dizzojay | Entries tagged with happy dizzo

So, if you remember the ongoing saga of my eyes... After my macular hole in my right eye in 2023, I was advised that I had a higher than normal risk of getting the same thing in my left eye. So I have a chart stuck to my kitchen wall at home which I use to monitor the sight in my left eye, and look out for any distortions which would be a sign that things are not ok.

In 2024, I started seeing slight distortions which looked horribly familiar, so took myself off for an eye test. They showed me the scan and we could see that my macula was stretching and had started to distort. There wasn't a full thickness hole, so I was placed on a schedule of six monthly scans, and that was that.

In May this year, I went for a scan, and leading up to it, I'd noticed that the distortions had been getting more severe. At the scan, my macula was stretched tight as a bowstring and looked just about ready to pop. At that point I more or less resigned myself to waking up with another macular hole at some time soon.

However, in recent weeks, I'd noticed the distortions had been settling down a bit, so I wondered if things had improved just a smidge.

I went for another scan this morning, and both I and the optometrist couldn't believe our eyes, My macula was absolutely back to normal, no stretching, no tearing, and best of all, no distortions.

Now, according to the optometrist, I have no more risk of developing a macular hole than anyone else. I no longer need to attend six monthly scans unless anything changes, and basically everything appears to be fine and dandy!

Of course, there's always a possibility that things could go pear shaped again, but for now I'm taking the win! :D

A couple of weekends ago, I headed into London with my HR colleagues, and great friends, Keara, Kathryn and Karen.

We decided to treat ourself to a pre-Christmas lunch in one of our favourite venues. It's a fascinating place, so I thought you'd enjoy a few pictures!

We went to Gordon's Wine Bar which is the oldest wine bar in London. It's a place with lots of character and atmosphere where you're basically sitting in a very old wine cellar.

It was a short walk from Waterloo station, and walking across one of the Thames' many bridges when it's a lovely sunny day is always a pleasure!

And once we got to Gordon's we were seated at our tables and set to chatting, and partaking of Gordons' speciality cheeseboards... and wine!
So a good afternoon was had by all :)

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Over recent years, our little patio has started to look shabbier and shabbier. Our big silver birch tree's roots have wreaked havoc on it, and it was a mess of crooked and cracked slabs. Not only did it look awful, it had become a really dangerous trip hazard!

Because we knew we were going to replace it eventually, we lost interest in keeping it looking nice and clean, so in recent years, it had started to look like a building site!

Finally we had saved up enough to get it relaid, and it became a real building site last week! Now, we have a shiny new patio and we have a garden we can start being proud of again!

We've got a lot of smartening up of the rest of the garden to do over the winter, but that's a project we can do ourselves, we don't need a builder for that.

One of the most important things we need to do, is re-bunny proof it. I have no idea what those little ratbags are going to think when they're eventually let loose on it!

Our old patio was twenty seven years old - and it looked every day of it:

The builder has raised the new patio a few inches to future proof it against the tree roots, and the biggest root which ran along the left hand edge of the old patio mreant that slabs couldn't be laid there, so we've replaced them with a little gravel path.

I don't know if the new patio will last will last twenty seven years, but for now I'm just looking forward to spring evenings on it with a new table and chairs and a glass of wine!

A bit of an improvement, right?

I and several friends,

amberdreams,

heavenli24, Wendy, Natalie and Chris, sallied forth to London on Saturday to attend for the Love of Fantasy con at the Excel centre in London. It was a multi-fandom con with lots of Supernatural representation, but there was also a heavy Lord of the Rings presence too, and so I decided to take the opportuniity and do a spot of Lord of the Rings nerding.

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Just a shout out to my lovely friend

borgmama1of5 of very kindly found me a copy of this and sent it all the way across the pond as a much appreciated gift to me!

Sitting in the garden reading - and enjoying - right now :)

I don't know who among you has been watching Countdown, Jensen's new show, but there was one scene that caught my eye...

As if you're surprised!

But throughout Jensen's career there has been a theme...

That man knows how to shower!

Case in point - Eric Brady of DOOL (or should I say DROOL)

( More yumminess here )

I attended the UK Crossroads convention last weekend. It was a good weekend with great friends and some awesome guests!

It's always a joy to catch up with Jared, and have multiple ribs broken when he hugs you - I'm never so happy to be maimed as when I meet our lovely Mr Padalecki!

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And it was a privilege to meet Matt 'Pestilence/Max Headroom' Frewer for the first time!

I treated myself to a fan meet with both Julian and Matt, and they didn't disappoint. They're both great character actors with massively long and diverse career histories, so I figured there would be lots of great anecdotes flying around, and I wasn't wrong. One in particular that springs to mind is when I asked Matt about 'Taken'. I enjoyed that show and he played a great character in it. I asked him if he had any good stories from his work on Taken. He said that the whole show was beset with problems throughout production, and Steven Spielberg who was the showrunner became increasingly frustrated as time went on.

The show was billed as 'Steven Spielberg presents Taken', and this strapline appeared on the title card for each episode, and the word from the set was that he should have changed it to 'Steven Spielberg 'resents' Taken. XD

Wow, how has it been almost a month since I posted?

Well, since I plummeted off the face of the LJ planet, I have attended Crossroads convention in Birmingham, and a great time was had by all, all being

amberdreams,

sasha_dragon,

chellexxx,

heavenli24,

edina_clouds128, Natalie and Chris.

There were a great range of guests, including Jard, Misha, LIsa Berry, Osric Chau, Julian Ritchings, Sam Smith, Mark Sheppard, Ruth Connell, and a really interesting addition was Matt Frewer, aka Pestilence.

I'll post pics of my photos when I've got around to scanning them, but until then, here are my autographs for the weekend:

I( Read more... )

I ended up with quite a few photo ops this year, mainly thanks to my birthday photos. Whereas last year I was really struggling for photo pose inspiration across the cons I went to, and ended up with about fifty seven hugs (not complaining, mind), this year I was determined to expend a bit of brain power, and end up with some more diverse pictures. Thanks also to the guys who were really entering the spirit of the occasion, and so I ended up with some great fun pictures!

So, here goes:

First picture was with Mark Sheppard (one of my birthday photos), and I decided to start gently, especially as I know Mark's not big on poses!

( Pictures be here )

As you're aware, I had my birthday with this incredible crowd in Venice:

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It's been a fabulous few days, with a trip to Vencie which included me having a birthday there, then a train journey down to Rome for Jus in Bello convention.

I got back to the UK on Tuesday, and I'm still easing myself back into real life!

This post will focus on my Venice trip because i haven't scanned my JIB photos yet, and if I posted everything here, you'd probably die of old age before you finished reading it!
So a trip to Venice was exciting because I'd never been there before, and having a birthday in Venice was awesome. And having both of those things surrounded by great friends was priceless!

I was in Venice with

amberdreams

heavenli24

herminekurotowa Natalie, Chris, Ma Lou, Stephanie, Wendy, and Monica. We all arrived a different times and from different places, but by lunchtime on the 1st of April we were all reunited!

On 1st April, a trip to the Basilica San Marco and the Doges Palace was the order of thr day. I can honestly say, it's the first time in my life i've been in a torture chamber on my birthday but hey, life is full of surprises right??

While we were there I fell in love with these beauties!

And this is the Doges Palace - very understated, right?

( Read more... )Image heavy post) )

Mr D and I had a week away last week, spoiling ourselves at a posh hotel and celebrating our anniversary. Although it was generally a relaxing week, one thing we did while we were away was visit the magnificent Ludlow Castle.

The Castle overlooks the lovely medieval town of Ludlow and stands on the border between England and Wales. It was built originally in the 11th century, and enlarged in the 14th century. It has a long and vivid history and is linked to such characters as King Richard III, the princes in the Tower and Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's older brother who would have been king instead of Henry had he survived beyond his 15th year.

I may have mentioned in the past that Ludlow was my maiden name, so I'd always wanted to visit my namesake castle (I've been to the Town several times, but never made it to the castle). My Dad jokes that this is my inheritance - I wish!

Anyhoo, here are a few snaps from our day of exploring my past!

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There is a cosplayer that goes to Darklight conventions on a regular basis. I've seen him about four times at various Darklight cons, and he never fails to raise a smile. He cosplays Cupid, and if you remember cupid from the show, you can imagine his costume...

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Another image heavy post!

My final convention of the year was in la belle Francais; Paris to be precise and it was a Darklight convention. I've done Darklight cons before but this was a special one as the J's were attending, so it was much bigger than any previous convention. It was also at a different location, some kind of function centre rather than a hotel, and way out of town, so a bit of a pain in the proverbial to get to!

Anyhoo. I travelled by Eurostar along with

amberdreams and our non-Lj friends Natalie and Chris. In Paris, we met up with Wendy and

dean_hugs_sammy. We were going to be joined on the Sunday by

stellamira, so our little gang was, at least in part, back together.

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Well that's it. That's my convention year done... *sobs*

I finished off with the Darklight convention in Paris, and good times were had by all.

I just got home today and I'm knackered, so more to come soon, but in the meantime I'll just leave you with this because I'm so stinkin' proud of it!

I had a group photo with all guests booked and in it, I had decided to recreate this photo:

WhatsApp Image 2024-05-26 at 12.25.44_6da56840

The lovely

herminekurotowa provided me with a cute 'cherry pie' hat which I repurposed for the photo, and this was the result. The guys totally did themselves - and me - proud!!! XD

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It's been a while right?

I've been in Germany for a week, catching up with friends and going to Purgatory convention. I got back home at 9pm on Monday!

It's been an amazing week, busy and exhausting but always a joy to be with my chums and to get up close and personal with the boys!

There will be photos to follow in a few days, but in the meantime here's a sneak peek of me with my friend

stellamira and a very special guest at the convention...

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More to come and, of course, just because it's been so long, here's Jensen - just because!

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Warning: another image heavy post!

Last weekend was the second convention of my year - and the only one in the UK.

It was touted as a Supernatrural/Boys convention and had a good cross section of guests. It was great catch up with my fabulous partners in crime,

amberdreams,

heavenli24,

sasha_dragon,

chellexxx, and

edina_clouds128 as well as friends not on Lj.

As well as regular, much-loved guests such as Mark Sheppard (Crowley), Misha Collins (Castiel), Tomer Capone (Frenchie) and Rob Benedict (Chuck), there were some less frequent but no less welcome guests such as Steven Williams (Rufus), Corin Nemec (Christian Campbell), Todd Stashwick (Dracula) and Karen Fukuhara (Kimiko).

( pictures here )

After the end of the convention, amberdreams and I ran into Rob Benedict at the railway station. he looked genuinely happy to see us and we had a nice little chat. He was heading up to Edinburgh to go back to Ruth and little Margaret, and we asked him to pass on our best wishes to them.

We truly are blessed to have so many genuinely lovely people involved in our show and our fandom!

Warning: Image heavy post!

So that was another Jus in Bello. A fabulous time again with great people in the eternal city! I never stop being grateful that I have the opportunity to do this every year and with such great friends!

The adventure started on Thursday last week when I flew into Rome, and undertook that familiar trek through the airport to the Hilton hotel. It really does feel like coming to a second home!

Thursday was a time for us to all start converging on the hotel at various times and from various directions, and then Friday was time to chill and catch up in the morning before festivities began in the afternoon.

It's really the Saturday morning of JIB when madness descends - that's when J2 turn up and forget the fall of Rome - this is the fall of a whole room of fangirls!

So as well a J2 photos and J2 autographs , I was lucky enough to snag a Jensen meet and greet this year. I told him about June and how the Spn fandom helped her and he was really moved. He said that it had always been a way that he and Jared kept themselves in check by saying 'what we're doing is important, but it's not THAT important, we're not curing cancer'. However, after hearing stories like June's before, and seeing for himself the positive effects of the Spn fandom, they changed that to 'we're not curing cancer, but perhaps we're indirectly giving people some support and positivity to fight it better.'

As always, it was a great, well thought out reply!

( Pictures be here )

I mentioned earlier in the week that Mr Dizzo and I went to a place called White Horse Hill at Uffington, Oxfordshire on Monday.

White Horse hill is a place of great history and legend and I love it, like Avebury, I find it a very atmospheric, spiritual place, and I wanted to share the wonder of White Horse Hill with you guys!

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I had a birthday today, and as it fortunately fell on the Easter Bank holiday, Mr Dizzo and I were both off work, we decided to make a nice day of it.

We ended up going for a nice long walk in a beautiful part of the country called White Horse Hill. The weather was kind to us, and it ended up being a beautiful, breezy day!

White Horse Hill is a place steeped in history and legend and I've loved it forever. I'll post more about it later because I find it fascinating and I think you will too, but for now, here is Mr Dizzo and me, the gruesome twosome!

We finished up the day in a lovely pub called the White Horse (of course) in the nearby village of Uffington and had a delicious meal.

So yes, becoming another year older wasn't so bad after al!

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Page generated Jan. 6th, 2026 06:52 am

Dizzojay's Dean Dreams

Entries tagged with happy dizzo

Happy post: A bit of good news!

Good friends and good cheese!

At last - the Dizzo house is suddenly looking much smarter!

Well, that was For the Love of Fantasy con

Thank you Borgmama1of5

Jensen time - shower scene special

Crossroads 10 convention

Crossroads Convention

JIB photos

What a lucky Dizzo I am

Happy Post: Ten go mad in Venice

Happy post: visiting my ancestors ;)

I'm such a horrible friend sorrynotsorry

A Parisienne adventure

Bonjour!

Hey, remember me?

Crossroads Convention

Arrivederci Roma

White Horse magic!

Happy Birthday to me!

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January 2026

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