This post is fascinating to read: http://thefourthvine.livejournal.com/111170.html

The stuff in the comments is even better. I warn you, there are spoilers in the comments for every TV series, film and book published in the last 100 years. Not kidding.

Although they are being remarkably disciplined with Torchwood, for which I am thankful. A TW marathon shall be scheduled as soon as I have five hours to mainline it.

Anyway, it got me thinking. Which are the major fannish events that I've been there for and which ones do I wish I'd been there for? Or even wish that there had been a fandom for so that reaction could be seen?

Reading through those comments, I've actually been there for a lot of them. I'd found The Bronze (the official Buffy posting board) just before Innocence aired so I was there for the explosion and it was epic. Becoming was awesome and the summer after that had some of the most interesting speculation and biggest output of creativity that I've seen.

The Harry Potter book releases have been huge. Book 7 was like a worldwide event and I had so much fun in the run-up and reading the thousands of articles and comments on it after I'd finished mainlining it in a day and a half. I put it down long enough to watch the Tour de France stages that weekend and that was pretty much it. Then the joy continued for weeks as people read it and discussed it and made me think about it in entirely new ways.

The week between Stolen Earth and Journey's End was the biggest, most amazing week I've seen in Doctor Who fandom. Everyone was so buzzed, so filled with ideas and speculation. We all expected to have our hearts broken because we'd fallen hard for Donna, but we still didn't know how it would go. Would Donna be revealed as a Time Lord? We knew that the Tennant was leaving, but was this going to be our regeneration episode and, if so, who was the new Doctor? I remember posting at the time about how much I was loving that week and I still feel that way about it.

I think the great thing about those events is the way that the community suddenly comes together for a while. Whether it's to speculate madly, celebrate insanely, mourn (OMG, Sirius! Dumbledore! DONNNA!) or organise write-ins to save beloved shows or characters, the life and energy for those times is an amazing thing to be a part of.

Can you imagine what fandom would have done with *that* scene in Fangorn Forest if Two Towers had been released now? Or the reaction to Blake's death in MASH? (That gets me hard even though I wasn't even born when it was made) Or how insane fandom would have gone for "Luke, I'm your father"? And as for Wrath of Khan...

Fandom drives me insane sometimes, but then I remember that stuff and remember why I'm still here.

Best Friend in America arrived on Thursday and we had a fabulous visit. I was sad to see her go yesterday :-( Flights between our cities are so insanely expensive that we're making plans to meet up somewhere in between (maybe Toronto or New York) next year. The cost of flights plus hotel room will actually work out less than the cost of a flight between our cities. It's insane.

Anyway.

On Friday, I managed to work through lunch and get out of work early so I hightailed it home to pick up BFIA. She'd spent the day reading, playing with Kate and Annie and going for a short walk. Apparently I live in a really lovely place :-) The weather was gorgeous, warm and sunny, so we went down to the beach and spent lots of time paddling in the ocean and walking along the beach. I really must remember to do that when the weather is good :-) Then it was off for yummy sea food for supper followed by a cup of tea with my aunt, who was eager to finally meet the fabled BFIA!

On Saturday we set out for a drive down the coast, planning to visit Lunenburg and Mahone Bay. Incredibly, I didn't get lost! There was a craft fair at Lunenburg so we ended up with rather a lot of fudge and jam :-) We ate sandwiches on the waterfront and watched the sailing ships. Then we hopped into the car and drove back to Mahone Bay where we had tea (and amazing chocolate shortcake) at the Biscuit Eater Cafe and I got to pop into Have A Yarn. I emerged with some 2.5mm Addi circs, some 4ply alpaca to make something for a friend's baby and a skein of Tanis sock yarn in a gorgeous shade of blue - score! The drive back to the city was smooth and easy, despite the Paul McCartney concert, and after a bit of time to read and relax at home we went out for a sushi supper.

BFIA's main comment was "OMG, it's so fresh!" She adores shrimp and my sushi place does amazing shrimp tempura. I've never tried shrimp tempura rolls before (although I don't know why!) and I may have discovered a new favourite :-) We skipped dessert at the restaurant in favour of the insanely indulgent ice cream that I had at home and, sadly, concluded that BFIA will have to visit me if she ever wants that ice cream again as it's a local store brand. Heh.

Sunday was grey and rainy, so we decided to have a lazy day at home. We did venture out long enough to check out the local touristy gift shops and pick up some Tim Horton's (she needed to see why TH is so popular here) but mostly we read, watched TV and played with kittens. Supper was pizza and salad, which was just right and it was great to just sit around gossiping.

I took a long lunch yesterday to take her back to the airport. Apparently she's gone home with tales of beaches and amazing food, to persuade her husband that they need to take a trip back here because he'll love it. Yay!

It was great having her to visit and I've finally been able to persuade an old friend that moving here was a great decision. So many of my friends don't really know why I'd wanted to leave England and can't understand that I don't miss it. Of course, BFIA is probably the most likely to understand seeing as she left England years ago and now has a wonderful life in America. Perhaps if I can bring other friends over to visit and show them what my life is like, they'll understand better.

I suspect that the weather probably helped :-) This place in gorgeous, sunny weather is amazing. The days of fog and ick get a bit wearing and it's harder (but not impossible) to get out and enjoy the beach and the scenery. But BFIA pointed out that the ocean is always pretty spectacular whatever the weather, and she's right :-)

I've been thinking a bit about the move this weekend. When I was planning it, everyone kept reminding me that it wouldn't solve all my problems and I shouldn't expect to suddenly be amazingly happy just because I'd moved. So I set my expectations for how the move would affect me pretty low and it's turned out to be a much bigger thing in the end. There weren't any problems that I was running away from when I left, but I did leave behind a crappy job and a country that I didn't feel offered me much. Coming here, I've gained a great job, better prospects for housing and life quality, surroundings that I love and a new group of friends that I love spending time with.

I've got a new life that's quite different from what I had in England and, despite all those dire warnings, overall I'm much happier and more content than I was. So actually it has been the fix that everyone was warning me it wouldn't be - how amazing is that?

The sun is shining and the sky is blue for the first time in over three weeks. And suddenly my funk is gone - I'm feeling cheerful and hopeful even though my back is still quite painful.

Hmm.

I'd never considered myself to have seasonally-affected moods before. Turns out that I do, though. Damn.

In other news, Best Friend in America flies in tonight for a visit! Woo! I am rather ridiculously excited about this. It's so good to have the weather behaving this weekend so that I can show her my new home at its best. Right now, I'm considering having a road trip along the coast on Saturday and mooching around the city on Sunday. If I can arrange it with work, I'm going to leave early tomorrow so that we can go for a walk on the beach and then have supper at my local seafood place.

It's going to be so much fun :-)

The Tour continues to be thoroughly enthralling. Someone yesterday commented that this is the most exciting Tour since, er, 2005 (Lance's last) and that it seems like Armstrong's presence has livened up the peloton a lot. While I don't want to attribute the recent problems in cycling to Armstrong's retirement, I have to admit that this Tour has already had more drama than the previous ones and none of it has been related to drug busts. No, I don't think that it's entirely down to Armstrong being there but I am willing to admit that it's a factor in the level of excitement in this year's race. Cavendish would be the other factor :-)

Problem is, I don't really know how we combat that. All the riders that have got me really excited over the last few years have been arrested at some stage in the race for failing dope controls. On the one hand, the sport is catching the cheats. OTOH, it's been getting hard to continue being thrilled and excited about riders when you're just waiting for them to get busted. I'm really hoping that the new, young riders that are starting to come through will reverse that trend.

In other news, I bound off a sock last night and it actually fits :-) This is particularly exciting because it's the first pair that really do that - fit, I mean.

I've gone down a needle size to 2.25mm, which has produced a denser, firmer fabric. I'm a pretty loose knitter at 2.5mm needles were not working well with the very fine sock yarns that I like. I also re-measured my feet and discovered that I'd been working to the wrong measurements for all these months. Those two factors combined have produced a sock that fits beautifully and feels really great. Yay me! I shall cast on the second one in the pair tonight and probably work on it while I wait at the airport.

My lacy sweater is proceeding well. In fact, it's proceeding much faster than I'd anticipated (all those hours of Tour watching are a help) and, after a week, I'm already most of the way up the back. It's entirely possible that I'll finish it by the end of the month. Weird feeling.

In cat news, I have finally figured out where Annie goes when she disappears in my office. My wireless router sits on a shelf, hidden by the hutches over the desks. Annie has discovered that she can lie on the shelf with her head and front paws pillowed on the lovely, warm router and take a really comfy nap. Silly kiten. I am onto her now!

See? I must be feeling better because I just babbled extensively. Heh.

My father hasn't watched yesterday's stage yet, so I have nobody to express my glee to. Woe.

( Cut for race spoilers )

I love July :-)

It's that time of year again, so most of this weekend has been spent with the Tour de France. Woot! After the disappointment of trying to find decent tennis coverage, it's a relief to find that I get rather excellent Tour coverage complete with my favourite commentators.

In fact, I got rather more coverage than my parents yesterday - the coverage started with the first guy out of the start house while my parents came in with around 40 riders yet to depart. Heh.

( Cut for race spoilers )
I think that the next three weeks are going to be fantastic :-)

I've got a Doctor Who fic that needs beta-ing. It's a Journey's End fix, around 8,500 words. I'd appreciate someone looking for characterisation, plot and general "are there bits that jar or need changing" as well as someone to wrangle my typos.

Is there anyone on my f-list that would be willing to take a look?

Have you wondered what it would be like if Bartlett was the Federation President? And Toby was a Vulcan? And CJ was as awesome as only CJ can be?

I still want to be CJ when I grow up.

Then read This Is What's Next and Mr Kirk of Iowan by chaletian right now, this minute, and I promise you'll enjoy it. The voices are right *there* - particularly CJ - it's totally West Wing yet also totally Star Trek (the rebooted version).

I am working through the TARDIS Big Bang fics. So far, I've loved the Clyde piece to itty bits. Yes, I glomped straight onto the Clyde piece this year. There is very little Donna fic :-( I'm halfway through another and a bit meh about finishing it. The opening paragraphs were filled with awesome and intrigue, but that promise hasn't been fulfilled. Plus there is there are androids, the Master, Daleks and Cybermen and it feels like rather an excess of villains with no purpose. I keep feeling like I should recognise the two 'companion' characters, but there is nothing in the notes about this being a cross-over. They do give off faint Mary Sue whiffs, but that could just be oversensitivity. Lastly, the beta missed more typing errors than I really feel comfortable with for a ficathon like Big Bang.

Hmm, having read through my big list of dissatisfactions, perhaps this is a sign that it's time to give up and move onto the next fic?

In other news, I am in a weird sort of funk right now. I woke up feeling this way on Friday, so I suspect hormones, but it hasn't dissipated as expected over the weekend. Thus I am still feeling odd. This has taken the the form of not being happy (although not having the urge to cry all the time, thank god) quite a lot, wanting to hide under my bed covers and taking random naps every time I sit down for a few minutes. I slept through quite a lot of Wimbledon coverage this weekend while being smothered by kittens. Also I was headachey and nauseous on Saturday, which I assumed was due to the large glass of wine I consumed Friday evening, but continued with added fever yesterday and even I can't have a two-day hangover from one (large) glass of wine.

Today I am just headachey, sleepy and unhappy with ocassional stomach cramps. Perhaps it is lifting? My hip hurts like heck but increasing my anti-inflammatories has finally got my back under control again, so that's progress.

Think I'll sign off and do some actual work. Or read fic until actual work turns up, because I finished what I was working on considerably earlier than expected. Huh.

Plan for today:

Get up (done)
Eat breakfast (done)
Laundry (done)
Nip to the store for things forgotten in proper grocery shopping yesterday (done)
Vacuum (mostly done - kitchen will be done after cooking is done)
Change litter tray (done)
Bake cookies
Eat bacon sandwich for lunch
Go to library and bank
Read Celtic mythology book in preparation for Bambera fic
Read Tour de France guide
Knit sock while watching tennis
Go to Boondocks for yummy scallop supper
Collapse

Right now, I'm taking a short break for a cup of tea before I start the cookies. The reading and tennis watching can be done in any order and depends a lot on how sleepy I feel. I'm going to have tennis on while I do my baking and cooking, anyway, because it's not a Wimbledon weekend without tennis and baking.

Basically, this is going to be a busy morning and a fairly relaxed afternoon, I hope. And I shall be eating scallop dinner tonight, which I adore beyond words. At least I'll hopefully feel like I've accomplished things this weekend as well as having some relaxation time!

I know what I can talk about - writing! Having had my post-Big Bang ennui, I'm now starting to get some ideas for what I want to do next.

The first is for an original thing, possibly a novel. It was inspired by some ideas from gmul, although more an amalgam of a couple of his ideas. I'm living in a coastal city with a large natural harbour. Oddly, this leads to there being a signficant amount of shipping since the first settlers arrived. It's also an area with very tricky tides, hidden rocks and lots of little islands. Plus a great deal of fog. All of this leads to a phenomenally huge number of shipwrecks.

So I'm planning to do some research because there has to be a good story in this somewhere. At the moment I'm thinking along the lines of ghostly adventure of some kind set in modern times, although my opinions change when I've got some research done. As I the original stuff that I write is usually set in fantasy or futuristic worlds, I figure this will be a bit of a departure for me.

Current plan is to research and try to get an outline with character prep done for November and then see whether I can use NanoWriMo to get a decent chunk of the writing done.

I've also got a tentative idea for a fanfic: Bambera meets Faerie. No, not the fairies from Torchwood. And not pretty glowy fairies. The Faerie that I'm thinking of is more like the one in Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age novels, dark and horrible and beautiful and sinister all at once. So far, I've blasted a hole in the M25, given some thought about where 'Battlefield' fits in with the timeline and decided that it will probably feature Ten but I haven't quite decided whether or not it's post-Donna.

For this one I also need to do some research into Faerie mythology, the Wild Hunt, Unseelie, Sidhe and possibly the Tuatha de Danaan. If anyone has any good texts to recommend - collections of stories and meta analysis are equally welcome - that would be awesome. I'm quite excited about this story and it's equal parts excited about the mythology stuf and the chance to write Bambera again :-)

So, I have ideas. None of them are short, quick-fix ideas though...

I have written and not posted three LJ-posts this week. The main problem is that I have nothing to say that I think will be interesting and I haven't actually finished writing The Epic Wedding Story.

I mean, I've been busy. I've been out and about and doing stuff and yet none of it really seems postable.

I've been fannish. I've mainlined S1 and S2 of Primeval over the last three weeks and cannot work out why I didn't try it before. There has also been Robin Hood-ish highs and lows.

Plus my aunt wanted to know whether I wanted to watch Merlin, which she recorded for her son and she thought I might enjoy. Heh :-D

There has been tennis to squee over, although I'm a couple of days behind because TSN's idea of tennis coverage is laughable and other sources take a while.

There has been knitting progress. I finished my pretty pink tunic - photos are forthcoming - and debuted it at knit night yesterday. Also I knitted half a sock and ripped it back after finally realising why my socks keep coming out too big: I measured my foot an inch too big around when I made my first one and have assumed all the issues since were due to tension rather than basic measurements. Still have no idea how I got the measurements so badly wrong.

This week has sucked mightily due to my back and hip, but it's the same story that I've been living with for over three years so why blog it?

So, yeah. Plenty going on but I just haven't felt like any of it is LJ-worthy. Or something.

Watch me wibble and be freaky. Or hormonal. Or just plain exhausted.

The tardis_bigbang fics have gone live and there are a ton of great, novel-length Doctor Who fanfics to read. Yay! I've already spotted a dozen fics that I want to check out immediately and I'll probably work my way through most of them.

My contribution is here: Echoes of Times Lost - It should have been a quick trip home to put in the obligatory appearance at Sylvia's birthday bash, but Donna had learned that nothing about travelling with a Time Lord was ever quick and simple.

Yeah, I couldn't resist the Donna fic :-)

There is a ton of great artwork on the site as well and I am in love with my cover: http://www.tardisbigbang.com/Round2/17-echoes_cover.php

Check out all the stories. If the quality is anything like last year, they'll all be excellent.

Tardis Big Bang

*waves weakly*

I got back Sunday night a little before midnight. Surprisingly, I made it into work yesterday and stayed all day.

Um, today I didn't make it to work. This would be due to the extreme levels of exhaustion that had me nauseous, dazed and generally feeling like crap yesterday night. It hadn't improved this morning, I apparently couldn't walk a straight line and I felt like most of Nova Scotia would appreciate me not being on the road today.

So I called in sick and slept, despite feeling quite guilty about calling in sick just because I'm tired.

Now I'm only slightly nauseous although still rather dazed. I'm hoping that a quiet day on the sofa will rectify this.

The full story of why I'm suffering epic levels of exhaustion from the wedding will be posted in a couple of days. It's going to take a few days to re-construct the events and present them coherently. It was like living through one of those comedy weddings where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and it never seemed to end. Yikes.

*waves weakly and collapses*

I'm packed (pretty much - the bridesmaid dress goes in tomorrow morning) and the cats have gone to my aunt for a holiday. I think that I'm actually ready for my trip.

So for the next few days, I shall be in Denver and then Aspen going to my best friend's huge Christian-Hindu wedding and getting primped and beautified to be a bridesmaid.

What have I let myself in for?

Don't break the Internet while I'm gone.

Zooom!

Every now and again I start to get cocky and seriously consider not moving into an apartment further into the city when my time in this house has to end. I start to thinking about staying in the Passage, in my little community by the sea, because it's beautiful and friendly here. With the right help to manage the big jobs (mowing, ploughing, repairs), I could buy myself a little house and be happy.

Then I try to get a contractor out to help with those big jobs and I realise the futility of this plan.

Right now I'm waiting for a guy to give me a quote for lawn care. He said "later this afternoon". If he shows up at all, he could turn up any time before around 9pm when it will be too dark to see my lawn for the quote. I'd been sort of hoping that later this afternoon would be before 6pm.

Um.

I'd had plans to have a bath and then cook supper, which will be chicken wings and salad. But he's not here yet. I definitely can't do the bath thing until he's been. I'm starving now (skipped lunch without noticing) and I'm contemplating supper, except he'll probably turn up around 5mins before the wings are cooked and I'll either get cold, partially cooked chicken or totally burnt chicken. Yet if I don't start cooking, he'll turn up around 8.50pm and it will be too late to do anything about supper or baths by the time he turns up.

This, of course, all depends on him turning up. So far, the company that originally promised to do this hasn't turned up or returned any of the phone calls and email messages that I've left. It's starting to feel a lot like winter with the multiple plough guys who flaked out on me and the dozens of contractors who wouldn't even contemplate coming out because I live so far (ten minutes' drive) from the city centre.

If I don't have anything sorted out in the next day or two, I'll get the mower out and do it myself. Except there have been two knee dislocations in the last month and I'm reluctant to risk another one when I'm supposed to be doing a gruelling journey following by a huge wedding at the end of the week.

Why is it so hard to find reliable contractors?

ETA: He turned up ten minutes after I started cooking the chicken but he turned up! He quoted a fair price, warned me that the first cut will be more due to the state of the lawn, and wants to bill me at the end of each month. This all gives me a good feeling about his potential reliability. Er, I might have vented unnecessarily above :-) But my track record with contractors turning up and doing the work isn't good so...

And now I can have supper, bath and some time with the Primeval DVDs that I've borrowed from the library. Shut up, I know everyone said I should watch it ages ago. I'm slow on the uptake. Loving Abby already.

My tardis_bigbang fic was just emailed off. 20,788 words of Doctor Who fanfic (you probably can't guess who it's centred around, can you?) have been polished, beta'd and released into the world.

The stories go live on the website at the end of the month, I think, with their lovely artwork. I can't wait to see what other people have written.

Now I need to get the Journey's End fix-it beta'd and three other short things (1 Doctor Who, 2 Star Trek) edited and posted. Er, then I'm searching around for some ideas to write :-)

I fly out to Denver on Thursday so I'm glad to have that off my list of things to do. I'm feeling more organised for the trip than I expected to be at this stage - what's going to go wrong?

The lovely thing about having cats is that they're soothing and lovable. They snuggled up to you and give you sleepy little yawns and every time you walk past them snoozing on the sofa, it makes you smile.

The bad thing is that you don't want to go out into the cold, wet world when you've got kittens curled up warm and sleepy beside you.

I just realised that it's 4th June. Sign-ups closed for femslash09 on June 3rd. Bother.

I knew that I should have done my sign-up on the day (hoping I made decent choices in my rush) rather than looking for a clear two hours to do a properly thought out sign-up.

Remind me not to do that again, 'kay?

At least there will be some lovely femslashy fic to read soon, even if I haven't had the challenge of actually writing any of it for a pairing that I'd never have envisaged on my own!

I shall cheer myself up by going to knit in a sushi restaurant.

I need to get a knitting icon. Really.

OK, the shoulders of the tunic have been shaped and bound off. I've joined one shoulder and knitted on the garter neck border. This involved picking up 112 stitches. I *hate* picking up stitches. It's the only thing I hate more than knitting button holes.

Wanna know what I get to do now? Down each side of the front and back of the tunic, I have to pick up 188 stitches to knit garter stich edging. That's 188 stitches four times. So in total, for this tunic, I'm going to have picked up 864 stitches. I may well hate picking up stitches, but I'm going to be good at it by the end!

To give you an idea of how many stitches that is, each border needs to be squashed to fit onto my 32" circular needles. Yowch.

Thing is that I can't just not to do. The tunic design has vents at the bottom that will look quite terrible without those nice garter borders to neaten up the edging so I'm going to be doing it regardless. My plan right now is to get that all done and the tunic seamed before I leave for Denver. I had been cheerfully planning to take it before remembering that I still need to knit the belt for it and there's no way the belt will be done in time. Not with all that stitch picking up to do. So it's not going with me to Denver. Hopefully it will get debuted soon after, though.

Last night I was putting the yarn away for the blueberry hat and happened across the yarn for my next project. I'd forgotten just how pretty the shade of purple that I got looks - now I can't wait to start that! The good thing is that the only stitch picking up will be around the neck. So perhaps 100-200 stitches, rather than 800+. Although it does have a lace pattern...

In other news, I'm starting to see why Roger Mortimer betrayed the king. He stuck with Edward II even through the worst of the Gaveston affair, but the Despencers are interferring with the government of the realm and removing capable men to replace them with their own cronies. Mortimer had just spent a couple of years wresting Ireland back from the Scots, law and order were being re-established and everyone in Ireland agreed that he was an excellent governer as well as military commander. Removing Mortimer from that position was an utterly stupid move and it was all done because the Despencers were out for vengence against his family. Yes, I can see why he sided with the 90% of barons who revolted against Edward II at that point.

The frustrating thing with the book I'm reading is that, although he's explaining a lot of things really well, he got very vague about the Despencers. I know from other reading that there is the Elder and the Younger - father and son. The Hugh the Younger is Edward's favourite (whatever you want to read into that) and Hugh the Elder is Hugh's father. I honestly cannot remember which of the two it was that married one of the Gloucester heiresses and attempted to buy himself into the Earlship. Problem is that the book doesn't make this clear. For a large part of the last chapter it was "Hugh Despencer" this or that, without making clear that there were two of them. Then there is occasional reference to it being the younger that did something while his father did something else and then we're back to one Hugh. For anyone with no knowledge of time (although why anyone with no prior knowledge would be reading a biography of Roger Mortimer is beyond me, I admit) or only hazy recollections, this is incredibly confusing.

And it's frustrating because in all other areas, the author explains the people and policies so well. Gah!

Anyway, I'm getting a better picture for how loyal Roger Mortimer eventually came to help overthrow the king. As I suspected, it's partially thwarted ambition but largely because Edward II was the worst king in the history of English monarchs. That really says something about him when he has King John for comparison.

Tonight my knit group is going for sushi. I am already very excited and really want my make, nigiri and tempura yummies *drool*

If you like original sci-fi short stories, you should read Missing in Action by the lovely calapine. I rather enjoyed it.

And that is all. Today is a busy busy day :-)

I've finished my lace shawl! Hooray! Bound off last night using a nice, stretchy K2tog bind off that was new to me but worked a treat for this project :-) I need to block it, so that's a nice evening project later this week, but it's done with more than a week to spare and no mad knitting sessions required.

For the interested, I'll take before, during and after shots of the blocking process.

In other news, I'm becoming increasingly bemused by the expences row. Jaquie Smith (sp?) is now stepping down? And the Chancellor is ruined, according to one news source? Seriously?

Um. I am boggling.

Canadian politics is largely boring, but at least we don't have the rest of the world boggling about arguments over comparitively small amounts of fudging the books compared to other countries where politicians make off with millions. Hey, ho.

I am currently reading a biography of Roger Mortimer. Leaving aside the fact that Alison Weir provides the front-cover blurb and is coincidentally mentioned on page three (historians incestuous? Never!) it's very interesting. I suspect that there is a certain amount of bias going on, but so far he's not actually the monster that history paints him. He apparently loves his wife (well, they had 12 surviving children and she travelled with him more than many medieval wives), he's actually a good military commander and so far he's stayed sensibly out of most of the politics and squabbling surrounding Edward II.

I'm interested to see how all of this changed later because so far he's coming across as one of the more decent, sensible people in a terrible, chaotic time. And, um, Edward II still comes across as a total louse and possibly the worst king England has ever had. I'm not sure that anyone can redeem him.