So I have finally had my first brush with covid and I am so very grateful for science and vaccines right now. Thankfully, I have appeared to have had a mild dose of it but, by gods, if this is what a mild dose is I am so glad I’ve not had the full blown virus…. it really doesn’t bear thinking about.

Mostly I’ve had what can be classed as a flu-like virus. I lost both sense of taste and smell for three to four days and that made me question if I really tasted my food anyway as it wasn’t that noticeable until the third day when everything just tasted of nothing. The biggest thing for me was the sudden ‘sleep now’ button my body developed. I would just be sat on the sofa watching something and my entire being would just go ‘sleep NOW’ and I’d fall asleep for 90mins to 2hrs. I did feel markedly better for the sleep so I wouldn’t call it fatigue in it’s truest definition but it’s the closest I think I’ve come to it since I had pneumonia when I was 4 years old.

The sudden heat is also a thing, more so than the hot flushes I’ve been starting to get with peri-menopause. One moment I’d feel moderately comfortable and then just putting a load in the wash would have me sweating buckets. One plus side is that I have lost 10lbs in weight – not that I would recommend this as a weightloss method because nope, it sucks.

Still testing positive today but feeling much better than mid last week when the virus first hit. A lot of my LRP buddies from all factions with CP have been affected by it too so we had a bit of an outbreak. I wish them all so much love and healing hugs. What has been interesting is the vast array of symptoms. This virus has some of the most random sets of symptoms.

But about LRP

What a wonderful weekend it was. I love my crazy hobby. Live Acton Role-playing (LRP or LARP), brings me so much joy and enables me to flex my acting chops which I love doing in the immersive nature of the game. It allows me to be the big goddamn hero but also enables me to feel all the emotions in a safe environment and this last event was no exception. Perhaps Lif (my character – pronounce leaf), will have one event where she is not a gibbering mess? Doubt it, knowing our plot team 😉

This weekend we needed to renew the magical properties of an in game item that is specific to our faction.

The ritual involved the theme of sacrifice. Within the game, a few years ago, my character performed the sacrifice of seven of her ‘brothers’. In game we all belong to factions, and mine is The Wolves – viking inspired and drawing on the myths and legends of the old Norse in good measure. Included in that number was Lif’s own blood sworn brother, Lars. So naturally the ‘vision’ invoked in the ritual was the moment Lif plunges the dagger into Lars’s heart. To really bring home the emotion, as half the faction had missed the original encounter when it occurred, I drew not only on the immeasurable emotion of the original encounter but also on very personal out of character grief for myself and a number of those gathered.

Lars was played by my dear friend Steve Boland in game and unfortunately we lost Steve, due to a heart attack, during the pandemic lockdown. I drew on all that grief of losing Steve as well as Lars and put it into that ritual to enable the rest of my lovely LRPers to really feel what a moment in game that had been. Judging by the comments I’ve received, it worked. It also helped me to really let that emotion out and have a positive channel to funnel it through. But oof it was a lot. Glad I was asked to do it though.

LRP enables me to really channel the inner drama queen. I love acting the personal relationships, it’s the emotional connection between characters that I find incredibly rewarding. Due to work, the band and various other activities, I do not have the time to commit to an AmDram group so this scratches that itch. I’ve not been comfortable with many photos from my LRP events of late but this event gave me one incredible photo that reminded me of the first time we see my favourite on the big screen, so I had to do a comparison.

I’ve always played at Curious Pastimes exclusively, until now (we’ll skip over my brief jolly with a Lorien Trust faction local group when I was 18/19). This month a few of us are venturing to a new system to play Exiled on the Shores of Carmoa – a pirate LRP by those fine folks at Wayfarer Chronicles. My costume is ostentatious, and I have a wonderful flintlock replica pistol for my pirate Queen. I cannot wait to play this system and see what the experience is like. I am told it is a genuinely lovely game. I’ll naturally do a blog on that once I return

VO update

And due to the dreaded ‘Rona, my headshot pics have had to go on hold until the end of the month and as such that pushes my demo recording out to Oct at the earliest. However, I have signed up for a number of free talks that those amazing people at BRAVA have put on. Do check them out if you are interested in getting into the wonderful world of VO.

Streams – what’s happening with them?

I will be back next week with Streams. I have a few things I need to prepare for re-launch so hope to have them done this week/weekend. Also I have some cover to do and put videos together for so that I can share those as well as writing some lyrics- see previous statement about too many other things to commit to being in stage productions too. But next week’s schedule will be as follows:

• Sunday 11th Sept 7-9 – General chatter and catch up.
• Monday 12th Sept 7-9 – Classy Classics gameplay night
• Weds 14th Sept 7-9 – Possibly some mixing of a new cover track and video…… now wouldn’t that be a nice stream to do?

So there we have it, for the moment anyway. But remember, Covid sucks! So wash your hands, wear a mask if you’re unsure about the space you’re in and rest if you get it – trust me on the rest.

And as it is Sept 5th, Happy 76th Birthday Freddie.
Absolutely There will never be another like you Mr Mercury!

As always, be kind to yourselves, you rock!
Krissie
xx