Iesus Non Amat Me

Birthday presents!

Yes, the world has completed yet another lap around the sun and I am another year older.

Last year I celebrated my birthday by building the Lego NES. This year I am building the Lego Grand Piano. For background viewing I watched Anne of the Thousand Days (after visiting Hever Castle on Sunday I was on a bit of an Anne Boleyn kick) and have now started The Queen's Gambit, which is really good and makes me wish I was better at chess!

I'm about a third of the way through the build and it doesn't look much like a piano yet:



It's getting there though. The bar turns, which is good for future key movement.

Also, I found it a fun coincidence that Sporcle released a piano themed badge today. I made sure to earn it today too.

My birthday cake was a Jempson's chocolate cake that I bought in Rye. I have very fond memories of their chocolate cakes and it lived up to all of them! I do plan to make a proper post about my trip, but most likely later in the week. For now I'm celebrating turning another year older with a glass of Gusbourne Brut Reserve (also a souvenir from my trip that I'll talk about in more detail later):



Also pictured: Rye sheep. Plus I'm using the Bayeux Tapestry glasses which also keep with the theme!

And finally, here is my epic birthday poem:

Has it really been an entire year
Since I mentioned being prime on here?
37 seemed to zoom on by
Time to give 38 a try

So, a few things have happened since I last updated:

1. I got my second Covid jab a week ago, which means that a week from today I will be fully vaccinated and able to go to all the nightclubs I want. Which is zero.

2. Last weekend saw Rob's and Mum's birthdays so he came up to visit. I once again made Mum work for her presents:



There were eight bookmarks, each with a different type of cipher on, which she had to decode. Then she had to sort the results into four pairs. Every bookmark had a different colour tassel and the Happy Birthday card had various flowers with different coloured petals. She had to find the petal colours that corresponded to the tassel pairs and take the numbers at the centre of those flowers. One of the colours of each pair also corresponded to one of the colours on the padlock, which is how she could tell which number went where. And, simple as that, she had access to her presents.

But, to be honest, most of Mum's birthday was focused on something else. Because that was the day that we went to Battersea. Which brings me to the most exciting event that has happened recently:

3. WE GOT A DOG!



His name is Tormund and apparently he's a Collie crossed with a Portuguese Podengo. As I said, he's from Battersea and the whole process went really quickly. We noticed him on the website on Wednesday. I emailed them on Thursday. They phoned Friday while I was at work and had a long conversation with Mum. They then video called us later that day so we could both see Tormund and how he behaved and wanted to know if we were still interested, which of course we said we were. The vet nurse called me on Saturday and gave me various details about his health and what they've done since he's been there. Then on Sunday Rob drove us up and we brought him home.

I thought it would take longer and they might ask us to visit a few times, but they said that it would be better to get him settled in a home and he'd warm up to us there. So that's what we've done. He's free to take himself off and hide in an empty room if he wants, which he does sometimes, but other times he chooses to stick near us and seems perfectly happy. Often he'll lay down near where I'm sitting and he sleeps in my room so I think he likes me.

He also seems to like the cuddly dog that I have by the side of my bed:





SO CUTE!

I know I have made absolutely no attempt to hide my love of September in the past, and I'm not going to start now. I'm so pleased my favourite month is here! Although, having said that, I have no idea what it's going to be like this year when everything is so weird and time has lost all meaning.

The weather is already turning chilly, which I'm grateful for. And there's a lovely autumnal feel in the air. I can almost taste it and I love the way it invokes all these memories and feelings within me, taking me back to years gone by. Of course the downside of this is that I'm feeling some serious travel-withdrawal! Although we had planned to go on holiday in June this year (which obviously didn't happen), in previous years we've often gone in September/October time so my brain is very much in holiday mode right now. And this autumnal air keeps taking me back to Wales and Nova Scotia and Edinburgh and I wish I was going somewhere so badly!

Covid has also had an impact on some of my favourite TV shows. Normally by this point Bake Off would have started and we'd be coming up to the Strictly launch show in a few days, but both have been put back to later this year. I'm glad they've not been cancelled completely cos they're a big part of why I love this time of year so much, but I do wonder what they're going to be like.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for my birthday either. Going up to London for cocktails is out, and while going to visit somewhere interesting might be possible I can't imagine it'd be much fun with all the restrictions currently in place pretty much everywhere. I'll probably just stay at home and build Lego, which I do like, but I wish there was something a bit more special I could do for my birthday itself.

Pretty good haul for my birthday this year!

I'm not doing much today beyond relaxing at home. Tomorrow Paul and I are heading off for our week in Wales, which should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping it's not going to rain too much, but that may be a vain hope where Wales is concerned!

Mum and I will be drinking champagne and watching the Strictly launch show later, followed by take away pizza for dinner. I feel a bit at a loss right now though, like I should be doing something to celebrate but I'm not sure exactly what.

Either way, I couldn't let this day pass without my epic poem of birthday brilliance:

Ten years ago I was in a fix
For what to rhyme with twenty six
I find I still have no idea
So I'll just say cheers, here's to another year

I had last week off work, which was lovely and relaxing. I've only been back a day and I'm already counting down until my next time off!

Mum's birthday was last week and, as is now my tradition, I locked up her presents and made her solve puzzles in order to get to them:



Can't make things too easy, now can we?

I've also started my Dark Angel rewatch. dustinw5220 and I thought this would be a good time to do it since it's set in the far flung future that is 2019. It's interesting to see how much I've forgotten in the years since the last time I saw any episodes. More than I expected, to be honest!

It was my Mum's birthday a couple of weeks ago and knowing how much she likes puzzles I decided to give her a bit of a challenge in order to get to her presents:



She had to put together four jigsaws, solve the picture riddles that were on those jigsaws, and use the resulting code to open the lock on the bag containing her presents. I think she enjoyed it.

~*~

Last weekend I went to Emma's house for the next stage of our Marvel Movie Marathon. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron while gorging on obscene amounts of chocolate and pizza. And one of the best things about going to Emma's house is that I get to see her cats. Gizzy is a bit shy and didn't come to see us much, but Moose curled up in her chair and joined us for most of the evening, which was adorable. And so, naturally, I had to take loads of pictures:

( Kitty )

So cute!

~*~

Earlier today Mum and I went for a walk around Frensham Pond for our first trip there without Tilly. It felt strange not having her with us but I think it's good to still go for walks, and I wanted to take my new camera on an outing. The LCD screen is really bad in bright sunshine so I had to rely on the viewfinder, and I do miss the long zoom my compact camera had, but overall I'm still really pleased with the A6000:

( Great Pond )

Normally that heather would be a beautiful purple colour, but the recent heatwave has clearly taken its toll.

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you're all doing well. As promised, here is a proper post about my birthday week, pictures and all:

( Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? )

( I've Been Up To London to Visit the Queen )

It's FRIDAY! Possibly even CAPSLOCK FRIDAY if I decide I want to revive this tradition from eight years ago.

I may even start a NEW tradition of doing a weekly round-up. Or maybe not. I'm doing one now cos this week has actually been pretty good:

Sunday - Rob's birthday. He and Meg came down for the weekend, which was very nice. The three of us chatted about Game of Thrones, which I am still annoyingly behind on, but I did enjoy being able to talk about it with other people who actually watch the show. And we all watched the announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the next Doctor. The general consensus was positive, although we all have different opinions on who the best Doctor so far has been (Me: Smith, Meg: Tennant, Mum: Eccleston, Rob: No opinion.)

Monday - Blood doning. I was worried they weren't going to take my blood cos the nurse did the haemoglobin test three times, but it was fine in the end. Actually I think it was fine the first time cos I really don't think it moved back up at all, but the nurse wasn't sure so she did it again. The second one got caught at the top, but the third one went down perfectly.

Tuesday - Mum's birthday. I gave her a bee hotel, which we have now hung up in the garden. It's south-facing and under a bit of shelter, so I hope the bees will approve.

Wednesday - Throwing Stuff Away Day. We'd stalled a bit on clearing the house so I was glad to get more done. We threw away two boxes full of old junk that Dad had kept because he thought it might be useful. Unfortunately a reluctance to throw anything away is a family trait that has been passed on to me, but I'm trying to do better. At least with this stuff there was no temptation to keep it cos it was totally useless to me.

Thursday - Not a huge amount happened, but I did show my age and had a nap when I got in from work.

Friday - Baked cakes for the bake sale at work tomorrow. I'm not working myself, but I am planning to head in fairly early and drop them off. I made 24 but have kept some back for Mum and me. Just to make sure they're of good enough quality to take in, of course. I wouldn't want to have my name associated with poor quality baked goods.

And now I am sitting here writing this while drinking Apothic Dark wine and listening to the rain outside. It feels wonderfully autumnal, which is perhaps not appropriate for July but then I did eat a perfectly ripe blackberry the other day, so who knows what's going on any more.

It's my birthday and I'm old! And possibly the slightest bit tipsy. We had champagne out on the patio earlier, and I'm currently drinking red wine cos we've just had dinner and yeah... slightly tipsy.

We went to Alresford today, which wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped it would be. But more interesting is the fact that this was the first year in a long time that I wasn't aware of the exact moment I turned a year older. Usually I'm watching the clock and am ready to mark the minute it happens, but today I just suddenly looked at the time and realised it had passed and I was officially 32. I wonder if that means anything.

I got a lot of lovely presents, including Doctor Who Cluedo and University of Kent Monopoly (I didn't even realise that latter one was a thing that existed until I opened it!) Mum has so far beaten me twice at DW Cluedo, which I find rather unacceptable on my birthday, but I am currently winning our game of University of Kent Monopoly. I am rather put out that she owns Keynes College though. That was MY college. I'm a Keynes alumna. I should own it, dammit!

I'm feeling quite sleepy and drunk and should probably go to bed soon. I might watch a River/Doctor episode of Doctor Who first though, to end the day on a high note.

It was six years ago today that we brought her home from the rescue centre, and to celebrate I have made her a doggy birthday cake. That second picture shows her reaching out to pull it towards us as I was trying to take photos so I think it was a success!

Tilly got the first slice, of course, and seemed very happy with it. I tried a bit myself and it was actually not too bad!