Getting through the days

Nana Visitor (Major Kira of Deep Space 9) was a guest at the Warp 2 convention in Cardiff. ( David attended the same talk and at the end of it he turned to me and said "I'm in love!" - he meant with Nana Visitor  She talked about how the relationship with her then-partner, Alexander Siddig (Dr Bashir) had developed and how surprised she had been.  "Sid? Sid? but Sid's my friend !"  I thought it was a cute story ("Aww, how sweet!).  At the time I had no idea that I was about to have a very similar experience.   Anyway... At the end of August, we were at the Radisson Edwardian hotel in Heathrow for the Concorde convention (geddit?) .  I was staying at the hotel, while David had a room in a B & B nearby.  Once in costume, we attracted a lot of attention.  The photos don't do justice to the Vulcan Ambassador's robes - they were made out of lightweight lining material and billowed out in a most satisfactory fashion whenever David walked about ...

Thank you for visiting.  Today I'm sharing some more memories of the early days together.  Writing them down is helping me and I hope reading them is interesting to you.   At the Warp 2 convention in Cardiff,  one of the guests had asked the audience how many of them were experiencing their first convention.   "I warn you" he said,  "they are addictive!"   He was dead right. If you're a Trekker, once you've been to one you want to go to another one.  The convention following the Cardiff convention was in Heathrow, over the August Bank Holiday weekend, and I was determined to go.   I was a teacher back then and I took a part-time job in the school holidays to help pay for the convention and hotel.   I'd taught myself to adapt dressmaking patterns and  I was making my own costume (I'm a Romulan!).   David was also going to the same convention and for a long time had wanted Vulcan Ambassador's robes (...

Thank you for visiting.   Writing this is helpful, I find - it makes me focus on the good times.  If you're reading this, I hope you find it interesting.   Sci-fi conventions have changed a lot over the past 20-something years.     Nowadays the conventions are mostly run by professional event organisers for profit.  There used to be two "official" British Star Trek conventions a year, with one being held over the early May Bank Holiday weekend and another over the August Bank Holiday.  They ran from Friday afternoon to Monday and were organised and run by fans for the benefit of charity.  I'd longed to go to a full convention for a very long time, but they were usually held too far away for me to attend.  However, the 1996 spring convention was to be in Cardiff, which meant that we didn't have to stay overnight in an hotel.  It turned out that David was going as well so we arranged to meet up at the convention at the Cardi...

So first, I want to thank you for visiting.  Next, I want to let you know what this post - and this blog - is going to be about.   The two of us - around 1997/98? Just a few days ago, my world came crashing down when my beloved husband of 22 years, David, passed away suddenly, leaving me bereft and heartbroken.  Social distancing restrictions limit the amount of contact that I can have with other people at a time when I really, really want a big hug.  Holding David tight when we'd had troubling news about his illness (and there were several occasions when the news was like a hammer blow) got me through some bad patches.  This is the worst patch of all and I am trying to make the best of it on my own. This is my way of coping.  I want to share my happy memories, so thank you again for taking the time to read this.We met at a Star Trek convention.   It was more of a mini-convention, a one-day event at the Dylan Thomas theatre in Swansea.  ...