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Day 20: Favourite outfits

Blake: no one pick - all of his are very him: lots of jerkins and earthy colours, so Robin Hood.

Jenna: the dark blue dress and the maroon and grey leather bodysuit (see icon).

Vila: the patchwork tunic, the cream-trimmed brown suede (though the sleeves were weirdly bulky at the shoulders) and anything yellow or cream because warm colours suit him. An honourable mention to his skin-tight Killer trousers.

Gan: he has some interesting and cool outfits - his Shadow one, I think.

Avon: also hard to pick one because he has so many wonderful and sometimes bizarre outfits with fan names: the sailor boy, the demented dentist, the red lobster suit, the silver alpha (which I call the baked beta). Then of course there's his S4 Maximum Studs era.

Cally: the smart military-style light-and-dark-blue trouser suit.

Dayna: the green batwing dress.

Tarrant: the dark-red quilted and studded outfit.

Nothing from S4 because apart from Avon the Beserker, it's all depressing Dorian grey. I missed the colours of the Liberator clothes.

All the original questions are on Tumblr.

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the_shoshanna

but I just had a pint of cider, so I can't say how this will go

Yesterday we wandered around St Peter's Port just looking around, and also I went to Boots and dithered between the motion sickness med that the pharmacist said was stronger and the one he said was less likely to knock me out. (Not in those words, but basically.) I ended up picking the "less drowsy" and therefore "less effective" one, started stressing about it as soon as we walked out of the store, and was relived this morning to look up the active ingredient and discover/decide that I could definitely safely take another half-pill if I felt I needed it.

One thing I've noticed both here and in Jersey, btw, is that we haven't seen a single person begging on the street or apparently homeless. Very very different from home.

Anyway, after a while we headed off to the Guernsey Museum, which is an interesting combination of "neat temporary exhibits on subjects of local interest", "permanent exhibits on the history and culture of our island," and "IDK, somebody gave us this stuff and I guess it's interesting?" One of the temporary exhibits was partly focused on the tradition of "hedge veg": produce (and plants, eggs, etc.) set out for sale in a small unstaffed roadside shed or stand, with an "honesty box" for people to leave money in. I had noticed numbers of such stands both here and in Jersey -- these days, as well as or even instead of a box for cash, they may have a note posted saying how to electronically transfer payment to the seller for whatever you're taking. I always like seeing honesty boxes; they give me such a good feeling about the local culture.

I also liked the exhibit on the history of human habitation of the island, from neolithic times onward, and very much enjoyed the recorded samples of sayings and adages in Guernésiais, with both literal and idiomatic translations into English. (I always want both literal and idiomatic translations! Literal translations are fascinating!) Mostly the Guernésiais is entirely incomprehensible to me, and then every now and then a word that's exactly the same as modern French pops up and I have a total Steve Rogers moment: "I understood that reference!"

Many other things were also interesting: "here's a display about a nineteenth-century glassblower who made replicas of ocean invertebrates!" "here's a selection of local traditional medicine!" "here's a Haida totem pole!" (that one was very much in the "IDK, somebody gave it to us" category), but after a while I started fading. Also, as well as motion sickness meds, I had also bought more contact lens solution at Boots and had stopped in at the visitor information centre and bought two jars of the seaweed chili crisp, so my bag was quite heavy. Back we went to the hotel, to rest up before dinner.

Dinner was "pie night" at the local pub, which was definitely in part a way for them to use up the leftovers from carvery night -- chicken and ham pie, you say? shepherd's pie (the proper kind, with lamb), you say? Remarkably familiar roasted potatoes and carrots and parsnips? -- but was tasty and fun anyway. The beef and mushroom, chicken and ham, and roasted vegetable pies had pastry top crusts; the shepherd's pie and the seafood pie were topped with mashed potato (which explains where the previous night's baked potatoes went). All were quite tasty except the seafood pie, in which I found the seafood sadly indistinguishable from the potato. Ah, well, it was a fun experience anyway.

Today we had a slower morning and a later start than usual, but it was nice not charging off to do something right away. The hotel had done a load of laundry for us, so we tidied our luggage up a bit. We also asked the woman staffing the desk (the hotel's co-owner) about the best way to book a cab for next week: we have to catch a 7 am ferry back to Jersey on Tuesday, which means being at the ferry port at six, and the buses don't run that early. They have a list of all the taxi operators and their phone numbers posted (some of them are company names and some are just somebody's name) and at first she just recommended one of them, and then she was like, eh, what the heck, and called him up herself and made a booking for us right then ("Hi, Glen, it's Ank; do you have a cab for 5:45 Tuesday morning? Yes, it's for two of our guests here, they have to catch the ferry. Great, thanks"). It's fun getting to see some inner workings of a community I'm only visiting!

Eventually we pulled ourselves together and walked an hour northward to the Folk and Costume Museum. The walk was along quiet streets, past homes and farms and schools. I don't know if all the schoolkids here wear uniforms or if it's just that we only recognize as schoolkids the ones who are in uniforms, but we certainly have seen a lot of crowds of boys in matching dark trousers and jackets and ties (Geoff was incredibly amused at the sight of a troop of boys heading out for phys ed or whatever they call it here, running out onto the soccer field in their jackets and ties), and crowds of girls in matching jackets and sometimes ties and often the shortest skirts I could possibly imagine. Like, are you for real with that? Those are the kinds of skirts that girls in some schools elsewhere get sent home to change out of!

(I think I've seen one or two girls in school-uniform trousers, but they might have been feminine-looking boys; it's not like I was going to stare at and scrutinize them, I was just privately going "huh, hm?" as they went by. I am somewhat curious about how -- and whether -- schools that demand gendered uniforms deal with trans, nb, or gnc kids.)

Anyway, we got to the park where the museum was supposed to be, didn't see it, but did enjoy wandering through a reproduction of a Victorian kitchen garden (artichokes always look so... unlikely! and I'm not sure I'd ever actually seen espaliered fruit trees before), and then we found the park's cafe and split a plate of chips; we were about to eat them at one of the outside tables but it started to rain, so we took hits of our antiviral nasal spray and went in to eat. And after that it had stopped raining and we managed to find the museum, right next door. The power of fried potatoes, I guess?

I don't have a lot to say about the museum; it was all interesting but I'm kind of out of energy to describe it. More reproductions of period rooms, mostly nineteenth century (I was most interested in the kitchen, dairying, and laundry spaces), and collections of farm equipment and craft/professional tools (all men's crafts: tinsmithing, carpentry, etc.), and a whole series of dresses (and a few men's clothes) from the early nineteenth century through to the 1970s. The descriptions of how the older dresses had been repeatedly mended, and altered, and let in and out, were the most interesting to me there; obviously the ones that survived to be put in a museum a century or two later were the ones owned by people who never threw anything out if it could possibly still be used, but even if they're not fully representative (and certainly people kept clothes much longer then than they do now), it's fascinating to think about the human history sewn into them.

The rain had passed over while we were in the museum, yay! We caught a bus to St Peter Port and wandered out on a long pier at the south end of the harbor to Castle Cornet, part of which I think dates back to like the twelfth century, if I remember the signage correctly, and part of which was built by the Germans when they updated and extended its fortifications against the expected English attempt at recapture. The Channel Islands weren't in fact counter-invaded by the Allies, of course, but the signage told us that the Allies did attack Guernsey forcefully to neutralize Nazi intelligence and anti-aircraft capability in advance of D-Day. It wryly remarked that Castle Cornet is probably the only British castle ever to be strafed by the RAF... I got a photo that, if it comes out, should show the centuries-old stone walls, and buildings inside them that at a guess are nineteenth or early twentieth century, and then on top of the walls a concrete bunker that I'm confident was a German emplacement. (We didn't pay to go into the castle, so we were just spectating and speculating from outside.)

Then we wandered back through the pedestrianized shopping area and bought some sandwiches and drinks at the M&S food hall (is it no longer called Marks & Spencer?) to bring home and eat in our hotel room in lieu of another restaurant meal. A very welcome shower, food, a bitter beer for Geoff and the aforementioned pint of cider for me, and I've been blogging ever since!

And I believe that by now, two hours later, I have both caught up and sobered up.

vilakins

~~Day 19: Favourite Scorpio moment~~

Day 19: Worst outfits

Feel free to use my alternative if you prefer it.

In order from the worst down:

The unwieldy vinyl and Michelin-man outfits in Killer, much as I love the episode. I'm with Vila who said, "What d'you call this, then?" when told to put on a cape. The Q-base personnel must have been sweating like pigs and seriously pissed off with all the stiffness and creaking.

Vila's yellow rubber shoulder monstrosities in Pressure Point. You're going to infiltrate a high-security area, and you wear hi-vis, Vila? Did you lose a bet with Avon?

Avon's outfit with the weird unflattering shoulder pads in Death-Watch.

All that boring Dorian grey in S4 on everyone but Avon, of course. I really missed the more varied and colourful Liberator clothes.

All the original questions are on Tumblr.

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twistedchick

I am so tired of white-supremacist Republican performative smugness.

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vilakins

~~Day 18: Favourite Liberator moment~~
Day 18: Ideas that should have been used more

Feel free to use my alternative if you prefer it.

The treasure room
Avon said, "Do you know how much is in there? Millions. Millions. And this is just a sample. There must be almost as much wealth in that single room as there is in the entire Federation banking system."
They could have funded planetary revolutions with that vast wealth but the only time I can remember it being used was to tempt Largo with two gems.

The Clonemasters and their clones
Fully sentient humans could be grown in five hours. There could have been so many possibilities: clones of the rebels used for public trial; clones of Servalan, Travis, and other high command as decoys; cloned armies (a la Star Wars)...

Androids
The Avalon one was relatively simple, but Vinni was much more sophisticated and regarded itself as human. There are lots of possibilities there, as with the clones.

I'm sure there are more I haven't thought of.

[Edit] And yes, there was a major one which

julesjones rightly posted: Cally's telepathy which could have been a major asset for the crew.

All the original questions are on Tumblr.

shadowkat

Question a Day Memeage

10. Are there some colours you would never wear or use in your home?

Never wear? Yellow. I look horrid in it. Also not a fan of lime neon green or neon colors. Hot pink - wouldn't use in my home.

11. When was the last time you took a photo?

Today. ( About an hour ago )

12. It’s the International Day of Plant Health! Healthy plants mean a healthy planet! Have you ever planted something and watched it grow? Do you look after your houseplants or your garden plants diligently?

I kill plants. So I don't own any. So that would be a firm no? My family members however seem to be good at this...

13. It’s Top Gun Day! Ever seen it (and/or the sequel)?

Saw Top Gun about three times in the movie theater in college in the 1980s when it first came out? We had a $1 movie theater. And we also jumped movies, which is basically once one ended, we jumped to the next theater and into the movie that had just begun. As a result of this - I saw a lot of movies for next to nothing in theaters - ah the good old days. Some days I miss the 1980s.

Yes, I saw the sequel. It's nowhere as good as the original. The music, the acting, the filming, etc - the script - were just better in the original. Movies were better in the 1970s and 80s, for some reason. Tech has not necessarily made all movies better.

14. Have you ever seen a ‘mockumentary’ film or TV show? The term was coined when the 1984 “This is Spinal Tap” film was released, and notable examples on TV include “The Office”.

Yes, I dislike them. (With the possible exception of Arrested Development, which is the only one I've made it through.)

They give me a headache. For some reason or other my brain dislikes watching people talk to me from a film or television screen.
I can listen to them. But I can not watch talking heads without getting a headache after a while.

I don't find them funny. Annoying? Yes. Headache inducing? Yes. Cringe-inducing? Sometimes. Entertaining? mildly. Funny? It's not my brand of humor too obvious. I have a dry dead pan wit. Mockumentaries are parodies or satire and usually far from subtle.

I know that I'm in the minority on this...unfortunately. If only more people liked and thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer was funny and entertaining or the Good Wife, and far less were entertained by The Office, my life would be a whole lot easier. But alas, no.

15. Bees are responsible for pollinating many of the plants we eat (a current estimate is that they are responsible for every three bites of food we eat). Have you seen any bees this year?

Yes. Recently. On my walk today.

16. Henry Fonda was born today in 1905 – have you seen any of his films?

More than I can count or remember the names of. He was very good at playing the every man type of role. And had excellent range. I saw him in Grapes of Wrath, Once Upon a Time in the West, My Name is Nobody (which is my favorite Western), On Golden Pond, and countless others...I grew up watching his films on television and in movies. I even studied some of them.

17. It’s World Telecommunications Day – have you ever learned something new online?

Yes. Although I have no idea what at the moment...I learned that race, gender, sexual orientation, age, size, shape, looks, fall away on social media - all you see are the words and the exchange of ideas. I forget or don't see any of the annoying identity politics or classifications that often masks who people truly are at their core. We aren't these societal definitions. And I kind of figured that out on social media discussion boards, when I had no idea what race, religion, sex, gender, age, class, ethnicity, nationality, etc - folks were. All I saw were folks who liked to discuss Buffy, and literature, and movies, and had families, and loved one another. And fought with one another over silly things.

It was freeing in a way.

the_shoshanna

... before I fall over.

We got down to the hotel's cellar bar and restaurant a few minutes after the announced gathering time; the hotelier met us and showed us to where about twenty people were sitting in a circle and announced, "We have some Canadians!" He and his family are Dutch -- according to the hotel website, he/they moved here and started running it in 2004 -- and there are a whoooole lot of Dutch folks staying here! We fitted two more chairs into the circle, a waitress asked if we'd like drinks and I asked for a glass of merlot, and then I started chatting with the Dutch woman on my left. (I assume Geoff was chatting with the Dutch man on his right, but tbh I wasn't paying attention.) She said that she and many of the other Dutch guests were from the northern Netherlands, and there's a nearby airport with direct flights to Guernsey, so why not? And I imagine the fact that the hotelier is a native Dutch speaker doesn't hurt.

But we had only a few minutes to talk before everyone having tapas that night was called to go find their table: we're assigned tables here for meals, you look for the one with your room number on it. We were in a back corner of the cellar bar/restaurant area, right beside the actual bar (but this morning for breakfast we were assigned a different table, on the other side, next to big windows out onto the back garden that our room overlooks). The tapas dinner was excellent: hummus and rocket-and-herb salad and nice crusty bread; olives; patatas bravas; shrimp scampi (which I got all of, because of Geoff's aforementioned dislike of shellfish); lemon-roasted chicken; wee crispy Vietnamese spring rolls with a sweet chili sauce that leaned very pleasantly toward the "chili" side of that rather than the "sweet"; and for dessert, cream-filled profiteroles with chocolate sauce. And you could ask for seconds of anything; Geoff asked for one more piece of chicken and they brought him another whole dish of three. I refused to help him finish them, because I had to manage all the shrimp by myself, oh the horror.

And then we staggered off to bed.

Today we decided to do what is generally agreed to be the island's most challenging hike, along the southern coast. We started with an excellent breakfast (and I confess it's a bit of a relief not to be the only people in the breakfast room, with Elena our previous host chatting energetically at us and pressing food on us; she was very warm and friendly and enthusiastic, but at home Geoff and I don't even talk much to each other at breakfast, she was A Lot). We were shown to our pretty window-side table -- I would have been okay tucked into the dark back corner again if we had been, but I was very happy not to be -- were brought delicious coffee that would not punch Superman through a wall, and had our choice off a menu of about six different cooked breakfasts plus the spread of croissants, pains au chocolat, and white rolls; fresh watermelon, slightly stewed berries, and what I think were canned mandarin oranges and some other fruit; various cold cereals; packaged yogurts; and slices of cheddar, wedges of brie, and three kinds of cured meat. It was great, and I confess I wrapped a roll and a wedge of brie in my napkin and smuggled them out for trail food later. 😈

We planned to catch a bus from in front of the hotel to our hike's starting point, Portelet Harbour, just north of the island's southwest corner. Geoff's blog entry for today chivalrously fails to mention that I waved off the first bus that came because I misread the schedule and misremembered the route number and basically just screwed up and waved off the bus we actually wanted. No big deal, though; a different but equally suitable bus was supposed to follow in twenty minutes.

Please note the phrase "supposed to." It is load-bearing.

The other bus didn't come. We spent an hour waiting in chilly damp weather, while I vainly tried to shake bus information out of both Google Maps and the Guernsey bus app. I still have no idea if I misread that schedule too, or if the bus just didn't run for some reason, or what, but it wasn't a fun hour. Not that Geoff got cranky at me, he didn't, just that I was cold and frustrated and embarrassed! But finally a suitable bus showed up, and I was at least able to track our progress and know when we should get off. (So far the Guernsey buses also have electronic display screens, but the only thing we've seen them show is the time and the URL of the bus company, harrumph.)

The bus stop seemed a fairly bustling place, with a big hotel and a big bay and a snack kiosk and some very welcome public toilets, and also a welcome/refreshments tent for what seemed to be a fairly major organized run; when we set off along the coastal trail, counterclockwise, for the first while we met many runners in running vests and race pinnies/bibs coming the other way. A few of them were running with the help of poles, which I'd never seen runners do before. But considering some of the inclines they had had to run up, I can see why they'd want them!

It rapidly got sunnier and warmer, and I peeled off a lot of layers as we went, and in general it was the usual gorgeous hike, with spectacular views along the cliffs and over the ocean, and several German defensive emplacements (one with a biiig gun still mounted), and lighthouses and occasional signs explaining the historic thing we were looking at. (In general I've been impressed with the authorities on both Jersey and Guernsey who maintain these things: the trails have been in great shape and pretty clearly marked even though I've been glad to have GPS backup, and the signage of historical markers has been good.)

The trail wasn't challenging in the sense of being technically difficult, but it had a lot of ups and downs, as it navigated its way through places where the ocean has gouged deep bays into the cliffside. And the ascents and descents got longer and steeper and more common as we we went on, especially after we reached the southernmost point and turned to follow the coast east. At one point, as we stood staring up at what must have been at least our fifth extremely long and extremely steep stairway roughly cut into the face of a cliff, I told Geoff, "There will be a short delay while I pause to hate everything." He allowed that that was perfectly reasonable.

(Another conversation:

Geoff: Why do we have to go up and down and up and down and up and down all the time? Why can't we just only go down?

me: Next year we'll go to Escher Island. We just have to make sure we only walk around it counterclockwise.)

But there were also amazing views of those cliffs, and frequent benches on which to sit and admire the views, and profusions of flowers growing on the south-facing banks next to the path, and sweet-faced cows grazing or resting by the fence that separated their field from our pathway (one was industrially licking another one's ear! Other than mother cows with calves, I don't think I've ever seen cows groom one another), and five ponies of which two were flopped on their sides asleep and looking kind of ridiculous. And plenty of walkers coming the other way to say hello to, especially if they had friendly dogs. Plus we had plenty of trail mix and I had my bread and cheese from breakfast, and two full water bottles; I like the tap water here, thank goodness.

But after almost four hours we were ready to call it. So when our cliffside trail reached a German observation tower that could be accessed by road, we cut inland to walk the roads home to our hotel. It took us another 45 minutes to get there, but at least cars, unlike hikers, insist on reasonably level transits! And the roads (other than the main ones, which we were not on) are so small, and have so little traffic, that it's no problem to walk along them even though there's no sidewalk. At least, in daylight.

We staggered in, and I generously let Geoff have first shower, because that meant that I could spend twenty minutes not standing up. Anyway he's faster than me, so I usually want him to go first anyway -- but the prospect of just being able to collapse was very nice too.

Them it was back to the pub down the road for their Sunday carvery dinner -- slab o' meat! slab o'meat! as the VividCon gang used to chant. We had our choice of any or all of beef, lamb, gammon, and chicken, plus Yorkshire puddings, roasted carrots, roasted parsnips, potatoes both roasted in chunks and baked whole, cauliflower and cheese, broccoli and some other greens I wasn't sure of, a sort of mash of I think carrots and turnips, and other veggies that I don't even remember, plus two kinds of gravy and about six sauces. It was amazing. Also the barman gave me a guided tour of their draft ciders; I was sorry that I disliked the local one, which was quite dry, but I very much liked a hazy cider from an English brewery and had a whoooole pint of it.

We sat near several tables of other Dutch guests at our hotel; I mean, the pub is the closest restaurant and it has that 15% off deal! The couple next to us started chatting with us, which was nice except that I occasionally had trouble understanding their English (and of course we have no Dutch). She told us that one reason so many Dutch people were at the hotel was that there had just been a newspaper article on it back home, so she and her husband, and presumably a bunch of other folk, had figured: easy well-recommended vacation at a hotel run by a countryman, why not?

And then back home and omg to bed. Geoff went to sleep at 8:45, he was really wiped; I have stayed up to finish writing this, and also because I don't want to wake up at four am!

In news that may not surprise you, we are not doing a long ambitious hike tomorrow. I'm not sure what we're doing, in fact; my collapsing this evening took the form not of falling asleep before nine but of declining to do any planning or logistics. Whew!

the_shoshanna

I forgot to say that, as we were making our way along the wooded trail south, I saw a little spur track jut off it to the left (i.e., toward the edge of the sea cliff) and peering down it I saw a small building with a historical-marker sign, so we went to look. It turned out to be a stone two-room hut built as a watch post against the French in, iirc, the late seventeenth century -- and right behind it (that is, on the landward side) was a 4,800-year-old passage grave! Just minding its business and its dead for almost five thousand years. (This is it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Couperon_dolmen) It's so cool to be somewhere where we can just stumble upon such things!

vilakins

Day 17: Two characters you wanted to get together that never did

I suppose this means romance or sex, in which case my answer is "nope, none of them".

If it's an encounter or a meeting, then I'd like to see Jenna take Tarrant down a peg or two. She so could.

All the questions are on Tumblr.

shadowkat

Meme stolen from coffeeandink - who actually told us all to steal it, so it doesn't count.

Take five books off your bookshelf.

[with the exception of the first, they are all TBR, with the hopes I'll get around to reading them.]

Book #1 -- first sentence: "Rain drenched the city, cold and relentless."

Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty: "Unlike my horses, a Spider would never get cold or hot or tired."

[unexpected challenge do I pick the last sentence or the last complete one? I picked the last complete one.]

Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred: "People say that after this event, the rich man's family slipped into a decline, and in the end, went entirely to ruin."

(Unexpected challenge: do I pick the second sentence or the second complete sentence? - weirdly I had the same unexpected challenge as coffeeandink.)

Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty: "Within an hour, his strength had so depleted that he could no longer handle the weight in his pack, although he refused to let us remove anything, forcing us to fish out the heaviest items, such as his water bottles and his cameras, when he wasn't looking."

Book #5 -- final sentence of the book: The local sheriff met us in the street and eyed us suspiciously.
"Runaways?" he asked.
"We are," I said.
"Any of you named Nigger Jim?"
I pointed to each of us. "sadie, Lizzie, Morris, Buck."
"And who are you?"
"I am James."
"James what?"
"Just James."

(Yes, I am treating one paragraph of dialog as a single sentence for the purposes of the meme. Fight me!)

Make the five sentences into a paragraph:
Rain drenched the city, cold and relentless. Unlike my horses, a Spider would never get cold or hot or tired. People say that after this event, the rich man's family slipped into a decline, and in the end, went entirely to ruin. Within an hour, his strength had so depleted that he could no longer handle the weight in his pack, although he refused to let us remove anything, forcing us to fish out the heaviest items, such as his water bottles and his cameras, when he wasn't looking." The local sheriff met us in the street and eyed us suspiciously.
"Runaways?" he asked.
"We are," I said.
"Any of you named Nigger Jim?"
I pointed to each of us. "sadie, Lizzie, Morris, Buck."
"And who are you?"
"I am James."
"James what?"
"Just James."

I promise it wouldn't make any more sense if I chose another option for step 5.

Book #1: This Kingdom Will Not Me by Illona Andrews
Book #2: Antidote by Karen Russell
Book #3: Strange Tales from Japan - 99 Chilling Stories of Yokai, Ghosts, Demons and the Supernatural - collected and retold by Keisuke Nishimoto, Translated by William Scott Wilson.
Book #4: A Walk in the Park: the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarku
Book #5:James by Percival Everett

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twistedchick

The Confederacy is back, hiding under the name of Republican, but showing its true white-sheet color in its removal of voting rights from millions of Americans who happen to be Black. It's time to organize.

the_shoshanna

Concluding the story of yesterday, beginning the story of today (NB: some non-graphic discussion of seasickness)

We finished our official hike at Mount Orgueil Castle, which is a huge ruin towering imposingly over the bay and the town of Gorey, which is of course why it was built there. Settlement on that spot goes back to Neolithic times, if I remember the signboard correctly, but this castle was primarily built to defend against the French, after the Channel Islanders had decided to maintain loyalty to King John (of Robin Hood legend fame) instead of the French. The negotiations around that decision are why the islands are still not part of the UK today, but remain "direct dependencies of the British crown." I bought something small with a British ten-pound note early on in our stay, and got change in Jersey pounds, which are different.

(Also, castle ruins like that sometimes make me think about how the ability to scan a bay and determine the likely approaches of both friendly and hostile arrivals, and know where and how to build a fortification to control passage, is a skill completely foreign to me.)

We wanted some lunch, and we knew that lots of buses would go through Gorey on their way back to St Helier (there's a reason we did the hike north to south, to end there!), so from the castle we wandered down to a semi-circle of shops and restaurants facing Gorey Pier, and strolled their length comparing menus until we settled on the one at the end, because for some reason I was craving pizza. We split a really good pizza with pepperoni and spicy ham and fior di latte, and another pint of beer. I'm generally not much of a drinker, but somehow traveling with Geoff leads me to regular day drinking! We like trying local brews, and we have few or no responsibilities (except for me keeping track of the logistics, and both of us having to stay on top of a few things at home), so it's one of the pleasures of a trip, for me. Except that I do still have a teensy weensy tolerance level, so I'm careful about amount.

Which can mean that I'm occasionally amazed at how much others can put away! At the table next to us at lunch there sat down a man and woman, probably a bit older than us, whom I initially, reflexively assumed to be a couple. They initially caught my attention because he ordered a beer and she ordered a bottle of wine, and I thought to myself how I could not imagine managing to finish a bottle of wine by myself, at lunch. Then he finished his beer, had some of her wine, and they finished that bottle and started on a second. Before they'd had any food, even. I would die.

At the point where they were just about finishing the first bottle, they asked if we would take a picture of them with his phone, which I willingly did, and we got to talking. They turned out to be an Irish brother and sister who had lived on Jersey for several decades; he was a schoolteacher and she was retired but I think she said she'd done something in the cosmetics line. Anyway, I started to wonder if there was something about us that attracted conversation from tipsy Irish Jerseyites! It was the kind of conversation where they talked much more than we did, but Geoff did manage to wedge some contributions in, and I mostly made interested murmuring noises. They were the first people we'd talked to who, on hearing that we were going from Jersey to spend ten days on Guernsey, cheerfully approved and told us we'd have a wonderful time! Also, iirc, that the produce is better on Guernsey. Also, on hearing that we'd been to Ireland (separately) in the distant past and might go again (together), she told us all about this pamphlet she'd found while she was digging through all her cupboards and shelves trying to find a lost credit card; she had turned up so much forgotten stuff, among which was this pamphlet listing guesthouses and homestays in Ireland. We got on the subject because when we told them we were staying in a guesthouse in St Helier -- I mean, that's in its name, it's the Franklyn Guesthouse -- they were astounded that there were any guesthouses left, they said they'd almost all been replaced by hotels. Anyway, we all agreed that guesthouses and B&Bs and small independent hotels are more fun to stay in than chain hotels, and she told us we had to see this wonderful pamphlet, so Geoff gave her his card with his email address and maybe she'll send us some scans or something. I confess I wonder how old this pamphlet is, given that she uncovered it while doing a big clear-out, but certainly it's not impossible that Geoff and I will want to go to Ireland at some point; a branch of his family came from Ballymoney, in fact.

(We asked them to take a picture of us, too, which Geoff has posted in his blog.)

The brother spent quite a while telling us about the big rugby match that would be played the next day (i.e., today) between Jersey and Guernsey: the Siam Cup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siam_Cup). He urged us to try to see it, but it's not really our kind of thing so we made polite noises, and I made a mental note that pubs would probably be madhouses that evening.

Having finished our lunch and our half-pint of beer each, we left them to their second bottle of wine and caught a bus back to St Helier. By the time we pulled in, the pepperoni and spicy ham had made me extremely thirsty, so I was delighted to see that a small market of French vendors had been set up in one of the squares we walked through: a cheese dealer that I admired from afar, and sausages, and jams, and someone selling leather goods, and, as I had hoped, someone selling cider! I got a half-pint of a very refreshing "summer cider" for £3.50, I think it was. Since the vendors were all French, there were signs everywhere warning that credit card transactions would be billed in euros, but I was able to avoid that complication by paying with my five-Jersey-pound note.

We detoured a little on our way home to locate the hotel we'll be staying in on our last night; we have to come back from Guernsey to fly out of Jersey, and the Franklyn Guesthouse was full that night, so we have one night in a different place. Having located it, we went back to our current place to rest up and also pack, since we would have to be out the door at 6:45 am to walk to the ferry terminal. The ferry company had sent me several dire warnings that check-in opened an hour before sailing, and if we hadn't checked in by T minus thirty minutes our bookings would be canceled, no arguments no refunds no recourse. The crossing was to take a little over an hour.

I set two alarms juuuuust in case, but we woke up spontaneously eight minutes before they went off, go us. Pulled on clothes and staggered off to the ferry -- where I was very glad that we'd met that brother and sister the day before, because we turned out to be on the ferry with the Jersey rugby teams, going over for the cup match! The terminal isn't big but it has security like an airport; we didn't have to take out our liquids but we had to pull all our electronics out of our bags and empty our pockets, and they confiscated and bagged Geoff's pocketknife and multitool and told him he could get them back when we disembarked in Guernsey. Then we waited for almost an hour in a gate area that was jammed with scores of young men and women in Jersey RFC rugby uniforms, mostly ridiculously fit (I have never seen calf muscles like that in my life), some clearly support staff or friends/family rather than players but every bit as energized, many of them hauling huge bags of gear, a few of them clearly on whatever the rugby equivalent of "injured reserve" is (arm in a sling, leg in a cast, etc.), and all of them talking nonstop at maximum volume and yelling excited greetings at one another.

Eventually we boarded the ferry, and Geoff and I were directed to a seating area in a big cabin at sea level where we dumped our giant hiking backpacks in a luggage rack and, carrying our day packs, managed to snag a left-side window seat and the one next to it in a row of four; then there was a middle row of something like six, and then another row of four on the right side of the cabin, and maybe twenty or thirty of those rows in the cabin in all, like the coach section of a very wide plane. The seats were basically airplane seats, in fact, except that they were fixed at a slight angle of recline.

I was glad to have a window seat because I wanted to watch whatever view there was, but I was EXTREMELY GLAD to have a window seat (and also that given the morning's time crunch we'd skipped breakfast) once we really got going, because I don't know if that was an unusually rough crossing or if that's what they're all like but we were heaving up and crashing into the water, sending up big impact waves that would wash over the windows and completely block the view for a few moments as though we'd briefly submerged. A few of the crest-and-crash movements were forceful enough that people lifted right out of their seats yelling like they were on a roller coaster -- and then people started getting queasy. There was a lot of hasty passing around of extra sick bags, in addition to the ones in the seat pockets. At least one person two rows ahead of us puked. The guy on Geoff's other side started looking very worried and pulled out his bag, whereupon I started ignoring him and everyone else as hard as I could and looking rigidly out the window at the horizon -- when I could see it; it was frequently completely obscured by the waves crashing against us -- because while I've never had a problem on a plane and only very very rarely in a car, I do have problems on boats in rough seas when I can't see a horizon and especially when I have to hear-- you know what, let's just move on. I sang a bunch of Gilbert and Sullivan to myself ("I am the monarch of the sea!") and made a mental note to pick up some Dramamine or Gravol or whatever they call it here before getting on another ferry; as well as going back to Jersey on our way home, we want to take at least one day trip from Guernsey to one of the smaller islands, Herm or Sark or both. Also I will shank someone for a window seat if I have to; if I had been in the middle section I'd have been doomed. Geoff has an iron stomach, lucky man.

Anyway we all survived and staggered off the boat in St Peter Port, the capital of Guernsey. I did hear someone assuring one of the people who'd been sick that the return journey would be smoother, because the boat would be going with the wind instead of against it. The rugby people quickly regained their raucous enthusiasm, including one woman in the crowd two rows ahead of us who started loudly honking a bicycle horn as everyone was slowly shuffling forward in a packed excited mass toward the single exit from the cabin, and, well, there's more than one reason to shank someone on the ferry, is all I'm saying. No wonder they confiscated Geoff's knives. (He did get them back with no difficulty from a staffer at the end of the disembarking gangway.)

We walked about ten minutes through town to the visitor information centre, where I was told that they don't have printed maps of trails or hikes available (except for a fairly pricy book) but there's an app plus some printed maps that should do us fine, and where I saw with great interest that they were selling jars of chili crisp made with Guernsey seaweed -- I am definitely coming home with some of that! I fell in love with chili crisp a couple of years ago when it was the hot new trendy condiment, and it sounded intriguing so I tried out a few varieties. (The one I settled on as my favorite is Hot Crispy Oil https://hotcrispyoil.com/, fyi.)

Then we caught a bus a little ways out of town, to our hotel/B&B. When I was looking for places for us to stay on Guernsey, everywhere that looked good in St Peter Port itself was eyewateringly expensive, so I booked us into what looks like a nice place ten minutes' drive away but on several bus lines. It's right near the airport, and I had a moment of "oh no, maybe I should try to research flight patterns" and then I got a grip and asked myself how busy the Guernsey airport was really going to be? So far we've heard a couple of planes but it's fine.

We arrived at about 11 to find a sign saying that the front desk wouldn't be staffed until 3, but early arrivals were welcome to leave their luggage in the front hall entry while they went off to do whatever. (There were a lot of suitcases already stacked to the side.) Another note gave the wifi info, so Geoff and I prepared to unload some luggage, ensconce ourselves on the big comfy couch, and check email for a bit before heading to the pub down the road, which would open at noon and which gives a 15% discount to guests at this hotel, for our first meal of the day. But staff came through on their various morning errands and asked if they could help. At first they said our room wouldn't be ready until three (unless we wanted twin beds, which we did not), and of course we said no problem, we certainly didn't expect it to be ready this early though it would be a lovely surprise if it were, we're fine waiting. And then half an hour later they said they had a room for us! It's big, with a big window overlooking the courtyard, and we have a mini-fridge and a full bathtub rather than just a shower stall even though the hotel's website says that only "superior" rooms have them. So I guess they upgraded us! Sweet. I mean, I would be cheerfully polite anyway, and I absolutely understand that a booked hotel room probably won't be available until mid-afternoon, but it's awfully nice to be rewarded for cheerful politeness!

Geoff noticed a third note posted at reception saying that there were still a few places available for tonight's tapas dinner: meet in the hotel bar at 5:30 for intro drinks and then [list of delicious dishes I don't remember except that they looked yummy]. And we were up early, and not having to hunt around for a place to have dinner sounded great, so we booked in for that. Then we dumped our stuff in the room and went down the road to the pub for a good lunch and a shared pint of Butcombe ale, which we hadn't tried before except that at some point Geoff had a fish and chips where the batter was made with it, but that hardly counts. The pub was advertising its Sunday roast dinner, and Geoff wants to experience that, so we booked in there for six tomorrow evening. (It was also advertising that Monday is "pie night", with five different kinds of savoury pie on offer, which we also find verrrrry intriguing.)

Many of the restaurant staff we've met, both here and on Jersey (as well as the host of our guesthouse there), have clearly been nonnative English speakers; I imagine a lot of people come here from continental Europe to work in the tourist industry. At the Spanish-Asian fusion restaurant we went to twice, Geoff had a fun conversation about Spanish beers with the Spanish waiter. Today at the pub I ordered a ploughman's lunch, and the waitress didn't know what I meant, so I pointed at it on the menu and she said (more or less), "Oh, the plockman's."

And now we are tucked up in our room, blogging and otherwise farting around on the internet. There are people chatting loudly in the courtyard under our window, but I'm sure they won't be there after dark. There's also a jacuzzi and a barrel sauna in the courtyard; I wonder if they're free for residents, or if there's a charge? We brought our bathing suits for kayaking, after all, and weren't expecting to get any other use out of them...

But now it's time to get ready for dinner.

vilakins

Day 16: Best use of a hoary old trope

It seems that every SF series must have an arena episode, and B7's one is Duel. It's pretty good as arena eps go - we have Jenna and Blake up a tree with vampire bats, Travis with pointy sticks, and there's the intriguing introduction of mutoids, though I wish they had explored them further in later eps.

B7 also has a courtroom ep of sorts, with Trial, though with very little actual courtroom, to my relief - yeah, not a fan - though I'm not sure if the spit planet is an improvement.

I can't answer most of the remaining questions, so I'll see if I can come up with some alternate ones.

All the questions are on Tumblr.

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January 2020

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vilakins - 30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 20
mossy_bench in fandomcalendar - Launch the Ship: Sign-ups Open!
the_shoshanna - trying to catch up on blogging
brightknightie in fandomcalendar - Forever Knight: FKFicFest (a challenge-style ficathon)
vilakins - 30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 19
jamez in fandomcalendar - Multifandom: Epidem-Fic! Sickfic & Art Exchange - Nominations Open
brutalbunny in fandomcalendar - kagurabachi: bachi big bang!
summerofhorrorexchange in fandomcalendar - [MULTIFANDOM] SUMMER OF HORROR EXCHANGE 2026 NOMINATIONS OPEN
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vilakins - 30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 18
shadowkat - Catching up on the May Question a Day Meme
the_shoshanna - Saturday night, and as much of Sunday (today) as I can write up
the_shoshanna - one more thing about Friday's hike
vilakins - 30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 17
shadowkat - Nonsenical Book Meme
hikarimew in fandomcalendar - Yu-Gi-Oh! Big Bang Event 2026
twistedchick - (no subject)
the_shoshanna - wrapping up Friday, our last real day on Jersey
vilakins - 30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 16

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apples from the tree

Reading

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 20

Launch the Ship: Sign-ups Open!

trying to catch up on blogging

Forever Knight: FKFicFest (a challenge-style ficathon)

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 19

Multifandom: Epidem-Fic! Sickfic & Art Exchange - Nominations Open

kagurabachi: bachi big bang!

[MULTIFANDOM] SUMMER OF HORROR EXCHANGE 2026 NOMINATIONS OPEN

New Substack post

NEW Icon Community NEW Icon Promptly NEW

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 18

Catching up on the May Question a Day Meme

Saturday night, and as much of Sunday (today) as I can write up

one more thing about Friday's hike

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 17

Nonsenical Book Meme

Yu-Gi-Oh! Big Bang Event 2026

(no subject)

wrapping up Friday, our last real day on Jersey

30 Days of Blake's 7 - day 16

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January 2020

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