Kizzia Mildmay

And the words are Clickety-clickety-clickety-Woo-Woo!

Yes, you guessed it, another train related posting, this time one written on the way home from a day working in London. It should be noted that I had been up since 4am in order to reach London for a spritely 8am, and fell asleep attempting to post it last night, so please excuse all mistakes the resulting exhaustion undoubtedly caused (I have been through it today but I’m still knackered and therefore do not hold out much hope for my self-editing abilities).

My working day in London was manic but valuable, however the best bit of the day was once I’d finished my last meeting and was able to schlep across town to the Barbican to meet up with Wendy (AtlinMerrick) for a coffee and a gossip, and have my copy of her book of Sherlock short stories – The Day They Met – signed in person. And be hugged. The hugging was my favourite bit!

Writing wise, well, after my little list of accountability last week I have … failed to get what I wanted to do done at the weekend. But I did write, producing 2k words on Sunday, which was nice.

Continuing on the positives, I’ve hit a few milestones on AO3 recently which, whilst puny compared to the fandom famous fic authors with major followings, are incredibly significant to me. One fic reached 400 kudos, the first of my fics to break this barrier, plus my cumulative kudos on everything I’ve shared on there (meta and fic alike) went over the 5,000 barrier. I am also 96 words away from having posted 200k words of fic and meta since I joined AO3 in 2012. All of which makes me a very happy bunny.

In film and theatre news, Cat and I went to the cinema on Monday, to see a screening of the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Hamlet, with Maxine Peake in the title role. As I am want to do, I’ve reviewed it here, but if you want a quick opinion: glorious, Maxine owned the role and gave me shivers. If they broadcast it again, go!

I am also (and I’m saying this really, really quietly, just in case) feeling a little bit better. My joints are aching less and my head doesn’t feel quite so full of cotton wool and confusion when I get home from work. I’m celebrating by doing an extremely gentle happy dance and ignoring the sore throat I’ve now had for three days.

Saturday was World Poetry Day so I shared a recently discovered and now favourite of mine (Break by Colette Byrne) and also recorded myself reading the glorious English Pronunciation poem. If you’d like a laugh at me stumbling over various words I use all the time when I write but rarely say aloud, or simply want to know what my voice sounds like, the recording is here.

The weekend also involved dog walking in the woods (as opposed to round the local streets, which is the only sort of dog walking that has been happening recently thanks to me being poorly), watching Richard III get buried, and gardening. Whilst Spring doesn’t appear to be living up to its name and is merely creeping in slowly this year, there are now blossoms and new shoots and promise. Which really does make such a difference to my mood. So, for those of you who are still knee deep in snow, I thought I’d share a few photos in the hopes they keep your spirits up too:

Dog, as is her want, assisted with the gardening and, since I know that her doings are the highlight of these weekly updates for those who read them, I took a little video of her “weeding” the border:

Now I must go and try to make some headway with my to-write list, ahead of a) my live tweeting of the Musketeers finale and b) Saturday when I will not be writing much at all, as I’m meeting up with a friend in London to see James McAvoy in Ruling Class. Which is nice.