Bradley as the First Doctor in a reprisal of his role as William Hartnell in An Adventure In Space And Time, was a stonking way to acknowledge the origins and prepare for the future of one of the most loved television characters in the world. And the more TARDISes the better, in my opinion.

And there we have it - ten series and many specials in 6 weeks.

I finished with a whole 27 minutes to go before the new series started (I'm the kind of gal who likes to live on the edge**). Thrust headlong into a new adventure, enjoying the full exploration of 'Lots of planets have a North' through the Sheffield setting, revelling in the first female Doctor engineering her own sonic screwdriver instead of having one gifted by the TARDIS. I couldn't be more chuffed.

All that, and it's nearly time to use those Hamilton tickets!

*Isn't that such a delightful word!
**If you haven't watched Rob Reiner's film The Sure Thing, you should do it immediately