Comic Con and other travels

Hello everyone,

I’ve been off to Comic Con again ! It was a run to London MCM Comic Con on Friday just gone. Pretty good day out overall, although that was with its ups and downs. But first ! The thumbnail. Let’s see what it’ll be …

Picture. We're looking at two flat pieces of pale wood. Burned into the top one is a cute dragon looking at us, sitting on his haunches with front paws between back paws. The caption is "Have you hugged your dragon today?" The lower one is a cute dragon standing up, short arms to the sides, holding hands on sticks to make their hug wider. The caption here is "I love you THIS much!"

I saw those at Scorch’s Pyrography stall and knew I needed to take them home with me. Very cute. After using an AI assisted picture for Halloween, I’ve now turned the top one there (Have you hugged your dragon) into my latest avatar.

The day started with me rushing in to try and meet someone before she had to disappear. I had a Thing that I needed to drop off and she wasn’t going to be there that long after my ticket would let me in. London’s always a slightly awkward place to travel around in a car. The trick is to go in just far enough to swap to the Underground and then you go the rest of your way from there. The Underground has always worked really well for me, although certain stations (Baker Street) and peak travel times make me very nervous about being around too many people. And that’s from the Before Times too, when we only had to worry about pickpockets.

So this time, I head in via the Westfield next to the Shepherds Bush stations. It’s a big shopping centre with a massive (and cheap) car park, so it’s a good place to drop off the car and change to train. It also allowed me to pick up something for the Shenanigan. I don’t think I’ll be using Westfield too much more though, one of the downs of the day was the last mile or so getting in and the trip out to the motorway again. It’s probably a bit too far in to London and traffic was nasty on the way out.

As usual for Comic Con, there were some amazing outfits on display.

Picture. A slightly blurry image that doesn't do justice to the lady's outfit. She's wearing a floor length dress, the centre panel is light coloured with patterns of roses. The outer section is light red. She's carrying a big axe, with hearts and more roses. Her hat is emblazoned with more roses.
Definitely a Queen of our Hearts

Absolutely stunning, I hope she managed to get to the drink and munchie she was on the way to when I interrupted her. (I was taking a quick stop too before my legs exploded).

Not the lady I wanted to catch before disappearing though. I’m not going to say who that is here. I’m not sure she wanted it known that she was going to be there that day. I have pictures but I’m similarly keeping those off the internet because while I think they’re some of the better ones I got that day, she doesn’t like them :-D.

Always respect people’s wishes like that.

This particular lady’s going through some rough moments currently. Hopefully she can get to bouncing and dancing around again soon and that the pain subsides to tolerable levels quickly too. She’s a very special one and you always hope that people like that are feeling up to brightening up the days of people they’re around, because of the wonderful people they are at their core.

So while she’s having the rough times, I hope I balanced that a bit with the gift that brightened up the day. The chat we had definitely brightened up my day and I was floaty happy Sleepy for most of it.

And that’s what we should all do where we can, enable people to be the best they can be. Enable them to have a better day. And when we’re not having a great day ourselves, then if we’re around the right people they can enable us to feel a bit better. And we respect what they want or need to do as well.

We all have vulnerable times, we all have times when we’re not feeling too good whether that’s from physical, mental or other kinds of illness. It’s up to us to enable people to feel better, whether that’s celebrating their wins, or giving them that metaphorical hug when they’re down. The “Thinking of you, hope you’re ok, feel better soon, you Matter.”

Oh ! I got more loot on Friday too …

Picture. We're looking at a t-shirt, with a grey haired fox standing up. He has a sword in his right paw, in his left is a very long scroll. He's between trees to the left and right. The caption is "I'm not procrastinating, I'm doing side quests"

It was a bit different going round Comic Con this time, without my usual Comic Con Friend. You kind of bounce off each other there. One person sees something fun, tells the other, both enjoy it. And vice versa for other things that might not have been spotted. Always taking pictures too. Maybe even a bit of helping each other when the physical-ness of the day might be getting too much.

Yep, I had to take breaks a lot :-D. I started cramping up fairly early, the Excel Arena is a bit overheated, especially with that many people inside. I didn’t quite heed the signs early enough and ended up with my legs locking on me a couple of times and probably microtears in the calf muscles that have only just about recovered. So after I’d been round once, it would have been good to head around again but the Homing Instinct kicked in and I was on my way.

It would be good to do one of these with a Comic Con Friend again. Hopefully my usual Comic Con Friend is feeling better now, she’s also been going through the Life Stuff and has been ill. Feel better soon ! It would have been lovely to see what you made of what was around at the show. Like …

Picture. We're looking at a display area with several people milling around. Taking centre shot is a display stand with a yellow creature built from blocks. It has white and black eyes, a black nose and red cheeks. The caption below is "nanoblock", they're a Pokemon Pikachu about 50cm high made from blocks.
PIKA !

Other loot I picked up was :

CAKE – there’s always cake. It was good cake too.

Lego Lightsaber – this will probably be in another post at some point.

More t-shirt – the other one is about mimics

Happy smiles. (I think there was more too).

So there we go, I’ve named the picture folder “Comic Con London 2023” in perhaps a hopeful thing. There’s another MCM Comic Con coming in Birmingham at the start of December. I am very tempted. But what I’m also tempted by is a cruise up the Norwegian coast starting and finishing at Tilbury Docks in London. That would be in a couple of weeks and in an older person (as in not kids) oriented cruise line. That might have to happen, if I can break free of the timid tendencies that have crept in over the last 10 years or so.

Might need to look at camera solutions if I do that Northern Lights cruise. I like my Ixus 265 but it’s got a tendency to blur … I’d need to look at vibration damping for it as it’s very sensitive to the small hand movements.

That’s another day, back to remembering a lovely lady blessing me with a little bit of her time on Friday before she had to rush off. I hopefully brightened her day with the Thing In Box, she definitely brightened my day.

And that’s where I’ll leave it today. If you can, help someone out. Enable them to do something they’ll enjoy. Give them a bit of confidence that they’re appreciated and they Matter.

If you’ve reached this part of the post, you most definitely Matter to me. Thank you for reading :-).