Surprised we haven't had more wild fires here in the UK. They have them all over the continent, France, Spain, Portugal, and a friend who is in Greece texted yesterday to say he'd had an emergency warning. There is a wild fire about 10km from where he is but luckily for him and his family they're evacuating people towards where he is, rather than away.
It was supposedly cooler yesterday, didn't feel it, and back up again today. Getting back to normal by next weekend maybe?
Shopping is not here yet, typical it is not on time when we have plans. Wife still not back from the gym yet anyway. The best option for me is it arrives about the same time she does and she helps me put it away...
That was possibly the noise of a delivery van outside. But possibly not.
REALLY looking forward to Spiderman: Brand New Day later. We're going to the Silver Screen in Folkestone to see it rather than the 4DX in Ashford which I'd have liked, because a) we want to see it today, b) that's sold out, c) T1 is passionate about supporting this little cinema and we should be too. He's passionaite about a lot of things right now which is lovely. He's upgraded from vegetarian to vegan (it is an upgrade, a promotion, it is a higher level) but he's also quite passionate about political things too. He is not keen on my idea to try and buy a property to see them through university, he doesn't believe in landlords. I think this is too idealistic, but maybe he can live in a van through uni then.
Before the cinema I will be distracting myself with the shopping delivery, then we're off to play badminton, then lunch. Then the film. Been trying to avoid spoilers, I hope it is good. Mostly avoiding spoilers, but wife did look up "what should we have seen before watching Avengers: Doomsday" to make sure she is up to date before that comes out, and so yesterday we did the same for this film. It says you want to have watched the Punisher series, which we haven't, but there is a fifty minute catch up thing, like a prologue to that series which recaps a lot of the things that happened, plus tells you about Frank Castle and his background. So bit of a spoiler, sounds like Punisher is going to be in it! And we've seen a couple of trailers, which were odd, and seemed to have gaps in.
I will report back and be spoiling it here later when I have seen it.
Summer is moving fast, and life too. Both kids out today, under their own steam, they don't need us. One going round a friend's house for some kind of quiz night, the other is off in town somewhere. Possibly on the bus, kids get free bus travel all this month, very nice.
Waved off the nephew, but now can't be bothered to do anything else, can't even be bothered to go to the pub. Too tired.
Something good today, when I was looking for a spare key for the beetle, I found seventy euros left over from last holiday!
Slow parkrun today, slowest ever? We got there a few minutes after it started, about three, then I was going at nephew's pace. And it was hot. All the excuses.
Folkestone parkrun results for event #548. Your time was 00:35:02.
Congratulations on completing your 233rd parkrun and your 212th at Folkestone parkrun today. You finished in 333rd place out of a field of 414 parkrunners. You were the 214th male and came 20th 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 00:24:35.
Went to see Belle and Sebastian yesterday, and the whole day rocked. Worked in the morning, that was pretty productive, me and the AI just getting on with things. Stopped at lunchtime, nephew came over to visit, and then four of us headed to Margate. T2 stayed here on his own, did not fancy the idea at all. Train there was fine, via Ashford, busy until Canterbury then we got a table. Then off the train in Margate, and the place was heaving. Not all for our gig, but there was a soul festival going on too, lots of live music around the town. First we headed to a bar wife had heard of, Floc's first pub. Headed away from the seafront for this, so passed lots of other very busy bars, including some good looking micropubs. Floc have taken over a lovely old pub The Lifeboat in Market Street. Maybe it wasn't lovely before, but they have made it lovely. It's very trendy, lots of Margate is. It was fairly quiet when we got there, we got some seats and then quickly upgraded to an actual table. I had the WEIRDEST beer, a mango sour, it looked more like a smoothy. I guess they made a sour beer and just kept adding juice to it until it was drinkable. It was nice, but so unlike a beer.
Then looking for actual real ale, first place said er no to T1 being in, no under eighteens at all. It looked a bit rough anyway. Then instead to The Bull's Head which was very nice. Sat in the garden, with a proper normal beer, a pint of Gadd's, and it was also good. This place has a blue plaque, Eric Morcambe had his wedding reception there.
Then to the gig, a bit of a faff to get into Dreamland, the ticket app didn't work very well but they are used to this and someone was able to help me. What happened that I need a young person to help me with my phone? We got in in time to see St Etienne the support band, but we weren't very interested, and didn't get more interested. They finished on the two songs we knew.
Belle and Sebastian were good, they rocked in their own particular way. They started with an intro video, the girl from the cover of the album who was a fan in their very early days. Then started proper with the whole of If You're Feeling Sinister in album order, then a break, then a set of mixed hits. Nothing off Tigermilk though? Weird. They played The Boy With The Arab Strap, which I don't love, but the nephew did, and we thought that would be the end. Then they played another one I don't know and got loads of kids up on the stage, and I thought that was the end. Seemed to be fizzling out, so we left to make sure we got our train. THEN they played Lazy Line Painter Jane, their best song, as we were walking back to the station...
Full setlist:
The Stars of Track and Field
Seeing Other People
Me and the Major
Like Dylan in the Movies
The Fox in the Snow
Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying
If You're Feeling Sinister
Mayfly
The Boy Done Wrong Again
Judy and the Dream of Horses
Step Into My Office, Baby
I'm a Cuckoo
If She Wants Me
Seymour Stein
Another Sunny Day
The Boy With The Arab Strap
I Didn't See It Coming
Lazy Line Painter Jane
I think there's only two original members in the band now, but it's Stewart and Stevie, and probably other members have been and gone over the years.
Taxi home, and all good. What a great day out, we must go back to Margate again when it's less busy.
Overdrawn, keeping fingers crossed for premium bonds prize day on Monday.
Oh look, I saw Belle and Sebastian that same date in 1997 too, so is that really twenty-nine years?? Surely not. The famous Union Chapel show which was actually very early in their career.
Actually I think I already covered most of this day off, but later in the day we went to play pool. We walked down to The Norfolk Hotel, one of the only places around to still have a pool table. It was busier than we expected, a group all had their names on the chalk board. They looked quite professional, with their own queues. We got on the table and had a few games though, and a couple of pints of beer too. The beer was better than it has been on previous visit, Harvey's Sussex Best, and alright. Then for a lovely curry in the Green Spice. Guy taking our order seemed to be annoyed with us, told us we had ordered too much and made us drop a couple of dishes. Was he right? We ate everything, I think we could have done it.
Then home to watch the last of the only series so far of Ghosts Australia. Hope they make more of those. It veered quite quickly away from the UK version, but it still has all of the same themes. Very enjoyable. And there's a film of the UK version out any minute now so we'll be going to that.
Paulʼs blog - I live in A sleepy town, Kent. Wed and father to two, I'm a full-stack web developr, and I do mostly js / nodejs, some ruby, python, php etc. My hobbies are pubbing, running, eating, home-automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, family tree stuff, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, + time travel.
