Tuesday 24 February 2015

How to pack for IVFDF

I'm looking forward to a lie in, just no idea when that might happen.

How to pack for far too much travelling, three days of dancing, presented in the medium of Things Organised Neatly. 


Spring is busy time in my life. Just a busy little season. Something planned every weekend from The beginning of Feb to the end of April. Maybe I'll get a nap some time in May. 

Last weekend featured a wee jaunt down to Glasgow, with a very late bedtime. Next weekend sees "bedtime" entirely thrown out of the window. Like a tv in a rockstar's hotel room. The entire philosophical concept of bedtime will be torn in to small pieces and then used to make very small origami boats, which will be set alight and then floated out to sea. I will be away from Aberdeen from Thursday to Tuesday, during which time I will spend two nights on buses, two nights either awake dancing or sleeping on a gym hall floor, and one precious night in a B&B. In between all of these things I will squeeze in as much dancing as is absolutely possible, which is substantially more than is safe or even generally advisable. 

For this will be IVFDF. For the uninitiated amongst you, here is the link you need.

My master plan involves getting to the train station straight from work on Thursday, and I had the brainwave that I could save myself some stuff-carrying by doing a sneaky bag-drop and leaving my kit in the office on Wednesday night when we'll be close by with the car. Which means I need to have it packed by Wednesday morning, which is tomorrow, and as I'm off out tonight that then means that all of this packing had to happen yesterday. Tonight's post then, is all about the strategy and planning that goes in to packing a bag for IVFDF. 

#1 roll up the carpet and prepare for battle. 


#2 the annual pre-IVFDF shopping trip. 

Each year I am allowed to buy brand new socks specially for IVFDF, because when you're planning to dance your feet off, any help is good help. And brand new bamboo socks are very good help. This year I bought a set for me a set for L, because I give all the best presents. Also pictured here are our shiny new travel cushions, because I am getting old and soft.


#3 the absolute essentials.

Dancing shoes and musical toys.


#4 everything else!



Jeans, airbed, towel, trainers with memory foam insoles, trousers, more trousers, special IVFDF trousers, pump for airbed, hankies, safety pins, about 7 vest tops, pants, weekend bras, more trousers, dance shoes, socks, phone charger, whistles, sleep-mask and buff, massive rucksack, t-shirts, nice warm top for travelling home in, fluffy socks, sleeping bag, wash kit, notebook with all the magical booking references in, pen for writing down exciting new dances, cotton shirt, really warm jammies, camera, lipbalm, Swiss Army Knife, strapping, painkillers, not-non-drowsy antihistamines, and my purse. Boom.

I don't intend to, but should I lose this bag, that Police report would be really easy.

#5 get it all squished in

Every time I pack a case, I try to be clever and think about the placement of all the heavy things, and then I end up jumping on it and just cramming it in any old how.
Bit of a beast

#6 repack so it stands up

Because that one bag that always falls over the moment you put it down is a right pain in the arse.

#7 appoint a guardian


Happy Tuesday everyone!

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Happy Cheapskate Girlfriend Day

I am a terrible cheapskate, and that's ok. 


Hello and good evening to you all. This week I am not quite so much of a braindead zombie as I was seven days ago. I have however had to spend most of the intervening time hiding from the world and sleeping whenever possible to achieve this. Last week I didn't feel like going dancing at all! I hope those of you who know me well will appreciate that this is a rare and drastic thing. I stayed in feeling sleepy and a little sorry for myself for 3 nights in a row. But the weekend came along in the end and I think I'm a bit more on top of things now.

Saturday was Valentine's Day, which we mostly marked by ignoring it, as is only right and proper. Ok, so I made scrambled eggs instead of just toast for breakfast, but we really did just let the whole thing pass us by. Ignoring Valentine's Day when you would actually have someone to celebrate it with was a whole new experience for me, so in a roundabout way really quite exciting. I never really believed in all of the red glittery heart-shaped crap anyway. Last year the novelty of having a someone to give things to got the better of me and I wound up presenting poor L with this super-romantic light-up colour-changing pig.

We call him the 'Mantical Pig and he sits on one of the corners of L's four-poster bed, occasionally glowing away to himself. 
With this as my only record of previous form, I was let off the hook and given permission to ignore the whole shh-bang. Probably the safest course of action.

The rest of the weekend rolled on. Some people did some dancing, which was much more interesting, and the whole Valentine's thing passed us by and was forgotten. Right?


Well done you lot.


So then last night we'd been for our weekly Monday night Pilates/Swim (where L wiggles her butt in the air for an hour, and I swim two lengths then sit in the sauna for a very long time), after which we had to buy petrol. Then a very strange thing happens:  L returns from the shoppie, wishes me a "Happy Cheapskate Girlfriend Day" and presents me with a bunch of yellow-sticker red roses.

Tonight I am rocking the top I wore to work today which has lots of upside-down birds, with a red starry scarf, and purple check pyjamas on top. Cos of classy.

This is because we are cheapskates. And that's ok. 


I have decided that I think I like doing things the cheapskate way, and that I'm going to keep trying to make it work for me.

Like how I really want to make a big floor mat out of crocheted strips of cotton, and how we're looking for extra camping kit, so this weekend we got up BEFORE Church and spent a wet Sunday morning wandering around the Thainstone car boot. Like how I'm still wearing my super-comfy ebayed man jeans even thought they have a big hole in the crotch. Like how the weekend before last we wanted to make 20-odd people decorate gingerbread men because, well it seemed like a good idea at the time. This lot are a fairly creative bunch when given the chance and I wanted to see what they'd produce (they didn't disappoint - pictures are below). However I couldn't bear to splurge on buying enough gingerbread biscuits and pre-made writing icing for them all, so instead we did a whole heap of baking and provided shot-glasses of coloured icing and cocktail sticks to paint it on with. The cheapskate way. The cheapskate way though, turns out to work surprisingly well; we had just the right number of gingerbread men and ladies, and people managed just fine with the cocktail stick versions of writing icing.

So this is my little reminder to myself to endeavour to do things the cheapskate way, and to make the cheapskate way better than the not-so-cheapskate way. If I say things like that publicly then I'm ten times more likely to stick them.

And for all the rest of you lot, here's a whole heap of pictures of the genius and nonsense that happens when you let a room of grown-ups loose with biscuits and coloured icing.

Enjoy...









Tuesday 10 February 2015

How To Play Giant Cluedo

This week's post ought to explain the lack of last week's. This is what I was doing.


I am just home from a frankly amazing weekend, amongst very good company, out at Burgie House in the northern wilds of Moray. I've pretty much gone back to work to give my liver a break.
See that far-left first-floor window. That's my bedroom. Ne-ne-ne-ne-ne. 
This has been an annual weekend away with our dancing group for a while now, this being our third visit to this place. We show up on the Friday and run around like excited children reminding ourselves of what the place looks like, and it's like we'd just stepped right back in to where we left off the last time. This is one of those special places in the world where I just feel immediately at home. There are others, maybe I'll list them all out for you some time - I do enjoy a good list - but this is up there with the best of them.

So 24 of us tramped up here for a weekend of food, alcohol, fun and games; L and I being primarily responsible for the latter. Yes, the Entertainment. We are the lucky sods who got out of most washing up duties by landing the jammy job of "Entertainment". Last year we had them all running around attempting to assassinate each other.

Last year's Invitation to Assassinate
This year we thought we'd tone down the murderous nature of the event, leaving just the one, and a fictional one at that.

Cluedo. A theme that this place just lends itself to, and that we weren't quite brave enough to attempt last time round. Try everything once, they said. So we did, and this is how.

#1 Get your hands on a set of the game

Beg, borrow, steal, scour the charity shops, just get yourself something to work off. Get a classy old copy if you can, none of this Sherlock nonsense. And get a copy of the English version, the American one is crap.

Once you have your game, play it a few times. Until we tried this, I'd only played Cluedo once before, and I only won by cheating.

And them we set about scaling it up. In essence the game has:

  • 6 Characters
  • 6 Weapons
  • 9 Rooms
  • 1 board
  • 1 Dice
  • Far too many rules


#2 Characters

Identify 6 people and let them in on the Master Plan. "Do you think you could dress in X colour and be X character?" Thankfully this lot went to town. All we asked for was the colour, and we were totally blown away by the effort that went in. They even got in to character. Colonel Mustard went all out for the military desert look with the sun hat and the cargo trousers. Reverend Green showed up with a big ol' cross made from a packet of oatcakes and even said grace at the dinner table. Miss Scarlet did her hair in blonde ringlets and made everyone cocktails. Mrs White got hold of a set of chef's whites and banned everyone else from the kitchen. Professor Plum even showed up in academic robes. Mrs Peacock wore actual peacock feathers, as did Mr Peacock even if he did fall asleep in the corner and miss most of the game.

Left to right: Prof Plum, Miss Scarlett, Mrs Peacock, Rev Green, Mrs White and Colonel Mustard

#3 Playing Cards

Replicate all of them. But big. 3.6x bigger if you're being precise, believe me. If you're feeling savvy take out shares in tipp-ex beforehand.

Character cards not pictured here because they all wanted to keep them.

I am particularly proud of that candlestick.

#4 Weapons


Because by this point we are really going to town.

We fell short of the mark when it came to reproducing rope in the medium of papier mache.

#5 The Playing Board


Remember we're playing the long con here. Schedule your Cluedo for at least the second night in your grand country abode. On the first night, wait till everyone is in bed, or too drunk to notice and sneak off to set the scene.
You will need: 3 entire rolls of masking tape and a tape measure.


The carpet measured a very convenient 5m by 4m, which we did our best to match to the 50cm by 50cm board. There's the odd wonky line, but we were pretty chuffed nonetheless. 

#6 Get everyone drunk, and ask them to reconvene in the Ballroom at 9

This step is important. On a belly full of lasagne and a head full of cocktails, most people are up for most things. Everyone had been invited to dress, if they wished, as if it was 1926 - the time in which our fictional murder is set.

Ultraviolet cocktails. I am very very happy with this photograph wot I took. Ain't she pretty. 
And Dinner doesn't look like this every day. 

#7 Play the damn game

Each character was furnished with two buddies - their team. Tasked with the important jobs of strategy and holding the cards. Each team was then furnished with a clue sheet and a set of the (slightly amended) rules.

Team Plum in action


In place of rules we introduced a few wee point-winning challenges, interspersed with asking the characters to cut a deck of cards. The idea being that we squeeze in a few silly games, and keep things moving a bit faster than a boring old dice.






To be honest at this point I was a little beyond the point of making sense, so all of the kudos for making the whole caboodle come off goes to L. I just wandered around taking pictures and giggling.

For the record - it was Mrs White, in the Lounge, with the Rope. And Team Mustard were the ones to get it.

And I shall leave you with a few more examples of my drunken photography. Till next week!