(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anarchist_nomad Feb. 12th, 2008 04:59 pm)
anarchist_nomad Feb. 12th, 2008 04:59 pm)Spring is here, spring is here! Life is skittles and life is beer!
With apologies to all my dear friends in the Midwest, who are being buried under ludicrous amounts of snow, the weather here in southern England has been just amazing lately. The temperature is warm and the skies are sunny and clear. I have been wearing a lighter coat when I go out... or sometimes no coat at all. Perhaps it is premature to declare winter over... but I am going to do so anyway!
So what has the Nomad been doing in all this gloriously warm weather? Not posting in his LiveJournal often, that much is certain. Let's see if I can briefly catch the world up on my comings and goings.
Saturday was Brighton BiFest. The drive from Oxford to Brighton was wonderful. I love zipping down the highway on a warm, sunny day with the sunroof open and singing along to loud music. For this trip, the music in question was something akin to the Billy Joel Pick Me Up Hour. Basking in the sun and reveling in the speed, I felt quite alive and sang so hard that I thought I might be hoarse by the time I actually arrived in Brighton. Thankfully, said horse did not materialise.
BiFest itself was much fun. I ran into![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ms_katonic immediately after I arrived -- even before I made it in far enough to pay my registration fee! This is a very nice thing; having spent three whole days apart, I was delighted to see her again! Once I got settled in, it was very good to see quite a few people who I had first met at London PolyDay, back in September. It was also quite nice to meet spiffy new people! (Some of whom are now on my LJ friends list -- hi!) Hopefully it won't be another five months before I see such nifty folk again. In the afternoon, I went to two workshops, both of which were good fun in very different ways.
The venue for BiFest was right next to the waterfront -- the same one that I walked along last April. Being a water elemental, I felt the ocean pulling on my soul and so, between workshops, I slipped out for a little while to walk next to the waves. Not surprisingly, I got careless and then, as a result, got wet. Even less surprisingly, I didn't mind.
Dinner consisted of good food, good company, and good conversation! A group of us went to Red Veg for some delicious veggie burgers. I am now most indignant -- why do they not have a franchise in Oxford?! I may have to make more frequent trips to London now to dine at their other outlet.
After dinner, there was a dance. This was a good thing. Although I do not profess to any skill at dancing, I do enjoy it. I had been on a roll, going dancing at least once a month in June, July, August, September, October, and November last year. However, there had been no dancing in December or January -- so I was happy to hit the dance floor once again. Admittedly, it wasn't the most spectacular dance that I have ever been to, but it was nice for a little while.
Eventually,ms_katonic and I headed out and, with occasional company from da_pupdetz made the drive back to her place in London, where I stopped for the night. All in all, a very nice day!
Sunday was a lazy morning, and we did not get out of bed until after noon. When we did, I drovems_katonic to a date with one of her other boyfriends. I made the following observation: It is a good sign that polyamory is working well is when, at the end of one date, your boyfriend drives you to a date with somebody else. Hooray for healthy relationships! After dropping her off, I drove back to Oxford under much the same conditions -- sun, speed, and singing to loud music -- that I had enjoyed on my way to Brighton the day before.
Sunday afternoon turned out to be less busy than originally planned. I had expected C&M to come over for a long walk -- we need to start training for our next attempt to walk across the Isle of Wight in May -- and to play Puerto Rico withcheshcat. Then I was expecting to ring bells for services at St. Giles and to end the evening with a swim. I did ring bells, but all the other plans fell through. C&M canceled at the last minute and by the time the pool was open, I was feeling tired and decided to postpone for a day. Besides, I realised that Sunday was the last day that I had no plans until Saturday February 23rd[*] and I should take advantage of that. So, except for bell ringing, I stayed in and took care of boring-but-necessary household chores. cheshcat and I also spent some fun time together: We played a low scoring game of Bohnanza (I won 10 to 8) and a game of Skip Bo (she won 30 to 17), then ended the day, by watching several episodes of Smallville.
Monday was a fairly ordinary work day. Nothing terribly exciting to report. I have undertaken to execute a set of major changes in the hardware attached to the K-400 cryostat; thus, there was no cooldown last week and will not be one this week, either. In the evening, I headed to the sports centre, jumped in the pool, and swam the mile that I had defrayed from the previous day.
Today, I spent a very large portion of my day finalising my application for another two years to remain in the United Kingdom. Aftercheshcat double checks it, it should be ready to go into the mail tomorrow. Time to cross fingers. I also spent some time outside, running various and sundry errands. This was somewhat deliberate, as I wished to take in the still-spectacular weather. In less than an hour, I will head out for this evening's activity: bell ringing practice with the OUSCR at Mary Mag. Also, later tonight, I have a phone "date" scheduled with the delightful frogcastle. We are currently in the midst of our longest separation, which will continue for another couple of months, so it will be very good to hear my Beloved's sweet voice once again.
Oh, and although I cannot go into detail in a public forum,cheshcat continues to rock mightily!
[*] Oddly enough, despite a fairly full calendar, I seem to have no plans at all for the weekend of Feb 23/24. I am open to ideas and suggestions if anyone knows something nifty that is going on (within a two hundred mile radius of Oxford). However, I suspect that after being continually on the go for twelve days running, it would not be terrible if I stayed in that weekend to rest and deal with mundanities.
With apologies to all my dear friends in the Midwest, who are being buried under ludicrous amounts of snow, the weather here in southern England has been just amazing lately. The temperature is warm and the skies are sunny and clear. I have been wearing a lighter coat when I go out... or sometimes no coat at all. Perhaps it is premature to declare winter over... but I am going to do so anyway!
So what has the Nomad been doing in all this gloriously warm weather? Not posting in his LiveJournal often, that much is certain. Let's see if I can briefly catch the world up on my comings and goings.
Saturday was Brighton BiFest. The drive from Oxford to Brighton was wonderful. I love zipping down the highway on a warm, sunny day with the sunroof open and singing along to loud music. For this trip, the music in question was something akin to the Billy Joel Pick Me Up Hour. Basking in the sun and reveling in the speed, I felt quite alive and sang so hard that I thought I might be hoarse by the time I actually arrived in Brighton. Thankfully, said horse did not materialise.
BiFest itself was much fun. I ran into
ms_katonic immediately after I arrived -- even before I made it in far enough to pay my registration fee! This is a very nice thing; having spent three whole days apart, I was delighted to see her again! Once I got settled in, it was very good to see quite a few people who I had first met at London PolyDay, back in September. It was also quite nice to meet spiffy new people! (Some of whom are now on my LJ friends list -- hi!) Hopefully it won't be another five months before I see such nifty folk again. In the afternoon, I went to two workshops, both of which were good fun in very different ways. The venue for BiFest was right next to the waterfront -- the same one that I walked along last April. Being a water elemental, I felt the ocean pulling on my soul and so, between workshops, I slipped out for a little while to walk next to the waves. Not surprisingly, I got careless and then, as a result, got wet. Even less surprisingly, I didn't mind.
Dinner consisted of good food, good company, and good conversation! A group of us went to Red Veg for some delicious veggie burgers. I am now most indignant -- why do they not have a franchise in Oxford?! I may have to make more frequent trips to London now to dine at their other outlet.
After dinner, there was a dance. This was a good thing. Although I do not profess to any skill at dancing, I do enjoy it. I had been on a roll, going dancing at least once a month in June, July, August, September, October, and November last year. However, there had been no dancing in December or January -- so I was happy to hit the dance floor once again. Admittedly, it wasn't the most spectacular dance that I have ever been to, but it was nice for a little while.
Eventually,
ms_katonic and I headed out and, with occasional company from da_pupdetz made the drive back to her place in London, where I stopped for the night. All in all, a very nice day!Sunday was a lazy morning, and we did not get out of bed until after noon. When we did, I drove
ms_katonic to a date with one of her other boyfriends. I made the following observation: It is a good sign that polyamory is working well is when, at the end of one date, your boyfriend drives you to a date with somebody else. Hooray for healthy relationships! After dropping her off, I drove back to Oxford under much the same conditions -- sun, speed, and singing to loud music -- that I had enjoyed on my way to Brighton the day before. Sunday afternoon turned out to be less busy than originally planned. I had expected C&M to come over for a long walk -- we need to start training for our next attempt to walk across the Isle of Wight in May -- and to play Puerto Rico with
cheshcat. Then I was expecting to ring bells for services at St. Giles and to end the evening with a swim. I did ring bells, but all the other plans fell through. C&M canceled at the last minute and by the time the pool was open, I was feeling tired and decided to postpone for a day. Besides, I realised that Sunday was the last day that I had no plans until Saturday February 23rd[*] and I should take advantage of that. So, except for bell ringing, I stayed in and took care of boring-but-necessary household chores. cheshcat and I also spent some fun time together: We played a low scoring game of Bohnanza (I won 10 to 8) and a game of Skip Bo (she won 30 to 17), then ended the day, by watching several episodes of Smallville. Monday was a fairly ordinary work day. Nothing terribly exciting to report. I have undertaken to execute a set of major changes in the hardware attached to the K-400 cryostat; thus, there was no cooldown last week and will not be one this week, either. In the evening, I headed to the sports centre, jumped in the pool, and swam the mile that I had defrayed from the previous day.
Today, I spent a very large portion of my day finalising my application for another two years to remain in the United Kingdom. After
cheshcat double checks it, it should be ready to go into the mail tomorrow. Time to cross fingers. I also spent some time outside, running various and sundry errands. This was somewhat deliberate, as I wished to take in the still-spectacular weather. In less than an hour, I will head out for this evening's activity: bell ringing practice with the OUSCR at Mary Mag. Also, later tonight, I have a phone "date" scheduled with the delightful frogcastle. We are currently in the midst of our longest separation, which will continue for another couple of months, so it will be very good to hear my Beloved's sweet voice once again.Oh, and although I cannot go into detail in a public forum,
cheshcat continues to rock mightily![*] Oddly enough, despite a fairly full calendar, I seem to have no plans at all for the weekend of Feb 23/24. I am open to ideas and suggestions if anyone knows something nifty that is going on (within a two hundred mile radius of Oxford). However, I suspect that after being continually on the go for twelve days running, it would not be terrible if I stayed in that weekend to rest and deal with mundanities.
Tags:
- bells,
- car,
- cheshcat,
- cryptic,
- dance,
- ex-pat,
- frogcastle,
- games,
- ms katonic,
- music,
- social,
- swim,
- vegetarian,
- water,
- weather