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lupestripeIt has been a week of contrasts, with the weekdays being very difficult, but the weekend ending on a high. It was great going out with Wolfie for our anniversary on Monday, but the good vibes ended there. The main issue concerns my main client, as I received the news on Wednesday that my future there is uncertain. My manager has already been made redundant, and it's difficult to know whether I will lose all of the work, some of the work, or none of it. I'm certainly expecting to lose some, having been taken off one of my two main projects in the middle of last month, but I wasn't expecting for all of it to go. I should have some answers this week, and I'm hoping I can be retained in some capacity. However, I'm unsure how likely that is, and losing what would be around two-thirds of my income means sobering decisions will have to be made. I have already gone through my subscriptions and trimmed the fat there, but it won't be enough in the mid to long-term. What worries me is just how difficult finding new clients and jobs has been. I guess I just have to hope for the best and see what happens. I've had precious little luck professionally over the last few years, I really hope things change for the better soon.
On Friday, Wolfie and I went to IKEA to pick up some storage boxes. This coming Tuesday, there is a flat inspection, and while I think it's more about the warranty and insurance on the property, it would be good if the place wasn't a shit tip. It has certainly motivated us to do some tidying up and thorough Spring cleaning. We're not too bad at this in general - our main issue is clutter - but considering we don't know what access they will need or what the inspection will entail, having the house tidy would be of benefit. While at IKEA, we also took advantage of their excellently-priced restaurant, where we had Swedish meatballs, fries, garden peas and gravy. This was delicious and at €7.95, made for good value, even if it was cafeteria-style food. I hadn't had garden peas for so long and it took me back to my childhood, while the meatballs were so good, we ended up buying a packet of them to take home for our freezer. I also ended up buying beer from the nearby Kaufland. The week had been tough and although I had managed to get ahead of my Fenris editing, I was exhausted and stress, so any no alcohol vow was out of the window. I didn't regret it.
Things changed on Saturday, with the news that I had been nominated for my first-ever Cóyotl Award for 'Back to the Molly House'. These are the awards handed out by the Furry Writers Guild and to have made the final four is a dream come true. I have always wanted to win one and although the competition is extremely tough - particularly as the other three stories were all written by friends - I think I have as good a chance as anyone else. Full details on the nomination and how to vote can be found here.
Saturday was also a good writing day, seeing me get one story sent off for consideration in an anthology. My writing group had helped me with this one, with our usual monthly call taking place on the Friday evening. This was something of a relief as I'd been working on this story for a number of months, and was a little embarrassed in Thursday's Go Fourth call that I'd had little to report in terms of my progress so far in April. It was always going to be a very cluttered month - indeed I had been invited by NoteFox to attend the TIN non-binary and trans event at Qualgeist on Thursday but had to turn it down on account of how busy I am - but I'm hoping now I've made progress, I'll feel more motivated. There are so many conbooks and anthologies I want to write for, it has become a little overwhelming, but I'll give it my best shot.
Indeed, the only negative thing about Saturday was Boro losing at home to relegation-threatened Portsmouth in the 97th minute, which effectively killed our automatic promotion hopes. They've well and truly bottled it, not having won any of their last six games, and although Millwall's result had given us some small semblance of hope, having 71% possession and 20 shots and still end up losing suggests we don't deserve promotion. It's a shame as we'd been in the top two for most of the season, but couldn't retain it when it really mattered.
This brings us to Sunday, where I had booked to attend the Kirschenblutenfest at Garten der Welt. This is basically the cherry blossom festival and one weekend every April, they offer discounted entry if you're wearing Japanese-style anime or manga attire. The furries are allowed to attend too, renting out a space underneath the concrete auditorium where we could get change and base our operations. It was quite a lavish event as not only were there plenty of fursuit photographs (basically one every ten minutes), there was a fursuit walk too. Here, we got to meet many members of the public and perform too. The kids in particular loved us and it was one of those days which really exemplified the joy of suiting. Notefox was at the event and took quite a few photos of me under the cherry blossom trees, while I was frequently hugged by a cute blue partial fursuiter called Matcha, with whom I took many more photos. It was a shame that the weather on Sunday was not as pleasant as it had been on Saturday, with the former's bright sunshine being replaced by thick grey cloud. The fursuit walk was postponed by an hour to try and dodge the rain, but fortunately it wasn't too heavy. The only places it caused an issue were the stages, which pooled the water into a slippery mulch. Underfoot on the pavements, it was quite dry, which was just as well as I was wearing my new fursuit feet paws for the first time. I had wanted to wear them at both Scotiacon and Nordic Fuzzcon but I suited at neither. The paws were good if a little baggy, while the soles already seem a little worn down after just three hours of suiting.
Al had met me at Jungfernheide at 10am and we'd travelled up together, seeing this as a good opportunity to see Garten der Welt. As the fursuit walk was delayed though, we ended up getting back to base quite late, affording him little time to see many of the gardens. Hot food had also been laid on for those who had per-registered and sponsored, with cold cuts, pudding and jelly available for all. The hot food consisted of one portion of fries and one portion of nuggies, but the fryers took forever to work, so they were serving food at about three portions every ten minutes. As a sponsor, I also got a really cool personalised wooden engraved name badge. I only really knew Notefox and Al there, but I met a few people including Yuki and Matcha, while there were a couple I recognised in passing. It was great speaking to Ericmon again, but what I realised when Notefox and Al weren't around was just how difficult I find socialising in German here. It's true that most people speak English, but I'm frustrated with myself that my German isn't better, as it really reduces my usual vivacity. I spent a few minutes just wandering around on my own or sat on the toilet, but these were mere down moments in what was ultimately a tremendous day. I was certainly glad I got up early to get there (an 8:45am start to arrive at 11am, such is the distance of the damn place), and it was great chilling with Al too. We left about 5:30pm, with me having shown him around a few of the other gardens, and we ended up in The Castle for a couple of drinks as our tram was sidling right past it. Al wanted to head back home early though and I was more than happy to oblige, so I arrived home shortly after 9pm, to be greeted by the news of Viktor Orban's landslide defeat in the Hungarian election. This gives me far more hope of a united Europe going forward, particularly in counteracting Russia and helping Ukraine, while it proves that the far-right is beatable, even if they try and stack the cards in their favour.
So a great weekend then, albeit one that came after a very difficult week. I have trepidation over what this week may bring, but I guess we'll just have to see. It would be great to get a professional break though.
On Friday, Wolfie and I went to IKEA to pick up some storage boxes. This coming Tuesday, there is a flat inspection, and while I think it's more about the warranty and insurance on the property, it would be good if the place wasn't a shit tip. It has certainly motivated us to do some tidying up and thorough Spring cleaning. We're not too bad at this in general - our main issue is clutter - but considering we don't know what access they will need or what the inspection will entail, having the house tidy would be of benefit. While at IKEA, we also took advantage of their excellently-priced restaurant, where we had Swedish meatballs, fries, garden peas and gravy. This was delicious and at €7.95, made for good value, even if it was cafeteria-style food. I hadn't had garden peas for so long and it took me back to my childhood, while the meatballs were so good, we ended up buying a packet of them to take home for our freezer. I also ended up buying beer from the nearby Kaufland. The week had been tough and although I had managed to get ahead of my Fenris editing, I was exhausted and stress, so any no alcohol vow was out of the window. I didn't regret it.
Things changed on Saturday, with the news that I had been nominated for my first-ever Cóyotl Award for 'Back to the Molly House'. These are the awards handed out by the Furry Writers Guild and to have made the final four is a dream come true. I have always wanted to win one and although the competition is extremely tough - particularly as the other three stories were all written by friends - I think I have as good a chance as anyone else. Full details on the nomination and how to vote can be found here.
Saturday was also a good writing day, seeing me get one story sent off for consideration in an anthology. My writing group had helped me with this one, with our usual monthly call taking place on the Friday evening. This was something of a relief as I'd been working on this story for a number of months, and was a little embarrassed in Thursday's Go Fourth call that I'd had little to report in terms of my progress so far in April. It was always going to be a very cluttered month - indeed I had been invited by NoteFox to attend the TIN non-binary and trans event at Qualgeist on Thursday but had to turn it down on account of how busy I am - but I'm hoping now I've made progress, I'll feel more motivated. There are so many conbooks and anthologies I want to write for, it has become a little overwhelming, but I'll give it my best shot.
Indeed, the only negative thing about Saturday was Boro losing at home to relegation-threatened Portsmouth in the 97th minute, which effectively killed our automatic promotion hopes. They've well and truly bottled it, not having won any of their last six games, and although Millwall's result had given us some small semblance of hope, having 71% possession and 20 shots and still end up losing suggests we don't deserve promotion. It's a shame as we'd been in the top two for most of the season, but couldn't retain it when it really mattered.
This brings us to Sunday, where I had booked to attend the Kirschenblutenfest at Garten der Welt. This is basically the cherry blossom festival and one weekend every April, they offer discounted entry if you're wearing Japanese-style anime or manga attire. The furries are allowed to attend too, renting out a space underneath the concrete auditorium where we could get change and base our operations. It was quite a lavish event as not only were there plenty of fursuit photographs (basically one every ten minutes), there was a fursuit walk too. Here, we got to meet many members of the public and perform too. The kids in particular loved us and it was one of those days which really exemplified the joy of suiting. Notefox was at the event and took quite a few photos of me under the cherry blossom trees, while I was frequently hugged by a cute blue partial fursuiter called Matcha, with whom I took many more photos. It was a shame that the weather on Sunday was not as pleasant as it had been on Saturday, with the former's bright sunshine being replaced by thick grey cloud. The fursuit walk was postponed by an hour to try and dodge the rain, but fortunately it wasn't too heavy. The only places it caused an issue were the stages, which pooled the water into a slippery mulch. Underfoot on the pavements, it was quite dry, which was just as well as I was wearing my new fursuit feet paws for the first time. I had wanted to wear them at both Scotiacon and Nordic Fuzzcon but I suited at neither. The paws were good if a little baggy, while the soles already seem a little worn down after just three hours of suiting.
Al had met me at Jungfernheide at 10am and we'd travelled up together, seeing this as a good opportunity to see Garten der Welt. As the fursuit walk was delayed though, we ended up getting back to base quite late, affording him little time to see many of the gardens. Hot food had also been laid on for those who had per-registered and sponsored, with cold cuts, pudding and jelly available for all. The hot food consisted of one portion of fries and one portion of nuggies, but the fryers took forever to work, so they were serving food at about three portions every ten minutes. As a sponsor, I also got a really cool personalised wooden engraved name badge. I only really knew Notefox and Al there, but I met a few people including Yuki and Matcha, while there were a couple I recognised in passing. It was great speaking to Ericmon again, but what I realised when Notefox and Al weren't around was just how difficult I find socialising in German here. It's true that most people speak English, but I'm frustrated with myself that my German isn't better, as it really reduces my usual vivacity. I spent a few minutes just wandering around on my own or sat on the toilet, but these were mere down moments in what was ultimately a tremendous day. I was certainly glad I got up early to get there (an 8:45am start to arrive at 11am, such is the distance of the damn place), and it was great chilling with Al too. We left about 5:30pm, with me having shown him around a few of the other gardens, and we ended up in The Castle for a couple of drinks as our tram was sidling right past it. Al wanted to head back home early though and I was more than happy to oblige, so I arrived home shortly after 9pm, to be greeted by the news of Viktor Orban's landslide defeat in the Hungarian election. This gives me far more hope of a united Europe going forward, particularly in counteracting Russia and helping Ukraine, while it proves that the far-right is beatable, even if they try and stack the cards in their favour.
So a great weekend then, albeit one that came after a very difficult week. I have trepidation over what this week may bring, but I guess we'll just have to see. It would be great to get a professional break though.
