“Christmas? Well we only do it for the kids, really.”
At home
The Countdown Has Started
And Day 1 already looks promising! 🙂
Don’t worry: I’m not going to bore you each day with a photo of different cans of lager from around the world.
Or am I?
Square Eyes
A couple of months back, I was looking for a new box set to get my teeth into.
Scrolling through the list on the TiVo, I happened across Curb Your Enthusiasm by Larry David.
Someone had recommended this to me many years ago and had even supplied me the first series on a bootleg DVD.
I started watching it, but gave up less than an episode in. Not my cup of tea.
But, it’s one of those programmes I have heard so many good things about over the years. And I’d been told several times that it IS my cup of tea.
And so, here it was: 100 episodes, free to watch. Worth a second go, surely?
Wow! How had I been so wrong about this fifteen years ago? It really is my cup of tea. And coffee. And probably several other hot beverages.
And so, I’ve been watching five or six episodes a week, for the past couple of months and have been thoroughly enjoying it.
And then, just last week, I noticed a statement on the screen that said “Available Until 24th May”.
“24th May? Arrgghh! That’s this month! That’s in a couple of weeks! I’ve still got 50 episodes to go!”
And so, I have been doing some serious binge watching!
Six episodes yesterday.
Two so far today… and it’s only 7:30am.
At this rate, I still won’t make it, so I’ll have to up my game a bit.
Problem is: I’m now getting Curb Your Enthusiasm overload, which is starting to, er… curb my enthusiasm a little bit.
Alarmed
Peep!
“Uh?”
Peep!
“Uh? Wass….?”
Peep!
I opened my eyes and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table: 03:10
Peep!
I got out of bed and sleepily staggered out onto the landing.
Naked and shivering from the cold, I waited for the noise again. It seemed to take an age.
Peep!
Ahh, OK, it’s the one downstairs.
Still naked and still shivering, I wandered down the stairs and – on tip-toes – reached up, gave the quarter-turn required to take the smoke alarm off of the ceiling. I pulled the battery from the back and slung them both on the sofa.
The dog threw a disinterested look my way, but didn’t even bother to lift her head from where she was laying.
I went back up to bed and spent an hour trying to get back to sleep.
Which is likely why I feel so tired right now.
This isn’t the first – or even, second – time this has happened. For some reason, the smoke alarm batteries always seem to reach their critical failure point in the small hours. Both the upstairs and downstairs ones have done this over the years.
And so, this morning finds me trawling the internet for mains powered ones.
However, I’ve already given up on that idea, as getting mains wiring to the downstairs one would be pretty difficult and would involve taking up the newly-laid bedroom carpet.
For all that bother, I think I’ll just put up with a sleepless night, once in a while.
Ouch!
Or… “My ongoing attempts to make my wife laugh at my smutty innuendos.”
I was just doing the finishing touches to the bedroom yesterday afternoon: fitting the door handle back on; fixing that faulty LED on the bedside alarm clock; fitting new light switches and plug sockets… that sort of thing.
I turned the power off whilst I changed the plug sockets, which meant that the family were in turmoil, as there was no Wi-Fi for ten minutes.
I was rushing to fit the last socket and the screws were in a small plastic bag, which I opened rather hastily with my penknife. The knife went easily through the plastic and sliced cleanly into my fingertip.
There was quite a lot of blood, quite quickly.
Cradling my finger I went downstairs and stuck it under the kitchen tap.
One of the kids came in and looked at the red water pooling in the sink. “What have you done?”
“I’ve cut my finger.”
“With a knife?”
“No, with a tennis racquet.”
There was a short pause as my sarcasm registered: “Oh. Is the Wi-Fi back on?”
I glared at her and she left the kitchen, just as Mrs M walked in. “What have you done?” she asked, staring at the water which was still running red.
“He cut it with a tennis racquet”, Daughter shouted back from the living room.
“Here, let me see”, she said. I took my bleeding finger away from the tap and passed it to her. “Ouch,,, that’s quite a deep cut. ” She looked at me, concerned. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine”, I said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had a big gash on my finger, y’know.”
She stared hard at me for a second and then…
“I’ll need to close that wound with some Sellotape…”
One day I’ll manage to at least get a giggle out of her, I swear it!
When you wish upon a star…
Disney+ entered the streaming market a while back, with much fanfare.
Having paid big bucks for the rights to screen (most of) the Marvel films alongside it’s own considerable canon of work and – of course – the recently acquired Star Wars stable, Disney+ has plenty to tempt the TV viewer.
And my kids were very tempted.
But no, I stood firm against their pleading whimpers. “We already have Netflix and we already have Amazon Prime, I am not paying for another streaming service!” I said, putting my foot down.
Anyway, we now have Disney+
And I have to say, there’s some pretty good stuff on there.
Being a fan of the Star Wars franchise, I was pleased to be able to watch The Mandalorian – a spin-off TV series which I’d heard good things about (and the theme tune to which is my current ear-worm). And I’ve not been disappointed: it really is very good. If you are a fan of the genre, I urge you to watch it.
We have watched several of the Marvel films on there too. I don’t know why, as we have them all on DVD anyway.
And, I have just started watching another Marvel spin-off: WandaVision. It’s a bit strange, it has to be said, but I am now three episodes in and it is just starting to get interesting.
In other news On other channels:
Last night I finally finished watching Start Trek Discovery. I nearly gave up on this several times but saw it through as I had already invested many hours of telly time on it. I’m pleased to say that it came good in the end, but boy, I found it a tough watch (I’ll admit to falling asleep halfway through several episodes).
And when I saw that a new series of BACK was airing on Channel 4, I immediately rushed to their online boxsets and watched the first series, before then indulging in the second. What a little gem! How had I missed this, first time round?
Sticking with a comedy theme, I had high hopes for Steve Carrell’s Space Force on Netflix, but after three episodes, I just couldn’t stomach it any longer and gave up. It’s rubbish, avoid it.
Greenland is a film on Amazon Prime, that I watched at the weekend. It stars Gerard Butler and if you like end of the world / apocalyptic type films, then you might enjoy this. I thought it was done rather well.
And, of course, Richard Osman’s House Of Games on BBC2 has become a regular thing to watch whilst we have our evening meal, because who doesn’t enjoy showing off how clever they are to the rest of the family?
Sprucing up
I am on holiday this week.
Let me re-phrase that: I am not on holiday this week.
A holiday for me is time off of work, relaxing and doing whatever I want to do.
Yes, I am off work – just using up some more of my annual leave allocation – but ‘er inside of the doors has me decorating the main bedroom.
Which is not my idea of a fun thing to do when I am off work.
In fact, sanding down sculpted skirting boards, doesn’t even make it into my top 100 – being somewhere between being poked in the ribs with a sharp stick and having my toenails cut with a chainsaw.
But, it was looking a bit drab and needed doing.
However, just like all such projects, it has grown.
The original idea was just to freshen it up with a bit of paint.
But then, having spent a small fortune on Dulux Matchpots and having painted a patchwork quilt with them on the wall, Mrs M was unable to choose which particular shade of grey she preferred (there are fifty shades to choose from, I’m told) as none of them quite went with the bedding and the curtains.
So, we now have new bedding and curtains.
And a new ceiling fan.
And there’s new carpet coming at the end of the week.
I’d better crack on then, excuse me.
Proper kids telly
I was in a Teams meeting earlier this week.
Just one of many, many Teams meetings that I have to attend..
Anyway, there were several of us on the call and we were idly chatting whilst we waited for the main person to turn up – who was uncharacteristically several minutes late, at this point.
Our idle chit chat died to a silence, and it was like that for a minute of so, before Charlotte sang “Tra la la, tra la la la…” as a comedic way to break the silence.
“Reminds me of the theme tune to The Banana Splits”, I said.
“The what?” she asked.
“The Banana Splits”, said someone else, of a similar age to me. “It was a kid’s programme back in the seventies”
And from there our conversation started up again and we reminisced about telly from our childhood.
Swap Shop, TISWAS, The Tomorrow People, Casey Jones (a steamin’ and a rollin’), The Whirleybirds and just about anything from Gerry Anderson’s canon, seemed to be the most well remembered amongst us… except by Charlotte, of course, who is only in her twenties.
The Double Deckers was a personal favourite of mine, and I still remember the names of several of the characters and of course, that catchy theme tune.
It was educational too, because in one episode, as I remember, Brains built a hovercraft and remarked on how it was originally invented by Christopher Cockerell… and I’ve remembered that to this day!
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m sure that kids’ telly today can’t be as good as what we had back then.
Anyway, time for bed… said Zebedee.
It’s bin a while
It’s that time of year, when we look excitedly ahead to see what increases will be bestowed upon us, as regards the Council Tax.
Because, it goes up every year.
Without fail.
Sometimes by a little, more often by quite a bit.
And this year – before we have even received notification of the increase, in the post – they have added another cost.
From now on, we will have to pay an extra forty quid each year, to have our brown bin (garden waste) collected and taken away, each fortnight between March and November.
Of course, we don’t have to pay that. We can choose not to. But then our garden waste won’t be taken away.
Mrs M and I don’t do a great deal of gardening generally, we don’t get much enjoyment out of it. Mrs M did have a splurge last year, but has already stated that she has lost interest.
But, even so, in the Summer, the brown bin is usually full to the brim each fortnight, with grass cuttings and bush trimmings, etc, because it all grows so fast, so we will have little choice but to pay up for this new cost. As will many people, I’m sure.
But what will really annoy me is that sometimes, the bin remains empty. As I say, we do very little gardening and even then, really only in the summery months.
In early Spring and late Autumn though, gardening takes a back seat to… well, just about anything really.
So, for many weeks of the year, I will be paying extra to have my bin emptied… when it is already empty!
But of course, many people either won’t pay or can’t afford to pay this new cost/tax.
I can see an increase in bonfires at the weekend.
Time off
I am off work today.
And tomorrow.
Not doing anything in particular or going anywhere special (obviously), but just using up some of my annual leave.
With holidays cancelled last year, I didn’t dip into my annual leave allocation much, save for a few days here and there.
And the company isn’t allowing us to carry over any more than the usual five days, so it’s a case of use it or lose it.
And I ain’t losing it… done that before.
So, I have a couple of days this week; a week later in the month and then a few days spread throughout March – our year runs April to March.
Of course, I am not alone in this situation: lots of others are in the same boat at work and we have had to carefully arrange our leave around each other, such that we don’t all end up taking the same week off, leaving no cover for our department.
Many are moaning about the company not allowing their several weeks of remaining leave to be carried over, rather than just the one.
And others are saying that the company should buy the leave back from them, as they haven’t been able to use it, being stuck at home, as we all are.
This is ridiculous, of course, and neither scenario is going to happen.
Yes. it’s not their fault that they haven’t been able to get away this year, but then, neither is it the company’s.
Me: I’m looking forward to my couple of days off.
Tubby 2
As I was walking past a neighbour’s house a few weeks ago (not an immediate neighbour, but just around the corner: there’s a path that runs along the back of the houses), they were out cutting down some large bushes that were overhanging their 6-foot high wall. And with the bushes gone, I could see that they had built a lean-to in the garden – I could just see it’s roof above the wall.
Having not seen them in a long time, I stopped and chatted for a few minutes. Karen explained that she had come into some money and so had decided to splash out on a hot tub.
Yes, a hot tub.
If I came into some money, I don’t think buying a hot tub would be uppermost in my mind.
But, each to their own.
Saturday evening, whilst walking the dog along the same path, I passed their back garden and I could hear bubbling water and the sound of Marvin Gaye sitting on the dock of a bay. Karen and Ian were quietly talking.
“Each to their own”, I thought, as I zipped my coat up tighter against the chill wind that was blowing.
Then yesterday evening, when the temperature was literally freezing outside, I again heard them, laughing and talking in the tub, as I walked past.
This time though, there were three voices: one female and two male.
“Each to their own”, I thought, raising an eyebrow as I did so.
I’ve been in hot tubs when we have been away on holiday and can’t say I have ever really enjoyed it. I’m generally bored after about five minutes.
Maybe it’s more interesting the way Karen and Ian do it
Really? You’re doing this again?
Well, here we are: February already!
Soon be Christmas.
So, every February, I do this stupid blogathon thing, don’t I?
I’d probably not bother, if it hadn’t become the internet sensation that it has.
But, each year, I start by bemoaning how difficult it’s going to be to finish the whole month, because nothing much has happened.
And each year, I do manage to finish – by hook or by crook, sometimes.
But, we get there, somehow.
However, this (surprisingly) is the first time I have tried to do it during a pandemic.
Somehow, I have to write 28 posts this month, when nothing much has happened… for real.
No tales of going to the pictures; no whimsical anecdotes about a trip to the dentist; no amusing stories about loonies in the shopping mall.
Nothing.
It’s just me getting up in the morning; sitting in front of a laptop for eight hours and then going to bed.
All interspersed with stoppages for food, watching a bit of telly and walking the dog.
That’s it, pretty much.
And so, I apologise in advance for the drivel that I will need to bestow upon your eyes, if I am to finish this year’s attempt.
Either that, or this could very well be the year where I give up.