The cold continues pretty persistently, plus we really got hooked on The Witcher, so the only reasonable thing to do was to sit down and binge watch the remaining 4 episodes. Minor difficulty with a power cut due to maintenance work, but we just about managed to stretch our laptop batteries to finish it all off!
The Witcher Review
I love a well thought-out fantasy and sci-fi universe, so I really looked forward to seeing The Witcher, although I wasn’t sure I could convince Aisling to watch it with me, but somehow I did and she really enjoyed it as well.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the Game of Thrones comparison. While I did like the first couple of GoT books, the series never seemed all that interesting. The Witcher shares many of the things that made GoT so successful: solid action, many storylines, plenty of violence, gore and lots of sex. But I feel like the Witcher is a much darker world, with more fantasy elements and a focus on a few main storylines versus the 100 threads that you have to keep track of with GoT, especially in the books. Oh, and the key difference: this one was much more gripping and entertaining. Come at me GoT fans!
Obviously in 8 episodes you don’t really get too deep into this universe, but it provides an entertaining little glimpse and I’m already contemplating reading the whole book series before season 2 drops in 2021. Henry Cavill is great as this gruff (and very buff!), mutant monster-hunter, going on various adventures, getting into trouble. Monsters, witches, princesses, dragons, elves, it has all the fantasy characters you could want. The storyline is a little bit jumbled at times and you don’t always know where you are on the timeline – but I think that’s a tool they’ve been employing to get people more hooked and keep watching. You are at times so perplexed by what just happened that you have to click on the next episode to find out…
While it’s far from the best series out there, it is very entertaining and with only one season out and only 8 episodes, it is not a very big commitment to watch it all. It’s not like most people don’t have a lot of free time to kill these days. But fair warning, if you do trail runs that stretch into the night, the forest becomes a lot scarier after watching the series. That deer running across the trail for a second will seem like some mythical creature that just wants to attack you…
Day 7
Still cold, still snowing and still pretty miserable out there, but after the Witcher binge, we decided to actually clean the house and organize things that we’ve been putting off for days. Folding clothes, putting away tangled cables and most importantly sweeping this old dusty house. We are burning an industrial amount of wood in the stove to keep the place warm, so of course splitting logs is also an essential task.
Training also doesn’t stop, so I went on yet another trail run, this time only 12.5 km (say hi on Strava if you are on there). A bit cold, a bit late in the day and I got my shoes soaked through, but I met the cutest puppy, which really made my day! Social distancing and all that, but I had to say hi to such a friendly local.
Finally, we also want to keep in touch with friends who have suddenly ended up in the far corners of the world, so skype sessions continued during dinner and well into the evening.