Jackie was first, jetting in from the Mediterranean. Shaun and Myles came next, cruising home from the West Country. Then came Kayte, limping in after a 29-mile charity walk. And then finally me, I rocked up with my bat hand (still) having had some self-induced nausea that turned into a migraine. I’m getting the low-down […]
Read more
A weekend in charge of the allotment
The two Chief Allotmenters, Shaun & Myles, are currently on their jollies leaving lowly old me in charge. There’s going to be dead onions or murdered marrows — something is bound to happen. Anyway, before I know the damage of what I’ve done, I weeded, watered, and planted courgettes. I find weeding is thankless, watering […]
Read moreA long weekend of homework
Other than a few drinks and the allotment to celebrate Shaun’s birthday, and popping to the shop, I’ve been at home doing homework all weekend. I’ve got to give a presentation on the culture of death in Mexico on Wesdnesday. I’ve been doing my best work last minute again.
Read more
A weekend at a sleepover
Should someone turn to me all snooty-nosed to utter, “Aged 34, you’re a little old for a ‘sleepover’, aren’t you?” I’d agree thus: ‘Cause no-one’s ever too old for that. Saturday was meant to see Shaun, Myles, and me paddle-boarding at a local watersports-festival-come-bike-race, but Storm Hannah had other plans. Due to her high winds, […]
Read moreA long weekend for a tardy Easter
I don’t like a late Easter. I like Easter in late March / early April, when it should be, when I start thinking that I need a 4-day weekend for a bunny. As an apology for being late, I’m glad to see the weekend was warm. Friday cracked out the shorts, ate a Toby Carvery […]
Read moreA weekend 7 years after Shaun’s stag-do
Coincidentally, it’s the same weekend, 7 years ago, that I vowed to never arrange another stag do ever again. I remember the weeks and months leading up to Newquay started with me being a very gracious best man and ended with me giving stern words and ultimatums. (There’s always one who agrees to everything but […]
Read more
A weekend after an absolute tankload of driving
It all started with the crazy idea I had of driving up to see Laura in Newcastle. From Portsmouth, 340-odd miles. This idea grew into also visiting my parents in Wales, since I haven’t seen them in a while. I had a week off work — it seemed like a brilliant idea! I perused the […]
Read moreA weekend mothering
Visiting the parents… It’s like the twilight zone – need a sedative.
Read more
A weekend of work hard, play hard
Because, at long last, this year’s got Spring in its step, it is potato and onion planting time at the allotment! And Saturday’s job list was quick to say, ergo quick to do: Renew 2 plot-surrounds with Shaun’s fancy only-need-to-screw-together woodwork skills. Decant 3 compost bins over 6 plots. Plant onions in 4 plots, and […]
Read more
A weekend of science
SAFETY FIRST!!! Goggles, ✔︎ Lab coat ✔︎ Latex free gloves ✘ (Got me latex ones.) May I continue? Test tubes ✔︎ Bunsen burner ✔︎ Scrap of paper for scientific notations ✔︎ What I’m science’ing ✔︎ IT’S EXPERIMENT TIME!! With the wind howling a gale outside, Jackie and I wanted to prove that a 17-storey high-rise […]
Read moreA weekend to Barth
‘Cause I’z filthy
Read moreA weekend briefly in Myles’ doghouse
For a 4-year-old, his doghouse is cold!
Read more
A weekend of doing last weekend’s job list
(I hope from the nondescript whoever reclining on a big green tick you infer ‘SUCCESS!’…)
Read moreA weekend after the bleak before
Last week, life was a featureless plain. It was me amongst this bland flatness. Mighty bleak. Mighty lonely, too, ’cause I’m a boring piece of shit. Sullen mope. Utter failure. Why even breathe? So fucking pointless. Frustration. And then on Thursday, while in work trying to coax these electrical boards out of the machine, I […]
Read more
A weekend that began at the allotment and ended minus a finger
I awoke Saturday with 10 fingers and ended the morning with 9.
Read moreA weekend dedicated to car checks and cider
Since beginning this driving lark nearly a year ago (yeah, a year! I know! 😲) I’ve been checking my oil, coolant, and screen wash levels roughly when I’ve remembered. On the yoozh, this is when the screen wash has gone and I’ve opened the bonnet, VIOLA! (I like to be smug when possible.) When it […]
Read moreA weekend of darkness
Migraine —
Read more
A weekend of forgetful success
Originally, this weekend was to celebrate Betty White’s 97th birthday. I’m a super fan. Totally adore the old broad. I once flew all the way to LA to see her. Because she’s basically a distant relative, the Betty White marathon I had planned got forgot. I totally unremembered. I ended up having a Poirot marathon […]
Read moreA weekend of mild success
Usually, when I’m with Kayte we don’t achieve. We have every intention but one thing soon leads to excuses and we get nowhere. We have to book or be so committed our excuses suck to get places. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. This weekend, with Kayte’s visit, we booked cinema tickets. Having […]
Read moreA weekend, the first of 2019
It was fucking cold. When with heating, it was fucking hot. And it went too quick. It’s true, when it comes to temperature, I’m inclined to overreact. I’m not as fat as I used to be, and I no longer walk in and out of mortuaries all day long, and sometimes it’s the only thing […]
Read more
A weekend before 2019
IT’S ALMOST THAT TIME!!! To get ready, the last weekend of the year went out in style! On Saturday was Christmas Day 2.0 with Myles & co. Mum slaved away in the kitchen while us boys built a rail empire. On Sunday, I found this old man I recognised in a pub and went out […]
Read more
A weekend before Christmask
Should auld acquaintance be forgot — shit! That’s a week away! Um I’m too drunk for this! This weekend, I have Got myself to Cornwall. Discovered pink gin and lemonade. Tried to see the festive Mousehole harbour lights but discovered I can’t drive in the Cornwall pitch-black dark so managed 5-miles before hitting the gin. […]
Read more
A weekend of a spectacle wearing Christmas cracker
It was the works do on Saturday, and nice to see everyone tarted up! All except Leigh. Leigh didn’t tart himself up. He might think that he did, but a Power Ranger costume isn’t fine dining attire. The fireworks were a nice touch, though. I liked them. The DJ cancelled on us so the bar […]
Read moreA weekend not in Wales
This is my 2nd weekend in Wales in 2 months that I’ve spent in England. Some might think that I don’t want to visit my parents. And it’s true, last month they didn’t want me. One had a TV being delivered, the other antibiotics. For this month, with it being so close to Christmas, they […]
Read moreA weekend of IT’S CHRISTMAS (so soon)!!!
It seems to be coming around quicker every year, Christmas. I suspect, having recently been enlightened on the conspiracy surrounding fluoride, that we’re being lied to. It won’t take much digging by a perfectly focused snooper to discover that the months are being shortened, if not erased entirely, by our governments and big corporations. WHY?! […]
Read moreA weekend that ended much better than it started
It started with day 9 of the same damn vertigo migraine episode — day 9! Ffs, taking the piss! It’s supposed to be 7 days and it fucks off! I don’t handle these migraines well, especially when they’ve been set off because I lost my shit with Natwest. After a week of attempting work and mostly […]
Read more
A weekend recuperating
Thanks to Natwest’s helpfulness, I lost my shit Thursday afternoon. And I know exactly where I lost it, too, in their ears! And as I’ve grown accustomed, losing my shit this way finds me a vertigo migraine. Oh, the joys! I’d rather not lose my shit in the first place, but it can’t be helped […]
Read more
A weekend of dramatic scenery
Calling the Jurassic Coast ‘dramatic’ really doesn’t give a sense of just how dramatic it is. If it were a person it would be crowned — MOVE OVER LIZZIE! REAL ROYALTY HERE! There’s a view that it’s dramatic just because it can. Jagged cliffs, crashing waves — a seagull doing somersaults in the wind. It’s […]
Read moreA weekend that should not have needed to be
There isn’t much to be said about this weekend. It had its Saturday and Sunday. It was 48-hours long. It played the hand that Life had dealt. It was good and bad, pretty and ugly. There isn’t much to be said. Amid its love and hopelessness, there was us standing, stood — held taught and caught, […]
Read moreA weekend not visiting the parents
Now that I’m with car, the 3-hour drive to their respective homes almost promotes regular visits through ease alone. It’s a case now of jump in the car and go! No 5-hour train journey. No asking my father to pick me up and drop me home. I’m independent now, baby. But neither parent wanted me. […]
Read more
A weekend hoping I’d understood the temporary parking restrictions correctly*
* If not, Berty would get us our first fine and he’d get towed. He’d get thrown in lockup! And knowing his owner, he’d pick up the soap…
Read moreA weekend of 2 halves
On the one side, I was resting a migraine. On the other, my main man Myles’ 4th birthday party!!! Saturday saw me catch up with all my series’ since moving was vetoed. Sunday saw my first (by car) visit to Lidl, followed by a 4-year-olds birthday party! I couldn’t find everything I had to get […]
Read more
A weekend after a week of near-misses
Okay, there were only 2, and they both happened last Monday, but they resonated.
Read more
A weekend to drink
It was Nadine’s birthday bash this weekend — destination, Southampton! Because Shaun has, in his own words, ‘ferried my fat arse around for fifteen years’, it was my turn to drive. It’s fortunate, therefore, that I can. After an uneventful journey, and some confusion with a parking meter, we got to Nadine’s and I got […]
Read moreA weekend before a streaming nose
I woke up this morning with my brain streaming from my nose. It has to be my brain because my sinuses can’t possibly produce this amount of snot. (Current peak at a whole bog roll per 2 hours.) Also, I feel dumber – my brain is like soup dribbling out of my nostrils. Had I […]
Read more
A weekend smelling like an alien *
* they smell like Boss Orange if you were wondering.
Read moreA weekend in Portsmouth
How last weekend saw nuptials and migraines, this weekend didn’t. There were no weddings to attend, no vertigo to steady — instead, allotment-working and paddle boarding. And how last weekend seemed to linger around, this weekend vanished — it’s my one complaint. Saturday saw me start the morning feeding a parrot. Charlie the parrot. She’s very […]
Read moreA weekend for a wedding
Torquay, again. This time for Tanya’s wedding. These past 4 weekends have seen me driving to and from Cornwall, Torquay (twice now), and having a migraine. The migraine weekend was meant to see me in Cornwall but the migraine made me housebound. With all these long journeys behind me and the one ahead, and with […]
Read moreA long weekend that wasn’t the planned bank holiday
With this bank holiday being the arsehole of a migraine, my plans had to change because arseholes are fussy about what’s in them. Originally, it was Friday and Saturday in Cornwall for Kaytes birthday followed by lad-time with Myles and Shaun. Revised, the furthest I drove was a lonesome mile followed by jack shit. To […]
Read more
A weekend cluck-cluck-clucking
When roses are red And violets are blue They party, the unwed Before their “I do”
Read more
A weekend with George Ezra
Beginning a day later than scheduled (due to migraine), this weekend kicked off with a Saturday drive to Cornwall. I set off at an ungodly 0630 and arrived 4 hours later, having seen Stonehenge on my detour. (I’ve yet to travel to Cornwall without a detour. This is the 2nd time I’ve driven this way, […]
Read moreA weekend procrastinating
Why do today what can be done tomorrow? That was the mantra of this past weekend. It’s somewhat the mantra of my life but that’s another story. It all began without a road trip to London. Now I think of it, that may have been pencilled in for the weekend before. Whichever, it hasn’t happened. […]
Read moreA weekend of refreshing rain
I’ll not lie, I enjoyed the rain. It was much needed. I did think Saturday’s ‘thunderstorm’ could’ve done better, though. 3 pathetic whimpers and a spot of dampness. The minimum I expect from a thunderstorm is to be awed. Anything less and it’s barely enough to look out the window. Sunday’s blustery drizzly day with […]
Read moreA weekend too nice to drive
Saturday was too nice a day to be heading to the allotment by car. This place can be visited on foot and with cider. So this is what I did. It took a little over an hour and I was in desperate need of a piss by the time I got there. En route, I […]
Read moreA weekend neither driving nor cooking
There was a vague threat of a road trip to Nuneaton (to collect Jackie and her new lodger) but it was only vague, and I’d found myself the best parking spot, so I wasn’t moving the car for nothing. Because living so near to Palmerston Road has its perks, this weekend was the Southsea Food […]
Read more
Unn penn-seythen yn Gernow *
* Likely a bad translation of: A weekend in Cornwall Otherwise known as: Road trip to Kayte’s!! Yes, this ray of sunshine has now driven all the way to Cornwall and back again.
Read moreA weekend sweltering
I don’t want to sound typically British and complain about the weather, but I would like a nice downpour to reset the air, and then we may continue with this impressive heatwave. It’s just relentless. On Saturday, having given myself a migraine on Friday, I didn’t get up ’til 11. Migraines proper wipe me out. […]
Read moreA weekend alone
After last weekend’s fun and games, this weekend was the polar opposite. Because other people drain after a while, I got all my being social in person done and dusted by Saturday lunchtime. Although, via text and call I remained available throughout. Because the world outside is too hive and no chill, I kept excursions […]
Read more
A weekend Amsterdamned
Alongside tulips and cheese, there’s weed and prostitutes to be had in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the prostitutes were of the wrong gender for me, it’s out of season for tulips, and I’m not a big fan of cheese, so I was left with weed. So much gange, marijuana, you give it a […]
Read more
A weekend ’cause it was my birthday
34 years ago, my mother screamed and screamed, and carried on like murder, and then I popped out screaming and screaming and carrying on like murder. It is for this reason that I refuse to work on my birthday. That, and I had an interview for the Co-op for a full-time position many years back, on […]
Read more