Black Friday - I've had enough!

I can't believe it's a year either.Please resume the fantastic journey ,are all the occupants suffering withdrawal symptoms as the wine must have run out months ago? Are they recruiting like minded travelers and where are they heading next.After the year I've had I would happily go where no other reserved retired lady has gone before.

I'm afraid Dr Tom is grounded, I think the elves may have been up to mischief to try and delay his departure.

I don't know if Tesco's sells Sontaren tea, but I'm sure Waitrose will! Do you think it will be best with sugar and lemon, sweetener or with a splash of ginger and cinnamon?

How kind, Jenninora, glad you're enjoying it. 🙂

You're right, LittleMinx, it is a waste of time both on the part of the shops and on our part. I'm AFRAID of Christmas too, am already stocking up my spaceship with food supplies and more than a few bottles of wine!

Gee, thanks, LittleMinx, but nobody, absolutely nobody gets my wine!

Yup, it's like that. But, you sound like my kind of person, so if you fancy a Christmas trip in my spaceship, I might just be willing to share my wine hoard. Bring a star map, though, as my sense of direction is abominable.

Excellent! I've always wanted to see Lyra, it's one of the nicest constellations. It has such a cool name, Lyra Belacqua being my second favourite literary heroine, after Alice (in Wonderland) who is my ultimate favourite. And Lyra's not too far from Draco which I've also always wanted to visit in the hope of seeing the dragons who live there. Canapes would be most acceptable, and the finger food delights. Anything garlic flavoured you can rustle up too would be really nice and also handy if we meet any interstellar vampires....although I'm rather fond of vampires, the nice ones that is, so we could save the garlicky things for the not so nice ones.

A necklace of garlic would be most acceptable, but I don't do pink! Never, ever, ever, absolutely no pink. I do a lot of black, though, as I'm very fond of vampires, especially the ones in the old Hammer films and in the wonderful Bram Stoker's Dracula movie with the rather amazingly good Gary Oldman as Drac himself!
As to the hissing inhabitants of Draco, you would hiss too if you had a forked tongue, it's very difficult not to. I will just take one of those long rain capes with me, most useful around the Dracobites. I'd recommend carrying a can of hairspray too, as if you spray it in their faces (many of them are two faced) they tend to back off and their odour's not nearly so bad at a distance. Copious amounts of garlic are always very acceptable, garlic ice cream is rather tasty.
I feel a variety of stakes may be rather cumbersome, though, perhaps just one each and a couple of spares would be adequate? An alethiometer is always very useful, though, until you graduate, perhaps two even, in case one breaks or explodes. I understand that some of the cheaper ones are prone to exploding under certain conditions. Apologies for being so pernickety, but I'm a Capricorn, and Capricorns are well known for their pernicketyness.

Apologies for the pernicketyness, I was born with it. I love the word pernickety, it's one of my favourites along with chalcedony, munchkin and tickety boo, although tickety boo is two words really. Pedantic is my middle name! Actually, pedantic's a nice word too.
I am in the process of perusing alethiometers to purchase, might be able to get a couple of bargain ones since Black Friday has now morphed into Black Monday. Not sure what happened to Black Saturday and Black Sunday though, gone into a Black Hole perhaps? I will make sure to get an instruction booklet with the alethiometers too, as they are indeed a little difficult to master. We may have to practise a bit with them during the journey, still, as long as one of us gets the hang of it we should be fine. And, yes, we most certainly will be meeting up with His Darkness Phillip Pullman, assuming he's not gone on holiday.
I can't express how utterly thrilled I am that His Ultimate Darkness Christopher Lee is coming with us! I am considering inviting my old friend Tom Baker along too, as it's always useful to have an experienced Doctor around, especially one with a sonic screwdriver.
As to the Dracobites' style of dress, I'm rather fond of armour plating and breastplates, as they're so useful, but the studded precious stones are just a bit OTT! Less is always more, I feel. Don't worry about the saliva, I have procured some large cans of anti-saliva spray from B&Q. I was assured by the 12 year old salesperson that it works instantly and on any planet, and it was on a special offer!
So, yes, I am well and truly set....

Oh, damnation, I haven't even thought about where we can take off from! I'll phone NASA forthwith and see if they can help. Water's easy enough, there's been gallons of it landing here in the West Country lately.
Might be fun having Morticia and Gomez along. Morticia might be willing to give me some make-up tips, she's a very beautiful woman. So glad they're not bringing those pesky kids though!
Lists of favourite words are fun to compile, and will indeed while away some of the travelling time. Please remind Morticia that they have to be in English not French though, and definitely no German words as they are far too long!
Tom does still have his sonic screwdriver, he took it with him when he left, that's why they had to have a new one made, he took his Tardis too. His Tardis is often parked in my garden, as he says the weeds are so easy to spot from space, and it saves him getting parking tickets now that phone boxes are so rare on the ground.
Don't worry about magnetic flux, I think he's planning to go ahead of us and meet us there as he's a bit worried about Morticia's French! He's a very pedantic man and can't stand the French language being mangled (his word!) by an American!
He also has a 'universal translator' on the Tardis, which could prove to be most useful to us, even if only to understand Morticia when she speaks French at hyperspeed! It will also help with the Draconian 'clicks and squeaks', although, I'm not sure how portable it is, so your galactic translator could still prove very useful. Tom may very well manage to converse with them anyway, he's probably come across some of them before. I didn't ask, as when he starts telling tales of his travels, you are trapped there for days, and he never seems to have any sandwiches on him, only jelly babies, so you end up passing out from hunger!
He's really looking forward to meeting a real Star Maiden again, as he says it's been light years since since he last met one. I think he'll approve of the camouflage with precious stones, and he will be able to tell you where each single one came from, if you don't mind being bored half to death while he tries to remember the names of the planets he saw them on! His memory's atrocious these days.
Don't forget your head, whatever you do! We don't want to be wandering round and round without a star map!.
As to how long we're going for....how long is a long piece of string?

I like your 'like' words!

Don't fret about the phone call to NASA, my soon to be ex husband frequently works with them, I'll get him to deal with them for us. NASA like him because he's so boring and somewhat predictable, which is precisely why I left him.
Jumping dimensions is fun, haven't jumped any dimensions since I broke my ankle playing space hockey with Tom B. He's got very long arms and kept managing to whack me on the ankle with his hockey stick as I couldn't get out of the way fast enough. But it was many moons ago, so I'm happy to try dimension jumping again.
Syzigy is a good word, although I must admit I had to look up its meaning, as I forget lots of things these days, mostly who I am and where I'm supposed to be, but it does make life more interesting when you keep forgetting who you are as you can just be anyone until you remember.
You will be hard pushed to get a word in edgeways with Tom though, as he does rabbit on for hours, mostly to himself or to K9, but he's a very sweet and amusing man. A word of warning, please don't mention Davros to him! It's like waving a luminous scarlet flag at a very angry Venusian bull with an extremely sore head! At least it is when he's sober (Tom, I mean, not the Venusian bull), so wait until he's a bit tipsy and then casually mention Davros in the passing as it were, and then he will happily regale you with all sorts of hilarious tales about the old devil and how he got one over on him. As to getting him to clarify entanglement in the Quantum Field, the problem will be getting him to stop when you've had enough! It would probably be easier (and definitely quicker) just to order a book on it from Amazon, even allowing for it to finally arrive in whatever dimension we find ourselves in.
I'm no good at science-y words, but I do love the word 'Bibliophage' meaning a person who eats books for breakfast while reading the cereal box, as it so neatly sums me up.

Vega? I'm sure I've been there. Oh, no, hang on, I'm confusing planet Vega with Planetario Vegas, a strange little shop that sells astronomy items in the Turkish part of Cyprus, easily done. Good to hear you enjoyed the supernova, I'm sure it was.....umm, super.
Don't worry, there's no way my soon to be ex husband will find out about our plans to visit Lyra or Draco, as if I were to tell him he would report me to various secret authorities (he's like that) so I'll just tell him it's a hypothetical question re a hypothetical trip that a hypothetical friend is thinking of taking, hypothetically.
I hope we will be leaving soon too, as otherwise I will have to do the ironing and I'd sooner get a nasty bout of the Alpha Centaurian Plague than do the ironing!
I'd like to meet your cousin Syzygy Darklock. Is Syzygy a he or a she? If he's a he, he might like to meet my cousin Solipsism Wrangleweed, as she's always on the lookout for a potential husband with an equally interesting surname that she can 'double-barrel'. Syzygy and Solipsism Wrangleweed-Darklock sounds like it might be right up her interplanetary superhighway. But I digress....
As a bibliophage, I consume alcohol at any time of day as and when the fancy takes me, and very often accompanied by book munching. I've munched 'Tequila Mockingbird' many times, it's one of my favourites, along with 'Huckleberry Gin', 'Whisky Galore', 'The Lots of Rum Diary' and Enid Blyton's 'Five Give Up the Booze' which, incidentally, I didn't like very much.
Anyway, I'm ready to leave and both raring and roaring to go. Ireally must consider giving up the roaring, it seems to irritate the neighbours!

RIP Zyzygy Darklock. A brave warrior who will be sadly missed by all who knew him, apart from the returned dark gods of the Instrumentality, of course, who are no doubt throwing a party as we speak. I hope their party crackers explode violently and send them all hither and thither and yon.
Solipsism is quite broken hearted, but it won't last as she was always rather a shallow girl, a trait she inherited from her mother's family, the Shallowlots of Shaposhnikov.
I can't believe you've never visited the Planetario Vegas shop! It's right up your street, and may well have 'pre-tested' (ie 'used') alethiometers at a very affordable price. You may even be tempted to splash out on several! And who knows what other delights you might come across.
The piles of ironing have been completed, although ironing space suits is soul destroying, or rather, space suit destroying, as they do have a tendency to melt if you're not very careful with the iron's temperature settings. Sadly, I had no choice but to resort to doing the ironing myself, as the Elves are currently on a 'work to rule', ie their rule is not to do any work whatsoever. I have, of course, informed the Chief Elf that no work means no pay, to which he replied with some very rude Elvish words and promptly stomped off in a major Elf-huff! Anyway, I have now locked them all in the airing cupboard and will leave them there for the duration of our trip.
Don't worry about Tom, I received a surprise visit from him yesterday evening to tell me that he was setting off at midnight, and as he left his new starmap on my kitchen table, he will be well and truly 'lost in space' by now.
Hmm, I'm a little envious that you have a lovely silver space suit and a utility belt with all your gadgets on it. I have been so busy doing the ironing that I haven't had time to shop and will have to attire myself in my rather ancient gold space suit. It's 3000 light years old actually, and has patches on the knees and a slightly ripped right hand pocket which I forgot to mend, so remind not to place anything important in it while we're on our travels. I dread to think what Morticia will say when she sees it!
Anyway, I'm ready and setting off now....

Please Fruitcake13 and LittleMinx, don't leave this stream when you start on your journey, I look forward to reading about your exploits!

Jeanmark, thank you so much for your kind words. Don't worry, I have a feeling this may go on for millennia! Unless, of course. LittleMinx and I manage to get ourselves hopelessly lost in space and are never seen or heard of again. Cross your fingers for us, please.....

Already crossed and Good Luck.

Thank you, jeanmark, we will need it, I think!

I had the same problem, LittleMinx, with my last missive. I gave up on waiting in the end and went off to stare at the wall for a while. When I eventually returned, there it was! I suspect it's all down to length.....as the actress said to.....oh, maybe not, or I'll get banned!

Your perspicaciousness knows no bounds, LittleMinx, I have indeed been with Tom in his Tardis, but not to see the Dracs!
You may recall that Tom left his new starmap on my kitchen table? Well, once he realised what he'd done, he came back a couple of days ago to retrieve it, he's lost without it, literally. I heard the Tardis landing in my garden so I grabbed his starmap and ran out to meet him. He was so pleased to have it back that he invited me into the Tardis for a cup of Sontaran tea and a Kraken cake. Have you tried Sontaran tea? It's truly delicious, so I just couldn't say no. Anyway, to cut a long story short, while he and I were chatting over our Sontaran tea, and choking on our Kraken cake (it's somewhat hard and very dry) he leaned back against the Tardis console, inadvertently pressed the 'Start' button, and the damn thing took off! Needless to say, he had no idea what the last co-ordinates were set for, so we ended up landing on Mondas, which as I'm sure you know, is inhabited by the Cybermen, one of his many arch-enemies! I won't bore you with all the gory details, suffice it to say that we only arrived back on Terra Firma an hour ago!
I am, as you can imagine, utterly exhausted and sick to death of Sontaran tea and Kraken cake, which appeared to be all he had in the Tardis larder! I'm taking the opportunity to write this now while he has gone to Tesco to stock up. He is, no doubt, at this very moment, causing absolute havoc in Tesco while I write you this missive! I may never be able to show my face in there again.
Anyway, to make up for his absentmindedness, he has promised to take me in the Tardis to your house as soon as you are fully recovered and back to abnormal. Please send your co-ordinates. Don't worry, I'll enter the co-ordinates into the Tardis console myself to prevent any more unexpected journeys!
Please pass on my deeply felt apologies to Morticia too, as she must be ruining her mascara!

Well, I'm not so sure that I do have quite all my faculties....the Tardis can play absolute havoc with one's faculties....but I think I have most of them, the ones that matter anyway. You are also right about that glint in Tom's eyes. It's the glint of utter madness, but then I've always known that he is quite mad, if he wasn't, he wouldn't be Tom, and I'm exceptionally fond of him really, he is an utterly charming and delightful man despite his unpredictability, perhaps even because of it. He's really the interplanetary version of The Mad Hatter, another old friend of mine, who I haven't seen for ages and miss terribly.
His friend Alice was, and still is, one of my own dearest friends. I've known her since I was around 6 years old and love her dearly. She's like a sister to me, the sister I never had but always wanted. So brave, so forthright, and so deliciously, well, Alice! She's the only one who can keep The Mad Hatter in check, which is a relief as he can cause utter havoc when he has a mind to. If he has a mind, and I'm not so sure that he does. If you look into his eyes, sometimes there is nothing there at all, just a kind of mad blankness.
I'm beginning to realise, having written what I've written so far, that I do seem to have some rather strange friends! I wonder what that says about me?
Morticia really is a pain in the proverbial at times.....the total opposite of the deliciously suave Sir Christopher. No wonder he's rolling his eyes, although I do believe that he sometimes does that just to exercise them. Can't he just give her a sharp bite? Or a good spanking? Alice certainly wouldn't put up with Morticia's histrionics. If she can keep The Mad Hatter in check, she can certainly sort out Morticia! Perhaps we should take her with us on our journey, she is charming company and will get on rather well with Sir Christopher, I feel, as she's a very intelligent girl, although she may possibly irritate His Suaveness with endless questions, she has such an enquiring mind, and he's not as young as he used to be, and tires easily these days.
I'm not surprised that Mr Pullman has gone off to a B&B, Morticia is enough to drive anyone off to a B&B (preferably in Patagonia) and Mr Pullman was never one to suffer fools gladly. Maybe it's for the best anyway, if he's going to have difficulty fitting into his spacesuit! And even if can squeeze himself into it, I fear he may take up too much room and certainly too much air in our spaceship.
Talking of spacesuits, thank you so much for acquiring a lovely new one for me, and with an integrated utility belt as well! You spoil me, Ambassadress! I can't wait to try it on. I do hope it's gold and comfy! I can't wait till we are both back to abnormal and set off!

They won't win with me I'm too tight!