Time flys by when your the driver of a Train.

It must be a bullet train that I’m in command of hurtling through time at a rate of months per second. Turned round to Rach the other day and idly said I’ld be done on some task or another by March, and she gently pointed out that it was already the middle of March!!! Now were in the final straights of March, whoooosh!


Last weekend went over to Sheffield to visit Brother George on the Saturday. Got there eventually 5 hours after I had set out, because those thoughtful nice people on the rail service had decided to do work on the Manc-Sheff line over the weekend. So I was on an hourly 2 hour bus via Snakepass winding through the Pennines with the students madly texting their friends. Had a quick chat with deputy_dug and then sent pictures of cat poo to keefybabe using my new shiny camera phone. Got in at 10. Had a quick pint with George straight off the bus, then had a quick tour of his Art Studio, which for an aspiring artist is right next to aforementioned pub. Then we taxied it over to a pub that was open until 2. Defiantly a pub that time forgot full of dodgy blokes so I fitted straight in. Many pints of nice Moonshine ( a local real ale ) was downed before a late bed time.

Next day defiantly went through the whole “I am I going to be sick, I am I not going to be sick” routine with my body. Many cups of tea were downed and a lovely quorn sausage sandwich put me well on the road to recovery once my stomach had settled. Then it was time to head off to tzunder‘s in the wilds around Barnsley. As the snow began to settle had a stroke of luck since my mate Graham who was also headed that way was just round the corner and came to pick me up in the car. Met the lovely Simon, who also works as a web programmer so we compared notes about the Travelling man website, and then picked up Darran Sims from the train station. The reasoning behind this gathering of gamers was to play test the new edition of RuneQuest that Mongoose publishing is putting out this summer. Tom’s place is amazing. I spent a good half an hour bedazzled by the size of it. We sat in a cavern of a front room, with a plasma screen embedded in the far wall. We had a quick committee meeting about Furnace (www.rpgfurnace.com remember that URL kids and come along in Oct!) and then got down to the painful process of playtesting RQ. Painful because in its current form it is so badly broken and lacking focus as a game. Anyhoos it was fun to see everyone and have a good session of geeking. Then hoped it back over the Pennines via the Penistone line and Huddersfield (since I feared the Snakepass bus would be snowed under) back to the homestead and a much relived Rach.

Here’s some pictures I took with my phone camera.

Last week was very much slowly getting over the finishing line. On Friday I made live the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery, www.ukchmn.org which I’ve been working on on and off for the last three months. Not a 100% happy on the design, but I’m am proud that this is the first site that I’ve done professionally from the ground up. Also its always nice to write stuff using php/mysql. Previously I’ve already had the CSS style sheets and graphics from the designers. Also on Friday we completed on the house in Leeds, so there is no turning back and its off our hands as a financial burden.

This weekend just gone was a reasonably productive one at home. Got the wireless Internet set up and working smoothly. Played some Guildwars and talked to Ginger Matt (who is playing wayyyyyyyy too much Guildwars at the mo) via Skype. Finished off the Intro to my Monkey rpg and passed it to the pedants/playtesters. Got everything that is coming into the house out of the garage and put away. Went to Upper Mills, just outside of Oldham, to a lovely Real Ale pub, had a pint of Hobgoblin and on Sat night went to for an Italian with Rach in Oldham to celebrate the sale of the Leeds house.

This week I’m cracking on with more of the same, unpacking and sorting and getting my finger out and delivering websites that have been talked about for months.

Feeling good rocking hard!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *