Day off today, lovely. Boys have gone to school, though we're not entirely clear if T1 needs to be there or not. He's allowed out at 10.30 for sure but the word is lots of boys just won't go in. He's going in to watch the annual pupils vs teachers football match. T2 has to be there until lunchtime, but they're having some sort of sugar based picnic. We're meeting them both at lunchtime, then OUT for fun.
That post is from five years ago today, and I'm saying basically all the same things I've said today...
Well, I was talking about Extreme because one of my friends mentioned how 1992 was a low point for music and I pointed out we had been to see them that year.
Pantomime in Canterbury actually brilliant yesterday. A proper rush to get there, no time for tea so we stopped at Plan Burrito to get food to eat while walking to the Marlowe Theatre. Panto very good, very well written. Two people off TV actually in it, lots of topical jokes, and someone else topical off TV in it as a special guest. I won't spoil it here. The proper TV people were Sarah Hadland (off of TV's Miranda and Strictly Come Dancing) Phil "Mr Maker off of CBeebies" Gallagher. I really liked the henchman character, this says he is Marc Pickering but I don' recognise him.
Imagine if the blog just filled up with "health stats" messages, with lower and lower step counts until they eventually stopped. That's kind of what's happening isn't it? I don't really go anywhere or do anything, just work, then stay in trying to keep warm. Heating is coming on every day at the moment that's nice.
Today I did walk, a little. After tea wife drove me to Sandgate and I went in The Ship hoping to bump into a friend. He wasn't there so I texted him, he'd been in earlier, but came back. A few beers sat in front of the fire, very nice, then a walk home. Weather a bit rough, I had a storm warning pop up on my watch earlier.
Even though that was a very gentle parkrun, I feel better for having done it. Turns out my long flu was actually just lazyitis, caused by the fear of having long flu. And I think I completely invented long flu anyway.
Did some jobs today, then we went to The Ship in the afternoon. Not that pleasant a walk there or back, but nice in there. Saw some friends, had a couple of beers, and played some cards. Back home again for some chilli that I'd already made.
I realise I would normally have headlined that "Parkrun 208" but I forgot.
Went to the Potting Shed after work yesterday and it was nice but very quiet, especially early on. Chatting with someone who saw Stevie Wonder in Lewisham in 1969. Four pints of real ale and then home, via the Chinese. They knew what I wanted as soon as I went in there, they remember as I order the same thing and it's not on the menu. Vegan chicken Singapore rice noodles. Still warm when I got home. Ate them watching Have I Got News For You, and then a tiny bit of a very old one on Youtube, then I went to bed early. And I was finally up for parkrun! Have I only missed three of them? Or more? Wasn't 100% feeling like it but thought I'd better get back on it, and it would make me feel better, and it did. Lovely and sunny out and not too cold.
Folkestone parkrun results for event #515. Your time was 00:27:58.
Congratulations on completing your 208th parkrun and your 188th at Folkestone parkrun today. You finished in 184th place out of a field of 338 parkrunners. You were the 142nd male and came 23rd in your age category VM50-54. Take a look at this week's full set of results on our website. Your PB at Folkestone parkrun remains 00:20:50. Your best time this year remains 00:23:54.
Then went with the boys to watch Zootropolis 2 at the Silver Screen cinema in Folkestone. Folkestone quite busy with a bit of a christmas market on, but only a bit of one.
Did a big old Tesco shop as it is 20% staff discount this week, and got pizzas for our tea tonight, plus some reduced vegan party nibbles to supplement mine. Sounds like we're going to play Catan this evening rather than watch something.
The last Suede gig before they reformed was this day in 2003, at London Astoria. Also we were at an Ash gig this day in 2001 in Brixton.
Some things missing from the graph since September 2023, working on getting them back just kind of hoping someone else will fix it and they'll come back.
In London yesterday for work christmas lunch. So commuting in on a Wednesday for a change, which is wife's normal day, so we got the train. She would not sit with me though! I like to sit at a table, and there were two seats at a table, but she wanted to sit on a two, so she could sleep without too many people staring at her. There were not two of those free, so we sat near each other but not really together. I had to do some work on the way in, just releasing my daily advent thing I've been doing.
A very fast passing morning of work meetings, then over to The Yorkshire Gray on Gray's Inn Road for lunch. We had a big L-shaped table taking up a fair chunk of the bar, but other thna us the place wasn't busy. Food was quite nice, maybe a bit underdone. Mine was "chestnut pie", a bit like a big sausage roll filled with spinach, mushrooms, and I suppose chestnuts. No starter or dessert for me, but they did bring me a coffee to make up. And we had prosecco to start, and glass of wine.
Instead of going for a christmas lights walk like many of the rest of the office, me and two others snuck off to a pub. The Calthorpe Arms, which I'd been in a few years ago. Very nice, good range of real ales, cheery and festive, got really busy at proper work leaving time.
We headed from here at about half six, and I tried to go in another pub on the way back to the station as there was time. But The Charles The First was way too busy, so I just headed home. Not back too late, but a very dark walk back from the station.
Looks like we were at The Pogues exactly a quarter of a century ago today at Brixton Academy2. Friend says they were at Skeehan's, the pub near his house in South London last night.
Light cloud and a moderate breeze, 9 - 12℃.
Guessing 2902 cups of coffee from my espresso machine3 probably comes to £0.89 per cup (including 3+ years of the actual coffee beans and servicing3 so not the 'leccy).
Join Octopus Energy here and we both earn money.
And actually now I look into it, it turns out we were not at all. We were there for the christmas shows around this time, just not this one.
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This is just not news any more. Working hard too much to do, looking forward to a day off. Tomorrow got a day in London, that's sort of half a day off but sort of not, not like a real one. Next real one we will be having a busman's holiday and going back to London again.
I did go to the tip today though, took a mass of paper recycling. We had too much to put out already, where T1 had cleared his room out. Loads of old comics and magazines and school books he didn't want to keep. They've all gone now, don't make me think to much about it or I'll be back there trying to get them out of the paper crusher.
Paulʼs blog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone, Kent. Wed and dad to 2, I am a full stack web engineer, + I do mostly js / node, some ruby, python, php etc. My hobbies are pubbing, parkrun, eating, home-automation + other diy stuff, history, genealogy, telly 📺, squirrels, pirates ☠️, lego, + time travel.