We had the hotel room an extra night, in order to fully enjoy the last day of the convention, allowing for a nice relaxed morning, an afternoon nap, and plenty of time to collect art, drop by the lounge, say copious goodbyes, etc. I napped through closing ceremonies, making this the first Worldcon in a while where I missed both opening and closing. For dinner John and I took a bus over to Villains Brewing, which had pretty good food and beer. Although it was only lightly themed, they did have a pretty nerdy sports story playing on one of …
Tag: beer
Untitled
We went to London and saw some culture! Despite the strikes on Friday we had a smooth trip to Croydon to the stay at Fishlifter Manor, where we were greeted by a very welcome dhansak. Saturday we headed to the Royal Academy to explore Making Modernism, an exhibition about four German Modernist painters; Maula Modersohn-Becker, Kӓthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin. It was an interesting look at a different perspective, the Kollwitz drawings in particular. We were then joined by John’s parents and explored Spain and the Hispanic World, which was a very ambitious exhibition exploring Spanish art, its …
Memories
I’ve been going through the old posts to clean up links, fortmatting, and even finding the odd missing report, like Silicon 2006, that’s slipped through the cracks. At the same time I’m scanning old family photos, so I’ve experienced a weird whiplash of nostalgia, bouncing between adorable toddler photos and dissolute mid-aughts Bay Area convention shenanigans. In the current timeline I’m getting ready for Norwescon by exploring Airmeet a bit… I think it looks neat? It’ll be interesting to see how it works for the actual event. Also getting some old fashioned illos done, which I want to do more …
September
I guess September happened? We left the house a few times, to Unity for beer to go, to the Bookshop for beer to go, to the Butchers for beer to go (I sense a theme). We went to Paddle and Peel for date night – sat outside and had delicious pizza and chocolate calzones for desert. John’s friend Emma, who lives nearby now, came by for a drink and chat in the garden. Oh, I took Alice to the vet! That was a small adventure which she did not enjoy at all but was luckily a minor inconvenience and nothing …
Food, glorious food.
John and I take turns cooking dinner, just like before lockdown, we were already pretty good at using up our veg box to get a nice variety of dishes. Obviously now we also eat weekday breakfast and lunch at home, usually breakfast is just toast or cereal, lunch we have together but it’s mostly random who makes it, plus lately the weather has been nice enough we can have it outside. We were a bit surprised that our grocery bill has gone up, but of course we’re buying the larger sizes and planning ahead for things that we might need …
2020
Well here we are in the far-flung future of 2020! We had intended on a relatively low key NYE at Unity Brewing’s taproom, but both of us had sore throats so we scaled it back to a couple of pints at the Butcher’s Hook, where I had a lovely marshmallow porter and we had a nice chat with some strangers at our table. Back home we played a board game, ordered Indian food, watched the first half of Point Break, and were in bed just in time to wish each other a happy new year snuggled up with the cats …
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 …
Kent!
On Friday the 14th (not quite as ominous, is it) I had a nice lunch with an old co-worker who now lives in Sweden and then after work John and I headed up to the Unity Brewing Taproom, which we had intended to go to for ages. Turns out it is moving near St. Mary’s stadium soon, so I’m glad we got to see the old digs before that. Back home we packed and got in a good night sleep in preparation for the weekend adventure exploring Kent. John’s parents got in around 9:30am and after a hearty full English …