So I’ve been back in Witney for over 24 hours, and pretty much all I’ve unpacked is my computer and my paints. Everything else is all across the floor in cases and bags, so that I can hardly move in here. Where the hell am I going to put all this stuff? Aside from my printer and a box of cooking utensils I had all this stuff last summer and it fitted into this room somehow. But how?
Haven’t blogged for a while, so it’s probably time for an update. With my housing contract expiring at the end of June and still no job in Southampton, I moved back to Witney yesterday rather than trying to find somewhere else to live around there. So last week I attended my last Garyoke, my last Open Mic Night at the Hobbit and my last GameSoc session, at least as a regular, and I’ve been feeling somewhat wistful of late.
I wonder to what extent I’m going to miss Southampton. There are several people whom I will definitely miss, but I’m not so sure about the place. I’ll definitely miss the Hobbit, and possibly the University campus (especially the SUSU café, venue of so many GameSoc sessions), but aside from that I’m not really sure. Quite possibly not much.
Meanwhile, returning to Oxfordshire will certainly have its upsides. I’ll be able to get back to playing for Ducklington Morris regularly again, and otherwise get back into the folk scene in the area. It’ll be nice to be within reasonable travelling distance of a proper games shop again (although the Gameskeeper is still a £5 bus journey away). And I generally like the area; not only is it quite pleasant, it’s also (large-H) Home.
But on the other hand most of my contemporaries have now moved away to work in other parts of the country. I know few other gamers in the area and might well have to travel to Oxford to find any significant concentration of them (I wonder whether Oxford University’s GameSoc are any good). And, of course, I had some good friends in Southampton who I am sad to be leaving behind.
In older news (is that a contradiction in terms?), on the 13th of May I performed my first paid gig as a solo performer at the Bent Brief pub in Southampton. It went very well indeed, and I was feeling happy as a result for several days afterwards. And yet for some reason I never got around to mentioning it here. Ho, hum.
Blood Bowl continues to be my main interest in terms of non-roleplay gaming and of painting/modelling. Having painted up every Blood Bowl miniature I had, I got some more, first some extra human players (an extra blitzer and catcher, so I can field up to the maximum number of each allowed, and a few extra linemen, one of whom I’ve converted into an apothecary), and now some Elves from Shadowforge Miniatures. The miniatures are really nice; I’ll post some photos once I’ve got a few more painted.
And now, to bed. I’ve lots of unpacking to do tomorrow.
I think the two main things will be the people and the memories. Even with a place like the Hobbit, it was more the shared memories of that place than the place itself. The place holds no real appeal itself and Gamesoc was always going to be a revolving door of people.
One thing I disliked a lot after returning was, as you say, coming back to a place where all my old friends moved on. This was compounded by the sense that the friends I had in Gamesoc and Gamesoc itself was something that I could never fully be a part of again. That feeling faded, but it stung for a while.
Still, there are many good things about being back home, so you’re lucky there. Nostalgia can hit pretty hard, so it’s nice you’ve got more to pull you to your home than I did to mine initially.
Belated well done for the 13th. I hope it all goes well for the future.