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Just woke up from some damn odd dreams. Feels like it’s the morning of the day after. In many different ways. But, no… it’s only just approaching 9.30pm, the same day!

I went to bed at 7pm today. Had several nights on the trot of borderline insomnia. Also been feeling ‘well weird’, when I awake. As I’m on a cocktail of medicinal drugs. Wha’s gannin’ on, leek?

Did quite a lot today. Albeit all little things. E.g. dropping an electric sewing machine back to its owner; Teresa borrowed a machine from Debbie. Couldn’t get it working. So it finally went back home today.

I’ve been experiencing a slight return of arthritic pain, as well. Mostly in my hands. Especially the left one. But also in my upper spine/neck. I’m in pain now. And weirdly dehydrated.

At a recent doc’ appointment I had to argue hard for a renewal of my co-codamol prescription. I thought Dr Joyce acquiesced. But what I eventually got, via her latest prescription, was something different.

I’m also trying to cut down on booze. Maybe cut it out altogether. Am I feeling some strange withdrawal symptoms? Should I give AA another go? So many questions! And, as Vinnie Coliuta has said; ‘thought is the enemy of flow.’ Do I agree? No idea!

The day started with a few messages ping-ponged back n’ forth with our neighbour, Mel, at #59, whose son is or was visiting today. She’s normally quite chatty. Not today tho’. So of course, my latent and omnipresent paranoia kicks in.

Then, this art’noon, Teresa comes out wi’ me for a drive. Having had no work all day, thus far (despite hours of potentially arthritis aggravating thumb-football*), I’m still trying to book stuff. And boom, en-route to Elm – to view the Church there (see next or previous post) I get a Wisbech Morrisons shift. And it starts so soon, Teresa needs must come avec moi.

So our short afternoon drive/walk, becomes a longer excursion. I enjoy my delivery work. And I get out, whilst on the road, to snap a few things I love the look of, such as this former brewery:

Having Teresa along during work can be quite pleasant. Today, however, she was in nagging mode. Not my favourite! Hey-ho…

She more than redeemed herself this evening, however, with a delicious chicken curry, and lentil dal. After which I tried to do a bit more modelling (on the Tiger I), but failed. Instead I wound up mostly moving books onto the new (FC) shelving unit.

I vacuumed our hideous downstairs carpet. It’s a reddish version of the pale blue fleur de lys pattern that I recently got rid of from our master bedroom. It needs to go the same way; down to the municipal dump!

The day ended, kind of, with a long chat with uncle Terry. Initially ostensibly about a grand piano I’ve been offered, via Freecycle. Oh God, how I’ve yearned for one, over the years. Tho’ perhaps I’ll admit I always thought a baby grand would be more than adequate!?

But after being advised it was most likely a bad idea (which is the advice I’d fully expected), the conversation morphed into a form of unofficial counselling session. I’m not keen on this. But it does happen. Maybe it needs to?

I feel sapped of energy a lot of the time generally. Could be my underlying medical conditions – psoriasis and assoc. arthropothy – could be the meds for those issues (or a combo of ailments & meds, etc.) – or just that I’m 51, and getting ever older.

Such chats as I had with Terry tire me massively. And probably do for the other party as well!? So afterwards I went directly to bed. Not even knowing or caring what time it was. And, unlike the previous few nights, I was soon deep in the Land of Nod.

Turns out I went to bed about 7pm, a new early record for me. And I awoke, from very weird dreams, at about 9pm. Thinking it must be Saturday morning!

I write this sometime later; after a ‘midnight pee’, some water, two pain-killers, and this blog post… so, here I am!

Some time ago I wanted to make a proper egg-mayonnaise sandwich. So I ‘googled’ the topic. Particularly important was being able to peel the eggs without totally butchering them.

I found a really egg-cellent website, getcracking.com, which sorted me out on that front poifeckly.

This very useful web resource also suggested that readers try Doro Wat, an Ethiopian chicken curry recipe that uses hard-boiled eggs. So I’m going to cook it tonight, for us, and Dad and Claire.

… much later the same day.

My own work, above; not looking quite as good or appetising as the getcracking.com example at the top of this post.

Dad and Claire did eat with us (sadly, brother Sam could’nae join us). And survived! If I made it again, I’d change it up a bit. I’d do chicken breast pieces, and brown them off earlier in the process, not huge bits on the bone and cookies at the very end. I’d add more ghee, and prob’ also more chilli, ginger, garlic and water.

If I’m totally honest, it was merely ok. Quite nice even. But perhaps not something to write home about? The ‘berbere’ spice mix – so many spices! – which smelt very fragrant initially, somehow didn’t quite pack the expected punch. Still, worth a shot. You live n’ learn!

Lovely to spend the evening with Dad and Claire as well. Plus, whenever we have guests round, an incidental benefit is that we will usually tidy the place up considerably.

I decided I’d try and make use of the discarded upper hull part of this Trumpeter 1/72 Tiger I (Early!). I figured it might be fun to see if could… open up the rear deck grills!

I started out on this idea by filing, sanding and scraping away styrene, from underneath. On a 1/35 or larger model, this might well work relatively easily. At 1/72, it was – and I knew it – asking for trouble.

The thing is, at this scale, once you’ve removed or thinned down the supporting styrene, what’s left is do perilously thin, it flexes and breaks all too easily. Which of course it did. Hence the reinforcement visible in the above photo.

Is the classic case of attempting to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear? Perhaps. But on another level, this kind of silliness is what makes model-making such fun. If the hours of messy and sado-masochistic work this entailed can be called fun!?

And all this for a piece of plastic currently destined for the spares box! How, I wonder, can I/shall I make use of it? When I’m lacking the vast majority of ç

My day kind of started, a little late, I guess, with an 11am meeting with the chap I see at CGL (change grow live). We meet in an ‘orrid little modern box, just to the right of these much more attractive municipal buildings:

I then headed home. And later, off to Ely, for to collect a free set of bookshelves, from a FreeCycler who goes by the sobriquet flustered badger! The building below is another old-ish place in March, that I decided to snap, as I pass it all the time! I love the rounded and turreted corner feature.

Sundry other chores included such humdrum delights as a visit to the chemist, and a trio to Boyes. I was entertaining the notion of making myself an oversized ‘mushroom cap’ beret, a bit like this:

Wherefore, Seb? I hear nobody at all ask. Well, if y’all must know, to wear when we go see Merlin Sheldrake do a Topping talk, in Ely, on 28th, Nov. He’s touring to promote this book:

Whilst in Ely, I collected the tickets for said talk, bought the above book for a bargainous £5, and perused many marvellous times at the excellent Ely branch of Oxfam. I got this:

… for a pal who has several other similar books be D.G. There were numerous other fab art books, many of which I’d love to have bought, including titles on Delacroix, Titian, Rubens, and a nice big version (I have a mini edition) of The Grammar of Ornament.

In the end I only got the above. Which looks terrific. They also had a wee Taschen paperbook on Picasso, which I almost got, to cut out the pics for framing. But I opted not to, as I wasn’t blown away by the chosen selections.

Whilst in Ely, near where I picked up the free shelves, I saw this intriguing old building. Looks very ecclesiastical, as well as rather dilapidated!

I wandered around Ely, in a bit of a daze. Took in the market, where numerous traders were flogging there wares. I wanted something to eat. But couldn’t find anything that appealed to me (at a reasonable price).

And then later, I was out delivering for Amazon/Morrisons, before finally getting home. And I’m typing this in a nice hot bath!

Enjoyed some lovely social interactions. From simple exchanges of smiles, to a nice chat with a member of staff at Ely Oxfam. Had a chat with mum, around 8pm. All in all, and despite feeling a bit frazzled, a good day!

I’m a fan, kind of (poss’ more in theory than in practice?) of epic war movies. This one, a box-office bomb, recipient of several Razzies, and often billed as ‘one if the worst films ever made’, intrigues me for several reasons.

Firstly, it was directed by Terence Young, best known as a director of three Bond movies (Dr No, From Russia sand Thunderball). Secondly, it stars a latex wearing Larry O’, as General MacArthur. And third, I kinda like Ben Gazzara, and he’s in it.

And also, and very importantly for me, it looks – from various stills (such as the one below) – like the action/combat scenes are proper epic…

I know very little about the Korean War. One suspects it was probably one of America’s many super heavy-handed post-WWII anti-Commie foreign policy blunders. And, from what I’ve read thus far, online, I don’t think Inchon, the movie, is the place to go for historical truth!

But the fact it’s so massively panned actually makes me any to see it more. So much popular opinion is erroneous guff! I pretty much always prefer to make up my own mind.

I’m a man. Which, bitter experience teaches me, is a crime against humanity. As a man, I find Vera Palmer (I wonder if we’re related?) very alluring. Nuff said!

Hot Damn! I love everything about this.

Woah, Nelly! I only (fairly) recently discovered this guy. I think I first came across him via (?)…

I love what he does, combining strong rhythm, with chords and melody, such that you wind up with a near as dammit complete rendition of the original – in this case Sting by and co. (guitar, bass, drums, and poss also keys?) all on the one acoustic axe!

Great work, Kent!

It’s also a timely reminder what a checking number Synchronicity 2 is. hearing this version takes me waaay back, to my mid abs late teens. Listening to all the Police records back in the family home, in Comberton. Bittersweet memories of a long lost era.

Bu that’s one of many things that’s so Amical about music, how it can be connected with certain places and times. Fab!

I’ve been experiencing extreme difficulty booking sufficient hours to meet my weekly budgeting target, driving for Amazon. There are numerous reasons.

One of these, which I only just learned about, is the capping policy they operate. As the video above explains, they cap weekly hours at a total of 24.

There’s more to it than that, though, as the video explains. One of the issues is that I don’t want to be wasting time trying to book more shifts when the app simply won’t let me.

Amazon should def’ make a change to the Flex app, IMO, such that it lets you know when you’re no longer able to book any further work. This would prevent folk like me wasting time hitting ‘refresh’ at times when doing so is purely wasting time.

So I’vw submitted that idea, via the Flex ‘feedback’ page…