On going battles

Friday I worked from home as I was expecting a workman to come look at my front door again. This was a good thing as my front door which is not even three years old is particularly problematic. It lets in drafts, which it definitely shouldn't and the frame doesn't feel as well anchored into the hole as I'd expect either. Oh and it jams a lot, which was why I replaced the original door in the first place.

This was the second scheduled visit, the first having achieved nothing because the workman arrived without the tools to do the job and not enough time allocated to complete it. Not to mention how difficult it was to get hold of Amber Windows in the first place.

Anyhow, the man from Amber Windows came. He was pleasant and friendly. He made all the right noises. He sucked in the air through his teeth a lot and he fiddled with the door for over an hour. And the result? It's worse than when he started and he still didn't have the parts he needed to finish the job.

I am not happy and shall be phoning again tomorrow morning. Which of course means I need to arrange to work from home again. For some reason, I don't hold out much hope that whenever this next visit is arranged, that that will be the end of the matter. So watch this space.

In more entertaining news, I drove up to Ripley last night to help out Richard with the latest wargame associated with AscendancyLRP which was held in Andy and Heather's shop, Chimera.

I was scribe, my task being to record everything that happened so it could be written up properly. I've had a go at wargaming in the past, I know how it goes... A turn takes typically anything from twenty minutes to an hour, involving a lot of discussion and shaking of dice and sometimes arguments about interpretation of the rules as little men are moved around the table. I checked first and confirmed that my job involved no more than writing down about four lines per turn, I expected to get a lot of sock knitted.

After five turns and four full A4 pages of notes and not a single stitch knitted, I think maybe I was misled. Bad Richard!

It was an entertaining day although I got lost during the rule discussions and it was such a big game, with huge numbers of points on the table, that I couldn't keep track of which unit was which or what just happened. This led to me asking lots of questions in hurried whispers to the players, as I scribbled away frantically.

I even whipped out my camera and took some photo's.





Click on images, to see bigger versions...

Although they probably don't mean much without the context, but some of those figures are very nicely done.

The player's side won.

Just.

And I do mean just. It was an incredibly close call, but I don't think anyone other than those watching the game will have any appreciation for how close they came to losing.

Phew!

Tension seems to be a theme here

With the end of the week looming fast, I've just realised that I've not written an update on here since the beginning of last week, which perhaps is a fair indicator of how things have been of late.

Work is being work and I'm under a lot of pressure at the moment, mostly because I've been given the go ahead for a project which has been on and off and then on and off and on... (you get the idea) All of which means I'm in full steam ahead mode without much time to do anything else, let alone think of blogging.

When I managed to squeeze in a lunchtime last week, I was working my way through an Anti SpamBot fix for the forums I look after, with a supposedly easy fix having so far accrued at least three hours of my time as I try to get it ready to copy up to server. Since its open source I can't guarantee it will work, but once I finish the last few tweaks (and I have a good clear hour to spare) I'll be ready to give it a go on the test boards before starting to do the same for the real thing.

Last weekend was the first proper camping Ascendancy event of the year and I was preparing for it to be a wet and cold one. As it turned out, things weren't too bad. Friday night the weather waited until we'd got the tents up and then rained heavily, on and off all night and in the early morning, but cleared for the rest of the day. It was cold but I was prepared and so it was definitely copable.

One thing of note was my new tent, bought last September and on its first outing, which turned out to have a three foot tear in the built in ground sheet. It had been partially repaired using tape very similar to the groundsheet, suggesting the damage happened at the factory. How it got past QA I don't know and it certainly shouldn't have been sold that way. I'm not impressed and will be taking it back to the store tomorrow, where I shall be pressing for a replacement.

Plotwise, it was an interesting event which turned into a very uncomfortable situation as plans came unravelled, carefully negotiated deals were thwarted and the whole thing descended into player versus player rather than trying to constructively deal with the problem at hand.

I'm still rather bemused by the way in which we were sabotaged; this happens to me on a regular basis and given the consequences of what happened I'm inclined to react this time. Still pondering how to do this and keep the character playable in such a small game, but it is going to take some doing to repair the damage, something which is going to have to be played out.

Overall, it was a lively game with (I suspect) some OOC personal issues getting in the way which didn't help. The way things went should represent something of a set back for the players, although if they pull together things could work out but we shall have to see what happens.

Knitting wise, I took a sock camping which I diligently worked on while drinking tea in the morning. Talking about turning heels with Gail also proved a helpful distraction to what was going on. A plain sock is easy and relaxing knitting and I heartily recommend it if plot you've been working on for over two years goes horribly wrong, it may save your sanity!

Hmmm... Maybe I should teach Andy to knit? ;)

The same sock went with me to the knitting group last night, where I asked for help from Jane in ripping out the heel. As soon as I showed it to Jane she could see the problem and said I should have photographed it to illustrate what can happen when your tension is way off. I knitted that heel flap on Monday and Tuesday night and to look at it, you'd have said it had been knitted by two different people with completely different needle sizes. On the Monday night it was way too loose and on the Tuesday I seem to have compensated and gone the other way, tightening the stitches so I was strangling the life out of the yarn!

I asked Jane to rip out the heel as the last time I tried that with a sock, I ended up having to redo the whole thing.

All is good now though, with the sock back on its needles and the heel about two thirds done with an even tension throughout.

Mend and make do...

This weekend marked the official start of British Summer Time with the clocks all going forward by an hour on Sunday morning. Personally, I hate it when the clock gets adjusted as it takes at least another week for my body to catch on. It seems to have thrown the cats as well, who were decidedly late in their waking yesterday morning and again today, rather than being ready with the CPR at 6am to get me going.

Today I ache in all the wrong places and my right knee has a definite whinge going on, the cause being too much cycling. Taking advantage of the break in the weather, Dave and I cycled about seven miles on Saturday and another three or so, yesterday.

The ride on Saturday was the more productive of the two and I actually rode on the road, surviving my first encounters with inconsiderate drivers who blocked me in and rode so close, they seemed determined to knock me off the bike. I say 'seemed', since I'm sure they weren't trying to send me flying, just agressively claiming the road, which in turn pushed me into the gutter and made trying to pull out so I could turn right impossible.

Sunday's jaunt was more sedate as well as shorter, since within moments of getting on the bicycle, muscles I hadn't realised I had started to complain very loudly! I persevered and then discovered a new issue, namely the bike seemed to be trying to throw me off every time I changed gear. In the end, Dave had a go, riding my bicycle for a short while around the park before deciding there was a genuine problem with the gear transition. A brief visit by Dave to the bicycle shop later (I let him go, since he knows bike speak) and it was sorted (I hope) and turned out to be a stretched gear cable, which the man in the shop said is normal on new bicycles.

Dave has cycled to work this morning, but for me I think more practice and confidence will be needed before I can do the same.

When not risking life and limb on the road this weekend, I pottered around the house (as I regularly do), performing household chores. In between all this, the focus was on 'mend and make do' type activities, as I get ready for the next AscendancyLRP event.

I started off by spending about three hours on Saturday repairing the robe I wear, which was damaged by a clumsy viking at the last event. Since I couldn't find any replacements for the torn frogs last week, I carefully removed the frogs from under the sleeves on the short jacket I made last year, then transferred them to the dress.

Pictures from when it was brand new and pristine...



The removal of the frogs, took quite a while as I'd sewn them on to stay sewn on, so getting them off without damaging the jacket fabric was very fiddly and time consuming. Then I had to do the same with the damaged frogs, carefully feeling for the stitching with my unpicker so I could cut it, but not the threads of the robe itself. Then came the fun of sewing the frogs back on, both for the robe and the jacket (replacing the burgandy frogs with black ones), since I didn't want to leave it in a canibalised state - knowing me I'd have never got around to fixing it again.

When I was finally done with the robe, I moved onto making an amulet pouch or a little bag to hang around the neck.

This little pouch illustrates and vindicates all my insecurities about why I should never throw away scrap! You never know when you might have to rustle something up which looks like it is and always has been part of your character's costume.

The main fabric of the bag is part of the left overs from a jacket I made... er... five (maybe) years ago. That fabric turns up again on the robe as part of the colar, and the gores (or godets) in the skirt. The lining is scrap left over from the robe I made for Dave last summer. The ribbon came off a chocolate box and the beaded bit is one of the frogs I'd just cut off the robe. Dave has retouched the beads for me, as the paint was worn off and I just need to thread a cord through and it's done.

Not too shabby for something made entirely out of left overs and all in about three hours work.

As always, click on images to see bigger versions...

Arctic Easter and Pink Fuzziness

With certain British papers starting the week with headlines of 'Artic Easter!', you can imagine the theme of the past couple of days. Brrrrrh!

Having never coped well with being cold, this did not bode well for me but even more so it did not bode well for the players at the Easter Maelstrom event, which includes my other half. I'd kept an eye on the forecasts so knew what was coming and spent a considerable part of last week persuading him to take a stove along, as well as lecturing him on not sleeping on the floor! Thursday night Dave weakened and finally consented to take along a small single ring, one gas cylinder, a billy, some tea and some soup (in addition to his usual snack foods).

As it turns out, Dave is one of the better prepared players on site - something of a shock in itself! Tents have been blown down or apart by the high winds, which combined with the snow/sleet/hail showers has driven quite a few people to abandon the event, which Dave says is very quiet (numbers wise) compared to normal. Quite a few of those who've remained have had to give up on their tents, bailing out for the relative comfort and safety of sleeping in their cars.

Not so Dave though, who slept soundly in his two sleeping bags and four blankets. He says the worst his tent has suffered was one lifted peg which meant the inner and outer tent froze to each other. His other complaint was that a billy isn't as good as a kettle when it comes to boiling water.

What a relief that he is OK!

On a knitting note, I finished the pink fuzzy scarf on Friday.

This is "Warm Fuzzies" from Stitch n'Bitch Nation. It is knitted in Paton's Studio Mohair, with two strands held double.

I pretty much followed the pattern, except that my version is considerably longer than the measly 54" suggested in the book. Since the scarf is only 4 1/2 inches wide, I wanted it to have a good length so it could be wrapped around the wearer's neck a couple of times, hence I kept going until the scarf was just over 72" long.

The result is very fluffy, soft and thick scarf which is very pretty as well as warm, which has pleased me no end. Hopefully it will go down well with its intended recipient come Christmas and yes, I'm thinking of Christmas already.

As always, click on the image to see a bigger version...

Circumstances beyond our control

Having just spent the past three days locked in a room absorbing information on Project Management followed by evenings packed full of homework, I was looking forward to my regular weekly knitting group last night. Unfortunately, circumstances conspired against me with workmen uncovering a WWII bomb which led to the entirety of the Coventry city centre being sealed off until this morning.

Fortunately, I knew something was up well in advance so wisely stayed home rather than trying to get into town. The journey home last night took twice as long as it should have done, so I tuned into the local BBC radio which is when I found out what was going on. It turned out that the police had also closed Coventry's Ring Road, a major hub here without which it becomes very difficult to get from one side of the city to the other.

Hopefully, all the other ladies heard similar reports and stayed clear.

In other news, we had an event in York at the weekend which went quite well, despite the strong winds which made staying outside incredibly cold as well as making it impossible to hear what anyone was saying unless they were standing right next to you. Thank goodness for gloves and having drafty huts at our disposal!

There was one worrying moment though, when Dave and Richardxl5 disappeared around the back of our hut to fix the roof with some drawing pins!

One fallout of the weekend is that I now have a minor sewing emergency on my hands. A great big, clumsy, armour wearing viking, decided to throw himself dramatically onto my lap when I tried to roll him over (to tend to his wounds). Fortunately, my knee took the strain. Unfortunately, my costume didn't, with his armour ripping into and tearing the frogs which hold the dress closed.

At the moment, I'm counting my blessings that the fabric itself didn't tear as well, but as it is, getting hold of fancy frogs is hard at the best of times, so this damage is not as trivial as it might seem. My current plan is to try to locate suitable replacements, but if not I'll have to cannibalise another outfit which has less frogs on it... The theory being that I'll have an easier time finding a small number of matching frogging than a large number. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.

It's official... We are completely mad.

Friday afternoon saw Dave and myself in a car, driving slowly up the M1 towards York for our first Ascendancy LRP event of the year. Slowly because of the weather which consisted of torrential rain, with the occasional bout of sleet which combined with the spray from surface water on the road, made driving conditions treacherous.

As I sat there, gripping the steering wheel tightly and peering worriedly through the haze, I asked "Dave, why are we doing this exactly?"

My other half hesitated only a moment before replying "Because we're insane."

And there you have it. No argument really. We are completely mad.

So started a very cold weekend, with rain and sleet on Friday night giving way to clear skies and frozen mud by Saturday morning. We were sleeping in dark age (ish) huts which are glorified sheds really, very drafty sheds. It wasn't so bad, we are after all experienced campers, fully equipped with four season sleeping bags, thermal underwear and many blankets so we were not as cold overnight as we could have been. But oh my goodness, was getting out of bed on Saturday morning a shock!

I voted for fire and being the only one brave enough to crawl out of her sleeping bag, I did indeed make fire. And I nursed fire all weekend, which I considered to be something of a success since it raised the temperature of the hut by a few degrees and I managed to do this without burning the wooden building down.

One unfortunate side effect of the low temperatures was the butane gas refused to be 'gas', preferring to remain as a liquid inside its canister. Fortunately, Richard had deep pockets and so ended up carrying the gas cans around to keep them warm when not in use, which is why we did manage to have hot food and drink throughout.

The event itself was fairly good and I enjoyed it I think, while being prepared meant we coped reasonably well despite the time of year. It was a little weird to be playing at Murton Park since the last few times I've been part of the ref team there, but I managed to make the transition I think.

I'm taking a rare break and not playing the event in February, with my next event being in March when I hope things may have warmed up just a little.

And there was snow...

With Christmas looming ever closer, this weekend took it upon itself to remind me in as forceful a manner as it could that it is November and it is winter and we should be grown up about this and act accordingly. Foolish notions of running around in the woods should be cast aside in favour of indoor activities where there is heating or at the very least you are not being subjected to a continuous enslaught of rain and sleet.

Yes, this weekend I was walking around Shining Cliffs attempting to save the world as always in the last Ascendancy event of the year. Saturday was OK, cold but dry other than the occasional sleet shower. My feet were numb but I was well wrapped up and coped admirably, whilst watching in horror as one particular participant walked around the freezing woods in bare feet!!!

Sunday morning we awoke to wind, rain and sleet slamming into the windows, at which point a sensible reluctance to go outside took hold. Unfortunately, the other players didn't share that reluctance (possibly because they were in Birmingham and hadn't arrived on the scene so hadn't witnessed how bad it was) and so off we went to share in the madness.

Personally I was already cold by the time we'd stood waiting for the other players to arrive and my toes were lost to me... So I abandoned the car because it was better to walk back and forth in the sleet, because at least that way I could keep the circulation going. We finally got going but those of us of a non-combative nature hadn't a chance of staying warm out there.

I wasn't doing too badly since I was kitted out from head to foot in wool, but while wool is excellent at insulating you even when soaked through it does get incredibly heavy as it soaks up all that moisture. Queue aching shoulders and back as I trudged around after everyone else. The main problem though was my hands and feet, my boots were water proof but offered no insulation against the freezing ground while my leather gloves soaked up the rain like a chamois.

Suffice it to say there was no argument from me when it was finally suggested we retire to an indoor venue. In fact, had things gone on much longer mutiny was in the air as I was on the verge of asking Richard for the car keys and leaving them to it. The only thing stopping me was the thought of sitting in wet clothes in a freezing car for hours on end while the others carried on with the game.

The indoor venue was Andy and Heather's shop where there was tea and heat and a toilet (much needed after all that freezing cold sleet). I'm not sure what their customers thought of all these strangely dressed people descending on them, but at that point all I wanted was to be warm.

A short while after we'd retired indoors it began to snow.

Timing is everything and all I can say is hooray for being indoors at that point!

Anyhow, I survived. The journey home was interesting in a hair raising kind of way as I drove through the snow and was buffeted by wind all the way. I was very relieved to get home safe and sound and my first priority was a long soak in a hot bath.

Not the best weekend really, but the company was good (as always) which saved things some what. Now I'm just wondering what the weather will be like in January when I'm due to do it all again. Blankets and hot water bottles may well be a must!

A continuing theme

This weekend, I continued the recent theme for shopping trips by visiting the Re-enactors Market on Saturday, and then Hobbycrafts/Crafts for Christmas at the NEC on Sunday.

Saturday's trip was I think, the first time I've been to a Re-enactors Market and not had a single thing that I needed to hunt down. With no new costume pieces currently planned and the majority of my Christmas presents sorted, I wandered up and down the aisles admiring things but not really wanting to part with my cash for anything on display. To put it mildly, I have loads of fabric already which is sitting around doing nothing so buying more so I could take just to add to the pile wasn't appealing.

However, overcome by the non-shopping trip I did pick up some handspun yarns from the Mulberry Dyers and a small quantity of pretty glass beads from Tillerman Beads (who I'd never seen there before). The beads will go into my stock and will end up embellishing something at some point, but the handspun I'm not sure what to do with. I picked up three packs, two in cobweb weight and the other in what looks like a two ply, no yardage listed and sold entirely by the number of grams in the pack. I suspect they'll make interesting lace, but with no idea of yardage I'm going to have to be very careful on my choice of pattern.

Other than that, we did of course bump into the odd (and I mean that in the nicest way) person or three and Dave was very glad to find his mate Doug (I swear he gets withdrawal symptoms if too long passes between them speaking) who it seemed had come along without his mobile phone.

Sunday it was an early start as we attempted to get to the Hobbycrafts show before some of the crowds. As it was, things weren't too bad. I remember occasions when they've closed the hall while they allow the crowd to thin and witnessed the crush that's led to the first aiders having to rescue people who've fainted. As usual, Hobbycrafts was a card maker's paradise with everything you could possibly want to make and decorate your own cards. I could tell that Richard (a first timer) was a bit overwhelmed by the sight of so much glitter.

I succumbed (can I blame steelbreeze?) and bought sock yarn from Web of Wool. Not just one ball of sock yarn, no... I bought enough for three (yes three!) pairs of socks. I also cast aside my dignity to crawl about in a pile of wool belonging to Black Sheep Wools searching for something manly enough for Dave. More later when I decide what I'm going to make with the olive green wool I eventually settled on, but all I can say is I hope Dave appreciates it!

I'm still working away on my four cable scarf at the moment, slowly crawling my way along the ribbed section in the middle... But I am fretting about those balls of sock wool and feeling vaguely guilty since I'm currently buying wool faster than I can hope to knit it up. I may well be casting on my first pair of socks in the very near future.

Something in the air...

Monday morning rolled around again (as they're in the habit of doing) and today my body clock is all over the place due to the end of British Summer Time. As the clocks go back and the dark nights are heralded in by fireworks, so we are officially ushered into winter. I'm not the only one finding the changed time difficult to adjust to; both cats were convinced today must be a 'Saturday' and were very disgruntled to realise I had to go to work.

The weekend was a good one, if busy, tiring and expensive as I made some serious inroads into my Christmas shopping.

Saturday saw us driving up to Ripley, where Andy and Frizbe have just opened their new comics and games shop 'Chimera'. Naturally, I picked up a few presents while I was there, while Dave and Richard (who were equipped with Orks and Eldar respectively) settled down to do battle for supremacy of the table top. I forgot to take any pictures (Dave was upset by this, he said I should have photographed his Orks) until after the shop was closed but there are photographs here for anyone who wishes to see.

Sunday, we drove to the Warwick Exhibition Centre for the Living History Fayre. This one isn't as busy as Anne Laverick's Re-enactors Market but had a good range of stalls, so naturally I bought yet more Christmas presents.

I also bought myself two more lucets... I shouldn't have, not really but in my defence sometimes I have a braid on the prongs and I'd like to start another, so... I need more than one lucet. Don't I?

I did however, bravely walk away from spun (undyed) silk... And wool... And linen. And I didn't buy so much as a single meter of fabric, all of which means there is hope for me yet.

Today I am feeling old

Or rather today is my birthday, not that we're really doing anything to celebrate. I spent the weekend running a LRP event and having had to come into work this morning, my intentions for tonight involve a long soak in the tub and possibly a takeaway (by way of a birthday treat).

The weekend was a good one and (in my view at least) a great end to the events I've written this year. Three Days to Yesterday was as the name suggests (I hope) a bit odd and we had high fantasy meets sci-fi as aliens dropped by to help save the world...


I'm the one in the middle, looking decidely green and waving my scanning wand at the camera. Don't we look impressive?

This one was a test of endurance for me as I spent many hours under that mask and sporting a nice healthy green tan on the bits of me that would show. Green face paint it seems is tenacious stuff which likes to hang around and resist all efforts to remove it, but I'm happy to report I'm almost free of the stuff now... Except for my fingernails which are stubbornly retaining a nice shade of green today.

Suffice it to say that much fun was had by all. The plot went down well with the players who were remarkably on the ball throughout. I was very impressed at how well we (as the aforementioned aliens) managed to communicate with broken english consisting of less than 100 words, hissing, clicking and mime! The players seemed to have fun and hung around going over little moments they particularly liked long after timeout and debrief, which is always a good sign. So as far as I'm concerned it was a good end to this year's Strangehaven campaign and very happy with how it went.

I've got just one more LRP event left this year now and then roll on next year.

(As always click on images to see a larger version)

Some all important updates

Let's start with a Ravelry update where I see I've crept up to 4920th on the list for an account... Which means I may get my invite in about a week and a half... By the fact that I'm checking my place in the list on a daily basis, I suspect I'm getting impatient to take a look.

I also ordered and received my first ever order from Angel Yarns, breaking down and buying yarns at full price.

Normally, I'm what I'd call a bargain bin knitter. That is, I vist yarn stores or Hobbycraft and look for whatever is end of line, picking up all sorts of bargains such as the cotton which went into the plum coloured sweetpea shawl, where I paid just 99p per 50g. Normally, this is a fine way to boost my stash without breaking the bank, but the downside is that you have to rely on what is left unsold and can't always find exactly what you're after.

Now just recently, I've started to flirt with lace knitting with my efforts so far having mixed results. I've decided that I need to scale back and take baby steps with simpler patterns and possibly using well behaved yarn rather than 'sticky' mohair. Which is why I bought some of Tess Dawson's own range of 4ply Merino, which I can report is very soft and pretty. Dave liked the little packet of Lovehearts tucked into the packaging which he said were very tasty but could have been bigger.

In other news, last weekend was a Shards event which saw me camping at Candleston in South Wales where it was cold of the brain sapping variety. We also had rain, although not too bad and when it came it was actually quite welcome (to me at least) as it raised the temperature slightly. It was also the last Shards event, ever - not counting the Bloodlines event in November or Strangehaven in two weeks, since they're sub campaigns really.

Not to worry though, the campaign hasn't stopped it's just been renamed to reflect the fact that there are no longer any shards as such, since they were all long ago fused into a single world. So next year, I'll be playing Ascendancy... Once I've digested the dates, compared them to my diary, talked to work and booked the cattery.

Those who are interested, take a look at the website which has been pulled together mostly by Richard. My bit was the forums, which I've spent the past few weeks wrestling with.

A weekend of Pot Watching

Well, it's September and the month is off to a fine old start, showing all the signs of being as hectic as it always is. Today may only be Tuesday but I'm already embroiled in a few crises in potentia, which seem to be picking up political undertones. I remember the far off days of old when if you saw something was broken, you fixed it and that was that. These days... These days I have to justify every I do and even if a fix is urgently needed or horrible bad things will happen, I face something of an Inquisition.

Still I refuse to have my good mood broken and I'm still basking in the success of the Strangehaven event at the weekend.

Friday I set off for York, braving the M1 to collect Richard by which time it was evident that this particular motorway was not the place to be. After sitting in stop/start traffic all the way from Coventry (J21) to South Normington (J28) and then waiting in a queue to get back onto the motorway after collecting Richard, we made the decision to go cross country, shunning the M1 for A roads. This added probably an hour or so onto our journey time, but since we'd have spent at least that sitting in traffic queues had we stuck with the motorway, I don't think its a bad tradeoff. As it was, we arrived at 7pm and once we'd got settled and briefed the crew, we got stuck in.

The plot this weekend involved the NPC I was playing being kidnapped and brutally beaten before she made good her escape, so it was time to apply the bruise makeup.

I also got to react to my NPC's father dying and even wore some armour although I must hasten to add that the armour was worn by a different NPC to the one who was beaten up.


Me aside, we had set pieces, managed to get some combat in, choosing small skirmishes with lots of sneaking to take the nature of the site into account. The set pieces were fantastic (and boy do I wish I had photo's) and I raided Dave's supply of masks so everyone got to look the part. We managed the tension nicely and the plot happily buzzed along the mood shifting from jovial to sinister and eventually horror as planned. All in all, it worked well and compared with the first game felt a lot easier as it played out. I'm just hoping the players enjoyed themselves as much as they seemed to.

With lots of plot to cram in, we finished a bit later than anticipated on Sunday afternoon but packed in a speedy fashion. By the time we were done though, a cuppa was needed so we stopped for a little while in the cafe before setting off. Thankfully, the roads were much better on the way back and apart from being horrified by the antics of some drivers with fat exhausts, the drive home was uneventful. Even so, by the time I'd dropped Richard off and set off for Coventry, it was gone eight by the time I got home.

As always, click on the pictures to see bigger versions...

And back to the real world

I think today is Wednesday. That is, blogger is telling me it is Wednesday and my diary agrees, so it must be Wednesday but my poor body clock has lost all sense of time. It's an even worse shock to realise that August is very nearly over and we're almost in September!

The reason for this loss of time and complete disassociation with the calendar as accepted by the rest of the world is of course having not long returned from being cacooned from reality in Candleston campsite and eleven days of Shards.

Once we'd got past the first weekend, the weather cleared and was fine, which cheered us all up enormously. We were camping in our usual luxurious and prepared fashion, so the rain didn't hamper us too much, but had it continued throughout the full eleven days it would have dampened our spirits somewhat.

As it was, a good time was had by all, with the first two segments being particularly excellent - from my viewpoint at least. The last few days were a bit slow, mostly due to the nature of the plot and the focus on the tribal types, which made it difficult to get involved.

I took some knitting with me and completed two washcloths, with another half done. They're great for picking up and putting down, so made good knitting projects for those quiet moments as well as first thing in the morning. Pictures and details later.

Dave's new costume looked very 'fly' as he would put it, however the character it was intended for only survived about eight hours in game. Rather than have all that hard work go completely to waste, the tunic was passed to another player to pad out their kit for the week. I've got to say, it looked equally good on him.

Monday afternoon we packed up fairly promptly for us and were not the last off site (miraculously), but lost a lot of time due to car trouble. My brakes were resisting and rather than drive all the way home, I called the AA and waited for them to be checked out. It turned out the heavy rain that first weekend, followed by very warm weather and not moving the car was the problem, with a thin coating of rust having formed on the brake disks. A drive with the AA man and some aggressive braking sorted things out and then we drove home, finally getting back to Coventry just after midnight. This was much, much later than we should have done, but those brakes needed checking out.

Now... I have a mountain of laundry to do, plus a load of washing up. I also have a zip to replace with eyelets on my tent since it's about given up the ghost now. Mostly though, I'm trying to adjust to being back in the real world and marvelling at just how tired I feel.

Water, water everywhere...

It's been a quiet week so far as I recover from camping last weekend.

To say it rained is a bit of an understatement and we were very lucky to make it to site when we did. Many thanks have to be given to Richard who drove and bravely tackled what can only be described as a very hairy journey on Friday afternoon. We arrived only about an hour or so behind schedule having driven roads already under six inches of water in places and rapidly getting deeper. Pitching camp in the continuing downpour was not pleasant and for myself, once we were finally sorted I'd have happily crawled into my nice warm sleeping bag and stayed there! News from those travelling behind us told of roads being closed, massive detours and those real unfortunates who were marooned (along with their cars) on the motorway.

The event itself went ahead as planned and we did see enough breaks in the weather through the weekend to make it work. I've definitely played through worse and with the campsite sitting on sand, the surface water drained away quickly so things weren't too bad. Cold and damp couldn't be avoided though, as everything was so wet by the end of Friday night that it just didn't get a chance to dry out. Fortunately (being an experienced camper), I had plenty of gas and tea and the means to boil water which meant things were very much bearable.

The bump worked well although it was hard for people to really tell since I was swaddled in a long and full woolen cloak for most of the weekend. I did somehow manage to forget my jacket, but as I pointed out I was wearing four vests, my thermals and something in the order of sixty layers of padding, so I got by.

And to think I'd been worried about overheating at events this summer!

The best laid plans...

I just called the cattery I use and cancelled the booking I'd made for next weekend. Sadly, due to lack of confirmed bookings we've had to postpone the Strangehaven event we had planned until September, hence the cancellation. Fortunately, the cattery lady was happy enough as she has a queue of people waiting for cancellations, meaning my cats' space will be reallocated within the next hour. This is good as I like to keep the cattery on side in case I ever need to make an emergency or unplanned dash to the South West for family related matters.

With the cattery all squared away and my time my own again for next weekend, I was briefly wondering what to get up to but fear not, my time has been refilled. It looks like we'll head down to Tewkesbury for the Medieval Fayre and battle instead. Tewkesbury is free to get in, but you have to pay a small donation to park and I believe the organisers make most of their costs back from traders. The Fayre is a great place to buy fabric and see the more crafty end of stalls as well as traditional, historical kit suppliers. In other words there will be many opportunities in which I shall be sorely tempted to part with money. It will also be an opportunity to catch up with some friends from Plymouth I suspect, as I'll no doubt see a few familiar faces lurking around the market. In other words, all good... and it should go a good way to making up for the disappointment of a missed event.

In the meantime, I'm hoping for some dry weather this weekend - although I understand I'm unlikely to get it. I have tents to dry! Admittedly, they're not too bad but they still need to be aired and then folded, so they can re-emerge ready to use in a few weeks time.

With the Sweetpea Shawl finished, I'm contenting myself with knitting some ribbon scarves using a drop stitch pattern. This is the first time I've had a go at drop stitch, but it seems to be working out OK. The ribbon yarn I'm using is not disimilar to those I made last autumn, but then I crocheted them. The main difference in working it is that this time, it is behaving itself and having the ribbon on two sticks seems to be keeping it under control. Less twisting by far and much less of a nightmare to keep the loops open.

Other than that, this weekend marks the return to the bump since I think it's time we saw an increase in size. I have two of these physreps, so the plan is to take one of them, take it apart and then start adding layers until it is huge!

Of lace and wikis

I've just spent my lunch hour making a good stab at trying to sort out the Shards wiki which moved from its previous home a few days ago. I'll not go into the whys and what-the-hell's that I could do at this moment, since I've already done my fair share of tearing out metaphorical hair. At the moment I'm concentrating on trying to clean up the spilt milk rather than ranting.

Allegedly, the entire wiki has been copied from Schtuff to PBwiki with it's links intact. Sadly, this does not seem to be entirely true. Most of the data is over, but the context has been lost. The tags are now meaningless and since a lot of the pages were dynamic, based on saved searches, those are also completely lost. Cue me trying to piece together what is or is not missing and then build static pages to substitute for those missing searches. There may of course be a way of rebuilding the searches using PBwiki's tools, but lack of familiarity means that for now I'm not trying to be clever - I just want to get it all back online.

Worryingly I've also come across the odd page which seems to be missing entirely. Fortunatley, the original site is still up so all I've had to do is nip across and copy them over, but time is running out on that score. I'll continue as I am for a few days while I get the measure of it, but then I'm going to need a general announcement methinks... Only the main boards are down as the website is also down and I don't think everyone is using the Yahoo Group.

On the positive side, I have managed to put the beginnings of a sidebar in place to act as a menu. The character pages are beginning to take shape and of course I now have some idea of what is missing. The colours are still yucky and I don't like the template, but without the admin password there's not a lot I can do about that.

On to more fun stuff, despite wanting to do nothing more than curl up and go to sleep, I headed out to Knit-Wits last night which had a good turnout. Steelbreeze had made some latch hooks out of old machine knitting needles, which look not dissimilar to the latch hooks I've used in the past for rug making, only a lot smaller. Steelbreeze went on to demonstrate how they can be used for picking up dropped stitches in your knitting, which sounded like a fine idea to me. So I must admit I snaffled one of these fine inventions for myself.

Steelbreeze also showed me how to do cables, which from her quick demo do not look anywhere near so scary as I thought they were.

With those and the how to fix dropped stitches, I think I really do need to do some sample swatches and have a play. The Stitch n'Bitch book has a section in it about fixing mistakes and I think I might need to deliberately make mistakes and repair them before having a go at lace knitting, because that sure does look fiddly and accident prone.

I took along Victorian Lace Today, which did the rounds and got a lot of oooh'ing and ahhh'ing. Every time I look at that book, I want to make something and by the attention it got, it went down well with everyone else as well. In my case, what can I say... It's finicky, detailed, fussy and requires a lot of attention to finish... Just my cup of tea!

The Sweetpea Shawl also went with me last night and I'm now getting through those rows with frightening speed. I don't think it will be long before I finish it and then comes the dreaded blocking...





Photo's taken by Steelbreeze - as usual, click on them to see bigger versions.

Edited to add: This link to a review I found out there in the blogosphere for Victorian Lace Today. Scroll down and look at the pictures, to see why I like this book so much...

And that was the day the cow stood still...

The weekend saw myself and others heading off to York to run the first ever Strangehaven event. The game itself went well, but oh my goodness I about melted in the heat! Dressed as I was in many, many layers of padding with many more layers of clothes (costume) on top, I think I came about as close to heatstroke as I have done in a long, long time.

The site was fantastic although hard on the head. I must have banged my poor noggin at least four times in all on low doorways, with the first time being the hardest. I was also very brave and managed to lie down on a bunk infested with wildlife of the eight legged variety. The second night I think I even managed to fall asleep, which is what exhaustion and far too much sun will do for you.

Other than that though, it all went well I think and the players seemed to have fun. After all the hard work which went into preparing, writing background and plot, it was something of a relief to see it all come together. We could do with a few more players though, so if there are any people reading this who fancy having a go, do pop over to our blog and have a look.

Yesterday I had a day off, which meant I spent the day unpacking and tackling the laundry. My first ever subscription copy of Knitting arrived and I'm afraid its been read from cover to cover already. I also retrieved the cats from the cattery, much to their delight with Missy being particularly happy to be home.


And yes, she is chewing a stick. Missy likes chewing and playing with sticks, the more twiggy and well endowed with leaves the better.

And to prove that Dave does not always look like a tree...

Stung by Richard's comments about only linking to pictures of Dave as a tree, I thought I'd better rectify matters by showing a couple of other pictures which maybe put him a better light. The first thing you need to remember is that both Dave and I play characters in LARP events and that we both like to dress up. That is, when kitting out our characters we tend to go to town a bit in the effort department.

At Maelstrom, Dave doesn't normally look like a tree. Instead he plays a polymorphic non-gender specific servant of the gods (i.e. an angel) who sometimes looks something like this...


Note the makeup, dreads and ears which make him near unrecognisable. In fact when I first saw this picture it took a second or two to realise who it was! Dave takes at least six changes of costume to each event for this character, although catching him on camera is apparently difficult and I rarely get to see photographic evidence.

I'm not responsible for any of the costume Dave is wearing, the frock coat having been made by a friend and the rest of his outfit has come from theatrical costume or charity shops.











I am however wholey responsible for this...

Except for the hat and boots that is; fear my sense of style.

As always, click on the pictures to see a bigger version.

Ah... The selfless sacrifice

With the first Strangehaven event fast approaching, I decided I'd better buy myself one of those self-inflating sleeping mats (the manufacturers for which claim them to be as comfortable as a proper airbed). The site we're using has these little dark age (ish) huts with raised wooden platforms for sleeping on, so I need something to put down to soften things a bit. Last time we went there, I took Dave's self-inflating mat but since he'll be off at Maelstrom (traitor! ;) ) and will be needing it himself, I thought I'd best get my own.

Anyhow, one trip to Go Outdoors! later and I have myself a suitable mat. Being one of those people who doesn't like to leave things to chance, I read the instructions and did a test inflate...

This is what happened the instant the bed had inflated itself.



As you can see, Charlie was selfless as always and promptly volunteered to test the comfort and fit of the new self-inflating matress.



From the look on his face I think it was a hit and a successful test, now given the Charlie seal of approval.

Oooh... Pretty Lace

I'm still in the land of the living after spending the weekend at Candleston doing Shards. While the event was great as always, I think the weather did for me. As the forecasts predicted, it started raining overnight on Saturday and continued into Sunday. While it did let up a bit as the day wore on, the temperature also dropped and the wind picked up. All of which meant that I froze and as anyone who knows me could tell you, I really do not cope well with being cold.

Naturally I was back at work yesterday, where I found my long anticipated books waiting for me in the Telephone Exchange. Facing a backlog of work - and mad traffic queues having delayed my arrival - I resisted opening the multiple packages until the end of the day. When I did, I quickly flipped through the first two, images from which were driven from my mind by the contents of Victorian Lace Today.

Of this book, all I can say is wow!!!! Talk about eye candy... I flicked through and I can't say there is a single project in there that I didn't like. Several got a flicker of interest to the point I stared at the patterns - which I can't actually understand, but hey, give me time and I *will*. Each piece is beautifully photographed in historical settings and the author writes a bit about the original publisher which makes it interesting reading... Ultimately though, wow!

So... I guess I need to give lace knitting a try.