I’m getting one of those backlogs of things I think are going to take lots of time to write about but probably aren’t but even though I rationally know this I keep putting off writing about them and they mount up, so here’s a summary of the last few days for you to skim.
Friday. What happened on Friday? Oh yeah, my bike, which I’ve had for a little over a year now, got its first puncture last week and I fixed it but it didn’t hold so I bought a new inner tube but when I put the wheel back on it wouldn’t sit properly and eventually, after much faffing and tea, I notice a ballbearing had gone missing somehow from the spindle-wotsit and of course I have no spares because I’ve never had to fix this bike to this desgree and the nearest bike shop is a bike ride away and the bike has no wheel, and it’s 4pm and I need to cycle later on tonight, so a brisk walk to Halfords (pausing briefly to take a photo) where they don’t have my ballbearing in stock but after a few seconds pleading if they might have one in a jar of random bits out back the chap finds a spare set which he lets me have gratis and once again the staff of Halfords Selly Oak win my admiration and thanks.
And then, having fixed the bike to a satisfactory level, and noted the similarity between how a bike when fixed will never be quite as good as a new bike in the same way a JPEG when tweaked can never be corrected back to its original quality, followed by my noting how tediously geeky that comparison is, and having had some food, it was off to the Jug for the Misty’s Big Adventure Xmas gig which was superb and wonderful and which I shall write about in full later. This was followed by a Balti in Moseley village with Shaun and Kats which was satisfactory but we really should have gone to Ladypool Rd and it was stupid of me not to.
The Balti meant I got home late and having lots of photos couldn’t resist checking them and uploading a few so I got to bed about 2am, rising at 7.30 to go to the car park, deciding that I couldn’t face the horror of the bus so I cycled, what with the bike being all fixed and everything, and it took 45 minutes to get to Solihull, quicker than the bus, arriving slightly exhausted but in a much better mood than usual. The car park was busy, as expected, but rather tedious with nothing exciting to report – lots of lost tickets and a few issues with the barrier – but I made a couple of quid from abandoned trollies that people couldn’t be arsed to wheel back and that always brightens the day. One advantage of the car park is it’s above a supermarket so I was able to pick up a couple of bottles of wine and some brandy butter for Xmas, except I left the brandy butter in the fridge so won’t be able to enjoy it until New Years Day, but it’ll be worth it.
And then another 45 minute ride home to be greeted by a reasonably full living room of people getting ready to set off to Doug and Sara’s pre-Xmas party/gathering/thing, so a quick shower and snack-food dinner (we have a tremendous collection of snack-food right now) I joined the throng for a very enjoyable few hours of beer, nibbles and chats.
Xmas Day and I was awoken at 9am-ish with the offer of tea which seemed like a good enough reason to get up. We did the Xmas morning stuff, mooching around the living room watching Aardman animations videotaped on Xmas days past, until it was time for the Andy’s to go to their respective Xmas day venues. Matt turned up for a bit and we set off on our bikes to his and Marv’s place for the rest of the day. Dinner was meatballs in sauce, which seemed a bit wrong at first but worked out perfectly, followed by the Xmas pudding I’d made a few weeks previously from Jez’s recipe and it was also perfect. Then we went for a walk around the parks of Kings Heath which are much nicer than I was expecting having only seen them from the road. And then we watched Doctor Who which was, as you’ll probably be aware, bloody fantastic, so much better than TV at that time deserved to be, and bodes wonderfully for the 2nd series. And then we drank wine and beer and played a driving game on the Playstation, opting not to bother with the actual game but to just play a version where you have to drive into an intersection and crash as spectacularly as possible, which we did again and again until midnight-ish by which stage I decided I was far too drunk to cycle home, given the trouble I was having walking to the garden for a smoke, so I crashed on the sofabed.
Boxing day started with fried chipolatas and scrambled eggs after which I figured I’d better head off else I never would, and I had this vague idea I might get some stuff done, but was distracted by the 24 season 3 box set sitting in the living room so I worked through eight episodes before Andy and Celeste got back when I had to stop as they were only 2 episodes in, but Celeste had a Bruce Springsteen DVD where he performs and dissects his songs on stage so we watched that and it was very enjoyable. After that I figured I might as well crack on with 24 for a bit before bed so I did, getting through another 12 episodes by 5am. Ouchy. But very good stuff. Utterly bonkers and over the top, which is how I like my US TV.
Tuesday I got up very late in the afternoon, finished off 24, finally sorted and uploaded the photos from the Misty’s gig, watched Doctor Who again thanks to BitTorrent and quite possibly enjoyed it even more (and for the record I never cared for Doctor Who ever at all) and, um, here we are.
Wednesday… Looks kinda frosty out there…