Tasha's (aka Beren) Journal

I've had the most awful cold for the past week and a bit. It's one of those really annoying ones where you think it's gone and the next day it's back with a vengeance.

It also keeps making me sneeze, which is really annoying.

It was terribly frustrating because we had booked to go to Amsterdam for one night last week and both of us felt rotten. We had to go because we'd already paid for everything, but I fear it was not as wonderful as it could have been. The people were lovely, the museums were awesome, but we only managed to do a fraction of the Rijksmuseum that we wanted to do because we both flaked out.

I am way behind on my NaNo thanks to this cold as well because it seems to diminish brain capacity to half. All I've wanted to do is sleep. I've had all the creative drive of a small sack of potatoes! This week I am trying my best to catch up, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it. Today (once I have finished this) is going to be NaNo day only. I am going to turn off everything else and just try and get words on a page. Even if they are bad words! Wish me luck.

So yesterday we were all celebrating with my parents on their 50th wedding anniversary. This was my fridge before the do :) - and that was only 2/3rds of the bubbly cooling off.

We had a service in church where Mummy had a replacement engagement ring blessed (her original one wore through and it was going to cost thousands of pounds to repair it) and Daddy had his resized engagement ring re-blessed (they did the whole retaking of vows, nuptial mass and having wedding rings reblessed on their 40th, so they decided to do something different this time :)). We sang lovely hymns and Soph and I sang "Fields of Gold" and "The Gaelic Blessing" (or the Garlic Dressing as everyone I know who has ever sung it refers to it ;)) for them with all of their friends in attendance.

Then we had a champagne reception in the church with the most wonderful canapés. We have friends who run their own catering company and we were going to hire them normally, but they insisted on doing it for cost because it was Mummy and Daddy. The food was amazing. If you're in Kent and need a caterer, they are awesome and I can put you in touch - I would post their details, but I don't actually know them yet since we organised everything over a cup of tea etc - need to get their card.

There were over 100 people there and it was so lovely to see how happy everyone was for Mummy and Daddy. We had their wedding vid showing on the wall (Uncle Ken has a colour camera at the time, which was unusual for home film making, so everyone got to see what everyone looked like then in full technicolour :)).

Then they had a few people back to their house and we did our best to eat what was left of the food :). There was so much and it was so yummy. I was especially fond of these little crab,  savoury biscuit (little crackers to my US friends, not scones ;)) and cucumber canapés - I may have eaten a few ;). We overdid buying the wine a little and now have bottles of the stuff left, but never let it be said it will go to waste in our family ::g::.

Rob hasn't sorted the photos yet or I'd post some, so you'll have to do with the fridge for now :).

It was such a wonderful day fully of love and laughter and happiness. I wish the same to every one.

Just in case you have been wondering where I was, our phone and internet went down without warning on Sunday evening and it has only just come back up this afternoon (Friday).

I have been dying all week and I have no idea what's been going on.

*hugs to all*

*clings to connection*

We Didn't Own an iPad - for all the 70s and 80s kids.

Had a Tom Hiddleston dream last night and it was so weird I had to share ::g::. Beware, this is a trip into my subconscious.

It started off fairly normally, a friend and I (no idea who the second person was, I just knew there was someone with me) were in London. Even though it looked much more like Amsterdam or Haarlem, wide spaces between rows of buildings, impeccably clean, lots of bright sunshine and canals (it was the canals that gave it away), my brain insisted it was London.

Over the course of a few days me and my friend kept seeing Tom, mostly in nice coffee shops. My own bias kept showing because half the time he had a glass of wine in his hand even though I know instinctively one of the sightings was at about eight in the morning. (Don't ask me how, I just knew okay! ;)) He went from blond curly haired Hiddles to current hair and back again several times during this part of the dream.

Then this is where is started to get strange.

Suddenly, for no reason my dream decided to share, I'm walking down a road with Tom. He decides to do this odd balancing act on a metal beam next to this big house next to water and then dives into the canal. At which point I had the bright idea of pointing out that I couldn't do that so how was I supposed to follow him.

He gave me a look, y'know, a Prince Hal stern look, as he got out the other side, which was kind of nice since he was dripping wet, and then did something weird with the metal work so it made a little bridge to the front door of the house. He then came back through the canal (I'm blaming a soaked Hiddles fetish) and led me through the house explaining it was the only way to the other side of the canal. At this point I started trying to work out why we couldn't use the perfectly good road next to the house, but like a good Brit, didn't think I should mention it.

Then it gets weirder.

My invisible, just-know-he/she/it-is-there friend is back and we're following Hiddles down a road towards a huge shop. He's off in front making a huge gaggle of Japanese school girls all dressed like Sailor Moon and carrying Sharpe memorabilia (no I have no idea why Sean Bean memorabelia turned up at that point, I can only think it might have been some connection like, Hiddles = Shakespeare = Macbeth = bad Sean Bean production) die of giggle overload.

Then we get to the shop and I'm like, ooh, Forbidden Planet type shop (I'm blaming Moonlettuce for this reference) and I'm all excited, but we walk in and we're in a huge train station or something, no sign of the shop at all. My invisible friend has gone again as well (probably eaten by rabid Japanese fangirls ;)) and I'm disappointed for all of five seconds because then Hiddles is talking to me again and all is well.

He tells me he's actually one of three identical triplets and we're going to meet his brothers. One's a doctor and the other is a PhD physicist or something like that and he tries to say he's the thick one of the three. So I pointed out the double first from Cambridge and all the languages he speaks and he blushes beautifully at the praise and ... the bloody alarm went off!

This is a what I did at the weekend post :). Rob and I had a long weekend in London to celebrate our anniversary, which we delayed from Feb because we wanted to see James McAvoy in Macbeth. We had a fab time. We went up on Friday and we were going to come back Sunday evening, but changed our mind and came back Sunday morning because we were knackered :).

Rob found us a great hotel on a secret hotel site that didn't tell him which it was up front, just gave a description. He thought he had it figured out so he took the plunge and it was the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street :D. Absolutely lovely hotel. The room was well laid out, the bed had a memory foam topper, the breakfast was wonderful and the staff were very friendly all weekend. It also has a Tesco extra right next door, so yay, real milk for the tea in the room and on tap chocolate :).

On Friday we dumped out luggage in our room and then headed for the Natural History museum. I had never been there and I hate to say it, but I was not overly impressed. It has some great points, but the setup for some of the exhibits is frustrating in the extreme. I do not wish to be corralled down a narrow corridor with the herds of screaming school children, thanks all the same.

The gem section was great, but there weren't enough seats on the way round or exhibits set up so you could sit and look at them. Everything was very close up, which meant standing, which equates to pain for me. I had to keep skipping from seat to seat, standing up as long as possible in between. They also have no audio tour for those who are not visually impaired. I'm very happy to pay for audio tours since it means I don't have to go up to the little plaques and stand there reading them, which mostly hurts.

So yes, some of the Natural History museum was splendid, but it was a little frustrating.

Then we went back to our hotel and changed and walked to a Chinese resturant Rob found on Google. Boy was it a good find. It was called The Phoenix Palace and the food was fabulous, the service amazing and the atmosphere lovely. If you like Chinese food, you have to try this one. It's in Glentworth Street, just off Baker Street.

I didn't sleep overly well, but I think that was because we were in a new place rather than anything to do with the room and I had also drunk beer and green tea which meant I had to get up to go to the loo several times ;).

After breakfast (the scrambled eggs were divine) we headed up the road to the Sherlock Holmes museum. We really had to didn't we. We arrived soon after they opened, but unfortunately 70 French school children had just arrived. It's not a very big place, so we viewed it quickly and took some photos and then ran back to the shop. The shop is fab and we bought pressies for those at home from there.

Then we dropped our purchases off at the hotel and jumped into a black cab for The National Gallery. I love the National Gallery and we spent five and a half hours wandering around with the audio tour, sitting down and staring at painting. They have the best audio tour I've ever heard and so many of the paintings are included. It's wonderful.

We started with Van Gogh and the impressionists since we missed them last time, but they're not really my favourites. We had a quick snack then, and since we both much prefer the work at the other end of the gallery, Leonardo and friends we headed down there instead. I really could spend days in the National Gallery. The have a very nice restaurant in the Sainsbury wing where we had tea and vegetable chips to bolster us on our tour :).

At some time past four we headed over the road to Garfunkles to eat. It wasn't stunning food, but it wasn't bad and our server was lovely.

Then we headed over to the Trafalga Studios to see Macbeth. It was amazing and if you want to hear me rave about it I have done a full review over here: James McAvoy as Macbeth is Bloody Brilliant. This was the highlight of the whole weekend and I loved every second, even though my bum went numb several times.

My husband really is an angel, he stood outside the stage door for nearly an hour with me :).

I slept like a log the second night.

We were planning on doing something else, like another museum or the zoo on Sunday morning, but we had breakfast, went up to our room and decided we couldn't be arsed and just headed for St Pancras and home. It was a fab weekend and all the thanks go to my lovely husband for organising it all (well except for the tickets to Macbeth, which I pounced on as soon as I saw a mention on LJ ;)).

Well I have been struggling to write over the last two days and have resorted to doing other tasks when that failed, but I feel the muse coming back this morning - yay! :) On the bright side I did get some stuff done that needed doing ::g::.

I have also come to the conclusion that I am a total nerd because I was watching Bones last night and it was about comedians. The joke that made me laugh out loud was this one:

Is it just me or is a circle totally pointless.

And not just once, oh no, I laughed every time someone said it.

Then again I do also find this joke funny:

What do you call a fish with no eyes.

Fsh

So there is no accounting for my taste. I love geek jokes and stupid jokes apparently.

Talking of jokes I am also reading a great book, it's called Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. It is hilarious and touching and simply brilliant, especially if you know something about the gospels. I have nearly finished it and will do a full review when I have.

So the Vampire Bite Blog Hop is well underway and I've been round to many of the sites leaving comments. Some interesting stuff there and some cool fic. Not everyone had their posts up yet as as passed by, but I assume many of them will be going up now from the US contingent :).

This is my entry.
Vampires of Myth and Legend

It's amazing how many times Frank Langella and The Lost Boys seemed to pop up ;).

Have had a raging cold all week and am feeling like crap because of all the coughing. It seemed marginally better today, so I hope I'm on the mend. I'm sorry I haven't don't the birthdays yet this week, I've been trying to get everything ready for the above blog hop while feeling like death warmed over. I shall try and get to it shortly.

Happy Valentine's day to one and all, my love to you all.

So I was in an organising mood yesterday, so I decided to do my best to make sure all of my fics were up on AO3. I've made it through all the HP ones and all the Tokio Hotel ones which are by far the biggest, so I'm pleased.

Also finally added an Avengers master post to LJ and added in AO3 links on several of the big master lists. Haven't had a chance to do the same on DW yet, but I will get there.

It was very cathartic to just do the organising, rather than the creating for once :).

On that note I do have a new book out today (as soon as Amazon finish faffing around). It was a commission for PennyDreadfuls21.com which has now come out of its exclusivity period, so it's a short story, but it has vampires and romance and hot boys, so hopefully it will appeal to my readers :). Once it's finished uploading I'll give it its own post as usual.

Oh and thank you very much to everyone who filled in my polls about AO3 usernames.

... some toe-rag snapped off Rob's wing mirror from the car yesterday when he was delivering a present to a friend. It took some real doing and there were no other marks or scuffs on the car and the mirror part was not broken, just snapped off, so it looks like it was completely deliberate not an accident. I'm guessing anger management issues, or attempted thievery but I suppose it could have been pure spite, who knows. Maybe Rob inadvertently took someone's usual parking space *shrug*.

I honestly hope whoever did it manages to find their holiday spirit, wherever it may be buried, because I think one of the best things about Christmas and this holiday season is how so many people are good to each other. Giving is it's own reward, in all forms, well, it makes me happy, anyway.

That said, Rob, with the use of his 3D printer has fixed the wing mirror, so all is well. He had to make a special tool so he could put a huge spring back in place and then he found instructions on the internet to put the rest of it back together. There is a little bit of plastic broken off the inside, but the rest is intact, so no need for a whole new one. My husband is a bit of a genius *she says proudly*. :)

Happy day before Christmas Eve to everyone. *hugs*