Carolyn's (third) Journal

Wishing the very talented and lovely kallysten a very happy birthday. I hope the day is good, the weekend great and that the coming year brings you everything you could wish for in your work, writing and home life.



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Happy Happy Birthday to seductivembrace - I hope it's a good day Kat, filled with love and happiness, and that work's not too difficult today. Have a great weekend and a wonderful year.



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As one can never have too many journals, I've created an insane one too, as a backup backup (but it might be promoted to just backup in preference to GJ). I've managed to fill it with an awful lot of stuff already, as I've used LJ-Sec to back up my LJ both here and at my GJ. The only drawback is that all username links go to the wrong place, but as it is only for backup purposes I don't mind that. I followed brown-betty's lj instructions (http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/284083.html) and they worked like a dream.

Still not happy with the layout, but can't be bothered to fiddle with it any more, and at least I can now change my userpic on entries and comments from the default, thanks to hesadevil.

Don't plan on updating here regularly, if at all, but who knows when LJ's going to go all peculiar on me again.

So, James is going to be singing in Cardiff on 21 July. I too will be in Wales on 21 July, unfortunately not listening to James sing but attending a family wedding in Swansea instead. So close, yet so far away. I'm going to be so jealous of everyone who is able to go to this one, cos it's practically in my home town and not to be able to go is just ......

But still, TORCHWOOD!! James and Capt Jack on TV together - just think of all the possibilities. And we'll get to see it in the UK first. Haven't yet seen the good Captain's reunion with The Doctor as we were out Saturday night, but it's on tape calling to me at this very minute.

Just heard that the most wonderful and lovely lmbossy and boyf are now the proud parents of a baby girl, born early this morning. That is excellent news, and it's made me all bouncy and squeeful, and glad I turned the computer on today.




The other reason I turned the computer on today was to do a major HD backup, as yesterday morning I got a blue screen of doom, and although Windows started up OK when I tried again, I remembered the last time this happened and decided it was better safe than sorry and a backup was in order. So yesterday I did various virus, adware and spyware checks and today am doing the backing up.

Dancing and ironing appear to have taken over my life at the moment, and so I think I'll be disappearing again for a few days. Thank goodness the show's this weekend - I don't think I could take any more rehearsing. I've had a quick flick through my flist without commenting *waves to everyone* and will try and catch up next week.

We went, and we came back, and inbetween times, I missed lmbossy's birthday, which was yesterday. I hope you had a wonderful day, and were looked after and spoiled rotten and kept those feet up. And oh my goodness, what a year you've got in store for you now!! Embrace the challenge, love and cuddle the baby and make sure you get some 'me' time every now and again. I look foward to hearing some news soon. With pictures. *g*

Wishing a very happy birthday to treacle_a. I hope you have a wonderful day, filled with love and laughter, and baby girls who are as good as gold.

I'm so cold and should be getting on with sorting out 'stuff' ready for the car boot sale I'm doing on Saturday (weather permitting, I'm not going if it's still chucking it down with rain). I've got bags and boxes of all sorts of junk, books, baby toys, ornaments, bikes, prams, car seats etc, stored in the loft, garage and shed, and need to consolidate and sort it out into 'sell' and 'take to tip' piles and I'm completely lacking the impetus to get on with it. I would quite like to get out in the garden and do some planting - I have strawberry plants, tomato plants and a rosebush to get planted and although it's not raining at the moment it's incredibly soggy out there.

So instead I'm drinking coffee and looking at the wonderful pictures Pandis (aka Lene Solbakken) has posted from Rich Mix (which can be found here

Wishing a very happy birthday to the lovely just_sue, whom I had the pleasure of meeting after the Union Chapel gig in London. It's a shame it was for such a short while, but you probably disappeared off to get something much better to eat than the McDonalds we ended up with. :D

I hope you have a wonderful day, and that the coming year is a really good one for you. *much love and lots of hugs*




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I have just received the most beautiful gift from kazzy_cee - a David Austin Rosebush Brother Cadfael variety. jamalov29 has recently posted pictures of some of her lovely rosebushes and I commented that I love roses but have never had much success with growing them. I shall do my very best to ensure that this one thrives and will post some pics when it blooms later in the summer. I've been cursing all the rain we've had here over the last week or so, but it has made the garden look lush and verdant, and has also softened up our concrete-like clay soil so that I'll be able to dig a hole and plant my lovely present.

Thank you so much Karen.

*hugs*

The Beware! is more for the quality of the pictures rather than quantity, as I didn't take that many, particularly when in the venues. Having said that though, I seem to have posted quite a lot. There are pictures of people here - if you're not happy with being on display just let me know and I'll remove the pic.

Let's start at the very beginning - when I met up with kazzy_cee, lmbossy and calturner in Leicester Square. We'd just had some yummy italian food and were about to head off for the backstreets of Soho.

( This way for the pics )

There are a few more of similar ilk in my LJ Scrapbook or Picasa gallery:

http://pics.livejournal.com/spikereader/gallery/0000tc33
http://picasaweb.google.com/spikereader?pli=1

I really need to change my layout and get rid of my Spring Fever ticker as it's counting up now and not down. I'm really not in the mood to be thinking about html though, so it will have to stay for the time being.

I promised this to a couple of you on Friday, and thought I might just as well upload the link here. After all, Stev did say it was OK to share. Three songs recorded live - 'Not a Millionaire', 'Truth Is' and' Button Down Vandals'.

http://download.yousendit.com/C19ADA695E13CE9A

Enjoy! (or not, as the case may be).

ETA: Two of the songs annoyed me as they played on one channel only - I've done something via Wavepad (don't quite know what, but it worked) and now they come out of both speakers, which I'm very pleased about. I've reuploaded all three songs and amended the link.

DISCLAIMER – I’m not a music critic, I’m a squeeing fangirl, so I’m going to enjoy myself at a James gig even if not everything he plays is perfect. If you want proper gig reports, set lists and good photos, you won’t find them here. This is really a personal record for me to remember the whole experience, not just the James bits, because the travelling and meeting people and getting lost (and loster) and giggling like a schoolgirl on a sleepover made it a fabulous time away for me.

( Very long rambling discorse which frequently loses its way (much as I did in London) )

And that was the end of that. All I have to do now is avidly read all the reports I can find and look at endless pictures of the prettiness that is JM. And wait for him to come back to the UK again to do it all again. And I need a CD for Christmas With the waterfall song. And the sitting down song.

Oh yeah, I’m cured all right.

I've checked the BBC's Five Day Forcast, and they say it's going to be sunny all the way in London!! Woo Hoo! Temperatures of 20 degrees C (68 F), though it will feel a little cooler due to the wind which will be coming from an easterly or north easterly direction. But no rain, which is always good when it comes to queuing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=4581


Though I suspect that the predominant weather condition in London over the next three days and then moving northwards over the weekend will be

JAMES FOG

Wishing a very happy birthday to thedeadlyhook. I hope you have a great day, filled with fun, love, cards and cake.

I'm going out tonight 'with the girls' for the first time in ages. Chris got home from work and asked me how drunk I was planning on getting. I hadn't intended drinking to excess (lists of stuff to do, don't forget) and thought I'd probably alternate between alcoholic/non alcoholic anyway. There was method in his questioning though - he's off to London tomorrow and so won't be here to look after the children if I'm feeling a bit fragile. Cue lots of 'you can't go to London, I'm going to London, it's my thing' *g* and then I asked why he was going - was it business or pleasure.

Pleasure all the way, it seems; he and some workmates are working their way round part of the Dick Whittington Real Ale Trail. So he'll be in the spare room again tomorrow night.

Today has been full of Chantelle-esque excitement from me - lots of OMg! OMg! OMg and vicarious squeeeeeee-ing. It's nearly next week and everything's coming together, lmbossy has been in touch and is going to meet up with kazzy_cee, calturner and me on Wednesday, beanbeans has wonderful red hair, deborahw37 has checked out the venues for ease of access to coffee and cheesecake - and I'm going into total fangirly meltdown. ::takes deep breath::

Squeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Wishing a very very happy birthday to beanbeans. I hope you have a wonderful day, full of love, laughter, friends, family and lots of cake. And with a bit of luck I'll actually get to meet you in a couple of weeks!!! Squeeeee!

So I mentioned that it was great that the play had been announced prior to this weekend's con, and that James would be bouncier than ever. bendy1's response was

Can you imagine if they had to tell him not to mention it? There was probably no choice but to announce.
Exploded ex-manpire is never attractive.

Which got me thinking. Which is not always a good thing. Be warned, there are lots of icons behind the cut.

And so in the manner of all good Jackie Magazine photostories I present

( Can I tell them yet, Steve? )

All icons by bendy1 except OMG and Woot!! which are kazzy_cee's (oh and the Steves which are mine, hence the dubious quality)

Feel free to pass on by.

I've edited the interview to remove the ads and the scary man's reiteration of who he was talking to (the sound quality is a bit iffy - starts quiet and then I obviously turned the volume up a bit, but I couldn't be bothered to faff around any more and try and equalise it). Anyone who wants it can grab it here (17.5 mins, mp3):

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=QlVoZ28zQzM1bmcwTVE9PQ

I'll upload an ad megamix later especially for deborahw37 to enjoy. You're still not getting the Fudruckers though. *g*

Looking forward to a fangirly weekend - what with bendy1 braving the terrors of both Belgium and Michael Winnick to see Shadow Puppets at the fabulously named BIFFF (it's like Batman KERPOW, SPLAT, BIFFF), plus various others in the vicinity of Burbank who will be bringing tales of song writing and angst and photo op experiences, it should be a good one.

.... I can't stop listening to that Canadian radio show. I'm so glad it's not -1 degrees here though.

ETA: Blimey this bloke can talk.