Festivities

The buildup to Christmas is a long one. Even at the start of December, I was celebrating Not-Christmas at a friend's house. I got a full stomach and a stocking full of chocolate to remember it by, not to mention a pretty severe crush.

After that, I went home for a couple of weeks, which was as it usually is, i.e., lovely with regards to seeing my family, and fairly horrendous in terms of staying in that house. I live in hope that one day my parents will see sense and chuck out 90% of their stuff.

I've felt very guilty about presents this year. The sad fact is, this year I don't have enough money to cover rent and bills, or even food for myself, so I can't treat everyone to the nice things they deserve. But, for some reason, people care enough to give me things, because it isn't really about reciprocity, so I'm told. They love me and want me to know that, so they give me gifts.

Oh man, let me tell you, this year for the first time I got a gift from someone I've never met! Someone in America! Paul, a guy I've known for probably a couple of years now, sent me the most epic, tricked-out, bells-and-whistles sonic screwdriver set I've ever seen. It's got me thinking about designing my own Doctor look to cosplay! Most people seem to go for a female interpretation of an existing Doctor's costume, but I'd want to start from scratch. My first instinct was to see if anyone from the Doctor Who costume department is on twitter, but no such luck.

This is going to be my first Christmas with friends. I've spent one away from home before, with my ex's family, but I've never dealt with the full mixed bag of celebrating Christmas with vegans, pagans, and people who've lost loved ones / are missing their kids, etc. But we're doing it. I'm a little bit proud of us for that. If we can get through it without drama, I'll be even more so.

I'll also be spending the day with my aforementioned crush (a poor word choice, but anything more accurate would give too much away, and it's early days yet). I wouldn't mention it unless I thought it was going to be important. Unless I thought he was going to be important. We'll see, I guess.

Anyway! I've wittered on long enough. I'll let you get back to all that important hall-decking. If I don't post again beforehand, have a very merry one indeed! See you soon for the traditional New Year navel-gazing.

Present

I know I ought to write something here, but I can't for the life of me think what. Um. How are you? I'm good.

I've had a very traditional Christmas with my family, received some lovely gifts including a Bill Bailey DVD and the first season of Being Erica (delighted), seen the Tron sequel in 3D twice (veh good), and done precious little of the catching-up-with-friends that I was so looking forward to. And not through lack of lack of trying. I really didn't try at all, I'm not sure why; it's just that when I got here, it didn't seem awfully important. Anyway, I spent a lot of time with my family and got to see my oldest friend a couple of times, so I'm happy.

This is my current favourite video. It makes me gleeful; I hope it does the same for you.



Welcome to 2011, by the way! I think it's safe to say that this will go down in history as the year after 2010.

The addiction

It's that time of night again when I know I should sleep, but I really, really don't want to.

I posted recently about my childhood insomnia. It's not a problem for me any more, I could get my head down now and be asleep within ten minutes, if it weren't for the fact that I keep waiting for something to happen. I feel like if I go to sleep I'll be missing out on something.

This is, of course, because of my internet addiction - a lot of the things I'm interested in run on American time - so I end up loitering on msn and going in little circles of email -> twitter -> google reader -> blog -> flickr -> email, ad nauseum.

Maybe it's time to take a week offline again... although this time I'm not sure I could do it. My real-world life is a lot less busy than it was last time.

Anywhoot! Hope you're all well, thanks for keeping my blog active - it makes me happy.

Interesting thing of the day: My birthday present from G's parents. So so so pretty!

Cardiff Bristol Bath etc.

Wow. What an incredible weekend. I'll race through the main points!

Friday: Travelled up early. Gav met me at the station to give me sandwiches, a solar-powered keyring and some cuddles. I love this man!
The interview was easy, I was in there for ten minutes and as long as I pass my first year, I'm in.
So I'm moving to Cardiff.
I'm moving to Cardiff!!!
Then we went out to watch Son of Dave. I met a bunch of Gav's friends, which was ace, and SoD was awesome musically. I freaked out though. Got all claustrophobic; it hardly ever happens, but when it does I would give ANYTHING for people to stop brushing past me. G was a star so I didn't have to run away like last time.

Saturday: Slow start, which was lovely. We watched the rugby, England deservedly thrashed by Scotland, and watched Withnail and I which I'd never seen before.
The Bristol Beatbox heats were awesome!!!!! it was so good to see everyone again! There are photos here if you're interested, which you should be you ungrateful spoon.
Gav and I were on photo duty; he got some truly epic shots with TyTe's digital SLR.
After that, Gav, yasSon and I went back to Mr.T's house and crashed on the floor. It was so wonderful! We got all giggly and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Sunday: I woke up to realise that I'd slowly and steadily inched myself towards Gav, almost pushing him off the mattress. Heheheh. I'm a somnuggler.
His church was awesome. I'm not going to church enough, and it was very touching to be handed the bread by a man I respect so much. I got a bit weepy afterwards.
We had lunch with his family, who are all total stars, and T took us to the station. G and I said goodbye to Yass and got our train - I think I fell asleep on G! I was very good on Sunday night, I let Gavin get his sleep.

Monday: agh, I hate leaving in the morning. No more 8am trains for me. The frantic rush to get everything ready, and the fact that got there 1 minute before the train was due to leave and couldn't find my ticket so I had to buy a new one... gahhh! I'm a student, y'know? It's slightly scary to realise that I'm spending over £100 a month on weekends in Cardiff. On the plus side, when I move there, I'm gonna have more cash than I know what to do with, possibly maybe!

Anyway, it's back to Plymouth and back to work for me. I have an essay to do and three books to read, so I might not update for a bit... take care, all!

The Little Book of Little Gavin Stories

"As for what he got me... that deserves its own entry. I'll tell you later, if you're good."

High time I told you what it actually was, really. Here are some pictures of the absolutely beautiful book my boy made.



The Title Page


One of the secrets :) He hid things under some of the stories.


There was ribbon, bubblewrap, stickers and gems... lots of lovely feelies!


Photos from his childhood, promotional material from various bands and gigs he was involved in...


And some of my poems that he combined with photos I've taken.

That's just some of the less personal stuff. I got properly emotional when I opened it, it's absolutely the best present he could possibly have got me. It took him three days of careful scrapbooking, and it's absolutely a treasured possession now... beautiful.