Still Not Enough Rice Pudding

It's that cherry blossom time of year when we suddenly start feeling more energized and inspired and for us creative types this sensation of dynamism can only be augmented by a recent con-experience. Once you've got over the hangovers and con-crud, that is.

The season began for me with a trip to North Wales where Hafan y Mor gave us welcome once again for the Sci-Fi Weekender. The journey to the sea was long and, in parts, perilous, affording us views of sheer drops down into sheep-filled valleys from the narrow roads, and little detours into the Snowdonia National Park.



Myself and a couple of friends, Jess and Cris, arrived in time for the Thursday pre-party, at which I managed to meet a brand new face from my own hometown. A nice, chilled way to start the weekend.

On Friday morning, an early start was required to go and watch the eclipse. We trundled down to the shoreline with our makeshift pinhole camera (a large piece of white card and a Strongbow box), having been unable to acquire the de rigeur black glasses as worn by Professor Brian Cox on the cover of Radio Times. Other people were there with various combinations of attempted pin holes, made from colanders and torn granola boxes. Hey, ours looked pretty good in comparison. The sky was fairly clear, and already turning a violet-grey, the gulls floating subdued on the placid sea. Our camera revealed the moon had already taken a nibble from the sun, and we observed the mica in the air, the stillness, the chill descending. Nearby a small girl we had been trying to encourage to look at our nibbled sun found a rotting stick which she found much more interesting, we had to laugh. Her mother meanwhile was taking photos of the starlight speckles of sunlight on the water as the sun's reflection paled and retreated.

Just as the eclipse was nearing its peak, the birds flew off and the sea went crazy, roaring and splashing over the few visible sticks of the jetty. Another woman appeared and let us look through her glasses for a few seconds, and I was shocked to begin with because I'd forgotten ours would be an upside-down image. The sea calmed for a few minutes before going mad again. I saw one of the gardeners drive by with a palm tree in the back of his truck - what a shame to miss this! And yet... a palm tree in North Wales is probably odd enough.

Later in the day, we were joined by more friends and my husband, brother and nephew who had travelled up together after school. My nephew Ash is six - it was his first convention - aw! He mainly spent it playing crazy golf and kickabout football, though.

My Friday highlights included a very interesting publishing panel, featuring David J Howe, Terry Martin and Theresa Derwin, Charles Ross's brilliant One Man Star Wars, and interviews with Game of Thrones stars Julian Glover and James Cosmo. We missed most of the Imaginarium, but Darth Elvis and and the Imperials were brilliant and funny. Didn't all go to plan for them though - a staged interruption to their set from their friend dressed as Jar Jar Binks was misinterpreted by a security guard and the hapless fellow was dragged off stage. We also managed to watch a film called Hungerford, written, filmed and acted in by a plucky 19 year old Drew Casson - very promising, especially for someone so young, but all the shaky camerawork was motion-sickness inducing and there were some big old plot issues.

On Saturday, I took part in a couple of panels: Writing Horror with Terry Martin and Alison Kershaw, and I moderated Writing Alternative Worlds with Kim Lakin-Smith and Gareth L. Powell. We had some great audience questions, and the time flew by. For my second panel, Gareth had only just finished taking part in Just a Minute with Bryony Pearce, Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy, and when we concluded he'd done 5 and a half hours of talking on panels. What a trooper!

Other Saturday highlights for me - seeing my friends' children winning the Cosplay competition and going to watch Festival of the Spoken Nerd - I've known Helen Arney for ages from the comedy circuit, and she's brilliantly funny and has a gorgeous voice. Go see her and the Nerds if you can!

It was a lovely weekend full of cheesy dancing to cheesier music, cosplay, comedy and mild sunshine.
Nothing to do on the Sunday, so a trip to Portmeirion Village on the way home was in order. A beautiful day, the flowers were in bloom. Shame I had to leave, really.





Did I? You will find out in the continued adventures of this con-goer!

 

I had a great New Year.  Not many of us dressed up, but I was quite proud of what we managed to create with stuff from round the house. I got an origami pattern off the Web for my hat. Neil added to his golf tam o'shanter with a set of mini golf clubs.  A good time was had by all.   Zoe put on a great party and even organised pass the parcel. How cool was that! ? I won some air fresheners and custard.

 

Drank too much vodka,  but we started the year well with a run and I managed to get up early this morning to do sit ups. It has killed me not to have hot chocolate from the vending machine all day but I can be smug.

 

Sadly though, we had a blow today as N's parents won't be coming to the wedding. N's dad has recently lost his sight and is reluctant to go places he's not familiar with. Plus N and I are having clashes of ideas and I feel his disappointment underlies some of the difficulty. But it will be sorted and as special as we both want it to be,  I know.

 

...is a creepy story by Michael Marshall Smith,  now live on Pseudopod.  I provide the spooky little girl narration.  Give it a listen, and I hope you like it!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I had a splendid time with N, his brother, Emma and N’s nieces. N cooked the main meal, with roast poussin and veal wellington, chestnut stuffing and roast veggies. I took care of the pudding at a workshop ages ago and N flambéed it to perfection. The food was excellent, but yes too much was bought and too much eaten. Yum, yum, yum! Burp…

There have been one or two regrettable big spends too (sigh, ‘tis the nature of Christmas…), but worth it for N to have a proper family Christmas, just the way he wanted it to be.

My best present was a pair of walking boots, which I have already tried out on a 6-mile hike across the swamplands and mud-baths of Northampton. I’ve also had some books and DVDs that I really wanted. Finally – Big Train is mine!

What have I achieved in 2012?

I’ve got through some tough times. My mom’s death has been pretty raw, and at my worst points all I’ve wanted to do was run away – from everything. But I stayed. I toughed it out. Sometimes I’ve been difficult to live with. Sometimes I’ve felt like an observer of my own life, like I was watching everything through a glass, all disconnected. Sometimes, I’ve taken things more personally than I perhaps should. But, emerging from the other side now, I know that all this is normal. A few months ago I said I could never be happy again… but every so often I catch myself looking and feeling pretty happy. The cloud is still inside, but it’s okay.

I’ve had some pretty good performances. That little five minutes in front of the SFX Weekender audience felt special. The Christmas show at Woburn Sands Library was cool. Being the talking bird in Arabian Nights was great too. I also wrote and performed my own poetical play, Waking the Witch.

I’m proud of the exhibition I put on at the museum, and our opening event was great, with Anne-Marie Sandos walking round telling witch stories in character. I don’t think I’ve yet managed to achieve making Northampton a popular spook-loving tourist destination, but it could happen!

I learned to kayak.

I’ve also had a novel published this year… although I only wrote a very small part of it. I’ll try to make the next one really worth crowing about -- personally.

I managed 9 months without shopping in supermarkets. Unfortunately, I’ve lost N’s support with this just before Christmas, so the full challenge has had to stop. We sourced some great food at the Good Food Show, but we needed extra for Christmas and were not happy with our meat suppliers. Also, as N is in training he was concerned about some of the nutritional quality of the meat he was eating. So we are now going to do a shop between once and twice a month at Waitrose, the most ethical supermarket, and will continue getting veggies from the market, cat food from the pet shop and bread from the bakers. Pros - shopping won’t be restricted to Saturdays; we can get free-range; we can get fresh fish. Cons - way too tempting to shop off-list and overspend.

But now, I look ahead to 2013. These are my goals:

Do more: writing, reading for pleasure, reading for work, growing things, making things, fitness activities, saving.

Do less: TV-watching, reading for displeasure, organising shows, spending. Something’s gotta give.

Big stuff: A couple of major things are happening mid-year. One of them is MY WEDDING.

Yes, 2013 is going to be expensive. Love the thought of getting married, but don’t see the point of crippling ourselves, or losing life-choice flexibility by being tied to big loans. But N hates things looking cheap. He fears a big ‘that’ll do’ bomb exploding in his face one day, and of course I tell him it won’t, but... I’m going to be looking for lots of advice, I think...

As budgeting and saving have been foremost in my mind of late, I've been exploring quite a lot of the frugal-living blogs out there, and have noticed a few bloggers have been saying this week that they are so glad they were saving as they have managed to prevent a financial disaster due to their budgeting due to some catastrophe having happened in the last week or so that they weren't mentally prepared for, but thankfully were financially.

This week my boiler broke down, and cost twice as much to repair than was quoted. It's fine though... I panicked a bit because I'd got to pay out on a convention booking, and Christmas is looming round the corner, but realised I had some leeway. So, I've wiped out my savings from the last couple of months, but hey, at least I had some.

And positives from this week include me attending a fantastic Stir up Sunday pudding workshop, hosted by Annie Ko (so I have a pudding!), Neil completing a 10km race - his first for his triathlon club, and Neil being so slim now that he has required a shopping trip. And we went to a charity shop and managed to find him a designer shirt in there that but a few months ago he had tried on in Debenhams, but they didn't have the Large. Now Medium fits him! And the shirt was new and cost £4.50. He also got me a dress for the Christmas do, and had been mentally prepared to take me to Debenhams, but I got a really flattering swathe-dress for £9.50, brand new Autograph by M&S.

Cinders, you shall go to the ball!

Not entirely positive, as I'm feeling a bit of an ostrich about those things that are making me anxious this week, but I'm trying to stay positive and see if I can influence fate for the better.

My to do list is getting a bit troublesome what with wedding, convention budgeting, and event planning. I want Christmas off!

But let's face it... I'm a control freak.

I was pretty pleased with myself for getting the shopping in under budget this week with lots of filling meals planned. Then Neil wanted to cook me a meal on Saturday and came back from the shops with not only stuff for dinner, but loads of duplicates. This included a cooked chicken, when I was already defrosting one.

This now means extra careful planning to NOT waste food.

We're probably going to be sick of chicken this week, but I may not have time to shop next week so hopefully most of the veggies will last.

We're planning to spend more time together at weekends, including sharing shopping time together, but I am a little anxious. I know what we have in, I know where the bargains are. He thinks I undershop and thinks we'll run out of stuff. I think he's too impulsive , greedy and a shopping grump...but we have to learn to work and budget together.

I have a feeling I am just not chilled enough.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

The festive verse-a-thon is progressing well, though I don't know how I'll cope today as I've got a gig tonight and I'm knackered.

Anyway, here's a sample.

SNOWGLOBE APOCALYPSE

Pretty little snowglobe
Now your time is here.
Shake you up and watch
For the snowstorm to appear.

You were thrifted
And then gifted
From my mom to me
Bought in Compton Hospice shop
Only 50p.

Two little houses
Roofs all decked in snow.
Three plastic pine trees
All in a row.

Children running, screaming,
Arms in the air.
What are they running from?
Probably the bear.

Bigger than the houses
Bigger than the trees;
No wonder that the plastic kids
Are looking ill at ease.

With snow the size of teacups
Swirling through the air,
Freakish storms now to contend with
As well as giant bears.

And as the snowglobe's leaked a bit
They've got more to dread:
An ominous void that
Now threatens overhead.

Insidious little snowglobe
Apocalypse is here.
Shake you up and wait
For The Reaper to appear.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

The great thing about setting goals is that wonderful feeling of achievement you get when you can tick something off your list because you've done it when you said you were going to do it.

A joint effort from me and Neil has left us with a much more organised kitchen that feels much nicer to work in. We have a load of glasses and crockery that can be free-cycled, and have found some useful stuff that had been lying around forgotten and gathering dust - so I'm drinking Lady Grey from the tea set that my friend Sharon bought me, and treats are in the cupboard in a lovely cream biscuit jar instead of the chipped and cracked Tetley Gaffer jar.

A mixed afternoon has resulted from my little sojourn to the library. It seems so weird that they are now open on Sundays! I went to hear John Dickie talk about his relative who fought in the Spanish Civil War. It was a free talk and really interesting.

I didn't intend to buy his book, but he seemed quite put out by what he felt was a low turnout, and it was an interesting subject. So I did. I used money I'd earmarked this weekend for the purchase of tights, though I managed to find some for just 59p. To buy or not to buy? I feel guilty either way, but come on conscience - I'm in budget still!

No matter what John thought there were quite a few people there for an author talk, I reckoned.

Anyway, to offset my spending qualms, I took out Screw Work, Let's Play. These self-help books are often gubbins, but if I can glean any bright ideas for making my extra curricular stuff pay better, then that will be good.

Anyway, here is John Dickie. He's sitting on the set of Wuthering Heights.