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.