Ongoing Unwellitude
Posted: Sun 16 June, 2024 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Health, Single Life 3 Comments »Thankfully it’s not been non-stop Unwell, but everything’s taken a long time to finally start sodding off.
I was doing OK at the time of the last post, although the cough hadn’t quite Fucked Off yet. That stuck around for the next couple of weeks – not entirely surprisingly, as I was (against advice) busy and doing stuff, and not giving my body a lot of time off.
Then last weekend (the 8/9th of June, if anyone’s counting) I did a day-trip to Manchester (see above about not giving myself time off) for a restaurant visit. (Which was excellent, and well worth the trip) My table companion had been doing a lot of air travel and so on, and also had a similar cough to me.
I *think* that what happened there was that I picked up a second blast of what had already hit me. Or, if not the exact same thing, then at least bloody close to it, but different enough to get past any already-set-up immunity.
So this week was a kind of return to how I was a few weeks back. It didn’t mess me up *as* much, but still left me with a couple of very rough days.
It seems to be back in abeyance now, and hopefully that’ll also mean that this dry cough has a chance to piss off as well. We’ll see.
Slouchy
Posted: Mon 25 January, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Lockdown, Single Life, Thoughts 4 Comments »This time last year, I didn’t really have any ‘slobbing out’ stuff at all. The closet closest I really came were some tracksuit bottoms that I used for workouts and the like, but there wasn’t really much else.
Since then, with the Lockdowns and so on, I’ve expanded my collection a bit – after all, there’s not really any point getting “properly” dressed on the days you’re not even venturing out. So over the summer I had/have some thinner cotton trousers which are really comfortable, and for colder times, I’ve got some warmer ones that aren’t quite tracksuit bottoms, but also aren’t really fit for anything other than staying indoors.
My real concession though, and I’m not at all proud of them, are some slippers. I’d found that my feet were getting achingly cold, so it made sense to get *something*, and these horrors came up at just the right time. They’re unbelievably ugly, and I’d happily burn them if I ever got a partner, but for now they’re warm and comfortable, and that’ll do me.
But I can be sure that, no matter how warm and comfortable they are, they won’t be seen outside the house…
A Quiet Life
Posted: Wed 9 September, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Noise, People, Single Life, Thoughts 1 Comment »In an ideal world, I’d actually like a quiet life. Not in terms of being (and/or keeping) busy, but in terms of once I get home. Once I’m there, I’d quite happily have a place with no noise.
Yes, there’d be a TV and so on, but that’s all noise that I control. I’m thinking more at the moment about other stuff, the noise I can’t control, and that sometimes drives me crackers.
The Bengal is one of the main culprits on this, if I’m honest – as soon as I get home, I’m being shouted at. It’s not like she’s hungry or anything – she’s just shouty. Sometimes it’s even before I get through the door – if it’s late evening (even if I’ve popped home in the day to make sure she’s fed etc.) it’s not unknown for the sodding cat to be sat outside waiting for me, and shouting the moment she sees me, like a mum going “And what time do you call this!” And it doesn’t let up for bloody ages. It’s exhausting.
Alongside that, I have the joys of neighbours. Throughout the lockdown/shutdown/slowdown, they’ve both seemed determined to be out in their yards, playing music loudly, and having loudspeaker/hands-free conversations on their phones – and it’s even seemed like they’re in direct competition sometimes. So it’s not been unusual for me to come home and not even be able to open the back door, because of the noise war going on.
All I want is for things to be quieter. I’m generally super-tired at the moment, which also makes me more sensitive to it all, and far far grumpier about the entire thing.
Recently I’ve even been thinking about moving – some of which is because of those neighbours – although with the looming of Brexit etc., I’ve made the decision to not jump things just yet. But there’s still the potential for the same to happen again.
In some ways – hell, in most ways – I’d be happy to be a hermit, to be out in the middle of nowhere with zero human contact on a day-to-day basis. The only problem with that concept is that the really out-of-the-way places then don’t have the other thing I want/need in life – a decent speedy broadband connection.
I’m sure there’s a balance to be found somewhere, and I’m sure I’ll figure it all out. For now though it’s just a bit bloody annoying. </grouch>
Lens Cleaning
Posted: Tue 28 July, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life 3 Comments »As a (pretty much) lifelong wearer of glasses, having dirty lenses is one of those little niggling everyday things.
Earlier this year, I bought a special lens-cleaning thing called a “Peeps”, which I’m not linking to, because it was shit. The design was really nice, like a pair of large tweezers with a microfiber pad on the ends for the actual cleaning. But, for whatever reason, they just didn’t work as advertised, and even put a small scratch on one less (thankfully, on a less-used pair)
So instead I went back to basics, and went back to microfiber cleaning cloths. They always seem bloody expensive, but a quick look on Amazon and I found a ten-pack for £7, which is still not cheap cheap, but it’s a massive reduction on the usual prices I’ve paid from places.
And I can’t deny, I’m much happier with these. They just do the job. And they’re cheap enough that you’re not annoyed when you lose one, or when it gets dirty. (for some reason I also find washing microfiber cloths generally knackers them)
So now I’ve got some new glasses – which is another story – I’ll be sticking with these new cloths for the forseeable future.
Zapper Update
Posted: Fri 19 June, 2020 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Single Life 4 Comments »Roughly a year ago, I finally caved and bought a big proper bug zapper for the house. One of the side effects of having cats is that the food – if they don’t eat it all immediately – attracts flies. It can be pretty skanky – particularly in Spring and Summer.
I’d had other smaller and different zappers over the years, and none of them had been particularly impressive or effective. So this one was slightly more expensive – but still less than any two of the previous zappers.
I wasn’t sure if it would last into this year, but so far it’s doing well, and is thus also making itself into even better value for money than buying a lesser zapper every year.
Obviously I’d rather not need to have any bug zapper – but while I do need one, this one seems to be a good option.
Lockdown – Non-events
Posted: Thu 18 June, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Out More, Gigs, Lockdown, London, Single Life, Theatre, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve known it’s coming for a while, but this coming fortnight is probably the one that’ll grump me the most about the Lockdown so far.
It’s the time when I had a lot of events lined up, all of which have now been moved to next year. Among other things, that list includes
- Tonight, when I was supposed to be seeing Skunk Anansie at the Royal Festival Hall
- Tomorrow, when I was likely to have been at the Taste festival in London
- Saturday, when I was supposed to be seeing Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House” at the Playhouse Theatre
- Next week, I was supposed to be at the Lead Developer conference in London for two days
- Next weekend, I was supposed to be seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe
So yeah, bit of a slump of “I should’ve been doing [x]” for the next couple of days.
I had a similar slump a while back when I got a load of “this won’t be happening” emails over a couple of days, and this is much the same. I’ll get over it, and it all could be much, much worse.
But still, blah.
Lockdown – Chilled
Posted: Wed 3 June, 2020 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Lockdown, Single Life 1 Comment »While my weekends have been a lot quieter, I’ve done some maintenance stuff that I hadn’t got round to before.
Absolutely nothing glamorous, mind you – but I’ve cleaned out and deiced both my freezer and fridge. It’s been a long time since I’d done either, but neither job was a high priority either. However, might as well let the warm weather help out and speed up the defrosting process…
The freezer had slowly iced over – it’s an odd design with freezing elements on each shelf, so it had slowly become that opening any of the drawers was more and more problematic. I don’t actually use the freezer much though, so again it wasn’t overly important.
As it was, over a couple of hours I emptied it out – which was easily the toughest job, because of those iced-over shelves – and then let it all thaw a bit, carved out all the ice, cleaned it up, and then turned it back on and re-filled it. There was, as expected, a *lot* of ice, but that was about it.
The fridge, on the other hand, was a much mankier job. I’d noticed that there appeared to be a leak, or an overflow, and finally decided to have a look into what was going on. A quick clear out allowed me to see that at some point the back of the fridge had frozen solid, blocking the drain hole, and that was what was causing the problem. Of course, that ice was pretty vile, but again, it’s a job that’s been done now, so hopefully won’t need doing again for a while.
I’ll also keep more of an eye on both things, and (in theory at least) deal with them earlier on next time so they don’t become such big problems again. Only time will tell whether that’ll actually happen or not, though.
Hopefully, both items will now run better and more efficiently. It’s either that, or they’ll go into shock, break, and need replacing…