2012 - 4

Lobstrosity Domine

I've noticed friends talking a lot about their bizarre spam recently. I've touched on spam in the past, but I feel an urge to share with you the most recent batch of spam mail I've been receiving inviting me to sample 'A Free Lobster'!

Yes, in the land of Viagra, penis enlargement, Nigerian bankers, Russian brides, married women looking for fun and cheap meds, I get Free Lobster spam! I feel unique.

The Hangover Part 3

Exactly 12 pints of beer, two Jack Daniels and a glass of champagne have been drunk by me since December 15. Six of the pints have been drunk in a period of eight days leading up to the two fine pints of Hooky Gold in a pub in Oxford on Tuesday night. This piece of alcoholic introspective is sort of important because my tolerance to alcohol is probably pretty low at the moment.

Last night, while out shopping and looking at the woeful selection of bottled beers on offer (despite having 10 in the house any how), I decided that perhaps it would be nice to crack open one of the 8 bottles of wine I've got instead. So, that's what I did. I opened a bottle of McGuigan's Shiraz - a fruity 14% wine from south east Australia. Me and the wine have history...

The wife is doing overtime again today, so I have my chores (hoovering, dusting in the house; rubbish and dog shit removal outside), but apart from that I normally have a few hours to do my blog, watch some Sky Sports News and listen to some music (I am currently listening to the most recent Maxxess album). Saturday's when she's working are normally a breeze!

At about 9.45 last night, as the wife was getting ready to go to bed and I'd finished a quarter of the bottle of red, I contemplated watching some TV and maybe, having another glass. By the time the second in the Family Guy double bill had finished I'd drunk the entire bottle...

I got half way through it, felt a very nice buzz and picked up momentum which demolished the second half in about 20 minutes. I knew at the half way mark that any more would guarantee a hangover (and green pooh), but my inner self, the one that has been essentially abstinent for 6 weeks, said 'bollocks to that - get pissed!' So never one to let people down, I did!

When I say I'm listening to the latest Maxxess album, it is on very low and I've necked a handful of various pills, drunk lots of red bush and am working my way up to a coffee. My head feels like it is encased in amber and you'd seriously have to wonder about my brain. I mean, I've been ill or under the weather for 6 weeks, I start to feel really good again - this has been a good week - and I go and self inflict a day on myself that I will not enjoy and ultimately hate myself for because I'm probably going to waste a lot of one of the weekend days.

Wine was ever so nice though...

Will it Snow?

The weathermen are making a big deal out of next week's impending spell of winter, possibly the first real bit of winter we'll have seen this season. As for Northampton, I expect we'll see nothing more than a few snow flurries, if we're lucky.

The idea of lots of snow appeals to me now because of the possibility of having a Snow Day - you know the thing, where schools close because there is a risk that a child might slip on an untreated patch of ice. break a leg and sue the school for a lot of money, or something like that.

The good thing about Snow Days is that if the school decides it is closing, we get paid! It isn't our fault, so we don't get penalised. When I was at the Youth Offending Team, it was during two of the most severe winters many of us can remember and at times much of the areas my team and I had to work were pretty much impassable, yet if you couldn't get into work, because the council (who were also my employers) hadn't been able to grit or clear the roads, you had to take it as annual leave or unpaid. Which I always thought was something of an unfair penalty.

Vaguely related, I have rambling roses out at the moment; just a few in sheltered spots in the garden. I also still have a sapling nectarine tree in full leaf, despite the one next to it looking bare. There are daffodils and other spring bulbs poking though and the sweet peas my wife put in in June have lots of new growth and shoots on them and they should have all been dead by the end of November, at an extreme. However, we have learned that one of the best indicators of the arrival of spring is usually when the ducks start laying again. That never happens before Valentine's Day and the last couple of years it has been closer to the wife's birthday, at the beginning of March.

29 on 29

I suppose the biggest bit of news this week is that on Sunday, I will have been 'going out' with my wife for 29 years. It's a pretty scary number because it seems to have whizzed past - time flies when you're having fun!

Obviously, because this is January 29, our celebrations for the last 14 years have been slightly muted, because it was also on this day that my mum died. Therefore this 'anniversary' has always been one that has just been between the two of us. I'm going to take her out for a nice meal tonight.