Welcome to my perfumed garden

Not just any Friday, either. BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND my darlings! The skies may be leaden but we can dance naked in the rain, give the neighbours a thrill/shock/embolism.

The debates are over, let us be happy my loves.

Take you on a gorgeous ride across the Wonders of the f****** Solar System.  A delicious spoof , amusingly sweary and just the thing for April Fool's.

Giggle a bit and buck up, my lovelies, just one more day till the weekend, a massively extended Easter! weekend no less with  warm, buttered hot cross buns and simnel cake and unfeasable quantities of chocolate and new! Doctor Who and Jonathan Creek with Paul McGann!!!

Let us don our sightly-too-small laughing trousers and the comfy, stain'ed underpants of manifold-delights, cock a merry snook at the wind and the snow, ring out the bells and sing hosanna for the potential for joy be mighty indeed. ::nods wisely::

In short, yes, I have had something of a trying week but I am drawing a veil and contemplating a weekend of chocolate, resolving to be glad and - where have the location and music boxes gone* and why is it sunny and snowing at the same time?

*They're back! And I just had a go at that tempting little 'detect' facility and it says I'm in London. How amusingly eccentric is LJ? Answer, very.

Jo Brand, Sean Locke and David Mitchell on QI*

Yes, it's FRIDAY!, people, let us rejoice and be happy. Permission to make a kissy face and smooch you all most mercilessly...?

* Didn't Stephen enjoy saying 'doing a stretch'? Bless his Paul Smith cashmere socks.

No embed. Here be linky.

It's FRIDAY! It is, isn't it? I'm still working on me book at the moment, just stopped for a reviving double-latte + chocolate (yes, I did need that much caffeine). Book's coming on, I'd like to finish chapter 17 before I crack open the cheese and olives and walnut bread and cock my snook at the rain.

As you were. We shall, no doubt, speak later.

Oooh. A blackbird just suddenly started singing. Has the rain stopped then? (answer, no)

Don't worry, this is not one of those long, angsty RL-SUKZ! type entries, just something of an apology I suppose, a rather low-key (and somewhat dull) FRIDAY! post if you will.

( Cut in the interest of the disinterested )

I'm remiss in the extreme in my contributions to picspamyou_2009  and worst of all, my long absences from LJ mean I've missed talking to you lovely people. I've missed a fair few birthdays too for which I'm very sorry, most especially that darling delight of a human Earthling  the4ts . I hope your day was perfection, sugarbutton. I'm sorry I took my eye off the ball and missed you completely. Please have some very belated kisses in the flavour of your choosing. XXXXXXX

and bringeth succour to all prevaricators.

Mark and I had an exchange of views inspired by watching the highly animated Alan Haven in The Music of Lennon and McCartney
Got worms from the look of it, poor chap
Is that what happens when you get worms, go ape shit crazy on a Hammond organ?
Or piles.
Must’ve been sitting on a cold step. You’d think his mother would know better than to let him.

Gosh, the flare on that guitar is so nostalgic, you don't see black and white, 405 line weirdness like that these days, deed you don't. Marianne Faithfull looks exactly like Marina off Stingray, she even moves her head like there are strings attached. I'm on a mid-sixties thing now and feel the sudden need to watch Tomb of the Cybermen, or maybe Bedazzled - the real one, not that thing with Brendon thingy and whatserface.

No, I haven't been drinking even though it is FRIDAY! my darling dearios. May it shine like a great shiny orb for you all. Permission to blow kisses!. XXX

Just finished the first rough (very) draft of the pivotal, oh so that's why that happened then and she said that and all the rest of it. OK - chapter of Entanglement. 2,590 words though it felt much longer when I was working on it. Three more chapters to write...

Let's repeat that, because it feels so good.

Three more chapters to write and then the plotly bits will all be done! ::laughs at the sky like a mad loon:: There's still a ton to do but when the story is set out, I can piece it all together, identify the bits that need expanding and start filling the many holes. It's getting there. Currenly 125,000 words - still hoping to complete the first draft by early June.

The TS fic Blue is now a chapter from completion (two weeks still to go, it's only one chapter but it's a gosh-darned long one). The first 320 pages are already with the betas, bless their kind and patient hearts - so that's almost done now. I can hardly believe it. It will leave a hole in my life that I'm certain I shall find very easy to fill.:o)

It's been a funny old week, mostly consisting of toiling at the coal face of m'novel, endless housework and fist fights with the WI. I'm already feeling fragile and still so much to do today; a sitting room to clean, a father to feed and water, a work-out to complete - but at the end of it, a chilled bottie of Pinot Grigio, a delightfully runny Cornish brie, a tub of Greek olives and some of my favourite creamy garlic pasta await, for it be FRIDAY! my fluffy young chickens of luuurve! Let us give thanks and dance naked in the rain, if only metaphorically for even in our joy, there are others to consider.

I've already started sprinkling the weekend glitter, how about you?

No need for comment. :o) Just taking a well-deserved (oh babies, you have NO idea! *G*) break with a cup of soothing Russian Caravan before pressing on with the rest of the day and I see it's been a while since I updated my writerly progress and - hey, it's Friday! and I need a moment of distraction and prevarication so -

Where I'm at.
Entanglement - got a bit neglected as I dealt with life while writing a mega-chapter of TS fic, then had to tackle a mysterious character who wasn't giving it up at all well but we're back on track now. I've been working on the central character's history which is coming along pleasingly. I found a new character in the form of the slightly mad and Catweazle-like 'Old Jammy'; Old Jammy – named for his fondness for preserves and the sticky mess of it on his coat and beard. All summer long he was a martyr to wasps... Which was good.

As of this morning, 111,294 words, est. 57% done and still aiming to have the 1st draft done by midsummer.

The TS fic called Blue - got a  bit behind due to hanging out with a bunch of doxies all Easter but the last, massive chapter brings it to: 106,643 words, and est. 90% complete. Just 2, maybe 3 more chapters to go on that and she's DONE! Betas - bless you both, I haven't forgotten and shall send the story-so-far to you after I've done this.

OK. Break is really more than over and I must press on. I wish you all a delightful Friday! and a weekend to come of near-unbearable, glittering fabulousness and shall see you all later, perhaps, when all the dull stuff is finally done and we can dance naked 'neath the moon and sing 'It is the weekend and BANK HOLIDAY Weekend! at that. Let us praise all the Gods that preside over transient and fortuitous connections and worshipped by those least excellent of mankind! Oh yes indeedy!

Yes it is! And what a night on t' telly! HIGNFY, Genius, Jonathan Ross and new! REGGIE PERRIN! Reviews are mixed but I'm excited.

Sorry about all the X!camation marks but hey, FRIDAY! Praise all the Gods and sing hosannah!

Oh! oh no! Not this again. Oh dear god, Gordon, please - don't smile!

ETA: Bloody heck, this Miley Cyrus bird has to be THE most FANTASTICALLY annoying human being on the planet. Please can she be gone asap, she's doing my bloody head in!

ETA2: Spandau Ballet squee!

And I may have committed shopping in Booths. There may be cheese, olives and crusty bread in my kitchen. Not saying there is, mind, merely that there might be. There might also be a brace of chocolate bunnies in there too, but that's a whole other story.

Booths was exciting today – I mean, Booths always is of course :o)  full of good things and smelling sweetly of fresh-baked ginger snaps and hyacinths - but today, especially so due to an outbreak of sweet old ladies. Really nice, genteel, blue-rinsed creatures of the old-school in tweed skirts and angora cardis, brooches and little hats and sensible shoes with tassels – briskly pushing their mini-carts filled with brandy snaps and teacake and proper butter and Lancashire cheese, conversing with each other, getting lost and confused and blocking all the aisles.It’s been a long time since I’ve seen quite so many well-to-do elderly females in one location together. Most amusing and quite made my day.

And musing on what one might call such a grouping? A confusion of old lovelies? A perm of biddies? A conundrum of old dears…?

In other news. Curry's have also been passed through and it seems I suddenly posses a new laptop. A Compaq CQ60; 1.6g HD, 4g memory, a speedy little number described by its makers as 'trendy' which is delightfully scampish of them. It lacks the cinematic quality sound (and adorable volume control) and the slender, Nimble-Girl lightness of dearly-beloved old Toshy but is undoubtedly a bright shiny creature of enormous speed, power and potency. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually ::sigh::

And I’ve ordered unusual tea from here and been to Bygone Times to buy beeswax and talk to Carpentry Man about some shelves and Chorley Market for cheese and the little crunchy dog-wotsits we choose to call dog toffee. I'm so not a shopping person so it's good to get it all out of the way.

::clears throat, adopts pose, Frankie Howerd voice:: For yea! Lo and verilee! Tis FRIDAY! my lovelies.

Squee and the universe squees with you. ::two fingers up, but not like that::