Can’t really remember what happened today, I know I had a good productive day with many small goals ticked off of my list. I also know that Beth’s mate Sarah came down to see us and we christened my funky Muji barbeque by cooking some wonderful sausages in the square. Sarah also brought down the painting she’d been working on for me as payment for the website I’d designed for her. It’s a great painting and it’ll look brilliant on our wall.
(Bit of a lacklustre post to end June on this isn’t it? Sorry.)
Tea drunk: 4
Wonderful sossies eaten: 2
Wonderful sossies I wish I’d eaten: 6
Friday
Thursday
June 29th
This morning I awoke to disturbing news that some kid in a town called Cranleigh down here in the South, has successfully campaigned for a change in government policy because he damaged his eyes at school by looking at the Sun during a solar eclipse. His teachers warned him and the other kids of the dangers of looking directly at the Sun but the wee scamp believes the advice should have been more specific. Now I’m almost certainly going to get shot down in flames for what I’m going to say but this kind of thing worries me. He’s a sweet little 10 year old and (scientific medical advances not withstanding) he’s potentially damaged his eyesight for life, which is a terrible and tragic thing and I feel for him and his folks, but isn’t it his fault? If a teacher says to a child, “Now don’t look at the Sun because it’ll damage your eyes.”, and they go ahead and look then surely that’s down to them. We all make endless mistakes as kids and learning and pushing the boundaries is all part of the fun and adventure of being a child. Sometimes it goes wrong and it’s always a shame when something bad happens to a youngster but that’s life. We should accept responsibility for our own actions (to a point of course).
Now what worries me is what’s going to happen because of this kind of thinking. A while back one winter there were reports of a school where the Headmaster had banned the throwing of snowballs because of the attached danger. There was also outrage in the tabloid newspapers when a different school head outlawed the playing of that most traditional of schoolboys’ game conkers.
Both of these events were probably preceded by a child getting hurt and his parents complaining. I hope this new development doesn’t peel away another layer of childhood, I also hope young Connor gets his sight back and his parents let him go outside to play and make loads more mistakes.
There was also news that in the next ‘Harry Potter’ book there will be two main characters killed off. This has caused a landslide of speculation in the press and just about every named character has been thrown up as a possibility. Personally I reckon it’ll be Voldemort (surely a given) and someone like Snape or one of the ‘lesser’ main characters like Neville or Luna Lovegood. There is the possibility that it could be Harry himself as J. K. Rowling has said that she won’t be writing any more once the series has come to a close, neither does she like the idea of a raft of fan-written books appearing on the shelves. Rightly so I think, he’s her creation and she should decide what happens to him.
Another news article that caught my eye was that 2/3rds of credit cards in Europe are owned by us here in the UK. We owe over £56 billion on these cards and that here in Britain there are actually more credit cards in circulation than there are people and we’re the only country in the EU in which that’s the case. Scary huh?
Other than an interesting morning of news reading, not a great deal happened today. I found a handful of jobs on the website of one of the agencies I’m on the books of that I couldn’t work out why I’d not been put forward for and I watched ‘Aliens’ on DVD.
Tea drunk: 5
News stories sniffed and shaken my head at: 4
Free Guardian wall charts now owned: 6
Now what worries me is what’s going to happen because of this kind of thinking. A while back one winter there were reports of a school where the Headmaster had banned the throwing of snowballs because of the attached danger. There was also outrage in the tabloid newspapers when a different school head outlawed the playing of that most traditional of schoolboys’ game conkers.
Both of these events were probably preceded by a child getting hurt and his parents complaining. I hope this new development doesn’t peel away another layer of childhood, I also hope young Connor gets his sight back and his parents let him go outside to play and make loads more mistakes.
There was also news that in the next ‘Harry Potter’ book there will be two main characters killed off. This has caused a landslide of speculation in the press and just about every named character has been thrown up as a possibility. Personally I reckon it’ll be Voldemort (surely a given) and someone like Snape or one of the ‘lesser’ main characters like Neville or Luna Lovegood. There is the possibility that it could be Harry himself as J. K. Rowling has said that she won’t be writing any more once the series has come to a close, neither does she like the idea of a raft of fan-written books appearing on the shelves. Rightly so I think, he’s her creation and she should decide what happens to him.
Another news article that caught my eye was that 2/3rds of credit cards in Europe are owned by us here in the UK. We owe over £56 billion on these cards and that here in Britain there are actually more credit cards in circulation than there are people and we’re the only country in the EU in which that’s the case. Scary huh?
Other than an interesting morning of news reading, not a great deal happened today. I found a handful of jobs on the website of one of the agencies I’m on the books of that I couldn’t work out why I’d not been put forward for and I watched ‘Aliens’ on DVD.
Tea drunk: 5
News stories sniffed and shaken my head at: 4
Free Guardian wall charts now owned: 6
Wednesday
June 28th
Today was another terrifically dull one. I drunk some tea, had some quiche, solved a Flash problem that was keeping me awake, watched ‘The Quatermass Conclusion’, Eat some spaghetti, had my boiler looked at by a man and generally loafed around.
Tea drunk: 7
Washing loads done: 1
Freebies applied for: 1 (Marmite recipe mats)
Tea drunk: 7
Washing loads done: 1
Freebies applied for: 1 (Marmite recipe mats)
Tuesday
June 27th
I’ve had an idea for next month’s ‘Today’ blog. I won’t spoil the surprise (the surprise for the only two people who read this blog that is) but it’s along the lines of a photography experiment I’ve been thinking about performing.
This morning something terrible happened, something that shook me to my very core and has broken my trust in all that is good and pure in this World. Waitrose let me down. They did, they let me down. Despite claiming that gooseberries would be in stock yesterday they won’t be in for another couple of weeks. I went to Waitrose all excited and full of the thoughts of the gorgeous little bitter pods of niceness only to find the shelves devoid of the hairy green marvels. At first I refused to believe it, “They must be here, they must. I’ve just not seen them.” I thought to myself. But, as my searching became ever more frantic I began to realise the awful truth. I even stopped a shelf-filler to ask where they may have been hidden hoping that the whole thing had just been some terrible mistake and they had, in fact, been stacked somewhere completely inappropriate and that the stacker and I would laugh and joke about the silliness of the employee who’d put them there and then we’d go about our business happy and contented. He because he’d helped a customer and I because I could now make ‘gooseberry fool’ for Wifey.
The employee, seeing the angst and confusion written all over my face, called someone on those magic little phones they have on pillars that ring unanswered whilst you’re browsing the organic veg only to be told that they wouldn’t be in for another week or two. Disappointment welled in my heart but I fought back the tears and the urge to throw myself down beating the floor and launch a tirade at God for abandoning me so. Instead I bought some grapes.
At home my mood was lifted as I’d got some good news about the designs I’d sent to Lola at Ride Media. The company in question (The Natural Health Centre) liked them and Lola wanted me to take them further. It’s lovely when you’re work is appreciated and never more so when it involve making a new contact. I hope I can help Lola out more often.
This afternoon I settled down on the balcony with a cake & a cup of tea to read the prospectus of the journalism course I think I’m going to enrol on. A few people who have read one of my blogs have commented that I’m pretty good at this writing malarkey and that I should take a crack at writing professionally. It’s really the only thing I feel truly happy doing. I love design and designing, similarly cooking and reading (not together mind, that’d end up with loads of burnt books everywhere) but I’m already doing the design thing and I doubt I can just ‘become’ a World class chef in the same way that Brad Pitt seems to have ‘become’ an architect. Design is probably always going to feature heavily in my life and I’ll make a living out of it one way or another, be it in a company or freelance. It’s kind of a ‘driving passion’ of mine that I’m lucky enough to be able to earn money from. I love all design from graphics to architecture but writing is where I feel most confident.
Tea drunk: 8 (Too many, probably won’t sleep tonight)
Tantrums thrown in a supermarket: 0 (Though it was a near thing)
Episodes of ‘The Office’ watched: 2 (Bloody funny it is too)
This morning something terrible happened, something that shook me to my very core and has broken my trust in all that is good and pure in this World. Waitrose let me down. They did, they let me down. Despite claiming that gooseberries would be in stock yesterday they won’t be in for another couple of weeks. I went to Waitrose all excited and full of the thoughts of the gorgeous little bitter pods of niceness only to find the shelves devoid of the hairy green marvels. At first I refused to believe it, “They must be here, they must. I’ve just not seen them.” I thought to myself. But, as my searching became ever more frantic I began to realise the awful truth. I even stopped a shelf-filler to ask where they may have been hidden hoping that the whole thing had just been some terrible mistake and they had, in fact, been stacked somewhere completely inappropriate and that the stacker and I would laugh and joke about the silliness of the employee who’d put them there and then we’d go about our business happy and contented. He because he’d helped a customer and I because I could now make ‘gooseberry fool’ for Wifey.
The employee, seeing the angst and confusion written all over my face, called someone on those magic little phones they have on pillars that ring unanswered whilst you’re browsing the organic veg only to be told that they wouldn’t be in for another week or two. Disappointment welled in my heart but I fought back the tears and the urge to throw myself down beating the floor and launch a tirade at God for abandoning me so. Instead I bought some grapes.
At home my mood was lifted as I’d got some good news about the designs I’d sent to Lola at Ride Media. The company in question (The Natural Health Centre) liked them and Lola wanted me to take them further. It’s lovely when you’re work is appreciated and never more so when it involve making a new contact. I hope I can help Lola out more often.
This afternoon I settled down on the balcony with a cake & a cup of tea to read the prospectus of the journalism course I think I’m going to enrol on. A few people who have read one of my blogs have commented that I’m pretty good at this writing malarkey and that I should take a crack at writing professionally. It’s really the only thing I feel truly happy doing. I love design and designing, similarly cooking and reading (not together mind, that’d end up with loads of burnt books everywhere) but I’m already doing the design thing and I doubt I can just ‘become’ a World class chef in the same way that Brad Pitt seems to have ‘become’ an architect. Design is probably always going to feature heavily in my life and I’ll make a living out of it one way or another, be it in a company or freelance. It’s kind of a ‘driving passion’ of mine that I’m lucky enough to be able to earn money from. I love all design from graphics to architecture but writing is where I feel most confident.
Tea drunk: 8 (Too many, probably won’t sleep tonight)
Tantrums thrown in a supermarket: 0 (Though it was a near thing)
Episodes of ‘The Office’ watched: 2 (Bloody funny it is too)
Monday
June 26th
Today was so unbelievably dull that I really can’t think of a single thing to write about. I abhor wasted space though so I’m going to console myself with copying out the list of ingredients from this can of Macaroni cheese.
Macaroni pasta (39%), Water, Skimmed milk, Red Leicester cheese (3%, contains colour – Annatto), Cornflour, Reduced fat cheese (2%, contains colour – Annatto), Flavourings, Modified cornflour, Vegetable oil, Mustard, Salt, Stabiliser – Polyphosphates and Sodium phosphates, Sugar, Colour – Paprika extract.
Macaroni pasta contains Water, Durum wheat semolina.
Tea drunk: Dunno
Dull things that have happened: Dunno
Amazing stuff that didn’t happen ‘cos today was too busy being dull: Dunno
Macaroni pasta (39%), Water, Skimmed milk, Red Leicester cheese (3%, contains colour – Annatto), Cornflour, Reduced fat cheese (2%, contains colour – Annatto), Flavourings, Modified cornflour, Vegetable oil, Mustard, Salt, Stabiliser – Polyphosphates and Sodium phosphates, Sugar, Colour – Paprika extract.
Macaroni pasta contains Water, Durum wheat semolina.
Tea drunk: Dunno
Dull things that have happened: Dunno
Amazing stuff that didn’t happen ‘cos today was too busy being dull: Dunno
Sunday
June 25th
This morning Beth was very ill, she claims she didn’t drink ‘that much’ but she was definitely pretty peaky so I popped out to get her Andrew’s liver salts which, bizarrely, made her vomit and meant that she couldn’t eat her lovely breakfast.
After Becky had gone home Beth disappeared beneath the duvet on the sofa and we watched Poirot on ITV3. I love all these extra channels. ITV3 shows ‘Poirot’, ‘Robin of Sherwood’ and the excellent ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series all of which are perfect hangover TV. There’s an ITV4 too, which has repeats of cult shows like ‘The Persuaders’, ‘Space 1999’ and ‘Monkey’. Beth fancied her breakfast during Poirot so I bunged it all in a pan and heated it up for her with a new egg on top. It was like one of those ‘All day breakfast’ things (the ones you get in a tin) but posher. It looked quite nice.
The footie was on today (En-Ger-Lund vs. Ecuador) and based on our recent form I wasn’t really that bothered about watching it, but we’d had an invite from Sophie & Simon to go watch it at theirs so that’s what we were planning on doing.
We had to change our plans though as Beth had forgotten that she wanted to try and get a few more pictures. They were very specific this time and she need an image of a Mini driving down a typical English road. It sounds easy but it’s actually a bit of an awkward picture to take. We drove off looking for suitable streets and stumbled upon a junction on a suitable road. No sooner had we positioned ourselves on this junction than a bloody Mini should show up. Beth racked off a load of piccies and we headed off to Sophie & Simon’s job done. The game was an absolute scorcher and we spent much of it literally on the edge of our seats except for Simon who kept getting up and down whilst making a variety of odd noises. Kind of like that bloke from the ‘Police Academy’ films but without making any discernable noise that sounded like anything in particular. After the footy we had ourselves a lovely roast chicken and watched a pretty exciting episode of LOST whilst cuddling up on the sofa.
Tea drunk: 5
Football matches aged during: 1
Turkish Delight’s eaten: 1 (Though I wanted many more)
After Becky had gone home Beth disappeared beneath the duvet on the sofa and we watched Poirot on ITV3. I love all these extra channels. ITV3 shows ‘Poirot’, ‘Robin of Sherwood’ and the excellent ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series all of which are perfect hangover TV. There’s an ITV4 too, which has repeats of cult shows like ‘The Persuaders’, ‘Space 1999’ and ‘Monkey’. Beth fancied her breakfast during Poirot so I bunged it all in a pan and heated it up for her with a new egg on top. It was like one of those ‘All day breakfast’ things (the ones you get in a tin) but posher. It looked quite nice.
The footie was on today (En-Ger-Lund vs. Ecuador) and based on our recent form I wasn’t really that bothered about watching it, but we’d had an invite from Sophie & Simon to go watch it at theirs so that’s what we were planning on doing.
We had to change our plans though as Beth had forgotten that she wanted to try and get a few more pictures. They were very specific this time and she need an image of a Mini driving down a typical English road. It sounds easy but it’s actually a bit of an awkward picture to take. We drove off looking for suitable streets and stumbled upon a junction on a suitable road. No sooner had we positioned ourselves on this junction than a bloody Mini should show up. Beth racked off a load of piccies and we headed off to Sophie & Simon’s job done. The game was an absolute scorcher and we spent much of it literally on the edge of our seats except for Simon who kept getting up and down whilst making a variety of odd noises. Kind of like that bloke from the ‘Police Academy’ films but without making any discernable noise that sounded like anything in particular. After the footy we had ourselves a lovely roast chicken and watched a pretty exciting episode of LOST whilst cuddling up on the sofa.
Tea drunk: 5
Football matches aged during: 1
Turkish Delight’s eaten: 1 (Though I wanted many more)
Saturday
June 24th
This morning Beth & I had a nice bacon sarnie with some of my wonderful home made bread whilst we made our shopping list for the week. Ann (Beth’s Mum) was coming down for the day, she’d booked herself on to some kind of cheap coach affair that apparently picks her up from the end of her street, but I had some work I had to be getting on with. Lola, from Ride Media who Christine had put me in touch with, needed a hand knocking up a couple of designs for a natural health centre’s website and I’d said I’d help. Whilst Beth did our shop and picked Ann up I ploughed on with the work with my headphones in listening to Jonathon Ross on BBC2. The ideas came thick and fast and I churned out a couple of designs that I was really pleased with. Sometimes this happens I go through a dour time when the creative stream gets blocked behind a damn and others it just flows on unhindered. Today was an unhindered day.
During all this I was laughing away to myself in that highly annoying way that people wearing headphones and listening to something funny do. Michael Gambon was on and he was hilarious. I’m a big Gambon fan and I think he’s a superb actor to boot. I’ve seen him on various TV shows of late (Top Gear, Have I Got News For You) and he’s a very funny man with a tonne of great stories.
During all this mirth fired work Beth made some lovely Thai chicken dumpling soup. After this Beth & Ann headed out to get some more pictures for her work but unfortunately, due to Beth’s inability to be surreptitious, Beth got thrown out of Tesco. I’m so proud of her, I’m now going out with a local felon.
Walked down seafront to the Palace pier to get some doughnuts and walk Ann back to her coach. The pier is pretty cool in a boring sort of way but they do sell good doughnuts for too much money from stalls manned by Eastern Europeans who I can’t really understand.
Becky came down to stay and we used the last of my home made pizza bases, the one that looked a bit pony, to make dinner. After this we headed down to the Robin Hood pub where we chatted and drank too much.
Tea drunk: 3
Sites designed: 2
Doughnuts eaten: 2 (Beth nicked one even though she said she didn’t want one when I asked if she wanted some)
During all this I was laughing away to myself in that highly annoying way that people wearing headphones and listening to something funny do. Michael Gambon was on and he was hilarious. I’m a big Gambon fan and I think he’s a superb actor to boot. I’ve seen him on various TV shows of late (Top Gear, Have I Got News For You) and he’s a very funny man with a tonne of great stories.
During all this mirth fired work Beth made some lovely Thai chicken dumpling soup. After this Beth & Ann headed out to get some more pictures for her work but unfortunately, due to Beth’s inability to be surreptitious, Beth got thrown out of Tesco. I’m so proud of her, I’m now going out with a local felon.
Walked down seafront to the Palace pier to get some doughnuts and walk Ann back to her coach. The pier is pretty cool in a boring sort of way but they do sell good doughnuts for too much money from stalls manned by Eastern Europeans who I can’t really understand.
Becky came down to stay and we used the last of my home made pizza bases, the one that looked a bit pony, to make dinner. After this we headed down to the Robin Hood pub where we chatted and drank too much.
Tea drunk: 3
Sites designed: 2
Doughnuts eaten: 2 (Beth nicked one even though she said she didn’t want one when I asked if she wanted some)
Friday
June 23rd
Today I have had a very productive day indeed. Fridays always seem to be like that, it starts badly with a Monday and then picks up a little on Tuesday when I realise I’ve essentially wasted a whole day. Wednesday is always a bit of a rubbish day as everything I should’ve done on Monday (which carried over to Tuesday) catches up with me and buggers me about. Wednesday is also the day when I tend to have something else to do. Basically Wednesday’s can fuck off. Thursday is an all round decent day, things actually start to happen on a Thursday and there’s always the comfort that I still have one whole day left of the week with which to get things done. Friday rocks. By around 4 o’clock on a Friday I’ve achieved a great deal and I’m now a little sad that there’s not much time left to finish everything up. By this point I’m on a roll you see. My philosophy has always been to try to take each day as it comes but recently many days have taken to attacking me all at once.
So, today, today I dropped Beth off at the station and then headed home to find that my free sample of ‘Jelly Belly’ jelly beans had turned up. It was a mighty small bag but hey, it was free. I wolfed these shortly after polishing off my brekkie and my second cup of tea for the day. Once this repast was over I went to Waitrose and got myself all the ingredients needed to bake bread and tonight’s tea (pizza). I’ve only ever tried to bake my own bread once and I seem to remember it went pretty badly wrong and I ended up with something that more or less resembled a rugby ball in shape and texture. How I could get something so simple so badly wrong I don’t know, but then it’s always seemed to be that way with cooking and me. I can knock together all manner of complicated and experimental dishes but can I poach an egg? Can I bollocks. Actually that’s not entirely true, I can poach an egg like a pro but it’s never what I’d call ‘a given’ that it’s gonna come out right.
This time however the bread baking went excellently well despite the fact that the kitchen ended up looking like someone had lobbed a bag of flour in through the open window when I wasn’t looking. I did get rather stressed at one point and ended up laughing at myself ‘cos my hands were covered in sticky dough and I just couldn’t get the bloody stuff off. Everything I touched stuck to me, I began to feel like some kind of cartoon glue monster, I imagined my hands sticking to the work surface in that kind of ‘pizza cheese’ way and the comically transferring the goo to my shoes.
Whilst the dough was proving I finally wrote and typed up the pitch I’ve been trying to get done for a few days now. As I said before I’m not much good at pitching for work but this time I was quite pleased with the way it came out.
Anyhow, the dough was rapidly expanding and growing at an alarming rate (Jamie did say in his recipe that it needed three sachets of yeast so I used three) and I had visions of it growing exponentially and it consuming everything in the kitchen whilst I back away from it, terrified of the monster I’d created. I could see Beth coming home to find the flat bulging at the seams as the dough expands crushing me in the corner. (Thankfully, that didn’t happen.)
The bread came out very well and, once baked, I tested a wee slice with some plain ol’ butter. Fresh baked bread really is one of life’s luxuries as most of us most of the time just buy it from a supermarket. It was delicious. With the left over dough I made some pizza bases, two respectable ‘small’ ones and one large one that looked like it had been thrown around by a pizza chef who had really lost interest in his job. ‘Quirkily rustic’ I think is the only way it could be described, that or just plain old crap.
After my busy day I thought I deserved a pint so I went to meet Marc at the Tin Drum where Beth joined us fresh off the train. Later that night Beth & I made the pizza toppings of our choices and flaked out in front of the telly. All in all a very good day was had.
Tea drunk: 4
Pitches completed: 1
Kitchen’s floured: 1
So, today, today I dropped Beth off at the station and then headed home to find that my free sample of ‘Jelly Belly’ jelly beans had turned up. It was a mighty small bag but hey, it was free. I wolfed these shortly after polishing off my brekkie and my second cup of tea for the day. Once this repast was over I went to Waitrose and got myself all the ingredients needed to bake bread and tonight’s tea (pizza). I’ve only ever tried to bake my own bread once and I seem to remember it went pretty badly wrong and I ended up with something that more or less resembled a rugby ball in shape and texture. How I could get something so simple so badly wrong I don’t know, but then it’s always seemed to be that way with cooking and me. I can knock together all manner of complicated and experimental dishes but can I poach an egg? Can I bollocks. Actually that’s not entirely true, I can poach an egg like a pro but it’s never what I’d call ‘a given’ that it’s gonna come out right.
This time however the bread baking went excellently well despite the fact that the kitchen ended up looking like someone had lobbed a bag of flour in through the open window when I wasn’t looking. I did get rather stressed at one point and ended up laughing at myself ‘cos my hands were covered in sticky dough and I just couldn’t get the bloody stuff off. Everything I touched stuck to me, I began to feel like some kind of cartoon glue monster, I imagined my hands sticking to the work surface in that kind of ‘pizza cheese’ way and the comically transferring the goo to my shoes.
Whilst the dough was proving I finally wrote and typed up the pitch I’ve been trying to get done for a few days now. As I said before I’m not much good at pitching for work but this time I was quite pleased with the way it came out.
Anyhow, the dough was rapidly expanding and growing at an alarming rate (Jamie did say in his recipe that it needed three sachets of yeast so I used three) and I had visions of it growing exponentially and it consuming everything in the kitchen whilst I back away from it, terrified of the monster I’d created. I could see Beth coming home to find the flat bulging at the seams as the dough expands crushing me in the corner. (Thankfully, that didn’t happen.)
The bread came out very well and, once baked, I tested a wee slice with some plain ol’ butter. Fresh baked bread really is one of life’s luxuries as most of us most of the time just buy it from a supermarket. It was delicious. With the left over dough I made some pizza bases, two respectable ‘small’ ones and one large one that looked like it had been thrown around by a pizza chef who had really lost interest in his job. ‘Quirkily rustic’ I think is the only way it could be described, that or just plain old crap.
After my busy day I thought I deserved a pint so I went to meet Marc at the Tin Drum where Beth joined us fresh off the train. Later that night Beth & I made the pizza toppings of our choices and flaked out in front of the telly. All in all a very good day was had.
Tea drunk: 4
Pitches completed: 1
Kitchen’s floured: 1
Thursday
June 22nd
Sam left today so I’m back to swanning about in my pants, listening to music loudly and munching on delicious cakes, a Marlborough bun to be precise. It’s kind of like your standard bun but it’s got big ol’ chunks of deliciousness in it. It goes great with tea too so who am I to argue, I’d better go make one. There… now that’s much better isn’t it Ben? Yes it is Ben. You’re so wise in the way of tea and cake.
There’s been a fair bit of ruckus next door as they’re redecorating, sadly this meant my concentration has been a bit off today and I haven’t been as productive as I would’ve liked. Despite this I’ve managed to look over a job that’s been hanging about now for a while and I’ve also agreed to help out Laurence by coming up with a couple of ideas for a site. Not bad considering the bloke next door seems to be trying to perform the 1812 Overture using only a hammer.
Now before I go any further I’d like to remind you all of my thoughts on the strange absence of the humble gooseberry from the shelves of our supermarkets. I had a big old rant about the highly underrated fruit here on my other blog. You may wonder why I brought this up, well I’ll tell you dear, sweet-smelling reader, it’s because today I enquired in my local Waitrose (my spiritual home) as to the lack of the aforementioned fruit and guess what? They’re coming in to stock on Monday! WooHoo! Monday is gooseberry day. I can’t wait. And to celebrate here’s a wee gooseberry factoid to moisten your appetites. Gooseberries are in fact the only true berries. A berry is technically defined as containing more than one seed. The pivotal word here is ‘containing’. A cucumber is a berry but a strawberry is not. A Tomato is a berry but a raspberry is not. You get the picture, this factoid makes me very happy as it’s the first time my ol’ mate the gooseberry has been top of the pile. Go get ‘em Mr… er.. Gooseberry. (I think I need to go and have a stiff drink. I’m starting to weird even myself out.)
Changing the subject a bit I have a good friend called Simon who is (save for maybe Beth who is still my favourite) probably the number one list-maker extraordinaire. He makes lists like a glass blower blows glass, like a nanny cares for kids, like Santa delivers pressies. When he lists, he cares. So when I developed my list of my favourite retro British Sci-fi TV I naturally had to ask him if he’d listed anything of any note recently. He naturally had and was currently working on that pinnacle of lists, the top ten. In this case it was the elusive top ten albums. So, in his honour I have tried to repeat the exercise. So, Simon, here’s my current top 22 (too weak to go for the ‘big-boy’ top 10) albums. In no particular order I give you -
1: Ella Fitzgerald - The Cole Porter Song Book
2: Zero 7 - The Garden
3: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works '85-'92
4: David Bowie - Hunky Dory
5: The Divine Comedy - Absent Friends
6: ELO - All Over The World
7: Everything but the Girl - Walking Wounded
8: The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
9: Goldfrapp - Supernature
10: Ibrahim Ferrer - Buena Vista Social Club Presents...
11: Jacqueline du Pré - A Lasting Inspiration
12: The Jam - The Sound of the Jam
13: Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come
14: Johnny Cash - American 4: The Man Comes Around
15: Terry Callier - Speak Your Peace
16: The Strokes - Is This It?
17: Massive Attack - Mezzanine
18: Nina Simone - Released
19: Orbital - In Sides
20: Orbital - Snivilisation
21: Penguin Café Orchestra - Preludes Aires and Yodels
22: Saint Etienne - Fox Base Alpha
And I should say that I currently can’t stop playing the new Keane & Divine Comedy albums.
Tea drunk: 7 (Big day)
Lists made: 2
Pregnant women given a lift to the station to: 1
There’s been a fair bit of ruckus next door as they’re redecorating, sadly this meant my concentration has been a bit off today and I haven’t been as productive as I would’ve liked. Despite this I’ve managed to look over a job that’s been hanging about now for a while and I’ve also agreed to help out Laurence by coming up with a couple of ideas for a site. Not bad considering the bloke next door seems to be trying to perform the 1812 Overture using only a hammer.
Now before I go any further I’d like to remind you all of my thoughts on the strange absence of the humble gooseberry from the shelves of our supermarkets. I had a big old rant about the highly underrated fruit here on my other blog. You may wonder why I brought this up, well I’ll tell you dear, sweet-smelling reader, it’s because today I enquired in my local Waitrose (my spiritual home) as to the lack of the aforementioned fruit and guess what? They’re coming in to stock on Monday! WooHoo! Monday is gooseberry day. I can’t wait. And to celebrate here’s a wee gooseberry factoid to moisten your appetites. Gooseberries are in fact the only true berries. A berry is technically defined as containing more than one seed. The pivotal word here is ‘containing’. A cucumber is a berry but a strawberry is not. A Tomato is a berry but a raspberry is not. You get the picture, this factoid makes me very happy as it’s the first time my ol’ mate the gooseberry has been top of the pile. Go get ‘em Mr… er.. Gooseberry. (I think I need to go and have a stiff drink. I’m starting to weird even myself out.)
Changing the subject a bit I have a good friend called Simon who is (save for maybe Beth who is still my favourite) probably the number one list-maker extraordinaire. He makes lists like a glass blower blows glass, like a nanny cares for kids, like Santa delivers pressies. When he lists, he cares. So when I developed my list of my favourite retro British Sci-fi TV I naturally had to ask him if he’d listed anything of any note recently. He naturally had and was currently working on that pinnacle of lists, the top ten. In this case it was the elusive top ten albums. So, in his honour I have tried to repeat the exercise. So, Simon, here’s my current top 22 (too weak to go for the ‘big-boy’ top 10) albums. In no particular order I give you -
1: Ella Fitzgerald - The Cole Porter Song Book
2: Zero 7 - The Garden
3: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works '85-'92
4: David Bowie - Hunky Dory
5: The Divine Comedy - Absent Friends
6: ELO - All Over The World
7: Everything but the Girl - Walking Wounded
8: The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
9: Goldfrapp - Supernature
10: Ibrahim Ferrer - Buena Vista Social Club Presents...
11: Jacqueline du Pré - A Lasting Inspiration
12: The Jam - The Sound of the Jam
13: Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come
14: Johnny Cash - American 4: The Man Comes Around
15: Terry Callier - Speak Your Peace
16: The Strokes - Is This It?
17: Massive Attack - Mezzanine
18: Nina Simone - Released
19: Orbital - In Sides
20: Orbital - Snivilisation
21: Penguin Café Orchestra - Preludes Aires and Yodels
22: Saint Etienne - Fox Base Alpha
And I should say that I currently can’t stop playing the new Keane & Divine Comedy albums.
Tea drunk: 7 (Big day)
Lists made: 2
Pregnant women given a lift to the station to: 1
Wednesday
June 21st
This morning I had to head back to Redhill (where my folks live) to pay a visit to my GP. I won’t bore you with the reason for this trip, suffice to say it was a trip to the Doctors and they’re seldom for something good are they? I popped in to see my Ma and my lovely dog Pat and had a cup of tea whilst we caught up. We then headed into Redhill centre where I got Mabel washed and we had another cuppa (coffee this time) and a bit of cake. Later, back at my Ma’s place, I had another cup o’ tea and cleaned out the interior of Mabel. She now looks all nice and shiny. Ma & I went next door to the ‘Joshua Tree’, a rather fine pub conveniently situated right next door that does great food. Kevin the owner & chef used to work at the House of Commons you know. Fully feed and watered I headed home to Brighton only to find that the pitch I was supposed to be working on was now unnecessary as the client had e-mailed me to let me know that he’d received a very compelling design form one of the others. He said he’d let me know if I need go ahead with my pitch on Friday and apologised for dicking me about. I’m not sure I can take much more of this to be frank, I keep getting lumbered with the rubbish £300 jobs whilst constantly missing out on the good ones. Why is that? I wish I knew. It’s massively depressing. My foul mood was lightened slightly though with a call out of the blue from an agency asking if I was available for work, the agency had got my details from Laurence, who owns and runs the company I’m going to see next week in Old Street. Though I wasn’t suitable for that job (they wanted someone with a high level of actionscript skills and that ‘aint me sister) they did seem keen on taking me on to their books.
To celebrate I made French Onion soup for dinner and my lovely Beth & I had a rather nice cherry & raspberry beer each whilst watching ‘When Harry meet Sally’, which I rather enjoyed, despite being a man.
Tea drunk: Unknown but my bladder didn’t fall below the two-gallon level.
Huge burgers eaten: 1 (Though it felt like half a cow in truth)
New careers considered: All of them (Except… no, all of them)
To celebrate I made French Onion soup for dinner and my lovely Beth & I had a rather nice cherry & raspberry beer each whilst watching ‘When Harry meet Sally’, which I rather enjoyed, despite being a man.
Tea drunk: Unknown but my bladder didn’t fall below the two-gallon level.
Huge burgers eaten: 1 (Though it felt like half a cow in truth)
New careers considered: All of them (Except… no, all of them)
Tuesday
June 20th
Today saw a sudden rush of activity work-wise when a company approached me to pitch (along with two other designers) for a re-design of their existing site. The site in question was really rather good and my initial reaction was to think it about as good as it could get. Once I’d stopped to think things over a bit I began to see things I’d improve upon and change so I agreed to pitch. I’ll be honest, I don’t like pitching for work like this, I prefer to have some kind of direct contact with the client so I can get a more personalised idea of what they want. It’s so much easier if you can talk things over with them and get to know them a little. I find the whole ‘here’s a brief, come up with something’ approach far too impersonal and it makes me feel like an automaton. They actually had a decent budget too and you’ve no idea how much of an incentive that is for me, I’d give my left nut just to get a client with more than £400 to spend on a chuffin’ site. I mean how much do these people think these things cost. (I’m not gonna get into that argument now, I can rattle on about it until the cows come home.) Anyhow, I made a few notes and decided that I’d dedicate the next couple of days to it.
Whilst I eat my lunch I watched the episode of Doctor Who I’d recorded from Saturday night. Adam & Alex had told me it was really good but had also told me I may hate it as I’d expressed concern over the fact that the new series seems to be becoming increasingly ‘light’. I’m also not a big Peter Kay fan so I had my reservations as to what he may do to the episode (he played the villainous alien thing). Anyhow, I really enjoyed it and I thought it was great. It was camp, it was silly and it was the first show to hardly feature the Doctor or Rose at all. Instead it focused on how an encounter with the Doctor can affect your life and how his world can sometimes taint the world of those who become involved. It was really rather poignant. Even Peter Kay put in a great turn as the Absorbarov thing and made the alien funny in a good way. All in all, a better episode than I thought it’d be. Better than the shockingly disappointing Cyberman return anyhow.
Keeping on the subject of Sci-fi, I also added a few more shows to the list I started yesterday. Terry Nation, of Doctor Who fame, wrote three series of an amazing show called ‘Survivors’ which I’ve been trying to get hold of only to find that it’s been released on DVD. It’s one that I’ve not actually seen but the general consensus is that it’s a true classic. I also added ‘The Nightmare Man’, another I’ve not seen where a couple are terrorised in a lighthouse by some kind of monster. ‘The Stone Tape’ is another Nigel Kneale creation that’s widely perceived as one of the finer moments of British Sci-fi television. A group of scientists are gathered in an old mansion trying to perfect the next generation of recording medium unfortunately they record something much more sinister, something that seems to have lay dormant in the rocks of the mansion itself. Spooky huh? The BBC’s ‘The Changes’ is also a show I’m desperate to get hold of. It’s not yet on DVD so I’m reduced to scouring eBay in the hope that someone out there has popped ‘em on DVD and wants a fiver for ‘em. This post-apocalyptic children’s series shown in 1975 depicted the breakdown of society after people are compelled to reject and destroy technology. This violent reaction and people's subsequent desertion of the country is triggered by a sound seemingly emitted by electricity pylons. The show follows a young girl searching for her parents. Add to this ITV’s brilliant ‘The Last Train’ and I think I’ve got myself a pretty compelling list.
Tea drunk: 4
Job pitches avoided: 1 (In a way, I’ve still got to do it tomorrow)
Shows added to the list: 6
Whilst I eat my lunch I watched the episode of Doctor Who I’d recorded from Saturday night. Adam & Alex had told me it was really good but had also told me I may hate it as I’d expressed concern over the fact that the new series seems to be becoming increasingly ‘light’. I’m also not a big Peter Kay fan so I had my reservations as to what he may do to the episode (he played the villainous alien thing). Anyhow, I really enjoyed it and I thought it was great. It was camp, it was silly and it was the first show to hardly feature the Doctor or Rose at all. Instead it focused on how an encounter with the Doctor can affect your life and how his world can sometimes taint the world of those who become involved. It was really rather poignant. Even Peter Kay put in a great turn as the Absorbarov thing and made the alien funny in a good way. All in all, a better episode than I thought it’d be. Better than the shockingly disappointing Cyberman return anyhow.
Keeping on the subject of Sci-fi, I also added a few more shows to the list I started yesterday. Terry Nation, of Doctor Who fame, wrote three series of an amazing show called ‘Survivors’ which I’ve been trying to get hold of only to find that it’s been released on DVD. It’s one that I’ve not actually seen but the general consensus is that it’s a true classic. I also added ‘The Nightmare Man’, another I’ve not seen where a couple are terrorised in a lighthouse by some kind of monster. ‘The Stone Tape’ is another Nigel Kneale creation that’s widely perceived as one of the finer moments of British Sci-fi television. A group of scientists are gathered in an old mansion trying to perfect the next generation of recording medium unfortunately they record something much more sinister, something that seems to have lay dormant in the rocks of the mansion itself. Spooky huh? The BBC’s ‘The Changes’ is also a show I’m desperate to get hold of. It’s not yet on DVD so I’m reduced to scouring eBay in the hope that someone out there has popped ‘em on DVD and wants a fiver for ‘em. This post-apocalyptic children’s series shown in 1975 depicted the breakdown of society after people are compelled to reject and destroy technology. This violent reaction and people's subsequent desertion of the country is triggered by a sound seemingly emitted by electricity pylons. The show follows a young girl searching for her parents. Add to this ITV’s brilliant ‘The Last Train’ and I think I’ve got myself a pretty compelling list.
Tea drunk: 4
Job pitches avoided: 1 (In a way, I’ve still got to do it tomorrow)
Shows added to the list: 6
Monday
June 19th
Last night I suffered from another bout of insomnia but this time, as Sam was kipping on our living room floor, there was nowhere I could go to settle or even to go grab a cuppa. To add insult to injury I couldn’t find Beth’s bedside clock and even if I did I still wouldn’t have been able to see the time ‘cos it has no light. Dear God things were bad that night. It was like the World was against me. Beth woke up at one point to find me making some kind of nest at the foot of the bed out of pillows whilst flashing our torch around trying to find the page I was at in my book. Naturally she told me to stop being a plum and get back in bed. I did and promptly fell asleep.
Once up I actually had quite a productive day despite being absolutely knackered. Beth had taken the day off and went out and about with Sam to take some pictures of exciting things like a house with a hedge and a car park so I was free to chug on with my even more exciting work. I got quite a lot done as it goes. Once Beth & Sam got home we went round to Beth's gran's where I cooked up sossies and mash and we sat around having the same conversation over and over again ‘Groundhog Day’ style.
During this fun-packed day I downloaded and listened to the new Keane album ‘Under the Iron Sea’ and I must say I’m impressed. The last album was pretty good, though I’m not a huge fan of guitar-less rock, but a little on the dour side. Their new offering seems to be more powerful and vibrant though hardly upbeat. I’ll wait and see how it goes after a few more plays before I make my final judgement though.
I also started to compile a list of all the films I wanted to see but had missed (mostly so the next time I go to the video shop I’ll know what to grab on DVD). This, strangely, began to turn into a list of all the classic British sci-fi & horror TV shows that I wanted to get hold of. I love all that kind of stuff, the palpable air of tension that these shows used to generate, the thrilling and frightening moments they created with so little in the way of special effects. Nowadays of course most films rely on high budget effects to scare you but with these babies it was all about the story and the acting.
Most people will be familiar with Nigel Kneale’s incredible Quatermass series of programs. First shown in 1953 the ‘Quatermass Experiment’ was the first live television drama ever broadcast and was recently remade starring current Doctor WHO David Tennant and Jason Flemyng. The premise of the show was that the first manned rocket launch (carried out by Professor Quatermass’ British Experimental Rocket Group) goes awry and only one crewman survives when the rocket crashes in Wimbledon. The scares build as the survivor gradually mutates into a fusion of man and plant. Two sequels were made in the 50’s, ‘Quatermass 2’ in which zombies infiltrate Earth and ‘Quatermass and the Pit (my personal favourite and one that scared the shite out of me when I saw it as a kiddie) where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried under the streets of London. In 1979 a final chapter was added, simply called ‘Quatermass’ and starring John Mills. This time, after the destruction of a new space station, young people find themselves mysteriously drawn to an ancient stone circle in England where they believe they’ll be taken to a better place by a higher power. Quatermass discovers that they are actually being harvested by an alien race and must find a way to stop them. If you’ve not seen these programs then I urge you to see them now. If you want to know more about Professor Bernard Quatermass and his madcap adventures then here is a pretty good place to start.
Along with Quatermass I added the BBC version of ‘The Day of the Triffids’ (one of the finest moments in British science fiction literature) which itself is worlds apart from the rubbish Howard Keel Hollywood version and ‘Sapphire & Steel’, the craziest and most ‘trippy’ television show ever.
A full days work I think.
Tea drunk: 7
New albums listened to: 1
Lists made: 3 (UK sci-fi retro TV, things to do tomorrow and ice-cream recipes to try out)
Once up I actually had quite a productive day despite being absolutely knackered. Beth had taken the day off and went out and about with Sam to take some pictures of exciting things like a house with a hedge and a car park so I was free to chug on with my even more exciting work. I got quite a lot done as it goes. Once Beth & Sam got home we went round to Beth's gran's where I cooked up sossies and mash and we sat around having the same conversation over and over again ‘Groundhog Day’ style.
During this fun-packed day I downloaded and listened to the new Keane album ‘Under the Iron Sea’ and I must say I’m impressed. The last album was pretty good, though I’m not a huge fan of guitar-less rock, but a little on the dour side. Their new offering seems to be more powerful and vibrant though hardly upbeat. I’ll wait and see how it goes after a few more plays before I make my final judgement though.
I also started to compile a list of all the films I wanted to see but had missed (mostly so the next time I go to the video shop I’ll know what to grab on DVD). This, strangely, began to turn into a list of all the classic British sci-fi & horror TV shows that I wanted to get hold of. I love all that kind of stuff, the palpable air of tension that these shows used to generate, the thrilling and frightening moments they created with so little in the way of special effects. Nowadays of course most films rely on high budget effects to scare you but with these babies it was all about the story and the acting.
Most people will be familiar with Nigel Kneale’s incredible Quatermass series of programs. First shown in 1953 the ‘Quatermass Experiment’ was the first live television drama ever broadcast and was recently remade starring current Doctor WHO David Tennant and Jason Flemyng. The premise of the show was that the first manned rocket launch (carried out by Professor Quatermass’ British Experimental Rocket Group) goes awry and only one crewman survives when the rocket crashes in Wimbledon. The scares build as the survivor gradually mutates into a fusion of man and plant. Two sequels were made in the 50’s, ‘Quatermass 2’ in which zombies infiltrate Earth and ‘Quatermass and the Pit (my personal favourite and one that scared the shite out of me when I saw it as a kiddie) where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried under the streets of London. In 1979 a final chapter was added, simply called ‘Quatermass’ and starring John Mills. This time, after the destruction of a new space station, young people find themselves mysteriously drawn to an ancient stone circle in England where they believe they’ll be taken to a better place by a higher power. Quatermass discovers that they are actually being harvested by an alien race and must find a way to stop them. If you’ve not seen these programs then I urge you to see them now. If you want to know more about Professor Bernard Quatermass and his madcap adventures then here is a pretty good place to start.
Along with Quatermass I added the BBC version of ‘The Day of the Triffids’ (one of the finest moments in British science fiction literature) which itself is worlds apart from the rubbish Howard Keel Hollywood version and ‘Sapphire & Steel’, the craziest and most ‘trippy’ television show ever.
A full days work I think.
Tea drunk: 7
New albums listened to: 1
Lists made: 3 (UK sci-fi retro TV, things to do tomorrow and ice-cream recipes to try out)
Sunday
June 18th
Unfortunately today wasn’t as nice a day as yesterday so we took a trip into town to see if I could locate a pair of these vegan Birkenstocks as they appear to be the only one’s they make in a size 11. Why is that? Do they only have cows up to a certain size from which they source their leather? We’d not been out and about shopping like this for a while and it was nice wandering through the lanes. There’s quite a few new shops and foodie places that appear to have sprung up whilst we were away and we could quite easily have come home two stone heavier had we popped into each one that took our fancy. On the way there we passed a bloke dressed as a hobo playing a violin whilst balancing on a tightrope. Now that’s very Brighton. He also performed a valuable public service and managed to distract people’s gaze from the guy who sells the collection of utterly woeful ‘art’. Art with a capital ‘F’ if you like.
The vegan shoe shop (I can’t even type that without smiling) was closed however so we just made do with checking out some of our other favourite shops. There were some cracking mirrors (no pun intended) in Lavender Rooms and Beth found many sets of underwear that she would’ve looked damn fine in.
Today was the London to Brighton bike ride and throughout town there was a liberal smattering of cycling shorts, gaily coloured latex tops and those odd little sucky bottles that only cyclists have. I have tremendous admiration for those that take part in this event, it’s a fair old trek in hot weather and at the end of it they have to face the final humiliation of being treated by Brighton Council like a bloody nuisance instead of a bunch of decent folk who want a nice day out and raise a bit of cash for charities. This year there were no bikes allowed on the trains at all. Surely there’s a mail-train or something somewhere they could’ve laid on so all these crazy bike kids could get home with ease after the exertion.
Beth had a list of pictures she wanted to get for the picture library so we headed out through some beautiful countryside to Horsham to take a few snaps of the utterly stunning and majorly posh Christ’s Hospital school. The buildings themselves and those that surround it are so amazingly charming in the old English style. All red brickwork, imposing chimneys and Virginia creeper. Given the wherewithal I would’ve happily lived out my days in any one of them. Sadly (though not unexpectedly) the school itself is set back in some pretty impressive private grounds so we couldn’t get close enough to get some decent snaps, still we’d had a lovely drive out into the country though.
We headed back home via the station to pick up the highly preggers Sam (Beth’s sis) and took her home. She turned up with a bag so big I thought she might very well be moving in. Whilst Beth & Sam caught up I went to our scheduled house meeting at Esme’s place. The meeting was pretty productive despite the fact that there were only representatives from three of the eight flats there.
That night Beth cooked some fantastic wild Alaskan salmon with wild rice and we watched LOST, which is getting crazier and crazier with each passing episode. I tried filling Sam in on what was going on but quickly gave up.
Tea drunk: 6
Posh schools visited: 1
Birkenstocks failed to purchase: 1 pair
The vegan shoe shop (I can’t even type that without smiling) was closed however so we just made do with checking out some of our other favourite shops. There were some cracking mirrors (no pun intended) in Lavender Rooms and Beth found many sets of underwear that she would’ve looked damn fine in.
Today was the London to Brighton bike ride and throughout town there was a liberal smattering of cycling shorts, gaily coloured latex tops and those odd little sucky bottles that only cyclists have. I have tremendous admiration for those that take part in this event, it’s a fair old trek in hot weather and at the end of it they have to face the final humiliation of being treated by Brighton Council like a bloody nuisance instead of a bunch of decent folk who want a nice day out and raise a bit of cash for charities. This year there were no bikes allowed on the trains at all. Surely there’s a mail-train or something somewhere they could’ve laid on so all these crazy bike kids could get home with ease after the exertion.
Beth had a list of pictures she wanted to get for the picture library so we headed out through some beautiful countryside to Horsham to take a few snaps of the utterly stunning and majorly posh Christ’s Hospital school. The buildings themselves and those that surround it are so amazingly charming in the old English style. All red brickwork, imposing chimneys and Virginia creeper. Given the wherewithal I would’ve happily lived out my days in any one of them. Sadly (though not unexpectedly) the school itself is set back in some pretty impressive private grounds so we couldn’t get close enough to get some decent snaps, still we’d had a lovely drive out into the country though.
We headed back home via the station to pick up the highly preggers Sam (Beth’s sis) and took her home. She turned up with a bag so big I thought she might very well be moving in. Whilst Beth & Sam caught up I went to our scheduled house meeting at Esme’s place. The meeting was pretty productive despite the fact that there were only representatives from three of the eight flats there.
That night Beth cooked some fantastic wild Alaskan salmon with wild rice and we watched LOST, which is getting crazier and crazier with each passing episode. I tried filling Sam in on what was going on but quickly gave up.
Tea drunk: 6
Posh schools visited: 1
Birkenstocks failed to purchase: 1 pair
Saturday
June 17th
Despite the fact that today was clearly going to be an absolute rip-roaring scorcher of a wonderfully glorious day, I decided that now would be the best time to wade in with our somewhat late Spring-cleaning session. This involved cleaning absolutely everything in the flat that didn’t move. I dismantled the fridge down to it’s component parts and cleaned each individual atom that they comprised, I de-scaled the kettle, buffed up the silverware, took the top layer of paint off the floor through over- vigorous scrubbing and even gave Beth a good polishing. It took for-bloody-ever and we missed the best day for ages. How dumb was that? (Don’t answer that.) To cheer us up during this crazed need to be clean we took five minutes out to watch a pony-tailed drunk staggering about in the street outside. He was cursing wildly and causing a ruckus with a big black fella with no apparent reason of motive. Things got a little bit tense when the drunk took a swipe at the black fella’s car with his digital camera. Now I never thought I’d see a Canon Ixus used in such a way I can tell you. The drunk then reverted to standard pissed behaviour and yelled unintelligibly at passing folk and then nodded off on his doorstep. Regretfully he went in after a few minutes so we were deprived of this particular piece of street theatre and had to go back to buffing the hell out of the kitchen cupboards.
That aftrenoon we popped down to the beach for a quick barbecue with Bryn, Amelia and some of their friends. One couple had a highly adorable 8 week old baby with them so naturally the women all turned into clucky, hormonal, broody baby-seeking missiles. (Now Beth will tell you that I did too but that’s just a huge fat fib. I never did. At all. Not once… Well okay, maybe for a bit.) After we’d over-cooked our sossies and I’d managed to get myslef suitably smokey we headed off to meet Adam, Alex, Zoe & Adam at the Crescent pub.
Tea drunk: Can’t recall. A few probably.
Scrubbies vaporised through vicious cleaning: 2
Sossies eaten: 2 (Nice ones too)
That aftrenoon we popped down to the beach for a quick barbecue with Bryn, Amelia and some of their friends. One couple had a highly adorable 8 week old baby with them so naturally the women all turned into clucky, hormonal, broody baby-seeking missiles. (Now Beth will tell you that I did too but that’s just a huge fat fib. I never did. At all. Not once… Well okay, maybe for a bit.) After we’d over-cooked our sossies and I’d managed to get myslef suitably smokey we headed off to meet Adam, Alex, Zoe & Adam at the Crescent pub.
Tea drunk: Can’t recall. A few probably.
Scrubbies vaporised through vicious cleaning: 2
Sossies eaten: 2 (Nice ones too)
Friday
June 16th
Marc got me out of the shower this morning to return my laptop adaptor so I spent half an hour drying the hallway carpet. It never ceases to amaze me that I can spend three hours sitting around on the sofa waiting for something to happen that never does, and yet as soon as I pop to the toilet or take a shower I get a phone call or visitor. My mother has an uncanny knack for this and for years I scoured the flat poking my nose into increasingly ridiculous nooks and crannies searching for the bugs & cameras she’d clearly installed so she’d be aware of the perfect time to call me to achieve optimum annoyance.
I spent the morning working and making myself laugh like a twat by listening to the almost sickeningly funny Rickey Gervais podcasts. If you’ve not heard ‘em then I strongly suggest you pick them up on mp3 off the iTunes music store. They’re without doubt the funniest things I’ve heard in a very long time. What makes them so special is the fact that the comedy revolves around a chap called Karl Pilkington and not Ricky Gervais or Steven Merchant.
Es & I had to attend two more meetings today and we headed off cursing the fact that it was turning out to be such a lovely day and we were about to spend it ensconced in dismal offices in conversation with two more prospective managing agents. To make matters worse we had misread the address of the first agent and went wandering up Western Road to his old address. Luckily a kindly chap in the building pointed us in the right direction. His new office was in fact smack at the bottom of our road. Grrrr! Anyhow we spoke with him for an hour but we weren’t very impressed, his office smelt of damp and was in a bit of a two and eight. If he can’t look after his own office then how could he be expected to look after our entire building.
After a brief respite at the Real Eating Co. (where I made a complete plum-duff of myself by enquiring after the name of the wonderful cake I’d just eaten only to be told by the waitress, with a very sweetly tolerant smile, that it was a cherry bakewell) Es & I headed off to our third meeting which was much more satisfactory.
I met Zoe at the Meeting Place Café for a quick cuppa after our last meeting and we chatted for a bit about stuff until Beth rang and said she was back from work at which point we moved on to the wonderful Robin Hood pub. It’s a ‘people’s pub’ you see which is the brainwave of a local entrepreneur. Basically all the profits (after covering costs and staff wages etc.) are donated to local charities, hence the name. It’s a great pub with a good mix of decent customers, comfy chairs and decent beer. If you live in Brighton and haven’t yet been then go along. It’s comforting to think that while you attempt to reach a stage of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks you’re also helping out those less well off than you.
Tea drunk: Too much
Cakes eaten: 1 (it was a cherry bakewell you dufus!)
New beers discovered: 1 (Artois Bok – it’s very strong and has a caramel like taste)
I spent the morning working and making myself laugh like a twat by listening to the almost sickeningly funny Rickey Gervais podcasts. If you’ve not heard ‘em then I strongly suggest you pick them up on mp3 off the iTunes music store. They’re without doubt the funniest things I’ve heard in a very long time. What makes them so special is the fact that the comedy revolves around a chap called Karl Pilkington and not Ricky Gervais or Steven Merchant.
Es & I had to attend two more meetings today and we headed off cursing the fact that it was turning out to be such a lovely day and we were about to spend it ensconced in dismal offices in conversation with two more prospective managing agents. To make matters worse we had misread the address of the first agent and went wandering up Western Road to his old address. Luckily a kindly chap in the building pointed us in the right direction. His new office was in fact smack at the bottom of our road. Grrrr! Anyhow we spoke with him for an hour but we weren’t very impressed, his office smelt of damp and was in a bit of a two and eight. If he can’t look after his own office then how could he be expected to look after our entire building.
After a brief respite at the Real Eating Co. (where I made a complete plum-duff of myself by enquiring after the name of the wonderful cake I’d just eaten only to be told by the waitress, with a very sweetly tolerant smile, that it was a cherry bakewell) Es & I headed off to our third meeting which was much more satisfactory.
I met Zoe at the Meeting Place Café for a quick cuppa after our last meeting and we chatted for a bit about stuff until Beth rang and said she was back from work at which point we moved on to the wonderful Robin Hood pub. It’s a ‘people’s pub’ you see which is the brainwave of a local entrepreneur. Basically all the profits (after covering costs and staff wages etc.) are donated to local charities, hence the name. It’s a great pub with a good mix of decent customers, comfy chairs and decent beer. If you live in Brighton and haven’t yet been then go along. It’s comforting to think that while you attempt to reach a stage of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks you’re also helping out those less well off than you.
Tea drunk: Too much
Cakes eaten: 1 (it was a cherry bakewell you dufus!)
New beers discovered: 1 (Artois Bok – it’s very strong and has a caramel like taste)
Thursday
June 15th
I really can't remember much about what happened today but thankfully I make little 'notes to self' on my laptop. Despite this I still can't quite recall details so today I'm just gonna copy the notelet down.
Flash stuff
Petra's site
Lunch with Marc @ Coopers
Skype
Rubbish football
There...
Flash stuff
Petra's site
Lunch with Marc @ Coopers
Skype
Rubbish football
There...
Wednesday
June 14th
I just don’t seem to be able to get enough sleep at the moment. Morpheous keeps fidgeting it would seem. Last night I dreamt I was working with Jack Bauer in bringing down some kind of Mafioso type but Jack made me wear these cuff-link style bugs, the problem being that I had to wear them through holes in the bottom of my jeans and I had to surreptitiously pop ‘em in whilst Jack spoke to the crook. Not easy, especially when they kept growing. Eventually I was found out and all hell broke lose. Jack, to preserve his cover, had to pretend he didn’t know I was a CTU agent and started shooting at me. I pegged it and managed to get away by climbing a tree. I woke up shortly after that to have a wee. When I dropped off again I was part of a parachute team testing a new type of system that comprised of nothing but an orange boiler suit, a crash helmet and a funky backpack type thing. There was no chute and it made you kind of float about. You could bob around in the air and then gently touch down on the ground, all you had to do then was launch yourself skyward to get back up. After dropping from the plane we hovered above the ground and started arsing about doing back-flips and comedy running & swimming movements until it was time to stop and go skiing.
Anyhow, back to reality. Today I struggled to come to terms with the simple fact that money is a very fluid concept for me these days. At the moment it seems I can stay in the flat perfectly still for a day and yet still spend money. It’s like that line in Blackadder, somedays I feel like a pelican. No matter which way I turn I’ve still got an enormous bill in front of me. Today was the turn of our mortgage broker and current managing agent. We’ve just re-mortgaged to pay off some debts and it seems to have turned into a bit of a money pit as over 10% of the money has gone on bloody fees. It’s just not worth it really.
Anyhow, my internet access had gone down for the afternoon so I popped to the post office to send the cheques and accidentally fell into the newsagent’s where I panicked and, completely by mistake you understand, bought a Milky Bar and a Caramac. Yum.
Today Es & I had the first of our meetings with prospective managing agents today and I gotta say it went rather well. Es was highly professional with her list of probing and in-depth questions whereas I just sat there sipping tea and making the room look nice. They seemed pretty good and certainly didn’t conform to the image I have of managing agents as being part-man, part-shark and all git. They were actually rather nice and certainly seemed like they’d be well and truly on the ball. Still, we have nothing to compare them to yet so we’ll just have to see how the other two companies fare on Friday.
After the meeting we wandered home and Es sat on my floor typing up the answers to circulate at our next meeting while Beth made asparagus risotto for our tea. It was delicious.
We sunk to an all time television low tonight however and actually watched an entire episode of Rosemary & Thyme with Pam Ferris Wheel and Felicity Kendall Mint Cake playing two detective gardeners. We laughed in equal measures at the ridiculous plot and our stupidity for watching it.
Tea drunk: 8
Old skool chocolate bars eaten: 2 (I’m going to try and find a ‘Drifter’ tomorrow)
Mafioso bosses killed in pursuit of the truth: 1 (I shot him whilst in a tree)
Anyhow, back to reality. Today I struggled to come to terms with the simple fact that money is a very fluid concept for me these days. At the moment it seems I can stay in the flat perfectly still for a day and yet still spend money. It’s like that line in Blackadder, somedays I feel like a pelican. No matter which way I turn I’ve still got an enormous bill in front of me. Today was the turn of our mortgage broker and current managing agent. We’ve just re-mortgaged to pay off some debts and it seems to have turned into a bit of a money pit as over 10% of the money has gone on bloody fees. It’s just not worth it really.
Anyhow, my internet access had gone down for the afternoon so I popped to the post office to send the cheques and accidentally fell into the newsagent’s where I panicked and, completely by mistake you understand, bought a Milky Bar and a Caramac. Yum.
Today Es & I had the first of our meetings with prospective managing agents today and I gotta say it went rather well. Es was highly professional with her list of probing and in-depth questions whereas I just sat there sipping tea and making the room look nice. They seemed pretty good and certainly didn’t conform to the image I have of managing agents as being part-man, part-shark and all git. They were actually rather nice and certainly seemed like they’d be well and truly on the ball. Still, we have nothing to compare them to yet so we’ll just have to see how the other two companies fare on Friday.
After the meeting we wandered home and Es sat on my floor typing up the answers to circulate at our next meeting while Beth made asparagus risotto for our tea. It was delicious.
We sunk to an all time television low tonight however and actually watched an entire episode of Rosemary & Thyme with Pam Ferris Wheel and Felicity Kendall Mint Cake playing two detective gardeners. We laughed in equal measures at the ridiculous plot and our stupidity for watching it.
Tea drunk: 8
Old skool chocolate bars eaten: 2 (I’m going to try and find a ‘Drifter’ tomorrow)
Mafioso bosses killed in pursuit of the truth: 1 (I shot him whilst in a tree)
Tuesday
June 13th
Today was D-U-L(L). I sent a cheque off to our mortgage advisor, tried to fix my wayward computer, pitched for a job, eat some pork scratchings, listened to a few un-listened to albums, discovered that half of my newly bought French toasts were broken in the packet, read up about optimizing a page for search engines and looked at VW camper vans on-line (my mate Dan has just bought one). I rounded things off by making chicken caesar salad and watching CSI. There’s room in my life for improvement, I think I’ll take up smoking.
Tea drunk: 5
Choc-ices eaten: 2
Tutorials I’ve utterly failed to grasp: 1 (That whole ‘search engines’ thing)
Tea drunk: 5
Choc-ices eaten: 2
Tutorials I’ve utterly failed to grasp: 1 (That whole ‘search engines’ thing)
Monday
June 12th
At 2:30 last night Beth & I were woken by a tremendous banging (insert ‘Carry On’ style snigger here) coming, somewhat scarily, from somewhere in the building. It was clearly inside the communal hall but what it was I had no idea. It was reverberating throughout the place. Being the hard-ball playing, dog whipping, take me as you find me kind of guy I am I popped on my bravery hat and jeans and went out to figure out what it was. It turned out to be 12 hardened crack addicts who’d been snowballing heroin all night. It turned ugly so I kicked off and they’re all now in hospital. Actually that didn’t happen.
The noise turned out to be coming from our downstairs neighbour. I found him more than several sheets to the wind, curled up like a little lamb outside his front door in just his pants. He was pretty coherent despite being clearly rather drunk. Apparently he’d locked himself out (no shit Sherlock) and was trying to raise the attention of his lady-friend inside. The fact that his lady-pal was obviously either a) not in b) as inebriated as he or c) dead - wasn’t deterring him from making his presence known. I pointed this out and asked if his lady-mate was in to which he replied “Dunno”. I then asked where she would be if she weren’t in, to which he replied “Dunno”. I also asked how he’d ended up outside his front door clad in nowt but his under-crackers. “Dunno”.
I popped upstairs and after recounting the tale to Beth through a fit of the giggles I grabbed him a blanket and a glass of water so he could settle himself down for the night. (Call me uncharitable but I wasn’t having his drunken form lolling all over my sofa now was I.) Then I gave him my phone so he could call his lady-colleague but her phone rang in his flat. Hmmm… interesting.
Eventually he hit on the plan of my lending him some pyjama trousers and a tee-shirt so he could go down the road to his brother’s. I obliged him and I’ll never forget the site of him toddling off down the deserted street barefoot and wearing my check pj’s.
I got back to sleep eventually chuckling away to myself.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and I spent the majority of the day learning how to make a php driven e-mail form in Flash to go on my portfolio site.
Rock and indeed, roll.
Tea drunk: 6
Neighbours laughed at 2: (I haven’t told Neil about the toilet roll on his shoe yet)
Pyjama trousers lost: 1
The noise turned out to be coming from our downstairs neighbour. I found him more than several sheets to the wind, curled up like a little lamb outside his front door in just his pants. He was pretty coherent despite being clearly rather drunk. Apparently he’d locked himself out (no shit Sherlock) and was trying to raise the attention of his lady-friend inside. The fact that his lady-pal was obviously either a) not in b) as inebriated as he or c) dead - wasn’t deterring him from making his presence known. I pointed this out and asked if his lady-mate was in to which he replied “Dunno”. I then asked where she would be if she weren’t in, to which he replied “Dunno”. I also asked how he’d ended up outside his front door clad in nowt but his under-crackers. “Dunno”.
I popped upstairs and after recounting the tale to Beth through a fit of the giggles I grabbed him a blanket and a glass of water so he could settle himself down for the night. (Call me uncharitable but I wasn’t having his drunken form lolling all over my sofa now was I.) Then I gave him my phone so he could call his lady-colleague but her phone rang in his flat. Hmmm… interesting.
Eventually he hit on the plan of my lending him some pyjama trousers and a tee-shirt so he could go down the road to his brother’s. I obliged him and I’ll never forget the site of him toddling off down the deserted street barefoot and wearing my check pj’s.
I got back to sleep eventually chuckling away to myself.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and I spent the majority of the day learning how to make a php driven e-mail form in Flash to go on my portfolio site.
Rock and indeed, roll.
Tea drunk: 6
Neighbours laughed at 2: (I haven’t told Neil about the toilet roll on his shoe yet)
Pyjama trousers lost: 1
Sunday
June 11th
Another relaxed start saw us making an eggs benedict and taking things easy before we took a trip to lovely Lewes. The place is so beautiful and so damn close that I can’t quite work out why we’ve never been there before. It’s only down the road. It’s a great old town with a fair bit to see. The Harvey’s brewery is there for a start and there’s a funky little beer shop (sadly closed) that looked highly inviting and a great Harvey’s ale pub that we couldn’t frequent on account of having to drive and it being a little too early in the day to start drinking. There’s the original Bill’s food place too and I gotta say, it looked better than the newer one here in Brighton, I’d also imagine it’d be easier to get in to. The whole street is quaint in the way that only English villages can be and you can still see remnants of the old ways. Beth was taken by a wonderful old shop-front that still sported the original etched-glass sign ‘butter & creamery’. Brilliant. In fact I think her exact words were, “Let’s buy it, open a sweetshop and live upstairs.” You can see why I love her can’t you. There’s a merciful lack of a Starbucks or a Tesco (apparently it’s hidden away so as not to spoil the village) but there is a Waitrose, which immediately makes it a more habitable town in my view. Snob, moi? Hell yeah. They’ve even got a castle and two highly groovey looking churches, one with a spire straight out of a medieval documentary hosted by Tony Robinson and that bloke who gets all excited over Roman coins and stuff.
Naturally we looked in some estate agents’ windows and weighed up the pros & cons of a move out here. It’s a highly attractive proposition but maybe not just yet. I do so love living in Brighton and being near friends.
Back in Brighton we took our barbeque (the funky Muji one that looks like an executive attaché case and then transforms into a Barbie) and a crappy disposable one down to the beach where we cooked up sossies with Es, Neil & Katie. The sossies were grand, the company was lovely and I looked damn good with slightly singed eyebrows and a slightly smoked pallor.
That night Beth & I settled down to watch a fantastic episode of Doctor WHO and LOST. I had such a great weekend with my Beth, I’m so glad we’ve decided to allocate some of our time to us.
Tea drunk: 4
Properties mentally bought, decorated & lived in: 186 (The castle counts as 100)
Muji barbeques used: 0 (We used the crap disposable instead for some reason)
Naturally we looked in some estate agents’ windows and weighed up the pros & cons of a move out here. It’s a highly attractive proposition but maybe not just yet. I do so love living in Brighton and being near friends.
Back in Brighton we took our barbeque (the funky Muji one that looks like an executive attaché case and then transforms into a Barbie) and a crappy disposable one down to the beach where we cooked up sossies with Es, Neil & Katie. The sossies were grand, the company was lovely and I looked damn good with slightly singed eyebrows and a slightly smoked pallor.
That night Beth & I settled down to watch a fantastic episode of Doctor WHO and LOST. I had such a great weekend with my Beth, I’m so glad we’ve decided to allocate some of our time to us.
Tea drunk: 4
Properties mentally bought, decorated & lived in: 186 (The castle counts as 100)
Muji barbeques used: 0 (We used the crap disposable instead for some reason)
Saturday
June 10th
Over the last couple of years we’ve had so many family and friend related events to go to that this year Beth & I have decided to take more weekends to ourselves. It’s been tricky having to turn down things that ordinarily we would’ve done (sometimes more from a sense of duty than a desire to attend) and we’ve had to be pretty ruthless with our time and this weekend was to be our first ‘Beth & Ben’ weekend.
After last night we had a bit of a late start (I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with these new late licensing laws) and spent a good hour or two sagging about in bed eventually hauling our carcasses out for a great fruit salad & one of my legendary smoothies. None of this mattered however as today was the start of England’s foray into the World Cup and we had ourselves a plan. I needed some new Birkenstocks after my old ones finally gave up the ghost in S.E. Asia but only a fool or a hero would attempt to shop in the centre of Brighton on an ordinary Saturday, but today would be different. One of the benefits of not being a footie fan is that you’re guaranteed (during the World Cup at least) a bit of relative public peace for two hours every so often and it’s this that we took advantage of. It was so quiet in town it was almost frightening, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so calm.
Birkies bought Beth & I took the Saturday papers to the square where we got just under 15 minutes of peace until the football finished (apparently we won against a made up country) and groups of inebriated blokes descended upon us armed with footballs. They all bounced their balls a bit, did a few keepie-upies and made a determined effort to look all serious and footbally before deciding that an actual game probably wasn’t what they wanted afterall and that they’d rather settle down on the benches and shout at each. I know it sounds hideously pompous and self-righteous but I do get a bit angry the way the square fills with lads getting pished and burning the grass with their disposable barbeques. You end up running the gauntlet of Frisbees, footballs and cricket matches trying to find a space. I almost want it to be a London style private square for the residents. The down side of this would be that we wouldn’t be allowed to go there, not being residents an’ all.
Our good friends Sophie & Simon are though and Simon popped down on his way back from Lemmington to show off his recently repaired and re-sprayed TR6. He clearly loves this car and it’s easy to see why, it’s a beauty. It makes me wish I still had my TR 2000. I miss that car. We popped down to the Meeting Place café on the seafront and had some pop whilst Simon had a cheeky lasagne & chips, we were only gone 20 minutes but in that time some fuckers had walked over Simon’s car. On our way back we past the car and saw footprints on the boot. Another couple of residents who had also noticed them told us that their car suffered a similar indignity recently. Why for God’s sake? Why do shitty people do shitty things like this? People wonder why as a Brighton resident I sometimes get annoyed with pissed up tourists and the local yute and it’s things like this that do it. There were so many ‘kids’ in the square getting lagered and making a nuisance of themselves that it’s massively difficult not to revert to ‘angry from Hove’ mode and instinctively blame them or ‘kids’ in general. I can’t figure out why people have no respect, no respect for others or for themselves. Nyarrr! Rant over.
That night Beth & I turned down Es & Neil’s offer of Pimms and opted for a dvd and an early night.
Tea drunk: 3
Birkies bought and then discovered were too small: 2 (one per foot)
World Cup matches missed: 1 (but hey, I got to spend time with my lady)
After last night we had a bit of a late start (I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope with these new late licensing laws) and spent a good hour or two sagging about in bed eventually hauling our carcasses out for a great fruit salad & one of my legendary smoothies. None of this mattered however as today was the start of England’s foray into the World Cup and we had ourselves a plan. I needed some new Birkenstocks after my old ones finally gave up the ghost in S.E. Asia but only a fool or a hero would attempt to shop in the centre of Brighton on an ordinary Saturday, but today would be different. One of the benefits of not being a footie fan is that you’re guaranteed (during the World Cup at least) a bit of relative public peace for two hours every so often and it’s this that we took advantage of. It was so quiet in town it was almost frightening, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so calm.
Birkies bought Beth & I took the Saturday papers to the square where we got just under 15 minutes of peace until the football finished (apparently we won against a made up country) and groups of inebriated blokes descended upon us armed with footballs. They all bounced their balls a bit, did a few keepie-upies and made a determined effort to look all serious and footbally before deciding that an actual game probably wasn’t what they wanted afterall and that they’d rather settle down on the benches and shout at each. I know it sounds hideously pompous and self-righteous but I do get a bit angry the way the square fills with lads getting pished and burning the grass with their disposable barbeques. You end up running the gauntlet of Frisbees, footballs and cricket matches trying to find a space. I almost want it to be a London style private square for the residents. The down side of this would be that we wouldn’t be allowed to go there, not being residents an’ all.
Our good friends Sophie & Simon are though and Simon popped down on his way back from Lemmington to show off his recently repaired and re-sprayed TR6. He clearly loves this car and it’s easy to see why, it’s a beauty. It makes me wish I still had my TR 2000. I miss that car. We popped down to the Meeting Place café on the seafront and had some pop whilst Simon had a cheeky lasagne & chips, we were only gone 20 minutes but in that time some fuckers had walked over Simon’s car. On our way back we past the car and saw footprints on the boot. Another couple of residents who had also noticed them told us that their car suffered a similar indignity recently. Why for God’s sake? Why do shitty people do shitty things like this? People wonder why as a Brighton resident I sometimes get annoyed with pissed up tourists and the local yute and it’s things like this that do it. There were so many ‘kids’ in the square getting lagered and making a nuisance of themselves that it’s massively difficult not to revert to ‘angry from Hove’ mode and instinctively blame them or ‘kids’ in general. I can’t figure out why people have no respect, no respect for others or for themselves. Nyarrr! Rant over.
That night Beth & I turned down Es & Neil’s offer of Pimms and opted for a dvd and an early night.
Tea drunk: 3
Birkies bought and then discovered were too small: 2 (one per foot)
World Cup matches missed: 1 (but hey, I got to spend time with my lady)
Friday
June 9th
Another lovely day and the painter arrived very early to touch-up the woodwork outside. Consequently I spent the morning avoiding the windows and peeping out from behind the curtains to see if he’d gone. In between bouts of this strange behaviour I managed to get my portfolio updated which made me feel better. It’s been sitting there for some time now like a neglected child, staring at me and making me feel awkward.
Es, my neighbour upstairs, was again working from home (she had some feeble excuse about the computers at work being spring-cleaned or something) so we had lunch together and made some appointments to go see prospective managing agents. We’ve bought the freehold to our building you see and now there seems to be a bloody-hell of a lot of work to do, work which until now our managing agent did. Now however, we seem to be doing it, I say we, I actually mean Es.
After Es left I sat out on the balcony for a bit in the sun and made a few lists of important things to do, number one of which was to make a few more holes in the new balcony covering. There are 16 now. Who says my days aren’t productive?
I met Beth at the station and we decided that we’d head down to the seafront, as it was such a wonderful day, and work our way through a bottle of white. We bought the wine but then made the fatal mistake of deciding to go home and have dinner first. I told Beth this was a bad idea but she wouldn’t listen. We drunk the wine at home with dinner as I thought we’d do and then made arrangements to meet Marc & Sophie in the pub down the road. So much for laying off the booze for a while eh?
It was great to catch-up with Marc, I’d not seen him for a while and, though I’m a little worried about him at the moment, he did seem on good form. We had a very pleasant night chatting about all manner of stuff and drinking more than we ought to when all of a sudden I realised that it was 12:30 and we were still there. You see I’d completely forgotten about the new late licensing laws, as these came into force whilst wifey & I had been away. Next time I shall endeavour to remember and maybe not panic-drink around 11 so much.
Tea drunk: 4
Balcony holes made: 4 more
Neighbours entertained: 1
Es, my neighbour upstairs, was again working from home (she had some feeble excuse about the computers at work being spring-cleaned or something) so we had lunch together and made some appointments to go see prospective managing agents. We’ve bought the freehold to our building you see and now there seems to be a bloody-hell of a lot of work to do, work which until now our managing agent did. Now however, we seem to be doing it, I say we, I actually mean Es.
After Es left I sat out on the balcony for a bit in the sun and made a few lists of important things to do, number one of which was to make a few more holes in the new balcony covering. There are 16 now. Who says my days aren’t productive?
I met Beth at the station and we decided that we’d head down to the seafront, as it was such a wonderful day, and work our way through a bottle of white. We bought the wine but then made the fatal mistake of deciding to go home and have dinner first. I told Beth this was a bad idea but she wouldn’t listen. We drunk the wine at home with dinner as I thought we’d do and then made arrangements to meet Marc & Sophie in the pub down the road. So much for laying off the booze for a while eh?
It was great to catch-up with Marc, I’d not seen him for a while and, though I’m a little worried about him at the moment, he did seem on good form. We had a very pleasant night chatting about all manner of stuff and drinking more than we ought to when all of a sudden I realised that it was 12:30 and we were still there. You see I’d completely forgotten about the new late licensing laws, as these came into force whilst wifey & I had been away. Next time I shall endeavour to remember and maybe not panic-drink around 11 so much.
Tea drunk: 4
Balcony holes made: 4 more
Neighbours entertained: 1
Thursday
June 8th
Slept like a baby strapped to a lavender scented log last night and I didn’t even wake when Beth’s alarm went off. She, being the wonderfully caring girlfriend she is, tip-toed about and put her pillow in her place and my arm around it so I’d think it was her and carry on sleeping. She’s good to me you know.
I felt refreshed today but several things happened that were to take the shiny glow off of my mood that morning. I broke a glass, one of the wonderful Riedel beer glasses Beth bought me, whilst washing up and then, when I checked my e-mails, I learned an agency I was hoping to get on the books of had turned me down as I’d had no design agency experience. I also received an e-mail from the jewellery designer who contacted me yesterday apologising for having sent the job confirmation to the wrong guy. Not the best start to the day. I’m having such a hard time coming to terms with this way of working, I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I know a couple of other freelance designers and they all seem to have plenty of work on. I just wish I knew where and when it was that things went astray for me, it’s so bloody frustrating. The more I do this the more I realize I’m just not cut out for it. It was a big mistake on my part really and I should’ve listened to those who warned me against taking this particular route. I just don’t know enough you see, I have no real coding skills and it’s letting me down.
Anyhow, it was a lovely day today and Beth was off out to see her mate Berni so I thought I’d go for a pleasant evening drink with someone. Unfortunately no-one was about so, as I’ve not yet got to the stage where I’ll happily go sit at the bar by myself, I had to settle for a vodka & tonic on the balcony and the company of a book and the radio.
It’s pretty depressing when the sun is out and the evening is so glorious to find yourself sitting and drinking alone so I only had the one and settled in for the night.
Tea drunk: 7
Tantrums thrown over work: 1
Holes discovered in the new balcony covering: 12
I felt refreshed today but several things happened that were to take the shiny glow off of my mood that morning. I broke a glass, one of the wonderful Riedel beer glasses Beth bought me, whilst washing up and then, when I checked my e-mails, I learned an agency I was hoping to get on the books of had turned me down as I’d had no design agency experience. I also received an e-mail from the jewellery designer who contacted me yesterday apologising for having sent the job confirmation to the wrong guy. Not the best start to the day. I’m having such a hard time coming to terms with this way of working, I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I know a couple of other freelance designers and they all seem to have plenty of work on. I just wish I knew where and when it was that things went astray for me, it’s so bloody frustrating. The more I do this the more I realize I’m just not cut out for it. It was a big mistake on my part really and I should’ve listened to those who warned me against taking this particular route. I just don’t know enough you see, I have no real coding skills and it’s letting me down.
Anyhow, it was a lovely day today and Beth was off out to see her mate Berni so I thought I’d go for a pleasant evening drink with someone. Unfortunately no-one was about so, as I’ve not yet got to the stage where I’ll happily go sit at the bar by myself, I had to settle for a vodka & tonic on the balcony and the company of a book and the radio.
It’s pretty depressing when the sun is out and the evening is so glorious to find yourself sitting and drinking alone so I only had the one and settled in for the night.
Tea drunk: 7
Tantrums thrown over work: 1
Holes discovered in the new balcony covering: 12
Wednesday
June 7th
Wednesday 7th June
Last night I suffered from a case of insomnia. Those that know me will tell you that I’m not a great sleeper but since we’ve been back from our trip, my sleeping has definitely improved. I’m not slipping into a mini coma every night or nodding off whilst standing up or anything like that, I’m just getting more sleep than usual. So I was pretty surprised to find myself wandering around the flat at 3 in the morning, wide-awake and drinking tea.
I kind of like being awake at this hour though, it’s somehow more personal. Everyone else is asleep and I’m awake. It’s as if everything outside my window exists only for me. The street is just so peaceful whereas ordinarily it’s pretty busy during the day. Drivers tend to use it to get off Western Road, there’s always some kids larking about and the seagulls provide a constant background squark, but at three in the morning it’s a whole different place.
Anyhow, I read a fair bit of ‘Watchmen’ and watched an episode of ‘Red Dwarf’ on dvd and then sat on the balcony (with yet another cuppa) watching the sky around my gradually lighten as if it had to be done slowly and without anyone noticing.
Once Beth had got herself up I popped myself back into bed and immediately dropped off. I awoke though after a few minutes as I had a very odd mini-dream as soon as I dropped off. There was a huge snail crawling across some clothes I’d discarded on the floor and when I tried to grab it the damn thing sped up in a very un-snail like way. All I could think about though was what would happen when it reached my linen shirt, and sure enough it got stuck. In the dream I knew that snails couldn’t move on cloth (something to do with the slime sticking too much and drying out) and I wanted to remove it before it got trapped. As soon as it hit the shirt it stalled and then proceeded to make some very ‘cartoony’ arching movements in an effort to free itself. I kept trying to grab it but it just wouldn’t stay still, it even started to break it’s own shell it was so desperate. I woke with a start and had to get up, the dream had left me feeling anxious.
One positive note for today, a jewellery designer from Brighton contacted me a while back asking me to quote on a site, I had to turn her down though as she wanted something built that I couldn’t do. I offered to design it for her though and then she could get the programming done elsewhere. I was surprised this morning to find that she’s accepted my proposal and had sent me an e-mail asking me to look over the images and design ideas she was sending me in the post. Looks like I may have some decent paying work after all.
Unsurprisingly I didn’t get much done today, it was very hard to concentrate on anything when my whole body was crying out for sleep. I tried to start my accounts but was unsuccessful so I popped on a dvd, lay on the sofa and drifted off until around 5.
Once up I shook myself together and went to the station to meet Beth.
Tea drunk: Lots
Snail dreams had: 1
Hours sleep: Not enough
Last night I suffered from a case of insomnia. Those that know me will tell you that I’m not a great sleeper but since we’ve been back from our trip, my sleeping has definitely improved. I’m not slipping into a mini coma every night or nodding off whilst standing up or anything like that, I’m just getting more sleep than usual. So I was pretty surprised to find myself wandering around the flat at 3 in the morning, wide-awake and drinking tea.
I kind of like being awake at this hour though, it’s somehow more personal. Everyone else is asleep and I’m awake. It’s as if everything outside my window exists only for me. The street is just so peaceful whereas ordinarily it’s pretty busy during the day. Drivers tend to use it to get off Western Road, there’s always some kids larking about and the seagulls provide a constant background squark, but at three in the morning it’s a whole different place.
Anyhow, I read a fair bit of ‘Watchmen’ and watched an episode of ‘Red Dwarf’ on dvd and then sat on the balcony (with yet another cuppa) watching the sky around my gradually lighten as if it had to be done slowly and without anyone noticing.
Once Beth had got herself up I popped myself back into bed and immediately dropped off. I awoke though after a few minutes as I had a very odd mini-dream as soon as I dropped off. There was a huge snail crawling across some clothes I’d discarded on the floor and when I tried to grab it the damn thing sped up in a very un-snail like way. All I could think about though was what would happen when it reached my linen shirt, and sure enough it got stuck. In the dream I knew that snails couldn’t move on cloth (something to do with the slime sticking too much and drying out) and I wanted to remove it before it got trapped. As soon as it hit the shirt it stalled and then proceeded to make some very ‘cartoony’ arching movements in an effort to free itself. I kept trying to grab it but it just wouldn’t stay still, it even started to break it’s own shell it was so desperate. I woke with a start and had to get up, the dream had left me feeling anxious.
One positive note for today, a jewellery designer from Brighton contacted me a while back asking me to quote on a site, I had to turn her down though as she wanted something built that I couldn’t do. I offered to design it for her though and then she could get the programming done elsewhere. I was surprised this morning to find that she’s accepted my proposal and had sent me an e-mail asking me to look over the images and design ideas she was sending me in the post. Looks like I may have some decent paying work after all.
Unsurprisingly I didn’t get much done today, it was very hard to concentrate on anything when my whole body was crying out for sleep. I tried to start my accounts but was unsuccessful so I popped on a dvd, lay on the sofa and drifted off until around 5.
Once up I shook myself together and went to the station to meet Beth.
Tea drunk: Lots
Snail dreams had: 1
Hours sleep: Not enough
Tuesday
June 6th
The weather has been getting better and better down here, it feels almost like summer is upon us. To celebrate the fact I sat out on my nearly finished balcony with a cuppa and sat reading the brilliant graphic novel ‘Watchmen’ which I’d borrowed of Neil upstairs. I’d forgotten how great it is, it rightly deserves its reputation as the finest of all graphic novels and the one that altered peoples’ perceptions of comic books.
Unfortunately whilst sitting out on the balcony I realised that the new asphalt covering is actually a bit shit and that the stool had left an impression in it. It’s a bit of a crap covering if it isn’t capable of standing light wear & tear. I shall have to talk to Stuart Radley about this…
I also cleaned the bathroom today and did the laundry. I’m turning into a proper little house-husband and It won’t be long before I’m wearing a pinny all day and saying things like “What time do you call this?” to Beth when she comes in a bit tipsy from a few drinks after work. Dear God I need a job.
Tea drunk: 7
Bathrooms cleaned: 1 (I only have 1)
Balconies ruined: 1
Unfortunately whilst sitting out on the balcony I realised that the new asphalt covering is actually a bit shit and that the stool had left an impression in it. It’s a bit of a crap covering if it isn’t capable of standing light wear & tear. I shall have to talk to Stuart Radley about this…
I also cleaned the bathroom today and did the laundry. I’m turning into a proper little house-husband and It won’t be long before I’m wearing a pinny all day and saying things like “What time do you call this?” to Beth when she comes in a bit tipsy from a few drinks after work. Dear God I need a job.
Tea drunk: 7
Bathrooms cleaned: 1 (I only have 1)
Balconies ruined: 1
Monday
June 5th
Today was a slow start to the week and one of those days where you look back on at about five in the afternoon and realize that you can’t remember what you’ve actually done. I’ve never been much good at Monday’s to be honest, they always feel a little bit like a day of semi-consciousness with me drifting around in ‘em like a feather.
Anyhow, I did a bit of paperwork (I don’t how I seem to acquire so much) and started sorting out my accounts for Mr. Brown. I made some potato salad and got a load of food together to take to Beth’s grannie for dinner. She’s not looking great these days (Beth’s gran, not Beth) and she’s becoming quieter and more forgetful all the time. It’s terrible that this kind of deterioration has to happen to us all though hopefully not in this way. I guess we’re not designed to last that long 80+ is a ripe old age to reach and, if I’m to be the way Beth’s gran is, I’m not sure I’d want to last that long. I’m more scared of my mind going than anything else.
Tea drunk: 4
Potato salads made: 1
Percentage of paperwork organisation achieved: 60% (possibly)
Anyhow, I did a bit of paperwork (I don’t how I seem to acquire so much) and started sorting out my accounts for Mr. Brown. I made some potato salad and got a load of food together to take to Beth’s grannie for dinner. She’s not looking great these days (Beth’s gran, not Beth) and she’s becoming quieter and more forgetful all the time. It’s terrible that this kind of deterioration has to happen to us all though hopefully not in this way. I guess we’re not designed to last that long 80+ is a ripe old age to reach and, if I’m to be the way Beth’s gran is, I’m not sure I’d want to last that long. I’m more scared of my mind going than anything else.
Tea drunk: 4
Potato salads made: 1
Percentage of paperwork organisation achieved: 60% (possibly)
Sunday
June 4th
Both Beth & I slept in a bit this morning as we’d both had a late night and after a wonderful brekkie we took a breath of air along the seafront. Beth wanted to take some pictures of the beach huts and then head along the pier to take more but, as the sun was out and it’s always difficult to do too much exercise in the sun, we didn’t get it all done. In fact we only got as far as a seafood stall on the promenade where we bought cockles and then a ‘99’ on the way back.
We’d had a hankering for roast chicken all week so we indulged ourselves that evening before getting ourselves ready to head off to see Zero 7 in concert at the Brighton Dome.
We needn’t have rushed though as the support act (Fink) didn’t come on ‘till 7 and Zero 7 themselves didn’t show until 9. With both of us fighting to keep our eyes open we could’ve used that extra time in a more productive manner and finished off the wine we’d opened with dinner and maybe squeezed in a wee nap.
Anyhow, Fink were okay but not great. Zero 7 however were brilliant. We’re both big fans of theirs and we’d missed them in concert last year as Beth was ill and we’d had to ditch our tickets. I’ve always thought of them as essentially ‘dinner party’ music with a bit of extra bite and this opinion was reinforced when as the realization slowly danwned on us that there were an awful lot of middle aged couples there. In fact, some were positively old. Their fan base really is young to old and I was really pleased to see a few representatives form the ‘Yute’ hanging about drinking ‘Smirnoff Ice’.
I’d always wondered how an ‘electronic’ band would perform live, would it just be like listening to the album on CD or would it be different? As it happens it’s very different, the very fact that we were able to ‘be with them’ whilst they were making the music makes it more exciting and, despite the fact that they were surrounded by computers and technical equipment, their set still had a very personal feel.
Obviously they mostly played tracks from the new album but they squeezed in a few choice tracks from the older ones, mostly ‘cos Sia was with them. The ever popular Sia voiced track ‘Distractions’ went down very well with the audience and she did manage to sing the entire track without using a single consonant which must be something of a first. She also belted out one of the tracks off her own album, ‘Breathe Me’ I think it was to great applause. She has a cracking voice and she put a hell of a lot of force behind it, which kind of surprised us as ordinarily (on cd anyway) she sings quite softly. I was also taken aback to find that she’s actually Australian and not Scandinavian as I’d previously thought.
She entertained the crowd with her ‘kooky’ dancing (and you know how much I loathe ‘kooky’) and her general high-spirits but she veered dangerously close to ‘stand-up’ territory at points, asking for dance style suggestions from the crowd.
Jose Gonzales on the other hand was in comparison a little dull. His voice is excellent and highly soulful but his demeanour is positively dour. The power of his vocal range and the gentleness of his tone though really shone through the tracks he performed, he also provided the obligatory cock-up when he launched into a song early. There was much merriment. All in all it was a fine old evening.
Tea drunk: 6
Concerts seen: 1
Women I thought were Scandinavian but are actually Australian: 1
We’d had a hankering for roast chicken all week so we indulged ourselves that evening before getting ourselves ready to head off to see Zero 7 in concert at the Brighton Dome.
We needn’t have rushed though as the support act (Fink) didn’t come on ‘till 7 and Zero 7 themselves didn’t show until 9. With both of us fighting to keep our eyes open we could’ve used that extra time in a more productive manner and finished off the wine we’d opened with dinner and maybe squeezed in a wee nap.
Anyhow, Fink were okay but not great. Zero 7 however were brilliant. We’re both big fans of theirs and we’d missed them in concert last year as Beth was ill and we’d had to ditch our tickets. I’ve always thought of them as essentially ‘dinner party’ music with a bit of extra bite and this opinion was reinforced when as the realization slowly danwned on us that there were an awful lot of middle aged couples there. In fact, some were positively old. Their fan base really is young to old and I was really pleased to see a few representatives form the ‘Yute’ hanging about drinking ‘Smirnoff Ice’.
I’d always wondered how an ‘electronic’ band would perform live, would it just be like listening to the album on CD or would it be different? As it happens it’s very different, the very fact that we were able to ‘be with them’ whilst they were making the music makes it more exciting and, despite the fact that they were surrounded by computers and technical equipment, their set still had a very personal feel.
Obviously they mostly played tracks from the new album but they squeezed in a few choice tracks from the older ones, mostly ‘cos Sia was with them. The ever popular Sia voiced track ‘Distractions’ went down very well with the audience and she did manage to sing the entire track without using a single consonant which must be something of a first. She also belted out one of the tracks off her own album, ‘Breathe Me’ I think it was to great applause. She has a cracking voice and she put a hell of a lot of force behind it, which kind of surprised us as ordinarily (on cd anyway) she sings quite softly. I was also taken aback to find that she’s actually Australian and not Scandinavian as I’d previously thought.
She entertained the crowd with her ‘kooky’ dancing (and you know how much I loathe ‘kooky’) and her general high-spirits but she veered dangerously close to ‘stand-up’ territory at points, asking for dance style suggestions from the crowd.
Jose Gonzales on the other hand was in comparison a little dull. His voice is excellent and highly soulful but his demeanour is positively dour. The power of his vocal range and the gentleness of his tone though really shone through the tracks he performed, he also provided the obligatory cock-up when he launched into a song early. There was much merriment. All in all it was a fine old evening.
Tea drunk: 6
Concerts seen: 1
Women I thought were Scandinavian but are actually Australian: 1
Saturday
June 3rd
After a particularly lazy morning interrupted only by a visit to Waitrose for the week’s shopping, Beth & I took the papers down to Brunswick Square where we lay down on the grass in the sunshine and marveled at the amount of flesh on show. It wasn’t even that warm and yet the square was packed with folk who were clearly suffering from sunlight withdrawal and desperate to feel the warmth of the Sun on their pasty British skin. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh here after all as Beth & I did miss one of the worst winters on record apparently by being out of the country for four months.
We rendezvoused here with Es, Neil, Adam and Alex and their friends Anne & Nigel and headed en masse to the seafront to play Petanque. Oh how I’ve missed Petanque. It’s not so much the game I’ve missed more the chatting with friends, drinking pop, eating ice-cream and generally basking in the Summery-ness of living in a seaside town. I love it. There realy is nothing like it and it made me yearn for the Summer more than ever.
Anyhow, rules established, the Petanque began in earnest, we’d agreed in advance that talking was allowed but not to the detriment of the game. This decision however went right up the pictures and the next two hours were spent chatting, insulting Adam’s technique and generally taking part in a rather half-arsed manner. It was this lack-lustre playing that enabled Es to sneak ahead with three games under her belt. Es, of course, would swear she’s just a better player but I know it was because everyone else was playing so badly. Bitter moi? Of course I’m not.
After Petanque it was time for Pimms in the square. This has become something of a tradition amongst our friends and one that signals (to us at least) the start of the Summer sun. Alex & Es dived into Waitrose and bought a hundred-weight of baked ham along with many other fine foods and we picnicked in the glow of the afternoon sunset. Steve, an old college colleague of mine, also popped along to join us and, once the food had gone and the Pimms had run dry, we took our party (minus Beth, she’d gone to a hen-do) along to the Coopers where we whiled away the night playing the Marshall’s new game ‘Slug or Snail’. Essentially you ask a question with an ‘either / or’ answer and everyone answers it without justification. It didn’t sound like much of a game to me but I quickly found myself hooked. The answers tell you a lot about your friends and it’s kinda fun building up a mental ‘blueprint’ of their psyche.
Tea drunk: 5
Petanque games won: 1
Glasses of Pimms drunk: Several
We rendezvoused here with Es, Neil, Adam and Alex and their friends Anne & Nigel and headed en masse to the seafront to play Petanque. Oh how I’ve missed Petanque. It’s not so much the game I’ve missed more the chatting with friends, drinking pop, eating ice-cream and generally basking in the Summery-ness of living in a seaside town. I love it. There realy is nothing like it and it made me yearn for the Summer more than ever.
Anyhow, rules established, the Petanque began in earnest, we’d agreed in advance that talking was allowed but not to the detriment of the game. This decision however went right up the pictures and the next two hours were spent chatting, insulting Adam’s technique and generally taking part in a rather half-arsed manner. It was this lack-lustre playing that enabled Es to sneak ahead with three games under her belt. Es, of course, would swear she’s just a better player but I know it was because everyone else was playing so badly. Bitter moi? Of course I’m not.
After Petanque it was time for Pimms in the square. This has become something of a tradition amongst our friends and one that signals (to us at least) the start of the Summer sun. Alex & Es dived into Waitrose and bought a hundred-weight of baked ham along with many other fine foods and we picnicked in the glow of the afternoon sunset. Steve, an old college colleague of mine, also popped along to join us and, once the food had gone and the Pimms had run dry, we took our party (minus Beth, she’d gone to a hen-do) along to the Coopers where we whiled away the night playing the Marshall’s new game ‘Slug or Snail’. Essentially you ask a question with an ‘either / or’ answer and everyone answers it without justification. It didn’t sound like much of a game to me but I quickly found myself hooked. The answers tell you a lot about your friends and it’s kinda fun building up a mental ‘blueprint’ of their psyche.
Tea drunk: 5
Petanque games won: 1
Glasses of Pimms drunk: Several
Friday
June 2nd
This morning I awoke to the sudden realisation that I’d not renewed our parking permit. For those of you who don’t know, parking down here in Brighton & Hove is the number one nightmare for residents and visitors alike. It’s rubbish on all fronts. There’s so little of it (though that’s equally the fault of people who seem to insist on buying car after car) and what there is pretty pricey. Our parking permit for a year costs £80, and even then it can be difficult to find a space in our designated zone. Thankfully the parking office is only down the road so, after a pleasant morning walk, the matter was resolved.
Our good friends Adam & Alex popped in on their way into town for a cuppa, it’s always good to see ‘em, and we discussed the important, sociological issues of the day like the missing arm from Alex’s Lego Darth Vader key-ring and what our three wishes would be.
It’s a tricky one the three wishes thing especially if you work on the provision that you can’t choose the obvious things like ‘World peace’ or ‘another thousand wishes’. It warrants a bit of thought you know. Naturally Adam had broken his wishes down into components and had thought through the minutiae of his ‘World’s Greatest Football Player’ wish breaking it down into whom he’d like to dribble, pass and strike like and whether or not it’d be better to wake up as the World’s Greatest Striker’ with all the attendant fame & trappings, or to have to earn the title by scoring a goal in every match he’d play in. (It’s never been done apparently.)
Today was my Ma’s birthday so she popped down for the day with a couple of cakes. To be precise they were a Victoria sponge and a marvelous Waitrose double chocolate cake with ganache, which prompted a fifteen minute conversation about just what the hell ganache actually is. We took tea and cake and chatted at length about the state of the property next door to them that they’ve just bought, what Peewee & Dad were up to and how Pat was doing. Then we headed off to Marks & Spencer so Ma could buy herself some frocks. Instead of buying stuff for herself however I somehow managed to walk away with six pairs of pants, some sossies and a lovely, leather overnight bag, the latter of which Mum paid for.
Once Ma had headed home I went to meet Beth from the station, it’s always a joy to see her smiley little face amongst all those dour looking commuters. As it was Friday, we made a beeline for the Cooper’s Cask and had a couple of beers whilst filling each other in about our respective day. From there we headed home for sossies & mash.
Tea drunk: 7
Wishes decided upon: 1
Birthdays: Ma
June 3rd
Our good friends Adam & Alex popped in on their way into town for a cuppa, it’s always good to see ‘em, and we discussed the important, sociological issues of the day like the missing arm from Alex’s Lego Darth Vader key-ring and what our three wishes would be.
It’s a tricky one the three wishes thing especially if you work on the provision that you can’t choose the obvious things like ‘World peace’ or ‘another thousand wishes’. It warrants a bit of thought you know. Naturally Adam had broken his wishes down into components and had thought through the minutiae of his ‘World’s Greatest Football Player’ wish breaking it down into whom he’d like to dribble, pass and strike like and whether or not it’d be better to wake up as the World’s Greatest Striker’ with all the attendant fame & trappings, or to have to earn the title by scoring a goal in every match he’d play in. (It’s never been done apparently.)
Today was my Ma’s birthday so she popped down for the day with a couple of cakes. To be precise they were a Victoria sponge and a marvelous Waitrose double chocolate cake with ganache, which prompted a fifteen minute conversation about just what the hell ganache actually is. We took tea and cake and chatted at length about the state of the property next door to them that they’ve just bought, what Peewee & Dad were up to and how Pat was doing. Then we headed off to Marks & Spencer so Ma could buy herself some frocks. Instead of buying stuff for herself however I somehow managed to walk away with six pairs of pants, some sossies and a lovely, leather overnight bag, the latter of which Mum paid for.
Once Ma had headed home I went to meet Beth from the station, it’s always a joy to see her smiley little face amongst all those dour looking commuters. As it was Friday, we made a beeline for the Cooper’s Cask and had a couple of beers whilst filling each other in about our respective day. From there we headed home for sossies & mash.
Tea drunk: 7
Wishes decided upon: 1
Birthdays: Ma
June 3rd
Thursday
June 1st
Today so I was woken (as is now the routine) at 6:20 by two alarms working in unison to irritate us. Once Beth had wobbled off to work I dragged myself out of bed to start my day. Our mortgage should've switched today so, after tea and a light brekkie of muesli & juice, I checked out my on-line banking (how did we ever survive before this marvelous invention) only to find that the cocking Chelsea had taken the payment and not the Halifax. I experienced the sinking feeling that occurs when faced with the prospect of dealing with the incompetence of financial institutions. As it happened it was pretty easy to sort out, though an unnecessary diversion from my mornings’ activities.
Banking sorted I turned my attention to the real matter at hand, my dog’s birthday. He’s 17 you know! 17. That’s bloody old for a dog but he is a terrier and they’re renowned for being stubborn, feisty little buggers who hang on in there for a while. Not like these soppy, personality free dogs that just seem to give up at 12. He’s been taken ill a few times (he had a cancerous lump removed from his jaw recently) and we’re not expecting him to make his next birthday which makes me indescribably sad.
He’s been an absolute joy from the moment we bought him home from XXXXX in 19XX. He’s my mate. I love him and I’ll miss him so when he goes, but he does have to go and frankly at what works out as close to 119 in ‘dog age’ I don’t think we could really expect him to last much longer. He still jumps about like a puppy sometimes but nowadays he needs a kip afterward.
The balcony’ is coming on well and it shouldn’t be long before It’s finished and fully useable. Sitting out on my balcony watching the World go by, gazing at the changeable sea and listening to the crack-heads across the road argue is one of the high points of my Summers.
Today is also my mate Dan’s birthday so I boarded a train to London to go meet him in Hoxton Square for a few beers. The journey into London was mercifully free of incident though I’d forgotten how expensive it is. At £18 for a return it does make a trip to London a bit of a bore. It was a great night though and it was wonderful to see my mates again after our four months away, though Beth & I did get rather excitable when relating our tales.
Tea drunk: 7 mugs
Films watched: Land of the Dead
Birthdays: Pat & Dan
Banking sorted I turned my attention to the real matter at hand, my dog’s birthday. He’s 17 you know! 17. That’s bloody old for a dog but he is a terrier and they’re renowned for being stubborn, feisty little buggers who hang on in there for a while. Not like these soppy, personality free dogs that just seem to give up at 12. He’s been taken ill a few times (he had a cancerous lump removed from his jaw recently) and we’re not expecting him to make his next birthday which makes me indescribably sad.
He’s been an absolute joy from the moment we bought him home from XXXXX in 19XX. He’s my mate. I love him and I’ll miss him so when he goes, but he does have to go and frankly at what works out as close to 119 in ‘dog age’ I don’t think we could really expect him to last much longer. He still jumps about like a puppy sometimes but nowadays he needs a kip afterward.
The balcony’ is coming on well and it shouldn’t be long before It’s finished and fully useable. Sitting out on my balcony watching the World go by, gazing at the changeable sea and listening to the crack-heads across the road argue is one of the high points of my Summers.
Today is also my mate Dan’s birthday so I boarded a train to London to go meet him in Hoxton Square for a few beers. The journey into London was mercifully free of incident though I’d forgotten how expensive it is. At £18 for a return it does make a trip to London a bit of a bore. It was a great night though and it was wonderful to see my mates again after our four months away, though Beth & I did get rather excitable when relating our tales.
Tea drunk: 7 mugs
Films watched: Land of the Dead
Birthdays: Pat & Dan
This month
So what's all this about then eh? Well I'll tell you. In an effort to stave off the boredom of job-hunting and as an ego-driven experiment of sorts I've decided to keep a (b)log of what I get up to this month. It's almost certainly of no interest to anyone but me but then most things aren't. If you are reading this however, then welcome. It's good to have you with me. So without further ado, on we go.
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