In fact, everything we planned went as well as it possibly could, and it added up to an absolutely perfect weekend. There was loads of the best kind of socializing, and a good but not excessive amount of coupliness. *bounce*
Travelling to England went almost exactly according to plan, and I was safe in my childhood bed by 1 am, thanks to Dad giving me a lift for the last awkward couple of miles of the journey. So I was able to get up at an acceptable time Saturday morning, and caught up with the parents over breakfast. Mum is coping very well with her enforced silence; she is awesomely good at lipreading, and she's almost more at ease not having to worry about trying to hear anything, or indeed about background noise. We then went to shul which was as always lovely; it just feels so nice to be in a service that works exactly the way I want my Judaism to work, and full of people who like me and make a fuss over me when they haven't seen me for months.
I met up with
We went back to
Part of the heroism of joining me for Screwy's birthday was that it involved getting up fairly early on Sunday morning to meet up with the parents and get a lift down to Brighton. We ended up eating at Seven dials, because it's a reliably nice restaurant in a convenient location. There was a bit of miscommunication about getting Thuggish Poet there, but he eventually made it and we had all seven us in one place, plus Jack. So we heard about Thuggish Poet's teaching in Liverpool, and P'tite Soeur's new job at a more upscale restaurant that has just opened, and Screwy discussed philosophy, and we ate tasty food, and it was great. We had a cup of tea back at Screwy's flat briefly, before P'tite Soeur had to get to work and
This latter was thoroughly delightful. I'd been looking forward to it loads, but it surpassed my expectations! It was slightly awkward at first because I inadvertently split the party, since when we turned up there were a few people present I knew by sight or not at all, and nobody I knew well, so I didn't quite feel ready to plonk myself down at their table. But the two groups spontaneously re-merged, so it was all good. Again, a lovely mix of people I know and was happy to see, with new or almost new people who were generally great. If I name check I'll leave people out, but suffice it to say I was getting increasingly bouncy every time new people entered the pub. And I had a great game of Carcassonne with a whole crowd of people whom I really ought to have met by now but hadn't.
Then
when we were young and love was new, we made our bed on a sword's blade; it was perfectly obvious that the opportunity of an extra bonus night together was more than worth it. But that also meant we got to spend the bus journey chatting (mainly about
Flight back was slightly delayed but otherwise pleasantly uneventful. I slept lots, and I had good books borrowed from
Now I fall over. But yay for lots and lots of geography-defying fun with lots of cool people. By the way, apologies to the people to whom I failed to make it clear that I had decided to make the trip this weekend instead of going to Eastercon next weekend. I think the decision was right, but I still regret that it meant missing out on another potentially fun thing. And I'm particularly sorry that I don't get to see