Iesus Non Amat Me

Hello, and welcome to the second of my catch-up posts about things I've been doing recently.  If I were writing these entries in chronological order this one should be about my Festive Weekend with Paul.  But that's going to be a much longer entry, so instead I'm going to skip over that weekend and go straight to last Sunday when I went up to London for a teams puzzle event!

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This time last week I was in Leeds, ready for the very first official UK Jigsaw Puzzle Competition:

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I went to the new local cinema on Sunday!

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The skip is gone and the charity donations have been collected. I'm pleased with how much I was able to get out of the house, but I do feel a bit depressed when I look around and everything still looks really cluttered. But I am keeping at it. The Tech Recycle people should be coming on Monday to pick up my small electricals, which keep increasing in number as I find more and more things hidden around the place!

In a personal victory, I finally got rid of the two box files of stuff I brought back from Canada. I've always been a collector and a hoarder and I kept absolutely everything from that trip. Receipts, leaflets, business cards, bottle labels, plastic bags, napkins, you name it. I think I originally had an idea to make a scrapbook of it all, but obviously didn't do that, so I just kept everything like I would someday want to look back at it again. I feel at this point I should emphasise that this trip to Canada I'm referring to is not the one I went on in 2018. It's the one I went on in 2006. So these boxes have sat upstairs taking up space for nearly 20 years because I thought I might someday want to look back at them. And a few days ago I looked back at them and threw almost everything away. I did keep some bits cos it is nice to have a few souvenirs, but the majority is gone. A small part of me is worried I made the wrong choice cos I must admit that I did like looking at things and remembering the places I went to, but on the other hand I must acknowledge that doing so did make me rather sad cos I kept thinking about how much I loved that trip and how much it hurts that I'll never go on one like that again. It made me want to return to that time and the simple basic fact is that I can't. All I can do is remember it fondly and move forward. I have to learn to live in the present and not be held back by the past, and that's one of the hardest lessons that I'm learning from this decluttering journey.

In other news, it's Burns Night and I am enjoying a wee dram of whisky. It's the 30 Year Old Scotch that my brother got me for my 30th birthday, which anyone who saw my most recent birthday post will realise makes it over ten years old. So this is also decluttering, really. I just have to resist the urge to keep the pretty box once I've finished the bottle.

We're also having vegetarian haggis for dinner. I'm still not brave enough to try real haggis, but I've had the vegetarian version before and it was delicious so I'm looking forward to this.

Happy October, everyone! Ok, we're nearly two weeks into the month so I probably should have said that earlier but whatever. I'm saying it now. Although it does feel unseasonably warm. I want to enjoy the crisp autumn air but it's so sunny that I haven't even touched my big coat yet!

I did my now-usual walk into town on Friday and got a cinnamon roll from H&H. It was delicious but almost certainly negated any benefit I got from the walk!

On Monday we went up the woods again for the first time in over a month. The car has been out of action since early September and we've been walking Tormund down the rec. The rec is a nice place in itself, and Tormund certainly enjoys the space to run around in, but I hate the walk down and back. At one point the pavement gets really narrow on a bend with a house right up close so there's hardly any room. Tormund hates being close to the house and tries to pull out into the road, which is obviously not safe, so I have to pull him in or wait for a break in traffic so I can go on the road and keep him on my inside. I tried to find another path down, but there doesn't seem to be one unfortunately.

But, as I said, the rec itself is nice. And quite pretty at sunrise:



And of course I took photos of the woods when we went back there. We went for an afternoon walk on Monday so it was lovely and unseasonably sunny:

( Back to the Woods )

Speaking of woods, I'm trying to get into the autumn spirit as much as possible so I've started playing Night in the Woods. It's a very pretty game with an interesting storyline but there's not much gameplay involved. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, it's quite nice to have a game that's nice and relaxing. Well, apart from the Guitar Hero minigame, that is!

I'm also being seasonal with my drinks:



Pumpkin Spice Coffee Liqueur, Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cream Liqueur, and Blackberry Gin. And Ginny claiming them all for herself! So far I've only tried the coffee liqueur, but I'm looking forward to sampling them all.

And, finally, let's end this entry with a random picture of pretty leaves growing on my patio:

Hey all, I hope everyone is enjoying September so far. Here I am all excited for the weather to change so I can wear my pretty autumnal dresses and ankle boots and warm jumpers and instead we get some of the hottest days of the year!

The wedding went well. The train strikes caused a bit of bother but we made it. It wasn't an overly formal affair, which was nice. There were cocktails (I had an amazing one with rum and cinnamon that was set on fire before being served!) and dinner was Vietnamese street food. I saw some people I haven't seen in years, which was lovely. I tried dancing briefly but I'm so awkward and I hated it so I didn't make myself do any more. For such a social situation I thought I managed pretty well, even if I did feel a bit overwhelmed and worn out by the end. I felt completely wiped out on the Sunday. Fortunately the trains were back to normal so I was able to get home relatively easily, even though I spent the whole journey feeling like I was about to burst into tears.

So all in all it was a good weekend. And I am now the only unmarried member of our pub quiz team.

Farewell, 2022!

I have managed to stay up this time and I have prosecco next to me ready to see in the New Year. Hopefully it will be a good one!

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

I've had a very productive Christmas Eve. I wasn't working for the first time in years, which was lovely. I wrapped presents and then made eggnog, which I then enjoyed with one of my gingerbread biscuits while watching Muppet Christmas Carol. A truly classic way to spend the day!



Rob is home and presents are under the tree:



Including the one I've locked up for Mum. This time she's going to have to letter select from the answers to the questions in her Advent Calendar to get a sum to find the code to free her present. Such fun!



Also, have some Christmas selfies:

( Christmas Cheer )

My vanity knows no bounds.

It's December! Which means it's Christmas! Yes, I have decided that all of December is Christmas. I wore a Christmas jumper to work today, the radio played Fairytale of New York this morning, I have a festive theme for my journal, and I'm going to London tomorrow for my Festive Weekend.

It's also Advent Calendar time! I mentioned it to someone at work and they were like "Do you have an Advent Calendar then?" As if I'd only have one!



Our selection this year includes Laithwaite's wine, Exit escape room, Belinda Clark marshmallows, Anthon Berg chocolate liqueurs, Dairy Milk chocolate, Lily's Kitchen dog treats for Tormund, and the refillable one I made up again for Mum. This time she has questions/riddles to answer which will be necessary when it comes to decoding the lock to one of her presents come Christmas Day.

We've opened the first day on all of them and solved the first puzzle in the escape room. I've also eaten the marshmallows and my chocolate, as well as the chocolate liqueur. It was Scotch, so I had to have it cos Mum doesn't like whisky. What a hardship!

I rounded out my birthday week by heading up to Kingston for cocktails with Paul on Friday evening. We'd planned it before the Queen died and there was a bit of uncertainty about whether things would still be open or not, but I was glad to see that the country did not come to a grinding halt. It did give me an opportunity to play Count the Queen though. I saw her image 17 times.

We had some very nice cocktails. One of Paul's came in a toucan head, which I was very jealous about! We also saw another one come in a Monkey Head, which made me think of Monkey Island, but it turned out to be one that had almond in so I didn't go for it. Cool as it looked, I can't stand almond!

My drinks were more on the elegant side:

( So Refined )

And they all tasted really good too, which is the important thing!

We had dinner afterwards and brunch the next morning. This meant that I did miss King Charles's address to the nation and the Accession Council. I made sure to catch up with both when I got home, as well as watching the Official Proclamations around the country. I must admit that I do love all this stuff. I'm a huge fan of history and I've always found major historical events like this fascinating. To actually be living through one and experiencing it in real time is really exciting. I love all the pomp and ceremony and traditions. And this feels especially significant because Elizabeth II is the only monarch the vast majority of us have ever known. No offence to Charles, but I'm sure that when he dies it won't feel like quite as major an event. Even though it will still be the death of a monarch and a lot of the traditions and ceremonies will be the same, it just won't have the same significance as this does.

I've also been watching the coverage of her coffin, following its journey to Edinburgh and then London and the processions and services before the Lying-in-State. And while I know many people find it silly to queue up for ages to walk past a box, I must admit that part of me would really like to go to London and do just that. Because it's part of history. Even just being in The Queue is part of history, what with its own YouTube channel and Queue Tracker! But I fear the length of time involved would be too much for me.

I am really glad that my work has decided to close on Monday so I'll be able to watch the whole funeral. I had thought we'd probably stay open and I'd have to record it, but I'm happy to be wrong. And I'm pleased so many other places are doing the same. I think it's important that as many people as possible have the opportunity to watch the funeral as it happens. It is going to be a major historical event, after all!