Gossip from inside my head

I’ve been mentioning my Norway idea for months now, so it’s about time I did something about it. At the same time isobell has been prodding me quite severely to try and get to Lumous goth festival in Finland. Hence, a quick and nasty plan has begun to form, and now I’m splatting down a few ideas before I lose track of everything. Don’t mind me.

30 June Fly to Helsinki, Finland. Late afternoon train to Tampere. Meet isobell and friends and do the goth thing.
1 July In Tampere with more of those dreadful goths. How will I cope?
2 July End of Lumous. Travel to Turku with isobell.
3 July Day in Turku.
4 July Ferry to Stockholm, Sweden. Hopefully a chance to see livredor.
5 July Day in Stockholm. Train north to Kiruna.
6 July Train north to Narvik, Norway.
7 July Bus north to Tromsø.
7-9 July Hire a car and drive around the north. Maybe reach Nordkapp! Exciting!
9/10 July Fly to Oslo.
10 July Day in Oslo. Hopefully meet wunderbaum.
10/11 July Fly back to London.

Yes, it’s absurd. But that’s the point! Although any advice would be most welcome, as I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere!

And a few useful websites before I lose them:

Ryanair http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/
Scandinavian airlines http://www.scandinavian.net/
Blue1 airlines http://www.blue1.com/
Viking line http://www.vikingline.fi/index.asp?lang=en
Finnish trains http://www.vr.fi/heo/eng/
Swedish trains http://www.sj.se/
Norwegian buses http://www.nbe.no/nbeweb/index.jsp?lang=en

I’ll just let that simmer for a while in my head before I start throwing money at booking all that lot. It’s not going to be cheap, some of that. But it’s going to be fun. Anyone crazy enough to join me? No, I thought not.

YAY for web proxy servers!! *hugs proxy server* Our otherwise lovely ISP Zen cannot see livejournal today. Either one of them is blacklisting the other, or there's a routing error or something like that. When I realised what was happening, I tried cunning and ingenious ways to get my LJ fix. My first and rather insane plan was X-forwarding a mozilla browser running on the fluffhouse server. Which admittedly worked, but it was terminally slow! Ooops. So now I'm using a proxy server and YAY for I can read LJ again and the world won't end. *happysmile*

Sunrise is a special time. Streets are deserted of people and cars, and even central london is lovely and quiet. It's my favourite time of day to wander around cities, not just for the lack of people, but the lovely colours that everything goes in the cold light of morning, as a spectacular sunrise blows away all the hazy nighttime events and intoxications. The air is fresh and clear and everything is joyous, and it feels slightly illicit seeing morning after having stayed out all night somehow - like cheating the night gods or something like that. This morning, returning from the_alchemist and verlaine's place, travelling along the river past Waterloo and Westminster, heading eastwards with the sun rising over the towers of the city up ahead was something quite special indeed. That bit of London is incredibly pretty indeed when seen in the right light, and I'd all the time in the world to just sit and watch and breath in all the goodness. The rapidly brightening daylight made me so giddy I was dancing and singing with joy down the street. Ok, so maybe I'm a bit strange, but I now totally get the whole ancient sun-worshipping thing and am in awe of nature. Why not dance happily to celebrate the start of a new day - it's a thing of beauty! The pagan within me is very happy with today. *nods*

Thank you the_alchemist, verlaine for the lovely party, and happy birthday casby! Many pretty friends there, plus made a few new friends, sang the night away in the most FUN way possible (yay for Singstar!) and I genuinely didn't notice that somehow it got to be 5am and I've still no idea how. So much for getting the last tube home! Oh well, nevermind, I was having lots of fun. They have a lovely place and I need to visit lots and play Bridge and things, if they will let me (but I'm really not that scary at Bridge, am I? *makes cute face*)

I'm all covered in glitter and smell divine. I'm leaving glitter trails wherever I go. Oooops. Lush are lovely.

I'm not trying to avoid my lovely housemates. Really I'm not. It's just there's so many exciting things going on I'm reduced to skulking back home like a thief in the middle of the night, collapsing into bed with exhaustion and never seeing them! Finally, after far too many long slow trainrides and dodgy buses and the like at some ghostlike time well after 2am on a Monday night, when nobody else is out, I got back from a weekend-that-went-on-and-became-a-bit-more. *zonk*

Firstly, there was the Elephant of sensory overload, which no image or words can really do justice to, as it was an assault on all the senses (including those of wetness! Wheee splashy wet elephant!) So much of this oriental wizardry was dreamlike and I didn't really follow the story that was supposedly unfolding, but I didn't have to. It was just a weirdness happening right there in central london, causing chaos wherever it went. And sadly I had to wave byebye to Elephant and zoom off on a very-slow-train-because-the-mainline-is-closed-yet-AGAIN-AAARGH! to Cambridge for the social event of the year. *squeeee*

atreic and emperor both looked stunningly beautiful at their Wedding Ceilidh (evil_nick's photos). atreic's wedding dress is indeed a thing of much loveiness to behold, and spun nicely when she was dancing. I approve muchly! Squeees and bouncey congratulations to them both, and yay for many pretty people there! Somehow, and I've still no idea how this all works and how everything fits together, they'd conspired to arrange several of my circles of friends all under the same roof, causing me much joy. There was a reunion of sorts of Ardgour people, but also many goths, geeks and even dancers many who I'd not seen since my Cambridge days, as well as various randoms like yvesilena, who I'd not seen in far too long and spend much time hugging and squeeeing at. How do all these different people know each other? *mystified* Ceilidhs are good as they are a wonderful excuse to flirt outrageously with both close friends and complete strangers, although I'm sad we ran out of dances before getting to ask atreic for a dance. I enjoyed very nice dances with lovely ghoti, yvesilena, aiwendel, mirabehn, strongtrousers (oh random dance of doom!), medieval_bunny and deborah_c, who I hope didn't mind my overenthusiatic swinging *spinspinspin*, and then suddenly we ran out of dances before I ran out of pretty people to dance with, but there was still lots of cake, and it was GOOD cake, so all is forgiven. Maybe. I'd still like to flirt more. *wrysmile*

There was a lot of rain. This was a good thing and a bad thing. Lots of train rides and rain streaking down the train windows make me oddly happy, watching the warmly snug train race across the gloomy wet landscape. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. It did kill my getting-out-and-being-sociable plans for Sunday, or maybe I was feeling overpeopled, but after being cruelly woken up by a zonky cassielalone heading for work, I spent a long time watching the rain splash down in the puddles outside and decided that warm-bed indoors was far preferable to going outside, and besides there was cassielalone's anime library of joy to tempt me to stay in. Yay for Noir - I now have an unhealthy crush on Chloe, to the extent of using interweb found images of Chloe at work today for testing purposes (yes, I now download anime images as part of my work ... how nice is that?? *squeee*)

Now, maybe I'm strange like this, but I have no problems in considering "just hopping over to Reading for the evening", even on a weekday, a perfectly normal thing to do. I've done it many times, and yesterday it was taimatsu's birthday, so it seemed a good enough reason to go again. Despite all the drama this always entails, as I only noticed late on Sunday I'd have no time to go home as I was travelling to work direct from Cambridge on Monday morning. I got a sudden shock when the train claimed it was not stopping at Reading and the first stop was in WALES or something, but it lied and somehow I ended up in Reading at just the right time, for lovely Wagamama goodness, and er ... a ... er ... film. Which will remain nameless, although it was so dreadfully bad it was actually really hilariously good. And you know, there was a trailer of the next Pirates of the Caribbean so maybe all is forgiven. *deppdrool*

And then, the train home cunningly timed to arrive in Paddington just as the tube shuts. You know that really annoying half hour between about 12:30 and 1AM where although there might be night buses heading out from central london, you'll be very lucky to find any night buses heading towards the center? Yes, well I got caught by that yet again and the journey home took a very very long time indeed. I is dead today. *collapses*

( burning question of the day )

A whole week of ardgour_2006 wonderfulness just happened. Ardgour House is a huge old mansion house hidden deep in the pretty Scottish Highlands, filled with a million bedrooms (or so it seemed), a swimming pool, a sauna, a billiard room, breathtaking views of snow-topped mountains and foamy waterfalls and (best of all) 22 wonderful exciting people to share the love with. *squeeee*

( Our adventures in Scotland, which I fear will contain much use of the word SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE and YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY and lots of bouncing, so click here only if you want to indulge in a huge squeeeeeeee-fest. I want to marry the last week I liked it that much. You have been warned )

Photos, entirely of the outdoor prettiness, are now up on my gallery. They are THE PRETTY, so go look at them!

I’ve not read LJ in well over a week, and my friends page backlog is so long it’s scary, so please please point me at anything I should see. *nods*

So, there I was, moaning about having failed to get tickets to the sold out Placebo gig at Alexandra Palace on Tuesday. It was the end of the world (yes yes, but you know, I’ve got to make it at least sound like I’m a drama queen here, work with me, ok?). Then 791point43 says she has a spare ticket, and I’m all manic and “mine mine mine!” so yay I’m going to see Brian on Tuesday and the world is a happy place again! Let us not forget why we are going- drool over the photos. Ahem. So, who else is going to stalk Brian with me?

It’s all woe woe woe. The drain has closed for the summer. They’ve closed my Waterloo and City Line (mine, I tell you, it’s all mine) until September. Meanies! Do they realise what horrors this will do to my commute? I am not impressed. I mean, there’s 2 stations and 4 trains. What in the world can they be doing that takes 5 months? They could bore a whole new tunnel in that time. Or any number of other things. In fact, I bet they are, and it’s all a conspiracy. Maybe someone is doing secret experiments sending rubber ducks through the empty tunnels all summer. Or they’re going dragon hunting, as the dragon might fall asleep when there’s no noises of trains. Or you tell me ... what is going on down there?

Wow! This evening was happygoff‘s Devolution show, and it was very special. I arrived just in time for the warm-up, where Gothic choir N-chant, all dressed up in long hooded black gowns sang an eclectic mix of songs, including A Elbereth Gilthoniel. After an interval, we returned to find a dark room for the main event, Devolution. The only lighting was a circle of candles, and tiny torches given to all the audience, which we could point where we liked to see what was happening. We were arranged in a circle, and the choir (still in the long black hooded gowns) stood behind and all around us, providing a live human soundtrack to the actors in the middle. And there was lots of very artsy emotional writhings and bizarre and very sensual dancing, They covered a range of emotions, with chanting by the choir to set the mood. It was heavily audience participation, with lots of taunting and teasing, and getting dragged to the middle to be part of the performance (Remind me never to sit at the front ever again ever ever ever *aaaaaargh*). Overall very strange, but very nice indeed. *bounces*

Yay! Today I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely mirabehn and evil_nick at their shiny little new nest in Datchet. But before I got to Datchet, I was distracted by something else. Most of you would know by know that I’m a bit of a castlephile, and it didn’t escape my notice that there is a HUGE ROYAL CASTLE just over the river from Datchet. The biggest of all in fact, and I’d not ever been there before. Shocking. So this morning I braved all the Russian tourists, and had a lovely wander around Windsor Castle. It’s not at all cheap, but it is The Pretty. Big proper castle-like walls, like castles are supposed to have. Mmmmmmmmmm crenellations *drool*. Ahem. All the flowers had just come out, as they’ve finally noticed it is now Spring, so the whole mound around the Round Tower was covered in pretty aromatic flowers. And lots of pretties inside too. Yay! Sadly chapel closed (as is Sunday) so I’d have to go back there to see that. But I really want to go back there, as it’s so nice there. Yay!

Then a lovely walk to Datchet, and mirabehn and evil_nick are both as lovely as ever. We discussed fun plans for Ardgour (which I am now looking forward to immensely!), and watched some Firefly and Yes Minister. Then we put on the Haibane Renmei soundtrack and played LOTR monopoly, always a splendid source of innuendo goodness. My Legolas was doing awful at first, and Elly was doing too well as she got lots of horsies and pimped them out. So me and Nick ganged up on her, and somehow I emerged to build huge fortresses all over Rohan and strangely ended up winning! Yay. I had bizarre banana flavoured beer, which was very nice, and Elly cooked lovely food and knows how to make me very happy as there was also yummy chocolate icecream. My plan is to visit them lots now, as they are both very nice indeed! *happybounces*

Ooopsie! Just re-read all that, and it's all too mindnumbingly enthusiastic. I seem to be stuck on the word "nice" rather a lot, don't I? I really must be having a good day! Dearie me :)

My hair is shorter. It has also turned RED. Yay! I win! *manic bounces*

Strangely, I’m still in a sociable mood, so I’m going to Kryptorium tomorrow to chat and bounce and stuff. Actually, looking further ahead I’m planning to try out the latest incarnation of Electric Dreams at Turnmills on March 20th. I just want somewhere to bounce lots. oooh - maybe I should go to the Calling on Tuesday?

Also, the lovely happygoff is putting on a very special and unique event just down the road in sunny Stratford on Thursday 30th Match. Take a look at the flyer!
( Professional theatre with Goth Choir live human soundtrack )
Tickets are very limited - if you want one contact happygoff.

At the moment I feel like taking over the world. Who wants to join me? *wheeeeee*

First day of lent, and someone brought a huge and very yummy chocolate cake into the office. *lickslips*. Therefore, I am resolved to give up not-eating and therefore to stuff myself silly. Is this missing the point? *wonders* Last week I excelled myself in cooking vegetarian curry for *5* people and it was divine. I should do more of that. I like being able to cook again! *bounces*

Also - the brick of doom has been conquered. I have finished reading War and Peace. Finally! The epilogue is fascinating, isn't it? *nods* Now off to read something a bit ... er ... shorter. Probably with lesbians in. Or maybe my Norway guidebook (yes, I'm considering a trip to Norway as it appeals to my sense of strangeness!) Or something.

Postman has been bringing happy goodness this week. Firstly, a shipment from Japan bringing some Moi meme moitie goodness. Then a nice box containing Gin Truffles. And I'm expecting a big box of goodness from Amazon containing Chobits and Haibane Renmei and more goodies imminently. *happysmiles*