Gathering 1115AF

Caution: this post contains material which may be unsuitable for non-larpers. It contains no news about house-buying, or my attempts at writing. It is mostly a list of good (and not-so-good) things that happened during my weekend in a field.

Things (Hots, Nots, etc. in no particular order)

• Thursday night. First one we've made in a while due to work, and while I never enjoy putting up (or rather, helping put up) a tent in the dark, it was worth it for the silly chat and booze and getting to actually see people.
• Hard time in, complete with IC brief and then a big battle straight off. Was cool, even if it did throw everyone off for the rest of the evening and I got tired very, very quickly and went to bed early. 
• Food, provided for by our wonderful friend, was great as always. 
• The Boy was pretty well-behaved, if a bit grumbly at times. Amazed once again how confident he is to wander off to vendors by himself and get a drink and make his own way to and fro from kids plot. Next step: getting him to make his own lunches....
• He even came on a linear with us, even if he didn't get to do much.
• Linear! Didn't go down how it planned, but is always fun to go off with the group (and friends) to try and talk to bad guys, arrest them, and knock them unconscious only if necessary. Because that's how we do things.
• Speaking of which, we had a staggering number of members this event. Then one got himself killed, but we were still in double figures, which is just fantastic. And both our squires survived! Despite going face to face with the Big Bad at the end!
• Final battle was nice and crunchy but not ludicrous. And yes, Squire Keen II literally skipping off to hit the Big Bad with the newly recovered faction iconic was a great sight.
• And I don't think I got knocked out at all in the final fight. Unlike the first one, and several other skirmishes in camp. I'm getting better at watching my back, but no better at dodging or parrying sadly.
• Being stuck behind the line on the gate when I know there are people on the ground (and possible, or definitely dying) is getting very frustrating. Not arrogant enough to think I might have saved them, but seriously tempted by Traverse Faction Wards
• Tagging along with first one, then the other, crown, after order was given that neither should do anywhere without at least three people. Both have the annoying tendency to wander off when you're looking the other way.
• Rain on the last day. Constant rain. Made worse by the nice weather the rest of the weekend. 
• Last but by no means least: I was given the faction Tier 5 training voucher. Despite pretty much everyone saying this was deserved, I don't think my character will ever accept that she did anything to earn it. Adele is just starting to admit that maybe she doesn't do a shoddy job. Both are pleased as punch about it, though, and looking forward to being able to heal those pesky people with Magical patterns next year...

Again, usual disclaimers that I have probably forgotten things. I do love this crazy hobby my girlfriend dragged me along to.

Nine Things About Nine Worlds

*cough* *splutter*

Blimey, lets open a window in here and let some air in, eh?

*waves metaphorical duster about*

Ok.

We just got back from Nine Worlds 2015. It was great fun, and only caused a bit of stress because I slipped into the mindset of "Must Do All The Things!" which is impossible, especially if you need to eat. So a "Nine Things About Nine Worlds" post seemed like a good idea, as a bit of a post-event wind-down.

1. Staying in the same hotel as the con? Big and clever. Not only is the Radisson a pretty darn nice place (as you might expect from a 4-star hotel) with an impressive breakfast buffet (cheese for breakfast - it's the way forward), but virtually no travel time means you get to experience much more of the event. Case in point: dragging an already tired 11 year old to Just A Minute Only a Moment starting at 10 pm would be impossible if it wasn't just a two minute walk back to our room at the end. 
2. Only a Moment! I've been wanting to see one of Paul Cornell's fabled "Just A Minute"s at a con for some time now and wasn't disappointed. Joe Abercombie all but walked away with it, but all four panellists were great and even the Boy enjoyed it despite being shattered and not understanding half the topics (or indeed, all the rules). 
3. All the panels and discussions we made it too were pretty good: some better moderated than other, but interesting, well-informed panellists, good humour and audience participation were the order of the day. I never had the courage to ask a question, but the Wife did a fair bit and got some good responses. 
4. We took a stack of books down to get signed and actually got them all signed, despite missing one scheduled session. This is because Joanne Harris is lovely and recognised us from previous day and a book-signing we went to earlier in the year. And possibly Twitter.
5. Actually all the authors we spoke to were lovely. As well as the three mentioned above, we bought and has signed Snorri Kristjansson's first book after seeing him on a panel. And not just the authors - every single person we interacted with was friendly and helpful. I just wish I hadn't had an attack of shy every time I approached someone: just about managed to give away my "Awesome Cosplay" tokens.
6. We bought other books too - some that we'd been meaning to get for a while as well as those on a whim. With the freebies given away in the goodie bags, we came home with quite a lot of books. Just before moving house. Oh well.
7. Genki Gear t-shirts! I splashed out on the convention tee, the Boy got the classic "Hamsters Everywhere Salute You" and the Wife got one of their 10 for 10 - the new "Science Investigates the Unknown". 
8. It's not all positives though: the popularity of some panels meant unless you got there early there was no chance of getting in - resulting in long queues and quite a few disappointments. And having the Boy in tow meant I didn't feel up to running about trying to squeeze into second or third options. 
9. Once again, I tended towards the All The Books track and once again I came away thinking "I should try writing again". And so I will. 

Definitely, definitely going again next year. With more flexible plans but hopefully more courage to get involved.

Procrastination and an update

It's been nearly six months so it's about time I posted something here. I'm still not dead. I'm still working and mostly not hating it. Some days drag and then other fly by and then suddenly it's Friday and I'm wearing the wrong socks or something.

I've started writing again. Like, today. I'd been trying the "just write what I feel like it" and that worked well for a bit and then I stopped as usual. Now I'm trying to concentrate on just one story and actually carry on with it when I get time. Like during my lunch break at work today. My laptop is just about light enough to not be too much of a hassle to carry to work and back for less than thirty minutes of use. I may not do that too much though. And no doubt I'll lose enthusiasm for this as well. Writing is hard. You need to actually press the keys and everything.

I haven't been reading much, though did get through a couple of the books we got free from Nine Worlds. Yeah, we went to Nine Worlds this year. We're going next year too. I may end up using all my annual leave on geek activities again and have to call on family and a lovely partner to help entertain and supervise the boy. Larp was also good and also something I'm keeping at despite not really doing the things I intended to. Plot is for other people. I'm happy enough drinking cider and angsting about all my friends dying.

 Back into the autumn now and school and uni and stuff. The boy went to Robinwood with his class despite spending most of the summer adamant he didn't want to go. He had a whale of a time and apparently is really good at archery. He sure as heck doesn't get that from me. My better half appears to be even more busy than she was before which I didn't think was physically possible, And might have Freshers' Flu. Occupational hazard.

It's our anniversary tomorrow. We had a meal out on Monday while boy was away (and over-indulged in both food and wine) but otherwise have no plans to celebrate. I may manage a card, but utterly failed to think about presents. We're travelling down to the deepest South for friends' wedding and their daughter's christening and it was enough of a scramble to get organised for that. I really am no better at planning ahead, although I've been managing to order repeat prescriptions before running out of medication for quite a while now. And I have been on this medicine for quite a while now. I think it's still being useful, despite a few slips. Certainly the one day I missed a pill this month had noticeable effects. Although I have been worried I was starting to withdraw again....I've made a small effort to try and actually pay attention to people, although I'm no better at getting in touch with friends and family who live further away. But that's what Facebook is for, isn't it? And I have been getting grunpy and short-tempered with people. The problem with trying to avoid introspection because that leads to rumination is that you avoid noticing potential problems in your own behaviour. I may be relying too much on other people telling me when something is wrong. Fortunately at least one person in my life is very vocal about when I've been ignoring him and never want to play on the Wii with him. That he probably does get from me.