A country mouse in the Smoke, part II

There comes a point on a motorway at night when you move from lit to unlit road. A wall of black approaches and you wonder what the hell's behind - at one point I hit the brakes hard because I was convinced for a moment that the road just stopped - and then it engulfs you and for a split second you're blind. And your vision resolves itself into a scene from Tron. Perhaps it's just me. Regardless, it seriously messes with my head. I hate motorways.
So, the drive back from London to Liverpool on Sunday night was more than a little headmashy - although it made for a wonderfully spooky environment to listen to the first of the Sapphire and Steel audio books that corone loaned me. And I *mean* spooky. Jeepers. I now very much regret that I missed the original TV series...
So, that was the end of my trip to the Big City. A pretty hellish drive, but I had all the following day today to recover, thankfully.
The weekend itself, as the guest of corone and lareinemisere more than made up for the journey. But before that, there was lunch on Friday with lapanteracosi - whose hand still looked horribly sore from the rope burn from Wednesday night (I still have serious guilt about that, as it was my fault. Sorry, Cosi :(. ), and Siobhan (whom I always thought was sort of scary but who is actually, once you actually talk to her, very lovely) and her very sweet new boyfriend. Yoga followed - always a little sore on my less than supple joints, but the guided meditation that finishes the session is always wonderful, and it relaxed me nicely for the drive south - New Brighton to North London in less than 4 hours on a Friday evening. I think I may have broken the odd speed limit. Me very bad ...
Every time I visit London, there's a large part of me that says 'I could live here'. Of course, I'm sure it has its bad points, but I've only ever associated it with fun times and wonderful people, especially in the last year or two. The reality of living in a place is always very different from visiting, but when I finally need a change from Liverpool - and after almost 16 years, a change is probably overdue - it's certainly somewhere I'd consider. After all, they do say you should try it at least once ...
But anyway - utterly wired and running largely on the adrenaline that hours on the motorway always stimulates, plus of course, caffeine, lots of caffeine - Friday night was Xtro with lareinemisere who, as always, looked fabulous in all her goth finery. As she says in her LJ, despite the claims of the flyer, the playlist was decidedly light on the actual goth, and also not much with the ebm (or at least the sort of ebm I like, which, I'm told, is closer to synth- or future-pop than ebm proper) , and way too much with the thumpy, grinding industrial stuff for either of our liking. As your parents would say, "It's not music, it's just noise" :). Of the 3 tracks that she recognised, I could identify the fact that one of them was Covenant, but didn't know the song ("Like tears in rain", as it turned out), so I only actually knew two of the songs - both of them Nine Inch Nails.
But still, I got to dress up - hence brand spanky new dress up icon ;) (and it was flattering that someone wanted to take our picture) - and go out in the company of a very dear friend, so it was all good. And corone was still up when we got back, so the night ended with a nice natter before we all passed out.
Saturday was very pleasant and lazy - including a visit to Leisure Games and a chat with angusabranson (*wave* hi Angus :)), and then, in the evening came the legendary Slimelight, which, for all that I've heard some not entirely good things about it, was just wonderful. It was a great shame that corone couldn't make it, and, again, the music was often a little heavier than I like, but - somewhat scummy though the surroundings are - this is a goth club as I've always imagined them to be. And they serve tea - how cool is that?
And we ran into sinbadsilk, fresh from a http://www.voices-of-masada.co.uk/ gig (they have a new album out in October - much with the fabness, if, like me, trad goth is your thing) looking thoroughly gorgeous. He didn't remember me, of course - the last time we met, his attention was focused very much *elsewhere*. Still, I could probably have watched him do his thing on the dance floor all night ;).
A wonderful night all round, and I'd definitely be up for going again.
Sunday - lazing and talking, including late lunch with corone, so we finally got to have a nice long natter.
A perfect end to a perfect weekend.
Have I said how much I love my friends recently?
*Hugs* to all