Hello all!
I hope you’ve all had a good weekend! If not, there’s
another one next week so don’t worry too much J
It’s a new week and I can officially say my Playstation 4 is
now in the hands of Matthew. Hopefully my Crash Bandicoot game will be with him
soon so that we can have a monster nostalgia session this weekend. I’ve watched
so many Youtube tutorials about the secret gems, bonus levels and time trials
and I’m ready to rock and roll! When I played it years ago, I approached it
more as a fun time passer, but this time around I want to try and get all the
achievements and really nerd out on it. This weekend will also mark the
beginning of my journey to swimming glory! I doubt the journey will be very
glorious-or even the result- but I will try my best. Since I passed my driving
test, I feel I have stopped really learning new things and as I don’t want my
brain to completely turn to scrambled egg, I want to keep my noggin active and
learning.
Since I’ve mentioned scrambled egg, I thought I would fill
you in on my latest cooking exploits! This evening as part of my continuing
health kick, I made an omelette. Yes, me, a complete and utter idiot who once
set off the smoke alarm by cooking toast, made an omelette and it tasted great,
even if I do say so myself. Maybe it was the taste of victory? My omelette was
rather simple in terms of contents; bacon, pepper, red onions…and uhh egg. Add
a dash of ground black pepper and tomato puree and voila! You’re ready to omelette!
I fried off the bacon, pepper and onions, added tomato puree and then the egg.
I made sure this was cooked then slid it under the grill for the top to brown
off. Once it’s browned on the top, you have a serviceable and edible omelette!
I was amazed when it came out all edible and after a brief palpitation as it
got a little stuck on exit from the pan, I was relieved when it flopped onto
the plate ready to eat. It looked amazing and much like a mother with her new born
baby, I was bursting with pride. Despite the shambolic reputation, I have had
previously with cooking, I’d managed to make something that has a low possibility
of giving me food poisoning. An omelette
is hardly the peak of Everest in terms of cooking, but it’s base camp at least
and I’m bloody proud of it!
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| My marvellous (and delicious) creation |
In other weekend news, I went to Abingdon on Saturday to
help my dearest Matthew build his shed. The last shed he’s built was full of hilarious
moments including when one of the panels nearly fell on him as he tried to
balance the panel upright and reach for his tools. Me and his mum, being very
helpful, sat on and laughed at this spectacle of construction prowess. So, when
Matthew said he planned to get the shed up, I jumped at the chance to help and
witness this garden erection with my own eyes (minds out of the sewer please,
come on now this is a serious blog I’ll have you know!)
I got to Abingdon at about 10 on Saturday and building had
already got under way. The ground had already been prepped the weeks before and
now some paving slabs were being moved to allow the shed doors to be opened
after its grand unveiling. Only this was easier said than done. Two slabs had
to come up, the soil underneath evened out, and then put down in its original
position. You can guess already that this didn’t happen exactly as planned. The
soil had been evened out on one slab and had just been evened out on another
and it was now time to put this second slab down onto its newly evened soil
bed. As Matthew shifted the second slab back into position and let it go, it
collided with another slab on the way down and cracked into several pieces.
This was a disaster that would accurately sum up the rest of the day.
The shed was a Palram Skylight shed and was an American
concept. He’d read the reviews and planned the erection to the nth degree. We
started at one thirty in the afternoon after a brief shower. It all looked
positive. That was until he got out the flooring. 3 separate panels that didn’t
even lock together! That wasn’t all as the panels were so flimsy, something
that we grew increasingly worried about as we built more and more of them. It
made a terrible racket as we fixed all the panels to the floor. Initially, I
had commented at how easy this seemed to build and it did look like the initial
worries about structural integrity would be quashed as we built more onto the structure.
As time went on, it started to become clear something wasn’t right. If the
noise wasn’t enough, the sheer amount of times I was tripping over the flipping
floor was fast becoming unbearable. 5 hours into the build and worries were
increasing, as well as tempers. Matthew was struggling with the vague
instructions and the panels being an annoying amount out of alignment. I was
getting tired and hungry and had lost the motivation I started with 5 hours ago,
as I watched on at Matthew arguing with his mum and getting more infuriated
with the roof fixings. Tilly as always was oblivious to the growing
frustrations and was jumping all over me wanting to play with her tennis ball.
I saw this as another form of help- something I could do on the comfort of my
knackered arse so I played with Tilly as a form of dog-sitting and a way of
keeping her out of Matthew’s way and set myself on standby for when him and his
mum needed another pair of hands.
At half 8, the shed was up and Matthew declared it done for
the day. There were still some concerns about the floor, and the doors weren’t
on yet but the main structure was up, and as we’d spent 7 hours at it already,
the doors and floor could wait until tomorrow or next week. I was obviously
relieved as Matthew could now cool down (in every sense of the word) and I
could finally eat! Don’t get the wrong idea here, I wasn’t being purposefully
starved or anything, but I felt I couldn’t eat while they were working and
going without.
As for an overall review of the shed, don’t go for it. You
can get a much better shed for the money. One that won’t require extra supplies
and rushed orders from Wickes and Screwfix. Also one that won’t try to kill you
by curling up its own floor panels!
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| The new Dr Who, Jodie Whittaker. (credit: Digital Spy) |
In other topical news, Wimbledon has now finished with Venus
suffering a crushing defeat in the women’s final, and Federer winning a 8th
Wimbledon title in the men’s final. Talking of the men’s final, an announcement
was to be made afterwards about who was to be the 13th doctor in
Doctor Who. I didn’t see the reveal myself, but I have witnessed the conflict
of opinion on social media. The reveal was bound to split audiences and like Marmite, some would love it while other would hate it. The new doctor was
revealed to be Jodie Whittaker who is of course a woman and a great actress who’d
amazed millions in the ITV murder thriller, Broadchurch. What was ridiculous,
but unfortunately not completely surprising, was the type of criticism the
reveal was getting. Many were moaning about the doctor being a woman which lead
to many a sarcastic come back on social media. It’s 2017 and it’s a shame to
still have this problem in society. It shouldn’t matter what you pack in your
pants, it would only matter about the abilities and qualities you have as a
person! But getting small minded people to embrace that is like watching and
waiting for pigs to fly. So, let’s just ignore the haters and embrace this new
doctor. Although I don’t really watch Doctor Who (my mind is still back in the
David Tennant days) I think that having a female doctor is a great choice purely
because it’s something completely different for the Doctor Who series and as
many have already pointed out, it will give its young audience a good role
model- that being ‘The Doctor’ isn’t confined to gender. I don’t want to get
all feminist on you, but change is a good thing and whether that meant going
from a male doctor to a female or vice versa, it’s something new for the
audience and will no doubt bring a new dynamic to a show loved by millions.
That’s all for now, folks! I’ll see you again on Wednesday
for some more topical talk.
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