Yes, well, I know I’ve been very bad and not posted for a while. Y’all can take turns on who gets to flog me first.

So, let’s see, where should I begin? It was probably mid-November since I talked to you so I was probably behind on NaNo word count…did I even talk about Martinmas Moot yet? (just checked, nope, it was before, so let me start back ever FARTHER than I thought I needed to)

Martinmas was fun. At first I wasn’t sure because I had no definite need to be there, etc. and many friends were not there, but it turned out to be very fun indeed. Seeing the coronation of Gaston & Judith was quite interesting (pastry, anyone?) and crown lyst was entertaining as well. I discovered that watching general heavy fighting is very different from watching something like a crown lyst where the participants are really strategizing and thinking about their blows rather than the frantic flailings of what I’d seen before. The lyst ended a smidge late and I rushed off to the Art/Sci meeting, then a little scribing before court and feast.

Dancing after feet was sparsely attended, though we did have one newcomer to last the evening with us and Eoin tossed out some new-to-me dances that I really liked! One I can’t remember the name but the other is Tourdion and it is relatively simple but SO much fun to dance. Both dances were in response to the no-skipping request of the newcomer, Angus, who then accompanied us in to see the SCATV skit and then invited Theodora and I to the Crimson Fist party. Theodora demurred but I decided it sounded like fun and ended up staying up all the functional night sitting around the fire listening to all sorts of stories. Round about 5am the last person hit the hay and I decided to go ahead and get a shower and read until it was light enough to pack up and drive back. Stupid. Stu-pid. Freaking worst idea of my life. There was no hot water in the shower trailer. None. I cursed an ice-blue streak as the frigid water sluiced over me.

I think I got about 45 minutes of sleep after that before getting up, breaking down the tent, and heading back to Tallahassee. Made pretty good time, too, getting off I-1o right at 1pm in plenty of time to make it to the airport. I got home, unloaded the car and put on the ankle brace I bought to support my left ankle. While dancing gracca amorosa slowly to demonstrate I planted my left foot poorly and wrenched the ligament. Though twingy I was careful and just finished out the nice as usual, but the next morning it was swollen and painful. Sigh…

So the flight. Well, the first one was a short hop from Tallahassee to Atlanta, 45 minutes in the air, and I handled it well. I was stuck in the middle seat so had to battle a smidge of claustrophobia but it was managable. All I could think was ‘just keep swallowing’ and ‘hey, this feels like a roller coaster and you like roller coasters, this is nothing’ trying to convince myself. We had about an hour and a half layover in Atlanta, luckily did not have to change terminals and only had to walk a few gates down. The next leg of the trip was three hours and I had a window seat. It was dark though, so not at all disconcerting and we made it to Boston without incident.

After picking up the rental car we headed for Plymouth. Well, actually, we headed for Rhode Island and were nearly to Providence when we realized we had missed a turn (or made a turn when we should have gone straight). I quipped that I had declined to drive so as to AVOID a ‘how I got lost in New England’ story and it still happened! Of course, it was about 11ish by this time and I was going on 45 minutes and 1 Code Red so started to droop and finally snooze while Adam got us to the hotel.

Training went well, we finished a little early on day 2 and a lot early on day 3 which gave us time to site-see around Plymouth. Oh the walking. And oh, the food. I think that’s an entry for another night, but let me just say: Mangotini.

The planes back were fine, I snoozed off and on but couldn’t really sleep. Got back to town pretty much on time without incident, picked up the dog and spent the next week and a half trying to recover both my ankle and my lost sleep and productivity.

More tomorrow/Friday, it’s late enough by the time this little bit gets put up. Trust me, it gets interesting.