Lexin

Christmas went well, I had a guest, aunty_marion and we ate various comestibles all either from packets or from frozen. I don’t believe in cooking if I can avoid it. Aunty Bessie does roast potatoes much better than me. aunty_marion doesn’t like things like raisins or sultanas so I had all the Christmas pud, which made me very happy. Having a guest for Christmas was lovely, and Aunty Marion is welcome any time.

My two cats are still not on speaking terms, though Pixel (the new cat) almost put a foot out of the bedroom yesterday. So minor progress there. Smokey and she hiss when they encounter each other, though judicious use of treats as a reward for quiet is reducing the incidence of this.

I’m considering how Pixel might be brought into the living room without World War III breaking out. Any advice gladly received.

In other news, I have had a cold over Christmas and New Year, much coughing was coughed, and it is threatening to return. I can so live without that, and so can the cats. No sooner has a cat settled on me (either Smokey in the living room or Pixel in the bedroom) than I start to cough and the poor cat leaves in a huff. It’s not much fun for me, either.

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A couple of people have asked for pictures of Pixel, my new cat. This link should work:

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k169/lexin0/Pixel/IMG_0075%202_zpswojjp8yr.jpg

She is a darling - very sweet, small, black and white kitty.

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No news I can give you on the job front, things continue to grind on in a grindy sort of way.

I do, however, have a new cat.

It is thus: a friend of a friend was looking for someone to take on a cat of hers. She started the year with four cats. One, the eldest and grande dame of the household, Pippo, died. This left three cats, Pixel, Squeakerton and Polar, none of whom were happy without Pippo. Pixel was being bullied by Polar and Squeakerton was acting out (peeing where he shouldn’t and so on) so she decided to try to rehome Pixel, and Squeakerton if she could find anyone suitable.

I said I’d take Pixel. This was in June. The FOAF was going to South America in August, so said she would wait until she came back to pass Pixel over. August came and went, and I got in touch with her, and she said she’d got flu, so could I wait. I waited. September came and went, as did most of October.

Finally, she said she was ready to pass on Pixel and even then it took a little while to arrange a suitable weekend to bring her down from Norfolk to London.

Pixel spent the first two weeks here living at the back of my wardrobe and only coming out to eat, drink, pee and poop. In the last ten days or so, she’s come out into the bedroom and now sleeps either on my bed, on me or on the chair I’ve sprayed catnip all over. But she won’t come into the rest of the flat, and if Smokey goes into the bedroom, Pixel hisses and spits at her. Smokey just looks confused, but does do that fur-all-out thing that cats do – her tail looks like a bottle brush and she looks twice her normal size, and hisses, but doesn’t spit. Every other day they have a yowly disagreement, but separate without damage to either party.

Sometimes Pixel will growl at nothing – no sign of Smokey, but she sits under a chair and has a growl to herself.

I’m not sure what to do now – I’ve bought Feliway Friends and put it in Pixel’s room. Smokey has ordinary Feliway in the living room.

I want them to co-exist, if not peacefully, without fighting or growling. Any suggestions?

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From the organisers (of which I am not one...)

We are delighted - but slightly staggered - to announce that KISMET 2018 is ON!! We’ve signed the contract and paid the deposit, so we’re committed (or perhaps should be…)

When? : 31 August – 2 September 2018

Where? : Lane End Conference Centre (the same rooms we had last time!) Church Road, Lane End, Bucks HP14 3HH (www.lane-end-conferences.co.uk)

How much?: Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon (fully inclusive of en-suite accommodation and all meals & refreshments) £245

For those who want to continue the fun - Friday afternoon to Monday morning (to include Sunday dinner, & Monday breakfast) £345

Supporting membership £30

It’s still early days, but further information & updates will be provided as soon as possible. We’ll be looking for lots of help, especially on the more techie stuff, and will post requests as we think of things we need (You have been warned!)

Any questions? Ask here, message Chrissy or email us at kismetcon@gmail.com

Want to register? (please!) Contact Chrissy for payment options (we have lots!) on chrissy.hornby@btinternet.com

Love from Anne & Chrissy (who are currently being measured for their straitjackets ~ Chrissy: Can mine be Vulcan green? Anne: Only if I can have Science Blue)

****

ETAAs a further attraction, I shall be going. I have already decided, though I haven't yet talked to aunty_marion about sitting Smokey. Plus, it's only a week after my gaming event in Wales, which is irritating.

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Still applying for jobs. Still not getting any. I get the odd interview, but so far none have been successful. I’ve got one interview outstanding since March – they interviewed me in March and I still don’t have the outcome. But then one of my FB friends applied for a Civil Service job last June and started a week ago, so I’m not quite losing hope on that one.

In other news, there is no real other news.

Smokey is very well, full of beans and cat food. She’s currently asleep on the sofa – we had a lovely cuddle this morning, but then I had to get up from my recumbent position and start doing some work on the computer. So she stretched out into my spot, perhaps thinking it would stay warm.

Oh, I know what I’m doing – I bought the AD&D 5e (Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition for those who aren’t geeks) and have been writing a basic scenario so we can see how it runs. In this I’ve been assisted by my friend Patrick who is such a geek he even out-geeks me, and he calculated everything on his character sheet out by hand to ensure that I wasn’t cheating him out of any advantages his character should have.

What between him and me, we managed to spot a bug in the computer program I’m using to roll up characters, which made us both very happy. We’re strange like that.

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I’m safely back from redemption_con; the journeys were totally straightforward and the trains were on time there and back.

I enjoyed the convention. Numbers seemed down (if you like a fan-run convention do go along to Redemption in 2019, it runs better with more people) and the convention over-organised for the numbers (at times there were nine streams of events), but that didn’t bother me. I just went along to what appealed to me and dodged anything that didn’t.

I spent a lot of time with legionseagle and julesjones over the weekend, and with various other people whose LJ and DW names I have forgotten. Much gossip was gossed.

Guests were Dr Lynette Nusbacher, Steve Lycett , Miranda Gower-Qian, Thalia Evans and David Wake. Probably you’ve never heard of any of them, I had only heard of Dr Lynette who is one of the presenters of the wargame TV show “Time Commanders”. She was lovely, though I didn’t go to any of her talks she was very nice and approachable when out and about and she always wears lovely clothes, which she told me mostly come from TK Maxx.

The only complaint I heard about the food offerings in the restaurant was from the two people I know who can’t cope with spices. All the cheap restaurant meals (Chinese, Indian and Mexican) were not suitable for them. But they had the option of pizzas in the bar, though one person did mention that it was a bit same-y to have a plain pizza two nights running. I liked the desserts on the cheap restaurant meals, the fudge cake was yummy, and they were quite happy to supply cream if asked.

One night I had the New York hot dog pizza and that was very nice, though I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so physically hot for some reason, and hot cheese is a really hot thing when you bite into it.

The carvery baps were very good, decent portions, as were the sandwich bar options.

Breakfasts were adequate mass catering, though I liked the fact that they were frying eggs practically on demand.

Other things: yes, some of the panels were under attended, but I put that down to the convention being somewhat under attended overall and the sometimes nine streams meaning that people were spread a bit thin. The panels I attended went off well, even if there weren’t that many there. I thought six streams would be fine for the number we had attending, with room to expand it if more sign up.

I forgot about slash Pictionary. I’d have been there if I’d remembered.

One thing I would like to see for Redemption 19 is a slash/adult stream as there’s no general slash con (that I know of) being run in the UK currently.

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It’s 5am and I have given up any pretence of sleeping. I have no idea why I have insomnia tonight. As has the cat, who is meowing round me as if I might have a clue what she wants. It’s probably food, but Smokey is not a cat who fusses for her food usually. I have put food out, but she’s not eating it. Maybe she’s just worried about me.

It doesn’t help that I have in some way banjaxed my back and hip. They are ouchy. And I’ve had a couple of goes of cramp in my right calf, leaving that sore. I found some painkillers in the back of a cupboard and they’re about cutting in now.

In other news I’m playing a couple of computer games. Skyrim retains its interest, not least because you don’t have to rush around beating creatures up to get anywhere. Building your own house can take up hours of innocent fun. Not so Shadow of Mordor. Oh, what a dull game that is if you’re not very quick with your button recognition. I frequently mix up square and circle, and thus end up dead more often than alive. Plus, the baddies level up if you don’t kill them quickly and I’ve ended up with a couple of bosses at 20th level that appear whenever I do and I can’t kill them because they’ve about 25 supporters who appear likewise. Largest number of orcs I can do away with is about six. More than that and I’m outnumbered. So it gets a bit boring.

My brother bought me Arcania for my birthday, and that’s a bit more interesting. Doesn’t require me to learn any button combinations to hit things, and that’s always good. Not as pretty as Shadow of Mordor though, or rather, not as well drawn because I wouldn’t call Mordor pretty but they’ve really put a lot of work into how it looks.

There’s another game a friend bought me for my birthday, a game set in modern times, but I’ve put it somewhere and don’t remember where it is or what it was called. Maybe it’s in a box I still haven’t unpacked from the decorating.

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Meme collected from legionseagle.

Rules: go to page 7 of your WIP, skip to the 7th line, share 7 sentences, and tag 7 more writers to continue the challenge.


Elrond waited for the other elf who did deliveries for the bakery to arrive and she, too, said she’d not seen anyone around in the street.

Elrond sighed. So that was the end of that possibility.

#

Finding a residence in a fold of hills leading down to the sea outside the city proper, it had amused Elrond to call his new home Rivendell. The only resemblance it bore to his house on Middle-Earth was that it was, if possible, even more rambling than his former home, and had been built over a long period in a variety of styles and painted a number of colours. His amusement, he knew, was not shared by all of his household, but at least there was little confusion about who lived here.

He’d chosen it because it was the only house available that seemed large enough to contain his household. He’d arrived with a few friends, the Ringbearers among them, but his foresight had not failed him and in time the numbers grew.



I don't tag, it always strikes me as unfair.

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Does anyone know of any book bloggers who would be interested in reviewing books that the writers describe as "far-out insane grimdark epic fantasy."

If so, let me know and I'll pass the details on to my two writer friends who hope to be having their books out soon-ish.

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