Vidding sucks

[gwyn]

I am trying to make my vid for Escapade, a team-y Avengers vid using all the Avengersverse movies. I have never been so mentally unhinged before, and that includes many years of VCR vidding. Everything is going wrong, just everything, and these different aspect ratios and the fact that my old computer can't handle the size of the files and just...everything, is making me cry.

Anyway. Speaking of vidding, I am considering going to vidukon this year. I haven't been to the UK since the last century! 1998 to be exact. And I'm a very different person now -- I don't have the friends there I had before to take me cool places, and I'm an old lady now. One of the things that worries me is that in the past six months, I've developed hot flashes, which seem to be triggered by having to pee. Like, if there's even a drop of pee in me that needs to come out, I'll have nasty hot flashes, and at night I'll have both the hot flashes and restless leg syndrome kicks into high gear. It's not a problem to get an en suite room, I can handle that financially, but I worry about the fact that now my bladder seems to constantly be bugging me. Sometimes it seems like I have to pee every five minutes.

I think I'll stay in London for a few days to get acclimatized (I tend to have very bad jet lag), then take the train to Cardiff for the con, and then come back to London and maybe do some day trips, or possibly head up to Scotland, I haven't decided yet. I won't be able to rent a car. I remember many small towns had public toilets and such, but I imagine things have changed quite a bit, and I don't remember enough of how easy it was in London to access the ladies'. For those of you in the know, do you think someone with a crazed bladder can easily survive the mean streets on a day of sightseeing? I know there are always cafes and things, but then I'm just drinking more liquid...

I hate that being old now means I have to plan around things like this. Bleh.

Comments

icon surprisingly appropriate

[nemo-r.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I might see you at the con! As for toilet facilities, public loos tend to be really dirty, I'd avoid them. Most pubs have toilets, and they don't tend to mind if you use them, even without asking. I've had to use restaurants before, and since it's an unexpected request, they're usually surprised into letting me use the facilities, it's not like they can insist I sit down to a meal. Plus there are starbucks/clones everywhere nowadays, they tend to be busy enough that you can slip to the loos without buying anything. plus any buildings you visit, shopping centres, museums, galleries whatever will have loos. As long as you don't mind just being brazen about walking in/asking, I think you'll be fine.

If you're planning to travel longer distances definitely use trains, coaches don't always have toilets and when they do they're disgusting.

Re: icon surprisingly appropriate

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember there being a toilet on the coach I took to Llangollen in '98, but it was...interesting. Although part of the reason I kept getting up to go back there was simply that the coach seats are too small for my giant Amazonian American body! That's one reason I definitely prefer trains if they're going where I want to go.

Thank you so much for the advice -- I am probably thinking way too much like a Yank. Here, we make it really hard for people not purchasing something to use a facility, and lots of shops and things don't have them, or won't let even customers use them. And god forbid you're in the downtown shopping cores/high street equivalents -- that's where all the homeless people are, and so all the loos are locked and you have to ask for a key, which they will not give you unless you're purchasing. No loo for you!

I remember my first trip over there -- my friend met me at the airport and we took the Piccadilly line in to the city, and she had to demand that I put my luggage in the luggage area of the car. I was so afraid of doing that, because you could never, ever do that here. ;-)

[nemo-r.livejournal.com]

Lol, well much as I'd love to proclaim my country's awesomeness, I'd grip my bag with a deathgrip on the tube. Though I suppose if I had big bags I'd just make sure I had a sightline. Hmmm.

But yeah, you will occasionally get people refusing - that's mostly why I don't ask in cafes, I just slip by, but on the whole, if you look desperate, people are helpful.