Crossroads

Not the wobbly-setted soap, but rather the direction I take this blog.  Now that we have started a new calendar year, do I go the "bah humbug" or the "joyous new beginnings" route.

I guess those that know me know that I am by nature an optimist.  Naive at times, a bit woo woo and a bit la la given half a chance, or half a pint, and definitely sometimes a little bit annoying with my "Confucius says..." moments.  You may have also noticed I have a tendency for self-analysis*.  Put this all together, throw in the charm, good looks, attraction to women and natural modesty and you start to get a picture of the Scobi**.

So I intend to take the "joyous new beginnings" route.  I am aware of all the well-made arguments about arbitrary dates etc as espoused by Bad Man, however I would also say that if you are going to have a "from this moment onwards I am going to do something different" then that moment may just as well be the first of January as the twenty first of June, or indeed the first or fourth*** of April when my holiday year starts anew.

So as for my own personal "joyous new beginnings", my year is currently shaping up nicely.  We are in to the detailed drawings phase of our extension, with a view to going out for quotes by the end of the month, so we can then look to start the work, builder schedules permitting, as early in Spring as we can start and miss the bad weather.  After all, who wants to be digging holes with snow or rain filling the pit every night.  We also have an April trip to Center Parcs with Brad and Angelina, to which I am very much looking forward****.  We are also visiting Glastonbury with Brad and Angelina, a trip that will be planned with meticulous attention to detail, all of which could be undone by a single black rain cloud.  Add in a 'vannin' trip at least once a month (really fancy Warwick castle, and Crystal Palace for a day in Londinium, and the New Forest of course, and somewhere down the West Country and a mystery place, yet to be determined, somewhere completely new).

Oh, I do sort of have some resolutions also, but they are basically just getting back to the good habits to which I had become accustomed prior to Christmas.  Eat well, exercise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Quick comment on holiday booking before I sign off.  For many years, I used to hold on to my holiday like a baby clutches its safety blanket, fearing they would run out too quickly.  This led to the natural consequence that for the final quarter, usually Jan to April, I had too much holiday to take, and nothing to take it on.  Over a couple of paradigm-shifting years, I let go my holiday booking phobia, and now am never happier than when I have all but a couple of days booked by the middle of April.  The spare days are emergency days in case I need to look after the maggots when LO is working.  Even they usually end up being spent on a long weekend sometime in March.  This year, I even intend to buy 3 days to take me up to a whopping six weeks, and I cannot wait until the online holiday booking system is open for business in April, so I can bang out all the bookings.

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* insert comment about analysing whether I spend too much time self-analysing 
** There is also the tendency to talk about oneself in the third person when one is trying to make a point.

*** Still not sussed out which date it is.

**** I know all this "to which I am very much looking forward" stuff is correct grammar, but it don't harf sound a bit pretentious like.

Bless you all

Bless all of you who continued to check my blog even though I have written absolutely nothing for two weeks.  I am pretty sure I know who one of you is, but not the other*.  

I have just had the thought that I could write a really short blog, but with dozens of footnotes, so that the main blog is very short and the whole story is told in the footnotes.  Having given it some thought, I realise that is a dumb idea**.

I did have a fantastic two weeks in France.  We ate croissants and French bread, which is the law, and drank red and white wine, ditto, and swam in the swimming pool at least three times each day*****, which while not law, is pretty damn sensible.  We have a suplus of inflatables, the best of which was a lilo for two with drinks holder one side and space for an ice bucket the other side, something like this.  Inflatables have become a bit of a holiday tradition, with the double bed joined by a single chair, a crocodile, a stingray, two rings and a dingy, plus a plane with the rings ripped off (long story******).  The latter is used only for the bucking bronco game, where you have to jump on it, legs astride the fuselage, and stay on for more than 10 seconds, which depending on how blown up it is can range from fairly easy to impossible.

Other than that, we visited markets, went to the beach, boogie-boarded whenever possible, and generally did not much very slowly.  

To say that coming back is a bit of a shock is like saying that Portsmouth FC are pretty bad at the moment.  I just hope that my work colleagues will take it easy on me, which is unlikely since my departure for two weeks is the reason they are in the mess they are in right now, having to pick up all my work etc.

So, onwards and upwards, as they say, and here's to the rest of the summer, and all that life will bring to our happy family.  

Love to you all (even Golfy) and hope to catch up soon.

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* That last comment would have been funnier if it had not been true**.

** Well thank goodness for that, I was about to ask for my money back, and as the old saying goes, please don't ask for a refund as a refusal (or punch on the nose, depending on the establishment) often offends.  No offence meant***.

*** I am now nesting my footnotes, which any editor worth their salt knows is not a good thing.  However, in this case, I feel it warrants the comment that, as a rule, anyone who starts a sentence with "not being funny or anything", or "no offence meant but..." or "with the greatest respect" needs to be shot first, and have questions asked afterwards****.  And also as a rule mean anything but what they actually say.  i.e. "No offence meant, but you are a right tw@t" - that kind of thing.

**** Just on a point of order, you can begin to see why the cowboys became extinct if that was their policy.

***** The ladies did tend to attend the afternoon session only.

****** Not that long, they just got bust the holiday before last.

Elementary, my dear Watson

So I read with interest Golfy's review of Inception and will get it on my growing list of films to see.

I also saw his review of the new, Modern Sherlock Holmes.  I seem to be in a minority of one about the show, although that is between, me, LO and Golfy, so still a healthy 33% of the vote.  I didn't like it.  All the fast camera stuff and intensely clever things Holmes noticed left me cold, and I also was unsure about the modern setting.  The only thing I did like was how it was set in modern times, yet at the same time with the chinese circus, it did have a sense of the old at the same time.  Perhaps I need another episode to persuade me.

I am about to take the train to London for my usual Tuesday to Thursday stint, and am looking forward to my porridge tomorrow for breakfast, and also to finishing Thursday evening, getting the train home and packing for our 6.30am departure Friday morning.

Have a good day/week, and speak again later.

Some times I likes to sit and think, and sometimes I just likes to sit...

... had a fantastic weekend with our friends Brad and Angelina, Harrison and Calista and Tom and Katie, and their respective maggots.  Camping, obviously 'vannin' in our case, in Wiltshire.  Nice site with a country park along side that included a zip wire and other country-like maggot play things.  Had a thoroughly good time.  

Even went fishing, first time in 30 years for me, first time ever for maggot 1, ably accompanied by champion fisher Brad.  I caught one, and had an absolute whopper break my line, maggot 1 caught four and Brad caught seven, including an 8lb carp, which for the modern amongst us was pretty bl00dy big.  Mine was a more conservative size, but it was definitely punching above its weight and put up a pretty good fight.

The weather remained dry and warm, and a couple of days were downright sunny, so we really could not have asked for more.  Except maybe more days.

Now back at work, in London, in the hotel, looking for a good 10pm show to watch to send me off to sleep, only to be rudely awoken at 3am by either a) the people next door doing exercise, b) a drunken resident returning via every flat surface between the lift and their room or c) a loud advert on the telly.  My preference would obviously be the shout of room service bringing my breakfast in bed at 7am, but likelihood is that I will be queuing outside my favourite juice bar for breakfast at 7am just before the office, for my usual order of porridge (with soya milk) and honey, followed by a juice, followed by seeds for a snack, and finally a sandwich for my mid-morning snack.  And all for half the price of breakfast in the hotel.  Lovely.

Off to find that telly show now.  Have a good evening, speak again soon.

x

Holiday

As I am heading out for a holiday this evening, and I have nothing in my mind, I thought I would share a couple of vaguely relevant quotes on the subject.

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.

A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.

A vacation should be just long enough that you're boss misses you, and not long enough for him to discover how well he can get along without you.

The rainy days a man saves for usually seem to arrive during his vacation.

Those that say you can't take it with you never saw a car packed for a vacation trip.

Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer.

On vacations: We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies, and the sand out of our belongings.

A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort and remembered with nostalgia.

Very well said. That's all folks.

Stepping off the bus

I am on day four of my little break, and it is still only Saturday. I took Wednesday and Thursday off to use up my holiday, an annual event enjoyed by many at Starfleet, but an event that makes the corridors of the organisation considerably less congested at this time of year. in fact, it now rivals the summer break for being a time when no-one is around and you can get nothing done.

I have had a very enjoyable, and mostly relaxing, time these last few days, and am very much feeling like a normal human being again. Today is Saturday and we have nothing much on, so are hoping the weather stays unwet so we can go for a bike ride.

This evening may well see us watching some of series three of Gavin and Stacey, having just devoured the last of series two, which was most enjoyable. The little moments of humour mixed with genuine characters who you really care about makes it a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Several of the funnier moments having us laughing out loud, and that does not have very often in the Scobi household with our clothes on.
We are obviously a bit late to the party with G&S, but boy are we glad we are on to it now, and having all three series to watch back to back is a joy to behold. "Gavalar".

So that is just about all for now. I would like to be looking forward to listening to Pompey vs Blackburn on the radio, but these days it can be a depressing experience, made worse in the last couple of weeks with further injuries, and couple of desertions, meaning that I won't even know some of the names on the pitch, being young'uns from the academy, and goodness knows if we will even make a full reserve bench.
Hey ho, the big event for us is obviously the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, when we meet the arch rival Harry. Play up Pompey.

You are as old as you feel

And boy do I feel old today. The sleepover for maggot 1 and his 3 friends was a lovely evening, enjoyed by all. Pizza for tea followed by a swim followed by a film and a "midnight snack" and the little darlings were asleep by around 11pm. Unbelievably, they were awake again at 5am, raring to go. This does seem rather naive in hindsight since it is well known that the young, unlike the older ones, do not wake up any later just because they went to bed later. Really not sure how that works, but it is undoubtedly the truth.
On the Saturday we went to How to Tame a Dragon in 3D. Now, as a fan of The Good Doctor (see previous posts for details if you don't know who this is) I was expecting the 3D to be a bit of a distraction. However, and this is twice now that I have disagreed with The Good Doctor, but I found the 3D to really enhance the film. It was a very enjoyable film, and the 3D really added to the experience. It may be our absolute fascination with all the Disney theme rides etc, but it did indeed seem a bit like a theme ride, with the scenes where the dragon flies up high then swoops down to the sea are really something. My guess would be that the Good Doctor would probably like film, but probably not the 3D. As I often say, film is art and art is subjective...

I am on a two-day week this week, with Wednesday and Thursday as holiday, Friday and Monday being Bank Holidays. Six days off, can't wait. My parents are home later tonight, and it will be lovely to see them. We already have a long list of baby-sitting dates for them, as well as a number of dates for them to come to us for meals. I am just praying that the weather stays good for them, since they do have high standards weather-wise.