As I stated a couple of entries ago, I spent some time over the Christmas break updating the Julius Chancer website, and it's now uploaded. At the moment it's largely the same old content, but that will change over the next few weeks.

What about the new Julius Chancer strip? That will launch in February, once I've completed my work for Maschinen-Mensch and I can turn my attention more fully to it. In the meantime, have a look around the site, and do let me know if anything is broken. I have not yet fixed blog comments, and there are coding and css improvements to be made, but there's time for that yet.

As a little blog test I thought I'd indulge in a post about my Minecraft world ...

My house with workshop, barn, farm, bee hives, Nether-portal 'temple', and bridge leading to the village

I'm kind of new to this, buying the game for my children during the lockdown months of 2020 and having a go myself in August of that year. In 2021 I didn't play much at all as I got rather absorbed in the incredible Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but I picked up Minecraft again a little over Christmas.

The village, with a number of new dwellings and 6 or 7 golems on patrol

Really, I've not explored very far from my spawn point at all. I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat, especially with caves! I've built a house with a farm and barn and I've done a lot of strip-mining. It took me a number of weeks to realise there was a village just across the river, beyond a few trees, and when I got there it seemed to be deserted.

My converted-church village residence looking out towards the lighthouse

In fact the few villagers had all got themselves stuck in a cave, so I rescued them and went home. When I returned a little while later there were only two left - so I blocked off the cave and started developing the village. Now it's bustling with master craftsmen, new houses, and a very healthy number of golems, as well as being protected by a wall of thorny sweet berries!

The lighthouse and boathouse - the lighthouse has been the most dangerous thing I've done - I've been killed four times falling from it and once getting trapped on its flame

Eventually I decided I should get a bit braver about exploring, so I've built a boathouse and a lighthouse from which to launch my expeditions. There's also a big ravine near the village, and my 10-year old daughter, who's far braver than I, has promised to hold my hand when I go down it, and pass on some of her top adventuring tips. My 8-year old son has about my level of bravery, but is a walking encyclopaedia of Minecraft lore, so he's good to have close at hand as well.

Wish me luck!

In the workshop with my hard-won diamond-enchanted armour, and relaxing outside my front door