As I already hinted: it was wonderful at LonCon. That was not only my first WorldCon, but also my first convention ever, and I started full speed ahead - with a dealer's table and a one-hour presentation about medieval textile crafts (with examples from London).

I met a lot of wonderful people, and I had the joyful experience of having an hour and a half on the very first evening, giving my presentation. Thanks again to the wonderful organiser of the academic track, Emma England, who made this possible! From the feedback that I got afterwards, it was an enjoyable experience for my audience, and I had a lot of fun too. There was a bit of an "aaargh!" moment at the very beginning, when I found out that all of the six (six!) microphones on the table were live, and fretted over toppling them over with my textile tools. There were a few further "oops" moments during the presentation, when I did my tools and process demonstrations before having clicked on to the cue cards in the presentation slideshow... but all of these were very minor and more something to grin sheepishly about than to really be troubled.

Apart from that first evening of (enjoyable) work, I spent the time after 18:00 hanging out with friends in filk concerts and in the "Fan Village", or at one of the several dances. During the day, I was mostly at our table in the Dealer's Hall, and that was not any less enjoyable, thanks to lovely customers, colleagues and neighbours. Susanne, our trusty and immensely helpful sidekick, hung out with us most of the time, helping to sell and chat - it wouldn't have been possible to enjoy the Con half as much without her. In fact, we had so much fun we decided it would be nice to do this again - surely not at the next WorldCon, because that is in the US, but there are more conventions apart from that one...

I also learned (quickly, hah!) about the Thing with the ribbons. You see, for your con attendance, you get a plastic badge that you hang around your neck. And if you like, you can stick ribbons to the bottom of it, stacking them. If you are really keen on ribbons, you do that until you have a long, scarf-like tail of cloth hanging from your badge. (I just wanted a few. I ended up with eleven.) There were some official ones (such as the bright orange "Dealers" ribbon, or the light blue "Programme Participant" ribbon, or the multi-coloured "First Worldcon" ribbon) marked with the LonCon symbol. Most of them, though, were unofficial and made by fans, and with all kinds of statements on them - such as "I <3 -="" a="" advertising="" and="" back="" because="" bid="" book="" br="" bryan="" citations="" city="" convention.="" coveted="" dead="" did="" doctor="" dog="" during="" evening="" fetch="" few="" film="" for="" four="" future="" get="" go="" his="" host="" hotel="" i="" instantly="" kind="" last="" making="" manage="" me="" my="" of="" on="" one="" or="" out="" party="" really="" ribbons="" room="" s="" saw="" showing="" so="" support="" that="" the="" there="" thing="" three="" to="" totally="" very="" wanted="" was="" were="" worldcons.="">

The Con also saw the debut of the pattern for Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat (ravelry pattern page link here), and it was very well received indeed!

The pattern is printed in colour, contains clear illustrated instructions for the special moves that are necessary for the lace part, and is now available via my webshop. Since I wanted to be able to sell it as a printed version, and prints do cost money, I am not planning to offer it as a download for at least a while (read: until the printing costs are, at least to a good part, regained). I know that it's nice to pay, download, and start right away if you buy an electronic pattern, but I did want very much to have the real ink-on-paper version for this one.

And as the introductory offer, you will pay no shipping costs if you order it now! The offer is valid until September 10, 2014.

There we are, Monday morning. Time to start telling you about all the things that happened during the blogging break... and the first thing is: our holidays.

This year for our holidays, we went to England again. Now, me and the most patient husband of them all like to have vacations with an, um, active element to them, such as going for a several-day canoe paddle... or travelling with the tandem.

If you've been a long-time reader, you might know that we own a semi-recumbent tandem, a perfect machine for travelling. We've done two England cycling trips before, and this time, we wanted to have a go in the south - Kent, Sussex, maybe even the Isle of Wight. We prepared the trip by getting Sustrans maps, loading all kinds of data onto the satnav, checking out what English Heritage and National Trust things would lie in the region, and finally went off for a two-week holiday.

What we had underestimated were, of course, the hills. Now we knew that England is only flat in tiny areas (quickly travelled through) and goes up and down otherwise. We're both not afraid of climbing a hill or a large hill... but the short and steep inclines in the inland of Kent and East Sussex do drain one's legs quickly if you have a bike with some weight to it. And with all our stuff, plus the rather heavy build of the tandem itself, it's a significant amount of weight! We were planning to camp, so our gear included the tent, mats, sleeping bags, and a full camping kitchen including a stash of emergency food supplies. Alltogether, with our personal gear and food and water loaded onto the bike, it weighs about 70 kg - that's a lot of weight to pedal up a 10% or more slope.

So we didn't get as far as the Isle of Wight. We did, however, manage to see Brighton (including some sea-bathing, though not directly in Brighton). We also saw lots and lots of beautiful vistas across cliffs, lands, fields; rode through dozens and dozens of streets that were flanked by trees so dense and high it turned them into green tunnels; went into gardens and old churches and houses. We saw Dover Castle (twice!), happened across a band of change-ringers (to our great delight), and most of the time we were very, very hot as we managed to get the full heatwave that England had in July.

It was, altogether, lovely. We met lots of nice people, had lots of nice food, slept incredible amounts of time ("oh, it's dusk already... hm... we could go and sleep?") and took in wonderful, wonderful landscape and scenery. We also made the most of our Overseas Visitor Pass from English Heritage... and not so much from our National Trust one. And you can totally save yourself the money for buying an overseas membership for the Camping and Caravanning club if you are going to use a tent - not worth it at all.

More detail? Here you go.
We have had so many good times with the English Heritage pass that it was a no-brainer to get one for this holiday. Really, it's amazing value - if you visit Dover Castle twice, you are already saving money if you bought the pass. And it's easy to spend two days (or two half-days) at that place, there's so much to see. When you buy the OVP, you get all the info stuff you would receive with a regular one-year membership, so you can look up all the details for all the places in a book.
If you are still in doubt - don't be. We usually broke even on our second or third day of holidays with the pass, even if travelling on the bike. And it gives you plenty of side destinations, all with clean and nice toilets, friendly people, gift shops to browse and fairly-priced, good food in their tearooms.

The National Trust has lovely parks as well as stunning houses and gardens, and they also offer a temporary pass. Unfortunately, though, you do not get a book with info, and all you have to plan with is a (rough) map that tells you whether it's a landscape, a house, or a garden. There are no opening times, no descriptions, no prices for regular entry (which would help in planning, as the price is usually a good hint on the size of the property, and thus the time you should plan to visit it). The only way to get this information is to pick up one of the info leaflets for the individual properties and places - and these are not always available in the spots you happen into. We thus had a hard time planning, and ended up not visiting as many of the places as we had hoped to (also because we were not cycling as far as we had originally planned to go, so it's not completely the fault of NT). The staff, though, was all incredibly nice, and we were even given a proper info book at one place, when we complained about our difficulties. We were also allowed to have a walk through the garden at one place even though we came there on a day where it was closed, having cycled a good distance just to visit this place.
So... if you are planning to do a sightseeing trip with bicycles or similar slow transportation, you will probably want to look up everything in the Internet before and take notes - including notes on opening times, which can vary immensely from property to property. The parks and landscapes are usually free to visit, so you might not even need to buy a pass.

And in regards to the Camping club... not only do you get no info, you also get an unfriendly answer when you ask for more info, or for the reason why they are so stingy with their stuff. As most of the places they have are very hard to find without the big book of sites, it was a waste of money and we will definitely not do that again. Also, they have plenty of places that do not take tents, and it's a hassle to find out which ones do from via the websites, if it's at all possible.

But that really was the only fly in the ointment of a holiday trip full of sun, fun, and beautiful things. Was it exhausting to cycle in England? Hell yes. Would we do it again? Hell yes, too.

I am back home after the long, long trip - one and a half days spent in the car to come back, well, with a ferry break after the first third of the first day.

It was a wonderful, wonderful time, both the holidays and the LonCon trip. Now normalcy beckons - back to work it is, answering emails, getting laundry done, watching the cat sleep. Oh, and sorting all the newly-bought books into shelves.

I have not sorted out all the bits and paper pieces yet that I brought from the Con, and a good amount of them is still in the car (which is not yet completely emptied out), but there are lots of interesting things, and I promise to link them all.

For now, I can tell you that it is utterly awesome to receive a ninja gig right in front of one's stall in the Dealer's room! Talis Kimberley sang us a knitting shanty (and then another knitting shanty). A few of her songs are on youtube, so I can share with you:



We had been to her concert the evening before, and it was wonderful - just the mix of serious political stuff, tongue-in-cheek humour and lightness that I love. Seeing (and hearing) her live is even better, but you can also get some of her songs via her webshop and her bandcamp site.

More tomorrow!

Avocado, to me, is a weird fruit. It doesn't taste fruity, it has a taste that I find very, very bland (up to "this tastes like nothing", but I like the texture it has. I got into first contact with them quite, quite late, and I think my first taste where I really liked them was as avocado sushi roll. (Texture, you see? That weird crumbly-melty mouthfeel in with the rice and the wasabi and soy sauce tastes, something like a cool melting blandness on the tongue.)

Recently, though, I have been experimenting in the kitchen, and in my quest for new (new to me, at least) recipes I have stumbled across avocado pudding. Yes, avocado pudding.

Basically, you take an avocado and puree it, adding something for sweetness (like a banana that you puree right along with it, or a few dates, or honey, or cold baked sweet potato, or fine sugar) and something for taste in addition to the banana or whatever - such as vanilla, cocoa, or berries. (Or not, depending on your preferences.) Plus maybe some liquid - water, milk, almond milk, whatever, to give it a slightly softer texture and have some more of it. It seems to be a thing out there, in the raw/vegan/"paleo" scene. I thought it weird at first (possibly not least because I am sceptic about things praised as "soooo good" and "even better than the original version" by vegans) and sort of stalked the basic idea for a while, not knowing whether I should or not. Then I tried it.

I don't much care for the taste of sweet potato in there, but with banana and strawberries? Really nice. Especially if you add in some chunks of fresh fruit, too. The most patient husband of them all tried the sweet potato version and found it rather... well... very much not to his taste, but then I haven't warmed to his favourite avocado version either (he likes it with some mustard, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper as sauce).

So if you are feeling adventurous and have an avocado and a banana to spare - you might want to try it. I'm not regretting that I did! (In case you want more of a recipe than I have given, any search engine will inundate you with recipes, and probably also with praise of the oh-best-thing-ever.)

I stumbled across this video, purely by chance, and if you've ever wondered about DNA or why all calico cats are female... you really will want to watch this.



Plus it has really cool graphics... and you get to go "aaaw" about the smallness of the Y chromosome.

Semi-related to this: Medieval Beasties, special edition, over at the British Library blog.

It's extremely hot around here - too hot for the season, actually, both Bamberg and Erlangen scored new heat records for June yesterday. And today? We're in for another very hot day, so very soon I will close all the doors and windows to keep as much of the morning cool inside and leave the heat outside.

The heat is one of the reasons we did not do much during the long weekend - and I think everybody was happy that yesterday was a public holiday, it was certainly much too hot to work. It's warm enough to have switched from drinking tea, mostly, to my favourite summer drink, based on something I had in a pub once that they called "thai lemonade". The original consisted of mostly water with fresh ginger, fresh lemongrass, mint leaves and lime juice, with some sugar to round off the taste. I'm unfortunately lacking proper fresh lemongrass and I usually skip the sugar, but if you are looking for a refreshing summer drink - just get those ingredients, throw them into a carafe, fill with cold water and let it stand for a bit. If you prefer mint with other tastes, some sprigs of mint and a small handful of crushed raspberries will also give a nice flavour to a 2-litre carafe of water. (Probably works with strawberries too, but I don't have the self-control at this time of year to put them into a water jug... I eat them. All.)


And if you are looking for something to read along with your drink, I have recently been waylaid by some articles at phys.org. They have stuff about sheep genome. And horse gaits. Plus a plethora of other interesting articles.

If you'd rather read something older, you can head over to the British Library website - the Simeon manuscript has been digitised.

How did the weekend pass so quickly? Is it really Monday again? Well, at least the overcast skies had the good grace to come today, not yesterday or Saturday, when we could enjoy some splendid weather, and I actually managed to get some gardening done.

Speaking of splendid - if you were thinking of moving to Stockholm, you might want to watch this ad video. Or if you like card tricks.



You can also get good coffee in Stockholm... I remember the first time I was in Scandinavia, I was totally amazed at the huge cups of really decent-to-totally-yummy coffee (with lots of milk) that you could get in any 7-11, or actually about anywere. Scandinavians run on coffee. Which seems to actually be healthy.

I didn't drink coffee until I was something in my twenties, when I slowly got fond of the taste, and now I do love a good cup of coffee, preferably with milk in it (lots of milk). A few years ago, we bought an Aeropress for our home, which is quick to use, makes lovely coffee, is easy to clean and does not take up much space. Like any German household, we have an electric water kettle to heat water anyway*, so it's one less appliance to find room and a socket for. Our coffee consumption, needless to say, has increased noticeably since introducing the Aeropress... small wonder.

Writing so much about coffee makes me want one. I think I will go have one now. Yum.

* The water kettle is about sixteen years old now, it would probably get totally jealous if we brought in another gadget that can heat water!