Days 3236 - 3263

Aka Monday 2nd October to Sunday 29th October 2023

…really, really behind, still catching up, so this will be another blast through the month…there were hardly any Morning Walks for the start of the month, partly due to reasons of laziness and partly due to it being v cold outside!…I did go for Morning Walks on Monday 9th October:

…which lasted for one hour, 13 minutes and 49 seconds, burning 595 calories in 8,114 steps, taking in 6.24km…and Wednesday 11th October:

…which covered 6.35km in 8,253 steps in one hour, 15 minutes and six seconds, burning 605 calories…but then it got to cold for a good while, so instead of going for a walk I finally, made the Lego Darth Vader mecha:

…then I did brave the cold and went for a Morning Walk on Monday 16th October:

…although the GPS went a little crazy and added on a few extra km’s! So, all I can say for certain is that I went for my usual walk, and it took 1 hour 11 minutes and 57 seconds. Which is the quickest I’ve done it, which I think is partly due to my knee healing/pain going away and wanting to get out of the cold! And it’s the first day of a week off, so I’ve got time to do some weights as well. BEEFCAKE! Next Morning Walk was on Tuesday 17th October:

…which burnt 596 calories over 6.27km and 8,176 steps, in one hour, 14 minutes and 33 seconds…and that was the end of this month’s Morning Walk, as I decided to take day or two or three of rest, especially as my back was getting a tad twingey! Getting in the way of moving! So, we were back to resting up and catching up on reading these beautiful New Comic Book Day gems:

…and I got some great magazines: 

…watched ‘Bodies’, which was rock solid, a very cool concept, expertly executed…and I picked up a few Lego Marvel minifigures:

…and I got a bunch of cool Lego magazines:

…picked up some meagre Lottery wins:

…got some cool albums, including a very cool Stephen Clakre1980 KLF merch bundle arrived:

…this month’s Kyle Stark Sticker Club stickers arrived:

…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and we get the crossword week off to a grand start. We only had to cheat on 4.76% of the clues (one out of21). A damn solid start, man! The little grey cells were on tip top form, only falling on missing (somehow, I’m not sure how we missed this one!) ‘urge’ from ‘try to persuade’… 

…Tuesday’s crossword was chewy and I thought that we wouldn’t do well, but in the end we only had to cheat on 8.70% of the clues (aka two out of 23). Although we should have guessed, with a little extra thought, that ‘moose’ was the answer to ‘largest extant species of deer’ and that ‘voila’ was the answer to ‘there you are!’…

…the pretty damn solidness continues with Wednesday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on 4.35% of the clues (a la one out of 23). It was a chewy grid, lots of scribbling possible words and we fell with not getting the first word in the answer to ‘Robin Hood’s colour?’, we got green, but couldn’t make the leap to ‘Lincoln Green’, which is frustrating as it means that we missed a clean sweep…

…things tumble a little with Thursday’s crossword, we had to cheat on 8.00% of the clues (aka two out of 25). Although this was an easier grid to work through, except for the two we didn’t get, but we didn’t know the answers, or could have guessed them. So, we learnt that the ‘bass clef’ is the ‘musical mark on a stave to indicate low notes’ and that ‘Nubia’ is an ‘ancient region of north-east Africa, now part of southern Egypt and northern Sudan’…

…and things go pretty okay with Friday’s crossword, we had to cheat on 9.52% of the clues (a la two out of 21), not a bad performance, but not the best we’ve done, especially as it wasn’t a particularly chewy grid. And we learnt that ‘emmets’ are also known as ‘ants’ and that ‘Pembroke’ is a ‘town in south-west Wales, with a Norman castle where Henry Tudor, later King Henry VII, was born’, which is nice to know…and we end the crossword week with not much to say, ‘cos the little grey cells smashed the 24 clues, and we didn’t have to cheat on any of them! Whoop, whoop, well done the little grey cells…a grand way to end the crossword week and much better than last week…

…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a grand start, as the little grey cells powered through the clues, so much so that we only had to cheat on 4.00% of the clues (aka one out of 25). We only stumbled on ‘in a maladroit manner’ and not getting ‘ineptly’, which in hindsight we should have gotten, but a damn fine start to the crossword week…

…and the grand start continues with Tuesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on 4.17% of the clues (a la one out of 24). Slightly annoyed that we didn’t a clean sweep, as the clue we didn’t solve, ‘computer programs’, and answer we didn’t get, ‘software’, is so obvious! We just couldn’t get it, we were thinking off stuff around apps, applications, etc. Maybe it was too obvious! But still a grand performance…

…and we’re still grand with Wednesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on 4.55% of the clues (one out of 22). I am a little worried that the little grey cells will burn themselves out soon, but so far they are smashing it! We only stumbled on not knowing that a ‘Dugong’ is also known as a ‘sea cow’, which I don’t think that we could have guessed…

…and we stumble with Thursday’s crossword, but not too much, as we had to cheat on 11.53% of the clues (aka three out of 26). Not a terrible performance, but not a great one compared to the rest of the week! And we should have gotten ‘acoustics’ from ‘science of sound waves’! But we did learn that ‘Vingt-et-un’ means ‘Pontoon’ and that ‘Desdemona’ is ‘Othello’s wife’… 

…looks like yesterday’s performance was a blip, as Friday’s crossword goes better and we only had to cheat on 8.33% of the clues (a la two out of 24). And those two we didn’t know, although we could have guessed ‘Keats’ from ‘poet who wrote Ode to Autumn’, but we did learn that the ‘bone in the forearm’ is called a ‘ulna’, which is nice to know…

…and Saturday’s crossword ends the crossword week on a damn fine note, as the little grey cells powered through the clues and aced them all! A clean sweep! We didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues! Whoot! Whoot! Roll on next week’s crosswords… and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the crossword week off to a cracking start. The little grey cells powered through the clues like a hungry man through a Bovril, honey, jam, mature cheddar cheese and cucumber sandwich! We only had to cheat on 4.17% of the clues (a la one out of 24), having gotten stuck on ‘bird symbolic of the RSPB’, not knowing that that bird is an ‘Avocet’. A pretty grand way to start the crossword week, but will it continue…

…the little grey cells continued their tip top clue solving, powering through all the 24 clues, only having to cheat on 4.17% of them (aka one out of 24). We couldn’t get ‘renege’ from ‘renounce – revoke (cards)’, but hopefully it is now lodged in the ole memory bank! A fair few of the clues felt more on the cryptic side than the quick side, but they were nice to chew over…

…and we crash down to Earth a tad with Wednesday’s crossword! We had to cheat on 16.67% of the clues (a la four out of 24). We did learn that an ‘espresso with small quantity of foamed milk’ is a ‘macchiato’ and that ‘Catnip’ is part of the Mint family, but we should have gotten ‘poppycock’ from ‘malarkey’ (especially as a Pop Will Eat Itself fan!) and ‘criterion’ from ‘standard of judgment ‘. Just a chewy grid and we couldn’t get a proper handle on it…

…things pick up a tad with Thursday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on 9.09% of the clues (also known as two out of 22). The little grey cells have bounced back and most of the answers came easily enough, except for ‘espy’ from ‘catch’ and ‘epicure’ from ‘gastronome’, which we have had before, so we really should have gotten it, maybe it’ll stick in the ole memory bank this time…

…Friday’s grid was pretty chewy, but the little grey cells managed to power through all the 24 clues without having to cheat on any of them! A clean sweep, baby1 Which is nice, but can we repeat it tomorrow? Let’s find out…

…and we can’t repeat the clean sweep, but we do get close with Saturday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on 4.00% of the clues (aka one out of 25). So, pretty good going! And we learnt that ‘balsam’ is a ‘fragrant resinous substance’, so, yeah, a pretty good outing…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the crossword week off to a wobbly start, as we had to cheat on 12.00% of the clues (aka three out of 25). Not the best of starts, but we did learn that ‘Alsace’ is an ‘eastern French region’, that ‘oakum’ is ‘loose fibre from old rope’ and ‘orotund’ is a synonym for ‘pompous’, so we did the best that we could, but hopefully the rest of the week will go better… 

…and we’re doing better with Tuesday’s crossword. Had to cheat on 8.33% of the clues (two out of 24), but we didn’t know the answer to those two clues. So, we did the best we could and learnt that a ‘Latin American plain’ is known as a ‘Llano’ and that ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ is a 1790 opera buffa by Mozart, which is nice to know…

…and we’re back to being wobbly with Wednesday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on 13.64% of the clues (aka three out of 22). But, again we didn’t know the answers to those three clues, so, we did the best we could. Which means that we learnt that ‘ab initio’ is the Latin for ‘from the start’, that ‘Raglan’ is the name of a ‘coat – Crimean war commander’ and that ‘dudgeon’ is a synonym for ‘indignation’. Hopefully things will pick up for the rest of the week… 

…which goes okay, pretty much like the rest of the week. We had to cheat on 7.69% of Thursday’s clues, but we didn’t know the answer to those two, so it’s a kinda of clean sweep, of the clues we knew the answers to. We learnt that an ‘oral exam’ is also called a ‘viva’ and that ‘Donizetti’ is the ‘Italian composer of Don Pasquale’…

…Friday’s crossword is pretty much a repeat of the other crosswords this week, in that the clues we didn’t get, we couldn’t get, we just didn’t know the answers. So, we had to cheat on 8.33% of the clues (aka two out of 24), but we learnt that that ‘ascetic’ means ‘practising self-denial’ and that the answer to ‘case in Latin, German, etc’ is ‘dative’, which means “(in Latin, Greek, German, and some other languages) denoting a case of nouns and pronouns, and words in grammatical agreement with them, indicating an indirect object or recipient” or “a noun or other word in the dative case”…

…and we end the crossword week on a high note, as we didn’t have to cheat on any of Saturday’s 24 clues! The little grey cells either knew the answers or were able to figure them out, woot! Woot! Let’s see if this carries over into next week’s crosswords…