On the weekend of the 23rd, we had an early Thanksgiving with John’s parents, George and Kathryn. I had made two practice pumpkin pies with the Halloween jack-o-lantern and although the third attempt was with canned pumpkin I was pretty pleased with the results. John’s turkey was very good indeed, and John got to open some early birthday presents, so a good time was hopefully had by all. On Thanksgiving itself we were on a flight to San Francisco. We lucked out and had a row to ourselves, we watched the first ten minutes of Hustle, which was disappointing, How …
Category: Conventions
Con reports
Food, cats, more food, more cats.
Yesterday we walked up to Wickes to find out about bathrooms (spoiler; they’re pricey) and had a lovely meal at Steak Bar, the little eatery attached to Uptons of Basset. They’re a Slovakian style butcher (I don’t know exactly how that differs from a British butcher) with lots of lovely things I had to restrain myself from purchasing. We shared the Butcher’s Block, which had pork pie, brie and stilton cheese, sliced meats, piccalilly, lovely bread, some pickled onions that actually tasted nice (!!!!), and Scotch eggs with runny yolks. Nom. In the evening we caught up on The Good …
No Novacon, yes chilaquiles.
On the weekend after Halloween we had planned to go to Novacon, but a proper look at the budget suggested that actually maybe quality time with the cats would be better. As a consolation prize we did get to attend an excellent Mexican brunch birthday party hosted at the other Southampton fannish household. Nick Gibbins put on his chef hat and prepared an amazing spread, there was plenty of lively conversation, plus some tequila, so honestly it wasn’t a million miles off of the Novacon experience in the end. Besides that I learned how to make pumpkin pie and how …
Treats, mostly
Hot damn, it’s almost Halloween! (Guess who forgot to post her draft!?) Inktober got rudely shoved aside so I could get art ready for World Fantasy. John helpfully worked around me as I buckled down and spent most of the month working on that, and I’m reasonably happy with the results. Next up is Novacon, which I’ll do regular 2D pieces for, as much for the variety as for the feeling that November isn’t really folding fan season. We managed to get some fun in before and after I disappeared into all-fans-all-the-time; firstly we went up to Bristol to visit John’s …
Inktober
The second half of September had two Coxon family visits in a row.; first George and Kathryn came down for a brief visit which involved pizza and beer and Into the Spider-Verse. The following weekend John’s parents came to visit, met the cats, and were kind enough to take us to IKEA not once but twice. As a result I have a corner desk and a kallax unit and my habitat is a bit more unfucked than it was. It’s almost, dare I say it… nice? I thought the storage would be the best part but honestly I didn’t even …
Weekends!
The last few weekends we’ve stayed in Southampton, but managed to have nice mini-adventures regardless. The last weekend in August Michael came over and we wandered across the bridge to Riverside Park and Trifest, a new crowdsourced neighbourhood festival. We arrived pretty late in the day, so we missed the food, and it was pretty small, but for a first year crowdsourced event it was solid, with musicians all day and some local arts and crafts, as well as a couple of local charitable organizations. I bought some upcycled jewellery from Sylvie Leost and some duck feed from a charity. …
A wedding
The weekend after we got back from Dublin it was time to head up to Peterborough for Kathryn and George’s wedding! We got a ride with John’s Aunt Jennifer, and arrived in Peterborough in time to get a few hours in at the Beer Festival with John’s brother David and his partner Becky. I had a few nice beers and one or two not-great ones, and we ran into Andrew Ellis which was nice. We chatted and drank for a few hours, won a couple of bar mats in the tombola, and then it was time for dinner at the …
After Worldcon
After Worldcon we’d booked a late flight, so we’d be able to relax and play tourist. We had optimistically gotten 10:30am tickets for the Book of Kells, thinking that would give us time for a little lie in and breakfast. Of course, we had stayed late at the Dead Dog, so we still had to pack, check out of the AirBnB, and find a place to store out luggage! We managed by choosing to consider donuts as out breakfast while walking over to Trinity College. We’d been warned that The Book of Kells exhibit would be crowded, and it was. …
Worldcon 2019 in Dublin
Waking at the crack of dawn got us into Dublin city centre by nine-thirty am on Wednesday August 14th. Too early to check into our AirBnB but a fine time for a hearty breakfast at The Bakehouse, right by the Ha’penny Bridge, and a wander through Temple Bar with a quick stop at Forbidden Planet and a look in at Gamers World. At eleven we collected the keys and dragged our suitcases up three flights of stairs. It was bracing, and even less fun at the tipsy end a long con day, but otherwise the place was fine – roughly …
Kittens! (And some less fun stuff)
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, starting with the fact that Cats Protection finally contacted after three months waiting and we now have an adorable pair of black kittens who we’ve named Quentin and Alice. They’re very well socialized thanks to the nice lady who was fostering them, and despite her claim that they are “naughty kittens” they’ve adjusted very quickly, seem very comfortable with people, and only climbed up the curtains that one time. Around the same time of the above we got some much sadder news, that John’s grandfather had died. He was ninety-nine, just a couple …