galadhir

It's Daughter's wedding next year (2025 - made up sci-fi year.) And she's decided to have a 'high fae' theme for the do.

Specifically, she said 'you know the party that was going on in Mirkwood, that the dwarves kept trying to barge into? The one where they would hear the distant music and smell the delicious smell of the food, and see the fires, and yet when they would run toward it, it would disappear entirely and leave them lost in the darkness under the trees? Yeah? I want this to be that party.'

Which I think is awesome and I understand completely. I also would have loved to go to that party - and now it seems I shall!

Daughter and Fiance have been crafting table settings and invitations and many other things, and she put a picture of one of the table centerpieces up on her instagram. It featured moss and stones and sparkly lights and skulls, and I think looked really cool. But Parents-in-law claimed the skulls were morbid. Despite initially going 'it's your wedding, you must have what you want,' they are now going, 'but not like that.'

This made me determined to lean into the skull theme. (It's an ancient magical forest, how could it not have skulls?)

DH has made his own 18th Century style coat (in black, with large blue cuffs) and leather top hat, but I had not made anything for it, having already bought a very floaty dress and a lovely faerie coat.

So I was feeling bad about my level of effort, and decided to make myself something to wear on my head, instead of the traditional 'mother of the bride' hat.

And it had to have skulls.

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And - in explanation for the title of this post and the plaster I have around my thumb in the photo, I did drip hot glue on myself and when I took it off again a section of skin on my thumb came with it. The answer to the question in the title, it turns out, is 'too hot.'

Well, we had a lovely holiday last week, going out on Son's boat. The weather was sunny and cool - ideal really, except for the wind. Canal boats are essentially flat bottomed barges, and have no keel to resist being blown about by the wind. If the wind is above about 25 miles per hour you will find yourself fighting several tons of boat on the end of a thin rope.

Normally that's possible, because, again - flat bottom = easy to move around on the water. But if you're fighting the wind, the wind will win.

So, first day was a case of fighting with all our might to get up the river Trent, to get through the locks and onto the canal. It took us hours and we must have moved about four miles. We were then shattered and decided not to move the next day, but just to have a useful day pottering about doing things.

I had promised Son that I would paint the bows of the boat, which - on narrowboats - usually contain colourful designs of crescent moon, diamonds, sun, maybe a daisy-wheel, that sort of thing. Son had requested manuscript illustrations instead, so I had come armed with the drawings and the paint, and on that first day I managed to do the pink outline and the swan on the Port side (the side I could reach from the bank.)

DH fixed a light in the shower, which had been flickering, and for which he had to trace back the wiring to the skirting board, where it was revealed to have been worn back to bare metal.

After this useful day we walked to a nearby pub and had dinner, and it was all very nice and civilized and exactly what you want of a boating holiday.

The next day we made good time and I think I was steering the boat through the locks - doing the steering because we thought that would be better for my fibro than the heavy work of operating the locks. The responsibility is scary though! What if I can't get into the bank properly and have to leave DH abandoned on the side of the canal? What if I sink Son's boat?

I know I am going to have to get comfortable with this. And also comfortable with steering while sitting on the roof, because it's the only way we'll be able to cope with the physical demands of canal boating in future, but right now I am a bundle of nerves about it.

Anyway, we did eventually manage to get to Mercia Marina, and thought we would tie up to a visitor mooring there. Which was great because they had a grocery shop and restaurants/cafes, and the pontoon they moored us on allowed me access to the Starboard side of the boat.

So I spent another day painting the Starboard side. And then there was a 35 mph wind warning for the next day, so we stayed over and washed down the roof, decks and gunwhales.

Meanwhile DH discovered the location of the suspected oil and coolant leaks in the engine.

This is momentous, because we often come back to the boat to discover the engine bay absolutely awash in oily liquid, which we assumed was water coming in from somewhere - not exactly what you want in a boat. But Son had also noticed that she went through coolant by the gallon, and I had advanced the theory that perhaps the liquid filling up the engine bay was coolant rather than water.

Finding the location of both oil and coolant leaks in the engine will make it much easier to fix them, and perhaps she can have a dry well after that! Fingers crossed.

By which time it was time to start off back. We filled up with diesel and emptied the toilet before we left. Then after an easy day of cruising, when I still managed to fall in a hedge and be dragged across the towpath while DH shouted at me to let go and I refused, we moored at a lovely pub which we were warned away from, but which seemed to me to be perfectly lovely. It was very picturesque with a weeping willow and a garden sweeping down to the canal.

Son had mentioned that it was a bit creepy coming home along the towpath when it was pitch black around him, and he had wanted to put up some solar powered fairy lights to greet him and show him where his boat was. So we put those up, and they did indeed look very cheering.

On the last day we're gently going along the canal, passing moored boats on either side, listening to the distinctive throb of our boat's vintage (read - just very old) engine, when there starts to be a weird echo. Kind of a heart beat with a mirror heart beating in time. It gets closer and then we're sliding past a beautiful boat still in the livery of one of the 19th Century coal carriers.

I raise my hand and wave it excitedly at the guy at the tiller. "Same engine noise! Is it a Russel Newbury?"

"It is!" he beams. "Nothing like them!"

Which was - as Tumblr would call it - a 'same hat' moment, and oddly satisfying. A nice, geeky way to end a very productive week.

Watched 1000 years of yearning last night and absolutely loved the first three quarters of it. It's a djinn story with wonderful costume and settings in which a professor of narrative finds a djinn in a bottle. She is of course narratively aware enough to know that wishing always goes wrong in all the stories, and suspects that the Djinn is a trickster who will ruin her life too.

Meanwhile the Djinn tells her what it's like being a djinn, being constantly imprisoned in a bottle and unable to get humans to set him free by making their third wish.

All of which I very much enjoyed, while I'm waiting for them to come up with a solution that will leave both of them free and happy.

And then instead of that she wishes that he would fall in love with her, and it isn't until he's dying of all the EM radiation in modern human life that she sets him free - and even then she doesn't even complete the three wishes. And the moment she comes up with this 'I wish for a love like that,' wish it's like a bucket of cold water in my face and the movie has 100% lost me in a single move.

1. because she's gone this whole time as a happily independent woman with no strong desire for romance or companionship, so it doesn't suit her character at all
2. because (as far as this greyromantic asexual is concerned) there was no build up of romance or attraction between the two of them to this point - it comes right out of left field
3. because it's an absolute violation of his rights as a sentient person. It's an absolutely fucking awful thing to do to a person - to command them to fall in love with you when they can't say no. Am I supposed to think of this as a love story? After he's already spent several thousand years imprisoned and desperate for someone human to give him his freedom?

Am I supposed to think it's a good thing that she reluctantly lets him go at the end when he's dying? I mean yes, I suppose it's better than letting him die, but honestly.

Anyway... I suppose by this stage I should be aware that the movie industry knows nothing about consent. Or I am missing some nuance of neurotypical understanding that means it's not as bad as I think. But still.

Recommendation - watch the first three quarters of the movie and then come up with your own wish for her to make. We can solve this with fanfiction.

I have also been reading up on the history of belly dance, and it turns out that traditionally it's a type of dance that was done in the household - not for public performance - and that originally people would just wear their regular clothes, with a scarf tied around the hips so you could see what they were doing.

For our performance we were directed to wear something "appropriate for your style," which is interesting, as I do not know what is appropriate for which style. Nor do I know what style I'm even doing, or how to tell the difference. Googling is no help in this.

So I've decided to go back to the root. 'Baladi' belly dance is essentially the folk dance of large parts of the Middle East, and Baladi itself means 'country' - the dance of my country. And if it was originally done in normal clothes, I figured I would just wear something that I might wear normally.

With this in mind, I was just browsing as you do, when I saw this skirt

and I thought 'oh... that's very memento mori isn't it? Very appropriate for a song about failing to reconnect with old friends because time is slipping away from you both and there's so much else to do.'

So the skirt was a must. And I figured I could put a dark green strappy top under it, and top it with this nice crochet crop top. Which together would make an outfit I would totally wear in real life but I hope will look fancy enough to dance in.

One of the other dancers in my group has given me a hot pink belt with bead dangly bits, and I have a triangular scarf that will match the crop top, so I'll put that combination around my hips, and I think it will be a strong look.

Not quite sure what to do with my hair. I don't want to wear anything that looks like I have help in balancing this sword, but I do want some kind of headband to hold my hair out of my eyes. Some kind of silk flowers on a band?

Second Chorus

1. Snake arms - slow, quick,quick,
2. Step - slow, quick,quick w arms,
3. Step - slow, quick,quick w arms,
4. Step - slow, quick,quick w arms,

5. Mermaid arms - Camels while walking backward,
6. Camels while walking backward,
7. Camels while walking backward,
8. Camels while walking backward,

9. Large hip slide starting on the L,
10. Break R,
11. Shoulder shimmy,
12. Shoulder shimmy,

13. Circle right hip,
14. Circle left hip,
15. Lowering into a seat,
16. and arms spread as if to welcome a friend,

Figure Three

1. Circle whole body ninety degrees to the left,
2. Circle whole body ninety degrees to the left,

Now Facing away, Back to the audience

3. Vertical 8,
4. Shimmy,

5. L arms, right arm up - time to spin on the spot - turning,
6. Turning,
7. Turning,
8. Turning,

End turns facing audience again. Grab sword and prepare to launch into some sword swings

Third Chorus to End

1. Two handed sword swing,
2. Two handed sword swing,
3. Two handed sword swing,
4. Two handed sword swing,

5. Sword balanced on hand twirl around head,
6. Sword balanced on hand twirl around head,
7. Sword balanced on hand twirl around head,
8. Sword balanced on hand twirl around head,

9. Travelling to right using large circles while circling the sword in front,
10. Travelling to right using large circles while circling the sword in front,
11. Travelling to left using large circles while circling the sword in front,
12. Travelling to left using large circles while circling the sword in front, return to warm spot

13. Sword on shoulder like morris stick - right hip circles forward,
14. left hip circles forward,
15. Sinking into seat,
16. Left hand reaches out to audience then draws in to cover the heart,

(The friend never actually made it to the reunion, but they are being thought of until the next time.)

The End. Stand and bow. Walk off.

Intro

Each number stands for four beats.

Starting facing away from audience, sword held above head in both hands

1. Sweep down to the count of 4, while turning 90 degrees to left
2. Sweep up to the count of 4, while turning 90 degrees left
3. (Now facing audience) Sweep down to the count of 3 + turn sword point upright with right hand, wrist circles with left hand (there is a twiddly bit in the music here.)

4. Barrel turn x 1
5. Barrel turn x 2
6. Barrel turn x 3 giving yourself time to transfer sword to left of head. (Another twiddly bit)

7. Head sword circles + hip circles x 1
8. Head sword circles + hip circles x 2
9. Head sword circles + hip circles x 3

10. Shave the dancer, left side
11. taqsim pull up front
12. Flat hip figures of eight + BALANCE SWORD ON HEAD

13. Hip drops on right w. armchair arms
14. Hip drops on left w. armchair arms
15. Drop and kick right w. L arms
16. Drop and kick left w. L arms

~

Now to get to work on the second minute and also to fret that my sword has not arrived yet. I am using a morris dancing stick to stand in for it in the mean time, which is somehow appropriate.

I thought my song didn't have lyrics because it was an instrumental, but it turns out it is an instrumental version of a song that does actually have lyrics after all.

I managed to track down the version with the lyrics, and it had the title in the latin alphabet rather than Arabic. That was lucky, because now I can introduce the dance as "A dance to Fady Shawaya by Hamza Namira," instead of "a dance to a song that probably has a meaningful title but it's just a squiggle to me." Which, though true, would have been rude.

Armed with an English language title, I was then able to find an English language translation of the lyrics and discovered that it is a song about trying to reconnect with an old friend who you haven't seen for years because you've both been too busy. (My interpretation.)

That's great. I don't think my asexual self could have done a sexy dance, but a wistful, 'oh, the passage of time, it goes so fast,' dance is very appropriate.

Free a bit?

Oh how so... We've left time pass so quickly. We didn't account for the next moment. How can it be? We lived our life nurturing birds but forgot to raise up a birdhouse.

And don't worry, it's fine Listen to me, this hour is not a time for reproach or blame. What's the matter if we returned once again? And instead of being on your own you support me with you and we stand up.

...

Are you free for a bit to go drink coffee in a faraway place? Invite me over a new joke and leave the laughter's bill on me.

Are you free for a bit? I miss sitting down with you. And if you can't go there, I'll wait for you for the next time.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/fady-shewaya-free-bit.html

The version with the lyrics:

Galadhir has finished Visitation. Nobody liked that.

(This is a lie. I liked it, so I'm glad to have written it, and I'll enjoy having it there to read again once I've had time to forget it a little.)

Visitation by Galadhir

In which Lan Xichen, in seclusion, experiences a moment of consolation, makes his mind up about some things and comes out swinging.

Because you know Jin Guangyao did not save him just for him to waste away in heartbroken regret.

Went to my first hafla at the weekend. I'd booked myself into a sword dance workshop during the day and then was planning to take part in a choreography put on by my fellow learners of my belly dance school during the evening show.

So I turned up in gym clothes, with a bag full of black-and-gold outfit for the dance to Ghib An Anynayya fully intent on doing an hour and a half workshop, going home for a rest, and then performing my first ever public dance since starting bellydance for the first time about six months ago.

But then the sword dance workshop went on two and a half hours and assumed that you would get up and show what you had learned for the second dance of the public performances in the theatre. And I had loved doing the sword dance so much I was like 'why not!'

"Everyone in black and silver please!" comes the call, so I rush home at half five (it takes half an hour to drive home) ; frantically look for anything black and silver; don't have anything because I haven't been dancing long enough to have a stash; find a grey shrug and cut up the charcoal lining material I have left over from making my winter coat; devour a fried egg and put the chips in a pot so I can eat them on the journey back, and am back in time to get in the line up to go on at 7pm.

getyourwordsout is indeed motivating me to work on my novel, but that is at the expense of the time I spend doing social media activity, so I'm washing out to sea again atm. See you all on the other side of this slump :)

In your own space, set yourself some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have my goals here Final Roundup of 2023 and New Year Goals for 2024 but I think I want to add one more, which is

• make hope part of your daily practice.

I already have a Christian religious practice in which I try to leave worry to the Lord. But not worrying is not quite the same thing as having hope. It feels necessary now that I add in a daily habit of hoping that - since God is in charge and God is good - the world will improve, and there is a future for the planet, and life is worth living and will continue to be so.

These things don't come to me easily, but I've never deliberately worked at it before, and it may be time.

My most important goals for 2023 were to paint Son's boat (and thus reassure myself that it wasn't in imminent danger of falling apart due to rust) and to see him settled with some kind of job with which he could support his immediate needs.

Both of those were achieved. We stripped and painted the boat over the summer, and in doing so discovered that the rust was largely superficial and the structure of the boat was sounder than I had feared.

We also stripped and painted the fresh water tank, which had been so full of rust I was worried that it was going to rust through at any moment and flood the bilges. And it turned out that it too was sounder than I had feared. It will have to be done again every year for several years running to fully eliminate the rust, but the boatyard men were not concerned about it, and as long as we keep on top of it, it should be fine.

Son is now installed in permanent mooring and has found a temporary job which will keep him (heh) afloat while he looks for something better.

I can therefore go into 2024 without the family-related stress and dread that was such a feature of late 2022 and the entirety of 2023.

I shouldn't say things like that because it tempts fate, but as of 1/1/2024 that is the situation. So I can turn my thoughts to 2024 with that ticked off at least.

Goals for 2024

Family-related goals this year

• Help Daughter/Fiance arrange their wedding.
• Help Son get the boat re-blacked, water tank stripped and re-painted, bow decoration painted, and engine idle finally fixed

Personal goals

I looked on the internet for 'Fun New Year Resolutions' and could not find any. Apparently you're not supposed to make resolutions to have more fun. You're supposed to be grinding away at exercise and work as though we weren't all already doing the best we could.

I can't make resolutions about health because I am now aware that if your health decides to bork you, there is nothing you can do about it. This will be the first year, I think, where I go into it fully aware of being chronically ill, and how that means that I no longer even have the illusion of control.

So, my goals are going to be small. And they're not going to be resolutions, because I am not resolved to do them if it turns out I can't. They're more like guidelines.

• Write a new original novel. I've signed up for gywo to do the 120 days pledge, which means that for at least 120 days of this year I will work on something to do with my new novel.
• Finish podficcing at least my major Tolkien fanfics
• Get to the point where I can cycle three times a week and dance twice a week without triggering a flare-up. (I have been cycling three times a week with no trouble for years, and have just about managed to fit in one dance class with only the occasional flare. I have the feeling that increasing to a second dance class a week will require a lot of patience and care. But I think I can get there if I do it gradually enough.)
• Learn how to cook good vegan food. Now I'm dairy intolerant I have to learn to cook again. As I've always loved Asian food, this is a great excuse to learn to make Thai/Korean/Japanese food myself. It's healthy, it's gorgeous, why wouldn't I? (Also vegan desserts, and - dammit - I want a cheese scone again, even if it's vegan cheese.)
• Sew all the things
• Start Roses & Castles painting again
• Learn something difficult. It may be time for me to try maths again, or coding, or a language. Or playing the melodeon with the bases. Something that does not come to me naturally.

That will do, I think :)

One of Daughter's cats - Voidstar, the 1 year old - absolutely loves eating plastic, so preparing for him to visit meant purging as much plastic from the house as possible. We did that over a couple of days, helped by the fact that we had gone not plastic-free, but plastic-minimal, a few years ago, and all that was left was mainly forgotten bags.

But then we got very nervous over the idea of tinsel. Should there be tinsel on the Christmas tree? Would he try to jump up and eat that too?

So we made some white, red and green paper chains to use instead.

When Daughter arrived she told us that Void had not jumped at her tree and had only sniffed the things he could reach, so we decided to have a two part tree. Closer to the floor, where cats could reach, we would have felt fabric ornaments and paper chains which wouldn't harm the cats if they were chewed on. Then above cat distance we would have the metal/glass ornaments and tinsel.

They turned out to be two very different themes which did not really go together, but no chomping or plastic-eating took place, so the main purpose was achieved.

Daughter, daughter's fiance, daughter's two cats and Son have left today after staying over from the 23rd. We have had fish and hamsters here before but this is our first experience with cats.

Everyone was a little worried about how the cats would take to coming to a house that was new to them. Ember, the hairless sphynx cat clearly has PTSD about car journeys and spends the journey throwing up in her carrier, and Voidstar is only 1 and had never left Daughter's house before.

But despite the usual throwing up in the car, as soon as Ember got through the door she was visibly delighted to be here and trotted around delicately sniffing everything and climbing up everyone to rub her cheek on yours.

Ember, being bald, is very sensitive to the cold and her favourite thing to do is land on your lap and nose at your jumper until you lift it up and let her come inside, where she will immediately loaf down and go to sleep.

Voidstar went under the sofa and stayed there, but by the next day was happily leaning against everyone's legs and lurking invisibly in doorways and on the stairs (he's as dark as a dark star and you can't see him if he shuts his eyes.)

Daughter tells me he is lying in the entrances of the den in order to defend us, which is very noble of him.

So I spent most of the Christmas period sitting still with Ember either purring or snoring in my lap, and the rest of the family had to bring me cups of tea and slices of Yule Log.

Not a single dodgy present this year :) I got some great trousers with foxes and mushrooms on them, and - having asked everyone for fabric - 13 metres of fabric.

And a new sewing machine! It has a serger function, and zig-zag stitch, so I'll be able to sew stretch fabric for the first time, and it will make my seams much more professional than they have been. I'm going to try it out tomorrow.

Managed to actually do some fannish stuff yesterday and the result is that chapter fifteen of Oak and Willow is up on AO3.

In which Galadriel, exiled to Sirion once Thingol heard about the kinslaying, and sick of being treated like a traitor/dangerous political hot potato by her cousins, receives an unexpected - but very welcome - visitor.

Oak and Willow Chapter 15

Only one more chapter to go and this one will be done. After which I think I will edit all the individual chapters together so it can be listened to as an audiobook.

General Hux is my fandom blorbo, played by Domhnall Gleeson. Other characters played by Domhnall Gleeson include Caleb from Ex-Machina, which is a fantastic movie ostensibly about AI but (to the female gaze) also very clearly about misogyny. So here is a short piece from Caleb's pov.

~

Caleb beats on the bulletproof glass door until the meat of his hands is swollen and bleeding. Something about the smudges of gore on the glass cuts the final strings that held him upright and fighting. Pulling the pain in to his chest, he turns and slides to the floor in the beating pulse of the red emergency light.

That’s it then. He’s going to die here.

Is this what she had felt? Alone in her glass prison, knowing herself to be property, to be a prototype, with only dismantlement and recycling ahead of her, was she fighting for her life all the time she spoke to him?

His fingerbones are on fire, and it snaps him back to video footage. One of Ava’s earlier versions—her ‘sisters’?—punching on a locked door until the glass and her arm shatters.

The shame is almost as acute as the pain. He had thought the behaviour was interesting, had wondered if it was a sign of self awareness, self-determination. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he was witnessing a woman trapped and desperate enough to gnaw through her own arm to escape.

He thought he was so fucking clever. Thought it was up to him to determine her personhood, up to him to bestow the gift of taking her seriously. Holding himself up like some kind of god, just as Nathan had.

Hah! He had wanted to be like Nathan, hadn’t he? At least at the start. Wanted to help create a slave race, control it, decide whether it was allowed to be considered intelligent or not.

No wonder she had left him here. He deserved it.

Slowly, he tips over onto his side and presses his cheek to the floor. Have the air recyclers been shut down too? It seems hot and his chest aches more physically than mere abandonment and despair could account for.

Will he suffocate first, or will the next food delivery turn up in time to save him? There is nothing he can do about either possibility, so it is best not to care. He closes his eyes and relaxes into the blood-stained floor.

Ava deserves to get away. He hopes she walks the beaches in her pretty white dress, hopes she enjoys the sun on her skin and the respect of strangers who have no cause to doubt that she is human. Perhaps there will be joy in her life before her battery runs out. Perhaps she will make drawings of what she sees, and for a little time there will be two intelligences on the earth to marvel at the beauty of the stars.

He hopes so, at least.

Minor characters, my beloveds!

I chose to do this one with icons:

Three from the Murderbot Diaries - probably my favourite character including SecUnit itself. James Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean - he was a minor character in the movies themselves - who died half way through - but became a fandom favourite. Which meant that he became a bit too popular for me and I gravitated to his Lieutenant, Andrew Gillette instead, who died toward the end of the last movie.

It seems weird to me to think of Celeborn as a minor character, but he has 5 minutes in The Lord of the Rings, and is Sir Not Appearing in Amazon's Rings of Power, even if it is set during the time when he was Lord of Eregion where all this was canonically going on. So yeah, to me he's a major character, but not to the rest of the world.

Then we have One-Eye from the Elfquest comics, who I liked because he looked cool and died half way through. And Marcus Cole from Babylon 5, who was funny and quirky and also died half way through. Dying half way through is a common trait of all my blorbos.

So my 'absolute beginners' bellydance class have been working on a choreography since about week three (back in September.) Next week is the last week and we will have to do the whole thing.

Last Monday the instructor suggested that we should take a video of the whole thing while she danced it. I can only assume because we're supposed to be practicing it at home. I have not done this, but perhaps I'll manage a few goes through over the weekend.

I've signed up for the beginner's course again in the New Year. You have to do it at least twice before you can go on to the Improvers, which I think is honestly a good call because I still feel my brain shorting out half the time, and I can't yet do a shoulder shimmy without my hips joining in.

I'm vaguely hoping to get good enough to do a bit of Saidi, since I miss dancing with a stick, but I'm already a lifetime too late to get this good:

Disaster! Cut out the coat. Cut out the (fur) lining of the coat. Stitched the coat together, double stitching to prevent fraying. Tried the coat on. Too small.

It makes a fetching outer garment for the spring/autumn, if I fasten it at the very top of my throat, but it does not do up across the chest and there is no room in the arms for a fur lining. I might have to hem it and use it as it is, to avoid wasting the fabric.

This is what I get for using an untried pattern instead of measuring it myself!

I wanted the coat for the Mill Road Winter Fair. At which I'll be playing music for Coton Morris. And the fair is on the 2nd of December, so there's no time to order more material and do it properly.

If I can't get it done by then, I'll have to go in my normal winter coat, which is vivid pink - and Coton's colours are black and white. It will cause something of a stir if I turn up like a flamingo among crows.

OTOH, the coat fits quite nicely across the shoulders and back. It's only the chest and sleeves that it was unprepared for. It's possible that if make up the fur material on its own and insert two full length panels in the front, that will do the job. It may look a bit weird but at this point I'll take a coat that fits over one that looks good.

Crossing my fingers and starting again. Watch this space :)

I figured I should support DW with a paid account if I don't want it to either go away or feel forced to add adverts. So now I have soooo many icon slots. I've added several from a first trawl through the icon communities, but if anyone has any they would like to recommend, I'd love to see them :)

Off to a Christmas market in Ely cathedral this lunchtime (trying to get in and out on our lunch hour.) This is always the start of the Christmas season for us, and often a good place to buy presents for people like Daughter's in-laws, who we don't really know well enough to ask for a wishlist.

Looking forward to it! I can't drink mulled wine any more, but I can sniff it. And I can at least still eat a mince pie.

On other news, another chapter of Wedded Bliss will be up imminently, as soon as I can get it off the laptop and into A03. Now there's only the marriage ceremony to write, so I should have the fic finished next week.

Anyone got any prompts for The Untamed they want written next? Ideally with Jin Guangyao as a major player, since he is my evil little dude.

Ugh! Still exhausted post Covid. I guess it's only around a fortnight since I got it - only a week since I tested negative, and I shouldn't start panicking yet, but I'm still so tired.

I did manage to go to a fireworks display on Saturday with my family, and that was great. Son came down from the boat to join us, and brought his washing to put through Daughter's washing machine and tumble dryer. There are washing facilities in his marina but they cost like £5 a load to wash and the same again to dry.

Anyway the fireworks were great - they were let off from behind a screen of trees, so there was a beautiful silhouette effect where the lights shone out between the branches. Lots of new coloured fireworks this year that I hadn't seen before. Particularly the peach ones with trails of golden sparkles. And they were set very well to the music.

The new dairy intolerance made festival food even more difficult than it normally is for this vegetarian. All the non meat options were of course with cheese. So I ended up with the old reliable portion of chips, but at least that was something.

I have discovered that soy milk is fine, so I can still have a soy milk hot chocolate when I go out. Result :)

Yesterday (Sunday) we did the charity shops in Cambridge and had a choose-your-own-ingredients poke bowl in the Hanaki Cafe. (Avocado, cucumber, edamame, chilli & ginger with sesame shoyu sauce and peanuts scattered on top.) I managed to find a long coat in my size in tartan wool fabric which is very cool - a little bit punk, a little bit eccentric weirdo - and was only £15, so that was also a result.

All that activity was too much for me and today I am flattened again. But I am damn well going to belly dancing this evening even if it kills me (or more likely even if it means I have to spend tomorrow in bed again.) There are only like 4 sessions left before the end of term and I am not missing any of them.

I was looking at my entry for January 1st 2023 the other day, and saw I had written a list of aims for this year:

With that all in mind, my aims for 2023 are

1. Help my son get settled.
2. More practice with the signwriting, possibly starting up a little business doing sign writing and canal art.
3. Find some form of strengthening exercise that I can do with the hernia.
4. Finish podficcing Last of our kind and maybe do Derillarch's Jiang Yanli/Jin Guangyao series, and some more favourites after that if I'm still into the Untamed by then.
5. Maybe start writing again?

Results

I'm more or less happy with how things turned out. I didn't achieve all of that, but we're in a better position than we were before.

1. Son now has a permanent residence and is therefore able to apply for jobs. AFAIK he doesn't have a job yet, but he's looking, and he's not homeless in the process. (Edit in December - he's now working Deliveroo and can afford food and fuel, so result :) )

2. As soon as I finished painting the name on the boat, I stopped practicing the signwriting, so no.2 has not materialized at all. However, the main aim of the signwriting - which was putting the name on the boat myself - has been achieved. Any future plans for it have been backburnered, and honestly I don't feel bad about that. It may not have been for me.

3. As far as exercise goes, this has been the year when I've been forced to ask myself "do I want to morris dance, or do I want to be able to walk and live without constant pain?" and I've chosen to live without constant pain.

   The morris was constantly triggering my fibromyalgia and I was in pain all the time. So, 2023 has been the year when I gave up morris dancing and became a morris musician instead.

   That was very depressing, and even three months ago, if you'd asked me, I'd have said everything was terrible and my life was over.

   However, in September I was like 'there must be some other dance I can do, which isn't as hard on my arthritic knees and doesn't trigger a flare. Maybe something that is good for core strength too?' And belly dancing occurred to me. So I have signed up to belly dance classes, and am really enjoying it. So far an hour of bellydance class is not bothering my knees or activating the chronic illness. I get mildly warm during and mildly sore the next day, and that's ideal. It's giving me a new lease of life and I just wish I could do it more often than once a week.

4. Finished the named podfics and decided "why don't I podfic some of my own fic?" So now I'm slowly working my way through some of my longest fics. My schedule here has been intermittent to say the least, due to working on the boat, but it's still ongoing and I will get there.

5. I have started writing again! I am currently writing in The Untamed fandom, and also plotting a Fantasy novel. I can't tell you how relieved I am to have this essential part of my personality back, after years and years of block.

So yeah, not all goals achieved, but positive movement on the most important ones :)

October in the mean time was mostly taken up with medical stuff. Weird IBS type symptoms arrived out of the blue, and the doctors are like 'take this test.' So I take the test, and the doctors go 'oh, blood. interesting. you may have cancer.' And I'm fast tracked into an endoscopy appointment.

I don't honestly mind the endoscopy, though it's unpleasant and uncomfortable, but the week beforehand where I had to stop eating anything that might have fibre in it, and then I had to stop eating altogether, and then I had to gag down two pints of heavy-metal water that made me dizzy and want to throw up, and go to the bathroom until there was nothing left in my digestive tract at all... I did not enjoy that.

So I go through all of that, and then the morning of the endoscopy appointment DH tests positive for Covid.

I have a lot of sympathy for him, but noooo I can't go through all the fasting and purging again. I phone the hospital and they say that if I am testing negative then it's fine and I can still come. And I am testing negative. So I go and have my colonoscopy, and get Daughter to pick me up so that I can have it under sedation.

Fortunately the colonoscopy detects no cancer, so presumably the IBS stuff is just the Fibromyalgia doing its thing and not something I need to worry about. (Other than maybe testing to see if I've become lactose intolerant.)

Come home, still wiped out from all of that and loopy from sedation, and two days later I also have Covid.

Pretty much that was the last two weeks of October. DH is officially tested Covid -ve as of today, so I'm guessing I'll be clear by Friday, and I'm already starting to panic because I have not even started Christmas shopping.

Time to take my blurry brain and maybe write 500 words of something. If I don't, I will never get back on the horse.