Vanlife, the first week. Day 1 – Saturday

A day by day account of my first week living full time in the van – I thought it was a good idea to try it and see if I could cope while I still had the safety fallback of my rented bungalow in Stretham.

My usual carsharing buddy was about to take two weeks holiday, and the parking space we use is at his work, so that meant having to catch the train from Ely to Cambridge and back at £4.90 each day, twice the cost of the usual drive. What better time for a first attempt at living in the van – I can park in Cambridge and walk to work. No traffic jams, no fuel costs. Lovely – hopefully… Continue reading “Vanlife, the first week. Day 1 – Saturday”

So, I bought a van…

I’ve been absent from blogging for some months now, for all sorts of reasons. Principally, none of the shows I regularly blog about were on air since the mediocre end to The Walking Dead’s eighth season, and without the self discipline that comes from writing about a new episode each week, I didn’t have much writing incentive.

I’m also still trying to put my life back together after my traumatic split with Barry, my longtime partner, which also resulted in me having to move out of the house and live on my own for the first time in my life. And I still haven’t come up with much of a plan, but at least it was summer and the weather was lovely (a little too lovely, with some rather oppressive heat) So I didn’t spend much time in the house and became a rather too frequent habitue of the local pub. Continue reading “So, I bought a van…”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 16 – Wrath

“All this is just what was. There’s gotta be something after.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

So finally, FINALLY, that’s a wrap on the All Out War, in a mostly satisfying and thoughtful season finale for The Walking Dead. It’s been two and a half seasons since we first encountered antagonists the Saviors; that’s over two years ago now. Their presence has been, since then, almost a default format for the show, and it’s a format that’s got real tired. Thank heavens the series can finally do something else. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 16 – Wrath”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 15 – Worth

“If they won’t end it, you have to. You have to give them a way out.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It’s the penultimate ep of this season of The Walking Dead, and for the first time in about two years there’s the beginning of some resolution to the plot. That’s not to say this ep has redeemed what went before, or even has the sense of building momentum you’d expect the week before the season finale. But at least there’s some movement. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 15 – Worth”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 14 – Still Gotta Mean Something

“I found myself. Some version of myself, a better self. Still, it always feels like it could just be swept away again. But that doesn’t mean it will, and it doesn’t mean I couldn’t find myself again if it does.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It suddenly occurred to me, watching this episode, that this season of The Walking Dead is nearly at an end – only two more eps to go after this one. I really hadn’t noticed, as the increasingly draggy All Out War plot has shown very little sign of building momentum, just ambling along, mostly uninterestingly, with no apparent end in sight. If it was World War 2, it would be early 1943 – each side has had some significant gains and losses, but palpable victory for either doesn’t seem in sight yet. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 14 – Still Gotta Mean Something”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 13 – Do Not Send Us Astray

“Winning just means we get tomorrow. Maybe one more night. Maybe one more morning. After that – no guarantees.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Negan may have taken a leave of absence from the All Out War in this week’s Walking Dead, but his plan went on regardless in another rather average episode. It’s taken a few weeks, but finally the Savior attack squad has reached the Hilltop (aka The Last Settlement Standing), and Negan’s bio war plan was still on. Only now it’s in the even less compassionate hands of Simon, who rallied his troops with, “our goal is not merely infection, it’s CONCLUSION!” Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 13 – Do Not Send Us Astray”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 12 – The Key

“The dead have brought out our best and worst, and the worst has been outpacing the best lately, but that won’t last forever.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Last week’s The Walking Dead was fairly average filler, while the week before was actually rather good. This week? Well, somewhere in between, really. There was far too much going on for it to be filler, and some of it was genuinely exciting. But I’m not sure I buy some of the more… unexpected plot developments, and overall it still felt overfamiliar. Nothing new to see here. Well… maybe one thing… Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 12 – The Key”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 11 – Dead or Alive or…

“… some kinda shit in between!”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s unexpected blip of a genuinely good episode, this week The Walking Dead was back to “well, that was… ok I guess”. This was courtesy of a script by newcomer Eddie Guzelian that went back to the show’s well-tapped vein of war movies and Westerns, but I have to say the one genre I wasn’t really expecting to see was… comedy road movie? Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 11 – Dead or Alive or…”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 10 – The Lost and the Plunderers

“You set this course, Rick. Who’s next?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well, at the risk of contradicting my recent posts on The Walking Dead’s steady decline, this week’s ep surprised me by being a marked improvement on the deliberately heavy (even excessive) drama of the last. Sure, it was a bit all over the place – an inevitable consequence of the show’s rather overused device of multi-stranded, non-linear narratives. But I was surprised to find that there was some stuff in here that I found (whisper it) good… Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 10 – The Lost and the Plunderers”

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 9 – Honor

“What you did then, how you stopped fighting… it was right. It still is.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Despite my dolorous post of my woes recently, life goes on. Well, in the sense that The Walking Dead has returned to little fanfare and probably less interest. Still, it helps me, in the sense that, in all the current chaos of my life, I want to get back to normal… whatever that is. And writing about the steady decline of this once-great show certainly feels like normal these days. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 9 – Honor”