An hour in total darkness is kinda humbling. You forget just how automatically you switch on a light, or boil a kettle.
I was on my own with four tealights. Thank fuck for laptops with batteries!!
Okay, time for a real update! I've completely missed the bar on the Self-Shot Set Contest as my friend doing the Photoshopping has been completely snowed under with other work, but I'll still be putting it up in my pics
It's a shinier version of the practice set I shot back in January.
While we're talking about sets, I finally have my next set planned and will be shooting that very, very soon. I cannot wait, it's going to be a fucking riot! Watch this space
We also have news on the Rufus front. For anyone not up to date with this, Rufus is my beautiful little Abyssinian cat who went missing back at the beginning of February. We've done everything we can - posters, a leaflet campaign, informing every vet and shelter within a 20 mile radius.
HE AINT HEVVY, HEEZE MAH BRUDDER
Well, we had a sighting of him up near the nature reserve by my Dad's old house, which is where Rufus lived since we got him. He'd only been back in the family home for two weeks before disappearing. The last sighting of him was now nearly a month ago and I have been beside myself.
Think what you will of me - I got in touch with an animal communicator. Lots to say about this so I've spoilered it
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
She has excellent credentials, glowing testimonials and her rates were amazing compared to what I was expecting to pay. She knew nothing of the area in which Rufus went missing, only the circumstances.
Apparently, Rufus ran away. The new house is too big, too cold and smells funny (she picked up that my Dad's old place was much smaller than the family home, and was a lot warmer. It was a small modern semi, compared to the family house which is an old farmhouse and absolutely fucking freezing most of the time). After telling my parents about how Pea said Rufus felt, we all realised how obvious it was why he'd run away. My Dad still hasn't put Rufus' things anywhere where he can get at them, they're all piled up in the coldest room in the house with a load of furniture, and nobody goes in there. His multi-level scratching tower is in bits, his chair is covered in ironing. No wonder the poor boy felt left out of all the new arrangements.
However, there was another reason for him being sad. Pea asked me if Rufus had a sister. I said no, she said "That's very odd, there's just this overwhelming sense of loss and something about a sister, he says he feels abandoned by his sister."
I nearly burst into tears on the phone. Ever since he was a tiny kitten I've called Rufus my little brother. I moved away, and I was the only one who really played with him properly, like wrestling and hide-and-seek.
I was already convinced by this point, until Pea started to describe the images Rufus was sending her about where he was. A pool, surrounded by marshy areas, with a kind of wooden walkway going around it. And something about a yellow car, or a yellow vehicle of some sort.
The nature reserve (which Pea knew nothing about) has a man-made pond in a boggy patch, encircled by a raised wooden walkway. I know it well, as me and my Dad used to go for walks round there when he lived nearby. Through the trees you can just see the local recycling plant, which has yellow forklift trucks trundling around. This area of the reserve is only a couple of hundred yards away from where Rufus was last spotted.
So. Yeah. I'm going back up home on Tuesday and I'll be going up there with food to see what's shaking.
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What else, what else...I've been working my ass off. I did fourteen hours yesterday, twelve the day before that, and frankly I'm just fucking burned out. I took this evening off.
I also wish my body didn't hate piercings so much because I'm getting more and more tempted by the thought of a lip piercing. Just a discreet little stud on the bottom right. I think it would look cute, but I heal terribly and I'm also prone to cold sores so I don't knowwwww, wah 
Oh yeah and my rats are kicking the SHIT out of each other. Ratchet seems determined to be the Ass Queen of Ratopia and is bullying Widget (who is tiny) and Millie (who is poorly) and pulling their fur out. Little bitch. I may have to separate them.
Fuck this, I'm off for comfort food!! Lots of love you sexy motherfuckers 
