Week 12 of 2026: small tables, big tables

It was really a full and busy week, with work, elections and some family visits, a visit to the barber and, well, all the things below.

Watched

I watched Les Amours Imaginaires, the 2010 Xavier Dolan movie. I actually own this one on DVD, but through the wonder of having neither a tv nor a DVD-player, it’s impossible to do anything with it. When I saw it on NPO Plus – for which my first month was still valid after watching the Great British Bake Off recently – I thought: let’s watch it.

This movie had such an impact on me before, and it was strange to rewatch it. The movie felt very slow, somehow. I guess we got used to every movie being an action film these days. The film did touch me but not in the devastating way like it did when I was 21.

Played

A few weeks ago, I was signed up for a session where I was the only player besides the GM. Since going to Utrecht is a bit of an investment and I didn’t want to get cancelled last minute, I decided to be proactive about it and I dropped out – of course also sending a quick note to the GM to explain why. He said he would’ve ran it anyway, even if I was the only player. By then it was really a bit impossible to make it to Utrecht, but still, this made me think.

This Tuesday it was time for the seventh episode of my Mausritter campaign. Only two people had signed up, but keeping the previously mentioned thought in mind, I decided not to cancel. Turned out one of the players had to rescue a cat and was 36 minutes late. This meant that I had my first little one-on-one session, and it went great. For me personally, that might have even be the best part of the session. So much for the hardest problem of playing RPGs (which is getting people to the table.)

On Wednesday I had a similar experience. I jumped into the train to Utrecht, having just printed a few more character sheets for my little one-off Brindlewood Bay, only to discover that two of my four players had cancelled a few hours before. I was already in the train and the show must go on anyway, and this also turned out to be a very enjoyable session.

But hey, Friday when I tried to start some campaign thing for Dutchness & Dragons – the place where you learn Dutch by playing D&D – and had only one player for that first session... I cancelled it anyway. There are limits.

Still, Saturday I was in Utrecht yet again for Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast for an episode named “The Pancake War”. Most players brought their home-baked pancakes – all styles, including poffertjes – which were delicious. After that, the table got cleared and we played the game (we nearly forgot). It was my first time playing this and I chose Amelie the cleaning robot (they/them) as a safe option and was pretty overwhelmed by the great roleplay of the other six players, but I did enjoy it very much to be a part of this and would like to play again.

All in all, that’s quite the RPG week. I did not play other boardgames.

Ran

We’re coming up to the finish line, but I’ve also just ran a 10km personal best. My legs really weren’t up to it, so I made some runs shorter and moved the Sunday long run to the Monday (today).

• Wednesday: 7.4km through Westerpark, which included a 4km tempo section at 4:11/km.
• Friday: a 9km easy run that I shortened to 5.6km because it just didn’t feel right.
• Monday is today but hey that’s week 13! (it was 13km easy, shortened to 9.2km...)

On top of all the above I also somehow played volleyball twice.