2026 cult TV viewing plans
Jan. 5th, 2026 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vivdunstanJotting down some thoughts about this. Mainly a note to self, but sharing here too in case it's of interest to others.
We have very little time to watch TV series things together. Often just one episode's worth a week, total, given how heavily sedated I am, including typically having to go back to sleep between dinner and supper. And that's after being asleep all day before then ... It really is phenomenally restricting.
However making plans! And as top priority I hope to rewatch the Fifth Doctor Peter Davison era of Doctor Who, now we have almost all the Fifth Doctor Blu-ray remastered season collections, and will get the last one in late March. I've seen very few of these episodes again since original broadcast back in the early 1980s. Martin has seen very few (he didn't have a TV at home when he grew up). So it will be fun to watch/rewatch. Plus watch some of the bonus extra features like documentaries etc on the new Blu-ray season boxes. I will also be referring throughout to the hardback copy of the latest Celestial Toyroom annual Martin got for me for Christmas, after I dropped an unsubtle/heavy hint. This year's annual looks back at the Fifth Doctor era, including writings about each story. The Lulu-printed hardback version of the annual is *gorgeous*.
Before then though we need to finish our watch of the BBC 1988-1990 Narnia TV series. We are almost through the first story, and will go on to the other two after (Prince Caspian! Tom Baker!). Martin has seen BBC's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" before from a video copy we had long ago. But he has never seen the others. It is all a rewatch for me. There is also a very in-depth new documentary on the new BBC remastered Blu-ray Narnia box. Will watch that too.
Once that is out of the way we will be able to return to our once a week Babylon 5, as well as starting the Fifth Doctor stories. We are now in early Season 3 of Babylon 5, and approaching some big episodes. Very much looking forward to more. I constantly reassess my favourites, though often end up with the same results. It all feels comfortably familiar. I have lost count of how many times we have rewatched this series.
We also need to watch The Rings of Power season 2, preferably before season 3 airs! Although we will probably be slow getting to the latter. Still have to watch Sandman season 2, but me managing to get through episodes of that given how heavily sedated I am may be very tricky. And we will definitely prioritise watching the Good Omens final wrap up, when that airs.
Almost forgot: we still have to finish watching The War Between the Land and the Sea, which I haven't even managed to stick to an episode a week pace, even outside the Christmas period. Frankly it's very very talky, and often I don't feel up to watching more. But we will finish it. Hopefully soon. 2 episodes to go.
There are probably more things, but that's enough for us to be going on with for now.
We have very little time to watch TV series things together. Often just one episode's worth a week, total, given how heavily sedated I am, including typically having to go back to sleep between dinner and supper. And that's after being asleep all day before then ... It really is phenomenally restricting.
However making plans! And as top priority I hope to rewatch the Fifth Doctor Peter Davison era of Doctor Who, now we have almost all the Fifth Doctor Blu-ray remastered season collections, and will get the last one in late March. I've seen very few of these episodes again since original broadcast back in the early 1980s. Martin has seen very few (he didn't have a TV at home when he grew up). So it will be fun to watch/rewatch. Plus watch some of the bonus extra features like documentaries etc on the new Blu-ray season boxes. I will also be referring throughout to the hardback copy of the latest Celestial Toyroom annual Martin got for me for Christmas, after I dropped an unsubtle/heavy hint. This year's annual looks back at the Fifth Doctor era, including writings about each story. The Lulu-printed hardback version of the annual is *gorgeous*.
Before then though we need to finish our watch of the BBC 1988-1990 Narnia TV series. We are almost through the first story, and will go on to the other two after (Prince Caspian! Tom Baker!). Martin has seen BBC's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" before from a video copy we had long ago. But he has never seen the others. It is all a rewatch for me. There is also a very in-depth new documentary on the new BBC remastered Blu-ray Narnia box. Will watch that too.
Once that is out of the way we will be able to return to our once a week Babylon 5, as well as starting the Fifth Doctor stories. We are now in early Season 3 of Babylon 5, and approaching some big episodes. Very much looking forward to more. I constantly reassess my favourites, though often end up with the same results. It all feels comfortably familiar. I have lost count of how many times we have rewatched this series.
We also need to watch The Rings of Power season 2, preferably before season 3 airs! Although we will probably be slow getting to the latter. Still have to watch Sandman season 2, but me managing to get through episodes of that given how heavily sedated I am may be very tricky. And we will definitely prioritise watching the Good Omens final wrap up, when that airs.
Almost forgot: we still have to finish watching The War Between the Land and the Sea, which I haven't even managed to stick to an episode a week pace, even outside the Christmas period. Frankly it's very very talky, and often I don't feel up to watching more. But we will finish it. Hopefully soon. 2 episodes to go.
There are probably more things, but that's enough for us to be going on with for now.
Tags:
Surprise exercise...
Jan. 4th, 2026 03:58 pmdianec42Went out snowshoeing today instead of doing chores. The laundry will still be there tomorrow.
Beautiful day for it. This time I wore Enough Layers. We managed to do the full loop around the reservoir at Woodford in about 3 hours, with lots of stops for snacks, photos, and random fun facts. Not bad, especially considering that the first time we tried snowshoeing a couple years ago we made it about 30 minutes before we got tired and had to turn back.
Now home chilling in random layers and Hello Kitty pajama pants. G** I love being retired.
Beautiful day for it. This time I wore Enough Layers. We managed to do the full loop around the reservoir at Woodford in about 3 hours, with lots of stops for snacks, photos, and random fun facts. Not bad, especially considering that the first time we tried snowshoeing a couple years ago we made it about 30 minutes before we got tired and had to turn back.
Now home chilling in random layers and Hello Kitty pajama pants. G** I love being retired.
Tolkien's birthday
Jan. 3rd, 2026 09:15 pmvivdunstanTook part in a Tolkien Society celebration just now of JRR Tolkien's birthday today. Rather nice, with nearly 200 people Zooming in. Very chaotic at the unmuted toast though! I bailed out when it switched after that to chatty break out rooms in Zoom. I was happy to have been there for the reading + toast. Now having a lie down. Meanwhile Martin continues to work on his latest photos.
Paperback versus hardback art books
Jan. 3rd, 2026 05:18 pmvivdunstanOrdered me some books with Christmas money. They arrived today. Utterly delighted with two of them, but the third is extremely disappointing. The paperback copy doesn't reproduce the Venice artworks well, at decent size, or in situ in the text. I need to get the hardback instead. To be fair I should have known better, but the paperback is still a very disappointing presentation of the same art history material. Martin's going to take it into Waterstones Dundee for me for a return in the shop and refund (it was ordered online, and sent from Waterstones Glasgow Sauchiehall Street), and I've ordered a hardback replacement.
Привет! LiveJournal imports may be slow
Dec. 31st, 2025 08:24 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceПривет and welcome to our new Russian friends from LiveJournal! We are happy to offer you a new home. We will not require identification for you to post or comment. We also do not cooperate with Russian government requests for any information about your account unless they go through a United States court first. (And it hasn't happened in 16 years!)
Importing your journal from ЖЖ may be slow. There are a lot of you, with many posts and comments, and we have to limit how fast we download your information from ЖЖ so they don't block us. Please be patient! We have been watching and fixing errors, and we will go back to doing that after the holiday is over.
I am very sorry that we can't translate the site into Russian or offer support in Russian. We are a much, much smaller company than LiveJournal is, and my high school Russian classes were a very long time ago :) But at least we aren't owned by Sberbank!
С Новым Годом, and welcome home!
EDIT: Большое спасибо всем за помощь друг другу в комментариях! Я ценю каждого, кто предоставляет нашим новым соседям информацию, понятную им без необходимости искать её в Google. :) И спасибо вам за терпение к моему русскому переводу с помощью Google Translate! Прошло уже много-много лет со школьных времен!
Thank you also to everyone who's been giving our new neighbors a warm welcome. I love you all ❤️
Reading, Listening, Watching
Dec. 31st, 2025 04:08 pmpurplecatReading: Still the Doctor Who Reader, but supplementing with various Yuletide recs, and what I assume are Primeval Denial secret santa offerings. So far Dog Hamlets (Lord Peter Wimsey casefic. I had to think a bit to understand what the evidence was showing, but understood in the end - I think) and On Solstice Night (a spooky folklore take on the the "stuck in a bothy" trope, for a Primeval character and, because this is Primeval fandom, a shared OC).
Listening: Having exhausted all the podfic advent calendars, I'm listing to the Missing Episodes Podcast which I'd been hearing people mention for years but never really picked up. It is well done and if I catch up with them, I'll be interested in their take on the current nebulous swirling rumours.
Watching: When Marmalade Sparrow is here we end up watching a lot of Taskmaster, which she introduced us to. I think we're currently somewhere around 2018.
Listening: Having exhausted all the podfic advent calendars, I'm listing to the Missing Episodes Podcast which I'd been hearing people mention for years but never really picked up. It is well done and if I catch up with them, I'll be interested in their take on the current nebulous swirling rumours.
Watching: When Marmalade Sparrow is here we end up watching a lot of Taskmaster, which she introduced us to. I think we're currently somewhere around 2018.
LEGO Orrery
Dec. 29th, 2025 03:53 pmpurplecat
You can't actually see it, I realise all of a sudden, but there is a tiny moon that circles around the Earth which is obscured, in this view, by the Earth itself.
Books finished in 2025, end of year edition
Dec. 29th, 2025 10:44 amvivdunstanMy end of year full reading recap will be posted on my main blog - and a link to it posted here - by Hogmanay. In the meantime, here is my complete list of books finished this year, including 4 newly finished since my last post.
Of the newly finished ones, Alice's Oxford was a little bit too speculative for my taste, and plagued with an overly small font. But I did find a lot to enjoy, and am very glad I read it. Though I wanted clearer maps, to understand the geography. I've only been to Oxford a couple of times.
Wintering promised so much but was ultimately extremely disappointing. It stretched the concept of "wintering" to breaking point, and was repeatedly too self indulgent and written from a position of great privilege which the author seemed quite unaware of. Some good bits in there, and at times her writing was truly beautiful. But in the end, nope, not good. And a very poor ending.
The Doctor Who book about River Song's introductory episodes is one in the "Black Archive" series of episode analysis books from Obverse Books. I liked a lot about this, but was frustrated by how much the author ended up writing about things outside the two episodes, including River Song's wider arc, Steven Moffat's writing more generally, and paraphrasing rather too many science books. In the end I gave it 3/5 stars, but it's not one of the best "Black Archive" books for me.
The King of Elfland's Daughter was my book club read for December. I'm very glad I read it. It's a classic fantasy, which has influenced many other authors, including Tolkien. But it had flaws. It's more descriptive-driven than either plot-driven or character-driven. And with a positively glacial pace of story I found it hard to stay engaged and keep reading through to the end. Yet overall glad that I read it. And I loved one character especially. But I don't think I will ever reread it.
- ( earlier books )
- Alice's Oxford: People and Places that Inspired Wonderland by Peter Hunt
- Wintering: How I learned to flourish when life became frozen by Katherine May
- Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead by Dale Smith
- The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany
Of the newly finished ones, Alice's Oxford was a little bit too speculative for my taste, and plagued with an overly small font. But I did find a lot to enjoy, and am very glad I read it. Though I wanted clearer maps, to understand the geography. I've only been to Oxford a couple of times.
Wintering promised so much but was ultimately extremely disappointing. It stretched the concept of "wintering" to breaking point, and was repeatedly too self indulgent and written from a position of great privilege which the author seemed quite unaware of. Some good bits in there, and at times her writing was truly beautiful. But in the end, nope, not good. And a very poor ending.
The Doctor Who book about River Song's introductory episodes is one in the "Black Archive" series of episode analysis books from Obverse Books. I liked a lot about this, but was frustrated by how much the author ended up writing about things outside the two episodes, including River Song's wider arc, Steven Moffat's writing more generally, and paraphrasing rather too many science books. In the end I gave it 3/5 stars, but it's not one of the best "Black Archive" books for me.
The King of Elfland's Daughter was my book club read for December. I'm very glad I read it. It's a classic fantasy, which has influenced many other authors, including Tolkien. But it had flaws. It's more descriptive-driven than either plot-driven or character-driven. And with a positively glacial pace of story I found it hard to stay engaged and keep reading through to the end. Yet overall glad that I read it. And I loved one character especially. But I don't think I will ever reread it.
Boxing Day and onwards
Dec. 28th, 2025 01:12 pmdianec42We had a bunch of friends over for Boxing Day snacks and socializing. This gave Mr Diane an excuse to bake ONE BILLION SNACKS, with the added bonus of leftovers for the rest of the year. It was great to see people and hang out. What with holiday baking and the attendant cleanup, plus some lousy weather, I was going a bit stir crazy. Snacks and socializing were a hit; I think this will become a tradition.
The up side of all that cleaning and tidying is that the house is now somewhat more pleasant to do stuff in (especially the kitchen). The down side is that I managed to put a few things in "safe places" and I'm not sure I've found everything yet.
The first rule of Retirement Club isthere are no rules don't talk about Retirement Club I need to have some structure or I will never leave the house.
Some rough ideas for structure:
1. (With Mr Diane) Go out hiking once a week (snowshoeing counts as hiking);
2. Try at least one new location, food, or activity every week;
3. Every day, do something I didn't do yesterday;
4. Every day, SKIP DOING at least one thing I did yesterday;
5. DO NOT VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING FOR AT LEAST A MONTH! Seriously. I've met me. I WILL overcommit and burn myself out if I don't watch it;
6. Have some long-term goals as well as short-term activities;
7. Do stuff with Mr Diane;
8. Do stuff WITHOUT Mr Diane.
Activities so far have included yoga class and Open Knit (yes, cross stitch is also allowed). I still need to check out the senior center, the sports center, the Y, activities at the library and the museum, and actually GO to the library and the museum. Yes, I have a spreadsheet.
Speaking of structure, for 2026 I'm going to try a premade planner and skip doing a bullet journal. I've mainly been using the bullet journal in its capacity of "it's a free-form planner for people who don't like any of the planners sold in the shops". I've been doing some habit trackers but that's tailed off in the last few months. I just can't be arsed doing all the setup any more. I got a cute Pusheen weekly/monthly planner off my wish list this Christmas, which includes space for notes and 2 pages for 2027 planning, so I'm going to give that a go.
I should write up a 2025 "year in review" thingy, but honestly 2025 kind of stunk in a lot of ways so I might not bother.
The up side of all that cleaning and tidying is that the house is now somewhat more pleasant to do stuff in (especially the kitchen). The down side is that I managed to put a few things in "safe places" and I'm not sure I've found everything yet.
The first rule of Retirement Club is
Some rough ideas for structure:
1. (With Mr Diane) Go out hiking once a week (snowshoeing counts as hiking);
2. Try at least one new location, food, or activity every week;
3. Every day, do something I didn't do yesterday;
4. Every day, SKIP DOING at least one thing I did yesterday;
5. DO NOT VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING FOR AT LEAST A MONTH! Seriously. I've met me. I WILL overcommit and burn myself out if I don't watch it;
6. Have some long-term goals as well as short-term activities;
7. Do stuff with Mr Diane;
8. Do stuff WITHOUT Mr Diane.
Activities so far have included yoga class and Open Knit (yes, cross stitch is also allowed). I still need to check out the senior center, the sports center, the Y, activities at the library and the museum, and actually GO to the library and the museum. Yes, I have a spreadsheet.
Speaking of structure, for 2026 I'm going to try a premade planner and skip doing a bullet journal. I've mainly been using the bullet journal in its capacity of "it's a free-form planner for people who don't like any of the planners sold in the shops". I've been doing some habit trackers but that's tailed off in the last few months. I just can't be arsed doing all the setup any more. I got a cute Pusheen weekly/monthly planner off my wish list this Christmas, which includes space for notes and 2 pages for 2027 planning, so I'm going to give that a go.
I should write up a 2025 "year in review" thingy, but honestly 2025 kind of stunk in a lot of ways so I might not bother.
Teaser for end of year reading recap
Dec. 28th, 2025 01:49 pmvivdunstanStarted writing my end of year annual reading recap. 58 books finished this year, over 16,000 pages worth. Mostly read on my Kindle with an utterly gargantuan font. Delighted to still be managing to read, albeit with ever increasing difficulty, as my neurological disease progresses further.
Celebrating 25 years of Bernice Summerfield at Big Finish
Dec. 28th, 2025 01:03 amvivdunstanSharing this for other fans of sometime Doctor Who companion Bernice “Benny” Summerfield, whether in novel, comic or audio form. I’m not sure why Big Finish are posting this on YouTube now, 2 years after Benny’s Big Finish 25th anniversary. But it is a nice documentary regardless.
I will be resuming my listen through of the Big Finish Benny audios in the New Year.
I will be resuming my listen through of the Big Finish Benny audios in the New Year.
Chargers
Dec. 26th, 2025 09:13 pmvivdunstanSlight panic tonight, finding my Apple charger - many many years old - had stopped charging my iPad part way through the night, and wasn't charging my iPod touch tonight (it took me until 8pm to realise any of this - I was asleep until 7pm). Martin gave the charger plug a good check, and it's definitely faulty and unsafe. Replacement now ordered - getting a more powerful USB-C charger plus USB-C to lightning cable for my still old devices. Meanwhile Martin found me a spare USB-A charger plug, so I'm good till the new one arrives! iPod touch now charging. iPad rather inadequately charged for tonight's use, but will do! And the new charger will work with any future USB-C based iPad and also iPhone when my last iPod touch has to be replaced.
Merry Duckmas to all...
Dec. 25th, 2025 05:57 pmdianec42... and to all a good Christmas pudding!
Had a quiet week leading up to a quiet day. Got lots of presents. Ate a lot of duck and the aforementioned Christmas pudding. Now very very full and contented.
Had a quiet week leading up to a quiet day. Got lots of presents. Ate a lot of duck and the aforementioned Christmas pudding. Now very very full and contented.