No longer netless - no longer in Dalkey

First, thanks are due to steepholm for posting the update for me, but even more importantly, for venturing over to a broadband-deprived house.  The problem was indeed a dying and then totally dead modem, but it took a very long time to get it diagnosed and then replaced. 

During the time since that last post, Younger Daughter got her Leaving Cert results (very good) and 5 days later, got the letter with the university offer...   That arrived, as expected, first thing Monday morning, and I was fast asleep and in the middle of a long, complicated dream about a family gathering related to some family history project, and had just asked an older woman with some interest about her time 'inside' - by which she turned out not to mean prison but the boarding school.  Still on automatic pilot I rushed downstairs to get the letter, without considering that if Y.D. had been that anxious to open it the second it arrived, she'd have got up herself.  (No mail arrives unnoticed in our house, given two dogs anxious to save our lives from the Death that stalks by post.) She was still asleep, and it took our combined efforts to understand the letter, but she WAS offered her first choice, despite a slight rise in the already hefty points required, and a sleepy 'Yay!' was heard from her as she collapsed back onto her pillow...

So, that was excellent news, and steepholm also had some good news, which I believe he hasn't shared: he's been invited to be on the Selection Committee choosing the next Children's Laureate.  Exciting, eh?  And Becca has got some really great mentions, reviews, and invitations for submitting stories, so all is good.  (Though I think if you asked Bell what she would like me to include in this round-up of my most important people, she might be less inclined to agree.  Life is pretty much always good for Doug-the-Mad.)

I also finished sartorias's A Stranger to Command, and loved it.  It was great in itself, and fantastic as a thoroughly satisfying prequel to the Crown & Court Duet, which is a combination not always easily achieved.  I'll write about it properly, as soon as I've caught up - or as much as I can, using steepholm's computer when he is working but is not needing the computer, on - gulp - the last two or three weeks of LJ.  Catching up on all blogs as well would probably kill me.  But I'll just add for now that I put aside Cassandra Clare's City of Ashes in order to read A Stranger to Command, without any hesitation. Even though it was when I was about two-thirds of the way in, and, and Jace -- !  And Simon -- !  (Boy, did I not see *that* one coming.) That (City of Ashes) was a sartorias recommendation, come to think of it, so rounding this off by saying that the book following the two just mentioned was King's Shield, makes it obvious that a huge chunk of my recent reading pleasure has come directly and indirectly from her.  I didn't quite manage to finish it (King's Shield this time) before coming to Bristol, and ended up unable to pack ANY book at all, but at least I did get to read it* before it was in print form, so wasn't forced to leave it with everyone shouting 'We who are [maybe] about to die salute you'....

* steepholm, consulted, said it wasn't swank to say that, and I could even quietly hum a little hum and - lalala - mention the acknowledgments page - dum-de-dum.  (I'm totally chuffed about it all, in case it doesn't come through.)