I never did get around to The Witcher 1, or The Witcher 3 for that matter.

However, I am still alive, which isn’t something that would’ve been apparent to those that during the last THREE AND A HALF YEARS will have wandered through here by mistake.

So, yeah, a quick catch-up: We moved back to Salisbury in July 2016 and Little Miss Shoe #2 arrived pretty soon after. However, we found ourselves moving again a year later, when, after being made redundant (after maternity leave, go figure), Mrs. Shoe found herself in the employ of Wargaming in Paris (yes, the World of Tanks people). That was two years ago, and now, close to 700 pain aux raisins later, we’re still here! Possibly not for much longer, but I’ll save that for another day (in another decade).

As for myself, I stopped chasing freelance work a year or so ago. Being wedded to a computer monitor all day seemed a lonely existence at the best of times, but even more so when you’re in a country where you don’t know anyone or understand much of what they’re saying. Figuring out taxes and whatever an MOT is in France kinda took over for a long while. So, I eventually went out to find what these job things were all about, ending up as a content manager for a game called Conqueror’s Blade.

Despite being a freelance position that requires me to be wedded to a computer monitor all day, it’s also different to what I’ve been used to, both in terms of being closer to the development side of things, and having a team of people in various countries banging away at me all day in Skype. It helps of course that Conqueror’s Blade is an enjoyable and distinct little game, which makes it easy to get behind.

So, basically, things are pretty good. The Little Miss Shoes (soon to be 3 and 6) are proper little French girls now, the missus is busy creating tank videos and I’m writing about medieval warfare while snarfing baguettes and pastry all day long.

Sadly, there’s not much room for witching (or to swing a cat in these tiny Parisian flats), but who knows what the next three and a half years has in store. Hopefully, I’ll be reporting in again long before then.