Galloping Similes, Scottish homage, and Non-Baggy Specs...

Ah, the summer of 2019.
How naive we were.

At the time of writing, the UK Prime Minister is still hanging on, despite everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. I'm of the opinion he'll continue to do so until the local elections in May. Let's see how prescient or ill-judged my guesswork is over time. For now, however, I'm going to offset the stress of EVERYTHING and remind myself that sometimes unqualified and incompetent men who unfathomably fail upwards every few years, do get found out once in a while. Not often enough, it's true, but now and then, every so often, once in a while...

Writing News

Stand by for an animal simile that I'll almost definitely struggle to carry off. Ready? Good. Like a horse champing at the bit, I was raring to go last week, so I broke free of my tether and galloped headfirst into Chapter 1, whinnying and neighing with glee. There. Did I manage to convey what happened? Am I as skilled a wordsmith as I've always assumed? Excellent! Let's crack on. Basically, I couldn't hold off writing any longer. I've been gagging to get started with the new Leeza McAuliffe book and now I have. I'm still a bit hazy on some of the later chapters - OK maybe not hazy as I know what'll happen, but I think they need a bit more punch. No matter. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I'm back in the bosom of the McAuliffe family, and thoroughly enjoying making them be. I've only done 4500 words so far, but it's a start. Quite literally.

Never again will I be
halfway through a
novel before realising
it's all too 
familiar.

Culture

I've found a couple of great apps that are organising my life right now. Reading List is something I've needed for ages. Now, when I finish a book, I type it into the app, where it creates a log of the title, cover, and when it was read. Basic info, sure, but I realised I needed this when I couldn't remember which Chris Brookmyre novels I'd already read when I was spending Christmas vouchers last month. Also - and this was a recommendation from my sister - Get Sorted. It's an app that makes sorting your thousands of phone photos, manageable. I've started the process, which encourages me to go through 50 a day and either Keep or Delete. In about seventeen years, I'll be done, but it'll have been a clear and coherent exercise.

Other culture from the past week? Belfast. (Cinema listings) Brilliant. Mass. (Sky movies). Exquisite. Groundhog Day. (Everywhere.) Fun!

Veggie haggis and mash
with carrot and swede.

Food and Drink

Burns Night's one of my cultural appropriation evenings of the calendar, where despite the fact I'm as Scottish as a Melton Mowbray, I watch Robbie Burns poems and drink whisky as I eat my tea. Regardless, this recipe for vegetarian haggis, was really rather lovely. 

So pretty!

I also made use of the Scandikitchen sale and stocked up on all my favourite Danish and Swedish bits. My recent lunches of cream cheese, cucumber, and beetroot salad have been a joy.

Non-wonky, 
heath-mandated
fashion accessory.

Out and About

Timing is everything. After getting my last pair of glasses in February 2020, I put off nipping back to Specsavers in the weeks that followed, despite them being too big and falling off my face whenever I bent down. And then the world stopped. I put up with how annoying they were, all through the pandemic. And even though the arms were wonky and they were scratched from constantly falling on the floor, I stuck with them. Until now. A couple of visits to Specsavers over the past week has reminded me how much I enjoy wearing glasses. It was a small thrill to choose some non-crap frames last week. They're a health-mandated fashion accessory and I'm feeling less wonky again. Win.

So whether it's new glasses, life-laundry apps, or watching entitled people you marched en masse against, floundering under scrutiny, let's hope everything's going as well as it can, wherever you are, whatever you're doing. 

Have a lovely week, folks.