In this strange complex of time and space anything can happen

Last time I travelled abroad: mid-January, to Denmark to speak at a conference on public space in Roman Britain (LJ / DW).

Last time I slept in a hotel: on the same trip to Denmark. It was the Scandic Aarhus City and it was very nice.

Last time I flew in a plane: same trip again! I flew with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) from Manchester to Aarhus, via Copenhagen on the way there and direct on the way back. They seemed very good and had nice onboard food.

Last time I took a train: would you believe, to and from Manchester airport for the same trip.

Last time I took public transport: Wednesday 11 March. I walked to work that day, precisely to avoid it for coronavirus-related reasons, but caught the bus home as a) it was at a quieter time of day and b) I wanted to go to the supermarket on the way home, and the bus stops right outside it but my walking route takes me a different way.

Last time I had a house guest: New Year's Eve / Day. My friend kantti and her husband stayed over for dinner, silly games and champagne.

Last time I got my hair cut: er, when I was about 15? Unless you count the occasional very minor trims which I get either my sister or lady_lugosi1313 to do for me.

Last time I went to the movies: mid-November, to see the premiere screening of a film-of-an-opera which my colleague had acted as research consultant for (LJ / DW).

Last time I went to the theatre: 8 March, to see Robert Lloyd Parry doing Lost Hearts and A Warning to the Curious. It was the last weekend when doing that sort of thing seemed OK. He had a full house, actually. I have seen him do A Warning to the Curious before, but not Lost Hearts. It's one of my favourite M.R. James stories, and it was so good!

Last time I went to a concert: hmmm... There may be something I've forgotten, but judging from what I've recorded here there are two potential answers, depending on what you count: 1) live music from an Icelandic band called amiina accompanying a screening of Fantômas in April 2019 (LJ / DW) or 2) a performance of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore when I was in Vienna at a conference with a colleague in September 2014 (LJ / DW).

Last time I went to an art museum: May 2019 during our DracSoc holiday to Germany, when I spent a whole day on the Museum Island in Berlin, split between the Altes Museum, Neues Museum and the Pergamon Museum. Since I never posted any pictures of their holdings here at the time, I will put one up now, though it's hard to choose what since the Altes Museum in particular was so full of amazing stuff. Probably the most exciting, though, was this famous tondo of the emperor Septimius Severus and his family, which is the only such painted ancient imperial portrait to survive:


Last time I sat down in a restaurant: 8 March, before the M.R. James performance the same evening, when I met up with cosmolinguist and HickeyWriter at Mod Pizza in Leeds city centre beforehand.

Last time I went to a party: 20 July 2019, when I went to my friend Bavage's Moon Party to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing.

Last time I played a board game: arguably today, when I played Story Cubes over Skype with Eloise and Christophe. This is a game consisting of nine dice with pictures on each side, which you have to roll and then tell a story based on the nine pictures which come up, and I realised that we could play it remotely if Eloise rolled the dice and I wrote down what she said they showed. It was kind of chaotic, especially when Christophe joined in, but fun and a nice way to get some contact with them. If that game doesn't count because it doesn't strictly have a board, then New Year's Eve when I played Augustus with kantti and her husband.

I thought filling all that in might make me a bit sad, but actually no - it was a nice way of reliving good memories. Here's to the days when we can do all this stuff without a care once again.

Mine has certainly started out well. I decided, rather late in the day, to host a New Year's gathering at my house - nothing epic, as I knew most people would already have plans by the time I announced it, but just a convivial little get-together with canapés and champagne. And so it transpired. My neighbours and their friends popped round to kick off the evening with a glass of wine, and then ms_siobhan and planet_andy arrived, shortly followed by glitzfrau and biascut . My pictures are a bit rubbish, because my proper digital camera has died, so I could only use my mobile phone which has no flash. But I hope they give some inkling of how glamorous and lovely everyone looked:


We discussed topics as diverse as false nails, plushies and how people respond to civil partnerships, punctuated by a lot of uproarious (and increasingly filthy) laughter, and then saw the New Year in with Heidsieck champagne to the accompaniment of Big Ben's chimes and seemingly infinite quantities of fireworks on BBC 1. And we'd hardly started at that point, either. More champagne and the fun of compiling this year's Death and Scandal lists kept us going until nearly 3am.

Talking of the lists, I have ended up left with the paper copies of both, so I assume it is my responsibility this year to type them up. Last year's are both available on ms_siobhan 's journal, though to friends only. The Scandal List doesn't seem to have scored a single hit, unless you count the low-level miasma of scandal which perpetually surrounds both Nick Griffin and Silvio Berlusconi. The Death List did a bit better - we correctly predicted the death of Michael Foot, who was first on the list. But otherwise I don't think we got anybody, despite taking a scatter-gun approach and listing a hundred-odd people. Anyway - can we do better this year?

( Scandal List )

( Death List )

Obviously there are quite a few names on both lists - so it's bonus points if they die in a scandalous manner.

ms_siobhan and planet_andy wended their way home in the early hours, but glitzfrau and biascut stayed overnight - so we had girlish dormitory-style fun getting into our pyjamas and calling out 'goodnight!' to each other, and then having coffee and chat this morning. Once both had taken advantage of my shower (a rare luxury, as theirs has turned into a 'unique water feature' which is currently unusable for its intended purpose), we headed out to a local cafe for a hearty English breakfast over a shared copy of the Saturday Guardian. And finally I was a big brave girl and gave both of my guests a lift down to the railway station - much helped by biascut's navigation and a general absence of traffic. There certainly weren't any buses to contend with, anyway, because for some reason they just don't run at all for the whole of New Year's Day in Leeds - which is a pretty rum deal if you ask me.

And now ITV 1 is thoughtfully doing a re-run of Downton Abbey, which is very kind of them, as I missed it the first time round, and it is just the ticket for sitting writing an LJ entry in front of. The characters are all a bit more spiteful and back-biting than in the lovely new version of Upstairs, Downstairs, where the household itself was largely wholesome and kind-hearted and most of the drama came from external events instead. I think I like Upstairs, Downstairs better - but that's partly because what I wanted from it was a heart-warming nostalgia-fest, and that's largely what I got. I do hope it will get a longer run with more time for slow-burning story-lines now.

All in all, then, an extremely pleasant turn to the year - and I'm sure it's no coincidence that I am feeling quite optimistic about the prospects for 2011 as a result. The only downside so far is that I had thought over the past couple of days that I was probably fighting off the first signs of a cold, and by the time I went to bed last night it had indeed settled firmly in my nose, making it rather difficult to sleep. But I don't feel too ground down by it, and don't exactly have much to do today anyway. So it could be worse.

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I queued for The Book last night, as planned, and all was good - despite both the rain and Waterstone's bizarre attempts to turn the world's simplest and most effective system for ensuring that everyone is served in a fair order (viz., The Queue) into a confused mess by super-imposing a numbered ticketing system onto it without offering any clear explanation of how this was supposed to work. Enjoyed immensely turning to the back and skimming hastily through relevant-looking pages right there in the shop to establish the major plot points, sproingled rather randomly and over-tiredly at nalsa and his lady for a while, and finally got home with it about 1:30ish (yes, Waterstone's were inefficient as well - I heartily wish I'd pre-ordered at WHSmith instead). I ploughed on with The Half-Blood Prince for a while, which I'd been reading all day in an attempt to get back up to speed, but I was pretty near the end of it anyway, and after an hour or so I couldn't resist the pull of the new one any longer. So I retired to bed with it around 3ish, intending to just read a chapter or two and then go to sleep, but didn't actually put it down until 5:30 and the end of chapter 7. Well, I couldn't stop reading while they were all still... No. I promised you no spoilers, didn't I?

Since then, though, I've only got as far as chapter 12, due to sleeping until 1 and then attending a lovely party at miss_dark's all afternoon. So I've accepted that I'm not going to finish it with the speed of the last one - but that's OK. Like I said, I know what happens, so I can read other people's posts about it quite merrily. And anyway, why should I rush it? It's the last one, after all. I want to enjoy it at my own snail-like pace.

Besides, it would clearly be a very bad idea to stay up all night tonight trying to finish it, as I realised on Friday that I've been ill for a few days, and my parents are coming up to Leeds again tomorrow to help with house stuff, so I need to be well-rested and compos mentis before they do. I'm not quite sure what was wrong with me, but I'm guessing it was basically down to performing an incredibly intensive mental task followed by an incredibly intensive physical task, not giving myself enough time to recover, and probably also eating something a bit dodgy. I think I'm on the mend now, but tired, what with that and the reading-till-dawn thing, so I don't want to push my luck.

Happily, I was in good health and spirits this afternoon to enjoy miss_dark's 'Three Years With dedbutdrmng' party, though, which was a jolly good thing as it was ace! miss_dark's flat turned out to be a splendid palace, whose walls were lined with shoes, and she had done an excellent job of filling it full of splendid people for the afternoon. I didn't get to chat to everyone there, but I enjoyed the company of familiar faces, and met some fab new people - including the marvellously history-geeky vonheath, whom I think I shall dash off and friend once I've finished writing this. There were also small children with bubbles, three nearly-identical cats and a cracking anecdote about a bracelet which miss_dark had bought for ms_siobhan. So an excellent way to spend the afternoon, and I only hope my house-warming goes as well!

Tonight is the final night of the Saturnalia, the Solstice has been accomplished successfully, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve. What could be better?

I'm up in Brum at my parents' house, and, as in some previous years, we are holding a Christmas party tonight. We've spent the day preparing, and now we've entered that lull where it's not yet worth getting dressed up and attending to the last-minute tasks like taking things out of the fridge and putting them on the table, but we've pretty much finished all the medium-term preparation. We have ham, pâté, salmon, cheeses, salads, olives, peppers, quiches, pizza, ciabatta, mulled wine, chocolate brandy cake, fruit salad and about a dozen other delicious things I can't remember now. Seasonal music and musicians are on standby (I shall mainly be playing the recorder this year), silly crackers are waiting to be pulled, the tree sparkles beautifully in the corner, and I have a lovely new dress hanging in the wardrobe. It should be a good 'un.

Going out into the garden this morning, I found that the mild weather we've had this autumn / early winter has meant a real profusion of interesting leaves, berries and even flowers which I could incorporate into the display of winter greenery that I normally put together to go on the mantlepiece above our fireplace. And, at long last, my Dad and I together also came up with a solution to the logistical problem I usually have when putting the display together - that the mantlepiece is rather narrow, the greenery gets quite heavy once you've got a few holly branches and bits of variegated bushes in there, and a blob of blu-tack just isn't adequate to hold it all together. Instead, this year, I picked out a suitable log from the wood-pile, and he split it in two and then drilled some holes in it for me, so that it could sit on the mantlepiece and have twigs poked into it. It works very well - and is making me wish I'd brought my digital camera up here to photograph it. Oh well - I'm sure it will be appreciated by the party-guests tonight, and maybe I'll be able to borrow the parental camera for blogging purposes? Yes - I'll go and enquire about that right now, I think!

So, what about this party we had on Sunday, then?

Well, one thing it certainly was was BIG. Since it was jointly in honour of myself and my mother, we had first agreed on a bunch of actual family and close family friends who knew us both and could be considered 'joint' guests, and then added a further 20 people each whom we invited individually. That meant we had a total of about 60 guests, which was more than manageable space-wise, given the size of my parents' house and garden, but certainly meant a lot of chopping, cooking, setting up tables and pouring people drinks. Luckily, my sister, her partner Nicolas, my auntie Theresa and my Mum's very dear friend Daphne had all arrived one or two days in advance, so we had hordes of eager helpers to get everything set up and running smoothly.

( The guests )

( The day )

( The setting )

( The evening )

Before I finish up, I'd like to say how infinitely touched I am by the many people who travelled from far and wide to come on Sunday - especially given the security scare in Birmingham the night before, and the actual bombings in London only two days before that. I LOVED seeing you all, I've missed you lots, and I'm looking forward to the next time I get to see each and every one of you again. Seriously, parties like this would be nothing without the guests - so thank you all for making my day.

( Other accounts )

Last night I attended the joint birthday party of my_mundane_life and byrnsey_b, held in the Errigle Inn. We had lots of dancing, to a pretty surreal set of music: everything from Rage Against the Machine to Bananarama. And I got the chance to take the dark purple shiny dress I bought recently at the Rusty Zip on its maiden outing. Thanks to both my_mundane_life and byrnsey_b for a lovely evening!

When I got home, I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep, so I watched the pilot episode of House, M.D., which I'd taped from Channel 5 while I was out. I thought it was OK, and will give it a few more episodes, but I didn't think it was as wonderful as some people on communities such as indeedsir had given me to expect. The characters all seem a bit two-dimensional at the moment. Still, they're only just being established at the moment, so we'll see.

Today, I have awarded myself a day off work, because of being out last night and also because I've had a cold all week and could really do with some recuperation time. I've spent it so far Making Icons, and very enjoyable it is too. You can expect large numbers of Gratuitous Icon Posts (a bit like this one!) over the next few weeks.

Photos by angeoverhere have now been gratefully incorporated into the web page for our Christmas meal on Saturday.

I had to start today with an emergency trip to a nearby branch of Waterstone's to change a present I bought yesterday, which its intended recipient turned out already to have. But that's been done successfully now, and the replacement book should be appreciated.

Meanwhile, at home, we've been preparing for a party to be hosted by my parents tomorrow night. We've done this a couple of times before, previously on Christmas Eve itself, but this year it is to be the 23rd, because many of my Mum's friends can't make the 24th. I'm really looking forward to it, because I love Christmas parties anyway, and I shall also get to see two dear friends: Amy and Fleur WINOLJ. I'll also at last get to meet Amy's new baby daughter, Holly, who was born in July, but whom I've so far seen only in pictures: picture like these, in fact.

In preparation for the party, I have today:

• decorated our tree
• vacuumed the whole of the downstairs
• swept the hall floor, which is wooden
• cooked some cocktail sausages
• stuck an orange full of cloves ready for the mulled wine (slurp!)
• painted my toe-nails gold
• hung up a wicker ball thing with bits of vegetation sticking out of it over the front door
• basted pears cooked in red wine sauce by my Mum
• worked out how many verses we will sing of various carols (for yes, it will be a musical evening also)

The cat was a significant hazard during activities 1 and 4, but we have so far managed to neutralise the danger by distracting her with alternative activities / food.

Later this evening, my sister will arrive by train from London to join the family for Xmas, so we shall be able to stay up late giggling and doing sisterly things. Hurrah!