Weekly Wrap-up

🚘 Nor'East of Scotland Cat Club and RRS Discovery

This weekend I tried something new - a cat show!

The Nor'East of Scotland Cat Club held their annual championship show at Dundee's Caird Hall this Saturday, and I went along to see what a cat show is all about - think Crufts, but without the agility trials. The cats are judged in the morning, so the hall was open to the public from lunchtime. There were stalls selling catnip toys, scratching posts, cat pictures for your walls and, of all unrelated things, preserves and chutneys.

A convenient sign showed us the way to the cats...

The cats are left in their pens, and the crowd works its way around each grouping of breeds. The final prize-giving must have been later in the day, as I didn't see any prize rosettes. If you aren't into cats then I wouldn't recommend, but if you have an appreciation for a cute looking cat and the different breeds then it's good fun for an hour or so.

In the afternoon I visited the Discovery museum, where the RRS Discovery is docked. The Discovery was commissioned in Dundee to carry out a major Antarctic research expedition in 1901, taking Scott and Shackleton on their first Antarctic journey. The museum was really interesting, if quite wordy, and your visit ends with a look around the actual ship itself, which pulls the whole story together.

🍴 The Pancake Place, Dundee

Deciding against having a proper, savoury lunch, The Pancake Place in Dundee city centre turned out to be a winner, as long as you aren't expecting anything too fancy.

📺 American Gods, Amazon Prime

I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods last year and really enjoyed it. The concept of old Gods hanging around in modern day America, brought over by immigrants in the past and slowly being forgotten, really struck a chord and I was swept along for the ride, even as the story got weirder and weirder. Seeing it played out, live-action, on the TV highlights just how weird a story it is. The series is definitely R-rated - I feel they are aiming for the Game of Thrones audience - and this means it's gritty and realistic and quite in your face. After a bit of a slow start in episode 1, I'm starting to get into the storyline more now by episode 3, and the very polished production helps make it a series to get into if you like gritty fantasy with a strong focus on character rather than a fast-paced plot. 

📚 Assassin's Fate, Robin Hobb

Speaking of character development rather than fast-paced plot, this week I've got my hands on the latest (possibly last?) book in Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series. In total now there are sixteen books over five trilogies/series and I have loved every second of it. After fifteen books the world feels very familiar, and the characters even more so. It's all high fantasy and the book descriptions might not sound too enticing on first look, but it's worth a try to see if you get sucked into the detail Hobb writes. Start with Assassin's Apprentice, or Ship of Magic.