la_marquise

It's been a busy 10 days or so. Over the Bank Holiday weekend, the marquis and I, along with desperance, groliffe and Caro winolj, set off for Staffordshire for a long weekend at historic Tixall Gatehouse, all that remains of a former 16th century mansion. Lovely place, with big airy rooms, beautiful proportions and much comfort. There was walking and pub-inspecting and observing of local flora and fauna -- Staffs is full of Bedlingham terriers and huge mastiffs. Who knew? And I dragged everyone off to Ironbridge Gorge to see the Museum of Iron, for Werk reasons. We headed back on Tuesday, with the marquis, A and C going straight home, while Chaz and I went back to Ironbridge to see the Victorian town museum, where they have a working beam engine and many, many fine industrial objects, as well as working shops. He took lots of photos.
The marquis had picked up an awful coldy-fluey thing while we were away, and was really not well for much of last week. He's feeling a lot better now, but we had to cancel a planned outing to see the new Conan film, and his regular role-playing evening. (Much Jackie Chan was watched instead.) On Friday, we set off for the Write Fantastic gig in Glastonbury, but he wasn't well enough to come along, which was a great shame. We collected klwilliams at Heathrow en route, and I got to play chauffeur (though Chaz refused to let me wear his cap. I think he thought I might be ever so slightly taking the p*ss. I can't think why.) It was a good gig -- I thought my Arthur talk was a bit dull compared to the fascinating talks on more esoteric things given by mevennen and others, but I got good feedback. freda_writes was a wonderful GoH and not only gave a reading (she's so good at those: she always gives me goosebumps) but also talked with great depth about process and myth and imagery and her vision of writing.
And I was taken for a drag up the Tor by Lily-pup and Cassie. That is a high honour, and I am appropriately grateful.
Sunday, I packed Chaz and Karen back into the car (poor Karen: just in from California, and we take her over half of Southern England) and we headed into London, where I was scheduled to appear on a panel at the British Library with fjm, novelist Peter Hamilton, creative scientist and TED Fellow Rachel Campbell, and the mighty Neil Gaiman on sf and the future. I was rather scared of this -- big guns!, plus driving in central London without Phil -- but it went really very well. fjm was a fabulous moderator and the discussion ranged from zombies in Asian cinema, to Chinese futures, to space opera, to machines that replicate digestion, to feminism, capitalism and the role of sf in dismantling patriarchy. And afterwards we had a lovely Chinese meal with coth and her family, who, it turned out, had flown back from the US after Worldcon on the same flight as Karen.
And that's me for the last ten days. Time has been spent with good people, and I survived driving to and from the BL and now I'm back home with the marquis and all is right with the world.
Well, almost all. Horus informs me that it is Too Windy and His Fur Is Being Ruffled and He Does Not Like.

Skirt of the day: burgundy silky print.