Losing Touch....Moving On

I seem to be losing touch with a lot of my old 'pals'. I sent a load of Christmas greeting emails to old work colleagues and gaming friends, but did any faint 'Merry Christmases' come echoing back through the ether.....well just one! One, from an old work colleague, but none from anybody else. I suppose with their busy working lives they haven't got time to reply. I send the occasional chatty email but I very rarely get any reply, only from this one guy....a good friend. I guess that's that....people move on.

I find that I am playing less and less boardgames now. Of course I miss the weekly meetings we had when I lived in England. But there aren't any boardgamers over here. Tina plays occasionally, but she's not what you would call a fan. I think she just plays to humour me. So what do I scratch the gaming itch with? Facebook to the rescue. I play 3 collectible, not tradeable, card games on FB. The Clash of the Dragons, sort of fantasy based. Tyrant, a modern super machine based and Berserk, The Cataclysm, again fantasy based. CotD is my favourite, their are 5 zones to battle through, with 3 difficulty levels so there's a lot of play. It is free to play, although you can buy 'Dragon Coins' to purchase cards packs with the rarer cards in.

You can also belong to a clan, this is a way to chat to fellow gamers, exchange deck ideas and such. As well as the gaming zones there are brawls. This is where you and your fellow gamers battle against tough bosses for rewards which enable you to 'craft' cards for your collection. There are special clan brawls which only clan members can take part in as well. It takes a lot of my time at the moment....as Tina will tell you. Maybe you might want to give it a try.

The next book

Well, finished 'The Bones of Avalon', several days ago in fact. Did I like it? Yes, it was a good read if you like historical novels. Not one of the best I have read, the Matthew Shardlake novels by C.J. Sansom are better in my opinion. But, it was interesting. At over 500 pages I thought was a bit too long. The author tended to waffle a bit in places and I'm sure he could have told the story in 350 pages or so.

So, on to the next book. This is a crime novel by young Swedish writer Camila Lackberg. I haven't read any of her previous novels so this is a first look at her work. I'm about halfway through it and it took awhile to start to come together. There are many story threads going on at the same time and also time shifts between the present and the second world war. A description curtesy of Amazon...

'Crime writer Erica Falck is shocked to discover a Nazi medal among her late mother's possessions. Haunted by a childhood of neglect, she resolves to dig deep into her family's past and finally uncover the reasons why.

Her enquiries lead her to the home of a retired history teacher. He was among her mother's circle of friends during the Second World War but her questions are met with bizarre and evasive answers. Two days later he meets a violent death. Detective Patrik Hedström, Erica's husband, is on paternity leave but soon becomes embroiled in the murder investigation. Who would kill so ruthlessly to bury secrets so old?

Reluctantly Erica must read her mother's wartime diaries. But within the pages is a painful revelation about Erica's past. Could what little knowledge she has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to be…'

I'll let you know my thoughts when I finish.

More snow over the last few days and also quite a lot of rain, still cold as well.

On to the next book!

This is next book I am going to read. And this is a publishers description, curtesy of Amazon.

'It is 1560, and Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year. Dr John Dee, at 32 already acclaimed throughout Europe, is her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts... a controversial appointment in these days of superstition and religious strife. Now the mild, bookish Dee has been sent to Glastonbury to find the missing bones of King Arthur, whose legacy was always so important to the Tudor line. With him - hardly the safest companion - is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card... and possibly the Queen's secret lover. The famously mystical town is still mourning the gruesome execution of its Abbot, Richard Whiting. But why was the Abbot really killed? What is the secret held by the monks since the Abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, uncle of Christ and guardian of the Holy Grail? The mission takes Dee to the tangled roots of English magic, into unexpected violence, necromantic darkness, the breathless stirring of first love... and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth. '

Sounds like my cup of tea.....looking forward to it.

Snowing hard here and very cold. Don't think I will be going far today. Playing Clash of the Dragons on Facebook.....lazy, lazy.

Just shows what I know!

I a previous post I was saying that I was enjoying Heresy by S. J. Parris, well I have just found out that that is a pseudonym for Stephanie Merrit. That doesn't change the fact that I really enjoyed reading it. Set in Elizabethan England it's full of secret catholic masses at dead of night, bloody murder and intrigue in and around the colleges of Oxford. Sort of like a medieval Inspector Morse. She has a new book coming out in April and I shall definitely be looking out for that.

Been taking a few photos of the lake

The weather hasn't been that good for photography, but here are a couple of recent shots of the lake.

Taken on rather a misty day with my Nikon D3000.

I have been really enjoying my new Kindle. I found a programme called Calibre that manages your ebook collection on your computer. If you have a ebook reader I would say this programme is indespensible. It gives you such a lot of control on your collection and is free, although you can donate to the author. I reckon he gets a lot of donations because this programme is so good.

I must say that I enjoy historical who-dunits, and I have just downloaded a few from Amazon. Amazon.de that is because I am resident in Austria the UK site will not let me download from them.......so much for the worldwide web!!! I have read every Matthew Shardlake novel from C. J. Sansom in paperback, and I have been looking for novels in a similar vein. I found these, Hue & Cry and Fate and Fortune by Shirley McKay. Another author that writes this kind of book is S. J. Parris, I am reading Heresy on my Kindle at the moment and it's a cracking who-dunnit set in the period of Elizabeth I. Looking forward to reading his other novel Prophesy. While browsing the Amazon site I found 'Mozart's Last Aria' a historical crime novel set in Vienna in 1791 by Matt Rees. Looks intriquing so I bought this one as well.

Starting to look a bit better now

Not being much a computer programmer, I have been fiddling around with the settings and it's starting to look a bit better. Now there is a link to the old blog 'Austrian Ramblings' on the right if you want to have a look at old post.

New Blog for New Year

Well, you all know I didn't like the way the old blog looked, so I've started a new one. Shame really, there are quite a few years of archived posts on the old one. You can see them here.

http://coljenngamer.blogspot.com/

So let's see what the new year brings.