So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely! Do you find the sound of the trains going by a pleasant noise, as I do with my railway line, or a nuisance? I think it helps that trains don't run much more often than 3 an hour in each direction, and only that often during rush-hour. In the evenings and on Sundays there is only one train an hour in each direction, which makes it less useful as a form of communication...

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Most of the time I don't even hear the trains. There are 4 an hour in both directions, except in the evenings and on Sundays, when there are only 3 an hour. But because they're either just departing from the nearby station or slowing down on approach, they are not going fast and therefore not particularly noisy. The most irritating thing used to be the warning signal of the crossing, until they toned it down a bit after complaints by the neighbourhood. One street was functioning as a kind of ear trumpet - with an opera singer living at the end... (He seems to have been the one who sabotaged the signal bell on occasion, but I don't know this officially, of course.)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am the same with the trains here; mostly I don't notice them. The occasional train does blow its whistle when it goes past -- there are some trains that don't stop at my little station, most notably the Belfast to Dublin trains -- and that I do usually hear no matter where in the house I am or if the windows/doors are open. The 'normal' trains, I usually have to keep an ear out for to notice. They have never disturbed me, especially at night. But then my bedroom window faces away from the train line, and when I lived in London my bedroom looked out across a busy main road towards a hospital with an Accidents and Emergency departments. So ambulances would come past with their sirens on, and even that didn't disturb my sleep. I could usually tune all the traffic noises out to the point where I didn't notice them, except on those days that were so warm that I opened the windows on both sides of the flat to try to cool it down.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

'My' trains rarely whistle, except when some idiot crosses the railway when they're already approaching. That always scares the hell out of me, because it's so unusual.
I don't think I could sleep through sirens, though - they're much more unpredictable than trains passing by according to schedule.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I think the main reason I could sleep through the sirens was the good quality of the double glazing; it was one of the selling points of the flat when I was looking, that the landlord was in the process of putting double glazing in. However, I mostly thought of it in terms of heat economy and thermal comfort, but having had the all the windows open on some nights after incredibly hot summer days to try to cool the flat down enough to sleep in, I realized they were very effective at sound isolation as well.

I am not quite sure why some of 'my' trains whistle; it is generally the through-trains, but not all of them do it. We haven't got any level crossings near here, so I don't think it is people trying to cross when the train is approaching; it could be people standing too close to the platform edge, though.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Aha, double glazing!. I've got that too in most rooms; that's probably why the trains don't bother me too much. Very effective.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Even after living in the UK for eight years, it is still strange to me that 'double glazing' would be something to brag about in an estate agent advert. In Sweden, double glazing is the minimum standard you would expect; a number of the flats I lived in while a student had triple glazing. Other things you would expect to see prominently featured in estate agent adverts would be if the some of the glass panes had special coatings to reduce glare or heat loss.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Of course not! :)