All Hail The Penguin Queen!!!

.... ( Wow! )

... was pretty cool.

I started celebrating one day early on the Wednesday down the Pub with everyone. nortysarah bought me a cool silver gun that shoots bubbles. Got rather drunk which was cool too.

Then on Thursday, my actual birthday, my Dad, Linda (his new wife) and her mother came down to visit me. They took me to lunch and we wandered the Galleria. My Dad made his usual helpful observations about my life and made me sit in a shoeshop while he looked for shoes. On the upside, he gave me a £50 cheque.

Thursday evening was very cool though. Dan and I went to dinner at Aroma in Stevenage, all you can eat Chinese, yum. Then we went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean. Now some people seemed to have not liked it, but I thought it was fabulous. It was just a good entertaining, fun film. Johnny Depp was brilliant, and so was Geoffrey Rush. Would quite happily see it again.

Well what a weekend.

Frirstly from an OOC POV it was good, much better that the Games, but from an IC POV: it was rubbish!

IC I lost another 4 close friends, bringing the total up to 7 so far this year. Firstly I lost my "Little One", Terry Downpour which really knocked me for six as Elani. Then Condor died the next day on what could only really be called a suicide mission, as I understand it 15 people went and only 4 survived.

I was pretty miserable by that point in character and then word reaches the Guild that the Harts are getting horribly hammered by Demons. So we all peg it up there to help the Harts out.

As that fight draws to a close I get told that Chi is dead, and my jaw just dropped open. Sol come dashing up to me and firmly orders me to return to the Guild and sit in the Tranquillity Tent, I assume that was because he thought I didn't know and wanted to break the news to me in there.

Sadly I did know, and when that information was coupled with the fact that Prague had been destroyed Elani decided she had enough and couldn't cope. So she went home while I reffed for the rest of the evening.

I came back IC about an hour before the main Sunday fight, just as all the Vipers were leaving, and decided to get as involved as I possibly could int he fight without placing myself in serious danger.

Then of course Leren died. Well more than just died, he had his pattern destroyed by that bloody Jackal ancestor. So that evening Elani went off to Silver Falls to attend Leren's cremation.

Low points included:

Rubbish roleplayers doing the "oh I am here IC, but I'm OOC now so I can chat with so-and-so.
Too many deaths.
castorlion being unhappy. HUGE HUGS!
Not getting to see as many people as I would like to off. Had no idea Lyn was there until Saturday afternoon, and did not have the time to go and chat with him. Also there were others who I would have liked to have been able to talk with for longer, but just did not have the time.
Organisational issues.

High Points included:

Finding out that Evil is just a gullible as Good can be.
Going into complete rant mode as Elani over too many deaths.
Marshalling Jane the Banshee who was controlled by the DI's and sent into the Mages Guild to scream at them.
Talking with kheeram and castorlion in the Harts camp Saturday night. I think the phrases "speaking of gay icons" and "idealistic, but gay" will stick in my head from now on. Didn't stay in the Harts for as long as last time left at 3am instead of 5.30am.
Ian - best Lich ever!
The fact out tent looked so good, and we had a fridge in it!
Shouting "Mass Fear Rank X" at inappropriate moments.
Causing havoc to Slow Dave's ritual.
And no doubt a lot lot more.

Next one is going to be interesting. Dave S and I are going to have to set up the Guild on our own on Friday as neither Dave nor Rob will be there until late Friday night.

Sometimes wish there was a gap in between the Moots.

Am going to see "Our House", the Madness musical, with castorlion tomorrow night. This week is the last week with Suggs in it and they are doing 2 for 1 prices on the expensive tickets, so thought now would be the best time to go.

Am looking forward to it, love Madness. James B went yesterday and he said it was fab.

Am quite quite bored at work today, doesn't help that I'm so bloody tired too.

So have decided to take a moment to write about my very hectic, but enjoyable weekend.

nortysarah came up to our house on Friday evening, and we played Settlers of Cataan. I predicted at the beginning that Dan would win, and was right.

During the game, mine and Sarah's lift to the FLM/GLM fell through so had to arrange getting Dave's car from him.

As Sarah's diary says we left the house on Saturday morning about 9ish... and then everything kinda went wrong. Ok, so I missed the turning off the motorway and we found ourselves heading towards Birmingham.

That in itself wasn't too bad as we then got directions that got us to Stoke. Once in Stoke though we got horribly lost and I found myself getting more and more annoyed at rubbish drivers. Finally, with some help from Andy Abbitt we found the sodding pub.

Turns out we weren't the only people who got lost, quite a lot did, even those local to the area.

Meeting was pretty good, although the long discussions about things that only affected the factions dragged on a little, took a lot of notes as usual. Also as usual now that I go back to look at the notes they all seem to have become illegible. I have rubbish handwriting at times.

Afterwards I swapped Sarah for Migget and the two of us headed over to Bells Farm for Celebrations. Got there and found that the kit uncanic was lending me was great so didn't need to use backup clothing I had brought. Migget and I arrived IC together so had the entertainment of speaking to Phillipe the Squire for a majority of the event.

I had a fab time at the event, it was so nice just to be able to chill and not have to be in demand all the time. Thanks to everyone in the Company, big thanks to oldnick for letting me follow him round, and even bigger thanks to kheeram for bringing me alcohol and letting me flirt a lot. I'm sure I would have been worse behaved if I had been staying the night as I would have got drunk. Ah well, there is always next time. ;-)

I left Birmingham at about 2.40 and started back to Hatfield. Nearly ran out of petrol before reaching a petrol station, which did make me freak a little. Had images of being stuck on the M40 in the dark, alone. I got back to Hatfield about 4.30am and went straight to bed.

Woke up about 10ish, and at about 11.40 Dan, castorlion, and I headed off to look at a Scout Campsite. When there we met up with kheeram,nortysarah, Mike, James and Kev. They all wanted to look at it for there event in July whereas Dan and I wanted to see if it would be suitable for out event in October.

I thought the site was great, and now want to arrange so Dave can come and look at it too. Think it would be great for what I want to do with the event.

Once done with the site I headed back home and in about an hour was on the road again heading to Dave's. Stayed there until about 9ish chatting about the meeting, the event, the site and certain distractions.

Once home I pretty much went right to bed. Am still bloody tired though, need an early night tomorrow.

I really enjoyed CoG again, was good to spend a lot of time IC and also to do some yellow related things too.

My thanks to kheeram for both being the Gardener again, and also for laying my IC husband to rest. Thought the linear was really good.

Also thanks to him and all the others that bought me peach schnapps, was quite squiffy by the end of Saturday night.

Final battle was a laugh, quite thankful that no one was petrified this time round, oh and Dave Kyte did not intentionally rip my trousers open, it was an accident!

Well I've found some friends who have journals. If anyone who reads this who knows me and I don't have you added to my list, just let me know.