"A Series of Unfortunate Events" is the tragic history of the Baudelaire children, orphaned by a fire and then persecuted by the unscrupulous wicked Count Olaf. Delicious black comedy, weird situations, outlandish characters, a deadpan narrator who constantly advises against watching this tale of woe. A unique experience. This TV series has the advantage of the active participation of the source books' author Lemony Snicket (real name Daniel Handler). A well produced Netflix series which creates a fantasy world in some ways Victorian in feel, but yet modern.

The cake Virginia did for her father's 80th birthday.

Every year we go to see the snowdrops at Anglesey Abbey. The gardeners of the National Trust even in winter manage to create a marvellous display of textures and shades and colours and shapes in the gardens there. The snowdrops were out in force when we went, the different varieties explained in signs which we saw but didn't really read. There are lots of days in a year. As humans we need to divide up the year in some way to make it less intimidating. In the past they had harvest and the equinoxes and the solstices. Now perhaps we have see the snowdrop day, and Valentine's Day, and Bank Holidays. And Black Fridays? Beside the snowdrops there were other visitors out in force, coachloads of them. I began to compare them to migratory birds, and wondered how many in December would migrate to see the Thursford Christmas Spectacular. We did mean to eat at Anglesey Abbey in the airy and light cafeteria, and walked around a bit more so the time approached noon when hot food became available. However there were so many people there, and the likelihood of finding a table to eat at low, so we went elsewhere for our lunch.

"Beyond" has a young guy waking up from a 12-year coma with superpowers. Mysterious organisation pursues him to use those superpowers. I found this quite watchable, even if it's not classic. It's in a popular vein of such stories.

In "Shannara Chronicles" three young adults in a fantasy world find themselves on a quest to stop a dark power returning to kill everyone. They have a varied series of cliffhanger adventures while working out their triangular relationships. That about is the plot. This isn't as epic as "Lord of The Rings". It's just simple digestible fantasy fun which motors along at a good pace. Not ponderous or pretentious. The fantasy world may not be as deeply fleshed out as Tolkien's, but neither is the fantasy world in Jackson's LOTR films which major on spectacle. This isn't as massive as "Game of Thrones". The number of characters to follow are far less. The tone is far different to the nihilist amorality of "Game of Thrones", where nastiness and antiheroes are the draw. "Shannara Chronicles" is definitely heroic fantasy, where good with sacrifice will conquer evil, where characters can be redeemed or can be corrupted. This isn't quite the "Shannara Chronicles" as written by Terry Brooks. What we have is a collision between heroic fantasy and YA romance - for me a fun mixture but this is a personal view. It isn't the same tone as the books. Any more than Jackson captured Tolkien's tone.

"Stranger Things" has mysterious government organisations, super powers, secret research institutes, alternate realities. A loving retro throwback to the days of "CE3K", "ET", and many others. Captures that period.

"Once Upon A Time " is a grand collision of a load of fairy tales with an adult context. The plot has an evil queen enacting a curse which sends all the fairy tale characters to our world, robbing them of their memories - and their happy endings. A large number of intertwining storylines with larger than life characters. A complex back story revealed gradually as the episodes progress. Good production values and a wide range of locations. A great performance by Robert Carlyle as Mr Gold / Rumplestiltskin. Very palatable entertainment. I'm not sure how many series I will watch, before it gets samey. Or before it all gets too random. But the first series is an achievement.

(Valentine's Day is the 14th but we have decided having a meal that day is a bad idea. After we found ourselves eating in a typing pool layout next to a drunken couple). On the day itself we exchanged cards and bath bombs. I'm glad bath bombs have been invented, they make ideal gifts being both decorative and consumable so you can give them repeatedly. I gave Virginia some from Heavenly Bubbles, she gave me some in a splendid plastic transparent mug with a straw. We had our meal at the Phoenix Chinese restaurant in Histon, opting as we so often do for Set Meal C. The staff were short-handed, two waitresses were off sick, and I felt for them as they had to rush around with a nearly full restaurant. The Phoenix has great oak beams from when it was a pub, and we sat in the corner we often sit in. For me it's an experience as much as it is eating. They kindly gave Virginia one of the roses left over from their Valentine's Day stock.

My father John Sidney Smith died this evening. Oscar Wilde quipped that "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his". For me there's a certain truth in that. My father was a major figure not only in British Origami circles but worldwide. See an Origami focussed obituary. He not only folded models, knew key people, but also contributed to the theory of origami and its use in areas like therapy. I can just about fold a paper aeroplane unaided. My father had taste and talent in music. He won a prize for playing on the cello at school though he favoured instruments like the acoustic guitar and mandolin. Despite my parents' efforts I failed on a range of musical devices from recorder through clarinet to balalaika (the last after being taken to hear a Russian balalaika orchestra visiting Norwich). My father had taste and talent in art. He won a prize at age 17. He was drawing pictures up to the end of his life. He could talk wisely about Turner and van Gogh and Bauhaus. I'm proud to have some of his artwork on our walls. I never got further than painting by numbers. At art lessons in school I was one of those put in a corner and told to play with modelling clay. My father was a keen photographer, who was not afraid of digital image manipulation. He started an audio-visual group at one camera club, and worked hard on producing multimedia presentations. I remember fetching him back from his visits to the Cambridge camera club. I like taking pictures, but am really grateful for autofocus. He worked hard to provide for his family. He studied statistics in evening classes which took him out of a drawing office to a marketing role in Vauxhall Motors, and then to working for Reckitts and Colmans in Norwich (which is why I grew up there). He edited the Institute of Statisticians journal at one stage. Statistics was one of the mathematical disciplines that stymied me when I read maths at university. I wish now I had studied a language but that's another matter. He worked in the early days of computers at Colmans in Norwich. He got me first programming on Texas Instruments calculators, and then urged me into my computing career, seeing computers as the coming wave. I am grateful for his pushing, software has been a good career for me. I remember the special occasions of my childhood like the cinema forays. We would dine at a Chinese restaurant by the multi-storey car park, on exotic dishes like birds nests. And then we would see films like "2001", "Battle of Britain", and the "Sound of Music". For me seeing a film at the cinema is still special. He introduced me to films like Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", and Jacques Tati's "Playtime" and "Traffic". He expanded my horizons. He also introduced me to Eastern thought like Zen and koans, to the deeply significant Winnie the Pooh books, and Lewis Carroll's playful works. To Science Fiction like Asimov and Clarke, to detective fiction like Edmund Crispin and Dorothy Sayers. We had magazines like the Scientific American and New Scientist. The latter had an article on the Oriental board game Go once, and my father got us playing that. I'm still playing Go forty plus years later. We had some great caravan holidays - ranging from being stuck in muddy fields on Mull to nearly floating down the river at Freshwater East. These were still early days for caravaning, we camped in rough fields at times. caravan turning over once. We also voyaged to Switzerland and America and Italy and Yugoslavia. For these holidays he would marvellous scrapbooks of pictures and tickets and descriptions. My tribute to those scrapbooks is this website.

We're just back from a visit to Aysgarth in North Yorkshire. A lovely area, pastoral and peaceful. Dry stone walls divided up the snow streaked hills. Sheep grazed the hills. Villages retained their age-old character. The Aysgarth falls could be heard from the well appointed Robin Hill holiday bungalow we were in, we walked from the bungalow and saw three sets of falls. A great area for walkers not that we count as such. We dined twice at the Aysgarth Falls Hotel which had a peculiar backwards clock, and books around the walls. The weather wasn't brilliant - it rained quite a bit, we had to riskily drive through a flooded road to get home. The Satnav wasn't that trustworthy, it wasn't sure where the bungalow was, and it took us down a one-track country lane which was blocked when we tried to see Fountains Abbey. Very stressful reversing back to where we could turn around. The weather smiled for once as we gave up, and instead saw the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, which were impressive hinting of when it was a major monastery. Also worth seeing was the Wensleydale Creamery, not just for its Wallace and Gromit connection. Cheese seemed to be an ingredient of all the dishes in the restaurant! The cheese production seemed to be a factory process, but they produce a lot of cheese. We had a good visit to the White Scar Cave, seeing the Ribblehead Viaduct en route. The safety helmets were a must in the cave, particularly for the two low sections. The cave was wetter than others I've been in, a lot of the path was over a stream, there was a noisy waterfall, water was running over the rocks beside the path. The Sword of Damocles stalactite was held up by string and glue as someone deliberately broke it on the first day of public access! We also appreciated a visit to the Richmond Georgian Theatre, a bit of panicky rush getting there as parking was more than difficult in Richmond. The tour was enlightening about the revolting habits of theatregoers in that era. A view into the past. We also saw the Dales Countryside Museum, a lot of detail about the history there. I was tempted and fell into the sin of buying a teapot at Ceramic Inspirations in Leyburn, and we also got a few chocolates at the Inspired Chocolate place next door. We did see a couple of castles - Bolton Castle and Middleham Castle. The ruins weren't inspiring for us on our visit, though the muddy conditions and bird droppings didn't help. There was some drama before we set off. We did our best but Amelia seized an opening and hid in the spare room bed. Virginia used the hoover to force her out leading to a traumatised cat which took refuge inside a cat tree! We had to tilt the cat tree over to capture Amelia. My packing wasn't perfect either - this time I forgot leads to recharge my razor and a new vest! Lists to take are similar to software testing. You build up software tests based on what you think need testing, as well as problems found. So I've expanded my to take lists based on what I've forgotten.

The world cried today and we cried with it. Our eldest cat Tabitha was put to sleep this lunchtime. Tabitha was 5 years old when we got her on the 29th of April 2006. We never learnt when exactly she was born so we made the 29th of April the official birthday for our quean. And royalty she was - a blue-eyed rare chocolate colour point Ragdoll. Tabitha looked down on our second cat Amelia as a naughty little schoolgirl one cattery owner said. In her first five years Tabitha was named Fleur, she had kittens, was said to be a good mother. She also suffered being exhibited in cat shows, and won prizes. The reason her then owner Clare reluctantly rehomed her was that she was in a multi-cat household and didn't get along with the other cats - Tabitha was hiding in kitchen cupboards. The Ragdoll rehoming group approved of Virginia's and my home as a nice quiet home which would suit Tabitha. So one Saturday at Corley Service Station north of Coventry Clare handed Tabitha over to us, and we brought her home. (How did we come to be looking for a cat? I grew up with a dog so naturally preferred cats. I had lap sat Josie, a cat belonging to our good friends Alex and Howie, and a pleasant experience it was too. Virginia decided a cat would be a great birthday present for my 50th, and indeed Tabitha was the best birthday present I've ever had.) We set down the carrying basket in the kitchen. Opened it. And Fleur renamed Tabitha got out. She wandered around like a prisoner at Colditz checking out the escape routes. Then vanished under the kitchen cupboards for two days. On the Sunday we had Alex and Howie round for lunch and there wasn't a cat to show them. True food had disappeared. The litter trays needed cleaning. But Tabitha had done a Cheshire Cat. Happily on the Monday she did emerge. Virginia heard some mewling, thought it was outside, but it turned out to be Tabitha at her feet. Tabitha slowly gained confidence in us, but remained a timid and vocal feline. In readiness for her arrival Virginia got a number of toys but none were very attractive, indeed the Crinkle Play Tunnel Cat Toy she found frightening. In the early years she was quite happy playing with ping pong balls up and down the stairs. We did try other toys over the years, one particular failure was the 'Thing in a Bag', a brown bag with a motor in it which scared poor Tabitha. (Thunder and lightning and fireworks would see her cowering underneath the lounge couch.) The most successful toy was Da Bird. Cat beds too she didn't buy into. The treats in the 2006 cat advent calendar were not a success. Tabitha was so vocal we worried for her vocal cords. Besides the plaintive miaows which tugged at our hearts she also had a very odd deep growling noise. And even ground her teeth at times when she was happy. In June 2006 Virginia's father helped us by putting up an enclosure so Tabitha could go outside yet we didn't have to worry about her jumping over fences when we weren't with her. She liked drinking wild water and often went out for it. She would ask to go out when it's raining, turn back when the door was opened, then ask again one minute later. One evening Tabitha startled me by leaping onto the bed as if by magic. From that time she slept on the bed, head-butting to get more than her fair share of pillows. She would join us when we played Scrabble in the main bedroom - I hurt her sensitive spirit when I laughed at her one time when she sat in the lid of the Scrabble box. Playing Scrabble with Amelia and Tabitha around was chancy as they would walk across the board, Amelia even one time deliberately kicked the tiles with her back feet. In February 2007 we got Amelia as a kitten to be company for Tabitha. This was perhaps a mistake as Tabitha wasn't maternal to Amelia. She hissed at the intruder. They mostly tolerated each other, Tabitha being cautious of Amelia except when there was food going - Tabitha was an aggressive scrounger. She especially liked fish and prawns, she would wolf prawns down. In 2009 we were on a cruise when we learnt that Tabitha had an impaired liver function. Thanks to Internet and phone access we were able to be involved even on the cruise. From December 2009 Tabitha was on tablets every day to keep her going. Tablet giving was difficult - she would refuse them mixed into other food or ground up - Virginia became adept at using a pill popper. We had a nightly ritual called "TTT" (Tabitha Tablet Time) where Tabitha would be placed on the bed, and Amelia would impatiently wait for her share of the bribe. The bribe for ages was Thrive which was very popular, the only way to get Amelia down from the cat tree in the enclosure. Tabitha loved lying in the sun in the back garden. She was no threat to the local wildlife unlike Amelia. She would stay outside for hours. She was a great companion always ready for a lap sit - we could shout upstairs for a lap sitter when watching TV and she would come thump thump as she descended the stairs two feet at a time. She liked being brushed even on the underside. She was always there to give and receive affection. The cats were family and we celebrated their birthdays with trips to the like of the "Hotel Felix" or "Phoenix" in Histon (admittedly without the cat). Tabitha was inclined to be a sickie cat, unlike Amelia we did get plenty of warning when Tabitha was going to be sick. We did end up with plastic sheeting on the furniture for protection. Occasional baths were required and no cats like those. As time went on she had more problems. Athritis hindered her getting around. We got steps for her to get onto the bed, eventually she was reduced to curling up in cat beds on the floor. Cataracts dulled her beautiful blue eyes. We had to make her sleep downstairs in 2018 due to various problems. She started losing weight, not eating very much, breathing irregularly, and vet Mardie of Cottenham Village Vets said it was time. Tabitha was part of our lives, of our world, our family. A pet to be petted and cared for and loved, who repaid that love. A faithful familiar who made our lives richer. Now we've had to say goodbye to her and I'm the saddest I've ever been.

"Sword Master" is a 'remake' of a Shaw Bros film "Death Duel", both based on a Gu Long wuxia fantasy novel. At times the film does have the feel of a studio lot bound film. But it is a modern production, with good production values, and sensible fight choreography while still being true to wuxia fiction and its world of wandering master swordsmen, magical swords, clans fighting for supremacy in the Jiang Hu. The themes of redemption, and the futility of a senseless battle to be first, drive this film. I like films where characters grow and change. Those themes also make the film speak beyond its immediate setting of a martial arts subworld in China to be more universal. A well balanced enjoyable martial arts film.

"Noble My Love" is a very standard Korean romance with rich chaebol heir, poor girl, a contract fake marriage, etc. But nicely done and packaged, a great example of the genre.

"Blazing transfer students" is a totally nuts TV series based on a Japanese anime about the Blazing Transfer Students who go to problem schools and sort them out - sort of. Self-referential to absurdity and beyond, aware it is anime and no more, tripping lightly from trope to trope. For lovers of the bizarre and weird.

The film "Gintama" is based on a manga by Sorachi Hideaki it is one crazy and crazily enjoyable experience. The plot has a white-haired ex-samurai (oh yes we're in Edo period Japan after aliens invaded and stopped samurais waving their swords around - the aliens all have animal heads) who gets caught up in a mystery involving a serial killing sword. The film is chock-a-block full of references to Japanese culture, I won't have got half of them but there's allusions to Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, etc. The film also breaks the fourth wall with wild abandon, for instance pointing out that the giant white?duck? Elizabeth is a man in a suit. For me this is a must-see film. Totally silly and non-serious, so bad it's great!

My sister's 60th birthday

Just so we could have a round at Pirates Cove Crazy Golf we've had a long weekend in the Great Yarmouth area. It was a great Crazy Golf course, well laid out, with an edutainment side to it as it had placards recording the history of Blackbeard and Captain Morgan and the like - the moral seemed to be piracy is not a good long-term career choice. The 18 holes were varied, but not too difficult. We would have got round quicker but found ourselves held up by being indirectly behind a slow foursome. Before this on the Saturday we also did Merrivale Model Village which is a model village as the name suggests. We got our hands stamped as we went in, the mark has faded after a day or two. Fun enough for an hour! Saturday evening we managed to eat at "Brewers Fayre" despite the Satnav misleading us. On the Sunday we went to the service at Gorleston Baptist Church, very welcoming and good value for money as the service went on past noon. We were glad we had booked the Harvester for 1pm! So hot I went for fish and chips. In the afternoon we went to Somerleyton Hall which is a stately home still owned by the family which made its wealth making carpets. I do enjoy seeing such places, what is possible if you have the money to do it, but the gulf between me and the class of people who have such homes jars. We didn't attempt the maze, but did attempt the variegated scoops of ice cream available in the cafe. The blue candyfloss ice cream was novel. I've left to last the place we stayed at, Leanda Lodge. For the right people this would be a great place to stay, but for us it didn't work so well. The weather was very hot and it was uncomfortable being inside, stuffy - but we were deterred from being outside as the owners had black Rottweilers with names like Lucifer. One Rottweiler was huge. Even having the windows open was problematic as the owners had two parties while we were there including barbecue so noise and smoke. They had a large parrot prisoner in a cage which we only realised after we heard someone saying bye bye but not a visible someone. Other oddities included light switches hidden behind fridges, a gravel driveway our wheels spun on, and taps needing to be unwound several times to come on. But some visitors loved Leanda Lodge.

The Boot is one of the pubs in Histon which has been nicely converted into a brasserie. There is a reasonably priced lunchtime menu during the week which changes each month, we haven't tried going any other time yet. The interior is harmonious, new with glass walls yet old with clean wooden beams. The food and service are good, I had to have a souffle off the a la carte menu one time and it was great. The portions are not plate filling, but not artistically small either.

We do a cruise round the British Isles taking in Skye to see dear friends, prehistoric sites on the Orkneys, and the beautiful Tresco in the Scilly Isles. Oh and Monet's garden in France for good measure.

"Thimbleweed Park" is a Kickstarted retro Adventure game created by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. It is retro in its look (pixelated and limited colour palette), and also game interface (you choose verbs at the bottom to interact with the game). It is also retro in being a traditional point and click Adventure, of the kind no longer made. In keeping with the times it does have a casual mode, and Steam achievements. And it also a good built-in hint system which I confess I made use of. It is very self-referential, and fourth wall breaking in keeping with the genre. And funny. I enjoyed playing Thimbleweed Park. The puzzles were fair (in hindsight), and varied. You play as different characters which adds to the variety. A delicious nostalgic trip.

"Torment: Tides of Numenera" is a turn-based RPG set in a far far distant future. You're the last castoff of the Changing God, magical devices from previous civilisations known as "numenera" make the impossible possible, but you are being hunted by an implacable force called the Shadow. A very imaginative game in a very imaginative setting. Beautifully balanced gameplay so even less able players like me can get to the satisfying poignant ending. Most situations have multiple solutions, and the game is very forgiving. A rich spectrum of characters to be encountered, and realms to travel to. This is described as a descendant of the classic "Planescape: Torment". There is a philosophical streak to this game, the writers have tried to make a narrative you can think deeply about. For me some of the elements like the Tides didn't come that well together, your mileage may vary. Tremendous game.

I used up one of the days of holiday I had to use before the end of the year and we went to Audley End. It was late in the season for the gardens, but there was still colour in the parterre, nature forced into unnatural lines and arcs. A fountain fitfully and thinly spouted. The house is impressive, some stunning rooms. A pea green bare room where once they could dine and admire sunsets over the landscaped vista. This room like others had fake doors, here added for the sake of symmetry. Another room with red soporific silk wall hangings. Rooms full of stuffed animals, a raptor forever clasping a rabbit in its talons. A marquetry topped table with a complex diagram telling of all the kinds of wood used in it. A nursery the only room photographs were allowed. A gallery of coal. We went on the pantry tour which told of Mr Lincoln, a butler to the landed gentry here. Round the pantry was a display of the silver, including a large tankard with a hundred coins on it. In those days the servants were supposed to be little more than robots, at the call of a bell all the hours of the day, not having a life outside. Mr Lincoln on the census was declared as single yet managed to have a wife and sons. The staff were knowledgeable and friendly. There were plenty of cars in the car park, but it didn't feel crowded out. Happily we avoided a school party who were there too.

So we used up another of the days of holiday I had to use before the end of the year. Let's go to Mountfitchet Castle, that'll be a nice outing I thought. It was when we got there, and discovered the car park full, that we realised half term week was not a great time to go there. The place was heaving with children, both under parental control and under teacher control (there was a large school party there). I remembered the toy museum on the hill - I'm a sucker for places like that. I didn't remember it had so much war memorabilia in it. And I certainly didn't remember the dinosaurs guarding the entrance with water cannon. You had to time your dash for the door to the toy museum carefully or you got soaked with water. Glad dinosaurs are now extinct. We wandered around the reconstruction of a Norman wooden castle site. There is a lot of information there, it does give an impression of those times. Not good times for the villeins and serfs and poachers. The lords really lorded it over everyone else. The cafe was heaving so we had lunch somewhere else, ending up at our nearest Beefeater the "Travellers Rest".

In "49 Days" a naive nice optimistic chaebol heiress ends up in the body of a suicidal woman who's lost hope after losing her beloved. Our heiress has to deal not only with only having 49 days to return to her own body, but also dealing with her fiancee who is actually trying to destroy her and her father's business. Well paced drama which feels like it has an overarching storyline and not just padded out with episodes. The characters evolve and change during the serial. The last episode has some twists in it which may come as a surprise. It has to be said that this drama chooses to have its cake and eat it. As it is light hearted I didn't mind, but for the sake of the drama things happen which feel like the script writers have forced in. Great fun, I'll be rewatching this one. A drama which for me just works.

We went to Warner Bros studio tour to walk again in the footsteps of Harry Potter. Virginia's sister Vicky was over from New Zealand and this was a joint family outing. I made a fool of myself going through security, I keep having to remove metallic items from my pockets! The entrance had changed, you have a long walk past quotes from the books on the hoardings. The exhibits you walk past haven't changed, but it is still well done and worth one visit at least. Our New Zealand visitors enjoyed it. The day had torrential rain - we had a nightmare journey home, crawling through the St Albans area then crawling up the A1.

The Thursford Christmas Spectacular is almost a fixed part of our year, which we observe. The show is pretty much the same each year, I could do without the comedian and his toilet humour. There was a foreign lass juggling stuff while lying on her back for variety. The shops were more crowded this year, and the marquee had pretty much filled up when we got there just after 12pm thanks to a detour the Satnav suggested. It is a long haul there and back, but it is a grand size show.

Children of the Nameless (2018) follows a young girl Tacenda who is the only survivor after a mysterious Lord destroys her village by summoning ghosts. She sets off to the Lord's manor to kill him even though she knows it will mean suicide. But surprises and twists and turns await. A very readable magical tale, a true page turner written by a skilful writer of fantasy fiction. As through the story we explore the setting, we also explore the characters, what makes them tick. Brandon Sanderson wrote this story for Wizards of the Coast, the people behind Magic The Gathering. The story is available for free, and the author wrote it for free (he's a fan of the card game). A real Christmas present!

Virginia's family enjoy a special toffee made from a secret family recipe. Virginia's grandmother on her father's side made it, and Virginia now makes it as a must have treat for the Keel family Christmas. We wouldn't be admitted to the Boxing Day Christmas ritual without having brought it down from Cambridge. (Virginia did discover the secret behind the secret family recipe, that it's not a secret at all. It's actually Everton Toffee from a recipe book by Hilda Elsie Marguerite Patten.)