Catch up!

Sooo,

Long time no post!

 

I’ve been ludicrously busy, what with frantic preparations for the Split Worlds Ball in Bath (it was fantastic – more detail than I give here on the actual roll play aspects on that will have to wait until after book 5 is out as I have written up the entire day from my in character perspective, and I don’t want to spoiler anything).  Suffice to say, despite it being roasting, it was a great day, and an amazing evening and I may now have been bitten by the LARP bug.

 

I travelled down on the Friday after playing emotional support to my friend Joe who was getting a tattoo done, and that’s another thing I may not have mentioned.  Joe & Zoe my best friends here are moving to Falmouth this weekend – they announced it only a couple of weeks ago when Joe got a job down there.  It’s a four and a half hour drive away.  I was very sad for several days afterwards until I worked my way into rational brain switching back on – they’ll be back up frequently to see family, and I’ll head down to see them. It had the bonus of I managed to clear an entire pile of bindweed that a composter was riddled with on the allotment, and it’s not as if it’s THE END.  But, you can’t really stop the knee jerk emotional reaction of OMG you’re leaving! D: You just have to wait for it to pass.  I may have been a bit rash and booked a tattoo of my own while I was in there with Joe.  It should theoretically look like an amazing henna pattern, only permanent.  I’m getting it done in July, so photos when it’s been inked.

 

I caught the train down, the new digs I found were really comfy (I highly recommend Air B&B) and the owner’s dog was SUCH a sweetie. I unpacked and then headed out for some dinner.  I found a place called Yak Yeti Yak through some of the other Split Worlds players, read some of a book I’ve been working my way through (The Drunken Botanist – read it if you like gardening and booze – or just booze)  The food was Nepalese and they cater to Vegans! and was delicious.  Some of the best Kir/Kheer I’ve ever had and the saffron Lassi – delicious.  As was the gin julep.  I’ll be making THAT again!  I met up with a few of the players for tomorrow, and my astrophysicist friend Kath who put me onto Emma’s books in the first place thoroughly knowing my tastes and Jez her husband and we had a drink before heading home.

 

Up early, and a delish breakfast later (fresh mango, porridge with tasty bits ALL THE TEA EVER) and I caught the bus into Bath.  I was still in curlers, wearing jeans and my underpinnings to the afternoon tea dress, which actually looks quite trendy what with it being a white cowl-necked teeshirt and my peach corset.  I should wear that combo more often! though possibly not with the curlers.  Thankfully I wasn’t the only one still in curlers.  Emma Newman the author and an all round fantastic writer you should really check out the Split Worlds it’s amazing and Planetfall, is supposedly epic (I’ve yet to read it it’s next on my list) and she is a truly lovely person.  She was looking just a tad stressed bless her, and no wonder.  Even with the help she had from friends it was an epic undertaking what she and her friend Katie (and any number of other awesome people but they were the ring leaders) pulled off.

 

We started with a general introduction, and then got to know who was in each family, which city and who were the important people and who were the rabble, so I met the rest of the Ranunculus Family, The people from Jorvik and I was of course one oft he rabble being a lowly little buttercup.   There were some great workshops to get us to know the state of play in the Nether and some etiquette and who were the eligible singles.  Then there was a lunch break.  I hastily ate a pasty and got my nails painted at a salon (I’m really good at cocking that up. They managed to as well – I was not impressed.  I managed to fix that, and then met up with Kath and Jez to get changed at their apartment.  She and Jez having VIP tickets, had been on a walking tour of Bath with Emma to see places that are in the books.  The afternoon tea was fun, and we all took lots of photos, there were photographers around as well.  I’ll post some up in the future, or a link to my instagram where the best ones will go up.  After the afternoon tea there were dance lessons – I loved them, and two were fairly simple. I could probably recreate them with time and a few friends.  I did realise I have a lamentable problem however.  If I’m thinking about it, it takes me time to figure out left and right, even though I ‘know’ instinctually, dance lessons require you to think about it.  And I managed to make a few mistakes lol.

 

Then we had a few hours to prep for the ball.  On the way back from Kath & Jez’s apartment some tourists asked Kath and I for a photograph, which was awesome :D Then there was the ball which was fantastic. More on that after Book 5 has been released!

 

I introduced myself to Emma and Pete her husband (an equally awesome and lovely author of The Vagrant and The Malice (it’s launched tomorrow! Go read them!) near the end after the LARP was over they know me from Twitter – I’m @BunniesKitchen should you chose to follow me but we had never met in person before.  Then I got a taxi home and crashed.

 

Next day as lovely and lazy.  Mum came down to bath and we had a coffee in Starbucks before spending all day in Therma Spa – I highly recommend it, especially on a sunny day.  the rooftop pool is full of water from the natural thermal springs, and is lush.  If the weather is poor, there’s the downstairs pool with the current to lazily swoosh you round the pool.  We had a lovely lunch, and two nice treatments.  A Kraxen stove, a sauna-cum-steam experience with hay and chamomile – best not to do it when a touch sunburnt! and a facial.  For the first time EVER, I fell asleep.  Goes to show how wiped out I was.  I went home on SUCH a wonderful natural high the night before. It’s so much better than alcohol or caffeine or other drugs, not that I’ve had anything other than alcohol sugar and caffeine, but I can guess I’d react in similar ways to other things, and this had none of the bad effects either during or after – except lethargy the next few days. But then it was also roasting all week after, and that always makes me want to laze.  Not much else to catch up on. Mum and I had dinner at Nandos, caught the train home and I was ready to drop when I realised I was supposed to go over to my friend Kelly’s to prep a roleplay character for a chronicles of Darkness campaign.  I’m not going to lie.  the LARP had a strong influence on what my character became.  But I was so wiped and distracted by all the froth on facebook I could have paid more attention.  I’ll be working on the fine details later.

 

I’ve been working, doing lots of writing to catch up on Mage sessions I hadn’t edited while busy prepping you can read them all here – as you can see, it’s been an ongoing campaign running for several years.  My character’s have been Melusine (Melly), Bellona (Bel)  and my current one is Ren.

 

 

So anyway, that’s me caught up.

 

How are you internet?

10/03/2014

I dream of a grave.  It’s Penelope’s from my Mage roleplayign game.  I’m also with others.  We go to a museum which has a room with crystal with gold flecks and veins in it.  I collect a sample carefully.  This unsettles the delicate balance and we have to run a gauntlet to escape the cavern and museum.  It’s through a gymnasium, and a pool.  Ice from the roof keeps collapsing, making it very dangerous to cross, and destroying the ice of the pool we crossed.  I curl up and go ‘oh’ at one point as I’m held back.  I tell them we need to press on.  There is an odd swirling ice storm in the room.

22/12/2013

22/12/13

 

So I had an odd Mage related dream last night (among several others). I received a note (on a post it note sized piece of paper) telling me that I was being considered to be a member of the Euthanatos, but that due to the Nephandi idea (I came up with a silly idea, that would have ended up with the slaughter of the entire Order of Hermes and posted it before thinking through properly, needless to say, my character got shouted at), I was going to have to provide further proof of my worthiness.) – this dream really amused Zoe who is running the game!

 

Another fragment was in a garden park.  I was misdirecting the public.  There were birds nests made from woolly mammoth fur and a collie helping bird.  There were letters underneath one of the nests.

 

More mundane was the dream I was at the Doctors, he is telling me I’m having a stress reaction, probably work related (it has been uber stressful recently)

 

The next dream fragment was very dark and had a heavy atmosphere.  It was also very Harry Potter  there were giant stone statues, which grasp me and put me onto a high ledge/shelf for my own protection.  I am stuck there until a maid shows me the magic door.

 

 

The next dream fragment was a Quidditch match on very old brooms – the Slytherin players had been politicking, and we were not permitted better.  Something magical happens and the brooms fall out of sky and hang there, JUST above the pitch, brush end up, with the Griffindors hanging desperately onto the ends of their brooms, while the Slytherin sit on theirs.  Harry is near the Slytherin players.  He see’s the snitch, which is /just/ out of reach.  For some reason Veritaserum is used on everyone.  Harry is annoyed I think because it was Neville Longbottom’s idea?  He feels Ill in any case and is taken up to the castle.  They take him up the stairs to his bed chamber and up a ladder.  The ladder falls away and he can’t get down.  Then the dream faded.

 

4/3/13

4/3/13
This was an amazing and vivid dream. I was in a realm that was Mage related. We are still hunting for Atlantis. In the sky I can see sparkling trails and streaks in the sky that I know is a meteor shower, but it’s really gorgeous, with the sun just setting in glorious rainbow colours and three moons in the sky and everything veiled with the sparkling streaks. I’m in a car driving along a cliff path road. I head inland as it begins to cloud over and it begins to rain heavily and steadily. I remember that the rain was dangerous. Possibly because of the meteor shower, possibly some began to land.
Then the dream shifted and I was at nannies house, but still in the same realm. Someone has died on the mountain that I was driving up the side of and both mum dad and my uncle peter have been killed by a falling meteorite.
I woke up in the night, so I was sensible and wrote these down, which is why I have the detail. I had more fragments from the second sleep (I woke around 2am)
The first was a plane crash, with balloons. There was a girl and a woman, it wasn’t very vivid. I see an orchid that is being given an airing somewhere bright and open.
The last fragment was fairly vivid. I’m with a group of friends, and we are doing something for charity. There is a friend from University – Helen heading it. There are lots of sweets, and a teddy bear. I win it by picking the name Ai-Mei, and it’s a panda teddy bear.

12/2/13

12/2/13
I had another Mage related dream, it was vivid while I slept, but I don’t remember the detail. It’s all dark and twisty in greys and dark colours, they might have been in the realm of the wraiths. We were travelling, still searching for Atlantis and make several stops but I don’t remember the others, which was most annoying.

22/1/13

22/1/13
I had a great Mage related dream last night but I don’t remember it in detail which is a bit annoying. We are on the Atlantis mission and at a stop off go on a bust trip, visit a beach and go shopping. There is an amusement park by the beach and I can see snow. There are plants on the beach, and dad wouldn’t let me go on it, so I go to a pub, where there are dwarves and we drink beer. I remember an old man’s house.

8/12/12

8/12/12
Yet another army related dream, only in this one, I am a Mage. We are all in a bus and are travelling through Tanterton in Preston. We have a special ask to complete, but it’s all very fuzzy. I eat lunch with a woman. She is very powerful, but also very gracious and nice.

12/9/12

12/9/12

I dreamt of walking through a countryside. It’s a grassy avenue, with thick woodland either side, and lots of brambles. I come to a country house, and there is a hill overlooking it. I climb the hill. The house is some sort of hospital or institute, though I don’t go inside. It may even be a manor park. As I come down the hill once I’ve finished whatever it waws I was doing, I come across a pear tree with miniature pear fruits. I eat one, and it’s tasty. I think I will have to come back to egt more when they are riper – v early in the season.

I also have a dream where my rolplay character Bellona, Dave’s character Damian and the NPC Grey are in Georgian times, riding horses through the Irish landscape. They are travelling somewhere, but I’m not sure what for.

28/8/12

28/8/12

I dreamt that Rheo from work had a ribbon on her neck at work, and had straight hair that was neatley put up with hair picks. I remember it being very cherry red too. (but her hair is normally red, it’s just very curly)

There was also a fragment in which me and some friends are chatting about Mage. I make a comment, that apparently is a step too far (wish I could remember what it was) Dave told me off for the comment, but blames my hormones because I’m pregnant in the dream.

07/08/2012

7/8/12

I dreamt I was a little kid from Mage and there were other Mage related dreams I don’t remember the details from. I was in a tree house. Little Tom (the neighbours son from when I lived in Goldburn Close) and other kids start taking stuff from it. One of the kids throws a choppign board down. There are adults moving into the building opposite. Probably some of the kids are either taking the opportunity to do some thieving, or they belong with the adults and are cleaning out their new tree house.