So back when I wrote my post about 10 things I brought back from Eroticon? I should have included a stinking cold on the list… It wasn’t too bad initially, just a bit of a sniffle that developed into mild con-crud… I’d booked the week off work anyway, seeing as my birthday was on the Tuesday – but then it got to around Thursday and whatever gribble it was I’d picked up hit me full-on. I spent most of the next 4 days drinking lemsip-type ‘cold & flu’ medicine, ended up taking the Monday & Tuesday of the following week off sick from work, and felt so grotty I even went to the doctor!
And right in the middle of that, on the Saturday evening, with set-up on the Friday evening & Saturday daytime, and clear-down on the Sunday, was our village’s ‘James Bond Ball’, held in (& raising funds for) the village hall across the road. It was a fabulous night of slightly-cheesy local fun. The food was amazing though, and some of the people new to the village seemed absolutely astounded at the quality of the do – so yay for our village!
Having decided a few weeks ago that I wasn’t quite brave enough to go dressed as a ‘Bond Girl’ in my bikini, I went as ‘generic henchperson’, complete with inflatable machine gun. Husband said I “just look like a gangster” – which I thought was the idea of generic henchpeople! Anyway, I won first prize in the ‘Mr Bad Boy’ section of the costume contest, though disappointingly from a field of only 2. It did give me thought about comfort zones & how frightfully unwilling most people are to step outside them; but as my head was pretty fuzzy from all the cold medicine & staying awake etc. I didn’t make notes at the time…
Anyway, that was a couple of weeks ago now & feels a lot longer ago even than that! Last weekend was spent in the garden – himself digging holes and putting in footings for a polytunnel, me pruning/coppicing the dogwood which got a little out of control last year, then clearing piles of hedge cuttings etc. and moving the pile of bricks from being in the way of the polytunnel to sitting by the hedge.
I found an amazing looking* spider nestled in one of the bricks while I was moving them, but learned many years ago that it’s not a good idea to share photos like that on the internet…
As for the rest of my time – well, I spent a fair bit of it struggling to wrestle Liesel’s story onto the virtual page. It seemed to take off with the addition of a new character, Jack, but his appearance seemed a bit deus ex machina in the way I’d written it… so I left Liesel, Richard & Jack to go write a different story about Percy and the two Georges – and now I’m back to drafting a different version of Liesel’s story which is actually more Richard & Jack’s tale…
Since I’ve not yet managed to gather my photos from the Shrewsbury Regimental Museum for the Uniform Porn post I’m planning, here’s a link to some lovely photos I found while researching for the character of Percy, who is a motorcycle despatch rider
Hope you’re having fun, whatever you’re up to :-)
*for the UK