Cold, it was and I had

I started the run up to Ascendancy event with a cold, Friday morning I woke up and decided I was too ill to be of any use and would catch pneumonia camping outside.

Having volunteered to provide the food for the weekend Julie still needed however to pop round to collect it and by the time she had arrived I felt well enough to risk the event and in a last minute decision motivated enough to pack my kit, and was nearly ready by time Dave and Julie arrived.

Travelling to event was no hassle apart from realising as the journey progressed all the different things my last minute cjoice and cold induced brain failure had caused me to forget, biggest of which was food for me and my glasses, since I was wearing contact lenses at the time.

I was playing a crippled character that evening which my cold actually helped with since my hearing was bunged up and I was not feeling sharp, my character was blind which was fun. It was a event about time travel full of time travel experts so my character took a back seat as I always do at time events since their is always too many cooks that come out the woodwork, so I usually take on different role. The crippled character was a one off which I enjoyed playing this once but won't again for while, it also gave me an excuse to take a few photographs.

Below: Blind me

My crippled character also had been badly burnt so with a tips from Julie I painted my face red with the odd black steak then covered it in PVA glue, this dried and started flake off just like dead skin and I found it a great pleasure to pick off, much to my doctors annoyance.

The nights in the dark age huts where not too bad wrapped in my sleeping with extra blankets, but the mornings in costume were bitter, Sunday was extremely cold with a wind that went straight through my thermal underwear and left me with cold feet, not something I suffer often, but the inactivity of being injured make it worse.

Below: Julie talking to Paddy.

The event overall hit the mark with everyone, AndyL was running around since he played nearly all the major npc and so was constantly changing costume, well done to him since he was very ill the week before.

Below: Andy as Sabrejaw, Stiltskin Ribbons, Indech, he also played many others including Levi Tempest and Capt.Dove.

After the event we drove back through the motorway spray went back to my house for Pizza and warm before Julie and Dave left just after eight to drive back home through the heavy rain.

Below: Dave wrapping up warm, I like this photo for the colours.

A quick round up my weekend

This was a weekend of wind and rain.

After a day of light shopping Saturday, I found myself invited around to Ste and Debs for tea.

On the way to Ste and Debs my car was narrowly missed by a airborne umbrella which made me swerve as I caught sight of it in the corner of my eye.

I enjoyed a meal which Deb was convinced hadn't turned out right, I liked it even if it should have tasted different and had a empty plate almost licked clean to prove it. We then chatted the evening away before watching the Iron man DVD, a film I saw at the cinema and thoroughly enjoyed while the wind pelted the windows.

On Sunday I got up to go to the Living History Fair near Warwick, this started with me squirting a unpleasant jet of cod and haddock cat food into mouth as I opened the foil carton for Jasmine, requiring the gargling of mouth wash to remove the taste.

I went to the fayre with Julie and Dave who I picked up on the way, now its usually Julie job to convince me to buy at hat, she failed only to point out a black wig which I bought instead, Dave's job is usually to find me a bargain or shoot a cross bow bolt across the display stands, again Dave failed, he did manage to find his own bargains and loose his scarf, found eventually at the bottom of his bag the 1st place he originally looked. My Job is usually to convince Julie to spend money, well it was my turn to fail, she found Dave a Christmas present and spent away without my help, much more than me for a change.

Didn't see any of the usual suspects at the fayre, did see CatherineW who gave me a massive hug like she had not seen me years, possibly she hadn't. Poor Catherine had her stall of fabric water damaged by a leak in the fayre roof.

I also bought a few Christmas present, a hat, some slug skin cream made from slug slime from Annie the Pedlar that I'm sure will be a hit or a good humoured smack in the face, and then a Jabot for me from Magies Costume the same place I got the wig from.

After the Fayre we went for some pub grub, I took Julie and Dave to the Cocked Hat a place frequented a few time by me, Jock and Bridgette that served excellent homed mad pies, well in the 6 months since my last visit it had totally changed the building extended, entrance moved, grotty bar removed and new pub grub menu installed with a two for one offer. Food was fine, desert yummy, price good, I just missed the home made pies that weren't your typical corporate chain pub food.

By the time we had eaten it was 4 ish so it was far too late to go to mums for Sunday roast, so after I had dropped Julie and Dave off I had to make a call to my Mum to put my dinner aside and I would visit her Monday instead.

I then headed home hitting heavy rain and heavy traffic on the M1, but South bound looked a disaster as passed mile after mile of congested traffic.

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.