What I did in January 2016

(Photo of God's Own Junkyard.)

I started the year at N19, dancing with goths.

I went to Gingerline's Chamber of Flavours, with deathboy and enjoyed the immersive dining experience.

I listened to Jeff Noon telling micro-stories and explaining aspects of Vurt, at an event organised by the British Science Fiction Association.

My mum and I basked in the neon glow at God's Own Junkyard. "Art is never finished, only abandoned," one sign said. We also visited the William Morris Gallery.

I had dinner with doseybat at Inamo, a restaurant with projected interactive tables, that you can order food from, play games on, and change the tablecloth on. For dessert, I ate crème brulee with a strawberry and lemongrass soup.

At the V&A, one rainy Sunday in January, I looked at dreamy photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron, taken in the 19th century. I then wandered around the refurbished Japan Gallery, where they had a Hello Kitty rice cooker and some mobile phones, but luckily they also still have the netsuke. I went to say "hello" to the bats on the bowl that features in Russell Hoban's Bat Tattoo after that. Then I searched for the fountain of youth and found it depicted on an ivory comb.

I celebrated the Pembury Tavern's 10th anniversary and danced with nicky_j.

One lunchtime I visited the ICA, and read a comic book in the art gallery, and watched a video with nude men in it.

I ate "Fairground favourites" chocolates and imagined what rollercoasters tasted like.

One week in January, I played in two different ball pits, one at the Museum of Happiness, and one oddly with a bunch of Facebook employees.

I had fun in Croydon, during nou's Croydon Fun Weekend. I went on a pub crawl and learnt about the language of flowers. (A Christmas rose means, "tranquilise my anxiety".) I ate delicious food that nou and team had cooked, including mashed yam, salt and pepper tofu, and mushroom pie.

I took a tram to Croydon for more Croydon fun:

A fox looked on as I drew a shopping trolley with tentacles. We were on a drawing tour, run by Turf Projects, standing in a car park next to the station, imagining what the canal might have looked like when it was still there. We then stood near to where a grand manor house stood, and with pencils and chalk, I drew the gas holder that was in the distance, surrounded by CCTV. The last stop on the drawing tour was outside where a cinema used to be, and I drew a cinema full of strange looking animals, watching a film.

gnommi, Dave, Nick, nickmurdoch, Emily, sbp, mikej_uk and I escaped from the Oubliette Escape Room with only 47 seconds to spare!

I ate white chocolate mash, mac & cheese with cacao nib pastry and salsify and other chocolatey things at Rabot 1745, a cocoa centric restaurant.

I visited the Museum of Happiness and played in a ball pit, danced at a silent disco, folded an envelope and a t-shirt in a mindful origami workshop, did a bit of colouring in and a drawing workshop which involved drawing aliens and rocking chairs. Drank coffee from the Department of Coffee and Social Affairs. Ate okonomiyaki. Saw short films and art at the Zealous X festival, and looked inside a virtual reality house and apocalyptic scene using an Oculus Rift. Drank cedro soda and played board games at the Pembury with friends.

I ironed bubblewrap to make pendants for a necklace.

I went to the Greater London Linux User Group meet up.

I imagined flying cranes like kites and sung to myself, "let's go fly a crane, up to the highest plane."

I wandered around London at night with fluffymark, sbp, verlaine and friends, looking at pretty light installations, which were part of the Lumiere Festival. A phone box was filled with fish, swimming around. Stick men danced on the front of a building and acted out computer games. Big glowing creatures floated above Oxford Street, sometimes wrapping their tentacles around spectators. An elephant appeared trapped in a building, above us, roaring.

I got a Laputa: Castle in the Sky voice activated necklace. It glows, and then when you say, "balus", it starts flashing and possibly destroying castles.

I made a 3-headed monkey out of hama beads.

I played Dancing Stage Disney Mix on the Playstation 2, and danced to songs such as Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah and Chim Chim Cher-ee.

I spent a lunch time rock spotting and spotted Merrivale granite, rosso verona, nero assuluto Zimbabwe, silver grey granite, zebra white, black pearl, Dakota mahogany granite, travertine, marina pearl lavikite, Graversfors granite, Cornish granite, Peterhead granite, Chinese juparana, verde maritaca, St Austell granite, Delabole slate, Storen granite, De Lank silver grey granite, Portland stone roach, Bath stone, Portland stone: whitbed, Tivoli travertine, Iddefjord granite, larvikite: emerald pearl.

I ate an ice-cream profiterole and stared at stalactites.