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Nov. 27th, 2013 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hathycolUnder the cut is a description of my awesome weekend. As it involves drunken pratfalls, spoilers for every possible element of Doctor Who special and a fair bit of meandering, I can't put it all into seperate cuts. Consider yourself warned?
So, on Friday Richie and I woke up with SPRINGS IN OUR STEPS and RENEWED PURPOSE etc, because we were going on an awesome short break with friends to watch Doctor Who. I mean, dude.
We were even going to have a Road Trip on the way. Chloe and Fiona both live in London, so we were splitting the petrol costs and squashing into my super small car. Fiona was on the insurance for a few days to help with the driving. GOOD TIMES. We set off nice and early, but what we failed to take into account was that a. we were going to quite a remote part of the Scottish Borders and b. my satnav is trying to kill me. Instead of the nice sensible route, we went up the A1. Fun fact: it is nigh on impossible to get consistently above 50 miles an hour on the A1.
... yeah.
Fiona helped with a chunk of the driving up to Newcastle, and I took back over as it got dark. This was particularly fun as we travelled through the Northumberland National Park. Now, I'm sure it's a lovely drive but my car has a small engine, it was PITCH BLACK, and every hill was a blind summit. I kept most of the shrieking internal, fortunately. Plus when we did get to 'you have arrived at your destination!' it was, in fact, a good 30 minutes from our destination. Oh dear.
Still, we arrived to the cottage in the end. The plan for the weekend, basically, was for a chunk of Docsoc alumni to rock up to a remote cottage, geek out and have fun. We got a really, really lovely cottage in the end. Right by a lake, in the middle of a valley, nothing but sheep and a group of excitable geeks. Most of the first night was spent in the lovely warm kitchen (with an Aga!), drinking and catching up. Katie and Mohawk were there with Maisie, Philip and Kirsty (who did the organising) had brought Lucy in their car, and a little later on Ali and Andrew arrived with Iain and Roddy. Hadn't seen the last two since graduation!
As it had been a quite stressful journey, I drank more wine than was perhaps wise. Still, I went up to bed before it all hit me, curled up, and went to sleep. Then Richie came into the bedroom. The rest is a little fuzzy but his account is basically that when he came in, I got up because I needed to pee, forgot what room I was in, fell against the wall, and then faceplanted the floor. I do recall hitting the floor. Apparently Richie came over to check if I was broken, where I muttered 'No, I'm ok here. Honestly.'
Luckily no bruises have come up on the face, but all my cheekbones felt bruised and awful. Still do now, actually, and that's excluding the carpet burn in my knee. I AM A CLASSY LADY.
(I suppose the most surprising thing is that I felt reasonably well the next day, if you exclude the bit where Katie tried to give me Maisie and I had to respond with 'Auntie Colleen is feeling a bit nauseous now, can we lie down?')
Anyway. Saturday was a lovely day, filled with Doctor Who based anticipation. After breakfast we went for a walk in the cold along the roads, quietly marvelling at how quiet everything was. I definitely couldn't live in the countryside, particularly somewhere that remote, but it was a lovely break for the noisiest thing to be some orange sheep.
We came back to the cottage, I had a hasty nap, and came down to see everyone watching The Silver Nemesis and making predictions for that night's Doctor Who. We were all rammed into the smallest living room in the cottage and it really was something of a Proustian rush. For those of you that weren't reading this journal back when I was in university, I was a member, then Castellan (secretary) and then for two years running President of the university Doctor Who society, or DocSoc for short. It's a very different beast these days, meeting in the big rooms in the union with projectors and extra space. When I started - and indeed, for most of the time I was in charge - we had to meet in a tiny living room in one of the halls, with far too many people squashed in. It was a lovely feeling to have that back, in a room with four ex-Presidents. (Plus a picture of a fifth on the wall, specially taken for the occasion. Claire actually took pictures of herself in her garage, looking confused, to rock the William Hartnell Three Doctors look. We are COOL YO.)
So after Strictly, it was finally time for The Day of the Doctor. I think it's fair to say that no one was disappointed. We laughed, there were some tears, there was gasps and applause at Peter Capaldi's eyes, genuine shock at The Curator, and oh, it was magnificent. I can't do a proper review, I think, I'm not very good at them. We criticised the depiction of London a little ('Is this made by the same people that made Thor 2?'), cheered as Osgood, and just generally oh. It was so wonderful.
Afterwards we facetimed with Tali, Ann and Louise in Leeds (Tali has lovely new living room walls!), ate cake, and watched The Five (ish) Doctors which was a brilliant companion piece. The cameos! Ian McKellen! Matthew Waterhouse exploding! I fully refuse to believe that it isn't Peter, Colin and Sylvester under the sheets in that scene. We actually watched it again on a loop to try and get more injokes.
And then we watched the actual Five Doctors because why not. Plus Andrew did a quiz, in another Proustian rush.
Alas, the partings began the next day. Lucy had to go early, and missed out on Kirsty and I making a roast to a greater or lesser amount of success. The oven decided to try and blow up the beef, resulting in hours of billowing smoke. The ironic part was I wasn't eating it! Still, we managed to successfully feed everyone in the end and went for another walk (look at how healthy we are) to see the Grey Mare's Tail, which is a bit waterfall near to where we were staying. Mosty we learnt that not one of us was cut out for hillwalking...
When we came back, I cracked out the mulled wine and the mince pies, and shortly afterwards Grahame and Katie had to go. ALAS. We then played sardines, which I've never played before. Basically, one person hides and everyone else has to find them. The trick is that when you find them, you have to hide with them. We turned out the lights to make it more difficult, and vaguely hysterical laughs ensued.
Again, though, the partings continued. Frank, Ali, Andrew, Iain and Roddy all left in the next batch, and those of us remaining decided to try and eat everything in the house. Om nom nom. When Philip came back from dropping Frank off at the station, those of us left curled up under blankets to watch An Adventure in Space and Time, which is absolutely brilliant if you've not seen it before. David Bradley is uncanny as William Hartnell. At the end, we were all weeping and in bits.
The thing is though, I slightly drunkenly explained, it's sort of happy tears. When he looks up on his last day in the TARDIS and sees Matt Smith, it feels right. These events that happened 50 years ago - this program that is older than my mother, for goodness sake - is still going on, and we're still here. Almost everyone I know I know because of Doctor Who, because of fandom at large. Not just DocSoc, but livejournal and stuff too. I'm sat in a living room full of Daleks and the TARDIS, at least two Doctor Who posters. I had a Doctor Who wedding, for goodness sake. And it led to me being curled up under a slanket in a cottage in Moffat, feeling safe and warm and full of red wine, watching the telly with my friends. I don't know what more you can ask for. We may not have been having the most dramatic of weekends, but it happened because of this little TV program someone made 50 years ago. Strange to think.
The journey home was much less stressful via not following the satnav, and now it's Wednesday. I'm having a few days off work, which is very exciting. Yesterday I mostly slept, and today I went to Wembley to pick up my blouse for India, which I suppose is the next bit adventure? Tomorrow heralds Christmas shopping, followed neatly by a visit to Ormskirk to see family for 'Christmas'.
And on a final note, I moved into London a year ago today. How strange to think. Where did in the year go?
So, on Friday Richie and I woke up with SPRINGS IN OUR STEPS and RENEWED PURPOSE etc, because we were going on an awesome short break with friends to watch Doctor Who. I mean, dude.
We were even going to have a Road Trip on the way. Chloe and Fiona both live in London, so we were splitting the petrol costs and squashing into my super small car. Fiona was on the insurance for a few days to help with the driving. GOOD TIMES. We set off nice and early, but what we failed to take into account was that a. we were going to quite a remote part of the Scottish Borders and b. my satnav is trying to kill me. Instead of the nice sensible route, we went up the A1. Fun fact: it is nigh on impossible to get consistently above 50 miles an hour on the A1.
... yeah.
Fiona helped with a chunk of the driving up to Newcastle, and I took back over as it got dark. This was particularly fun as we travelled through the Northumberland National Park. Now, I'm sure it's a lovely drive but my car has a small engine, it was PITCH BLACK, and every hill was a blind summit. I kept most of the shrieking internal, fortunately. Plus when we did get to 'you have arrived at your destination!' it was, in fact, a good 30 minutes from our destination. Oh dear.
Still, we arrived to the cottage in the end. The plan for the weekend, basically, was for a chunk of Docsoc alumni to rock up to a remote cottage, geek out and have fun. We got a really, really lovely cottage in the end. Right by a lake, in the middle of a valley, nothing but sheep and a group of excitable geeks. Most of the first night was spent in the lovely warm kitchen (with an Aga!), drinking and catching up. Katie and Mohawk were there with Maisie, Philip and Kirsty (who did the organising) had brought Lucy in their car, and a little later on Ali and Andrew arrived with Iain and Roddy. Hadn't seen the last two since graduation!
As it had been a quite stressful journey, I drank more wine than was perhaps wise. Still, I went up to bed before it all hit me, curled up, and went to sleep. Then Richie came into the bedroom. The rest is a little fuzzy but his account is basically that when he came in, I got up because I needed to pee, forgot what room I was in, fell against the wall, and then faceplanted the floor. I do recall hitting the floor. Apparently Richie came over to check if I was broken, where I muttered 'No, I'm ok here. Honestly.'
Luckily no bruises have come up on the face, but all my cheekbones felt bruised and awful. Still do now, actually, and that's excluding the carpet burn in my knee. I AM A CLASSY LADY.
(I suppose the most surprising thing is that I felt reasonably well the next day, if you exclude the bit where Katie tried to give me Maisie and I had to respond with 'Auntie Colleen is feeling a bit nauseous now, can we lie down?')
Anyway. Saturday was a lovely day, filled with Doctor Who based anticipation. After breakfast we went for a walk in the cold along the roads, quietly marvelling at how quiet everything was. I definitely couldn't live in the countryside, particularly somewhere that remote, but it was a lovely break for the noisiest thing to be some orange sheep.
We came back to the cottage, I had a hasty nap, and came down to see everyone watching The Silver Nemesis and making predictions for that night's Doctor Who. We were all rammed into the smallest living room in the cottage and it really was something of a Proustian rush. For those of you that weren't reading this journal back when I was in university, I was a member, then Castellan (secretary) and then for two years running President of the university Doctor Who society, or DocSoc for short. It's a very different beast these days, meeting in the big rooms in the union with projectors and extra space. When I started - and indeed, for most of the time I was in charge - we had to meet in a tiny living room in one of the halls, with far too many people squashed in. It was a lovely feeling to have that back, in a room with four ex-Presidents. (Plus a picture of a fifth on the wall, specially taken for the occasion. Claire actually took pictures of herself in her garage, looking confused, to rock the William Hartnell Three Doctors look. We are COOL YO.)
So after Strictly, it was finally time for The Day of the Doctor. I think it's fair to say that no one was disappointed. We laughed, there were some tears, there was gasps and applause at Peter Capaldi's eyes, genuine shock at The Curator, and oh, it was magnificent. I can't do a proper review, I think, I'm not very good at them. We criticised the depiction of London a little ('Is this made by the same people that made Thor 2?'), cheered as Osgood, and just generally oh. It was so wonderful.
Afterwards we facetimed with Tali, Ann and Louise in Leeds (Tali has lovely new living room walls!), ate cake, and watched The Five (ish) Doctors which was a brilliant companion piece. The cameos! Ian McKellen! Matthew Waterhouse exploding! I fully refuse to believe that it isn't Peter, Colin and Sylvester under the sheets in that scene. We actually watched it again on a loop to try and get more injokes.
And then we watched the actual Five Doctors because why not. Plus Andrew did a quiz, in another Proustian rush.
Alas, the partings began the next day. Lucy had to go early, and missed out on Kirsty and I making a roast to a greater or lesser amount of success. The oven decided to try and blow up the beef, resulting in hours of billowing smoke. The ironic part was I wasn't eating it! Still, we managed to successfully feed everyone in the end and went for another walk (look at how healthy we are) to see the Grey Mare's Tail, which is a bit waterfall near to where we were staying. Mosty we learnt that not one of us was cut out for hillwalking...
When we came back, I cracked out the mulled wine and the mince pies, and shortly afterwards Grahame and Katie had to go. ALAS. We then played sardines, which I've never played before. Basically, one person hides and everyone else has to find them. The trick is that when you find them, you have to hide with them. We turned out the lights to make it more difficult, and vaguely hysterical laughs ensued.
Again, though, the partings continued. Frank, Ali, Andrew, Iain and Roddy all left in the next batch, and those of us remaining decided to try and eat everything in the house. Om nom nom. When Philip came back from dropping Frank off at the station, those of us left curled up under blankets to watch An Adventure in Space and Time, which is absolutely brilliant if you've not seen it before. David Bradley is uncanny as William Hartnell. At the end, we were all weeping and in bits.
The thing is though, I slightly drunkenly explained, it's sort of happy tears. When he looks up on his last day in the TARDIS and sees Matt Smith, it feels right. These events that happened 50 years ago - this program that is older than my mother, for goodness sake - is still going on, and we're still here. Almost everyone I know I know because of Doctor Who, because of fandom at large. Not just DocSoc, but livejournal and stuff too. I'm sat in a living room full of Daleks and the TARDIS, at least two Doctor Who posters. I had a Doctor Who wedding, for goodness sake. And it led to me being curled up under a slanket in a cottage in Moffat, feeling safe and warm and full of red wine, watching the telly with my friends. I don't know what more you can ask for. We may not have been having the most dramatic of weekends, but it happened because of this little TV program someone made 50 years ago. Strange to think.
The journey home was much less stressful via not following the satnav, and now it's Wednesday. I'm having a few days off work, which is very exciting. Yesterday I mostly slept, and today I went to Wembley to pick up my blouse for India, which I suppose is the next bit adventure? Tomorrow heralds Christmas shopping, followed neatly by a visit to Ormskirk to see family for 'Christmas'.
And on a final note, I moved into London a year ago today. How strange to think. Where did in the year go?
