Damn actually wrote a reply for this earlier then closed the p[page by mistake, that'll learn me .
@mirage, sorry to hear about the anxiety and exhaustion, those are things I can definitely sympathise with, though glad you've found a medication that works and your feeling better.
I need to give animal acres more of a try, I started the game but wasn't sure where I got to, and unfortunately there's no way to delete my has the developer of eliyo fixed those elemental stat buttons?
Then again I confess absolutely loving trimps at the second, its one of the most adictive games I've played in quite a while, particularly since your level of engagement with it can vary from just setting your trimps up on a submap and letting them run while you do something else, to full on management.
I am still really wanting that full scale sim game where you can look after a settlement, or better still a space colony, indeed I love the idea of developing a colony from literally nothing in the wilderness to a full civilization. nothing has quite hit the point I'd be into, Knight commander is awesome with tasks etc but feels a wee bit aimless, whilst space company is awesome but disappointing. Trimps is a little different of course, being based more on battling and increases than seeing development over time, addictive though it is.
@Simba, my lady would be most jealous of the horse training, she's doing a riding lesson each week which she's loving, but I think she'd absolutely love the idea of owning her horse.
the series with the horse companions is the valdemar series by mercedes lackey. The series features heralds, basically think like Dragon riders of Pern but with huge white horses instead of dragons, (not surprising Anne McCaffery was one of Lackey's mentors).
My lady has read almost the hole series, I've read a couple, the first trilogy, which Lackey wrote back in the eighties getting her feet, and now i'm reading some of the prequals.
the books are light, fluffy and fairly fun, though I do find the constant need to discuss the characters emotions can get a bit heavy, it makes the books feel more like encounter groups than fantasy stories.
My reviews of the first three books Arrows of the queen, Arrows flight and Arrows fall can be found on fantasybookreview.co.uk, and likely the next few will appear soon, when the webmaster gets to post them.
I'm heading off for an acting workshop tonight which should be fun,we're doing some wonderfully bitchy characterisation in a scene from douton abbey, though I confess things have been a bit stressful recently with so many things going wrong, from my lady's visa to my own entanglements with the stupidities of the British bennifit system, to my parents being a wee bit overbearing, still hopefully we're out of the worst of it and things will start picking up.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)