Day 784

Day 784...

Well I think this is the first time I've stopped today and I'm writing while waiting for Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to start.

We are visiting a local cinema in Derby called The Quad and for the first time are in their screen called 'The Box'. Probably one of the smallest screening rooms I've been in and it's kitted out with comfy chairs and sofas!!! 

But my day has been spent in work catching up with my deputy manager who has returned after a few days away. We've also been getting ourselves ready for our AGM which is tomorrow evening. So a busy day at work.

Once home I had a work email to send and to chase a couple of my own things while enjoying a coffee. Then it was time for our butchers delivery; 4kg steak mince, 2 kg chicken, 4.5kg bacon, 10 pork steaks, sirloin steaks, burgers and 100 sausages! Which then all needed splitting into portions to be frozen.

With that all sorted it was then time to cook dinner; a quick and easy keto chicken parmesan and while that was cooking we bought our cinema tickets online. Which then gave me enough time to eat dinner, get changed and head out the door.

A great film with plenty of action and probably more questions than answers but an enjoyable and quick couple of hours.

See you tomorrow.
xx

 

Day 727

Day 727...

So we are now back into our usual routine of Monday's being our non-working day of the week and as I have four full days in work ahead of me we made the most of the day.

We headed off towards Derby with the intention of grabbing a coffee after making use of the jet wash at the garage next door to the Starbucks to get the car looking clean once more. We had to wait a little while for the jet wash to become free and while waiting I got a text to say that the shoes we'd ordered yesterday were ready to be collected...about an hour earlier than we'd expected. Well done, Next!

So with a clean car we took a short trip to pick up the shoes followed by driving into Derby for the aforementioned coffee and a trip to the cinema. We have a lovely cinema called The Quad which is an independent cinema and also a charity that supports various art and cultural exhibits. We enjoyed a coffee in their cafe before settling down to watch The Batman.

The great thing was that we almost had the cinema to ourselves; I think there were just three other people in the audience. We only had to sit through a couple of trailers for other films and thankfully no adverts before the movie; I always hate having to endure fifteen minutes of adverts before even getting to the trailers never mind the movie. And as The Batman was almost three hours long we appreciated the lack of pre-show 'stuff'.

Simon has always been a Batman fan and while I've seen a few of the movies over the years this was not something I'd considered a 'must-see' but having heard a few very positive reviews we decided to give it a go. And boy were we happy that we did; such a great film. Very dark and broody with great performances, some brilliant action sequences and lots of call outs to the source material.  And the three hours seemed to whizz by.

We took a quick detour on the way home to check out a sofa bed that we had found online as that needs to be a purchase for our upstairs room as we convert it into more of a study/craft room. Back home and Simon jumped on the exercise bike for a little zone two training while I sorted some more jigsaw pieces.

Monday done, see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 613

Day 613...

The day started off like most Sundays do with a trip to Asda to collect our weekly grocery shop. Slightly infuriating as their app wasn't working properly so I couldn't 'tell them I was on my way' but when we got to the store the colleague on duty recognised us and we seemed to get our shopping before anyone else...obviously pays to be a regular!

After we'd returned home and put all the shopping away we decided to have an afternoon out in Nottingham and popped online to buy ourselves some cinema tickets.

Arriving in the city we were greeted by their annual Christmas market; so nice to see it back as last years had to be cancelled at the eleventh hour, although they haven't got the ice rink as in previous years.

Everywhere looking very festive and busy

We had the obligatory look around Primark and was able to pick up a Christmas present as well as a pair of Disney slip-on sneakers for me. In fact they are the same as the pair I currently have which I use for around the house, so wanted a back-up pair for when they fall apart!

We then went in search of coffee, finding our usual Caffe Nero to pop into, and remarked how much busier it was today than past weekends. On our way back to the car we decided to visit Forbidden Planet, not somewhere we visit that often and was an impromptu decision to do so with the aim being to have a look for possible Christmas presents.

And then I saw the section of Loungefly bags, the large amount of Disney Loungefly bags and then I saw just the cutest one and fell in love with it straight away. I picked it up and then put it back as I just couldn't justify what I deemed to be a frivolous purchase but Simon had other ideas. He insisted that I bought it...I said okay but only as an early birthday present...

How cute?!

We then headed just slightly out of the city centre to a small cinema that has been in existence since 1935. It is a great venue and with prices that are not as steep as the major chains and it was our first time in a cinema in forever. Although to be fair we were never regular cinema goers and only ventured out when something really compelled us...like a Star Wars or a Marvel or maybe a Pixar movie. 

But today it was Ghostbusters Afterlife; we'd seen a few reviews online that were really positive and remarked how much the fans were liking the movie so we decided to give it a go. Both of us are eager to make the most of opportunities to do 'normal' things like this before we are faced, yet again, with more draconian and intrusive measures especially as we hear about more lockdowns across europe along with the horror of vaccine passports and even worse mandated vaccines. But for today we were able to enjoy a little escapism.

And this was a good film, in fact we both absolutely loved it. It respected the original movie and honoured the ethos of films made around the mid 1980's. It was a great ride, it had all the effects you needed, a fabulous cast, it had laughs and it also made us both cry. I would recommend anyone to go see this movie, take some tissues with you and then stay till the very end...the very end of the credits...don't be fooled by the 'post-credit scene' stay a little longer!

And there we have a very enjoyable Sunday. See you tomorrow.
xx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 5

5th December

So one of my favourite ways to get in the Christmas mood is to snuggle down on the sofa, with drinks and nibbles and watch Christmas movies.  Now I'm not fussy which movies I watch as long as there is a Christmas theme, which can mean sitting through some rather cheesy productions ;)

But my two favourite Christmas movies are two old classics; my first is White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye - just love this movie...oh and when they have the performance for the General I cry every time.  My second is 'It's a Wonderful Life' with James Stewart, I remember Simon introducing me to this film not long after we met (a lot of years ago!!) and fell in love with it as much as Simon had already, it's compulsory viewing in our house now!  We also have a copy of the movie poster hanging in our house, that we bought from the then Disney-MGM Studios at WDW a number of years ago!

My Christmas DVD/Blu-ray collection is fairly extensive....

and of course in amongst all these are a number of Disney ones!

At pre-school today we had a little television time, a quiet time for the children just after their lunch, and clearly the DVD we had playing wasn't grabbing their attention so I started to ask the children what they liked to watch at home.  After the usual children's television programs were mentioned one of the children mentioned Tinkerbell, then someone else said Cinderella and before you knew it I think we'd mentioned every Disney classic!  So the children, knowing my little Disney obsession, gave me a task...to bring in one of my Disney DVD's...a suitably Christmas themed one...

So I think Mickey may be the way to go but which one to choose?!!