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Whoosh what a rush of days... despite being ill over the weekend, it was nice to chill out at home and catch up on sleep and just generally laze around. I’m probably halfway through Call of Duty 4 now. And it was very cool to wake up one morning and see snow falling past the window.

The weekend also marked 3 years of me putting up with buddleia… wait, scratch that and reverse it…  and it was snowing in March when we first kissed, To celebrate we went down to Brighton for a couple of days and stayed in this boutique hotel - The Hotel Pelirocco – surely the coolest hotel in Brighton. And this was our room… THE PIN UP PARLOUR - inspired by the British Pin-up star Diana Dors (I’d never heard of her) it was a kitsch explosion in a feather boa factory staffed by cat ladies. And the hotel had lovely staff, was in sight of the beautiful shining sea, and they also served the most perfect scrambled eggs I’ve ever tasted… slightly creamy without being gooey, on a toasted doorstep chunk of wholewheat toast with tiny snippets of salty bacon, and gentle shavings of a coarse mature farmhouse cheddar. Mmm.

We spent our days wisely… on Easter Monday we mooched around a bit, then met up with blankbadgeand a couple of other friends for some drinks, and then a nice Chinese. (I had the duck in plum sauce).

The next two days were languid and genteel and spent doing very little. Food, cocktails, strolling around being blasted by the sea air... Before we left, I bought some great chocolates from Montezuma’s (best chocolate shop in Brighton, although it has some very elegant competition), a Darth Vader keychain, some comics, some book, some exciting red shoes for buddleia, and a model of Vader’s Tie Fighter, which I swore over when we got back but now fits together (mostly).

The weather was brittle cold but with occasional sun, and Brighton was a sweet temptress luring me back. Why did I move again?

Over the long weekend I also: read Star Wars Legends (thanks beccatoria!) which I strongly recommend… best Star Wars story in any media I’ve seen in a long time, and made me all excited about the Star Wars Universe again… watched The Orphanage which is stunning and beautiful and dark and terrifying and (even rarer) subtly emotionally devastating. Just as good as Pan’s Labyrinth, and just as likely to leave me weeping at the humanity afterwards.

Today I am mostly very angry… I’m not really sure why. I had a bad night’s sleep, interrupted by a nightmare that kept me up for about an hour, but I think it’s more likely to be a result of watching Southland Tales last night. Hadn’t seen it before, although I had been looking forward to it. What can I say? It’s not that it was a bad film – although it was, it was terrible! – more that I found it a tremendous disappointment. It had good elements, visuals, characters… somewhere in there was a great film struggling to breathe free. But it was slaughtered, butchered, and stillborn by an execrable execution… just bizarre editing, awful convulsive plot, and a wretched and limp script and direction. What on EARTH was he thinking?! It actually left me very frustrated and angry. I was fuming when I went to bed. It could’ve been really good. But no. It was crap.

This webcomic is really making me laugh at the moment – LOTR the D&D… what would happen if you tried to get a modern D&D group to play through the LOTR campaign? Possibly only funny if you have roleplaying experience :)

That’ll have to be it I’m afraid… I’m all too aware that my posts recently have only just been long enough to let you know what I’ve been up to, without my thoughts and reflections and gooshy emotions. Believe me, as soon as I get some time for reflection, I’ll muse on! But work internet restrictions, as well as (alas) the time deficit in my life at the moment make this difficult… Ah well.

I say Roll On Spring like a lion on a joyride.

Next week: Boobies! Beards! Hotel Kitsch! 42! And a curiously shaped egg!