The library

What a strange start to the year it has been. The weather has been grey and dull, with many parts of this small island flooded and without power. I have spent the last five days in a bit of a funk, not sure what to do or where to go or what I want from life just now.

I look at my colour-coded list of things for 2014. Some have been ticked off already. That should be achievement! It feels like nothing. So many things feel like nothing. I wondered this morning if the demons were sneaking in again, dressed up as sadness that Cowboy has gone home, or dressed as bad weather and an overly sugary diet recently.

I'm undecided.

I had a craving for adventure today, and because the weather was shoddy, I decided the best way to satisfy the wanderlust would be to put Skyrim into my Xbox and wile away some hours. I ran up and down a mountain. I killed a dragon, a bear and a troll. I found a dead goat and took its horns to use to decorate my house. Then I went to my second home (where the wife and kids don't live and I can get some peace and quiet), and built myself a library, a trophy room and a greenhouse.

I sent my character to sit in the chair in the library for a moment, so I could see what the room looked like from the reading spot.

The room is a tower attached to the side of the house, and the bookcases line the walls. With the doors closed and my hired magician left in the kitchen to find himself a biscuit, I surveyed my new reading nook. It's a lovely place.

"Well, bother," I thought to myself, triggering my warrior to get up again and do some more running around. "It's not even a real house." Annoyed and needing to vent some frustration, I ran outside and killed another troll.

I've added the library to my "ideal home" list. It could double as my office, it would just need a large, leather-topped desk in there, as well as a very comfortable chair or a small sofa where I could sit and read. Assuming I will ever have time in my life to just sit and read, of course... That's an amusing notion.

While I live at home with my parents, I am discovering a lack of meaningful space. This is not the house where I grew up, they moved here a few years ago, and it is ordered according to their needs. There is no spare chair in a spare room where I might take myself to read, or to earmark as my spot. My dad has generally agreed to share his Man Cave with me - his study and little haven in the house. Still, I am surrounded by things that do not belong to me. Most of my possessions are up in the loft, packed away and waiting to be shipped to my more permanent home, once I have one...

I crave the home of my own. Perhaps that is why Skyrim's adventures today were mostly about shaping a home and not about killing dragons. Next Skyrim quest will be finding books to fill up my library.