all made up with nowhere to go

I finally bought some Ohuhu markers! I have wanted some of these for literal years, as a lot of the artists on youtube that I watch use them, and seem to really rate them.

The last time I thought seriously about getting them, they only had a warehouse in Germany, so I was worried about getting hit with customs charges. They now have at least one warehouse in the UK, and the nearest one to me is Manchester, so I ordered them one morning, and they arrived the next day! (Manchester is the closest city to me). So that was a really nice surprise!

Also the last time I looked, the markers weren't refillable - and admittedly the range of refills is small at the moment, but it's getting bigger. So that's also nice!

I got the set of sixty, which feels like WAY TOO MANY, but also at the same time, not enough, lol. I wanted to get the pastel set, but I didn't know if I'd like them, so decided on this one instead (I can always get the pastel ones at a later date). It has a good range of colours, which is good - the ranges you get are also set now, so that means you don't double up on anything unless you buy, say, a bigger set than the one you already own. They also sell individual markers now, but they are more expensive than if you buy the sets (I guess that makes sense, since I think they'd prefer you buy the sets and the refills).

But also talking of alcohol markers, I am really narked about the Spectrum Noir ones I bought. I spent almost as much money on them as I just did on the Ohuhu ones (for only a third as many pens). I opted for those because they were refillable, but you can't get the refills in the UK! Which I didn't know at the time I got them! And I've had them just over two years and they've dried up, for the most part (some of them were dried up when I got them). And I don't like the shape of the barrels - the hexagon shape is great because it doesn't roll when you put the pen down, but it's really awkward to hold, and I found it very uncomfortable to use the pens.

Like, even the cheap Deco Time markers I got from B&M weren't as shit as that! Granted a couple of them look like there's barely any dye in the alcohol, but at least they work!

Anyway, enough complaining! I am, thus far, happy with the Ohuhu ones.

~

In other news, I have installed and started playing FFVII Remake! I am currently about three hours in, in chapter 3!

I love how AMAZING everyone looks! Especially Barret! And Aerith looks so pretty! ♥

( spoilers! )

I keep getting distracted by the music, though! I'm sure I've missed a couple of important things - I have the Japanese voice track on, so if I don't read the subtitles, it goes right over my head. I'd like to say I do know what's going on, but I know things don't play out exactly the same way as in the original (I don't know many spoilers, but I do know a couple of big(?) ones. One I've already spotted foreshadowing for, and I shouldn't really know about that at this point (whoops) ).

Anyway, I'm liking it so far, even if some of the mechanics do feel a bit overboard. That may be because I'm not used to them yet, though. We'll see.

So 2024 continues to be an absolute shit shower.

I have had a terrible week.

I was sexually harassed by someone I've known since I was a teenager. He didn't do more than try to kiss me while he was absolutely shitfaced (at 6pm! On a weekday!), but the fact that he did it at all/thought I'd even be into it is appalling. Next time I see him, I'm going to tell him I never want to speak to him ever again.

I also want to kick him in the nuts, hard, but I know I wouldn't, because I'm soft as shit. I talk big, but I never follow through.

AND THEN. I wasn't going to talk about this at all. BUT. There is a grown ass man who has been flirting with me, non-verbally, for fucking months at this point. And now I know why it's all been non-verbal. I found out yesterday he's already in a relationship with someone else. I had thought for several months that he was single, and he's never mentioned his partner before now (well, why would he). I know I'm not wrong about this, because the way he behaves around me is not how you should be if you're in a relationship with someone else.

(And it's not even that he's an incorrigible flirt, either, because he doesn't act this way around anyone else BUT me. Unlike the other guy from months back).

But yeah, yesterday one of my co-workers was making general chitchat with him, and I heard him say he was going away somewhere with his partner and OH BOY AM I GLAD I WASN'T LOOKING AT HIM AT THE TIME HE SAID IT.

So I am sort of confused, but mostly very angry with him right now. I don't want to kick him in the nuts as much as the other guy, but I wouldn't pass up the opportunity, let's say.

I don't have a decent way to end this. It's been a fucking week, it will probably continue to be so. 2024 can get in the fucking bin.

# My local bus company has changed the bus times and they are ridiculous. I won't rant about it here because it's boring, but suffice to say, nobody I know is happy about it.

# My sister in law took me to Accrington last week for a day out. It isn't particularly the most exciting place in the world, but I had never been, and all we were going for was mooching around the charity shops. So it did us fine for that, and we were home in time for my nephew coming home from school.

I got belated birthday cards, and also some money from them, which I was not expecting. I have finally bought Susan Briscoe's Boro book with some it, and I am maybe going to spend some of the rest on some more felting supplies*.

(*I had a bit of a breakthrough with that, yay! More below).

# So yeah, felting. I was feeling a bit like I'd wasted my money on the kit I bought because I did a bit and then didn't use it any more. But it was partly because I didn't really know what I was doing. Then I watched a video by Sarah Homfrey, where she was talking about slow stitching spirals, and I was like, "I like circles, let's just make loads of felt circles until I feel like I have the hang of this some more!" And so that is what I've been doing!

Granted, I haven't been doing many, because I got distracted by slow stitching some spirals, and also a pattern on a bigger piece of cloth, but I did some and that's what counts!

# I also did some more sorting in the front bedroom, and found an absolute stash of variegated threads (47 skeins!) that I didn't know existed. I felt bad separating them from the embroidery they were with, but I am never going to do it, and at least they'll get used this way. (Also the needle in with them was extremely rusted, so it's safe to say they'd been sitting there for at least twenty years, heh).

And I found three eight inch hoops, one of which was on the aforementioned embroidery, so that was good/a nice surprise.

# I did a bunch of scanning that has been piling up since November last year (oops), so there will be some sketchblog updates soon! Some of it is embroideries I have done, and I am thinking about making prints from some of them. I don't know if anyone will be interested in that, but given it's over a year since I put anything in my shop, at least it's something to update there with?

# I think this is all I have to say for now, so I shall leave this entry here and go and do something else instead!

I have FIVE invite codes for Bluesky, in case anyone is interested and wants one? Just let me know and I'll DM you one.

~

I am in the middle of a week off work! \o/

I've had headaches or migraines for most of the time so far, not helped by a doctor's appointment I had yesterday, but I'll talk about that more in a minute.

I went to Bury with my sister in law on Tuesday, and we mooched around the charity shops, as that was the reason for going. I found myself some CDs, as well as a book from 2004 about artist journals that could easily have been published today, because the content is very similar to stuff I see online and in more recent books.

Anyway, I had a good time, and me and my sister in law agreed that we ought to do this sort of thing again.

Then yesterday, I had two outings that easily both could have been phonecalls. One was for in work support, which is fine, but there's not a lot they can do for me right now (and why it could have been a phonecall instead of an hour each way bus trip for a ten minute appointment).

The other was a doctor's appointment, which I will put under a cut because there's a bit of explaining to do.

( Read more... )

Anyway, then I was so knackered from all the to-ing and fro-ing and worrying that I literally came home, ate my tea, and then went to bed.

And then it was today.

Not a lot has been going on otherwise, aside from work, which is continuing to go okay, and I'm still chipping away at Persona 5 Royal (wherein I want the main storyline to be done so I can go ???? at the new content), and that has been my life more or less for the last few weeks.

Firstly, huge apologies for the next Post Once A Day being late again! I have had a horrible couple of days regarding a delivery, which stressed me t f out, and then just tired from other stuff, not limited to, but including work and looking for work.

But yeah, the delivery. If you guessed it involved cat litter again, you would be 100% correct! I ordered some last weekend, and booked the delivery date for the 19th, as it was the only day where I would be home all day.

Only it didn't turn up on the day I'd booked for because apparently it was a temp driver doing the deliveries, and they decided at some point that they couldn't be arsed to do a bunch of them. I found this out the next day when I actually got the delivery (from a non-temp driver, who was as fuming about it as I was). But at least it got here in the end, although I'm still mad, because I had to ring work and tell my boss I couldn't go in, and I felt really bad about it.

Secondly, Oxboxtra/Eurogamer/Dicebreaker did a massive stream of Goose Goose Duck, which is an Among Us clone, but distinctly more avian, and with more options. ANYWAY. I watched the Oxbox stream when it was live, but went back to catch up on the others and, while I was watching Oxtra's, I saw someone from my new favourite streamer's chat!* I wouldn't have noticed at all (I don't usually read the chat), but that I glanced at the screen and saw a familiar and distinctive name. It was so weird. Like. Sometimes I will see people whose names I recognise from OX/EG/DB chats/comments on other stuff, but I've never seen someone from Flembons' chat show up elsewhere.

Thirdly, I don't have a third thing, because I feel like I've been very busy, and thus very tired, and so I don't have a lot to say.



*His name is Flembons, and that is how I shall refer to him henceforth.

~

So yeah, this was supposed to go up on the 20th and, as you can see, it is now the 22nd, but my brain has been absolute mush.

honigfrosch asked me: Do you have a favourite spot to visit nearby? How would you describe it to someone who's never been there?

There are lots of places near me that I like to visit because I am very lucky to live in a) the countryside and b) a really nice bit of it, with lots of interesting places around.

I've been having a think about this, and the answer off the top of my head is the hillside behind my house. Primarily because it's easy to climb (I live in a valley and the other side is steep a f - I have tried to get up it, but I did not have a good time). When you get to the top, you can see my entire village below you, and the surrounding area, including massive stretches of moorland on both sides, plus the pine tree forest on the one hillside. Also if you look down into the trees behind my house from that point, I used to think that that was what the Wood Between Worlds in The Magician's Nephew looked like.

But that feels like a cheat because I haven't been up there in years, and it's a really easy answer.

So my actual answer is that there's a largish stream running through woodland further along the hillside - it's not actually that far from civilisation, but when you are there, in among the trees, you can't hear the cars on the road, and it feels really magical. It's just you, and the birds, and any other woodland animals out there - that's where I made a recording of the birds last summer.

The stream runs down from the top of the hill. The banks either side are densely lined with trees. It gives me Lost vibes, even though I am obviously not in Hawaii. There's a lot of rocks in the river, and a small bridge so you can cross at one of the wider parts. If you go the way I usually do, you have to descend some steps to get to the river, that probably had stones on once, but they've been long gone. When I was a teenager, there were horses kept in the field next to the stream, but they're also long gone, and the field is overgrown with ferns and brambles now.

It feels really peaceful there, which is kind of interesting, given it's a popular dog walking route - I haven't been up there and not run into someone else in a long time.

But it is absolutely the sort of place I think fae shenanigans would happen - I once started writing a story where said thing happened, and I was thinking of that wood and stream at the time.

I dunno how good of a description this is! I really don't know what else to say about it (please feel free to ask further questions!) Also apologies again for being late.

My x-ray results came back normal, so there is nothing physically wrong with my joints, which I guess is good news. I also have all my blood test results back, with the following concerns: full blood count, liver function, and vitamin D. I have been advised to take vitamin D supplements, so I'm doing that, and have been for a week. It seems to be going better than the last time I was asked to take it, anyway.

I have to get a phone appointment, and all the bookable ones are gone already (as was the case when I was first asked to make one), and trying to get one on the day is...difficult. I know it's not the surgery's fault but it's flipping frustrating.

~

Talking of frustrating, I made an order of cat litter/food, and for whatever reason, the courier has decided to hold my order hostage.

It was supposed to come on 1/12. It is now 4/12, and all I can get from the courier is, "Whoops, it's been delayed!" Which is very unhelpful.

Now. I get they may be short on drivers for various reasons, but also: I ordered that litter because I was running out and needed to have it soonish. I live in the middle of nowhere, and I do not drive. This is really fucking inconvenient.

So I had to go out on Friday, run round the entirety of the town (almost) to find the right bloody cat litter, because my cat will only use wood pellets, and there is a shortage at the moment. And then I ended up buying the same bloody expensive litter from the same place I ordered from, because that's the only place I could find it. I don't have the money for this! Because of the courier's...whatever...it's actually ended up costing more for cat litter this month than it usually does. I'm really fucking annoyed.

(It's usually DPD who deliver my cat litter, and I have no probs with them, but very occasionally it will be someone else, and that's generally when the problems happen).

~

In other news, I've barely done any drawing for the last month, because I've been busy thinking about/attending medical appointments, and making collages, and doing some sorting through stuff in the house.

So I sat down to do a drawing the other afternoon, and it felt really weird! I've done a couple more since then, and it still feels a bit odd. It hasn't felt this weird for a loooong time. I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of it, but I feel weirdly rusty right now.

~

Finally, I watched a video called How Inscryption Toys With You, which is a really interesting look at how some of the narrative mechanics work, and I thought it was really neat! It contains spoilers for the entire game, so maybe don't watch it if you haven't played/experienced it. But I thought I would share, because I found it interesting.

This past weekend can get in the fucking bin.

I had planned to do a whole bunch of stuff on Saturday, that mostly involved my computer/the internet. The universe, it seems had other plans.

For whatever reason, I now get texts to tell me when there's been a power cut in the area. Sometimes that's hilarious, because I'm out of the house, and I get a text telling me it's been fixed ten minutes later. Sometimes, however, I get them during the night. As I did in the early hours of Saturday morning.

I eventually decided to be awake after the second one, as I was worried perhaps it was someone trying to get in touch with me for something urgent. Not that a power cut isn't important, but there's not much I can do, you know?

So there'd been a storm on Friday night/Saturday morning, and there was thunder, lightning, and whole shed load of snow overnight. And it had knocked the power out through various means. Okay fine.

The power hiccuped around six am, on and off, and then, dear reader, it was off till almost 4pm that day. Which meant I couldn't do anything I'd planned to do, and I had no heating, and it was not a warm day. My phone battery was running out, so I didn't dare use that more than I needed to (although I discovered my portable charger had some remaining charge in it, so I could have at least used that, if I'd needed to). All in all, it was a very stressful and tiring day.

And then Sunday was okay, to start with. I got the bus to work okay, except it was bloody freezing because it was minus temps (in °C) even at 9am.

And then it started snowing later in the morning, and it snowed quite heavily. Eventually I rang my area manager and told him I was going to have to go home because I didn't know how clear the roads were, and whether the buses would still be running come home time proper. He okayed it, but I felt (and still feel) really guilty about it.

There is about two inches of snow where I live, which I realise is not a lot by some countries' standards, but it's enough to mess up public transport in the UK.

I was supposed to do my food shop today, but I'm going to stay home instead, and I'm going to go Wednesday instead, when it will be warmer and the snow will have gone (allegedly).

~

In happier news! I've been watching other people playing video games instead of playing them myself.

For some reason I can't fathom, I am still watching Ian play Sekiro. I'm not even that interested any more. I said to lassarina in a comment on one of her posts that I now find From Soft games very samey when I watch them, and they are. Sure there's elements in Sekiro that aren't in Dark Souls, but the basic everything is the same, and it's a bit boring, tbh [/hot take]

I also watched Aoife play Unpacking - she played the whole game in two sessions, and this link is to the first one. It was interesting to see how she organised things versus how Jane did it in her stream.

And then, I haven't quite finished it, but I watched Johnny playing Let's Build A Zoo on their channel. It feels very Two Point Hospital, but with zoo elements instead. (I know it's a sim game, and there's only so much you can do with that, but certain things just feel exactly like TPH and it's a bit weird). But it's enjoyable to watch. I don't know if I would enjoy playing it because I find most sim games stressful.

~

And that is all I've got for now. Hopefully the coming week will be an improvement.

I have been in charge at work this week, and will be next week as well, because my boss is on holiday. Though at least I will be on holiday myself for eight days this time next week! I'm not going anywhere; I can't afford to, and I don't want to. One of the people I work with asked what I was going to do with that time, and I said, "Sleep. As much as possible."

It's not been too bad, except that ​my commute to and from work on Thursday was a fucking disaster! The bus I should catch to work never showed up, so I was half an hour late! And then the bus I caught home was also disasterously late (which would've been annoying anyway, but I had been food shopping, and had frozen food gently defrosting while I waited). So I was home half an hour later than I intended, too.

SO THAT WAS FUN.

I mean, at least it didn't happen every day, but it shouldn't happen at all.

~

In other news, I finished reading Lords and Ladies. I absolutely, 100%, still know why this was my favourite DW book as a kid (Magrat, basically. I felt I was a lot like her, and she gets to be awesome here, and that's why). I didn't realise how much discussion of physics there is in the text, though! All that would've gone right over my head when I was younger.

It didn't hit me in the same way Equal Rites did, but I think a lot of that is down to over familiarity with the text. This was one of my favourite books. I read it A LOT (I think the only other book I've read as much is Good Omens). I remembered a lot more of it than I expected to, as it's literal decades since I read it last. I did enjoy it, though, which I wasn't sure would happen, since I literally made myself sick of it from rereading so much in the past.

~

I also beat a boss I was stuck on in NEO: TWEWY!

( here be spoilers )

I think that's all I have to say about that for now! I'm going to go and do some chores, and decide what to have for dinner!

I keep forgetting to mention it, but I gave up on the Persona Q LP I was watching, as not only did the one character trait per character keep annoying me, but I just got past a part that was essentially HA HA HA KANJI LIKES GIRL THINGS HA HA HA HA.

Which. That irritated the shit out of me in Persona 4, and it's doing the same here. It wasn't clever the first time, Atlus, and it isn't clever now.

I'd also forgotten I wanted to say this when I was writing the previous entry, but that felt long enough as it was, so I thought I'd make an extra one instead of adding it.

I had a phone call from the job centre yesterday. I am on to my third(!) work coach in six months, and the second one who a) didn't know why I'd been referred to them*, and b) didn't actually know that I'm in work and have been since December.

They also implied that 21 hours isn't enough work, and I need to be looking for more. EXCUSE ME, but this is the top end of the maximum amount I can do without collapsing from stress so no, I don't think I will be.

I think what happened is that I was referred for a check up as my income went down while we were in Lockdown 3 - I wasn't getting furlough pay as I hadn't been employed long enough, but I had to use up two holiday days every month, and got paid for those. Which was peanuts in comparison to a full month's wage. But they didn't know this, and I certainly didn't, which is why I was kind of surprised when I got the text telling me I'd be having a phone appointment.

Like, I understand they are probably over-stretched and understaffed, just like every other business in the country, but would it hurt to at least check on someone's details before you contact them? So at least then you wouldn't be surprised when you do look at them?

(I know it's easy for me to complain about it, I don't have to work there, but oh boy is it frustrating).

~

Persona 5 update: THIS GAME IS WAY TOO FAR ON THE NOSE, Y'ALL. It's reminding me of when I played FFXII, and the political situation was reminiscent of the one in the US. Well, the one in P5 is reminding me of the UK's situation right now, especially because there's an election tomorrow!

I swear to frogs a game never made me as uncomfortable as this one is doing right now. I mean, it's mostly for the right reasons, though (certain things aside).

Anyway, I'm mostly done with the fifth palace. I think I've found Atlus' new favourite gimmick that isn't invisible walls or teleport spots! And that's it's almost completely dark, and the map doesn't reveal itself! YAY. I did the whole thing, and then died versus a random demon, so now I have to do it all again, DOUBLE YAY.

Akechi can put himself in the bin, though, thank you very much. I don't trust that boy as far as I could throw him.

~

I don't think I have anything else to say, so I shall end this here!

~

*There are different categories, depending on what kind of work you're looking for/doing/your age, and so different work coaches for those things.