girlofprey

I did go down to Nottingham in the end, last weekend. It was lovely. I went down on Friday so I could basically go to some of the shops I don't have nearby anymore. I really wanted to go see Alys Power, but I ended up only giving her about two days notice before I came and it turned out she was on holiday last week anyway. But I managed to get to the Focus Gallery, which was lovely, and had some new artists in I'd not seen before who were kind of amazing. And I ended up buying one of their Alys Power pieces as well, so it all kind of worked out. I went a bit overdrawn, of course. But even that didn't turn out too awful, I think.

I managed to get a single room in a hotel quite close to where I used to live, for just £35 for one night, which given that when I was looking at Bed and Breakfasts in Cornwall the other year they were charging £25 per night I think that was pretty good. And it was all perfectly lovely. It was just me on the Friday, and then on Saturday my mum came up and we checked into the Britannia for another night. And I don't know what it was, my mum thinks it's because we checked in early and got one of the better rooms available, I think it might be because my mum booked a room there before and they noticed and decided to be nice to her - but we had, like, an amazing room. It was a double because there were no twins available, and I'm only really comparing it to the room we had there before, but it was massive, we had tons of space, it had a sofa, and sliding panels instead of curtains. And the windows didn't have mould this time! We were very impressed. We were kind of tempted to stay there for a bit, but didn't in the end, and got down to the Riverside Festival in the end. I love the Riverside Festival. It's so lovely, and such a lovely setting, and they really do get bands in from all over the world, and most of them are really great, and not like the music you normally hear most of the time. The only real problem with it is that you can't see everything at once - I had to choose between Latin American reggae and French swing, jazz and Eastern European gypsy folk. I HAD TO MAKE THAT CHOICE. Mostly I compromised by going to one for a little while, then on to my favourite option for slightly longer. But it was still lovely. And the weather was brilliant this year. I always wish I could buy CDs that the bands are usually selling, but this year I was pretty strapped for cash, and the bands I really liked were selling their CDs at £10 each, which I could not afford. But it was still great. My mum was pretty easy and basically came with me to whatever I wanted to see, and she seemed to like it well enough, I think. And because she was there and I had someone to get back with, I got to stay and watch the firework display they always have at 10.30pm on the Saturday. Which was a lot more crowded than I was imagining it would be. But was still good to see, and was actually really really good.

The next day mum had to work in the afternoon, so my dad came down and picked her up, which was good for me actually because I got to send my overnight stuff back with them rather than taking it to the festival with me. The second day was as good as the first, and included a really quite brilliant, quite lovely acrobatic troupe from Tanzania. Including limbo-ing under flaming sticks. I'll say no more. Again, I didn't get to see everything I really wanted to, but I saw more than enough, and really really enjoyed it. Then at about quarter to 6 I headed back to the train station to get the four trains I needed to get to get back to my hometown. And it wasn't even that dark when I got back. And I had had a great time, hurrah!

I'm vaguely planning to go back to Nottingham again in the next few months, if I can afford it. And pretty definitely planning to go back in December, because you remember how last year I was freaking out talking about the pantomime Gray O'Brien (aka Tony from Coronation Street) was doing a pantomime in Manchester and I really wanted to go see it, but couldn't really afford it? Guess where he's doing pantomime this year. The year after I moved away from there. Damn him. Except not really, because he is, in fact, doing pantomime again, yay.

Also, while I was in Nottingham on Friday night on my own, I passed some of the time going to see Knight and Day, the new film with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. ( Thoughts ) And there was surprise Paul Dano! Which I always am in favour of! Yay!

Basically because of that, I am now on a big There Will Be Blood kick. Also partly because my mum and I found There Will Be Blood on TV the next night, even though we didn't end up watching it, which I am cynically assuming might be something to do with the fact Paul Dano is in a new film at the moment. Although I could be wrong. Anyway. I love Daniel/Eli so much. In all it's terrible, twisted glory. I've largely been contemplating my idea from before for AU where they are in a slightly angrier, more violent version of The Princess Bride. And I've now moved onto to a modern AU where Eli is the teenage unofficial leader/priest of a community centre church and Daniel is a gangster boss who wants the building for it's strategic value in the neighbourhood. Both of which are very good places to be.

Also, I watched the last episode of Sherlock last week. ( Thoughts on 1.03, The Great Game )

I'm going away again, on Saturday, with my parents and oldest nephew, to Devon on Saturday, so I pretty much won't be around for all of next week. But I'll be back the week after that. So see you guys then, pretty much!