(no subject)
sunday 20th Dec
We had a retro wrestling session today. Broke out the VHS and watched WWF from the end of the 80's. We invited 5 folk, but in the end, with the ice and things, we just ended up with Val's mate Jason and his missus. Was fun. Will be done again, when people are less busy with xmas and trying not to die on the ice.
At least we got the house mucked out in order to make it presentable.
mon 21 december
There's been ice outside the house since Saturday. The house is on a steep road, and it's been this bad just once before in the 5 years I've been living here. The pavement was viciously slippy enough to mean Val didn't go to work at all, and I had to climb down the buildings to get to the bottom of the road. I can deal with cold, if I've got access to enough clothes to control it with layers, but, even though I'm a goat, ice is always a nightmare.
wed 23
Nipped out shopping at lunch. Wasn't anything like as busy as expected, but then, staying away from the big shops probably helped. Of course, there were some dipshits. I'm bigger than you, and if I'm just about through a one-person wide passage, don't step into it, as I'm not going all the way back to let your pushy ass through it before me.
Anyway, went in the pet shop up by the Cornerhouse looking for a new cat flap, and had a look at the small fluffies while I was there. Yay, bunnies and vibrating rodents. Found a case with scorpions in it. Awesome, evil looking little creatures. I want some...
Mayfair in the evening with Luce, Richy, V, Aly, Lee and Chris. We may have spent more time talking wrestling with Aly and Richy than we should have. Arf. Something was up with the Mayfair though, and it took 3 hours to get a meal done that would normally take half that, and they weren't that busy. Meh. We had a good night of it and went back to Aly's to join Alex (who'd been too ill to come to the Mayfair) for the TNA main event wrestling show on the telly. Plan had been to get back in time for the start, but obviously failed, which is kinda annoying, as what we did see made it one of the best this year.
thu 24, xmas eve
Lazy day, then a horrible drive to Macc, and an evening out with old mates.
I took the lowland route through Derby, rather than over the tops via Matlock and Buxton, seeing as the weather's been so ropey, and there's ice everywhere. The roads, are lovely and clear and mostly dry. Unfortunately, half the people on the road were driving hyper-paranoid, and the other half were being pushy tossers. Joy. Add to that that my windscreen wash ran out, and I end up with a fog of salt on my screen, and then add in a real, nicely dense fog between Stoke and Leek, and a dose of getting well and truly lost in feckin Derby, where they don't believe in signposts... Fun...
Night out was cool. We've been doing the Bollington Xmas Eve pub crawl/sit since school days. This year wasn't as much fun as past years, as we're losing people year by year (Jon and Kerry being heavily pregnant means they weren't there this time), not helped by the pub being completely wedged. On the other hand, Claire was steaming and entertainingly drunk on neat scotch, and the assorted new husbands were fun for bantering, and me an my bro did the now traditional til-5am drunken conversation round our mum's kitchen table.
Best thing of the evening was getting duckswarmed. I was walking to the pub, and saw a family getting mobbed by ducks down by the canal, so on the way back with the brother, stopped off to take a look. It looked like the water over the aqueduct had frozen, and all the ducks had congregated at this point, where the ice ended, in order to have water instead of ice. And they weren't afraid to come begging for food. So we got swarmed. They took a proper interest in my shoes and ankles. Dabbledabbledabble peck peckpeck dabbledabble. If I'd taken my gloves off, I'd have caught a couple of them.
fri 25, xmas day
Had a nice quiet Xmas lunch with my mum and brother, then a much bigger evening evening meal with the whole Dale clan.
sat 26, boxing day
Home again, home again, lickety split. Or it would be if it weren't for the slow drivers. I have horrendous road rage. I don't let it affect my driving, I just rant and rave in the car.
After a bit of a shop and a trip to Blockbuster, watched The Final Destination (better than FD3 or My Bloody Valentine, not as good as the first 2 FD films), Dr Who (good stuff, John Sim is a madman, and I like the playing down of the camp side of the current Dr Whos) and Inglourious Basterds (some of it really good, but the balance of the plot away from the story of the Basterds just throws me).
sun 27
Went round V's parents for a gathering of her family. Had a good moan with the assorted other halves about our respective Bacon's watching reality TV shows. I got given a Darth Vader cd player to keep the R2D2 phone I got last year company. So, I've asked for a Jar-Jar TV set next year, so I can banish Val to watch X-Factor in elsewhere in the house...
mon 28
Watched Moon (really good, nicely understated, lots of atmosphere (which is kinda ironic...)), District 9 (also very good, but it took a second watch to actually warm to the lead character), Tobruk (grim and brutal, not enough tanks, not enough of the battle, possibly too slow paced, but again, good on second watch), Coraline (loved it, must read the book, want a dogbat as a pet), and Day of the Triffids (happily, it's 28 Days Later, not Torchwood, and Eddie's touch in keeping his character the right side of camp ludicrous is beautiful) today. Didn't get a great deal else done.
In Moon, the dude keeps being woken up by his radio playing The One and Only. I keep getting the urge to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8J1Wpn9uJs