Author: aloysius-bear

A few weeks ago, my primary human and I went to Felixstowe for the weekend, to meet some writer friends at the literary festival. It was nice to be by the seaside: Felixstowe itself turned out to be very pleasant, with particularly well-maintained public spaces: My human attended some workshops, where she did some interesting…

The week before last, my primary human and I took a trip up to Hebden Bridge to attend a week-long tutored writing retreat at Ted Hughes’ house, Lumb Bank. We felt a great sense of nostalgia on arrival as this was where my human finished the first draft of her novel, back in September 2015.…

My primary human and I were invited to go to Chipping Norton Literary Festival by the lovely friends we met at NAWG Fest last September, and we very eagerly accepted. It was great catching up with them, and I particularly enjoyed seeing Nawg Dawg again, not least because it meant I got to travel in…

This past weekend, we travelled up to York to see a Blackbeard’s Tea Party gig and do a really fun escape room. Rather than book into any mundane, boring type of accommodation, we stayed on a boat! It had a permanent mooring, so didn’t actually go anywhere, but I enjoyed pretending to be captain anyway:…

Our last stop on our US trip was New York! My secondary human was there last summer, but my primary human and I were new to the city, and initially a little overwhelmed. Still, this friendly fellow was right outside our hotel to welcome us! He’s apparently a firebird, but he looks a lot like…

After NerdCon, we stayed in Boston for a couple of extra days, and saw the sites. This mostly involved walking the excellent Freedom Trail: This is the ‘new’ Massachusetts State House, which its famous golden dome, the gold of which was originally taken from the South in the Civil War (so the building isn’t that…

This past ten days, the humans and I have been in the US, and the reason we went was to attend NerdCon: Nerdfighteria in Boston on 25-26 February. This was a convention organised by Hank and John Green in their guise as The Vlogbrothers from YouTube, to celebrate the community (called Nerdfighteria) that has sprung…

My primary human and I took a very pleasant walk around Chinatown and its environs yesterday, with one of my human’s friends, who helped us see things in a more artistic light. First of all, though, we stopped off to say hello to this fine fellow: There was lots of tasty food on display to…

Last week, my primary human and I took a very pleasant trip down to Dartmoor: We were staying at Stickwick Manor, not far from Newton Abbott, where a group of writers had gathered for some welcome time away from daily life, to focus on their writing: Some of the rooms were very luxurious with masses…

Back in the first week of December, my primary human and I took a trip up to the Moniack Mhor Writing Centre, a 30 minute drive from Inverness. The main building was an old farmhouse, with an interesting structure on the grounds, affectionately referred to as The Hobbit House: This was the view from our…