Day 885

Day 885...

I think this will be a relatively short post today as I am writing it fairly late on in the day.

This morning our first job was to nip out to Asda to collect our grocery shop order. Once upon a time Asda was my go to supermarket of choice but lately I have become more and more frustrated with its lack of choice, lack of availability, poor substitutions and general price increases. I think going forward I will use them for big bulky items but keep the majority of my shopping to my local Lidl instead.

There was a little more shopping to be done today but that was online as I needed to place an order with the butchers that I use. So much easier to order great quality products, in bulk and for delivery on a day of my choosing.

After our lunch/brunch Simon and I decided to take a trip into Derby for a wander around and to pick up a few things. This involved stops at Paperchase, Damaged Society, Lakeland and of course Primark; quite an eclectic mix of shops today! We then took some time to enjoy a coffee at Caffe Nero before heading home.

Today has also been all about the 3D printer. Simon has been tinkering with it to get the best possible prints out of it and he has managed to get a few more pieces printed. It is now busy printing a larger section of the model Simon is creating and will be busy printing for the next 9 hours!

Simon has also managed to get some painting completed on some extra parts for his R2D2 as well as some digital painting for his latest art creation. My creative juices were a little more simpler and directed at my current jigsaw!

And with that I will see you all tomorrow.
xx 

Day 877

Day 877...

This morning we were up at our normal time as we had promised to play taxi service for Ethan. He had a day out planned with his work at a local paintball centre and he needed to be in Nottingham for 8.45am as they had arranged transport to get everyone to and from the centre.

Once we'd dropped Ethan off we decided that this mornings 'early morning walk' would be an urban one as we set off around Nottingham city centre. We quickly completed 2.4 miles in 43 minutes and ended up at our favourite Caffe Nero for a coffee.

Before we headed for home we had a quick stop by Primark because it would have been rude not to. And whilst there were a couple of Disney items that I was drawn to I decided not to bother as I wasn't 100% sold on them. We also nipped into Holland & Barret, the health food shop, as we wanted to pick up some Konjac noodles; these are low carb noodles, in fact they have zero carbs in them. We'd tried them last week and were pleasantly surprised by them and decided to get a few packets in. It's not something that I would tend to go for but I know that Ethan misses not having noodles or rice when I make a stir-fry so these are a good alternative for us.

Back home and Simon spent a few hours on and off throughout the day getting on with some work. This is not something that he would ordinarily do at a weekend but as they have a deadline fast approaching ahead of  'Gamescom' in Germany towards the end of the month he wanted to put in a few extra hours today. He'd expected his other team mates to also be online but no-one else appeared to be, but as we have a day out planned for tomorrow Simon wanted to get his extra hours done today.

I managed to complete my latest jigsaw and would you believe it I was a piece missing; that is two jigsaws that I have completed one after the other with missing pieces - how weird? 

Missing piece??

Now whether those pieces are hiding somewhere in the living room having got disturbed by having windows open and draughts coming through I don't know - only time will tell I suppose.

I have also been doing a little online searching for a hotel near Molly so that we can visit in a few weeks time. We have a hotel that we have used the last few times and I was hoping to find somewhere different but after searching I was back to our 'usual'. Not only was the cost either comparable or cheaper than others I looked at but it also has free electric vehicle charging points which obviously are a must for us.

It was then time to go and collect a very red, sweaty and knackered Ethan from Nottingham following his day paintballing. Now Ethan is not the most active of people and I think he will be feeling todays efforts for the next few days to come!

Simon has also been working on his next 3D print that will actually be something that we can both appreciate and will be something that we will display in our new study/craft room...I will reveal more as things progress. Suffice to say it's a decent size and at the moment is predicted to take over three and a half days and one kilo of filament!

And with that I think I will stop for the day as I am very hot and sweaty and need to cool down, have some food and watch some RuPauls Drag Race.

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 814 & 815 - The Weekend

I decided to write up 'the weekend' as one post as it has been a relatively quiet one.

Day 814 - Saturday...started very slowly and with a coffee to get us going we headed out for a not so early morning walk. We took a slightly different route to normal which turned out to be slightly shorter at just 1.8 miles, in 40 minutes.

After a very late breakfast/early lunch (maybe I should just call it brunch?!) we had an afternoon of catching up with a few bits and pieces. I managed to get all of the cataloguing of items from my dads house complete...finally! One of those jobs that seemed to take way longer than it should because searching the internet to figure out what things are is never as easy as you think it should be. Now I just need to figure out what to do with all the information I've gleaned.

Simon also had the task of replying to a retro game journalist who'd contacted him with some questions for an article all about the good old days of the Amiga, Rick Dangerous and gaming in the late 1980's and early 1990's! Simon managed to find an app that would convert a voice recording into text which meant he didn't have to type all of his responses as typing is a little awkward at the moment with a cast on his left arm!

A very quiet Saturday.

Day 815 - Sunday

We had a very slow start to the day as it was the first time in long while that we had no particular reason to be up and about.

But once we'd had a late breakfast we took off in the direction of Nottingham to have a wander and a mooch about. We had no real focus or intention, simply just thought it would be somewhere different to visit as it's been a few weeks and somewhere that was less likely to trigger Simon's hayfever!

It turned out to be a successful trip as we came away with a couple of t-shirts, a shirt and a pair of jeans for Simon and a t-shirt, dress, jumper and some make-up bits for me. Simon's shirt is unfortunately a little on the tight side over his arms (which he was quite pleased about!) so when we are in Nottingham next weekend (as we have a Dr Sketchy's to attend) we will get it exchanged.

I couldn't resist a walk through Primark and as is the law I came away with a couple of Disney themed purchases...

T-shirt - front

T-shirt - back

Cute dress

The weather was lovely as we wandered about and by the time we headed home we'd walked just over 3.5 miles! So shopping and exercise in one go - win!

It was then back home for coffee and blog writing!

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 780

Day 780...

The weekend has arrived and we started with a prompt getting up as Simon had a barbers appointment just after 9am.

Once Simon had returned home we gathered ourselves together and headed off into Derby for a little shopping trip. I wanted to see if I could pick up a few birthday pressies (May is a busy month!) and it was also chance to get Ethan out for some clothes shopping.

Primark proved successful for me as I came away with two new Disney t-shirts, a Mickey Mouse themed cushion and some earrings. 

We stopped for a coffee mid-shop to keep us going although Ethan ended the trip empty handed. He's not too excited by shopping for clothes and is quite tricky to buy for. I'd hoped to be able to point him in the right direction but it was not to be today.

I did get asked twice today while we were out and about if I was a Disney fan; I think the themed trainers, jacket, t-shirt, earrings and handbag may have been a bit of a give-away. I was even able to hand out a business card for the Disney Dream Girls podcast!

Back home and it was an afternoon of sorting stuff out along with sitting in the sunshine with a coffee. I'd got solicitors paperwork to go through and needed to get together some more bits and pieces to take into their office next week. Not very exciting but necessary.

And so there ends this Saturday, see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 726

Day 726...

Sunday was another steady day and once we had completed the mundane task of fetching our weekly grocery shopping we headed out to Nottingham.

We had a mooch around the shops, stopped for a coffee and paid a visit to an art gallery.

The shopping involved the mandatory visit to Primark which resulted in a couple of Disney (what else?!) purchases...

We also managed to find a new pair of shoes for Simon although buying them proved to be rather tricky. We found them in House of Fraser but when Simon went to find a member of staff to assist him there were none around...absolutely no-one to be found, no-one at cash tills, no-one anywhere! They were obviously not interested in ours, or anyone else's custom! Thankfully the single shoes on display were in his size so he was able to try one on to see how it fit. We had a quick look online and knew we could buy them elsewhere for the same price or maybe a little cheaper. Once home we looked around, ordered a pair and will be able to pick them up from our local Next store tomorrow!

Our visit to Nottingham Contemporary art gallery left us both feeling a tad underwhelmed. In fact I would say that the items for sale in their shop were more interesting than the displays themselves. When we got to the final display and were told we needed to remove our shoes to look around we about-turned and walked out. There was nothing about the display that said to us it was worth walking around in our stocking feet for. A great way to turn people off from experiencing art!

Over the course of the day we have been talking more about what to expect when I walk away from my job at pre-school and what I would like to be doing with my time. At the moment while I am still working trying to think beyond is proving a little tricky and has confirmed that I can struggle to visualise more than a few concepts in my head at once. I can be rather singular focused and unwilling, or unable, to think beyond what I know is happening now and the near future.

I have a habit of organising my brain around what I know has to be done and when that has to be done and as a by product of working in education I visualise my time line in 'term dates'! These are habits that I will need to break myself out of going forward and learn to recognise that I will have the time to discover whatever it is that I want to discover.

Having watched a couple of YouTube videos of late and chatting with Simon I can see that I will need to make myself a list of all those things that I think I would like to try, those things that I haven't until now had the time to devote to trying or those things that I have dismissed as 'I can't do that'. I will have time to experiment and learn new skills and figure out how all that will feed into the next stage of my life. But for now I have to learn to think about what I may like to do, make a list and get excited for what may lay ahead.

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Saturday Shenanigans

Day 430...

So our Saturday morning in Bournemouth started quite early as we had arranged to meet up with one of Simon's work colleagues.

But it did mean we were early having our breakfast before the restaurant got too busy, although we still had to go through the pantomime of mask wearing. Wear your mask to walk into the restaurant, wear your mask while accessing the breakfast buffet but once at your table the mask can come off...where we were sat near other diners...again where is the common sense in all that? And that assumes that masks make a difference...which they don't! And all the tables were still as close to each other as they were last time we visited this hotel...so no masks at tables and effectively no social distancing...I don't get it at all, as I said it is all pure pantomime.

Oh and the breakfast buffet is now an assisted breakfast buffet because we can no longer help ourselves and touch the same implements yet there were some items that we could help ourselves to but with signs saying only touch what you want!! Argh!!

And I think we confused the server when we only wanted bacon, eggs and sausage and not the hash browns and baked beans! Low carb all the way!

All fuelled up we headed down to Bournemouth Pier to meet Simon's work colleague. So Simon works from home, and has done, for about 7 or so years but the company he works for is based not far from the South Coast. Prior to the pandemic Simon would visit the office once every few weeks or as needed but since the pandemic hit he hasn't seen any of his colleagues in person! But it just so happened that one of his colleagues was visiting family close by and had a new piece of equipment for Simon; a fancy graphics thingy!

We then found one of our favourite coffee shops, which we were so pleased to find open as there was the fear that the effects of the past 14 months may have caused it to close along with so many other small businesses. So we enjoyed an hour or so chatting and drinking really nice coffee.

After dropping the new tech back at tbe hotel we walked along the sea front from Bournemouth to Boscombe and then a little further before we headed back. Despite the grey sky and occasional rain we really enjoyed the walk and enjoyed being around other people as by the time we arrived back at Bournemouth Pier everywhere was pretty busy. We headed into the town centre with a view to have a wander which resulted in walking by Primark. There was a queue to get in and so we started to walk by and as we did so the queue started to move so we quickly diverted back and walked straight in. 

To be fair the shop seemed as busy as it would have done on any other day. But this was our first time in a non-essential retailer since March 2020, how ridiculous is that?! I made a beeline for the Disney section, of course, and came away with 2 tshirts, a sweat shirt and a pair of jeans (non-Disney) as well as a couple of bits for Molly!!

We then headed back to the hotel to put our feet up and try on my new purchases. We timed it well as not long after it decided to rain!

Next we paid Molly a visit at her boyfriend's house and had a guided tour of his 'gym'. Like we've done he has converted his garage into a gym over lockdown and has done a really good job.

We rounded the day out spending time with Molly's fella's family and enjoying an indian take away and lots of chatter.

Take care.

xx