Things I Never Thought I'd Write ...

My good friend Clare, of global Three Beautiful Things fame, celebrated her 30th birthday last week and so in her honour I'm posting my own "Three Things I Never Expected To Write on HeroPress".

1. Rachel & Horror Films. I'm so proud of my wife. Given that she can't watch Heroes and Doctor Who on her own (because they are "too scary" - and, in fact, had to give up watching Blink because it was too much, even with me in the room) she actually suggested that we watch 28 Days Later when it was screened on TV the other night. I think she'd seen a pre-watershed trailer for Danny Boyle's post-apocalypse/zombie flick and been "intrigued". I could have explained that it is basically Day of The Triffids with zombies replacing the flesh-eating plants, but I wanted her to see that for herself.

And she sat through the whole thing, even though we had to watch selected highlights of our wedding DVD afterwards before going to bed, so she didn't have nightmares about drooling, red-eyed cannibals. In fact her only criticism of the film - which is probably one shared by many - was that the ending was rather weak and seemed rushed compared to the build-up through the rest of the movie.

2. Food. Never in a million years would anyone who knows me expect me to write something even vaguely erudite about food on this blog; but the other month Nick introduced me to "red chilli jam" during one of our games' evenings round at Pete's. I subsequently persuaded Rachel to invest in a pot from the Tunbridge Wells Farmers' Market.

This jam is the nectar of the Gods, pure ambrosia and as addictive as crack (I'd imagine!) I pretty much devoured the whole pot in a week in a variety of spreads, sandwich fillers, dips etc and was gutted that I was too ill this Saturday to go to the latest farmers' market and buy several more pots.

3. Sucker For Punishment. When 'Knight City' closed for business back in March, I thought that was pretty much the end of my roleplaying days, and that I would concentrate on other hobbies - such as wargames and collecting action figures - but roleplaying games remain an itch that needs to be scratched.

Even though, for example, I've drastically cut down on the number of gaming podcasts I listen to every month, I still find myself daydreaming about that "perfect roleplaying game" that will conjure up an everlasting campaign. Currently the dream formula is "One part Heroes, one part Doctor Who and one part Melrose Place". The allure of the urban fantasy genre pretty much died with Knight City, so at the moment I'm toying with superheroes (always a favourite) and science-fiction (another old classic).

The idea being that once Rachel and I move I will have a games' room to host semi-regular meetings and everything will get back to how it was when I was 20!