bunn | Entries tagged with rambling

I feel like I've fallen enough behind posting that I'm just going to type random things that come to mind.

It poured with rain today, but I walked to Pembroke with Theo anyway, and went to a coffee shop.

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What else have I been doing? I've kayaked across the Cleddau river to swim on the other side a few times, though this summer is cooler and wetter than last, so there's been less kayaking in general.

I took Pp and Theo for a wander along Lindsway Bay to peer at the lighthouse we briefly considered buying when we were moving to Pembrokeshire, and concluded that as we had suspected, buying it would have been a terrible mistake. Another mistake was that days' assumption that the forecast cloud would keep Pp cool enough to go walking: it was waaaay too hot for him.

I went down to Devon to visit my mother at the end of July: I've not been able to go for a while because Rosie wasn't up to the journey and I was worried about leaving her.

It was a good visit, even though it rained a lot there too. We drove over to Widemouth Bay on the North coast and wandered around on a Cornish beach for a change, pottered around Tavistock, and I took Theo up for a walk on the moors. Baked a banana bread with bonus kiwi fruit in it.

I voted in the election, despite my polling card arriving about a week too late.

Oh, and we did take the Celtic Longboat rowers for a Long Row, though not for the planned Fishguard to Pwllheli row, since they weren't able to get a support yacht, which was required for that race. Instead they rowed from Gelliswick to Saundersfoot, which is still a respectable distance and further than we'd been before in the RIB.

It was a bit stressful in the harbour in Saundersfoot, which is a drying harbour with a lot of mud at low tide and not a lot of room to manoever a very long and fragile thing that is the Celtic Longboat. We got our propeller caught on a buoy rope. But it was fine, and probably a good experience of things going a bit wrong.

We'd completely forgotten that Mondays come after Sundays, which was important, because the Castlemartin Firing range is closed on Sundays, but not on Mondays, and we had to come home in the RIB on Monday. So we ended up going a couple miles out to sea to avoid it, which was the furthest we've been out to sea. We probably need a better radio with more range to do that again.

Yesterday, I saw a huge black crow eating a similarly huge dead white gull. It looked very Ominous.

Today I went for a swim and didn't get stung by a jellyfish, though one of the people I was swimming with did.

Pp and I decided we didn't know enough about the history of countries in Africa, so we're doing a blitz on African history doing a quick Wikipedia read-up/ Youtube whiz through on one country a day. Yesterday was Ethiopia, today is Sudan. Tomorrow is Eritrea.

I'm not sure how much of it will stick, but hopefully the odd bit? At a minimum I hope to more accurately be able to point to places on a map!

Speaking of maps, the Shop on the Borderlands now has sold things to customers in 46 countries. We've bought a map and some flag pins so we can see where they all are.

I took Theo for a social walk at the amazingly named Wolf's Castle, where, supposedly, the last wolf in Wales was killed. It seemed a pleasant spot for a stroll and Theo managed to not shout more than a token amount, even onlead and surrounded by other on-lead dogs (he finds leads hard! He's so much happier greeting off the lead.)

Pp has been diagnosed diabetic, which has come as a bit of a shock to him, given his usual diet of white bread cheese sandwiches, chocolate and (nearly) no veg. But he has risen to the challenge and bought an under-desk cycle, for exercise. He's eating a lot of boiled eggs now,but I need to work out some more low-carb recipes.

I was trying to finish the story that I was writing for Fandom Trumps Hate, which is a Silmarillion First Age story with Maglor, Elrond, Maedhros and Elros, but I seem to have stalled on that.

Then there was a Tolkien Original Character week on Tumblr, and somehow I ended up writing several thousand words about Berengar, who is a part-Numenorean OC that I made for Elrond to meet during the fall of Eregion. That isn't finished either, but I do seem to have found things to say about that anyway, rather than just being stuck. I have another Second Age story I should be writing for FTH as well, and I had intended to get it done before the new Rings of Power show began airing, but I'm not sure I shall manage that now. Oh well.

The Tuor and Idril story is done, and after much prodding and poking, seems a decent shape.

The Tropical Yavanna story came together really quickly in the end. It's a story that is half Vanyar and half Avari and *mostly* worldbuilding.

They will be live... when is it? A week? Two? Something like that anyway.

I really want to finish Rexque Futurus next. I've been writing it for seven years, this MUST surely be the year when I get chapters 13 and 14 polished off and can finally say to myself 'IT IS DONE!'

I have rough drafts for both chapters, so it really should be possible.

Either DW import or LJ export seems to have hiccups, so I'm copying and pasting this.

Goodness. I haven't updated since February! I don't know why. I have been reading here, but not managing to comment or post so much. I'm probably only doing it now because I have a fic to write for a Friday deadline and I apparently have no energy for it. I should have written it when I first got the assignment. I did start it, but then I told myself I wanted to finish my Rexque Futurus chapter first, and that has not been flowing, and has apparently caused a word blockage. Bah.

Had a birthday last Saturday, and although Plague was looming, it didn't seem so close then, so we went to the beach with my Mum and Pp's Dad. And the hounds, of course. It was a bit chilly, but Theo had an excellent time, and I did too, almost as much. There's something very calming about the Sea. We ate chips and drank hot chocolate outside. Rather too cold for that really, but allowed for rather more Distancing than sitting in the warm inside the cafe.

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I've painted a few more things. Here's a dragon in a chair, ink /watercolour, painted very quickly because I felt it would be cheerful.

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In other Art News, I picked up an art commission, painting a D&D party at the pub. Because I am nothing if not ambitious, I'm basing it on Caravaggio's 'The Calling of St Matthew' with a strong directional light and the characters all talking together. So far I've drafted it in pencil, sent the draft over for approval, and blocked out the figures and light. It's going well!

I don't know what will happen out in the Wide World about the coronavirus and all the consequent panic and turmoil - well, I suppose nobody does. We are living in interesting times. I hope the panic buying will recede soon. I get the distinct impression that a lot of it is social media fuelled. The more people see photos of empty shelves and posts about not being able to buy bread, the more panicked they get. But of course people want to talk about inconvenience and worries, and can't blame them for that, and nor can I blame people who can see their only source of income vanishing for maxing out their credit card while they still have one. Ack.

My asthma is playing up slightly and giving me a tightness in the chest, but I am sure that is psychosomatic / stress related (it would not be the first time!). My lifestyle is a fairly reclusive one at the best of times, so no matter how many undiagnosed people are about, would have be particularly unlucky to pick up the virus so soon. I may just have to limit my intake of news a bit. Which might help with the writing!

I hope everyone reading this is keeping well.

Goodness. I haven't updated since February! I don't know why. I have been reading here, but not managing to comment or post so much. I'm probably only doing it now because I have a fic to write for a Friday deadline and I apparently have no energy for it. I should have written it when I first got the assignment. I did start it, but then I told myself I wanted to finish my Rexque Futurus chapter first, and that has not been flowing, and has apparently caused a word blockage. Bah.

Had a birthday last Saturday, and although Plague was looming, it didn't seem so close then, so we went to the beach with my Mum and Pp's Dad. And the hounds, of course. It was a bit chilly, but Theo had an excellent time, and I did too, almost as much. There's something very calming about the Sea. We ate chips and drank hot chocolate outside. Rather too cold for that really, but allowed for rather more Distancing than sitting in the warm inside the cafe.

( Couple photos )

I've painted a few more things. Here's a dragon in a chair, ink /watercolour, painted very quickly because I felt it would be cheerful. ( Art in Here )

In other Art News, I picked up an art commission, painting a D&D party at the pub. Because I am nothing if not ambitious, I'm basing it on Caravaggio's 'The Calling of St Matthew' with a strong directional light and the characters all talking together. So far I've drafted it in pencil, sent the draft over for approval, and blocked out the figures and light. It's going well!

I don't know what will happen out in the Wide World about the coronavirus and all the consequent panic and turmoil - well, I suppose nobody does. We are living in interesting times. I hope the panic buying will recede soon. I get the distinct impression that a lot of it is social media fuelled. The more people see photos of empty shelves and posts about not being able to buy bread, the more panicked they get. But of course people want to talk about inconvenience and worries, and can't blame them for that, and nor can I blame people who can see their only source of income vanishing for maxing out their credit card while they still have one. Ack.

My asthma is playing up slightly and giving me a tightness in the chest, but I am sure that is psychosomatic / stress related (it would not be the first time!). My lifestyle is a fairly reclusive one at the best of times, so no matter how many undiagnosed people are about, would have be particularly unlucky to pick up the virus so soon. I may just have to limit my intake of news a bit. Which might help with the writing!

I hope everyone reading this is keeping well.

I've been installing server updates. It's taking a while so I'm thinking about what to write next which for some reason feels a more reasonable form of multitasking than actually doing other work while the updates do their thing. I keep dotting in to add a word or two, it's taken me all afternoon to write this...

1) I have 2500 words of another chapter of Lands of Weeping and of War, (where Elrond stays with Maglor in Lindon as per 1937 Silmarillion) written, but the bits to connect the parts I've got already written don't seem to be flowing just now.

2) I have a vague idea for writing Bilbo meeting Maedhros in Beleriand Risen.

3) While I was walking the dog I came up with a weird cracky idea for a story with Maglor, Luthien, Beren, Morgoth*, Nimloth, Earendil and Caranthir, plus probably Finrod because he always seems to turn up, in the weird cracky Feanorians Win AU world from Victory & Memory. Maybe with the Friendly Plant too, since a number of people seemed to like that.

*if we ever adopt a really huge black cat, we have to call him Morgoth, to go with Gothmog. Or a really big black dog, I suppose would also do.

The bluebells are fading now, but this weekend I caught these just still scented in the sunlight at Grenofen on the edge of Dartmoor, on a short walk with my mother. It was rather warm, and we retired to the cafe at the top of the lane for smoothies and ice cream. The cafe used to be a pub, but there's more market now for selling tea and cakes to walkers than beer.

And on Monday we took the canoe out from Saltash and explored Tamerton Lake, which we have never been to before!
Up into the Hamoaze, carefully avoiding the speedboats, and under the railway bridge.
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What else has happened? Oh, I finished writing my Sutcliff Swap fic, so that's all ready to go when the collection opens. It has a terrible lack of historical notes, and I somehow feel something is missing, but I can't think of anything very historical to add. It's a Sword at Sunset story and didn't seem to need as much research as I sometimes do. Or perhaps writing Tolkien fic has spoiled me for things that can be quickly researched via Google.

I drew three new things, but they are all for Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang, so I'm not supposed to post them yet.

Oh, and I wrote some Silmarillion things!:

Spirits, Names, and Why It’s Important to be Specific 1,465words but not all mine.

When Sauron the Necromancer calls a spirit back into the body he is torturing, he expects a half-broken Curufinwë; Celebrimbor, pushed even closer to the brink. Instead, he gets a very, very ticked off Curufinwë Fëanáro. Sauron feels like he should technically still have the upper hand in this situation, but in that moment, he has a very hard time believing it.

This was a collabfic: two people wrote the first two chapters and I wrote the last one. I feel it actually works surprisingly well, given that it was written by three people who didn't know each other. But it was a very fun idea (sadly, not mine!)

The Passing of the King 966 words.
which is a short thing about Elros, Elrond's brother, and his death. I decided I'd like a version of him that was more weird and Elven than people often write.

Lingering in the Hither Lands 13575 words.
Thangorodrim is broken, and the Elves believe that Evil has ended forever. There's a certain amount of tidying-up to be done.

I feel this one is very self-indulgent really, and I almost didn't post it because... well, I already wrote Return to Aman, which is LONG and all about Maglor and Elrond, because when I wrote Quenta Narquelion, I had to work out how 'love grew between them as little might be thought' and ended up convincing myself so thoroughly that it made me sad. ONLY, Return to Aman can't be a fix for Quenta Narquelion, because I wrote them at the same time, and ended up dealing with a lot of things differently.

So, Lingering in the Hither lands was my very self-indulgent attempt to at least partially fix things for Maglor and Elrond in the Second Age in a way consistent with both Quenta Narquelion, and also with the 1937 version of the Silmarillion where Maglor doesn't wander off singing sadly into the sunset. But I somehow feel I really should make more effort to write things that don't have Maglor in them. Or Elrond, possibly, though given that all of Tolkien's works DO have Elrond, I feel that's somehow less of a problem.