The first few songs of the London concert, the Sunday evening, from the official livestream.

( But first... )

Last Wednesday I was in Lichfield for my third Longest Johns concert this year. This time it was part of a local arts festival, and in the Cathedral (see above) so they had to adjust the song list to cope with the acoustics, but that was fun because it meant they sang some of their older, vocal harmony based songs that I hadn't heard live before. As this was a seated show, I took my album book to get signed, and a photo, as before. (No, JD and Robbie haven't changed outfits since the picture in March. ;-D) My shirt is some of Adam Chance's merch and JD asked to take a picture with me to send to him, which was fun.

( More memories )

Last year was dealing with the effects of a misbehaving gall bladder - finally removed in October.

I did get to see Home Free live finally, I was able to see all three of their UK shows at the end of September and meet them in Birmingham. That was a particularly special show, because I was notified by friends that one of my other favourite groups, the Longest Johns, were in the audience as well, as guests of Home Free, and I got to speak to them as well - real-life crossover...

Then a couple of weeks ago I saw the Johns live in Oxford for the first time, another great show. They're still at the level where they can offer to meet everyone after the show, so this time I got a picture.



They said they remembered me from Birmingham, and I promised I'd wear a Longest Johns shirt next time I went to a Home Free show.

The week before last was Tolkien 2019 - a six days conference/convention/celebration of 50 years of the Tolkien Society, held in Birmingham. As I've said elsewhere, it was a week of academia and silliness, good food and fellowship, and I can't think of a better celebration of the TS than that.

For the first time at a major TS event, I was able to go completely as an attendee, with no responsibilities apart from taking part in a Tolkien version of Pointless. :-) (We got into the final, which is better than I was expecting.) What I did instead was meet various people who'd not been to a TS event before, and take them under my wing - they all went away proclaiming what a wonderful time they'd had, and I like to think I contributed something to that.

Highlights included a performance of the Puppet Theatre Company's Leaf by Niggle, just as wonderful as when I saw it nearly 3 years ago at Oxonmoot, getting to meet and fangirl some of my favourite Tolkien artists, including Jenny Dolfen, and some wonderful talks, from Tom Shippey on the heirs of Tolkien, Troels Forchhammer on Tolkien and Scouting, Una McCormack on fanfiction, specifically Fourth Age stories and the final keynote from Dimitra Fimi - on foxes and folklore, "in which there may be singing". There was, and singing in Middle English with nearly 500 Tolkien fans was a great way to end an awesome week.

There's a taste here - a playlist of the filmed talks, including Tom and Dimitra's and if you have access to Facebook the official pictures are here

On the first Tuesday in December, the small town where I live has a Christmas market and late-night opening evening. Almost everywhere opens, not just the shops but the local museum, which puts on a special display of local historic photographs, and even the estate agents and the undertakers.



Even though it was raining, there were still several hundred people wandering round, enjoying the atmosphere and buying from the couple of dozen craft and artisan food stalls. As you can see, I bought a Dragon (a mobile, and what the photo doesn't really show is how well it moves), lots of fudge, and some award-winning local gin - really local, the guy who makes it was on the stall, and said he lived in town, and would deliver more when I'd drunk it all. :-)

It's little hat season again. :-) Whoever came up with this as a marketing campaign for Innocent smoothies has a lot to answer for.

(Yes, I'm bored after going through airport security, however did you guess. ;-) )

One day I will write DW entries regularly and without lots of second-guessing myself, but obviously not yet...

In the meantime, a few weeks ago I was invited by long-standing friends to crash their family visit to Pembrokeshire, where their parents have retired to. I took a long and beautiful train ride out to Haverfordwest, and met up with them to do the last few miles to Broad Haven, on the coast.

The weather wasn't particularly wonderful, but in between card games I spent a lot of time admiring the view from their lounge window.



(Click through for more pictures)

One day we did go to St Davids, famous as the smallest city in the UK - far smaller than Winchcombe - but it has a cathedral, and that's more important than size.



(Click through for more pictures)

I was very grateful for the invitation - a lovely chance to get away and catch up, and visit a lovely part of the world I hadn't seen for 20 years or so.

I've had the week off this week, and decided it was time to get round to taking Dad to see the Docklands Light Railway, something he has talked about, but never got round to doing. (Well, not since about 1997, anyway.;-D)

As that seemed a bit of shallow thing to hang a day trip on, I went looking for things to see and found the Museum of London Docklands, in one of the old warehouses still standing near Canary Wharf.

ETA: Should have fixed the photos now.

( Cut for photos and rambling )

Yesterday, I went to the the Tolkien Society Yulemoot in Birmingham - a new event for this year, just an evening sitting around in a pub, more or less, but a nice chance to catch up with friends, and meet some new people. I hope it's something they'll do again next year. It was lovely to meet kizzia again, and to travel home with adaese.

Birmingham is well worth visiting at this time of year in any case, as the German Christmas market takes over more and more of the city centre. Lots of wonderful things to see, eat and drink - one of my favourites was the bar in a giant wooden advent calendar, being entertained by a steel drum band. :-)

Having gone to Centenary Square, I decided it was time to actually visit the new(ish) Library of Birmingham, which I'd admired on television. I wasn't a fan of the old Brutalist concrete building, and find this one much more appealing. A number of years ago, when we first moved TS committee meetings to Birmingham, we were able to use a hidden away treasure- the Shakespeare Memorial Room, originally built as part of the Victorian library - because of a member who worked there. With the building of the new library, it was moved again, this time to the very top of the new building, and freely open to the public, when not in use as a meeting room. I enjoyed the chance to take some pictures, both of the room, and the view from the gallery outside, over the cityscape.



(Click through to Flickr to see the rest of the pictures)

As someone of you have seen elsewhere, this weekend is my local heritage railway's Steam Gala. It's been too long since I paid them a visit, and I couldn't resist the temptation to see some new engines, and take another ride in a brake van.

As they've done in previous years, they had three visiting engines from other railways, as well as four of the home fleet in steam. (This involves complicated logistics with the timetable, with six of them actively involved in pulling four trains, plus one on standby, just in case one of them breaks. The gala runs for three days, and they have a different permutation every day...)

( The visitors were Wadebridge: )

( and City of Wells )

both West Country Class "spamcans" - a very strange shape for people like me used to the classic GWR style but variety is the spice of life, they say. :-)

( And also Raveningham Hall )

which is what I expect a steam engine to look like. :-)

Another attraction was a further Southern engine - P&O Line - which has taken the best part of 30 years to be reconstructed, and which was displayed away from Toddington for the first time. (She might actually be in traffic later this year, but then they said that last year and the year before. ;-D)

( 3 years in the life of a Merchant Navy Class )

The next project was on display in the car park at Toddington this year...

( In case you were wondering just what takes that long )

Other highlights that don't photograph so well included the brake van ride, as always. I'm usually so much an indoor person, who'd happily not step foot outside as long as I have my books and my computers, but when it comes to riding exposed to the wind and the rain, with a great view of the surroundings, I don't mind at all. This year we were right behind the engine going through the tunnel on the return journey, and it was fascinating to watch the roof in the light of the fire from the firebox. (On the way down we were at the back of the train, and it's pitch black, no light at all to be seen.)

And finally, a train actually moving:
( Wadebridge coming into Winchcombe station )