Last London entry
(Tuesday)
Well, I couldn’t resist and have written another little bit of the Sam story, though it irks me to have self-queries in ALL CAPS scattered here and there to remind me to look things up. A few paragraphs of another Passages chapter as well, and I’ve finished with the slash essay; well, not finished but I could poke at it forever so I’m going to just post the dratted thing regardless when I get home and make changes later if I want. If it fits I will post it here; if not it’ll be on my site but I’ll post a link here.
Reading HotK has sucked up several evenings, not surprisingly. Still not finished with it, but then, Ang’s not finished drafting it either; I’m not sure how close to the end she is, or what I’ve got is. I’m enjoying some of the characters quite a lot. Definitely not my Denethor and Finduilas and Thorongil; recognizable nonetheless as Tolkien’s as much as mine are, just different. There are still several things I’ve not quite understood which may yet become clear.
Eledhwen emailed and we’re going to meet up for drinks/dinner Wednesday, which will be nice. Possible that another TORnsib or two may join us also, she was going to ring them and see. I’m always sort of hesitant to impose on people so I’m not very good at suggesting things like that. Am going to the Guildhall for the day; depending on how long it takes me to go through the last several things I want to look at, I might have time to trail back out to Kew and leave the laptop rather than haul it with me all evening (we’re not meeting till 6:30, so if I’m done by 4 I’ll go for it; takes about an hour fifteen for the trip from the GL). If not, c’est la vie.
TORn’s Main discussion board is going to be memorializing the 50th anniversary of publication of LotR this week and I’m hoping to contribute “Lotheluin” to that as my most recent suitable fanfic... I’ll see whether that works out. Now have 5 weeks’ worth of new filks to resume Tuesday posts for those next week, and have a possible Galadriel filk in mind but have not yet resolved it.
I acquired a copy of 1066 and All That today, which I’ve been wanting to get for a number of years; it was out of print for ages. I knew it was back in print again but hadn’t seen it in any bookstores, and there it was in the shop at Westminster Abbey, of all places. I liked the Abbey although since it’s such a huge tourist place it’s hard to stop and look at anything properly. And no photography allowed. But I did a proper film!Aragorn-style reverence to the tombs of both Elizabeth Tudor and Geoffrey Chaucer, them and them alone of all those present. I wouldn’t salute Mary Stuart if you paid me.
Also went briefly to the National Gallery and for rather longer to the National Portrait Gallery. Sadly the Elizabethan room at the latter was not accessible and won’t be till Friday afternoon, so I won’t get to see that this trip - I’ve seen it before, though. I peeped into the “contemporary” rooms there and recognized virtually none of the people there; mostly I stuck to the historical stuff where at least I know many of the names and often more. The same was true in the Abbey; I found it difficult to read inscriptions that were too far off but for when I could generally at least the names were familiar, and I wondered to what extent that could possibly be true for many of my fellow tourists, a large percentage of whom were clearly also foreign and almost certainly not historians of England.
At the NPG I was in the shop and found a picture postcard of Noel Streatfeild, which I just had to buy, since I’ve always liked her books. They do tend to all have the same basic plot (the kids’ books at least; I’ve not been able to get hold of much of her adult writing ever) but they’re still quite good.
Having trouble sleeping the past few days, I think because the nights have been warmer and I’m sleeping under a duvet (no loose sheet) so I’m a little too warm. Hence have written much of this around 1 am. Not good.
(Thursday morning)
I’m DONE! *whoops and does happy Hobbit dance*
Finished with looking at the last three guilds I wanted to check on, and in plenty of time to get the computer home and back to Leicester Square. I spent about an hour there scribbling away; a bit more of the Sam story, a couple paragraphs of Passages, and about a page and a half of a new beginning to the HP story.
Yummy Chinese with Eledhwen, and good talk. She very kindly had me round to her flat after dinner so that I could look up some Hobbit-stuff in the family trees; so now I’m able to get rid of my self-queries in that story, hurray!
So today I’m just going to sit - indoors, mostly, as it’s a very warm day - and write, I think. Pop over to Richmond in the early afternoon and post this and do my last email check etc. Tomorrow I expect I will do one last outing into the city, though not sure just where or what. I’ve been to most of the places I wished to go; so if it’s a fine day I may simply spend some of it in one of the parks, if I can find a shady seat. I’ll have a notebook with me of course so that I can write. Eledhwen recommended a big SF bookstore near Covent Garden and I might do some browsing there, too.