Life & Other Stuff...

Ahem, So it's been a while *blows dust off blog* My world went a little into the mundane and uninteresting with a dash of ick and blues.  Suffice to say when such things occur I tend to have very little to contribute to the world.

Christmas came and went, it was a small and low key affair, with various traditions observed and continued, though this year came with added kitten sitting.  This led to the rather amusing scenarios of the troublesome duo exploring new surroundings, learning the limitations of my mothers patience (fyi not at all long) concluding the plastic tree is not for consumption and that H2O from the running tap is vastly more exciting than that in the bowl....All this before the wrapping paper fiasco. 

And so some cute piccies....Archie finds himself a comfortable spot

 As does Oscar

Archie begins to plot shenanigans

The lure of Christmas wrapping proves to enticing for a couple of kittens

Archie pulls his best 'I didn't do it' face

Oscar is busted

And at the end of the day it just proves all a little too much

The blizzard and snowy conditions abated just prior to Christmas day, much to my disappointment....another year without a white Christmas, and the more familiar dull, grey and generally depressing murk and rain returned.  The all time worst kind of weather for me and therefore my mood was in danger of plummeting to a depressingly low standard....save for a few things:

My family, in their wisdom, had treated me to a wii with a few games included...one in particular a rather addictive case of animated fun, and after barely a month I can consider myself to be fairly masterful of all things Mario Kart...to the point where whipping the arse of my sister, her partner and my father is starting to get a little boring ;-)

On a particularly cold, murky and down right icky day mother produced an extra pressie in the form of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle...a few hours later it was complete and I raided the spare cupboard for more...then moved on to e-bay...like some kind of rabid puzzle fiend I continue to seek out and solve jigsaws, slapping away any hand who dares interfere with my task of finding just the right piece and then destroying it again before anyone barely gets a glance of the finished picture to move onto the next....I'm even starting to dream in 'puzzle'....is that weird?

Before my jigsaw obsession takes complete hold, there is one more thing which has been keeping me in check...focusing my inner moppet to all things geek.  A long time coming I decided to go to London for, what has become an annual, Wolf Gateway to Sanctuary Convention.  There had been talk of this particular convention coming to an end...recession, series ending, general lack of interest...you can take your pick of the reason.  So when this was announced with three guest I've met before but thoroughly enjoy being around and listening too, I could hardly turn down the chance....especially if this was going to be a farewell event.  And to be quite honest I missed my cuddies (con-buddies, for those not yet ofey with my nonsensical witterings)

It was to be a kind of test for me after recent months and to be honest could've gone either way, but thankfully I had most excellent time and for a whole weekend got to be...me! But more on that another time.

Random X-mas Tuneage

Have been waiting a couple of months to post this little gem....How did I not know about this album

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree (Disclaimer, there is neither partridges or pear trees in the following post)

Crikey, that was all over as quickly as it took to rip the wrapping off the full sized Jensen Ackles Father Christmas left for me in my comedy oversized stocking...*sighs* I can dream.  Though it has been a blur of pastry, turkey, chocolate, Christmas pud, twinkling lights and wrapping paper the last few days, such is the seasonal festivities.  Mother nature also saw fit to deliver some aptly timed conditions to a sizeable portion of the land to make it the first white Christmas in 10 years.  My little corner of Blighty, however, only saw a smidge of snow and was back to the regular seasonal gloomy and rainy by the big day itself...*frowny face*...one of these days I'm going to stick a couple of fingers up to Bognor at Christmas and travel somewhere which can garuntee me a white Christmas with as much snow, and some, as I need to make a decent snow Dalek...and perhaps even a snow T.A.R.D.I.S

Anyhoo, hope everyone had a trouble free holiday and was granted their most desired (or at least close second) by Father Christmas.  I have once again plenty of hours of DVD watching in my not too distant future and may gaze upon Bradley James and Colin Morgan daily for the next year, so a happy bunny here.

Poor father fared not so well, the majority of my family had been fighting various colds/flu/sniffles the week preceeding Christmas and although my dear 'ol dad had thought he was over the worst, his symptoms decided to ensure he spent much of the 24th & 25th in bed...poor chap managed only to socialise long enough for a little dinner, present opening and the long awaited Doctor Who on the box before returning to bed....Doctor Who, fyi, was aptly entertaining, dark and manic...though at least 30% of the episode was David Tennant running, and a big yay for Bernard Cribbins....funny, sombre, child-like and with a touch of the mysterious, can't wait for End of Time part 2.

Last week, as I mentioned, even my usually sheltered corner was blasted with arctic conditions, in the town its settling was unforntunately brief and twas not enough to engaged in child-like endevours.  My father however was upon the downs chasing pheasants and had his phone handy to deliver me some idyillic photos...these would have been on my blog much earlier had my father not been so technologically foppish and instead of taking actual pictures had instead been taking actual 2 second long videos...sheesh...which left me to figure out how to convert the file and generate an actual screenshot pictures....anyhoo..."ooh" and "ahh" at the English Countryside in Winter:

 

Christmas London Style

This is a later entry than I would've liked since the pics I have to show off are from my excursion to London town the weekend before last. The reason for the tardiness was the fact that I took on the role of organising a TV theme tune quiz for a little get together at the local sports club, at which my dad is a member. I hung out at this place semi-regularly as a child and have always attended the quiz nights, with varying degrees of prize winning success...only so much slack the only under 60 person on the team can take up. Anyhoo dad and I spent the best part of last week finding, editing and transferring to CD five rounds of tunes for the quiz and rocked up to the event. Around 30-40 people were there and after a Christmas themed quiz and a round of bingo dad and I put on the first round of the TV tune quiz...In under five minutes the rowdy crowd seemed to be more interested in their own Neanderthal based banter (Think season 4 of Buffy episode Bad Beer) and then the ominously coloured, orange curry which arrived halfway through. At which point we were very rudely shouted upon that the food would go cold if we didn't desist at that exact moment, so we cut our losses and stopped the quiz. To say I was a tad miffed is probably the understatement of the year and after suffering the remainder of the evening we ventured home where I hate to say I had a melancholy moment before bedtime.

But anyway, vile, arrogant, Neanderthals aside. I did have a top weekend in London visiting Ally, off of Uni days and having a bit of a festive explore of the capital. We had a fabulous Christmas dinner and lengthy catching up sessions with fellow Club Mercury Alumni Josh. And found a fantastic German Market/Fair/General Christmassy goodiness in Hyde Park.

Lights in Oxford Street

Decorations at Carnaby Street

Fair in Hyde Park


Places around which I wandered on my London visit