Thirty One out of Thirty One

Today's blog marks the fact that for the first time ever - ever, I say - I have managed to blog on every single day of the month. My previous best efforts were in 2010, when in both September and March I managed to blog 28 times in the month (September being more impressive as there is one fewer day to blog in).

I've mentioned a few times recently how I'm surprised that I'm actually getting into the blogging habit - but I do like writing some thoughts down at the end of the day, or when they occur to me - and I will often get on a spurt and prepare blogs for future days as well, which both keeps me enjoying writing and blogging frequently, all of which is a good thing.

Let's see how I do in November!

Just Like Red Buses

I set this one up on Friday, without fully knowing the outcome yet - but after Chrissi heard back successfully from her one interview for a fixed term contract, she heard back this afternoon from an interview a week later - this time for a full time position - and was also successful with that!

So yes, this does mean that after approximately eighteen months of hunting for a job in counselling (without success) that Chrissi has managed to acquire two within a week of each other. Such is the way of things. I don't have much to add to Friday's comments of congratulations - today is more of an amused observation of the nature of these things. At least she has a choice!

Working Against Businesses In Your Local Community!

So across the main road we have a new Tesco Express opened. In case you can't tell by the title, I'm not particularly impressed by this (the headline is a sarcastic slant on their positive-message boards that were up prior to opening 'working with your local community').

There was no need to open this there. There were two small shops opposite, and a newsagent just down the road, all of which provided the basics. There was a Londis just across the road which more than filled any need for a small supermarket, and if none of these were open the garage was open late and had a smattering of food and drink if you needed to pick something up.

Tesco is of course known for this - they will find several thriving shops, move in next to them and put them out of business. It works for a business model for them of course, and while it is horribly predatory on small businesses - open from 7am to 11pm, so no room for anyone to even compete outside the core hours - it is also depressingly predictable.

There's a good economic reason as well for opposing these intrusions. While the profit from your money spent in your local Tesco Express (and the same goes for your Sainsburys Local and all other parasitical 'local' chain shops) will eventually go towards a central corporation, that spent in local businesses is typically spent around the community. The owners of those businesses live locally, they will spend their money locally and the area actually gets cyclical investment across the board. That, needless to say, doesn't happen when your money disappears into Tesco's accounts.

The only way that these rapacious intrusions will ever be repelled is if people simply don't shop there and don't buy their products. Sadly the times I've glanced past, there have been a fair few people inside. I'm determined that I won't add to their number, however, and plan to keep using the same shops that more than sufficed before it's arrival. One customer less doesn't matter hugely - but if I'm not alone, then that will start to have an impact, and that's all I can hope that others will act the same in time.

Hour Bonus

Daylight Saving Time kicked in last night for us here in the UK - meaning an extra hour of sleep (or not, depending on whether you're awake at the time or not). The best thing about Daylight Savings Time is not that extra hour, but how some clocks will now automatically update while others will not.

This means that while I got up at a relatively lazy midday-ish, got downstairs, did several menial tasks - putting in a load of washing, doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen - I glanced at the clock on the oven to discover it was a little after two. Not too bad - I congratulated myself on a decent effort and came to the computer. When the computer - with DST already taking effect - booted up, I was pleased to discover it was not even 1:15, meaning that I'd taken a good deal less of the day up than I thought with such mundanities and that I had another hour to spend.

The discovery of a bonus hour is definitely a nice feeling. I won't do anything with that extra hour, mind, but it's nice to have it!

The Hunter Becomes ... Oh, I See What You Did There

In addition to the Chinese takeaway mentioned yesterday, Chrissi and I also sat down for a marathon TV watching session - catching up with the current BBC TV series Hunted. I'd kept meaning to watch it, but hadn't gotten around to it yet, which meant that there was four episodes on iPlayer to catch up with by the time we started.

Overall the show was entertaining enough and fun to watch, if taking increasing leaps of reality with each episode. Featuring operative Sam Hunter who works for shady private-spy business Byzantium, she has various unconvincing tasks to carry out on her mission while carrying out various unconvincing accents - all the while being stalked and hunted by enigmatic we-don't-quite-know-what-it-is-yet Hourglass (Is it a person? An organisation? A giant eggtimer?). Yes, they really did set up the character's name as Hunter and get her to be hunted.

Sam's task is seemingly to go through every grey hat in the BBC costume department, while sneaking about the house under the pretence of being the nanny to a child - offered this position because she saved his life (in an engineered setup by the rest of her Byzantium team) and saved kid said her name once. Between switching hats she heads to her flat and sneaks into her hidden room (only visible to every passenger on the train that passes by) to think deeply about who set her up and tried to have her killed a year before.

The rest of the team sit holed up in a building watching cameras of her operation, apart from when they take it in turns to wander off privately to shag various hangers-on. Occasionally they confront each other in a passive-aggressive manner, asking the other dramatically if they heard there was a mole in the team while studying them keenly for clues in their reaction. One manages to ingratiate himself with the gangster's friend merely by rolling a cigarette for him.

An illustration of the silliness so far is Sam's cross-London chase when her apparantly turbo-powered bicycle kept pace with (and occasionally has to wait for) gangster Jack Turner's Range Rover over a distance of several miles. After four episodes of seeing her casually kill people without much thought, she is then haplessly ambushed and collapses in a heap to an assault by Blank Face Man (his actual credited role) who may or may not work for or be or be in cahoots with the enigmatic Hourglass. We are left with the cliffhanger as to whether he was or was not successful with his kill attempt via his preferred method of inserting a syringe of poison through their eyeball.

So in the cold light of day it's remarkably silly, but I'll definitely be tuning in on Thursday for the next episode to see what happens next.

Overdue Job News

Today's blog is going to simply be a congratulations to Chrissi on finally getting the job she wants in counselling. She attended an interview last week for this position, and heard back today that she had been offered the position.

It is on a contract basis, but with potential for many other opportunities to move to internally as they are expanding and recruiting - in fact, Chrissi attended an interview this week with the same company for a different position (which she is still yet to heard back from and is hopeful for). If we're lucky they come along like the proverbial red buses and after waiting, struggling and striving for eighteen months, two come along at once! The job itself would involve working at a prison counselling the inmates - I don't know much more about it than that as it's not really my area of expertise.

Overall, I think it's only appropriate reward for all the effort that Chrissi's put into this over the past year and a half - it would have been easy to settle down and think that she wasn't going to get the job she wanted and stick with what she had (and I wouldn't be surprised if it hadn't crossed her mind a few times too). But she kept persevering, kept applying, and eventually that reaped its thoroughly justified reward.

A hearty well done from myself - if only because it means we had celebratory Chinese takeaway tonight!

Budgetary Contradictions

Today's news that the economy had relatively soared back to growth the past quarter with a 1% increase to GDP was greeted with unsurprising jubilation by the government, relieved for an overdue exit from the double-dip recession. George Osborne in particular was unsurprisingly keen to crow that this was proof of the government's plan working. This was inevitable, but surprises me politically for three tactical reasons.

1. One summer doesn't a swallow make
The growth figures are good, but there are many anomalies that make attaching too large a rider to this growth risky. Coming off downturn in Q2 - in part 'attributed' to the additional bank holiday - analysts were predicting an upturn in any case by basis of comparison. There was also the one-off of all Olympics ticket sales over the last eighteen months, not to mention any additional trade gained from the Olympics over the summer. It wasn't normal, consistent growth and could easily become an outlier over a longer period - not what you want to be championing as your legacy.

2. It's now his problem
From the beginning of this government, Osborne has insisted that the problem was one he has inherited; he was setting in place strategies to deal with it. He has now claimed that the growth in the last quarter was due to his strategies - which, he would argue, are now clearly taking effect, as proved by this growth. This also couples him solidly to any future downturn or negative news, and makes it far harder to play the inherited problems card. The unusual nature of the Q3 growth and the underlying economic uncertainty also raise the horrifying spectre of a triple dip recession rising up under his watch.

3. It's growth, but from the wrong causes
However, if we ignore the comparison with the weak Q2 and set that to one side, the majority of the impact is from the Olympics; and here develops the greatest capacity for salutation of his growth to undermine his own arguments. Months of austerity have produced downturn and recession - whether directly or not, it's hard to ignore the correlation. Yet the sole major public funds investment in the government's lifetime - the Olympic games - results in economic growth across sectors. Far from validating the government's economic plan, these growth figures paradoxically contradict it - brought on by the very strategy which was castigated as indebting the country, while the economy has dipped and struggled alongside austerity politics. If the economy dips again from this high point, not unlikely, then suddenly the sole result of public spending corresponds with the sole economic growth point - which the government have now wedded themselves to in what will be a horribly fractious relationship.

If anything this underlines how weak and sensitive the government is placed on the economic front - to jump so eagerly at this good news that could so easily unravel at a later point. Only a perfect slope from here to the 2015 election could really guarantee that this over-enthusiastically embrace won't come back to haunt them, or at the very least cause discomfort. I don't think anyone can see that far ahead, but it's not unreasonable to be sceptical about the likelihood.

I know, I said I'd keep political blogs to Sundays only, but this was more relevant today. I may relax Sunday's theme instead this week as a compromise.

Autumnal Weather

This week was supposed to see a revival in warm weather - it was meant to be a bit brighter, a bit warmer and overall a bit nicer. As it has turned out, none of the above seems to apply; the last three days it's been misty, with very poor visibility. It's been damp throughout - never raining solidly, but constantly wetness in the air. Not unpleasant - it's actually rather refreshing - but a bit miserable all the same!

It was the same weather on Sunday too, when Chrissi and I went out to see QPR vs Everton in the afternoon. It was misting and slightly damp the entire game - which didn't add to the spectacle. It was honestly a rather dire game, without too much of note - the two goals were a deflected shot (for QPR) and a header from a free kick that rebounded off the base of the post, hit the keeper's back and mockingly rolled over the line. Nothing else of note really happened either - it was a fairly dull, tight and cagey game. Nice to get out and watch a game though, it must be a good ten years since I've done so.

I also didn't notice that yesterday was my 650th blog post - not insubstantial, considering it doesn't seem that long ago that I was merely writing my 600th. Since restarting I've not done too badly, as it turns out.

Phrases You Don't Expect To Use

Today I was off ill from work due to having a pain in my back - I pulled something around my left shoulder and it made the slightest movement really rather painful. This is not the sort of thing you expect to be saying at a mere 27 years old. I've also so far left out the punchline - that I managed to pull a muscle (as I now suspect) by doing the ironing.

This was so annoying last night that I didn't even blog on my planned subject - it was painful to move my left hand when typing, and typing with a single hand is so alien to me that it was too much effort; so I posted a pre-prepared blog instead. I hope you don't mind.

The net result was in my sleeping badly, getting up late, trying to get up and then realising that there was still a lot of pain if I tried to do something controversial like move my left arm. This ended up in me sensibly calling in sick, which was a good idea as there were far too many unexpected twinges and pains throughout the day - you simply don't realise how much you use those muscles until you hurt something, but even turning your head around gave sudden and unexpected pain.

After a day of rest it's better now, so I hope to be able to go back into work tomorrow without issue, but likely with much mockery coming my way.

Something Random You Don't Know About Me III

Another addition to my random comments under this theme - this time not inspired by anything in particular, but just something that I was thinking of.

Over the last two and a half years, in addition to writing a blog, I've also been very sporadically writing a story. Sporadic is the correct word - in that time I've added barely 6,000 words and it's something I look at every couple of months and pick up again. It's also the fact that because I look at it so rarely, I have to read most of it again to remember what my ideas were and what had happened.

Maybe posting that out here will give me the inspiration to work a little harder at it a little more frequently, and see if I can speed progress up a little.

Sunday Politics: An Introduction

One thing I've wanted to talk about for a good while on my blog is politics - it's not always an interesting or engaging subject, but despite that it is an important subject that still affects most things going on. I've hinted at views a couple of times previously, and as Sunday is a relaxing day without much ever happening, it seems like a good day to write some thoughts down.

While my views and political leanings will likely be quite self-explanatory in the long term, I think it's still appropriate to lay them out from the beginning. Traditionally I'd have been described as left-wing, but that's increasingly an inaccurate categorisation. However, I saw an exercise recently which instead placed people on two axes - social and economic, with a liberal to conservative scale on both of these.

This is a much more interesting and accurate outcome - because while social liberalism means one thing, economic liberalism is very different. You will now typically see economic liberalism regarded as both economic orthodoxy, and where there is scope for disagreement, the more liberal wing of economic theory is a conservative position (keeping up?). This is why the traditional linear measurement works badly.

For my part, I end up as socially liberal but economically somewhere neutral - away from a state-controlled economy, but a long way from the 'private good public bad' viewpoint at the other end of the scale. My economic position is more interesting as politically the main parties cover a very narrow spectrum of the economic scale - positions outside of these are viewed as rarer and extreme, despite being held by most people.

There's a fair few subjects I want to explore on this in the future - but that's enough heavy lifting for one blog early on a Sunday, so I'll leave the first of these to next week.

Poker & Pizza

I am once more a day behind on my blogging, so it means that I actually have room to still fit in a blog when I run out of things to say about the current day.

Yesterday evening friends came over for poker and pizza, two fine forms of entertainment. It was a little while since we've seen everyone so it was good to be organised and collect people in one place. In fact, the benefit of planning ahead by a month or so meant that we managed to reserve a day at the first attempt, which is a new record.

So it was an entertaining evening and good to catch up with people - I won the first 'practice' round of poker, which was suspended when pizza arrived. After some great hands first round (QQ which turned into a full house, AK were the highlights) I then had absolutely nothing to shy at all game second round, which was co-won by Chrissi and Laura, when they abandoned rather than fight it out to the death. A distinct lack of commitment I feel. The hard luck story of the night was Paul, who hit two great hands and was beaten by a monster hand both times (His JJ555 ran into my aforementioned QQQ55, and he got taken out by pocket queens held by Laura second time round).

After Chris and Natalie had taken a sensibly early departure time, Paul and Laura stayed and the four of us watched a film randomly selected from LoveFILM. We picked Source Code, which looked like the sort of film that was easy watching. It was too easy to watch - it was terrible. The concept was initially interesting, but the plot was pretty shocking - one of those magic tricks were everything is worked out through lots of use of the word quantum. I wouldn't recommend it except as one of those films you rent and watch to point and laugh at a lot.

Eighties Week

This week the radio at work has been set to Absolute 80s, which it may surprise you to know is a radio station which plays exclusively music from the 1980s. It's not fully true - the breakfast show is shared between all their sibling stations for every decade, and so contains typically more recent tunes as well as older ones.

It's surprisingly entertaining and I find myself enjoying it much more than I should do. There are some cracking tunes that come on now and again - Dire Straits' Money For Nothing and Simple Minds' Don't You Forget About Me are the two stand-out ones from today. It's definitely entertaining, though, and you can sing along to a guilty pleasure without feeling too bad about it because they're all the same!

An Apple A Day Only Counts If You Can Pay

I had a feeling as I posted yesterday's blog that there was an additional event from the week that I had forgotten to mention - and earlier today I remembered exactly what it was.

On Tuesday I went for a brief walk at lunch and stopped to buy an apple from a newsagents / convenience store on the corner nearby. I got to the counter, purchase in hand, and then when reaching into my pocket discovered I had no change to pay for a 35p apple - a mere 9p. Then when looking into my wallet, the annoyance was that I had no notes either. I offered to pay on my card for the amusing amount of 35p only to be told there was a minimum purchase of £2 required. So I left the shop without an apple.

A later discussion made me realise that the ideal approach is to restore bartering into common usage. While I had no legal tender in my wallet, I had several things of arguably more value than the 35p apple. I had an IOU from the tramlink for 80p which was printed from a machine that lacked change and has remained in my wallet unclaimed a year and three quarters later. I had a 7/9ths full loyalty card from Cafe Nero, which therefore was worth at the very least 7/9th of an expensive coffee, or even a cheap coffee (for those of you unfamiliar, nine stamps and you get the tenth coffee free). If the cheapest coffee is around £1.80 my 77.7% full card was surely worth £1.40 at the very least.

But instead none of these offers were made, none were redeemed and they were one apple better off and several potentially beneficial deals worse off as a result.

Notes From The Commute

I'm almost convinced I could make a passable short blog solely from my observations on the train and on my commute in the morning and back in the evening. A few to share with you this week:

The Word: Monday morning I was sat in the waiting room at Surbiton when the mobile phone of the person next to me rang. Their ringtone was amusingly The Trashmen's Surfin' Bird (You could also probably make a semi-decent blogging effort if you just noted down everyone's ringtone when it rang near you and added a bit of commentary). This was of course excellent, but more annoyingly this was then stuck in my head the entire way to work.

Pyjama Wednesday: This morning I suspected I had either noticed a new fashion trend or that a lot of the kids on the train going to college were wearing pyjamas. It was only a couple so I ignored it, but it did nag at me - and at lunchtime I saw several more walking around when I headed out to buy a couple of things, again wearing pyjama bottoms. This was quite surreal - the most absurd example being someone wearing a one-piece Hello Kitty pyjama outfit. Doesn't make much sense to me, so I hope it was a theme day. I really hope it was a theme day.

Head Down, Phone Out: The site of someone walking, head down and phone out being played with or being used for texting is fairly common nowadays. This evening I sighted someone who was not just walking with one phone in their hand in front of them, but had two phones out, one in each hand. I have no idea what they were doing.

More in commuting tales coming soon!

Biscuit Bane

I've mentioned before about the allure of the biscuit tin at work - and recently we've found an excellent way of combatting this - don't fill up the tin. As astonishing as it is simple, this actually works.

Another entertaining point that worked well was that we had a temporary message on the top written in fridge magnets. This originally started off as 'donate first' but in an accidental homage to the Fawlty Towers title sequence, this became a new anagram game instead to play with.

Surprisingly this worked as well as the tin being empty - as opposed to going and having a biscuit when I wanted a 15 second break, I'd instead go and play with the letters and make a new combination of words. It was bizarrely successful, although with the tin currently being empty and abandoned, it's not really necessary at the moment.

Congratulations and Misgivings

One thing I should do today is congratulate one of my good friends Sid on getting married yesterday. It's an excellent achievement to find someone who will be amused by and tolerate his own loveable brand of hyperactic randomness. I wish them all the best.

The misgivings are simply because I wasn't able to be there - not for reasons of convenience, distance or clashing schedules, but just as I was never invited in the first place. This was genuinely both a surprise and a disappointment, and while I try not to be too bothered by it it's still a bit frustrating. I've mainly dealt with this by charitably putting it down to him not having my new address and an invite getting lost in the post or ending at a destination where I'm not known, although I'm not sure it's true.

I know there are plenty of reasons why I may not have made a list - he was a good friend but Sid always had many friends everywhere, and I think he could easily have filled several guest lists. But as I said - disappointing.

Clawing Mists

If it wasn't for my driving lesson at noon, today would have been another uneventful day lacking in achievement. However, as a result I did manage to get some ironing done, some tidying and cleaning sorted before the lesson - and accomplished nothing afterwards. I did at one point when discussing this with Chrissi almost claim showering as an accomplishment for today, which frankly means you either have done nothing worth doing or have hygiene issues, neither of which are too impressive.

A good chunk of today I've spent on Mists of Pandaria, which is increasingly growing on me. I am enjoying the quests and the effort that has been put into these - they're a lot better worked than what happened in Cataclysm and a lot less linear. You go in the same direction but can do the majority of them around different areas in whatever order you like - meaning it's not quite such a forced journey. The use of cut scenes is impressive and feels much more natural than the occasional one in WotLK or Cataclysm, when they both felt a little contrived.

Overall, I suspect that I'm going to be playing it a bit more than I expected for a while, until that shine wears off at least.

Lazy Evenings

Saturday seems to have become an increasingly lazy day in our house - although in fairness, last Saturday we were in Barcelona and got up at the crack of dawn to achieve that, so I'm not quite sure how valid that point is.

However, besides that we have spent a large amount of time most Saturday evenings watching various TV shows. There was Doctor Who - which obviously was the highlight of the evening, and at the moment now that's on mid-series break, it's time for Merlin to fill the gap. Since seeing an episode being filmed, we now also watch Comedy World Cup, I'll also try and watch The Thick Of It, and depending on the week and whether that day's games were any good, Match of the Day would also feature in the list.

Today followed that theme - although there was no Match of the Day this week due to international break - and overall, it was fairly lazy. I was almost impressed with Merlin this week for managing to kill off a main character in only the second episode (and that the second half of a two-parter). It wouldn't have just been a main character but the main villain as well, so a little surprising. Except that when you thought she was dead, at the end of the episode you see Morgana walking across the wastes with her pet dragon trailing in her wake - a little disappointing considering how that may have worked out much more interestingly.

Funday Fridays

After a prepared blog yesterday, written on Wednesday and posted automatically last night while I was out at poker, I'm suddenly under pressure to write another blog tonight before we get to midnight.

I'm late on starting with writing tonight because Chrissi and I were out for a meal with my sister Rachel. I'm not sure why I added her name; I only have one sister, so everyone either already knew that or didn't care.

So we met up this evening for a meal, and from the list of options she picked an Eritrean restaurant near where she lived. Now, I know the first question on your lips - where is Eritrea? It's a country on the horn of Africa, north-east of Ethiopia and up the coast from Djibouti; across the Red Sea from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The obvious second question is what precisely is Eritrean food like? Well, I suppose the easy get-out would be to reply 'tasty' or something equally glib. However, I'll try to describe it, because it was rather interesting. Most of the food was around a traditional North African / Arabic cooking style - stew, spices, sauce and traditional ingredients like chick peas and lentils. You would eat this with bread, so it was a very inelegent meal as you would tear off a piece of bread, grab a bit of food with it and then repeat.

The bread itself was interesting - called injera, it is, to quote remorselessly from their website, "leavened pancake made with sourdough of Taff flour, hence the tangy flavour". This was delivered in rolls to eat the meal with - no cutlery required whatsoever.

There were lots of lovely touches - the restaurant was named Adulis, after the ancient port city on the Red Sea; the menu had traditional Eritrean Ge'ez script alongside the English, and this was even printed on the receipt as well. The restaurant itself was superbly decorated, ornate and with fantastic character, and every single one of the waiters or waitresses were polite, friendly, helpful and welcoming - which is often a rarity in one person, let alone an entire staff.

We had a great time, and ended up having been there for two hours without even realising it. I'll definitely be visiting it again if I can, and I recommend anyone else in the Clapham area takes a peek if they can.

Yearly Target

I'm both surprised and impressed that this blog marks the fiftieth of the year - considering I hadn't started until mid-August, to already be almost on a par with my tallies from both 2008 and 2011 is worth cheering. I'm undoubtedly helped with my new approach to both backfilling - putting events in from previous days when I couldn't write them that day - and prepublishing, when I'm writing blogs in advance when they occur to me and storing them so I can publish from my reserve pile.

A couple of asides today about some CDs I've recently bought, and thought I'd share my comments and thoughts.

Firstly, Valtari by Sigur Ros which I've had for a little while now. There's not much more to say about the Icelandic soundscape-merchants - their sound is as unique as ever and this album takes them back towards the earlier albums, away from the more accessible sounds of both með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust and Jonsi's solo, poppier offering Go. It's hard to pick out any of the songs, but for the sheer majesty of the song I think Dauðalogn is a track you will hear in the background of both nature programmes and historical/fantasy dramas in the future. The fun trivia piece for this album is that the cover art was drawn by Jonsi's sister Inga Birgisdóttir who was also the baby on the cover art for Von.

Secondly, ¡Uno! by Green Day, the first of their three albums coming out over the next six months. Having almost all the Green Day back catalogue - stretching to eight albums, one B-side collection, one compilation and one live album - it's often hard to tell when their sound is moving in a traditional or new direction. It's definitely a move away from the more recent rock-opera approach of American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, and feels like a traditional, punkier album. A few of the songs wouldn't have sounded out of place on Nimrod or Insomniac, and you could tell a real insight into their influences as three of the twelve tracks have openings that you could easily mistake as having been written by The Clash. A bold, confident offering and a nice throwback to their earlier, punkier albums.

Year Two: Computer Peripherals

I actually had a subject in mind today, but realise that it would probably be more sensible to instead note that tonight - to remorselessly steal from the comedy greats - marks Chrissi's wedding anniversary, and by a surprising coincidence mine as well. It's hard to believe that it's two years ago that we got married - it seems both like no time at all and that we've been doing this forever. That is to some extent an indication that this is probably the right balance of how long something should feel like.

The untraditional gift that I got for her was a wireless mouse; not particularly because it was our anniversary but because she needed one as I had broke hers last week. It was sitting on the couch, where typically she sits with her laptop, and I had managed to knock it off the couch from its hiding place there to land with precision into a glass of water. After that it didn't work. I remembered this today when going past a computer shop near work, and decided to rectify my error.

This evening I'm working on backdating the Barcelona blogs from the weekend, so do go back and check them out.

Mundane Return

After a very pleasant weekend, today was a very mundane return to the regular routine and to work. The fact of an extended weekend is that instead of the week feeling shorter, it feels longer by virtue of not being best pleased at working again for the rest of the week!

While I'll fill in the blanks from the weekend in due course, instead I'll add in a random event from today; on going for a walk at lunchtime, there was - what with it coming up to Halloween - a life-size figure of Death in the window of a toy shop, with its hand raised as if in greeting. My natural reaction was to say to myself, but out loud, "Hi Death," and then worryingly I quickly followed that with a note that I was uttering a greeting to the Grim Reaper and not talking about a type of television.

It's a little disturbing that I corrected and clarified that to myself ...

Barcelona III of III

Today was our final day in Barcelona, so we resolved to make the most of it before the trip back. In both our cases, this was particularly to make the most of the glorious weather before we returned to England and forgot what the sun looked like for a few months. However, we were both a bit tired from the walking in the sun for most of two days, so we moderated our plan as a result.

We started the day by setting off for Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi cathedral at the heart of the development around the early 20th century. It's odd to see a modern cathedral - and it is both spectacular and still in progress. We had hoped to see inside it, but even at a decent time in the morning the queue snaked around three sides of the building and we didn't want to spend all of our last day in a queue. We slowly circumnavigated the building and headed on.

Our second stop of the day was Park Guell, which was another part of the city both inhabited by and contributed to by Gaudi. This had been planned as an early housing development, but only one house was built and it is now known as a great park, with beautiful architectural pieces throughout. We wandered through it, admiring and enjoying it - as well as the great views back across the city.

The return journey took us back towards the waterfront and we sat and rested by the water in the port for a good hour - a very pleasant way of relaxing that it's hard to do at home! After that we slowly made our way back via a last couple of photo shots to get a bite to eat, get back to the hotel, get back to the airport and finally get back to England.

It was raining when we landed back into England. It was almost as if to drive the point home. We were not best impressed.

Barcelona II of III

After yesterday's pleasant start and relaxing day, today we got it very back to front - it's been too long since I was in the Mediterranean and I've forgotten the best way to tourist through the day. What this means is that instead of going out early, coming back to the hotel around lunchtime and having a rest for a few hours before resuming the sightseeing in the evening, we instead had a lie in and left around the peak of the heat.

While I am better prepared and was copiously watered throughout the trip, it was still careless - with the Metro being particularly sluggish on the Sunday, we walked from the hotel to Place de Catalunya, at the head of Ramblas, and walked down to the end, retracing some of our route from last time in the process. At the foot of Ramblas we veered off and took a peek into the Barcelona Maritime Museum. I'd managed to visit this in the early morning when I was here 18 months ago, only to find my efforts unrewarded when the majority of the museum was closed for renovation. I was surprised and disappointed to find that the renovation work was still ongoing, and I still didn't get to see!

The rest of the afternoon was conducted somewhat lazily - a walk along the port, a delicious paella in a restaurant and then we walked to the foot of the cable car which would take us back over the port and up to Montjuc, one of the hills which overlooks the city. However, faced with an 80 minute line we decided that we could cope without that, and instead walked along to the beachfront and sought a nearby park.

Our seeking was inaccurate and we ended up back where we'd started despite taking a nice little detour through some little local streets, parks and squares. We did find the park in the end and it was worth the walk - again, a lovely place to relax, sit and enjoy. You would see entire families out together, just relaxing in the park as if it was perfectly normal, and it was a nice and welcoming atmosphere.

This evening was an interesting event to be in Barcelona for - Barcelona vs Real Madrid. I was aware this was happening before, but only as I'd checked the fixture list in advance to see if there was an average game we could maybe go to. If any of my readers aren't aware of the significance of the game, it's the biggest fixture in Spain and possibly one of the biggest in Europe, a game split along national and nationalist lines, with a bitter history that goes all the way back through (and has some of its roots in) the Franco dictatorship, the Catalan struggle for independence and long beyond.

We didn't get to see the game, but we were watching out of the corner of our eyes the TV in the bars across the street from our restaurant to see what was happening - and our waiter kept us informed, as did the radio that he was carrying around with him. When there's a goal scored in a game in Spain, you can tell quite easily from the commentary, let me be clear! The match ended 2-2, which was a disappointment as (1) I favoured Barcelona and (2) it would have been interesting to see how the city celebrated.

Barcelona I of III

So as was barely hinted at on my blog, this weekend Chrissi and I are in Barcelona. It was only mentioned once, and that was the fact that the trip had been booked. This was an overdue Christmas present to each other - having decided at the time that neither of us really wanted anything big, we thought it would be nicer to use that money to go away somewhere together. As the months passed and we waited for nicer weather, then never decided on where we would go, we made a quick decision in early September for fear we wouldn't get away before Christmas this year!

So it came to pass that this morning we were up early to go to the airport, and by lunchtime we were in sunny Barcelona. The weather is lovely - even in the evening it's nice and warm, and the majority of the day I've found it too hot in just a shirt and jeans - a lovely feeling for early October.

The main accomplishment today was a walk around part of the old town - we visited the cathedral, which was impressive, and via a random combination of alleys and pretty sidestreets worked our way across to Ramblas, which is the main street of Barcelona and the key tourist place to visit. Stalls adorn either side, street artists perform, the trees provide shade and the whole place is really very pleasant.

We came into this halfway down, and wandered the rest of the way down to the harbour. A walk along the front and then round eventually found us somewhere to eat, and we sat and enjoyed a nice meal. If there is one thing to say about Barcelona, it is a city which is so comfortable to just sit and relax in. There's not many places where you can just sit and feel relaxed and peaceful and just enjoy the calm atmosphere. I can't imagine doing that in London for one!

Working From Home

Today I was working from home - there was a document I needed to spend most of the day working on and as a result I freed myself from distractions around the office and set up at home instead.

Now, one of the great things about working from home is that you don't need to actually go to work. You're already there. You can work in bed if you choose. With that in mind, it's quite impressive that I managed to be late to work despite already effectively being at work - I dozed a little longer than intended and so actually only started work at 9:10 instead of the half hour earlier I'd intended and the ten minutes earlier that I should have done.

It does have its advantages mind - working the morning in my dressing gown and pyjamas being one of them. Not feeling the need to constantly snack or get coffee or water, which also results in less work being done, is another. The fact it's raining now and I have no commute home in it? Very satisfying!

Pre-Planned Significant Point

While October 4th is not a notable date by any traditional means - it does not commemorate a significant event in the past on that date, nor the same day from a different month, and nor is it a celebration of some saint or national holiday - it has an odd significance for me.

I realised when writing my blog on our dating anniverary that I was 27 and at that point we had been together for 9 years, so that marked nearly a third of my life. Being a romantic pedant (one of the oddest combination of words you'll see in this blog for a while), I realised that that was inaccurate due to when my birthday was, so a little calculation resorted to this date as the official point where I have spent over a third of my life with Chrissi.

For those interested in the maths, which is nobody, the count is 9 years and 24 days with versus 18 years and 47 days without. The halfway mark will therefore be October 27th, 2021 - if I'm still blogging then I'll try and remember to point it out!

Something Random You Don't Know About Me II

Another filler blog with a snippet of insight from my world. This came about as a result of another conversation at work.

The topic was first purchased music - after having some mild fun at others' expense to their greater age and the fact that most of their records were purchased before I was born, I got to reveal my greatest hits. Or rather, most embarrassing ones.

So, to kick it off: First ever single purchased was Steps' Last Thing On My Mind. I have no words to explain or defend myself here, it is just annoyingly true. The first album I remember owning, or perhaps co-owned with my sister was, perhaps even more toe-curlingly embarrassing, Hanson's self-titled debut offering.

Yes, I am ashamed of myself. This isn't a great therapeutic admission, but it amused me enough that I thought it was worth sharing!

The Untouched Box

So as I mentioned at the weekend, I had Mists of Pandaria on pre-order - and then it didn't come, requiring a re-order. This arrived yesterday and in an astonishing and frankly baffling display of self-control, this still remains in the box un-opened.

The reason is two-fold; firstly, we were out last night, meaning that we didn't return home until half ten, and I thought that wasn't the best point to open it up and start playing. Tonight I was getting on with the unexciting tasks of ironing.

Secondly, I can cope with waiting and am not overcome with excitement to instantly get to 90 and so begin the long grind of dungeons, raids, etc again. I'm happy to take my time and explore a little and perhaps take a little longer to get there - but enjoy the game I'm playing at the same time!

Overdue Meetings

One thing that happened yesterday that I didn't mention - working as I was a day behind - was that in the morning Chrissi and I went up to London to meet an old friend that we'd never met, Ian who used to play TDZK with us (better known to the handful of people who read who played as Jeffers). He was in London for the weekend, had been spotted on Facebook by Chrissi, and we arranged to meet for coffee before he headed back off again.

It was enjoyable to catch up - and it's nice that even five and a half years after the game has disappeared, and probably closer to seven years since he stopped playing, we're still able to catch up an hour and not think anything of it.