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sofa so good
So I spent the long weekend down in Exeter, with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lithium_doll and her lovely hubby, for LD's Silver Lining Party. I survived the experience possibly because I confined my drinking of the Demon Bartender's concoctions to a "first taste" only :)
After much dithering, I decided to go down by train, on the grounds that the costs of parking the car plus the stress of bank holiday traffic just wouldn't be worth it. Annoyingly, I found out at the ticket office that if I hadn't dithered but bought my tickets 7 days in advance it would have cost half what it did cost. Hmf. Now I know why Rik always spends hours plotting train journeys and shopping around for prices. I used to tease him about it - Rik, I'm sorry!!
Anyway, here's what I got up to this weekend, cut because I got carried away writing it up :)
I overslept a bit, not fatally, but there was some fierce scampering involved in getting to the station for the 9.20am train. I may have just made it if it had been on time but it was six minutes late, so I was saved the necessity of hurling myself down stairs and onto a train. Even so, I was pretty shattered - it was very warm and I was struggling with cramp by the time I got to the platform. Still, I got on the train safely and was whisked to King's Cross.
At King's Cross, I saw the wonderful news that the Circle line was shut completely and the District line was closed for such a large stretch, it may as well have been shut down for the duration. Thank gawd that Paddington is also on the Hammersmith and City line which was running well. By happy timing, I got into Paddington just in time to scamper to the notice board and then to the train. To my intense joy, despite not being able to reserve a seat in advance, there were oodles of unreserved seats and I got a prime seat one carriage away from the buffet car. A cup of tea and a sarnie later, and I was relaxed and recovered enough to snooze peacefully for the vast majority of the journey. In fact, I only woke up because I snored loudly enough that I was jolted awake. I felt faintly sorry for the people sitting around me :P
I had been going to walk up tolithium_doll's house from the station but there was a vicious hill to negotiate and I was fairly certain we'd be walking back into town anyway so I cabbed it. After happy greetings to LD and her man, mostlyarmed and thalinoviel, admiration of the new and very shiny kitchen and slurping of tea, we did, as predicted by me, head back down into Exeter for the traditional visit to McCoy's. McCoy's is a fine purveyor of cooked breakfasts and other snacks and I heartily recommend a visit. While we were waiting for food, lithium_doll went off for a cigarette and just happened to fall into a nearby comic store that sells these hideous dolls (I'm sure she'll comment here and helpfully supply the name of the product, which I'm blanking on). Believe me, you have not known fear until you see LD cooing over a doll. Any doll. It chills the marrow. *shivers*
While we were recovering from the vast amounts of food we'd all scoffed,thalinoviel sidled into the large bead shop sited in the arcade. On reflection, we really shouldn't have sat right outside it, it was just tempting fate. A surgical strike was required to retrieve her. We then headed over to another arcade where there was a purveyor of swords. I was expecting LD's man or mostlyarmed to be the ones who drooled over the wares but who did we end up waiting for? Step forward, thalinoviel! :) Apparently, she bought a practice wooden falchion, which I have to admit did look pretty cool.
We made a few stops for food and other supplies and then wended our way home, where I was very glad to collapse onto the World's Comfiest Sofa (TM) and rub my calves, which were cramping and complaining. I really must do more walking, there's no way I should be in that much trouble after that amount of exercise. Yet, I ran all over London last Tuesday and I had no troubles at all. And there were more stairs involved then, too. Ah well.
We didn't do much when we got back, mostly because we were all tired and wanted a rest before the party. Soon the other guests arrived, two of LD's friends from nearby, Roger and Ian, andtyrell and pixylatedpyxie. At this point, the Demon Barman was unleashed and vast quantities of "green" were produced. It tasted wonderful but I stuck to my cider, for which my liver thanked me. The cider was gorgeous by the way, purchased from a Devonshire craft fair thing that LD attended a while back, and it was well worth the wait to drink it. And drink it I did *happy glug*
LD made fondue which needed a bit of rescuing - adding wine is always a good way of salvaging something, IMHO - and it was delicious! There was much scoffing by all. Regrettably, I didn't get around to the Scorpy Salad and ended up missing out on that totally. Ah well, next time :)
We played "What the F*ck" which is a fun game and deserves a better name, frankly. We played it at New Year's and it was good with more people too, although one or two folks did attempt to overanalyse. It's a silly game, it doesn't need analysing :) Basically, all the players are issued with counters with an A on one side and B on the other. Each player is asked a question and given a choice of two answers. The other players have to guess which answer they chose, either A or B. If you guessed wrong, you have to take a drink. 's a good game and a great way to get mildly pickled.
In place of the traditional Silver Lining movie, "The Princess Bride", we watched "Army of Darkness". It was great! It was also helped by the drinking game, which was "Drink on every classic line" and "Every time Ash gets hit on the head". Dear gods, he gets hit on the head a lot! Everyone was pretty blitzed :) My memory of what happened after the movie is a bit fuzzy: I think everyone went to bed and I was left to crash out on the sofa. Ah loves that sofa. *purrs*
People were slow to emerge Sunday. Well, I was. By the time I stumbled into the kitchen for tea, LD, LD's man,mostlyarmed and thalinoviel had cleared up the debris. tyrell surfaced even later and pixylatedpyxie later still. Thal went off to church and the rest of us pootled around a bit. A card game was attempted and we played one game of Settlers, but no-one was really in a games playing mood. In the end, we pretty much just did our own thing: mostlyarmed and LD's man played World of Warcraft a bit, which looks seriously shiny. I curled up on the sofa and read lots. tyrell and pixylatedpyxie left us to head home during the afternoon. Those of us that were left spent some time rolling up characters for the Seventh Seas game LD planned to run on Monday. There was Chinese food and movie watching. We watched "I, Robot", which I'd seen very recently (due to some nice, kind person buying me the DVD for my birthday :)) but it was still good enough to lure me out of my book for the key scenes. We then watched Constantine, or the others did. I had to be nudged awake as I got hit by a sudden tiredness attack and dozed right off. Kindly, everyone agreed they were all shattered and called it a night, leaving me to settle down on the sofa and toss and turn for, ooooh, all of five nanoseconds before falling sound asleep.
After 8 hours sleep, I woke up pretty early and was relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed by the timethalinoviel came up to say goodbye for she was heading home to Edgware on the coach. At noon, Roger and Ian returned and we launched into the game LD ran for us. I love Seventh Sea, I have all the source books, yet this only my second game. Oddly enough, I last played it at Exeter while down for a Silver Lining Party and that was the last time LD had run the game. :) Still, being an ST ninja, she did a superb job and we were soon hip dip in invisible ships and religious zealots and Fate Witches. It was great fun :) We even managed to finish the scenario, thanks to some judicious fast forwarding in places, before I had to leave to catch the train.
I chose to catch the 7.45pm train - there were later trains, but this was the last direct to Paddington train and given that I needed to get from Paddington to King's Cross to get home, I didn't want to risk having to faff around with connections at Bristol in case that fubar'd my connections at King's Cross. So after saying goodbye, reluctantly (I hate leaving, even when I'm ready to go home. Yeh, it's not logical, go with it), I headed to the St Davids station by cab, where I was thrilled to discover that the 7.45 originated from Exeter, thus once again, I was able to snag a prime seat, this time right next to the buffet car :) I was much less pleased to discover that my account had gone overdrawn while I was away and I couldn't get any more cash from the cash till. Bah! I had a fiver on me though and that was enough to get some tea and snack biscuits to tide me over.
The journey to Paddington was fine, the train was about 15 minutes behind schedule when we arrived, which isn't bad for the slow train. I had no trouble getting a tube train to King's Cross and by dint of heroic scampering, I managed to catch the 11.06 train home. It was another slow train but there were no holdups and I was in WGC by quarter to 12. There I detoured past an Abbey cash till, beat up my accounts a bit (shit, I'm down to my last grand, I have GOT to get work in the next two weeks or I'm so, so screwed) and got the cash to get a cab home.
I spent a couple of hours catching up on emails, cartoons and LbN stuff before toppling over to sleep. All in all, it was yet another great weekend in Exeter and many huggles tolithium_doll and her man for being wonderful hosts, as usual. Further hugs to thalinoviel, mostlyarmed, tyrell, pixylatedpyxie, Roger and Ian for making the weekend good fun :)
Today has been mostly about recovering, laundry, shopping, a less hasty assessment of accounts (don't ask) and watching The West Wing. My Region 1 Season 4 dvds (they have extras, the UK versions don't) arrived last Friday and I have to say, a Silver Lining Party is about the only thing that could have prised me away from them. Well. Colin Farrell inviting me out would prolly work too...;) Anyway, I've been watching S4 happily and thoroughly enjoying it. Seeing Sam leaving just makes me mourn Rob Lowe's loss all the more and, frankly, re-watching the eps has reminded me why TWW was so great. But there's no way it's the show it was. I have no idea if I will even bother buying the S5 dvds - maybe if there's a really good Christmas sale or something.
lithium_doll and her lovely hubby, for LD's Silver Lining Party. I survived the experience possibly because I confined my drinking of the Demon Bartender's concoctions to a "first taste" only :)After much dithering, I decided to go down by train, on the grounds that the costs of parking the car plus the stress of bank holiday traffic just wouldn't be worth it. Annoyingly, I found out at the ticket office that if I hadn't dithered but bought my tickets 7 days in advance it would have cost half what it did cost. Hmf. Now I know why Rik always spends hours plotting train journeys and shopping around for prices. I used to tease him about it - Rik, I'm sorry!!
Anyway, here's what I got up to this weekend, cut because I got carried away writing it up :)
I overslept a bit, not fatally, but there was some fierce scampering involved in getting to the station for the 9.20am train. I may have just made it if it had been on time but it was six minutes late, so I was saved the necessity of hurling myself down stairs and onto a train. Even so, I was pretty shattered - it was very warm and I was struggling with cramp by the time I got to the platform. Still, I got on the train safely and was whisked to King's Cross.
At King's Cross, I saw the wonderful news that the Circle line was shut completely and the District line was closed for such a large stretch, it may as well have been shut down for the duration. Thank gawd that Paddington is also on the Hammersmith and City line which was running well. By happy timing, I got into Paddington just in time to scamper to the notice board and then to the train. To my intense joy, despite not being able to reserve a seat in advance, there were oodles of unreserved seats and I got a prime seat one carriage away from the buffet car. A cup of tea and a sarnie later, and I was relaxed and recovered enough to snooze peacefully for the vast majority of the journey. In fact, I only woke up because I snored loudly enough that I was jolted awake. I felt faintly sorry for the people sitting around me :P
I had been going to walk up to
lithium_doll's house from the station but there was a vicious hill to negotiate and I was fairly certain we'd be walking back into town anyway so I cabbed it. After happy greetings to LD and her man, mostlyarmed and thalinoviel, admiration of the new and very shiny kitchen and slurping of tea, we did, as predicted by me, head back down into Exeter for the traditional visit to McCoy's. McCoy's is a fine purveyor of cooked breakfasts and other snacks and I heartily recommend a visit. While we were waiting for food, lithium_doll went off for a cigarette and just happened to fall into a nearby comic store that sells these hideous dolls (I'm sure she'll comment here and helpfully supply the name of the product, which I'm blanking on). Believe me, you have not known fear until you see LD cooing over a doll. Any doll. It chills the marrow. *shivers*While we were recovering from the vast amounts of food we'd all scoffed,
thalinoviel sidled into the large bead shop sited in the arcade. On reflection, we really shouldn't have sat right outside it, it was just tempting fate. A surgical strike was required to retrieve her. We then headed over to another arcade where there was a purveyor of swords. I was expecting LD's man or mostlyarmed to be the ones who drooled over the wares but who did we end up waiting for? Step forward, thalinoviel! :) Apparently, she bought a practice wooden falchion, which I have to admit did look pretty cool.We made a few stops for food and other supplies and then wended our way home, where I was very glad to collapse onto the World's Comfiest Sofa (TM) and rub my calves, which were cramping and complaining. I really must do more walking, there's no way I should be in that much trouble after that amount of exercise. Yet, I ran all over London last Tuesday and I had no troubles at all. And there were more stairs involved then, too. Ah well.
We didn't do much when we got back, mostly because we were all tired and wanted a rest before the party. Soon the other guests arrived, two of LD's friends from nearby, Roger and Ian, and
tyrell and pixylatedpyxie. At this point, the Demon Barman was unleashed and vast quantities of "green" were produced. It tasted wonderful but I stuck to my cider, for which my liver thanked me. The cider was gorgeous by the way, purchased from a Devonshire craft fair thing that LD attended a while back, and it was well worth the wait to drink it. And drink it I did *happy glug*LD made fondue which needed a bit of rescuing - adding wine is always a good way of salvaging something, IMHO - and it was delicious! There was much scoffing by all. Regrettably, I didn't get around to the Scorpy Salad and ended up missing out on that totally. Ah well, next time :)
We played "What the F*ck" which is a fun game and deserves a better name, frankly. We played it at New Year's and it was good with more people too, although one or two folks did attempt to overanalyse. It's a silly game, it doesn't need analysing :) Basically, all the players are issued with counters with an A on one side and B on the other. Each player is asked a question and given a choice of two answers. The other players have to guess which answer they chose, either A or B. If you guessed wrong, you have to take a drink. 's a good game and a great way to get mildly pickled.
In place of the traditional Silver Lining movie, "The Princess Bride", we watched "Army of Darkness". It was great! It was also helped by the drinking game, which was "Drink on every classic line" and "Every time Ash gets hit on the head". Dear gods, he gets hit on the head a lot! Everyone was pretty blitzed :) My memory of what happened after the movie is a bit fuzzy: I think everyone went to bed and I was left to crash out on the sofa. Ah loves that sofa. *purrs*
People were slow to emerge Sunday. Well, I was. By the time I stumbled into the kitchen for tea, LD, LD's man,
mostlyarmed and thalinoviel had cleared up the debris. tyrell surfaced even later and pixylatedpyxie later still. Thal went off to church and the rest of us pootled around a bit. A card game was attempted and we played one game of Settlers, but no-one was really in a games playing mood. In the end, we pretty much just did our own thing: mostlyarmed and LD's man played World of Warcraft a bit, which looks seriously shiny. I curled up on the sofa and read lots. tyrell and pixylatedpyxie left us to head home during the afternoon. Those of us that were left spent some time rolling up characters for the Seventh Seas game LD planned to run on Monday. There was Chinese food and movie watching. We watched "I, Robot", which I'd seen very recently (due to some nice, kind person buying me the DVD for my birthday :)) but it was still good enough to lure me out of my book for the key scenes. We then watched Constantine, or the others did. I had to be nudged awake as I got hit by a sudden tiredness attack and dozed right off. Kindly, everyone agreed they were all shattered and called it a night, leaving me to settle down on the sofa and toss and turn for, ooooh, all of five nanoseconds before falling sound asleep.After 8 hours sleep, I woke up pretty early and was relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed by the time
thalinoviel came up to say goodbye for she was heading home to Edgware on the coach. At noon, Roger and Ian returned and we launched into the game LD ran for us. I love Seventh Sea, I have all the source books, yet this only my second game. Oddly enough, I last played it at Exeter while down for a Silver Lining Party and that was the last time LD had run the game. :) Still, being an ST ninja, she did a superb job and we were soon hip dip in invisible ships and religious zealots and Fate Witches. It was great fun :) We even managed to finish the scenario, thanks to some judicious fast forwarding in places, before I had to leave to catch the train. I chose to catch the 7.45pm train - there were later trains, but this was the last direct to Paddington train and given that I needed to get from Paddington to King's Cross to get home, I didn't want to risk having to faff around with connections at Bristol in case that fubar'd my connections at King's Cross. So after saying goodbye, reluctantly (I hate leaving, even when I'm ready to go home. Yeh, it's not logical, go with it), I headed to the St Davids station by cab, where I was thrilled to discover that the 7.45 originated from Exeter, thus once again, I was able to snag a prime seat, this time right next to the buffet car :) I was much less pleased to discover that my account had gone overdrawn while I was away and I couldn't get any more cash from the cash till. Bah! I had a fiver on me though and that was enough to get some tea and snack biscuits to tide me over.
The journey to Paddington was fine, the train was about 15 minutes behind schedule when we arrived, which isn't bad for the slow train. I had no trouble getting a tube train to King's Cross and by dint of heroic scampering, I managed to catch the 11.06 train home. It was another slow train but there were no holdups and I was in WGC by quarter to 12. There I detoured past an Abbey cash till, beat up my accounts a bit (shit, I'm down to my last grand, I have GOT to get work in the next two weeks or I'm so, so screwed) and got the cash to get a cab home.
I spent a couple of hours catching up on emails, cartoons and LbN stuff before toppling over to sleep. All in all, it was yet another great weekend in Exeter and many huggles to
lithium_doll and her man for being wonderful hosts, as usual. Further hugs to thalinoviel, mostlyarmed, tyrell, pixylatedpyxie, Roger and Ian for making the weekend good fun :)Today has been mostly about recovering, laundry, shopping, a less hasty assessment of accounts (don't ask) and watching The West Wing. My Region 1 Season 4 dvds (they have extras, the UK versions don't) arrived last Friday and I have to say, a Silver Lining Party is about the only thing that could have prised me away from them. Well. Colin Farrell inviting me out would prolly work too...;) Anyway, I've been watching S4 happily and thoroughly enjoying it. Seeing Sam leaving just makes me mourn Rob Lowe's loss all the more and, frankly, re-watching the eps has reminded me why TWW was so great. But there's no way it's the show it was. I have no idea if I will even bother buying the S5 dvds - maybe if there's a really good Christmas sale or something.