Metal, hearts, and freezing parts.

HI honey, I'm home!

Its been a busy couple of weeks! I've had to cover some shifts at work so time has been limited for posting, for that I apologise. Also my beloved laptop is finally dying, which complicates matters, because the blogger mobile interface is teeny tiny for someone with poor vision. A new laptop is winging its way to me, so all shall be well by next weekend.

As you may or may not know, I LARP (live role play). For those of you not in the know, imagine lord of the rings crossed with a sort of free form cross country pantomime, and minor alcoholism, and you have the right idea, sort of. Anyway, I also build props as well as wandering about with a rubber spear. cue one of my favourite builds thus far. A human heart!

kali maaaaaaa, KALI MAAAAAA

Amazing what you can do with some pictures from google, a car sponge, some latex, and a lot of swearing. Sometimes I think I should have gone for film FX as a career. I hope my friends were grossed out. It was squishy.

The other recent highlight was HAMMERFEST. Our very good friend Mel won a bunch of tickets, including accommodation, and invited us along. Aaaaaaaaw yeah! We got to Pwllheli friday evening to be met with a whole bunch of diverse and (to the outside world) scary looking people, whilst booze flowed and thumping roaring heavy metal filled the air. In a massive act of rebellion we went to our chalet for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Rock and roooooolllll!

We then went for a brief tootle, and a cuppa, and girded ourselves for the evening ahead. We were seeing the mighty SEPULTURA. As we waited in the loud, booz, and occasionally farty smelling venue, we entertained ourselves by singing along to very rude songs about people being diddled with anchors, and some tenacious D. It was like being a teen again. minus the hormones.

They were brutally tight, hypnotic and relentless. Absolutely brilliant. We left the venue buzzing with adrenaline, and then retired to the tiny chalet for beer and pizza. Time well spent.

Rooooots bloody roooooots!

A slightly(very) groggy saturday dawned, and it was back from the venue to work for the day. Not rock and roooooooolll! Man I was tired. The car got a bit of damage leaving the venue too, as they have spikey barrier things, and Ruths little car is very low. That wasn't the sort of grinding metal we were hoping for.

Work day over, cats fed and people showered, we headed back for round two, travelling through snow showers, to the coziness of our home base, now with extra drinking, and delicious enchiladas. Shopping and more heavy metal ensued. I got an alestorm hoodie, some ultra super damned awesome red newrock boots, and a horn tankard to placate my inner viking. I also got mild tinnitus from being musically slapped around by some death metal music. All shopped and musiced out, it was back to base to top up on beer.

Booooots, bloody booooots!

Sunday dawned late, and we all slouched about whilst Ruth gallantly fed us all. Bacon roooooooooooll!

It had snowed a fair bit over night, and as the rest of the crew were heading up north, we parted ways at lunch time. It was honestly one of the best weekends I've had in years, and reminded me there is more to life than work and sleep. Thank you Ruth, Mel, Mike, Craig, and Kelvin the brew master.

We headed home, and decided to divert via the mountains.

It really blew the cobwebs away as we looked at frozen waterfalls, and drifting snow sweeping across the valleys below us, the sounds of the world muffled beneath a white blanket. A magical way to end a magical weekend.

snow snow quick quick snow

Muscles, Minty, and marauding moggies.

 Hi all!
Its been busy busy, and thus this update has been a bit delayed.
Whats been going on? Well a lot of work, gigging with my friends James and Duncan (anarchic and weird folk/metal/ insanity mashup) and just general life really.
The cats have been up to their tricks, as they have received offerings of a light up zoomy ball track, and a cat fountain. The first thing shadow tried to do was pry the top off the fountain and go for a swim. She's crazy about water. She jumps in the sink when you are cleaning your teeth, jumps in the bath at any given opportunity, and just enjoys splashing about in general. I think she may actually be a skinny otter. The zoomy glowy ball track was her second victim. Within a day she'd figured out how to pry the cover off and steal the ball. She is also the only one with paws thi enough to play violently with it, smooshing the ball round the track. Winters mighty boy paws are to muscley, PC is to aloof for it, and prefers dashing madly about the house hunting the ghosts of mice, Minty is interested but her huge clown shoe sized feet won't fit inside the gaps, and Shoe would play with it, but keeps getting jumped by Winter (the douche).
this has been interspersed with fighting through the curtains, and running full tilt around the house. Minty has joined the other girls in their daily circuit training, but her mini legs mean she has to play catch up a lot.
Shoe prefers to sit on her slice of bread cushion, and observe. I think if she could, she would drink coffee and eat a bagel whilst observing.

Minty finds shadows shennanigans hilarious.

Speaking of exercise, My friend ben and I got gym memberships! Ben is a muscular man beast anyway, but he wanted a training partner, and as a human butter ball, I decided it was time to shift my fat a bit. I didn't realise how tubby I'd got until I looked at a video of myself on facebook.

The dreadful duo.

I must say I was somewhat apprehensive about the whole thing. The last time I set foot in a sports facility I was eighteen, so I was expecting to wake up in hospital after some light exercise, having been judged unworthy by huge muscled men.

What I was expecting

It wasn't like that! After relieving us of most of our money, for membership and swanky gym clothes, we got changed and did a wide array of exercises. I did feel kind of puny next to Ben, but I shall improve. My only cock up was slipping off of one machine, and causing the weights to crash down, getting annoyed looks from the scary muscled man nearby, and deafening myself and Ben. We retreated to the hot tub, which was great but could have been improved by a rum cocktail.

How it really was

I ache like a total sod today. Next time will be better!

Me this morning

In other news, It snowed like a bugger today, and last week I got annoyed with my beard and shaved it off. Now I look younger, sort of!

speak soooooooon! Simon. xx