Things Done
This has been a good weekend!
Writing:
I finished my two Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang stories with hours to spare - but I did finish both of them in time, which is all that matters.
View from the Western Coast What was Cirdan up to, during that last summer before Frodo left Bag End? With some Opinions on the Ainur from Cirdan and Gildor Inglorion. Inspired by Grundy's Glass Wave.
This one was really hard to write, for some reason. I got stuck on not being able to make sense of why Cirdan would get that particular message from the palantir, and couldn't work it ou-t until Grundy pointed out that often the Ainur don't seem to entirely make sense. It still slightly bothers me, but I no longer think it entirely ruins the story.
Speak, Friends and Enter The fall of Eregion seen through various eyes. What does the One Ring really do? How does Sauron, the Necromancer, bring down a city full of the war-hardened survivors of Beleriand? Horror elements.
This one was very easy to write, by comparison - but then it's essentially a fill in the gaps fic, and those are often easier.
I feel a bit daft that I finished it at 2am on deadline day then woke up at 6 and edited it. It's a several-month event, there was no need to run it that close to the wire! But it has been a busy summer and I'm thinking that I may skip summer writing events in future. It's easier to concentrate when it's raining.
Then I went to the art group, and on a whim, took acrylics and a bigger canvas rather than the watercolour/ Inktense colours and little pad I've been using since we moved, pretty much. I made this in about 2 hours, and I'm quite pleased with it. It's the view from our house, more or less, as seen that morning in the mist.
Then I did a bit of product photography for the shop, then collapsed in a heap with the hounds until it was time for the evening walk.
Saturday was supposed to be a Dog School morning for Theo, but it was cancelled due to the hot weather, and I just did a brief beach walk before it got too hot.
Someone had given me a bag of green tomatoes, and someone else had given me a bag of apples, and both needed using or binning, so I chopped them all up and made chutney. We didn't have very much malt vinegar, so I used rice wine vinegar, some cider vinegar, and some red wine vinegar, all from odds and ends that had been lurking around in the cupboards. Seems to have worked: surely vinegar is vinegar, really.
Then, far too hot from chopping and boiling, I took the kayak out and paddled across to Hazelbeach on the other side, where there was a group swim planned for the high tide. The water is so warm at the moment, it really feels like there's no more than a momentary chill as you go in, and the day was very warm. 26C had been forecast, but someone said they had measured 31. It didn't feel that hot by/in the water though. Someone had brought home-made scones with blackberry jam for all the swimmers.
I only realised when I was almost at the other side that I'd forgotten to put on my buoyancy aid. Oh well. Luckily I got away without needing it that time, though I did have to hide behind a buoy for a bit while the Irish Ferry, the Oscar Wilde, went past. It's astonishing how little wake that ship makes, given how big it is.
When I had paddled back, we attacked the mountain of boxes-that-used-to-contain-arriving-shop-stock and got them all folded down so that they fit in the commercial bin. So that was a win.
Then, feeling vaguely guilty that Theo hadn't had much of a walk that day, I went off to Stackpole Quay with him. There was a night swim planned, but I arrived early for a walk in the cool dim of the evening. I walked over to Barafundle beach.
It's about a 15 minute walk with some steps, but it took me longer because it was increasingly dark and no lights anywhere but the stars. But it was worth it when I got to the beach, a huge crescent of sand between dark rocky cliffs dimly lit by starlight and three small campfires. I wandered in the dark along the beach, listening to the small waves washing on the sand, and began to realise that as the waves came hushing in, they were glowing internally in places, with a kind of magical green flash that ran along inside the breaking wave. I had hoped to see bioluminescence, but this was spectacular, once I managed to override my own sense of 'no it can't be doing that' and actually look properly at what I was seeing.
I watched it for a while, marvelling, then walked back to the Quay, where I left Theo in the car (he wasn't pleased, but he was quite tired from all the exciting smells by that time), and joined the swimmers.
As we'd hoped, the bioluminescence was there, too, though no waves so no sign of it until we got in.
We waded out over the sand and pebbles, carrying waterproof torches to see where we were putting our feet in the crystal-clear water, and when we got out far enough to swim, we found that if you swam or moved your hands through the top of the water, you were surrounded by a miasma of tiny brilliant green glowing specks that swirled all about you. It was really magical, though I think the green flash waves were even more impressive.
Today it rained, so I decided that was enough swimming for now. Instead Pp and I played a little D&D (I'm running the Ghosts of Saltmarsh series of adventures for him to run a group of adventurers, it's fun) . And I went to the supermarket (dull but essential), did laundry, packed a mountain of Shop things to go out tomorrow, and made muffins. Forgot to put the honey in so they didn't rise quite as well as previous batches, but they are edible. That will have to do.