#oneaday Day 467: The joy of CRT gaming

I am really enjoying the MiSTer Multisystem 2. Having one single device connected to my CRT that can play games and software from myriad different wonderful machines is an absolute delight — and I have been confirming for myself with every play session something that I have suspected for quite some time. While playing emulated versions of these games on modern televisions with big, spiky pixels is definitely an enjoyable and valid way to play classic games, there is still something absolutely magical about playing them on a CRT.

Most CRT snobs would, at this point, go on about smeary pixels and something about Dracula's eye in Symphony of the Night only having a single pixel of red actually being a deliberate effect that took CRTs into account to make it look like the eyes were glowing. (To that I say no, pixel artists designed stuff on graph paper or computer monitors and thus were very much not baking smeary pixels into their designs; effects like Dracula's eye just happened to be a nice side effect of the technology of the time. Look at that scene on a good CRT with a nice RGB cable and you can see that it is, indeed, one pixel.)

I'm also not into the thing where people press their camera right up against a CRT and show pixel art being mangled by scanlines. I vividly remember visiting my brother and playing some PS1 games on his big CRT TV, and actually finding that the games looked better when you sat back from a bit, the scanlines were so prominent and ugly when you sat up close. Part of this was probably down to me being used to PAL, which doesn't have as prominent scanlines as NTSC does (and a slightly higher resolution image as a result) but still, I don't get this obsession. We didn't play games with our noses pressed up against the TV glass in the '80s and '90s.

One thing I will absolutely go to bat for in terms of CRT snobbery, though, is smoothness of movement and animation. I am yet to see a modern-day display that can truly do justice to two very specific things: smooth, flawless scrolling, and that "fake transparency" effect a bunch of 16-bit console and arcade games did where they just flicker something opaque on and off roughly 60 times a second and it kind of sort of looks like you can "see through" it.

Of these two things, scrolling is probably the most obvious. Emulation running on modern displays, more often than not, introduces a slight judder to smooth scrolling, particularly horizontally. This is, in most cases, down to a mismatch between the refresh rates of today's TVs and the signals these older systems were pushing out. I don't know the technicalities of it, but CRTs seem better able to handle some "variance" without introducing judder, while modern TVs show it in a more or less pronounced manner depending on the degree of mismatch between the signal and the screen.

The fake transparency thing is less noticeable unless you're specifically looking for it, and I bet there are a bunch of people out there who have never been bothered by it. (If my telling you about it in this post has somehow introduced you to this and you are now bothered by it, I can only apologise.) But next time you're playing an emulated version of, say, a Capcom game (they loved doing this with window backgrounds) or any fighting game that uses this technique to display "transparent" shadows, take a closer look. You'll notice that the flickering isn't even; sometimes you'll see the opaque image more prominently, sometimes it will disappear altogether. This doesn't happen on a CRT; the effect appears as it was intended.

Now, it may well be that because I've just been slumming it with 60Hz modern displays rather than fancy-pants 120Hz or variable refresh rate screens, I've noticed this. I don't actually know if either of those techs improve what I'm describing here. But I will say this: there is a definite, clear difference when you play these games on a CRT. So if you have the opportunity to hook up classic systems to classic TVs — or, indeed, like I am doing, hook up a MiSTer to an analogue display — then I strongly suggest you do it. You won't want to go back!

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 466: In one's own home

As much as we enjoyed our holiday, it is also good to be back among our own things, with our cats, and sleeping in our own bed. Patti seems to have mostly forgiven us now, and I'm not entirely sure Oliver even noticed we were away. He's currently sitting outside in his catio chasing a moth. I don't think the little fella knows what it means to not be happy. It must be nice.

Getting up for work in the morning was, predictably, a bit of an ordeal, and I feel it's going to take a few days of adjustment before I feel well and truly "back" properly. I feel like whatever you do for a job, you'll inevitably come back to stories of things that have gone wrong while you were away, and a checklist of things that are Probably Going To Stress You Out By The End of the Week. Thankfully in this instance I don't think anything Earth-shatteringly awful has happened in my absence, but there were still a few entries on that list, because of course there are.

I have to feel for the folks who work somewhere like Center Parcs. After completing the survey they sent (I might win a free break! I probably won't.) I made the mistake of looking at their TripAdvisor page, and despite the site having an overall 4/5 rating, dear Lord were there a ton of people moaning and complaining. It's easy to see something like that and feel like something is very wrong, but I saw no real evidence of anything that the recent reviews have complained about, aside from part of the pool complex being closed for a couple of days at the start of our break. Mildly disappointing, yes, but the correct response to that — shit has to be maintained at some point! — is just to shrug and go do something else instead. It's not as if the whole pool was closed, and there is a lot to do in that pool complex.

But yeah. I can imagine being a Center Parcs employee, making the mistake of looking at that page and becoming thoroughly demoralised. I feel particularly bad for whatever chump is lumbered with the job of posting the "Thank you for sharing your helpful feedback, we're sorry your stay didn't live up to your expectations" responses, because I know just from doing a bit of social media gubbins for a product that ultimately doesn't really "matter" that people can be mean, and it is considered inappropriate to tell someone who is being mean to a customer service agent to fuck off.

Anyway. I am at least thankful that I have a job where when the end of the day rolls around, I can just switch off and ignore everything. For the most part, anyway; I still have to moderate chats around announcements and whatnot, and occasionally I will get asked to respond to someone kicking off about something or other. But for the most part, I can have a quiet life during non-business hours, and that's exactly how it should be. My "work" area is different from my "play" and "relaxation" area in my house, so once I get out of that chair and leave the work PC behind for the day, that's that — and that's especially important to do if you work from home, because the absolute worst thing that can happen is that your home stops feeling like it's a haven away from your job.

Everyone needs a haven away from their job. And that's what your home is supposed to be for!

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#oneaday Day 465: Home again

We have safely returned home. It is good to see the cats again, both of whom are very pleased to see us, but it is a shame that our holiday is over. (Well, technically Andie has one more day, but she has to spend it taking her mother home, so it's not a day she's going to be able to enjoy to the fullest.) I am back to work tomorrow, and already not really looking forward to logging back in to Microsoft fucking Teams, the most depressing application you can install on any computer. But oh well. It's a living and all that.

I have, as should hopefully be abundantly clear at this point, very much enjoyed my time away. It was some very much needed rest, relaxation and complete disconnection from anything to do with the Internet aside from this here blog and MoeGamer, which I wrote a couple of things on over the course of my time off.

And it was nice! I didn't once find myself habitually reaching for my phone in the hope of checking Bluesky, which I had already removed from the device some days prior to us departing. I didn't even really check the news, RSS feeds, websites or YouTube all that much while I was away, either. It was a blissful reminder that many of us voluntarily (or by necessity) corral ourselves off into insular little pockets of existence on a daily basis, and sometimes it is helpful and healthy to break completely free of all that, remind yourself that the world is a much bigger and nicer place than anything accessible via a URL or an app might lead you to believe, and just take the time to take a bit of pleasure in your own existence, and that of the people you care about.

The main reason I'm not relishing the prospect of going back to work is that it effectively forces me back into that little bubble, though I'm not going to be reactivating my Bluesky account any time soon. It is tempting to do so just to share the things I write and the videos I make, but I know all too well that "just sharing things" all too quickly turns into that detestable dependence on social media in the search for apparent meaning to one's existence, and never finding it there.

There are people I've enjoyed chatting with on Bluesky, for sure. But I'm also thoroughly over the "public town square" model of social media, with everyone vying for attention in the same frustratingly predictable ways. As good as it is that Bluesky has mostly remained resistant to the more obnoxious end of the horrible people that now dominate Twitter, there are still plenty of odious behaviours on display over there, and I'm just so tired of it all. I feel no need to engage with it; no enjoyment from engaging with it. And so I'm just… not going to.

In an ideal world, I'd be able to disconnect completely from social media from a professional perspective, too. I would love to be able to abandon social media responsibilities for the day job because I absolutely fucking hate doing those rounds each week and feel my time could be pretty much infinitely better spent doing literally anything else. That's probably a difficult conversation I'm going to have to raise carefully, though. Something to aim for, at least.

In the meantime, it will be nice to sleep a night in my own bed again, and enjoy the dearly beloved company of my wonderful cats. They were the only thing missing from a truly heavenly week away, so it is good to be back with them.

Now, onwards to life once again.

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#oneaday Day 464: Last full day in the forest

It's our last full day of holiday today. Technically we are still "on holiday" tomorrow, but we have to check out of the accommodation at 10am, so our plan is to get up, have some breakfast, pack, skedaddle out of the lodge and then have a last hurrah in the pool before leaving for proper realsies.

Technically we're apparently allowed to stay on the site until midnight, but I feel that is probably only really of value to those who 1) have booked a full day of activities and 2) have the energy to expend on a full day of activities. We do not fall into either of those categories, so it will be a case of enjoying the pool for one last time, then heading off and chilling out at home for the remainder of the day. That's my plan, anyway; Andie has to take her mother back home (she's been looking after our cats while we've been away) but she also has Tuesday off, whereas I'm back to work on Tuesday.

This time away has done me a lot of good, as I hoped it would. It has allowed me to simply "switch off" from all the things that had been weighing on my mind, relax, recentre myself, focus and reflect on a few things. There are some changes I need to make in my life, both personally and professionally, and having this time away has allowed me to put those things in perspective and feel a bit more determined and positive about that. I hasten to add that these "changes" are nothing that anyone needs to be concerned about; they're pretty much all to do with my own physical and mental wellbeing, both of which, I'm sure you can tell from recent posts, have been kind of in the toilet for a while.

It's important to take breaks. It's really important to take breaks. Ideally, one should take breaks before one starts suffering from intense burnout, which I'd been feeling rather acutely in the run up to this holiday, but at least I was able to actually enjoy the holiday rather than spending the entire time feeling miserable. We've had a thoroughly lovely time, done some things we've never done before — the spa day was thoroughly pleasant, and we'd very much like to do that again — and we're both feeling pretty re-energised for the challenges ahead.

Plus we'd both like to see our cats again. It has been fun to see the squirrels and the deer and the semi-feral cats out of our patio window, but I'm looking forward to having a proper cuddle with Patti and Oliver when we get back, assuming they're not too mad with us for leaving them for so long. They get on very well with Andie's mum, thankfully, so they've been in good hands; even Patti, who typically bolts and hides when strangers show up, doesn't take long to come out of her shell and spend time with Andie's mum any time she comes to stay, so we know they'll have both enjoyed the best care and attention.

So with that in mind, I probably better get to bed. If we're checking out at 10am, we have to get up reasonably early (by the standards of this holiday, and by the standards of our usual "day off lie-ins", anyway) and I would like to be at least semi-conscious while packing my stuff up. And thus, on that note, I bid you all a very good night from the depths of the forest.

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#oneaday Day 463: The exact opposite of clubbing

As a preamble to the following, I will grant you, dear reader, that it has almost certainly been approaching 20 years, if not more, since I went out on an excursion that one might describe as "clubbing". Since that time, I've been to pubs and bars, some of which played music too loud to be conducive to meaningful conversation with one's peers, but I have not had what, in the early 2000s, we might have referred to as "a large one" for a very long time.

That said, I do still remember the experience quite well. Right back to my teenage years, in fact, when we used to sneak into our nearest nightclub, Enigma, when we were underage. This was always a bit of a mission for me in particular, since I lived seven miles away from most of my friends, and Enigma itself was another 12 miles or so away from them. These excursions took planning, and as such, we tended to want to try and make the most of them.

Likewise, at university, we often had nights out at what one might describe as a "club", but they were mostly pokey little hole-in-the-wall places, usually built around one specific theme. The one (and as far as I'm aware, only) "big club" in Southampton was, at the time of our university attendance, known as Ikon and Diva, and it was subsequently rebranded as Oceana before being bulldozed off the face of the planet a few years back. It was, like Enigma, a bit of an Event any time we decided to go there, because it involved getting right into the city centre, while most of us lived a little further out — near the university, oddly enough.

Enigma, Ikon and Diva were all kind of shit, as I recall, but like I say, we used to like to make the most of our time there. I was often too wasted to really remember much of the specifics of what happened at these places (and the tactical approach was usually to get wasted before entering the club so you didn't have to pay its exorbitant bar prices, but not so wasted that the bouncers wouldn't let you in) but I do have vague memories of them being large complexes where people would hang out, drink and dance, and there would be multiple themed rooms. Ikon and Diva was called as such because of its two main rooms: Ikon played popular, modern dance music (typically house and trance, as I recall) while Diva was "the cheese room" where they'd play everything from '70s hits to S Club 7.

The reason I say all this is because our time at the Longleat Forest Aqua Sana spa this evening was almost the exact opposite of the clubbing experience. It's a place you spend an exorbitant amount of money to get into, just like a nightclub, and once you're in there you are free to mill around and move between various different themed rooms. But the aim at Aqua Sana, in contrast to, say, Ikon and Diva, is to get thoroughly relaxed rather than paralytically drunk and, ideally, into the pants of someone you saw for the first time that evening and thought "they're a bit of all right".

This idle thought occurred to me while I was relaxing in the "Forest Cave" room at Aqua Sana. Lying back in the heated, contoured lounger, surrounded by artificial but convincing cave walls, gazing up at the skylight and watching the sun set, I felt thoroughly at peace with the world — something that I don't think I can say with any great confidence that I ever felt while going out clubbing. In fact, as I recall, more often than not I'd get so drunk I'd get a bit maudlin at not having the confidence to ever approach anyone I had seen for the first time that evening and thought "they're a bit of all right" and, in many cases, sneaking off home without telling anyone. My least proud moment in this regard was the time when I successfully escaped from going clubbing during the walk down to the bus stop that would take us into town. Several of us doubled back and played Half-Life using the free phone connections between our rooms instead.

Anyway, all this is an exceedingly long-winded way of saying that Andie and I had a thoroughly agreeable time at the Aqua Sana today. We tried most of the 24 "spa experiences" that were available to us, and both of us determined that we like saunas and steam rooms a lot more than we both thought we did. Turns out neither of us had ever really been to a good sauna or steam room, with our respective experiences mostly consisting of hotel saunas (a shed in the corner of the car park) and steam rooms (a hot cupboard next to the swimming pool) rather than, y'know, somewhere that does it properly.

And man, it sure is nice to just relax. You're not allowed to take your phone in to the spa, thank goodness, so all there is to do is just sit back, relax, perhaps reflect on a few things, maybe even have a nap. There are, in fact, several rooms set aside specifically for napping, and while I think it might be a bit of a waste of your entry fee to go along to a place like Aqua Sana and just nap in one of these rooms, I also wouldn't blame anyone who did.

You have a lot of options in that regard, too. As well as the aforementioned Forest Cave, which is a prime nap spot so long as your bladder isn't susceptible to the sound of trickling water, there was another room downstairs that was just pretty dark and filled with contoured, heated loungers, then in a room beyond that a room with straight-up water beds. There were several other rooms with comfy sofas and beds to use, too; we tried most of them during our visit, and the thought only occurred to us after we'd been there a while that we wondered how many people per year got thrown out for boning. (No-one was, to our knowledge, engaging in such activities while we were there, even though there were plenty of couples, like us, sharing the beds.)

So all in all, it was very nice. And, as a fat, unfit fortysomething, spending £75 for four hours of chilling out in nice-smelling hot rooms and then being provided with beds and other comfy things to nap on sounds infinitely preferable to spending an indeterminate amount of money getting pissed in a darkened room, being unable to have a conversation with anyone without yelling, having to negotiate drunken strangers and having to moderate one's alcohol intake to find the perfect balance between being pleasantly wobbly, maudlin and vomity vomity.

We're already making idle plans to come again next year. This was a good choice. Well done, me.

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#oneaday Day 462: A disconnected day in the forest

Hello! Apologies for the belated entry, but we had no Internet yesterday evening and I didn't much fancy trying to post something on one tenuous bar of "H" signal. We tried rebooting the router and everything, but it was just buggered for some reason — perhaps due to the storm that passed over in the evening. The thunder was so loud we actually thought someone was setting off fireworks; we didn't realise it was actually thunder until we opened the patio doors and heard what it actually was. Apparently the double-glazing is pretty good.

We've had a cat come to visit the lodge a couple of times. At least we think it's the same cat. Andie looked it up this morning and apparently there are a bunch of semi-feral cats living on the site, presumably to help keep rodent populations under control and suchlike. It was a very cute cat (or cats), though, and the fact it came right up to the patio window to stare in at us made us think that it's probably made a bit of a habit of introducing itself to guests in the hopes of getting something tasty. Seems like a pretty cushy job to me.

Today, as I've mentioned a couple of times, it's our session at the Aqua Sana spa. I'm looking forward to this, as the 24 themed "experiences" sound like they'll be thoroughly pleasant. I'm not generally super big on saunas and steam rooms, but that's not all there is — there's also an outdoor pool, which I presume will be nice and warm, and I'm particularly interested to check out things like the forest-themed relaxation room, the "ice cave" and various other areas that look conducive to just lying back and doing absolutely bugger all in, all in the name of relaxation. I shall be sure to report on my experiences later this evening when we get back.

We're enjoying staying a little longer than we usually do here. On previous trips, we've stayed Monday to Friday, which means we basically only get three full days on the site. You can use the facilities all day on Monday and Friday, but without the accommodation for a significant chunk of those days, it's not quite the same. It was very nice to not have to be part of the Friday rush to get off the site; instead, we get to be part of the Monday rush instead. I suspect that might not be so bad, though, because although some people stay for a very short break over a weekend (Friday to Monday) I would guess that most people take the Monday to Friday option.

We haven't done a ton of activities this time around, and that is absolutely fine with me. Last time I came here, I noted how nice it was to just bum around and do "normal" things somewhere other than your own house, and indeed that is the case here, too. I've played through Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore on Switch and am currently playing through Ara Fell, an excellent RPG. I'll have lots to say about both of those on MoeGamer sometime soon. I might even write up Arzette while I'm here, but not right this second. I stopped just before a tough battle in Ara Fell last night, and I'm keen to see it through.

So with that in mind, it's off to battle I go — and later, off to the spa with us, because we're middle-aged, and that's what you do when you're middle-aged. Fine by me, I say. We're having a lovely time.

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#oneaday Day 461: A peaceful day in the forest

We've had a nice, quiet day today. After a lovely cooked breakfast, we thought we'd just spend a leisurely time in the pool today, so that's exactly what we did. The outdoor "Sprudel pool" had been out of action for the last few days and it was up and running again today, so that's where we spent most of our time. For the unfamiliar, the Sprudel pool (which I believe is German or possibly Dutch for "jacuzzi") is just an outdoor pool with pleasantly warm water. It also leads to the Wild Water Rapids slide-type thing, but there's also just plenty of space to enjoy the warm water and that distinctive feeling of being in the water, but outside.

There's also a cold plunge pool ("cold" meaning "anywhere from 10-19 degrees Celsius") that, on a previous visit, I discovered is indeed very cold, but it also makes getting back in to the warm water of the Sprudel pool very pleasant indeed. I didn't fancy it much this time, though, so I just stayed in the warm water in the first place.

My arms are proper knackered though. I think I may have been a bit too ambitious too soon with the gym, so I had today off and I will probably have tomorrow off also. I don't want to do myself a mischief, and I have had a decent amount of exercise today, between some swimming around and a fair bit of walking. Of course, most health benefits were probably undone by the delicious cake we had for our dessert this evening, but we're on holiday. Dieting and all that boring stuff can wait until we get home. And the relaxation while I'm away is actually getting me feeling fairly determined about all that stuff, so I will be diving back into weight loss with renewed… I'm not sure if enthusiasm is the word, but at least determination will suffice.

Tomorrow our plan is to go and have brunch at The Pancake House, which is a self-explanatory restaurant, and then we'll likely head back to the pool for a bit. We have a session booked at the "Aqua Sana" spa on Saturday, as I noted yesterday, and I'm looking forward to that. We're not having any expensive treatments or anything like that; we're just paying up for one of the 4-hour "Spa Experience" sessions, where they just let you loose in their 24 themed rooms to chill out, relax and enjoy yourself — and they feed you, too. It's £150 for the two of us for those four hours, so it's not a cheap day out, but since this holiday is basically a celebration of our tenth wedding anniversary (and we had some generous monetary gifts in that regard) we figured we might as well splurge on something that we might not otherwise have the chance or the inclination to partake in.

Anyway, I'm a cola cider and half a big bottle of Hooch deep so I think it's time for bed. I'm not pissed or anything, but I am feeling pleasantly relaxed. Here's to another lovely day tomorrow, and onwards to further fun and frolics in the forest.

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#oneaday Day 460: A rainy day in the forest

It has rained most of today. I'm not complaining; it's been nice for the heat that we've been enduring for the past few months to break, and I've always been rather fond of the look and feel of a forest during the rain, particularly if you have a decent amount of shelter and/or the appropriate clothing to protect you — both of which we have, because we are English, and we are always prepared for torrential downpours, even in the height of summer.

It's been a relatively unremarkable day today, and that's just fine with me. I went down to the gym earlier and did a bit of stuff there, then caught the "land train" back to near our accommodation. The term "land train" always seems a bit redundant; most trains go on land. What they really mean here is "road train", given that it's a train that goes on roads rather than rails. Regardless of what they call it, though, it's a nice way of getting around the forest, and means you don't have to walk everywhere. This is good, because the site here is pretty large, and the topography varies quite wildly in one particular area, so it's nice to be able to jump on something that means you don't have to stagger up steep hills after, say, doing a workout that your body really isn't used to.

We spent much of the rest of the day in the lodge. I played Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, which I've had on my shelf for a while, and seemed like a nice holiday game. I reckon I could have probably polished the whole thing off in an afternoon, but I've called it a day for now, so there's a bit left to play tomorrow.

I haven't taken many photos as yet — while I love the forest surroundings, I tend to find that one shot of a bunch of trees tends to look like every other shot of a bunch of trees if you take too many, but if you're curious, here's a few little photos for you to enjoy:

This is a photo of a bunch of trees, as taken from the aforementioned "land train". While there is a lot of accommodation here, it's integrated very nicely into the forest, so there's usually at least one direction you can look in and see nothing but trees. Very nice indeed.

Here's where we're staying. It's an "Executive Lodge", which means it's slightly posher than the one we stayed in last time. That means it's a bit roomier, it has two toilets (one for pooing!) and a bubbly jacuzzi "hydrobath" in the bathroom. This is a noisy thing that… well, it makes your bath bubble like you're perpetually farting in it, but it's nice and relaxing for brief periods, particularly when combined with something relaxing in the water like a bath bomb. Andie and I have a tradition of stopping by Lush before a trip to Center Parcs and grabbing a few bath bombs to enjoy while we're here — I have indeed been doing just that for the past couple of days.

Here's a mildly artful shot by Andie showing a regular visitor to our patio (we absolutely, definitely haven't encouraged this with the judicious application of walnuts) framed by an empty glass and some Peperami ketchup bottles. (The Firestick one is really good!) According to Andie, the squirrel's name is Susan, though we don't actually know what its gender is, because we don't know how to tell that in squirrels. The Sword in the Stone led me to believe that lady squirrels had long eyelashes and sobbed over their loved ones, but I have seen no evidence of this.

Oh! And yes, I watched The Black Cauldron last night. As expected, it deviated significantly from the plots of the first two Chronicles of Prydain books, but it stood quite nicely as a story in its own right, so long as you don't get too sniffy about certain details of it. In the books, for example, Taran is completely unable to wield the magic sword Dyrnwyn, but in the movie he unleashes its full power with no difficulty whatsoever. Also, the one who sacrifices themselves to finally destroy the Cauldron once and for all at the end is completely different between the book and film, too, largely because the movie is a strange hodgepodge of influences from those first two books, discarding significant amounts of both in favour of making one nicely standalone movie.

In a way, I think this is probably for the best. We've all seen what happens when one story gets stretched out over multiple movies — be it whatever the fuck the Marvel cinematic universe is doing these days, or even the numerous Peter Jackson Tolkien adaptations. You can go a bit far in that regard; Disney's approach of acknowledging that books and animated movies are very different forms of media and thus have different requirements to tell their stories seemed to work well.

Anyway, we're hoping to get up at a reasonable hour and go for a swim tomorrow. We've also booked a session at the ultra-posh "Aqua Sana" spa for Saturday, so that will be a particularly luxurious opportunity to rest, relax and enjoy ourselves. In between, I'm sure we'll occupy ourselves appropriately. With that in mind, it's probably a good time to head bedwards for me!

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#oneaday Day 459: First full day away

After that curious no-man's land that is the first day of one's holiday yesterday — the period where you spend most of your time travelling and getting settled — today was our first full day of rest and relaxation. And it's been thoroughly pleasant. We haven't done very much, but I have certainly enjoyed what we have done so far — and the day isn't over yet.

I promised myself before we went away that I would try and be at least a little bit active while we were away. I am really feeling every one of my years and every one of my stones right now, so I made a little commitment to myself: I would buy the £15 gym pass for while we were here, and I'd go and do a little something each day. I also (correctly) determined that the walk to and from the complex where the gym is would almost certainly be adequate cardio, so that would leave me free to focus on some strength training, which is probably what I really need at this point.

As it turned out, the signposts pointing to the "sports plaza" where the gym is told me a little white lie: while the Center Parcs app suggested a walking route that was less than a mile, the way the signposts took me actually ended up being a whole lot longer. Not a terrible thing from a health perspective, but a slight shock to the system when I was expecting something a little shorter. In total I reckon it was probably about a mile and a half rather than the 0.7 miles I was expecting — I know for "fit" folks that probably doesn't sound like very much, but believe me when I say my body is in a right old state.

The gym here is tiny, but it was also completely deserted when I went there, which was absolutely fine by me, as it meant I could take my time over the exercises I wanted to do, and wouldn't have to feel self-conscious about anything other than the full-length mirror that allowed me to gaze upon my disgusting carcass in its entirety while doing exercises. Oh well. The very fact I was in the gym should make me feel a little better about things, as at least I'm taking some steps — and my thinking is that if I can smash through that initial "wall" of resistance to exercise while I'm here and have no other stressors or distractions to worry about, I will hopefully be able to maintain some better habits when we get back home, too.

Thus far it has just been nice to be away. No notifications from Microsoft Teams, no social media garbage, no Discord, no people PMing me for customer service issues. I needed this escape, and I feel like I need to make a few changes at work when I get back. Those are things to consider on my return, though. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy this pleasant forest retreat, the lovely surroundings, the wildlife that occasionally comes to visit, the swimming pool, the private bubbly bath we have and, of course, the good food. All of life's worries can wait until after I get back.

After all, that's what a holiday is supposed to be about, right?

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#oneaday Day 458: A salute to Maru

It's a shame to start my holiday by responding to some bad news, but I couldn't let the passing of such a beloved figure pass without acknowledgement.

I am, of course, referring to the very sad departure of Maru, the Scottish Fold cat who has been a YouTube star since 2008, making him one of the original sources of "cat videos", that ever-reliable activity of those who can't think of anything better to do on the Internet. His owner announced the sad news yesterday, and I have to confess, it made me very sad indeed.

I know first-hand how hard it is to lose a pet. It is like losing a family member. Hell, it is losing a family member. It may be a family member who cannot speak in the same way as we can, it may be a family member who doesn't go out and get a job in the same way we can (although I bet in his own way Maru "earned his keep" in monetary terms!) but it doesn't make them any less important or meaningful to our existences.

Maru's passing is so sad because he was not only clearly a truly beloved pet for his owner, he was effectively a pet of the entire Internet. While I feel the number of people who know who you are referring to when you say "Maru" these days has declined somewhat compared to, say, ten years ago, he has still, without a doubt, touched hundreds of thousands of lives, possibly even millions. In some cases, he may have touched people's lives without them knowing who he was, but the joy he would have brought them in that brief encounter is something truly remarkable.

Maru was a cat with personality. He had a distinct attitude about him, and he clearly behaved in ways that he enjoyed. Granted, I suspect his owner would have "encouraged" him to engage in behaviours that made good videos, but I suspect those behaviours initially emerged completely organically. Our own cats both do silly and hilarious things, completely unprompted by us, so I have little to no doubt that one day, Maru would have just spontaneously leapt into a cardboard box, or belly-slid his way into a beer bottle multipack casing.

He also loved to fit himself into things that were not cat-shaped, such as boxes that were too small for him, and even glass bowls. Again, I suspect this is something that almost certainly happened naturally one day, and then he may well have been "encouraged" to do this a little more often for the sake of some videos. But I certainly don't begrudge Maru's owner — still mysterious and perpetually off-screen to this day, without even their gender being widespread knowledge — any of the fame their beloved cat attained during his long and very clearly happy lifetime.

Maru enjoyed 18 joyful years on this planet, and during this time he must have been one of the most loved pets in the entire world. Because, like I say, not only did he have the love of his owner — who clearly adored him — but he also had the love of pretty much the entire world, too. There aren't many individuals in this world who can truly say that; there aren't many people who can truly claim to be universally beloved, regardless of nationality, language, background, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or any of the other things you might care to mention that act as ways of dividing ourselves from one another.

Maru was a universal. Maru felt like he would be a constant. Sadly, he has gone to a better place now, but I suspect he will continue to be remembered and loved for many years to come. We love you, Maru, and I hope that one day we will have the chance to see you again.

I'll leave you with the tearjerking words of his owner, posted today, and I'm sure we all join them in saluting our dear, departed, beloved cat and the wonderful life he head.

"I'm lonely, so be sure to be born again soon!" I said to him insistently, but he is by nature a laid-back cat, and I wonder if he is relaxing in the sky now. But he loves to surprise us, so I'll wait patiently, hoping for a surprise from him.

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