Yarrkarping!

Nevermore – What is it?

// April 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Art, Web-food

Well, I suppose if you’ve visited the site and had a look around, maybe even read a chapter or two, you know roughly what it’s about, what I’m trying to do, but I want to write a little explanation here anyway.

Once upon a time I owned the domain abacrombied.com. I don’t anymore, but on that domain was a little section called Nevermore. This bit only contained the fragments of a story, an outline and the general idea for some characters. These ideas have now become the character introductions on the current Nevermore site and the outlines and ideas have been formed into a somewhat comprehensible plot, at least it has in my head. Let’s just say I have a general idea of where the whole thing is going. So anyway, I wrote the first bits back in 2004 and it wasn’t until a couple of months ago when I was cleaning out an old hard drive that I rediscovered them. I read and re-read them, corrected some spelling and grammar errors and decided I really liked what I’d written. This was actually quite surprising to me since I was only 19 when I wrote it, and I didn’t think I would like something I’d written back then. I thought I’d find it silly or childish, but it seems my past self was more mature, at least on some levels, than I thought.

And thus the idea for a Nevermore site formed again and I decided quite quickly on the format I’ve chosen. Wordpress really is the prefect platform when you don’t want to spend hours and hours on building a site and making it work, but would rather like to focus on the content and still be able to maintain a nice design. It may not be the most unique design in the world since the same template is probably used by many other bloggers, but I’m happy with it and it suits my purpose really well. I quite like the idea of the news-site design where the chapters and updates look like news items. And I’m a big fan of the menus. Mmm… menus.

But back to the idea that’s behind all this. I suppose my dream is for this to become a book. I really think I have it in me and I’ve decided that I’m going to go for it. Seeing as I’ve only produced three quite short chapters so far, I know it’s rather far off, but I do believe I’ll get there eventually. I mean, how far would I get if I didn’t believe that? So it’s a novel in progress. There, I’ve said it. I’m writing a book. Does that make me a writer? Or can you only call yourself that if you’ve managed to get something published? Although… there was that short story I wrote when I was 13.. Does that count? But then again, I’m publishing things here every week. But no. Aspiring author it is!

Anywho, I don’t think I’m going to say much about the story here, I’m going to let it speak for itself for now. If you have any questions about it though, feel free to drop me a line. I would love some feedback. That is after all why I’ve put the whole thing online. The other reason for putting it up on the web is that I’m a terrible slacker, but I was thinking that if there’s other people out there expecting me to write, I’ll be better at keeping it up. I don’t know if it’ll work, but we’ll see.

So that’s it! Now go read!

Stuck

// April 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Life

I feel like I’m stuck. Stuck in a job I don’t want, in a town that I don’t like. I have a wonderful boyfriend that so want to be close to, but unless I get a job that enables me to move, I’ll only be able to see him on the weekends. It’s agonising and since I started looking for jobs it’s becoming more and more apparent exactly how much I want it, and how awful it is not to be able to get it now. I really do hate it when things like that, big things, are out of my control. I hate the waiting and the uncertainty and sometimes, a lot of times lately, it’s all that’s been on my mind. I know I should stop worrying since there’s nothing I can do at the moment anyway. I just need to stay calm and wait for the jobs I applied for to get back to me.

But it’s difficult. I had to phone Kev last night and have a big moan. It feels like I’m homesick, except it’s not home as in “back home in Sweden” that I’m longing for. It’s just a home, a place that will feel like a permanent, rock solid home that I like coming back to every day after work.

Sigh, I need to lighten up, don’t I? Difficult sometimes though.

Post-Easter

// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Life, Shopping, Travel

The Easter weekend was a well needed and fantastic break from everything that’s work. I can’t say it made it any more fun to go to work this morning, but at least… what? I can’t really say I see anything positive about it not being weekend anymore. I could have just loitered about with Kev for another month or so, that’s how nice it was.

I think the weekend secretly started on Thursday morning, even though I did have to go to work. The mood in the office was great, everyone was smiling and it was like Friday, but better, except it was a Thursday. I even entered the Easter raffle, but I didn’t win anything. £2 down the drain! =P

I had worked later than usual earlier in the week, so I could leave earlier and meet up with Kev in Paisley to go look at some flats. So I got on the train at 3 pm and arrived at the flat at quarter to four, 15 minutes early. It was a nice walk through the town centre to get there and when I got there I liked what I saw. the flats looked really nice from the outside, and I hoped they looked just as nice from the inside. So I took place next to a lamp post where I could see the road and keep a look out for the estate agent and for Kev. He’d texted and said he’d be a bit late due to roadworks. So I wait. 4 pm passes and there’s no Kev and no estate agent. at 4.15 Kev arrives, but there’s still no agent. So we wait some more. At 4.40 there was still no site of the agent, now 40 minutes late, so we swear a bit and decide it’s time to leave. It all felt very useless and totally disappointing. I had been looking forward to the viewings so much. So I had a big moan in the car on the way back to Hamilton. But then we got to talking about jobs. See, I’ve embarked on a job hunt. I’m not happy with my current job, neither pay nor location wise. I also don’t like the fact that there’s actually so little work to be done that I can spend a lot of my time writing things like this, or just staring out the window. So I’m looking for something else.

Thus we talked about that, and decided that maybe it was better to wait with the flat hunt until we knew whether or not I’d get a job that would allow us to move somewhere that’s even more convenient for the both of us than Paisley would be in our current situation. I think it’s a good plan, cause it would really suck if we moved, and then two weeks later I got a job where living in a better location would be possible. So yeah, that’s what I’m doing with my evening nowadays; job hunting.

Then we got home, and about 20 minutes after we’d gone through the front door my phone rings. It’s a representative from the estate agent, wondering if I’m still coming to the viewing at 5.30 in Paisley. that was when I originally booked it for, but I phoned up and changed it, and got that confirmed earlier during the day of the viewing. But apparently nobody had told the guy that was supposed to show us the flats. Go figure. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. And I do think that it will be even nicer moving in together if I get a job that I like, in a place that we both like and can commute from comfortably. It will feel more permanent then, and maybe we can even consider renting unfurnished, and get out own furniture. I actually really like the thought of that. I really, really like it.

I don’t know if there’s much to tell you about the rest of the weekend, Sunday excluded. All we did was hang about, play Broken Sword (which by the way, is a brilliant, awesomely fun game), both 1 and 2, and watch Black Books, which is also brilliant and awesome. We also ate good food and chocolate and cookies, I think that’s worth mentioning as well, since food and chocolate and cookies are all very good.

But onwards to the Sunday then! We had already planned to go to Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh and on the Saturday we decided that Sunday would be the day, so we printed off a map and some instructions on how to get there, had some tuna pasta for breakfast and got in the car. The weather was warm and sunny and we drove out from Hamilton just late enough to avoid getting the sun in our eyes. When we got to the outskirts of Edinburgh I was surprised by how picturesque and pretty everything was. the gardens were immaculate, the houses were nice and well, I think the weather helped =) We didn’t have any problems at all finding our way to Dynamic Earth, or finding a parking space once we got there for that matter. The place was not that busy, to my surprise, but it wasn’t empty either. So we went in and started seeping up information, to then be ushered into the gift shop once we had completed the tour. Very clever. It was a nice little gift shop and I did get a mouse mat. I needed a mouse mat and this one was made from recycled tires, so I thought I’d help the environment a little, while helping my mouse at the same time. Everyone is happy!

When we got out the weather was a bit chillier, but it was still dry and the occasional hole in the clouds let the sun peek out. We went back to the car and got our jackets and then we set off on a little walk through Edinburgh. We had a look at the royal palace and the new parliament building, which looked well funky and futuristic. Then we started walking up towards the town centre, got some nice views on the way and eventually ended up on a pedestrianised street running through what must have been an old part of town. I found a really nice scarf to go with my yellow bag in a little oriental looking shop that was squeezed in between two tourist-style shops selling all things tartan. The place was full of shops like that, more or less serious. In the window to one of the more serious ones I saw and amazing tartan gown. It was dark blue and green and just… amazing! It looked somewhat like this one. I stared at it for a long while and then we moved on.

completely by chance, while looking for some place to eat we went onto a side street to the main one we were on and came across The Elephant House, which is the birthplace of Harry Potter! JK Rowling came up with him in there. Being a former fan-girl deluxe, I was very pleased and made Kev take a picture of me outside by the sign. He just laughed at me, but I was still very pleased. He claims the smile I had in that photo was the happiest one I’d had on all day. I’ll post some photos when I get the chance.

When we’d eaten we started making our way back to the car, taking a different route than we’d came. We got a bit worried we were lost at one point, but it turned out we weren’t. And we also came across an absolutely amazing graffiti wall on the way. I’ll see if I can post a picture of that as well later.

And that’s about it. That’s my Easter summed up in one big massive blog post. Oooh, and I’m getting a hair cut later today. hopefully I’ll be able to get rid of the last bits of black that’s left in my hair. It may turn out a bit short if I insist on that, but I desperately want to have a uniform hair colour. I’m sick of being blond with black bits left over from whenever the last time I dyed my hair black was.