Manky Mole.
On the 29th I drove to Manchester via Stafford (where I picked up trialia from her dad's in NazgulGnosall and then dropped her off in her house in Rusholme) to stay for a couple of days with saintmaryuk in her lovely big house full of lovely people and the occasional logistical challenge. Monday night was full of nice pig and good conversation, and cute kitties turning up in unexpected places.
Tuesday morning saw an emergency call from Tria, who was really very cold house-sitting a friend in Central Manchester. Turns out the boiler pressure had dropped. NOT ideal in sub-zero temperatures with no other sources of heating in the house. So I brought her a radiator, and those lovely Manchester traffic wardens repaid my good deed with a parking ticket for parking in an empty street with no yellow lines - may they have parking meters constantly shoved up their arses by the smug little bureaucrats of the 392nd Circle of Hell. OK, it did say Pay and Display, but I didn't know it applied to the space I'd stopped in. Still, the radiator did arrive meaning that Tria was, reassuringly, alive the next day.
I then went to Cheadle to see my friends Michael and Natasha, who babysat me when I was little. Their house hadn't changed a bit. They fed me a different version of plov with chickpeas and mincemeat, and spinach soup. I fixed their DVD player for them (or at least pointed out the dodgy SCART connection). They're getting older. So are we all. (That last remark brought to you by the No Shit, Sherlock Department).
Came back to ChezMary, and watched Iron Man - like Spider-Man, a Marvel superhero film where the hero is made, at least partially, of fail. They're so much cuter when they cock it up; I particularly enjoyed the various d'oh moments which occur while Stark learns about controlling his flight jets.
Then off to the Slug and Lettuce to meet various afpers, plus David S, a local countertenor I'd first met online about 8 years ago, who seemed to fit right in. Apologies to others when David and I disappeared into Countertenor Corner and started talking shop. Might be a couple of interesting leads out of that, despite my horrible cold preventing anything more than about 30% vocal effectiveness from yours truly; enough, however, to convince him I knew what I was doing. I also enjoyed his description of his domestic arrangements - "I'm an alto. My girlfriend sings tenor, and my boyfriend sings bass." LOL. I also discovered who the_hatstand's dad is. Whoa. Now I know where Ade gets his musical gifts from.
We decided to all pile in and get back to ChezMary to play with talking Daleks, and then it got to that time of the evening where, being a congeries of afpers, we try to break our companions' brains in new and interesting ways. I think some of my filks were a success, particularly It's the End of the Age as we Know It since the lodger was an REM fan. Thanks to trialia, I was read a really rather disturbing bedtime story about Care Bears, but was able to use relics of songster's dark Internet past to break other minds.
One word.
Newsnight.
I ought to pause and give Stu a bit of a virtual hug, since he does not appear to have had a brilliant time over the past few days what with feeling generally crook and his electric car packing up. Also, thanks for the plane geeking and the sat-nav; took a bit of getting used to but was very necessary given that Galadriel (my sat-nav) had temporarily run out of puff.
This morning, after a fractured night's drinking of water punctuated by the occasional doze, I turned the mûmak's nose southwards through the Mancunian fog, and eventually got home via Tesco, where I picked up a shiny new Samsung SM943 19" TFT monitor I'd ordered last week on Tesco Direct for £96. It is very pretty, and soon I will play MTW2 on it to see how well it copes. This evening I'm off to the Wigmore Hall with my parents to hear the King's Consort do Bach. The good news is I'm not coughing nearly as much as before - just once every 5 minutes or so.
Many thanks to saintmaryuk, Stu, Kevin and Tim, and many hugs to the pretties, particularly M and T. I'm just really annoyed I was so ill. I hope to see you all soon.
Floppy Tiny Kitn is now floppy.
Oh, and congratulations, Sir Terence.