Cold Days

Having booked the installation of new boiler to replace my old back boiler, I found date chosen left me and Jasmine without heating for the coldest days so far of Autumn. Monday night after the plumbers had left I sat watching telly in a coat and gloves with Jasmine inside the coat with me.

Jasmine was not a happy cat having been spooked by all the work, sledgehammers knocking bricks out the fireplace to get the old boiler out, blowtorches constantly setting off the fire alarms, they also used a big industrial vacuum cleaner to suck the old pipework dry. Poor Jasmine also ended being shut in rooms out the way and at one point when the plumbers had all the windows opened the front and back doors I had to put her with blanket into a cat box or she would have run off.

By Tuesday morning the plumbers were teasing me the promise of heating by noon, they actually turned it on for 5 minutes around 3pm, before switching it off to do more work, so I didn't get warm until 6pm by which time I'm sure it was colder inside my house than outside.

My friend AndyH popped by seeing my car in the drive, but didn't stop long, he was driven off by the cold.

I now have a room thermostat and pressure for my shower which was brilliant this morning, and the mess to clean up, but need to wait for cement and plaster to dry before stuff can go back in the cupboards and furniture put back, plus the plumber needed to return tonight to finish off some last bits which will then leave the redecorating.

I also went over to Andy and Heathers last night and played a silly Monty Python TV and Holy Grail card game (twas a sample from a supplier), where you can get with the right cards extra turns for quoting Monty Python lines, talking in a silly accent or singing Monty Python songs, fortunately they only had to suffer my silly accent, although Heather kept her false Indonesian, Welsh, Germanic half French accent up longest. Good fun and if you don't sing or quote it makes no difference to your chances of winning.

Wicker hats

Today I went to the Larp Fair at Barnsley with Jock and Bridgette photos below.

At the fair I also ran into Sam, Jak, Heather and children, Carol and Mike, and just as I was leaving Mike, Rich and Amy.

The day was cold, damp and very windy, the wind biting straight through you, but once inside it pleasantly warm, the fair did not have as many stall as the one earlier in the year and was surprisingly devoid of customer again unlike my previous visit, not sure if that was credit crunch, weather or time of year, still it did mean the stall holders had plenty of time to chat to you and allowed plenty of room for heathers pushchair.

I bought a nice shirt from Primal Forge, a walking stick, a hat, a wicker hat or head piece a prop from Chows Emporium I think some play or other with carrot on top, it was very cheap hat by my standards and decidedly different see the photo below.


We also wandered around the Elsecar heritage centre, bypassing the wool shop, but found a massive antiques warehouse on the site which took another hour and where I also bought a pair of folding glasses as a prop, they are without lenses but I intend to put some coloured acetate film in them to make them look odd, perhaps red and green depends what I can find.

Stopping at the cafe for a beef and gravy roll, which is not a good combination the gravy dribbles and makes the roll gooey, we left around 2 pm spending a good four hours of mainly window shopping.

Old friends

I went out on Friday night and met up at a pub with Pete and Barbara who I had not seen (after some working out) for 8 years, they had not changed that much, a little larger around the waist but that was about it, unlike myself who they believe has somehow got younger and thinner, it was nice compliment.

The pub in Ashover was a real ale pub and jam packed because of a band playing, I also think they had the heating on so even after I took my coat off I found myself dripping sweat from standing still, I might be younger but I envied those with seats, and those near the cooling breeze of doorways, I felt old standing there with my orange juice.

An hour into the evening who should tap me on the shoulder but my youngest brother Stephen, apparently he waved and gestured from the other side of the pub, but I had not seen him staring straight passed him. So after he checked my eyesight we had a chat and he pointed out his friends, names I knew from when I lived with my parents with him, but faces apart from Cannon who I no longer recognised at all. Stephen's still working up in Scotland, trying to work out how to fit a what I would call a catalytic converter the size of 4 houses to power station.

I also ended up this weekend with new compact camera when looking for a mp3 player, the camera plays mp3 to plug into to my car, is very gadgety and takes ridiculous 10 mega pixel photos, stores 1600 plus of them or a silly 10,000 plus photos at 1 MPixel with its 4GB memory card, seem camera's like everything electronic have got better and smaller. It fits in my shirt pocket, will I ever use my SLR again?

Some photos below taken with my new camera.

Kit Kat Thieves

Possibly the last Ascendancy weekend at Candleston due to price increases although I hope not and the October weather was at its best, putting the damp summer months to shame in fact by midday it was lovely tee shirt weather.

I camped at this event with Dave only since Julie was cat sitting although from reading her blog, more like cat fighting. I also learned today Jock and Bridgettes cat Monty had died, probably of old age, apart from this last few months looked he quite young for age possible because he was a small furry ball of a cat, he will be missed.

I decided to cater this event and brought a big pack of donuts, upon arriving at Dave's he produced a big pack of donuts, so catering sorted we ate donuts the whole weekend, although Dave did scoff 10 out the 12 packets of crisps, not complaining since don't eat crisps. A squirrel also ate a half used packet of bread roles while I nipped the loo and a packet of kit-kats bars went missing, could have been crack squirrel team, they left no evidence, the alternative is they will turn in years time next time I use the tent or rolled up in a jumper.

Talking of tents, as I was taking down my tent a tent pole broke at the metal joint tube for no could reason, Dave said it looked like fatigue, I do use the tent a lot, but its still only just a year old, lucky no more camping events this year.

The event was bitty, I mean that in good way though, lots of plot bits resolved or created, but no single plot thread running through the whole event, it was in a way a pleasant change from too much world saving. I had my enjoyable little bit of political gaming and business dealing, but found knowing stuff and not being able to pass it on a little frustrating, I must have heard at least half a dozen times a player say, Izzanbard would know, and he did, Alfonso didn't.

I got home about a hour earlier than usual, since travelling with Dave we only stopped for a quick burger and fries, although we intended to meet up with Sam and Jak, but somehow overtook them and thought we where late and had missed them.

Today I seem to have pain in right shoulder which hurts for no apparent reason, it even made driving difficult and is certainly going to make it hard to sleep.

Games and games

I have just had one atrocious day at work because of sickness, holidays, and a site visit I was the only one in a busy office normally with 6 people, so with the radio for company I did nothing but answer the phones and try to work out how do other peoples jobs I'm not familiar with, needless to say the day was tiring and I did not do any of my own projects, went quick though it was lunch before I remembered to drink my tea made at 8am.

My weekend on the other hand was very lazy, I seemed to have spent most of it in Chimera shop chatting to Andy and others while playing card games, on Saturday Andy was shattered having run a competition MTG card tournament Friday night which did not finish until 1.30am, he then tried to have a lie-in unfortunately its sounds like his kids had other ideas.

Sunday I entered the 2nd MTG sealed deck competition not being available for the Friday night epic, this started at 10am and lasted until 3pm when the shop was due to be taken over by Yu-Gi-Oh players. In the competition I think I came around 12th out of 16 players, not very good really but sealed deck competitions do rely a lot on luck, I did not have bad luck but some people had very very good luck just pulling out the correct mana at right time to play that perfect wining card.

To complete my lazy weekend I also purchased my 1st computer game since World of Warcraft three years ago, (Yes it was a cold dark wet windy day) the game was called Spoor and recommended by psychichazard. I'm not entirely sure why I bought but as well as psychichazard recommending, I was listening to the radio and presenter who was enjoying the game, and I then spotted it in Sainsbury's while looking at DVDs. In the game you evolve your creatures from spoor to space faring race with every stage in between, evolving your spoor, then creature with pincers, cats ears, shark like mouths, suckers, long necks, anything you can think of. The only downside to this tale is after 3 hours of play the game kept crashing at a certain point, the point my race had discovered fire, which stopped me playing and I can't get my enthusiasm back at the moment. May give it go tonight.

New Blog Background

I've just spent a just over an hour installing a new layout having been pointed to Allie Browns's site by Esther's blog, installing the new background itself took less than 5 minutes, in fact it took much longer to choose the background.

I then spent the rest of the time playing with font colours and making the header fit spot on.

F.C.R.S.

I finally put together the cardboard cat playhouse fire engine see pictures below. Unlike Julies Charlie who would not fit in the playhouse Tank, Jasmine is a small cat and fitted, but she still made it look small.

Jasmine - Fire Cat Rescue Service.




Jasmine Fire Engine Driver - "MEOW meow, MEOW meow, MEOW meow" went the siren.



Jasmine Fire Engine Mechanic "The cardboard drive shaft needs some fish oil meow thinks"



Alert for Danger. Jasmine like any good fire cat is alert for other dangers, pieces of string and cat treats.



Like any good fire engine it also serves as good scratching post for the itch on the back of the neck.