Days 2614 – 2620

Aka Monday 17th January - Sunday 23rd January 2022

Another quiet week, going to work during the day and chilling at night, just trying to stay on top of things/my health. I got this month’s ‘Mojo’:

…which has a nice article on Michael Nesmith and 'The Monkees' and ‘Lego Batman’ magazine:

…I also picked up some Lottery winnings:

…and the postman delivered ‘Time Before Time’ #9:

…which I’m really enjoying. It’s got a great mix of crime story, time travel hijinks/shenanigans and soap operaness…and on Saturday I went for a Medium Walk, but it took longer due to the icer pavements:

…did 5.21km in 1 hour, 1 minute and 49 seconds and I burnt 496 calories…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a storming start as we only had to cheat on one of the eighteen clues. The little grey cells sailed through the clues, only stumbling when we couldn’t get ‘turf out’ from ‘eject’. Which was a little weird as our symptoms played up this morning and left me feeling a little scrambled when I sat down to do this grid…

…Tuesday’s grid went almost as well, we had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 19), the waters remained calm, and the little grey cells carried on their sailing. We forgot that a ‘pipsqueak’ is also an ‘nonentity’ and learnt that ‘regale’ can mean ‘supply lavishly with food and drink’, as well as to entertain with stories…

…there’s more plain sailing with Wednesday’s grid, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). Slightly annoyed that we didn’t get ‘gospel’ from ‘truth’, but we did learn that ‘John Masefield’ was ‘poet laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967’. Seems like the little grey cells are on a streak…

…and the streak continues with Thursday’s grid as, again, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). And we learnt that a ‘Saddhu’ is an ‘Ascetic Hindu holy man’ and that ‘campanile’ means ‘belfry’, which in hindsight we might have guess as we know that campanology is the name for (church) bell ringing…

…and we take a tumble with Friday’s grid, the little grey cells streak is over, as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 25). And it was a chewy grid, that we had to grind out and we’re probably lucky to have done as well as we did. We learnt that William Rufus was the king of England from 1087 to 1100, that ‘Samoa’ was the ‘South Pacific Island country where Robert Louis Stevenson died and is buried’, that Lorna Doone is an 1869 romantic novel by RD Blackmore, based around Exmoor, and that an ‘Ossuary’ is a ‘place to rest one’s bones’ (aka a “chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains”)…

…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a highish note, this was also a chewy grid which we thought was going to be too tough a nut to crack, but in the end, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). Once we got the long answers topping, tailing and at the sides of the grid, the rest, slowly, fell into place. And we learnt that ‘aver’ means to ‘solemnly declare’ and that a ‘guava’ is a ‘tropical fruit eaten fresh or used to make jellies’…

Days 2607 - 2613

Aka Monday 10th January - Sunday 16th January 2022

A quiet week this week, Monday morning had a beautiful red sky:

…the postman delivered this month’s Kyle Starks Stickers Club stickers:

…and some great comics (although I was very disappointed with the first issue of  'Monkey Meat', felt like a reheated 2000AD Future Shock):

…and I picked up this week’s New Comic Book Day gems (including the excellent ‘Falconspeare’):

…and the latest issue of ‘Uncut’:

…mostly because I was a little bored, nit much in the issue to interest me...and I got a clean sweep, 300 score in bowling…okay it was electronic bowling!,:

…but still a clean sweep…and after that exertion I went for a Medium Walk on Saturday and did 5.35km in 1 hour 1 minute and 35 seconds and burnt 515 calories:

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…Monday’s crossword got the week off to a good, but standard start, as we had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). The little grey cells were fairy rested after the weekend but weren’t fully warmed up and missed a couple of easier ones, like for ‘carbon black’ we didn’t bother to check the intersecting letters and went for ‘coal’, if we had checked, we probably would have gotten the correct answer of ‘soot’. We did, however, learn that a ‘troglodyte’ is a ‘hermit (who lived in a cave?)…

…Tuesday’s grid went better, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23), but, again, we made a simple mistake of not checking the intersecting letters and for ‘sound navigation and ranging system’, we went with ‘radar’ when the answer was ‘sonar’! But we did learn that an ‘Acacia’ is a ‘spiny tree or shrub with small yellow or white flowers’…

…Wednesday’s grid dips a little as we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23), not bad, but not great. We were slightly let down by our geography knowledge, not knowing that ‘Damascus’ is the ‘Syrian capital’. But we did learn that ‘chez moi’ means ‘at my house’ and that ‘Black China tea’ is called ‘Pekoe’…

…Thursday’s grid maintains the level and we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25) again. Which was much better than we expected as our symptoms had come back and we weren’t feeling that great, which probably explains why we missed ‘throbs’ from ‘beats’, we were thinking of ‘beats’ as in overcoming, thrashing, victorious, etc., but we still managed a good performance – maybe the clues were easier today! And we did learn that ‘esurient’ means ‘ravenous’ and that a ‘Pergola’ is an ‘Arbour with climbing plants’…

…Friday’s grid goes a tad better as we didn’t have to cheat on any of the twenty-one clues! The little grey cells were on the top of their game today and sliced through the clues like a hot knife through butter…

…Saturday’s grid ends the week on a pretty sweet note as, although we found it a really hard grid to get to grips with and we thought we’d never great half the clues, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of them (two out of 24)! We only stumbled on not remembering that a ‘droplet’ can also be called a ‘globule’ and that Zagreb is the capital of ‘Croatia’…