Days 2316 - 2329

Aka Monday 22^nd March - Sunday 4^th April 2021

I’m still catching up with this blog, so this’ll be another brief one and it’ll cover a whole fortnight <shock, horror> 😊…and during the fortnight:

…I got fined, by my nephew, for being cheeky:

…and I will be appealing it!

…the postman delivered ‘Wonder Woman: Earth One’ Vol. 3, the second volume of 'Music For Healing' by Richard Norris and some week’s comics:

…I brought Stephen King’s new novel ‘Later’, I’ve read good reviews for it, King is a solid storyteller (and I should read more of his work) and I got it from a supermarket, so it was dirt cheap (which I free a little guilty about):

…but I did read ‘Pumpkin Head’:

…which is a fun read about that move from teenager to adult, and ‘Moonshine’ #23:

…an entertaining equal parts Werewolf tale and crime-noir thriller, touching upon who we are and why we do what we do, and ‘One Year At Ellsmere’:

…which is a remastered version of ‘The War At Ellsmere’, in which Faith Erin Hicks re-draws, re-inks, re-edits and adds colour, by Shelli Paroline, to the original story. It’s kinda like hearing a band’s demo/single version and then listening to the album version. It’s still he same, but the extra level of experience and improvement in ability/skill, just raises the game and enhances the story. I also read ‘Department of Truth’ #5 and #6:

…which amp up the conspiracy and paranoia, and ‘Savage Dragon’ #257:

...which continues Malcolm Dragon and family’s story in dramatic fashion!

…I also built some Lego sports cars:

…and Ghost Rider’s car:

...went on one Long Walk (I missed one because of the weather):

…and I did this fortnight’s G2 Crosswords:

…and the week gets off to woozy start with Monday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). Mayne the little grey cells were a little knocked back by the Covid jab? Like mixing up ‘Arabian’ with ‘Persian’ for the clue ‘blue, carpet or gulf’ or not getting ‘proviso’ from ‘condition’. But we did learn that Pollyanna was ‘optimistic’ and that ‘beam-ends’ are ‘something sailors (and others) don’t want to be on’…

…yep, the little grey cells are certainly underperforming, suffering a Covid jab hangover, as we had to cheat on almost a third of Tuesday’s clues (seven out of 23). A very poor performance. We should have gotten at least five of those seven, like how did we miss ‘collaborator’ from ‘partner (in crime, perhaps)’. But we did learn that ‘aioli’ is a ‘Mediterranean garlic flavoured sauce’ and that ‘Dart’ is a ‘Devon river’…

…things pick up with Wednesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 25). I think the little grey cells have bounced back, as they tore through the clues scattering answers like confetti. And we learnt that ‘prosaic’ can mean ‘mundane’ and that ‘Seth’ was ‘Eve’s third son’…

…Thursday’s crossword goes just as well, we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 21). It certainly seems like the little grey cells are back at their full strength. And we learnt that ‘stuffed vine leaves’ are called ‘dolmades’…

…and the plain sailing continues with Friday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). The clues were like a straw house to the big bad wolf of the little grey cells, and we learnt that an ‘Abalone’ is a ‘large edible marine gastropod’…

…and things take a terrible tumble with Saturday’s crossword, we had to cheat on nearly a third of the clues (five out of 18). The little grey cells had been soaring but flew to close to the sun! And we missed some easy answers, like ‘Tampa’ from ‘Florida resort on the Gulf of Mexico’, but we did learn that ‘ferns’ are ‘seedless and flowerless green plants’, hopefully next week’s crosswords go better…

…and the week gets off to a poor start as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues for Monday’s crossword (four out of 19). The little grey cells just couldn’t get into the groove and we missed some very obvious answers, like ‘soft touch’ from ‘someone easily put upon’, but we did learn that a ‘Dipper’ is a ‘small diving bird without webbed feet that feeds on the river bed’…

…while Tuesday’s crossword goes almost perfectly. We only had to cheat on one of the 26 clues. We couldn’t get ‘recently’ from ‘the other day’, but the little grey cells powered through the rest of the clues like a lawnmower cutting grass, with those 25 clues tumbling like weeds…

…Wednesday’s crossword goes almost as well, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). We couldn’t get ‘span’ from ‘bridge’ and annoyingly we got ‘mollycoddle’ from ‘cosset’, but we dismissed it for some reason! But the rest of the clues were easy peasy and quickly dispatched by the little grey cells…

…Thursday continues the trend of little grey cell excellence, with only having to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 25). Again, the little grey cells tore through the clues, except for ‘a class of accommodation’, we went with ‘rental’ and not the answer ‘rented’ and we learnt that ‘chichi’ means ‘pretentiously stylish’…

…things take a nosedive with Friday’s crossword, we had to cheat on nearly a third of the clues (seven out of 24). We just couldn’t get to grip with the clues and couldn’t resolve them. But we did learn that ‘credence’ means ‘belief’, that a ‘millefeuille’ is a ‘cold dessert made with puff pastry, cream, etc’ that ‘Ibsen’ was a ‘Norwegian playwright, who wrote all his plays in Danish, d.1906’ and that ‘parochialism’ means ‘narrowness of outlook’…

…and the same thing happens with Saturday’s crossword, we had to cheat on over a third of the clues (eight out of 22). Some of those eight we should have gotten, like ‘railway engine’ from ‘loco’, but we got stuck on thinking that it was a reference to crazy! But we did learn that there is a Hawaiian type of goose, that an ‘Obi’ is the ‘broad sash worn with a kimono’, that ‘Tennyson’ was the ‘author of The Charge of the Light Brigade’, that ‘Philology’ is the ‘study of language’ and that ‘Blantyre’ is ‘Malawi’s ‘commercial and industrial capital’’. Roll on next week’s grids…