trace_of_scarlet

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Cardiff, obviously, and if you don't know where it is then you are DOING LIFE WRONG. Cardiff is my OTC (One True City): it's my Rift City, my baby, and my home. It's beautiful and grubby and easygoing and PEOPLE. So many, many people: people I adore and people I bump into and people I haven't met yet. It's lazy Sunday evenings at the Bay and giggly 4am meanders for ice cream and silly Monday nights at Milgi; it's good food with good friends, and long nights watching filming, and letting your soup go cold to entertain a stranger's baby. It's sitting down for dinner as Jack Harkness and the Doctor run past; it's walking a drunken, sobbing stranger home at 11pm and finding laughter and friends in common; it's running through the park in Halloween darkness and shrieking 'DON'T BLINK!' at the stone-struck angels.

It's the elegant white points of the Millennium Stadium piercing the sky like broken umbrella spines (Cardiff, umbrella-killer), it's the silver fountain covered with strawberries in summer, it's the sluggish blue-grey swirl of the river, the sea of red on match day, and the dazzling arched-bronze-back of the theatre. Cardiff is the Squint and the skating, the blue-white dazzle of Christmas lights, the new shops and the old arcades, picnics and peacocks in the castle.

Cardiff is comforting and exciting all at once, like an old, good friend: you can get lost in it but still know your way home at the end. Funny, chattery, friendly and indisputably odd, with good food and new places to go, it's my perfect friend in urban form even as it's murky, side-street-sprawling and scarred in strange places.

I don't have a tattoo, but Cardiff is scrawled indelibly on my heart.

(Second choice would probably be London, but ENGLAND IS NOT MY COUNTRY. Wales is my country. <333)

Other stuff I've scribbled about this stupid, amazing place is:
A City In Seventeen Lines
and Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (at the bottom)

*sniffle* Living here is so hard. I- I think I might hate my city, guys.



...Oooooor not.

:D!!!

Because clearly I want my flist to want to kill me...

Talking to Cati in my last but one post (:D) reminded me that there’s a post I really should have made first; it’s been due for over a fortnight now. The 27th was my brother's birthday, and on our way down to Cardiff Bay for cinema and meal to celebrate we spotted the Torchwood filming lorries pulled up outside the Royal Infirmary. Well, I went back there later and eventually wound up missing Barrowman by about ten minutes (this was previously a cause for *sulks* but now I don't care :D), but what I did find out was that they were filming on City Road the next day.

The next day, Amy and I go into Cardiff and narrowly miss them finishing at the Royal Infirmary for a second time. But they're setting up on City Road instead - two doors down from our favourite cafe. So unlike the silly masses perched on the other side of the road watching Eve Myles film on her own, half the time inside so you can't see anything at all, Amy and I (and later Teaboy, Emily and Chris) hole up inside Shot In The Dark with tea, food, free internet and comfort and keep an eye on the crowd out of the window to see if Eve's going to be prepared to talk to anyone. Well, no luck, so eventually the other three push off again, leaving Amy and me on our own once more. There was a small and adorable fourteen-year-old boy called George in the crowd who Amy and I had chatted to earlier - he was staying in the city with his parents, but had gone off finding Torchwood on his own. Very, very cute, and almost certainly crushing on John Barrowman. <3 Anyway, he mentioned having found their trailers, so Amy and I go off to try to find them. We succeeded.

And spot Kai Owen, in costume as Rhys and talking to someone scripty while he waited to go off to film. Kai in turn spots me peeping over the wall and waving to him, and goes 'Omg it's you!'.

That's right. He recognised me, on my own, having last met me when I was in the middle of a big group of squeaking, giggly fangirls several months ago, FROM HALFWAY ACROSS A CAR PARK. And the first chance he got he came running over to say hi!

Kai Owen is the sweetest man in the world.

He stays and chats to Amy and I for a good ten or fifteen minutes. He covered Torchwood in general (yes, there will be a series 4), Children Of Earth in particular (it's pretty creepy and he really thinks it's good, Rhys will be in it all the way through, he and Gwen are looking for a house), how were all the other girls, were we going to go to the Hub convention in the autumn, how was university and what were Amy and I studying, etcetera etcetera. At one point he has to run off, but swears to us he wouldn't go without saying goodbye, and makes good on his promise, coming running back as soon as he can. And then he has to go off to film, but before he goes he signs an autograph for Amy and gives me a hug over the wall.

And that was when I realised I had a mad crush on that man. <3 I kind of want to find him when he's not working so I can buy him a drink. The man totally deserves it.

EVERY PEOPLES SHOULD HUG KAI OWEN. TRUFAX.

I fucking LOVE my city.

Pics to follow!

So, uh.

First of all: back in November, I logged onto the Cardiff Uni computers in the library and spotted a notice on the virtual noticeboard that pops up every time that said that Torchwood was filming in the Psychology building a few nights later. So niblick_iii, plum177, seren_cymraeg, galacticconman and I went to go have a nose, despite the rain and the fact that it was seriously fucking freezing. And we waited a bit, and along comes one Mr Burn Gorman. Psychology building, which is a big tower, has these huge revolving doors, and whilst the other three huddled (and, okay, Emma squeaked and went silent) I went after him, since I thought we might not get another chance. And Burn decides to arse around in these doors, and just grins at me, "This is great! Get in!"

So I do, obviously.

Except then he got bored and went in, and the horrible security guard wouldn't let me go after him, so I trooped back out. And then Emma decided we were all going to stay and wait, so we did... outside, for two bloody hours.

Admittedly, when he came out, he was awesome. He told off the guard for not letting us in to warm up (did I mention it was freezing?), and signed Emma's Owen bear, and signed autographs and had pictures taken with all of us, even though it was freezing (by the way) and a little bit rainy, and was generally very sweet. And validated my tea addiction! :D

( Photo and scan of autograph under cut )

Manchester Collectormania won at life, but that's for the next post.