A bit about my Christmas

Christmas day spent at my mums, but apart from my sister my other 2 brothers and kids did not stay for Christmas dinner which was traditional turkey, brussels etc. why don't we eat brussel sprouts more often they are a fine vegetable.

Although my brothers did not stay we did open all the family presents at my mums which is a little tradition, still possible because we all live within 30 minutes of her, my nephews got a remote control helicopter each which they flew round the house, my mothers cat could not take her eyes off them, pupils fully dilated she occupied the high ground wherever the helicopters flew although the kids had stern warning to keep them away from the cat.

I bought my mum a learn to paint kit and make your own doll, something to do now she has fully retired, at this moment I'm not sure if they are a good idea or not I will only find out if I see them used. I also bought the same make your own doll kit for my friend Deb which did get appreciative comments.

On Boxing day (the day when we make boxes and have boxing matches of course its a Family thing *wink* ) I went to Andy and Linda's, I spent the afternoon at a football match Derby County v Liverpool and then went back for tea. I saw their son fellow larper Christopher for the 1st time since he went university, but didn't have chance to speak since he was going out with his girlfriend. I bought his sister Katie a silly hat for one her present unfortunately it actually suited her, dam I had accidental taste, but the one I bought Linda was silly enough to get me in trouble.
I left Andy and Linda's early evening since a cold was brewing and my brain had switched to standby mode, so I never got to play Kill Dr Lucky, which I was hoping to do and went straight to bed with a lemsip.

Thursday I was knocked out and did very little except sneeze and wipe my nose, I couldn't read or do anything so just focused on the telly, Friday I was meant to be at work, but woke feeling dreadful, and that combined with the time of year I decided not go in, but I'm now feeling reasonable, so tomorrow I may venture outside the house.

Oh and Jasmine had a strange scary glove bought her photo below which she loves.

Its not long to Christmas now...who's excited?

On Saturday night I went out with my super hero friends 'The Whistler Killer' with side kick 'Soft Lad' and the unstoppable 'Squeaky Brat Boy'.We went to busy pub that has lots of quiet rooms no large screen TVs, no pub quizzes, no steak nights (that I know of) called the Dead Poets because it walls have photos of dead poets on them. We learned mainly of Squeaky Brat Boys tangled loved life which is far too complex to explain in less than 2 very thick books. A most enjoyable evening The Whistler Killer silence a few whistler while Soft Lad ran to the toilet every so often since he has a weak bladder. The journey home was only memorable because of the thick fog and poor directions mainly consisting of take the next t..... yes that one we have passed, once would have been acceptable, but reversing up dark single track roads 3 times was a bit much.

By the way I can't tell you my super hero name since those of reading this may know me and therefore learn my alter ego.

Sunday I woke up sure I had a cold, I had aching legs a sore throat and felt cold, but by lunch all the symptoms had left apart from thickly cough, colds don't go that quick so who knows what was wrong.

I spent the evening a Ste & Debs ordered in a Chinese meal and watched American football which Ste is addicted to while we chatted.

Today well for some reason I found myself buying extra presents even though I had everything bought and wrapped already, nothing much those fun under a tenner stocking filler gifts that are more for the humour of gift than the gift being actually wanted, a spent a couple of hours chatting to my friends A & H in their shop, then visited Jock and Bridgette who were each in separate rooms of their house wrapping each others presents before returning home to wash the car and watch the film Lemony Snicket's.

That's my weekend, it now Christmas eve evening, so best wishes for Christmas to anyone who has the time to read this and everyone else for that matter.

PS Not sure I like having all this time before Christmas, much prefer to work Christmas Eve

Richard

Photos from the Dad side

My Dad (the one with the pipe) with his brothers and a Aunt.

Great GranddadH with a lump of coal for carnival guess the weight compitition.

my Dad's dad, GrandadH in the army

Great GrandmaH during the war as a untilty driver

Great GranddadH on his land

My dads other Grandma, Great Grandma T.

Where I was born, land workers hut, me & parents lived totally in the one room hut on the left, (I was to young to remember) one of my Dad's Uncles had the caravan on the right.

GrandmaH the one circled.

There lots more photo's in my online album but you will need to ask me for the link and password if your interested.

Trip into family past

Last night my Dad made his annual visit to see me and brought with him as well as Christmas presents to exchange and pile of old photos.

My Dad had decided as eldest son to hand on to his eldest son loads of family photos, death certificates and other papers, so we spent a few hours going through his memories, a photo of Kenneth his brother who died aged 7, he told me of my Great Grandma who was re-married after my great granddad who shot himself with shotgun, she had 15 children but only 9 survived.

Both Granddads were miners, but apart from that my father side of the family were farmers and I was born on a farm, so it was nice to see some good picture of the farming activities, plus photos of various great grandparents & grandparents during the war my granddad on horseback, my great grandma driving a very old car in some short of war support service (she never had driving licence but didn’t need one then) a uncle who was eventually torpedoed in the war, some good photos which would look good framed (I may scan some and put them on this blog).

I also now have a family tree from my father side; my mother side had already been plotted by one of my Aunties.

He also left a large antique framed photo of my Great Granddad that I will find somewhere to hang in my house.

My 1st Cat video

A Winter Solstice party

Not the longest night of the year but Sam's Birthday party who was born on the 21st, arriving mid day I joined several others who had arrived either Friday night or even earlier Saturday morning, although the majority of people did not arrive until later.

I'm not a party fan but should have remembered Sam's is organised and with her mixed guests from Ascendancy, Karate and Family she had organised fun games for us all which made the evening fly by, so we passed the parcel, hunted for fairy names, worked out the puzzle of the blanket I came second but could have come joint 1st if I hadn't wanted to be silly with Sam. We played various other games, murder in the dark, some word and forfeit games and then invented our own game of each of us telling a story one word at time in turn, which was ridiculous did not work but highly amusing to drunk among those there.

Food was a plentiful, since Sam and her mum had catered for double the number of guest since Tony and crowd from Birmingham, plus some karatiers didn't turn up, RichardS phoned for help, Mike turned up a hour later to eat his way through 2 or 3 peoples food allowance.

During the evening I won a Gorilla soft toy which party people named Zelda after Terrahawks for some reason, and while I was in the loo she was kidnapped and a ransom note left on my chair, after pleading for Zelda's life offering a small fortune in cakes and fairy names the kidnappers denied all knowledge and suggested I come back with a better offer. I left to the kitchen and when I returned Zelda was found gagged, sellotaped, blindfolded and hanging by noose. Zelda has now recovered from the trauma and is currently making friends with Jasmine who is not sure if she should attack Zelda or run away from her.

We had RichS, Heather, Colin, Amy, Mathew, Mike, from Ascendancy, Sam's Mum and husband Ron, her Brother and wife, and a couple from Karate, plus a KathrynR Sam's best friend from reenactment, who came dressed in skirt no wider than a belt, well usually we get some sort of PVC number, she also didn't play strip table tennis as she did at the last party I went to.

I went expecting to leave by 11pm, not drinking alcohol, but enjoyed myself so much I didn't get home until 3am Sunday.

Christmas is getting closer

I put up my 6ft Christmas tree tonight and a giant cat attacked it, see the picture below, I dread what will happen when I put up a bigger one :-S



I completed my shopping a few weeks ago, I've done all my wrapping, put up the decorations, now what do I do with my weekends, I'm sure I should be squeezing around the shops and doing more, Christmas feels early this year.

Still before Christmas does arrive I've got a multiple Birthday party, a lunchtime works Christmas meal, and night out with some friends in a quiet pub if we can find one, how will I fit it all in between reading this book I'm enjoying, its getting hectic this year :)

A photo from our wargame

photograph from our war game last Saturday, taken from the Chimera blog where you will see several more.

The Players Guild

This weekend I returned to an old pastime, hobby of shorts that of display gaming.

Many years ago me and 3 other friends built a display game for a local wargame competition and on the table next to us was what was Citadel Miniatures entry, later to become Games Workshop, well our display was infinitely better than their’s so we asked them if for free figures we could make a better job and do Citadels display games so was born the Players Guild.


(Turreted sea vessel attacking, volcanic island with Orc spotter ballon)

Receiving the draft copy of Warhammer we set out to teach the world how to play, paint and build displays, and won everything we entered for 3 years until they banned us from competitions because they thought it unfair we were getting too much sponsorship from Citadel. Games Workshop by then were even paying us a thousand pounds a display, but the crowds and attention they were getting was well worth it and powered the game into mainstream better than any television advert.


(a display for the Toy Fair)

We were the 1st to paint orcs green, traditionally orcs at that time were a short of ochre brown, only goblins were green, we invented lots dwarf machines, hand gliders, flying machines, ballista, goblins on wolves and a assortment of other things I can’t remember now.

We carried on doing display games for the realese of 40K, blood bowl, and Judge Dredd all over the country including Hamley’s shop window, 5 day toy fairs and many other venues, articles in White Dwarf, although after a while we became disinterested and by then Games workshop wanted employed full time people to display builders, we all had other good jobs so stopped.


(one of 1st displays based on Citadels castle logo)

Thursday this week Jock one of the Players Guild came over to re-learn the latest rules of Warhammer 40,000 in anticipation of doing a low key display game for Chimera shop.

The rules were digested, armies picked and cups of tea drunk, Jasmine my cat decided 12 sided dice are best, 6 sided don’t role well, and 20 sided role too well and end up lost under the sideboard.

She also decided 40 K figures fall off the table if you pat them and Jocks fingers bleed because he was too slow removing them from the hole in the cardboard box.

(Wizard Castle as used for one the Ascendancy buttons)

So today was full day starting early I played a wargame with Jock, and some other local players, one arrived with his own army, and talked to a assortment of shoppers about Warhammer, painting and terrain building, who knows if we encourage anyone, you never can tell, but at least a few stopped a while to ask good quality question, rather than the old what colour do you paint your orcs, well green, or what do make your rocks out of, well rocks.

(Blood Bowl display at Games Day, London)

A good day was had, I lost my first battle to the visitors, and won my second against Jock, it is a game however that is dependent a lot on luck.
Heather took some pictures perhaps she will display them.

Grand Day Out

This weekend saw me attend the Grand Shop opening of Chimera, where my friends the shop owners had laid on a prizes and caricature drawings by Mark, the shop was very busy and had a nice buzz about it.

I woke up on Saturday morning with badly pulled muscle in my right shoulder, I've no idea how I did it but it was bad enough to need pain killers. This did not go away and while driving made looking over my shoulder excruciating, one junction which needed me twist right round and to keep looking right while a endless queue of cars came made my eyes water, the pain is was less this morning but I still needed to drive all the way to Buxton so took a few more pain killers, and at the time of writing this its only just starting to subside.

Julie and Dave arrived and we went to the shop for mid morning, talked with the odd fellow larper from Ascendancy before setting off to the Hurt Arms (I now thanks to Julie think of a man bleeding badly from arms, although if you read the link the pub is named after a Francis Hurt who built it) at Ambergate for a spot of lunch.

After that we did a short tour of Cromford, calling in at Cromford Mill which is very much a work in progress as far as a museum goes and lacks heating, in fact the walls seemed to absorb any heat in the room, their were a couple of shops selling your usual crafty gift stuff, but nothing inspiring.

Then we followed that by driving across the road to Scarthin books which is basically a old fashioned 2nd hand book store full floor to ceiling with books in every nook and cranny, most nooks only big enough for one person to enter, and the crannies requiring you to breath in to get between the books.

While at the book shop we stopped in their cafe for a tea and cake, the cakes were yummy and good sized portions, the tea unfortunately was not so good. They brought a tea pot with just tea bags in and no hot water, and after staring at it for ten minutes, and realising yes they really had forgot the hot water and no it wasn't a quaint local custom, we sent Dave to tentatively ask for tea that was slightly less dry.

By the time we travelled home with me pointing out the local tourist sites of interest that you could not see in the dark it was early evening so we exchanged a few presents, played with the cat and a cardboard box, drank another cup of tea and then Julie and Dave left never to be seen again until next year.

Today which is Sunday my brother had booked another lunch time meal at Buxton in Derbyshire this time to celebrate my mums birthday. Buxton is about an hours drive from me, so I picked my mother & sister up and then followed my brother, before calling for my other brother at Cromford, then we went in convoy of 3 full cars.

The restaurant which was empty, but the food was good, unfortunately the tea wasn't. I ordered a pot of tea, rather than coke or wine like everyone else and did not notice the tea bag had burst, spitting tea leafs is not pleasant.

Then spent the rest of the afternoon ironing and watching telly. (hmm while out I learned by brother still takes his ironing to my mums, missed that one)

Update & photo's

I decided to update by blog template and header, still not sure I'm happy with it, but I just wanted a change.

I've also found a few of the worst photographs of me I could find and added them to the sidebar for your enjoyment. (although not the worst of the worst)

Comments welcome

Shopping can be fun

This year somehow I've got my Christmas shopping organised, almost all presents are purchased and it's only November.

This to me is both an incredible feat and an immense relief, because I won't have to take holidays off to join stressful town centre queues to the tills, dodge weaving shoppers, fight my way into underground car parks, or get up early to try and beat the jams.

My normal practise is leaving it until the last weeks of December when the pressure to find gifts for people becomes actual stress and you start to wander around shops you don't normally enter hoping for inspiration, not finding it so end buying something just because you feel the need to.

I talk to my fellow male shoppers, and I'm not alone in this, it's normal I guess most men are not good shoppers.

Yes online shopping helps, last year I purchased nearly half my gifts that way, this year it was only a few gifts the rest purchased from various medieval fairs, games shops, and craft shows.

So who do I thank for being in this unfamiliar and happy place, well both Julie, & my friends at the Chimera shop for getting me started very early by my standards and also for both pointing me at the odd gift, it's a relief, anything else I buy will only add to presents already purchased.

Happy Christmas (I know its only November but I'm already in the mood)

Best get them Christmas cards next, and I suppose if I want last minute I can leave the wrapping until Dec 24th

Wet and very very wet

I was shattered last night and too busy at work to write about my weekend, my lunch was filled with a trip to Ripley to return a pie dish to Frizbe and watch Andy and Frizbe's Dad work away on shelving for the shop while I supped a quick coffee. Anyway by the time I got home and thought about writing something I had read Julie blog and thought that about sums it up in every aspect, apart from I didn't have drive home home through the snow, so to avoid repeating things read here for my weekend.

I'm now still waiting for the wool to dry, the cloak in particular seems reluctant, its spread tent like over the back of chair and radiator but after a full day is still sodden in places, last night the parts on the radiator were almost foaming with the escaping moisture, the purple robe I wore below took the next brunt of the rain and as dried, but layers below seemed to remain relatively dry, my car on the other hand is still very damp inside.

I also managed to tread in some dog poo on Saturday along with Julie and few other players which was messy, dog owners please bag your poo even when its in the grass next to the path.

Here is photo of the snow, (it was whiter but by time of the photo it had started melting) while it lasted. The photos bit bleary but was hand held, through a steamed up window, in the dark.

Just to say (or repeat) good company, fun weekend, shame about the weather, Jasmine even managed to spend almost all evening on Julie knees, which seemed to make Julie happy, espcially since cats are always a topic of conversation when she visits. Did stop her knitting though.

Jamine below helping to dry my cloak (click for larger image)

Communication failure

Its surprising how much communication relies on people being on the same wave length; then again it could be my hearing or the sales girl’s speech, or a deep desire for cake.

I asked for a warm Cornish pasty from the bakery stand behind the girl, "the one at the back" and she replied with “Cream tart”, I said “no the Cornish pasty” “Yes” she said ”Cream tart” as I realised we where failing to communicate so listened harder while I reached over and pointed at what I wanted “Crinkle topped” hmm obvious once you understand the Cornish pasty terminology.

Snail overtook car

Spend I did, bought wonderful gifts I did, enjoyed my weekend I did.

This Saturday I went with my friends Jock & Bridgette to the Original Reinactors Market at Coventry, determined not to spend on me, unless I saw the tall Gandalf hat hat I failed to purchase at the other fayre 2 weeks ago. Well I succeeded, and purchased 3 Christmas gifts, and actually did not feel tempted, I did see several nice things that would have been great if not for being a pound short of hundred and looking like they should have been valued at fifty, until you look at the work content and your realise that hundred quid is probably a bargain. Ran into lots of people I know, from Staffords or Buckinghams and other places including Ghost who I had not seen for couple of years, plus Tee, Paul Hadfeild, Andy, Emma, Daren, Rachel, Catherine, Tom, and others, nice to greeted enthusiastically

After the market we went into the outskirts Coventry for a meal at pub, they specialised in pies which were good value and tasty, before driving home to see Jasmine. Talking of which Jock is the worlds slowest driver, regularly overtaken by electric milk floats (Not kidding) and with a unnatural instinct to stay in the slow lane of the motorway no matter what, even behind the lorry struggling to get up hill at 40mph, he's never had a accident, so I should have no complaints, but when you are a passenger and you can see you need to pull out into another lane 10 hours before the driver it can be irritating, no other driver in world is as slow.

Anyway Sunday I went with my other friends Julie and Dave to Birmingham Exhibition Centre, when I say other friends I do have more than 2 sets of friends even if most have Children to look after 1st before me.
Back to the point this was Christmas shopping outing a new place to visit for me, not the NEC that is been there plenty of times but the event Hobby Crafts and Crafts for Christmas so I was not sure what to expect.
Well Hobby crafts is basically a big gathering of everything you need to make, stamp, glitter and decorate your own Christmas, birthday cards & tags with the odd knitting, sewing, embroidery, bead stand, of course you could also do beaded, sewn or embroidered cards, I didn't see any knitted cards, but perhaps I missed them. At the side of Hobby Crafts was a Artist hall, which sold pencils, paints and other arty stuff, a place which actually served tea that wasn't too bad, and also a cat walk fashion show, which consisted of models dressed in cloths decorated in cards, gift tags and wrapping paper. I do mock it wasn't that bad, a eye opener into the world of card making and I bought 3 or 4 presents from there, but no card stuff.
The other hall was Crafts for Christmas which was a smaller version of Chatworth Country fair, but free of mud and sheep dogs and selling the gifts at the time of year you want to buy them, so I bought another 3 or 4 gifts from there, Dave bought a walking cane flute which was interesting. All in a very worthwhile visit, nice clear roads in both directions, good company and bit of inspiration from Julie, who I can now blame, when my mother thinks I fell my chair and banged my head when buying her, her presents.

Having examined my hoard from this and previous shops I think I'm about 75% there with Xmas shopping, still my dad to do, my nephews, one of my brothers and a couple of friends.

Good film

On Tuesday night I went to see "Stardust" a fantasy film at the local Odeon cinema, my friend Ste described it as Fantasy chick flick, personally I disagree I thought it more a light hearted fantasy in the same vein as the Princes Bride, anyway I really enjoyed it.



Based on a book by Neil Gaiman

Bushey tailed cat

Last coughs of my cold, I wish, I'm never sure if the worst part of a cold is the initial headache, feeling tired, the follow on running nose, sneezing, eyes watering stage or the recovery when it turns to a horrible dry cough, I can live and function with a cough I guess, even if it make sleep hard.

Anyway this weekend I was slowly recovering from my cold, but still did the shopping rounds and ironing. On Saturday I went round to my friends Ste & Debbie for a meal and jolly nice meal it was. Debbie stole a Jamie Oliver recipe card from Sainsbury's with Chicken, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, bacon, some very nicely done potato wedges and various other bits which I couldn't get enough of. The stater was nice too, and then we finished with a very, very rich, shop made orange and chocolate pudding, one spoon would have been sufficient to fill you.

By about 10pm however my cold had caught up me and I was feeling decidedly drowsy and uncommunicative, so by 11 I left and not too soon, it was a short 20 minute drive home but long enough to have been feeling quite dizzy.

Tonight I was supposed to go to my brother Roberts house for fireworks, but Jasmine had gone very bushey tailed (her tail had expanded to the thickness of her body) and wouldn't leave my lap with all the banging and fizzing outside, she was not a happy cat, so I stayed in and watched 'Nacho Libre' which was quite a funny DVD.

Angry Men

I’m struggling to concentrate since I have a cold, which is at the dribbley, sneezey stage, so I’m writing this which I hope will make sense when I read it back.

This week I’ve had a driving nightmare on the way home from work possibly due to dark nights and snarled up traffic.
On Tuesday I was queuing on a main road and driving slowly so I was not stop starting all the way up the hill, when the car behind jumped the queue and made up a place, swerving past me into the small space I had left for no good reason. I hooted him (I admit several times) for the very cheeky manoeuvre and he objected to this. He showed his bad mood by stopping in the middle of the road putting on his hazard lights then when I tried pass him he shot forward then proceeded to slam his anchors on several times, which you can imagine did not go down well, not wishing to escalate the situation I however did nothing more. However at the next bend he pulled over, letting me pass, shot out between me and the car behind me and followed me home, I decided not go home not wishing to meet a road raged maniac outside my house so drove around the housing estate until he gave up. Not pleasant, next time I will keep my displeasure at being overtaken to myself.

Then Thursday I watched in disbelief when after letting someone out of a side road, I moved forward, but someone else decided they wanted out this side road as well and could not wait their turn, spun their wheels shot out causing me to brake, did a u turn around me and then had stop for traffic coming the other way blocking me until someone on the other side of the road let him out as well.

Its now Friday and I’m still not sure I’ve recovered from Tuesday, I’m still expecting a car to turn up behind me and a man with shotgun blow me away for daring to express my displeasure.

Ripley and Coventry

Well this weekend I started my Christmas shopping without the real intent to do so.

On Saturday I went over to Andy & Heathers Chimera shop in Ripley to play a 40K game with Dave.
Julie brought Dave up and we had lunch at my house before going to the shop full of kids all waiting to watch us play. Orks v Eldar, it took over an hour to set out the terrain and figures with kids circling us and terrain tables being knocked. Still we got a game in, and learned the latest rules as we went along, although we had trouble with a rulebook which had bad printing errors repeat and missing pages. By 5.30pm we decided to pack in and only one kid left, the rest had already returned home, he helped us pack away by heaping the terrain in a big pile.
While at the shop Saturday I also purchased a couple of games as Christmas presents.
After closing I went to local pub with Julie, Dave, Heather, Andy and their children, which wasn't a bad place, then went for a coffee, exchanged star wars ring tones and left for home.

Sunday on the other hand was a planned shopping visit.
I went to over to Coventry to Julie and Dave's to pick them up before traveling to the National Living History Faye at Warwick Exhibition Centre, where I hoped to be inspired to buy Christmas presents.
I was and bought a few unusual gifts as well as leather armour for myself, something I was not intending to buy, but Dave said why don't you try it on, and that was it, Julie suggested I try on tall grey wizards hat which suited me, and I nearly purchased that, but somehow resisted, which is most unlike me and hats.

Dave found a nice store selling children's crossbows, which he decided to test by firing a cork across the aisle at some armour, a risky move with passing pedestrians. The crossbow however had other ideas and not being designed for corks, the cork flew completely over the armour stand into midst of the exhibition centre landing who knows where Since people were selling delicate glass goblets the store holders looked very concerned, me and Julie hid behind Dave and pretended not to know him. The cork we found later in the middle of an aisle, I distracted people while Dave bent to tie his shoe lace and pick up the cork to return to the Crossbow stand.

While there we ran into Tom and Gail, Jeff and Lucy before returning Julie's home having spent few hundred pounds between us.

Another long day, I hit an accident which left what the matrix sign called congestion (I called stationary traffic) between junction 24 and 29 which made the hour trip some 2 hours.

Nice day and now have started my Christmas shopping at least one month earlier than usual; October is not a Christmas shopping month in my book.

Whats part goat, lion and snake

I spent this Saturday in the new Chimera Shop, since Heather asked me if I could be Saturday girl while Andy was away getting his kids injections sorted and her other Saturday girl is in America.
I arrived at the shop around 10am with few Kids in there already, I'm calling them shop orphans since they seem to have been abandoned by there parents, a couple were there until mid afternoon and one lasted all day and was returning Sunday.
Encouraged to play a few games I had small crowd for a game of Pirates and then played a game of D&D skirmish, both I did not know the rules for, Pirates I kinda made up the rules, since they would not wait for me to read the rule book, D&D I managed to get the basic idea before we played.

Overall a OK day I left about 4.30pm, having only intended to stay until Andy got back, but Heather gave me coffee, and the kids wanted to play, so I stayed.

I’ve posted a picture of the shop below, click for a larger image, but you can see more picture here on the website I updated Sunday with a few extra pages, a preview of Dave's Logo, which I'm still waiting the artwork for so I used a photo of the shop window.

The shop itself is very good, lots of things I could buy, and I like the sound of the plans to improve it, official opening Day is going to be Saturday 24th of November for anyone interested.


On Saturday evening I decided to watch the Rugby, I like the big sporting occasions, but generally don’t follow any sports since for that you need free weekends, which a few in number, or a be very keen on sports, which I'm not, still I enjoyed the game even though England lost.

Sunday was a shopping day, but one of those were you look and don’t buy, a trip for inspiration.

I also managed to find a place to leave plastic carrier bags for recycling, my local Morrison's now has a large steel container thing in the carpark, which is far better than Sainsbury’s cardboard bin which held about 10 carriers and was always overflowing, so I dumped about 6 months worth of carrier bags.

On side note my mother had to have the builder round for her cat, which had crept behind a kitchen cupboard, up a vent from the cooker and got stuck, the builder arrived to remove the kitchen unit just as the cat re-appeared :S after screaming for over 2 hours.

Tip of Day: don’t go down a road when a ploughing competition has just finished, not only do you get a bottle neck of slow moving tractors, but them sharp plough blades look very dangerous swinging about on there chains and hinges as they go down the road behind ancient machines.

Stringer

A selection of photo's of the rubbish negotiator, loveable, always left behind, and one of lifes loosers my Larp character, Blackthought Stringer

This is what happens if you forget to make Julie a cup of tea.

Its hard work ref-ing a Strangehaven event.

Dave the make up artist.

Car troubles, sort of.

My car is in the garage again because of the intermittent squeak from the front wheel going on since June, blamed 1st on dust/dirt, then worn discs I said well why is the squeak one side only, stuck break calliper. Today they rang to say they are replacing the drive shaft to the front wheels because its worn, they rang later to say they are also replacing the main drive shaft to rear wheels, because of a worn joint.

All this is covered under warranty because it otherwise sounds expensive, so my only cost is time going to the the garage, the parts are not in stock so on order and I get to keep my brand new top spec Freelander2 courtesy car for a few days, which is dangerously fast for a diesel, pity its automatic, I don't like automatics.

Aliens visit York for surfing Holiday

I had great weekend at York, helping run Strangehaven a live role play event.

After travelling through horrendous traffic Friday afternoon leaving my house just after 3 we arrived at York at 6.15pm a 3 hour trip, which is normally 1 ½ hours at the most, Still Julie and Dave spent 5 hours on the road, so I guess I was lucky.

Anyway despite the late start we managed to get playing and introduce Julie's plot and the LGM's (little green men), and with no major parts to play on Friday night I got to ref the encounters, do bead draws and answer OOC players questions which went well, I have learnt a lot since the 1 st event and that made it all far easier and gave me the skills necessary to give it a nice atmosphere prior to LGM's arrival.

(click for larger image)

The LGM costume's (Bob the Hero, Flat Face & Technical One) where great, put together mainly by Dave and well received by players and crew alike, although I suspect those playing them may still be slightly green, since the pigment in the make up was quite hard to remove. (According to Facebook the LGM's are no longer sporting a green glow)

(click for larger image)


Saturday I played Stringer a man beaten and tortured to death then later sent back as a paradox with bomb strapped to him. (Photo will follow hopefully), improvising plot as I went along. Then I did a bit of fighting along Commander Drusa played by Julie, who despite her knee got stuck in to combat and did well.

AndyL removed his shirts a sure sign of a major fight coming which everyone backed away from, since they knew what to expect, that's everyone bar the new player Nathan as Mallerkie who decided to challenge Andy with no shirt to a duel. He fought well but Andy let him off very lightly since he was new.

From then on mostly improvised strangeness which was fun ref'ing and playing the odd combat bunny, until Sunday.

By Sunday morning the player's had worked out the plot, between them they where a very good team and quite sharp, too sharp, we actually had to start throwing in false paths to slow them down a bit.

Overall a very enjoyable weekend, even if very, very tiring, I seem to have woke with bad back and aching limbs, I was fine yesterday.

My thanks goes to Julie for writing a great plot, although I do want to find a way of being more involved in the plotting the next time whenever that is, I may have to go back to writing side plot for Acendancy although when your not ref'ing it's almost impossible to get your plot out, unless you do it yourself and not half as satisfying.

Wild night out?

On Thursday I went to Derby to socialise with my friends, Jock real name Andy, Assy real name Andy, Andy real name Andy, and Ste, all mates since school.

Assy and Jock shared my hobbies wargaming, table top roleplay and reenactment although neither are into Larping my current main pastime, Jock gave it a go and Assy can't get past mild mockery, although I think he might enjoy it.

Andy and Ste shared my interest in comics when I was younger, but are my oldest friends, I'm blamed for getting Andy's lad Christopher into Larp and Ste drags me along to Memorabilia.

Anyway since we are now spreading out (not just our waistlines) and no longer all live in one town it takes a good 2 hours plus for one driver to round every one up and hour and half to drop everyone off, that's when you don't stop quick natter with the your friends wives. So setting off at 7 means and couple of hours in Derby and before you have said hello its nearly midnight and well gone 1 before your home.

So while I drank my orange and passion fruit J2O we talked about Assy's dangerous motor bike trip to Himalayas from which he brought me a excellent hat (see photo below, click for lager image). We chatted about other strange topics American Football which I'm not into, Kids which I have none, but twas a good night out.

I mentioned Facebook and blogging which they don't do apart from Assy who has dipped his toe onto Facebook and they don't get it. For me its essential social interaction, since most of my current network of friends don't live closer than a hours trip away, and my cat Jasmine doesn't understand me.

As for wild night out with the lads no it wasn't, but we didn't talk about favorite jams and marmalade's.

New Website

I have just change the link on my blog from Shards LRP to Ascendancy LRP which is the new website I have been working on along with Julie.

Julie put together the Forum since she knows far more than me about the languages used in setting it up, although that meant it was more like work for her, while I put main site together i.e all the pretty picture and links and I think it all looks good.

The colour scheme was chosen by Andy and Heather who run Ascendancy and while it seemed very bright at 1st, spending a few weeks with it as made it grow on me and I now think its quite a fresh look, especially after looking at the dull, woody, green dark brown website of other Fantasy sites.

Now its case of others grammar spell checking it for me and finding any broken links, plus remaining keen enough to keep it up to date and current.

Overall though I achieved a goal and learned a few tricks, and idea's for next time, and feel quite pleased with my efforts.

My week

This week started with a trip to friends on Monday evening, a trip to South Wales for work in tiny Peugeot 207, new roadworks just before A449 joins the M4 at Newport delayed my journey since I hit them a rush hour.

I went to see Bourne Ultimatum at Derby and did enjoy it, much of the same thing as the 1st 2 movies in the trilogy but it works and story was concluded, it would take a very warped Holywood mind to make another to earn a few extra dollars.

Other than that I had record (for me) 4 meals out, 1 on Monday, 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday, spent some dosh on nice new coat, doodled with the web site since its all done (I will put a link here when its officially released), read the web site blog as Julie wrestled through the problems with forums, and finally watched the new Casino Royale DVD.

That's it, not really a week to remember.

Weekend haircut.

Yes my weekend did not go as planned, not that it was planned in the place.

Saturday morning I went to the barbers and while describing what I wanted to have done I said I wanted a no.2 for the beard on trimmer, this was not heard correctly by the barber who shaved my head with it, me only realising when I saw a lot more than the usual amount of hair falling in my lap, too late. Anyway it doesn’t look bad and will grow back, besides most of is gone anyway.

I spent Saturday playing with the website, then watched the film Independence Day on the telly, I have no idea why I dislike the movie, only realising why when Will Smith punched the alien, still I enjoyed a big bar of chocolate which gave me a headache Sunday morning, the curse of me and chocolate.

When Sunday did arrive I discovered Jasmine had decided the cat litter needed spreading around the kitchen, the cat litter tray was obviously not big enough.

I visited my brother’s new house in Cromford, which is old Arkright Mill house, with 2 foot thick stone walls, internal gutters, tiny windows, no mobile phone or radio reception and lots of other odd feature’s, it’s protected by English Heritage and cannot be altered. It also has garden which you need mountaineering skills to get to, going up a very steep unsafe path, which winds between other peoples gardens you get to level which about 6 stories above his house and gives you a amazing to view across the valley to Blacks Rocks a local site seeing attraction.

Sunday evening I watched Return of the King which is a good movie, although I did intend to watch Micheal Palins latest adventure.

Pot Watcher's Daughter

Old Arnkel

I have just come back from York having just done the 2nd Strangehaven event which was a great event.

Having found our way through the back roads to avoid M1 congestion during the Friday evening nightmare rush hour, we arrived on site around 7ish later than planned but traffic was horrendous not only getting from my house to York, but Julie getting from Coventry in the 1st place.

Friday night's story got underway with a party celebrating to upcoming death of my character Old Arnkel for the 3rd time, unfortunately the happy atmosphere was broken by foul mouthed pirates. After a bit of trouble Julie character Geruuih was kidnapped and brutally beaten as you can see from the photo, so Saturday she arrived back from her ordeal which was far from pleasant and that kicked off a great, well paced day, with plenty of plot and characters, and good feedback and interaction from the players.

I enjoyed myself, and while tirering unlike the 1st event it was not hard work, probably for several reasons, livelier villagers, more rounded plot, npc that delivered info and were not there to provide the solutions for the players, slightly cooler weather, and players that got stuck in and asked questions.

Geruuih................................................ Commander Drusa & Guards

By the end of play on Sunday all the pieces came together and some core plot handed over to both the players and crew to take with them to the next main event.

Packing as always is a pain, but we paced it around a late lunch and left site before 5pm, so it was good to arrive home not long after 6 making it a far pleasanter journey, even if I wasn't driving

I also managed to pin down a way forward with the Shards website, so me and Julie can get it ready for Andy's upcoming change.

New Tent

I spent the weekend gone tweaking the Shards web site and left the house rarely, the web site I promised to get up and running by end of August and failed, not my fault.

Apart from that I went looking for a slightly bigger modern tent something Julie reminded me about, something I said I would look for last year but never did, something I did look for in the spring this year but never found the right beast, so said I would wait for the end of season sales. I went off to try and find a tent suitable for one person, but tall enough to stand in if I need to, even with my neck bent would do, and with area to cook in should I need to, sound easy, but to get tall enough you need 4 person tent, (in tent speak that actually really means 2 people) and one with porch so the footprint tends to be big.

I tried 2 camping shops and the Internet, the shops where rubbish, either small dome tents, one with no height or then they jumped to family sized monsters, the Internet provided clues and couple of option but unless you can see them 1st hand you don't get a sense of proportion.

However having discovered Julie had made her mind up and along the same criteria, since its for use when she is not with Dave, I decided since she was going to the shop again to ask her to get a duplicate of her choice which is this one can't wait to see it up at the next event.

Weeklong Adventure

For the past eleven days I've been camping with my friends in a wood in Wales, the week started off very wet but eventually turned out nice. It was one of those weeks where many things happened but I'm already struggling to remember everything but a few personal highlights, possible because I need a few days to recover.

I shared a camp with Julie and Dave and as far as I know managed to get through the week without irritating them, apart from perhaps the incident where Dave went through a box of matches that would not light, and I managed to light the 1st one I struck, this resulted in me being promoted to storm kettle boiler.

The event was thoroughly enjoyed the first two sections especially, the last being rather slow for many reasons, mainly a guild plot that did not engage me and a dreaming plot that was kept away from all but the Frontier tribes.

I got back and was unloaded for 2am this morning, collected Jasmine who is just running around the house and returning every 5 minutes to jump on me and purr. The Cattery said they found it cute the way she total buries herself under the fleece rather than sleeping on top of it.

I don't feel tired, but I'm sure that will change as the day progresses.

Henry VIII weekend

This weekend I rejoined my old Medieval group Buckinghams retinue to play King Henry VIII at Skipton Castle and enjoyed myself enough I may do another next year.

Friday I travelled with Sam to the event arriving just as it was getting dark waiting outside for someone to answer a phone and let us in through the outer bailey gates. Once there I got severely bitten as we put up our tent, just my arms little black things that where obviously jumping out the grass, although we never saw them again thanks to liberal application of insect repellent.

We had a good sunny weather Saturday and very wet Sunday till mid afternoon, fortunately being a castle in use by its owners we could escape the heat and rain inside.

I got to play Henry VIII during the last year of Anne Boleyn before she was executed and while her Lady in waiting Jane Seymour was in court flirting with me, so torn between 2 woman both after my favour I managed to enjoy a bit of roleplay and get to shout, loose my temper and plot Anne's downfall, while working out how to get Jane out to my hunting lodge.

The downside was being dropped in the deep end the 1st day when they asked me talk in front of couple of hundred members of the public about Henry with 5 minutes notice, at least I didn't get chance to get nervous, and managed to bring the rest of the Kings court into the talk after a few minutes to help me pad it out, by the end of the Sunday though I was fairly fine with doing a little talk before the public asked their own questions, such how many trees did it take to build the Mary Rose, I decided not to execute the child.

The event did not finish until 6pm so by the time we had took down our tents and loaded the group kit into the Van it was 8pm so me and Sam called in the pub for food before getting home, well in Sam's case about midnight.

Today I ache the weight of Henry's gear is not light those of you who wear many layers of fabric (Julie) will know how it pulls your shoulders, but unlike armour your in it all day and it offers no support giving me back ache and shoulder pain from holding my shoulders up all day, no slouching for the King.

I've attached a couple of the sillier picture for you to look at, click on them for a slightly larger image.

Anne Admiring the cod piece
Jane & Anne fighting over who will play Tables with me

Megatron

I went to see the movie Transformers last night and really enjoyed, it was an action packed explosion fest, not a short movie the start time was set at 5.55 and we did not get out until 8.45.
You don’t need to know anything about the cartoon the back story is crammed in, not that its that complicated anyway, just switch off brain and enjoy lots of missiles, destruction, car chases, robots being thrown through buildings, and high school humour.

Going to cinema straight from work (since I was going with a mate and 3 kids) did not please Jasmine who made plain her unhappiness by running around crazily thundering up and down stairs trying her best to keep me awake all night, at least the cold I thought I was developing on Monday does not seem to have materialised.

Floods and tears

Tired......

What ever the reason I was tired during weekend and feel shattered now, its probably a combination of tough week at work, a hard drive to the event, a tough event and the dismal weather.

I have today off and actually contemplating going back to bed.

The weather was terrible on Friday, by the time we hit the M5 it was flooded and the odd wave of water hit us every time a truck or car going by far too fast overtook you. By the time we got to M50 my co-pilot Julie was on the look out for hidden lakes and watching the drains pouring out across the road, luckily most lakes where mud orange so easily spotted and driven through very carefully, lots of accidents on the hill side of the road where the water was deepest, however the little extra height and better tires of 4x4 gave me a bit more confidence. Getting to site not far behind schedule we learnt of people phoning stranded on the M5 behind us, some spending all night there, so it appeared we got through just in time. Very sodden tents were erected in appalling conditions and we never really dried out all weekend.

The event went ahead as planned with enough dry weather to make it work, despite some players and crew being stranded including the main man who had to drive via London and arrived at 1.30am Saturday morning. The event was hard because of the emotional style of roleplay & lack of progress unless you count finding dead ends, absolutely no good news only more bad, the light at the end of tunnel is getting dimmer and dimmer.

Just to make matters worse the M1 was down to one lane for repairs combined with a accident meant I did not get home until gone midnight.

Today well dry so far.

People I visited this weekend

On Saturday I went to visit my friends I only called in around 2 for quick natter and ended up staying for long chat, tea and watching a film.

While there, his lad who is 10 managed to break a greenhouse window while playing Basketball, so we got in to when I was a youngster mode, talking about all the opportunities kids seem to have now, basket ball clubs, music lessons, computer games, mountains of other toys, and they still get bored. When I was a lad we had none of these opportunities, yet I don't remember being bored, we had garden, fields, Lego and imagination, its all probably us looking rose tinted glasses since who remembers being bored.

Today I got invited round for cup of tea by another mates wife, to plan what we going to do when he's away on his motorbike trip to Spain, we where going to a music festival but I think with changed our minds, but not sure.

Anyway while there I got to see his new motorbike, hmm well not being into motor bike enthusiast it was silver, and had two wheels which was useful, but other than that I think it was a Yamasukitriumphondaraliegh or something like that.

I then watched Shoalin Soccer, a martial arts football film, by the same people has Kung Fu Hustle which was a laugh.

In demand

After being chastised for not visiting my friends in the the living history group 'Buckingham's Retinue' while at Tewkesbury battle I've now been phoned by two people and asked if I would reprise my role as Henry VIII at Skipton Castle during August.

I've not done any reenactment for 2 years and its nice to be wanted so I'm considering it, my friend Sam another ex-Buckingham is also considering it.

The Buckingham split in two (for the 2nd time) well in actually about a third left to form a new group (forgot their name already) doing more role play, battle organisation and show stuff, they tried to recruit me as well, so 2 offers I just need 'the Stanley's' to ask me then I have a full house of recent ex-living history groups.

Support your local shop

This may not be the most interesting thing to write about but I’ve just had a good experience with the purchase of my new cooker.
After trying Comet and Curry’s I went to the local shop in the village on Friday they where £ 20 cheaper than Comet and Curry’s for the equivalent model, and not only that they included delivery, installation and taking your old appliance away a cost of £ 105 on top from Comet and £ 65 from Curry’s, they also did not try to sell me a 5 year warranty for a extra £ 154. So a saving of £ 279

The other thing the local shop would deliver at a specific time, the shop owner also proceeded to tell me my family’s life history, from the name on the receipt he knew my mothers maiden name, my old address, and one of my uncle’s names etc. amazing memory.

Delivery today went smoothly they turned up exactly on time allowing me to travel from work home and back to work again all within an hour thus no wasted holidays waiting in for trades and approximate delivery times.

Tewkesbury and things

Yesterday I traveled with Julie and Dave to Tewkesbury Medieval fair & battle and got sun burnt (silly me), I think I was expecting clouds and rain since that's all I've seen for the past couple of weeks.

The fair itself is quite a big market for all things medieval especially costume, swords and other kit, it also spans outside the medieval period and includes plenty of jewellery and other tat, I purchased jewellery, fabric for costume and a few crystals, but I resisted the a nice chess sets, another hat I have no reason to buy another frock coat I don't need.

The battle was.....well I didn't see it, but apart from last year and a couple years in the early 90's I've taken part in it every year since 1985 so its not something new, although I've never been a spectator.

All in it was a long day, getting up a 6.30 to get to Coventry, being on you feet all day when you normally spend your days sitting, and then by the time I'd had a cup of tea on the way home at Julie's it was quarter to eleven so did not get home till twelve.

I also got to see Missy the phantom cat and admire Dave's Inversions.

Tea's

I though I would do a tea review

5/10 My work tea : not bad and free, just need to train the people who make it
6/10 Breakfast tea : Proper tea
6/10 Twinings Lady Grey tea : Very citrusy tea and ok with milk if you like it that way.
10/10 Tetleys Earl Grey and vanilla tea : My favorite tea, drunk with milk, the vanilla gives it slightley sweater flavour
8/10 Blackberry & Nettle infusions : Full flavored and good but stays a little in the mouth after you have finished
4/10 Blackcurrant, Ginseng & Vanilla infusions : Gets in your mouth and stays there
5/10 Echinacea & Raspberry infusions : a little too sweet
6/10 Camomile & Spiced Apple infusions : sometimes lacks flavour
2/10 Pure Camomile infusion : Did nothing for me
3/10 Camomile, Honey & Vanilla infusions : too much did not like, perhaps good if you have a cold
3/10 Lemon & Ginger infusions : Ginger and lemon are very bitter flavours, perhaps better with a bit of sugar
8/10 Strawberry & Mango infusions : A nice sweet drink, very pleasants
5/10 Peppermint infusions : One to drink when you need it.
8/10 Melon & grape infusions Limited Edition : Very melony my current favorite infusion
7/10 Cherry & Cinnamon infusions Limited Edition : Not seen since Christmas, I enjoyed it then
8/10 Raspberry & Rose infusions Limited Edition : Another nice sweet but not to sweet drink
6/10 Pear & Apple Green tea : If you have no milk, need caffine, the flavour is subtle but pleasant
6/10 Orange & Lotus Flower Green tea : Same as above really
3/10 Jasmine Green Tea : Not keen, drinkable but not for me
5/10 Cranberry Green tea : Not quite in the same league as Pear and Apple, Orange and Lotus flower

Anything rated 5 out of 10 and above I will drink again and be happy.

Teas I want to try
Pineapple & Rooibos
Twinings tea with Vanilla & Coconut
Twinings tea with Orange
Twinings tea with After Dinner Mint
Twinings tea with Rose
&
Gunpowder just because of the name, although its a strong pure green tea, so I might not like it.

Cold food

So I went to eat my dinner cooked in the oven tonight, my stomach had not seen food since 11am and it was 6.30pm, it was cold must have forgot to switch the oven on silly me, no such luck dam oven has stopped working.
So now what to do, get it repaired the electric cooker and oven is very old, purchased when I had no ready cash having just having put down a deposit and got a mortgage.
Not only that is was a second so I could do with a update come to that, saying that so could the kitchen.

So repair or new? also gas or electric? all the fittings are there or perhaps make do without and buy more kit.

PS don't worry I blasted my food with microwaves so did not eat cold food.

Cat on a lead

This weekend I purchased a cat harness and lead for Jasmine.

Well it seems to have been a success, getting the harness on easy apart from Jasmine falling over at every opportunity so I could tickle her belly, saying that Jasmine is a small cat and with the buckles fully tightened it was a very loose fit.

We then went for a walk around the garden were Jasmine sampled every leaf and plant stem spitting most out, grass is still her favorite vegetation. She discovered brambles have thorns and jumped out the frying pan, deeper into trouble and eventually had to carried out.

Still overall it seemed to work, and while Jasmine will require my presence to go outside at least I will have peace of mind.

I've also taken a few picture of Mothers Cat currently named Jenny Batgirl Twinkle, since a final name still does not seemed to have been decided. The pecking order in my mothers house does, her dog Bengy has moved to bottom rung, with Jenny Batgirl Twinkle chasing the poor dog around.

A couple of picture attached to this post however a full set of 10 can be found at the end of this

Link.

Click for larger image.

Leaking roof

I had a good weekend the forecast rain generally held off, a few crew tantrums seemed to have settled down by the end, I travelled home with 3 very sleepy people all of whom slept for most journey (fortunately the driver was fine) and was fed plenty of porridge and cakes.
My character also had a good weekend, if not for last hour where he landed on sorcerous snake when he was hoping for a supreme ladder, still if it was all good, you would not be able to recognise the good.

That was the good since when I got home I found a plant, broken plant pot, a pile of soil and a cat trying to look Innocent, then this morning I woke up at 4am to sound of dripping splashing water and kitchen roof that had sprung a leak overnight (at least it waited until I was home). I positioned a few buckets a washing bowl and pile of newspaper and went back to sleep and mopped it this morning.

Oh and thanks to Julie and Dave for my birthday present

A web weekend

I spent this weekend working on a website not seeing daylight apart from a visit to my mums and the supermarket. I did this not because I had to or anything but because I was enjoying it, pulling all the bits together after getting a ok from the Andy & Heather on the layout.

Friday night I did go out going to see the movie Four the Rise of the Silver Surfer, not sure why they dropped the word Fantastic from the title. It was a good film far better than 1st Fantastic Four film and while not fantastic I would recommend it.

Before the movie I went for the 1st time to Frankie and Bennies. I was not expecting much these food chains can produce fairly bland food, but the food wasn’t bad, my friends treated me as a belated birthday present, so I tucked into a hot brownie, chocolate sauce and ice cream desert, at least I didn’t have the sparkly birthday desert of DaveP’s birthday earlier in the year.

Other than that I was sent a link to Facebook a kinda livejournal/blog/networking thing which I’ve joined, although not sure why yet, when I get time I will have a better look around.

The day I learned to talk to cows

Strangehaven the 1st event is over with, the 1st time as writer/ref for me, it was very different from playing where you really get into a character you know inside out, and you can do/say what and as much as you want giving you a both a very enjoyable and frustrating time, different from just crewing where you have no real idea what happening and can spend hours bored waiting for players or just being a combat bunny. The nearest concept I thought would be organising a medieval murder mystery, but there while you have the creativity everything is very organised and timed to happen and fixed even if the role play is free form, its basically a game where everyone is crew. The enjoyment you get from writing and ref'ing a Lrp game is from the initial creativity, seeing your idea's work, playing different characters and having to think on your feet.

Its now over and I can't wait for the next although interupted by the next event I'm playing also, so I thinking about that as well.

Very Loud Cat

My mother texted me today she went to Cat Protection League again and reserved a young cat so she is trilled although the cat in question needs to remain in their possession since it a newly arrived stray and it may be claimed by original owner. Not a long wait only until the 12th of June.

My own cat Jasmine made a dash for freedom while I was hanging out my sleeping bag to dry this morning, which incidentally somehow ended up blowing off the washing line into hedge, it survived and I could not find any new creepy crawlies hiding in the corners.
Anyway Jasmine having a taste for the outside world has decided she wants to be outside again and is meowing at the back door constantly in the most pitiful and loud way possible, for a small cat she had powerful lungs. Now I could let her out like any normal cat, indeed my previous cats have enjoyed the outdoors, but the Cat Protection League recommended I keep her in for her own safety since I live on a busy road, and they said she was very friendly and very nickable. So my brain says she must stay in and the rest of me wants to let her outside, saying a little supervised outing won't hurt, but that's a slippery path and before you know she will be out all night with me anxious, fearing the worst. I'm not sure what to do, so she will remain a indoor cat for now.

Strange weekend

I'm having a good weekend although my mind is well on truly on next weekends Strangehaven event. My partner in crime for Strangehaven is having to work this weekend, but I've had a lot more time and so dabbled here and there with a few extra ideas, and done a bit of kit sorting and sewing.

Today I visited my friends Andy and Linda who made me welcome as always, their lad Christopher is also a Larper and told me all his stories about his latest characters, while I melted on their patio in the sun, before leaving to visit my mother for tea. She fed me chocolate and caramel cheesecake with strawberries which was extremely more-ish, I thought I'd lost my sweet tooth, but all this cake recently is making me want even more cake, if I don't stop soon I will be reversing the weight loss of last year.

Finally here is a picture of Jasmine in her favorite position, i.e cradled in my arms.

Happy Birthday

Today is Jasmine's birthday, she is now a 2 year old kitten.
I have just collected her from the kennel after being away for weekend of larping and she is curled in my arm as I type this with one hand.

The house I got back to at gone eleven last night was freezing cold. I was camped not far from Swansea which was 16 deg yesterday one of the warmest places in Britain while the Midlands dropped to a low of 8 degrees, (some places dropped to 6 degrees) well I suppose I have seen snow in June before, but still a shock when we are a few days from summer. I was very tired by the time I got back and switched the heating on went to bed deciding to unload the car this morning.

The Shards event itself was great, I camped with Julie & Dave who fed me till I burst, especially her famous and tasty never thawing frozen soup, which remains frozen after 60 hours outside a freezer. I brought some cake and so did Julie but by the end of weekend the word cake almost made me run in fear, especially since the Rat tribe a player group organised a party which mainly consisted of large amounts of cake, which needed sampling, a impossible task since their was so much, I tried and the Order of Pi (Pie) another player group handed around more cake.

PS its my birthday in less than 2 weeks on the 9th

Spiderman 3, 4, 5 & 6

Went to see Spiderman3 tonight, and it was a mess of a film with enough going off for 10 films, I was very disappointed, 3 out of 10.

I nearly missed it, Jock purchased the tickets and took us to be seated, we then watched the opening credits of a different film, at 1st thinking it was a trailer before realising we were in the wrong screen, Jock having read the seat number G7 for screen 7 somehow, daft sod.
I won't go into the rest of Jocks organisation skills other than to say I suggested going to Mansfield cinema for about 8pm & him picking me up, we ended up in Derby at for 7pm showing, me driving, with just enough time for snack food after getting home from work before going round various peoples house to pick them up, made it for 7 just, luckily films never start early since they need to put plenty of adverts in 1st.
Next time I will organise things, its far easier.

Refreshed

Had a great time at this weekend larping about at Shards, I took today off to recover, but woke this morning even after a long drive feeling quite fresh, so could have gone to work, still I've spent today doing some house keeping and some online stuff for Shards.

I started the weekend still feeling weak from the previous weeks illness, driving down was tiring but by Sunday I was fully recovered and enjoying the fresh air, good company, & nice soup of camping in a pleasant woodland far from traffic, even the one night of rain was pleasant in its own way.

Sunday, feeling better

Its Sunday morning after a illness which started Wednesday and while I feel better, I'm eating again just, but have no real appetite and no energy, just walking up the stairs leaves me drained, possibly the lack of food and spending 3 days curled up on the sofa.

Jasmine in all this time as had to make her own entertainment since I have not had the energy for her, I tried throwing a toy in game of fetch and couldn't throw.
Her own entertainment does involve me mainly as either a trampoline or some imagined small creature as I move a hand or foot under the blanket.
What she does seem to like his using me as heat source, cats sleep ninety percent of the day so having me at home has giving her an ideal bed, which works for me as well, its very comforting having your cat there.
She has also developed a new habit of licking the hair my head (moving on from licking the beard) which fine untill she decide to move on and wash me behind the ears with her sandpaper tongue, which is not pleasant.

I have caught something

Yesterday afternoon I felt unwell, by the time I got home from work my teeth were chattering and I couldn't get warm. Taking a tablet helped for a few hours but by the time I went to bed even with a further pill, I was shivering from head to toe, I switched the heating back on, put another quilt and blanket on the bed and managed to stop shivering.
This morning I woke aching all over and slightly dizzy so have rang in work to say I won't be in. Currently do not know what to do with myself, since no matter where I sit or lie I still ache and the TV is not distracting enough.
Jasmine is trying to help by keeping warm, but she is more concerned that I won't play with her.

My Mum wants a cat

Following getting my wonderful cat Jasmine from the Cats protection league I've been passing on the virtues of adopting a adult cat. Today I took my Mother to visit the the Derby Adoption centre, she was looking for a young cat that was still adapatable or one that would cope with a excitable King Charles spaniel.
Well following my visit in late January I expected my mum to have reasonable choice, but compared to my visit they only had half the Cats, non were ticked as dog friendly and the young (by that I mean under 2 years) cats were already reserved, so we had no luck.
She will try again and other places.

Plenty of middle aged cats but there was a 18 year cat though a big black cat looking not too bad for age, perhaps they got the age wrong, owner had died, that I thought will be really lucky if it gets a new owner, 18 years is old for cat.

Weekend away

I reluctantly left Jasmine at the cattery for the 1st time this weekend which was a 1st time experience for both of us, since previously I had relied on family to feed my cat when away.

I fetched her back this morning as soon as could, and learnt she had spent the 1st day screaming constantly, but had settled by 2nd, apart that everything was ok

She made a big fuss when I got home, letting me know a vocally as possible not to go out sight and by purring just for being there.

So everythings back to normal, she is making me (no I don’t have a choice) pull a lace around the room for her to chase.

Memorabilia

This Saturday I was asked if I wanted to go the Memorabilia at the NEC Birmingham, basically a large market selling everything anyone would collect from TV shows, films, sports, games, music, toys, cards, signatures, ex props etc.
The event was in the hall next to a event called 'Sewing for Pleasure', now I have just started doing a bit of sewing but not for pleasure, more for need, although I do get pleasure out of the finished garment, needless to say I wasn't tempted to pop in and have a look, at least not after paying the rip off entry fee of £ 11.00 to Memorabillia.
Still plenty of costumes to look at we had Storm Troopers, Jedi's, Superhero's, Power Rangers, Planet of the Apes, Predator, Alien, Dr Who's from 5 years old to 70 years old, the list goes on, I particularly enjoyed the FX make up demonstration, although I went back an hours later and they still turning the same volunteer in the undead zombie thing and looked like they would be there for the rest of the day.
On the other side of things lots of C, D and E rated stars signing autographs, Dr Who normally full of star signing autographs could only find one rather plump ex Dr Colin Baker (Not a good Dr if remember, but was bored with Dr Who at that point) and few ex Bad guys, a couple of companions, the biggest queue was for a ex Boxer, I nearly got something signed by Toyah Wilcox since I was a fan at one time, I did say nearly, 5 quid for a signature and photo, not that big a fan.

Yay finished

At last I've have made the leg detail below the knee work on the trousers styled on asian Chudidarr.

Remade twice excluding sowing things together back to front on the 1st pass, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, might not pass any short of quality standard but they fit, feel comfortable and from a distance look ok.

Whats your cat like

Thinking about all the eccentricities of cats, and that’s not taking into account there individual personalities which unless you’re a cat owner you don’t appreciate.
So discounting Jasmine personality I listed a few things below I think she has in common with other cats and few things less in common.

My cat Jasmine likes in common with lot of other cats I’ve known.
>Sitting between me and the computer screen so I have look at her, this also works the same with books and magazines.
>Running up and down the stairs like a herd of elephants.
>Sitting on my lap 5 minutes before I need to leave for work, delaying me as long as possible.
>Waking me up a 5am in the morning
>Sitting/sleeping where it’s warm when I’m not available, currently her favourite place is on top of my cable modem.
>Playing in and around cardboard boxes.
>Attacking your feet under the duvet as they move, or as a method of waking you.


Jasmine likes not in common with other cats I know, unless you tell me different
>Playing fetch, Jasmine Has A toy nickname Mr Worm which I throw to the far corners of the room for her to retrieve and return to me, dropping at my feet.
>Sleeping in the bed with her head on pillow and body under the duvet.
>Meowing when I won’t play, she makes a sound like a short tongued person saying hello, which goes on until I pick up her toy.
>Sitting in the crook of my arm while I wonder around the house, refusing to be phased by me going up stairs, leaning forward to pick stuff, all while I struggle to do things one handed, I suppose in this its my fault for not putting her down.

Interested in anything your cat or cats do or don’t do that are different.