Days 3362 to 3368

Aka Monday 5th February to Sunday 11th February 2024

The big thing this week is that my nephew/niece has gotten a full-time care placement, which is great news, but the bad news is that it’s in Scotland! So, visiting is going to be less regular and getting there might be a problem and once there they’ll be so far away. A bittersweet moment, they’re going to get the full hep they need, but won’t be close to home…except there was an issue with the paperwork, so it was pushed back to next week…which also meant that I called off Sunday’s Morning Walk, partly as I felt rough when I woke up and it was rainy and cold looking outside, so I decided to go back to bed! Plus I want to save my energy for next week’s trip to Scotland!…more mundane things that happened this week is picking up some comic book beauties:

…collected some small Lottery winnings:

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and there’s not much to say as we kick off the first crossword week of February 2024, as the little grey cells kung-fu’d their way through Monday’s 21 clues, getting a clean sweep in double quick time!!! But will this last for the whole week? Let’s find out…and I did Tuesday’s G2 Crossword:

…and Tuesday’s crossword was so chewy! Didn’t think we were going to do very well, but in the end, we did do pretty okay, solving 91.30% of the clues (aka 21 out of 23). Slightly ticked off that we didn’t get ‘Laurel’ from ‘shrub or tree with shiny green leaves’, as it’s an obvs one in hindsight! But we did learn that an ‘Ammonite’ is a ‘coil-shaped fossil’…and I did Wednesday’s G2 Crossword:

…and the chewiness continues with Wednesday’s crossword! Again, didn’t think we’d do well with this one, but after being careful and not jumping the gun, we managed to solve 90.48% of the clues (a la 19 out of 21). We did make a slight cock up with ‘He’s a weakling’, we went with ‘millsop’, but we were one letter out as the answer is ‘milksop’ <shaky head emoji>. And we learnt that ‘Imperialism’ was the ‘foreign policy of Ancient Rome’, was is kinda super obvs in hindsight, but we just couldn’t get, but it need give us the key for a couple of the intersecting words…and I did Thursday’s G2 Crossword:

…the crosswords this week have been super chewy and Thursdays was the chewiest by far! After much effect the little grey cells managed to solve 86.97% of the clues (aka 20 out of 23), which is way better than I thought we’d do! But it does mean that we learnt that a ‘bully off’ is how you ‘start a game of hockey’ and that Karl Baedeker was a ‘German publisher known for travel guides’ and we’re like super annoyed that we didn’t get ‘where’ from ‘I Know ___ I’m Going!: 1945 Powell and Pressburger film’, as it’ super obvs that the answer is ‘where’, but I was sure that is was someone’s name and got lost in those weeds and missed the obvs answer…and I did Friday’s G2 Crossword:

…the chewiness continues with Friday’s crossword, I don’t know if we’re too sleepy or in a cognitive decline bleep or if the clues are tougher, but these grids have been tough! After grinding out the answers the little grey cells managed to solve 91.30% of the clues (also known as 21 out of 23). Somehow we missed ‘afoot’ from ‘going on’, which is annoying, but we did learn that ‘Igneous’ rock is created by volcanic activity…and I did Saturday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we end the crossword week with another super chewy crossword! Another one where our initial run through only gave a couple of answers! But, in the end we managed to solve 92.00% of the clues (aka 23 out of 25), but only after a lot of thinking time. The little grey cells were a tad burnt out by the end of it…which is probably why we didn’t get ‘errant’ from ‘wayward’ and ‘nicety’ from ‘subtle distinction’ (although I would say that it isn’t a very good clue, I would never think that they are synonyms for each other!)…hopefully the little grey cells will rest up over the rest of the weekend and be back to fighting fit form on Monday…and I did the Metro's cryptic crosswords:

Days 3358 - 3361

Aka Thursday 1st February to Sunday 4th February 2024

A pretty quiet few days, I picked up some New Comic Book Day gems, including 'Geezer', a Britpop expose/send-up, or maybe just a fun read set in the heyday of Britpop:

…got the new ‘Uncut’:

…I’m not a big fan of the bands on the cover, so there wasn’t much to read, aside from the reviews, news and featurettes, but the cover CD was fairly decent. The ever-excellent Jesus and Mary Chain had a taster, ‘JAMCOD’ from their new album and it sounds great. ‘Moonstruck’ by Sheer Mag, ‘Disbelieving’ by The Hanging Stars, ‘Lunar Fire’ by Dean McPhee all perked up my ears, while ‘Wrong Way Round’ by The Bevis Frond, ‘Here Is Dull Earth (edit)’ by Francis Plagne and ‘One Wish’ by Charles Moothart, are good enough to make me investigate the back catalogues…and I watched ‘White Boy Rick’:

…which “is loosely based on the story of Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14” and it’s…okay, nothing special, just okay. It’s well written, acted, costumed, set dressed, etc. but it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything new or exciting and is pretty much your typical crime/informer story. I wouldn’t recommend that you go out of your way to watch it, but if you turn on the telly and it’s on or you’re flicking through Netflix on a rainy day, it’s an okay watch…and I ended this week by taking a Morning Walk:

…covering 6.4km in one hour, 18 minutes and 27 seconds, which took 8,495 steps and burnt 603 calories…and collecting some small Lottery wins:

…and I did Thursday’s G2 Crossword:

…Thursday’s crossword went pretty okay, we solved 92.31% of the clues (aka 24 out of 26), but, in hindsight we should have gotten ‘lieu’ from ‘(in) stead’ and ‘butterfly’ from ‘comma or gatekeeper, perhaps’, especially as we had the intersecting letters. Just an average performance really, not great, not bad, just meh…and I did Friday’s G2 Crossword:

…things tick up a tich with Friday’s crossword, we solved 95.83% of the clues (a la all bit one, a la 23 out of 24). This one felt better than yesterday’s, even though we didn’t get a clean sweep, it felt like a more involved solving. And we learnt that ‘amenity’ means ‘convenience’…and I did Saturday’s G2 Crossword:

…and this crossword week, the last of the first month of 2024, ends on a damn solid note, as the little grey cells solved 91.67% of the clues (also known as 22 out of 24). There were a couple of tricky ones, some chewy ones, but we got them all, except of the two we couldn’t. All we could do was guess and we guessed wrong, but that means that we learnt that ‘Hatha’ is a ‘Yoga style involving breathing techniques’ and that ‘Banjo’ Paterson was an Australian poet who wrote the words to ‘Waltzing Matilda’, which is nice to know…and I did a few Metro cryptic crosswords:

Days 3345 - 3357

Aka Friday 19th January to Wednesday 31st January 2024

The biggest thing that happened for this chunk of January was E, my nephew/niece’s birthday. They got out of the unit and were able to go bowling, go to the local cat café and role-play as one of their characters.

This was the first time that I saw them in their role-play outfit (the backstory here is that they have several characters, with different traits, that they feature in their stories, and they like to dress as and role-play as that character. And from what they say, it seems that these characters allow them to interact with the world in a way that they can’t when they are themselves). The only “downside” is that their characters are female presenting and they are not, so during the day, we did worry about what other people would say or do, but the worst that happened was a couple of odd looks.

But I’m kinda getting ahead. The first thing we did (my sister and me) was to pick them, and a nurse, up from the unit, getting the train into town and going to the bowling alley, for a fun couple of games. As I say, they were role-playing and seemed very different, like a weight had been taken off of them and they were just lots more comfortable and outgoing. They even asked for their picture to be taking, which they would never do as “themselves”.

We then went to the local cat café for lunch, as they love cats, and it was cool. I have a bit of a cat allergy, so got a bit sniffy and itchy, but they really enjoyed it and the food and chatting to the staff. And after a while of playing with/watching the cats, we went back to the unit for a birthday dinner and then it was time for us to go.

It was a really nice day, they were much happier and outgoing (due to the role-playing) than I had seen them in a long time. It was like this was the real them. It was sad that they are still at the unit and we had to leave them there, but hopefully we’ll get them back soon…

…and on Sunday 21st I went for a Morning Walk:

…which covered 6.4km in one hour, 17 minutes and 55 seconds, burning 604 calories in 8,461 steps. And while walking a listened to ‘A Kaleidoscope Of Sounds: Psychedelic & Freakbeat Masterpieces’, a groovy collection of garage rock nuggets…after which I had the week off, but was too skint to do anything…but I had plenty of food, snacks, books, music, etc to have an enjoyable time and it wasn’t that long till payday…although it’s important to note that I’m like seven months behind!!! So, the rest of the month (and the next few) will be a rush through!!! Starting with getting these magazines:

…I got ‘Mojo’ mostly for the nice The Blues Brothers article, covering the history of The Blues Brothers and the soon to be published book about The Blues Brothers, which made me pre-order the book! I also got it for the reviews, short articles (there was a nice on the latest Jesus & Mary Chain album) and the free CD of “15 sky-scraping songs”, which I found mostly to be meh (unfortunately). The only song I outright liked was ‘The Way You Wear Your Head’ by Nada Surf, while Brendan Benson’s cover of Wings’ ‘Let Me Roll It’ and Gaz Coombes ‘Love Live The Strange’ were okay, not great, but not terrible…

…and these albums:

…and these comics:

…and these Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:

…and on Wednesday 24th I picked up my first Lottery win of the year:

…and got some another Lego Marvel mini-figure:

...and the latest 'Lego Batman' magazine:

…and I did Friday’s G2 Crossword:

…and the repetitiveness continues with Friday’s crossword! Again, we solved all bit one of the 23 clues, a 95.65% success rate and it would have been a clean sweep, if we had known that a ‘Renaissance part-song’ is called a ‘Madrigal’! Aside from that the little grey cells powered through the clues like a hot knife through butter…surely we must be heading for a super tough grid…and I did Saturday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we end a very successful crossword week on a very, very slightly sour note, as the little grey cells could solve 92.00% of the 25 clues. But on the bright side, the two clues we didn’t solve, we had no hope of solving, as we just didn’t know the answers. So, we learnt that a ‘Muezzin’ is the ‘person calling Muslims to prayer’ and that ‘Seneca’ was a ‘Roman tragedian’. So, not a bad performance today, and a damn fine performance for the whole week…and I did Monday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we get this crossword week off to a flying start as the little grey cells solved 96.00% of the clues! There was only one of the 25 clues that we couldn’t get, and that’s because we didn’t know that ‘osier’ is ‘basketry material’…but we do now! The rest of the clues were pretty straightforward, or they were once we got the intersecting letters, like with ‘Shibboleth (3, 4)’. We got the intersecting letters and the first thing that came to mind was ‘tag lines’, which kinda fitted in with our understanding of what Shibboleth means. Roll on the rest of the crossword week… and I did Tuesday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we’re still flying with Tuesday’s crossword, as the little grey cells solved 95.83% of the clues (aka 23 out of 24)! The only stumbling block was us not getting ‘mournful’ from ‘gloomy’, which seems obvs in hindsight, but still a damn solid performance…but will it continue…and I did Wednesday’s G2 Crossword:

…and there’s not much to say about Wednesday’s crossword as the little grey cells smashed it!!! A clean sweep! None of the 22 clues could hide their answers from the little grey cells! Woot! Woot!…and I did Thursday’s G2 Crossword:

…we don’t get a clean sweep with Thursday’s crossword, but get as close as possible, with the little grey cells solving 96.15% of the clues (a la 25 out of 26). Not bad going for such a chewy grid. Initially I did think that there were loads of clues we wouldn’t solve, but with a little patience, lateral thinking and intersecting letters we got them all, except for ‘charmless’ from ‘unpleasant, without redeeming qualities’. Yep. Not bad going…and I did Friday’s G2 Crossword:

…and the almost-a-clean-sweep-ness continues with Friday’s crossword, we solved 95.83% of the clues. Only failing to get one of the 24 clues, we didn’t get ‘veiled’ from ‘hidden’, we had all the intersecting letters and were going through the alphabet, asking does it look like it starts with an A or a B or a C, etc, but we gave up when we got to T! If only we’d carried on a little, we might have gotten ‘veiled’ and a clean sweep! C’est la vie, I guess…and I did Saturday’s G2 Crossword:

…and Saturday’s crossword was super chewy! At one point we thought that we would only get half the answers at best! But in the end the little grey cells managed to solve 79.17% of the clues (aka 19 out of 24). Like I said a super chewy grid; resulting in our worst performance of the year! But on the bright side of the five answers we didn’t get, there was only one that should have known – ‘macchiato’ from ‘espresso topped with steamed milk’. Which means that we learnt that the ‘Higher prelate’s office’ is the ‘Archdiocese’, that ‘malediction’ is a ‘hex’, that a ‘scherzo’ is “a vigorous, light, or playful composition, typically comprising a movement in a symphony or sonata” and we learnt that ‘Cote Divoire’ is a ‘country within South Africa’…I guess we had to fall at some point, but hopefully this will be the lowest/hardest that we get…and I did Monday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we get this crossword week off to a very solid start, which was a bit of a minor miracle, as this was a very chewy grid and when we started, we didn’t have high hopes. But in the end, we solved 92% of the clues (also known as having to cheat on 8% of the clues, also known as 23 out of 25 clues were solved!). We only stumbled on not knowing that ‘chintz’ is a ‘patterned cotton fabric, often with a floral design’ and that carrots and radishes are ‘taproot’…and I did Tuesday’s G2 Crossword:

…and there isn’t much to say about today’s crossword, as the little grey cells smashed all 24 of the clues!!! Whoop! Whoop!...and I did Wednesday’s (and the last for January 2024) G2 Crossword:

…and we almost got a second clean sweep with Wednesday’s crossword, solving 95.45% of the clues (a la 21 out of 22). It took a tad longer to solve, but the little grey cells managed to get this grid under control, except for not getting ‘tawdrier’ from ‘less tasteful’, which is slightly annoying, but still a good performance…and I did a load of the Metro's cryptic crossword: