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.