Boxing Day and Beyond. . .

 Thursday. 8 a.m. I went to the Christmas Day service at SCF yesterday morning. It was an hour and there wasn't any tea or coffee as we usually have after our services, so I came straight home afterwards. 

I had my Christmas Dinner at around 5.15. I had purchased all the bits that made it up from Sainsbury's which included a chicken breast (which turned out to have stuffing inside when I began to carve it.) Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing and bacon. I had bought a ready-made Christmas Pudding, but I decided to have it another day (probably this evening.

Later, I watched the new Wallace and Gromit film, 'Vengeance Most Fowl.' I'm a fan of the work of Aardman Animation, so this was something of a treat. I know it takes years to make an animation film, and probably more work goes into this type of stop-frame animation. It was so inventive and imaginative and hilarious. According to the over-night ratings, it got over 9 million viewers.

Friday. 1.40 p.m. It's been foggy and overcast for the past couple of days. Just typical December weather, I suppose.

Another trip to Sainsbury's this morning. The travelator was not working on the trip up to the store. They seem to have endless problems with this technology, but I can walk up the travelator, which is odd when it doesn't move, but the down one was working.

There seems to be a lot of Christmas stuff left over. Perhaps they should sell off mince pies and Christmas puds at half price, or even less.

All the tenants at Dexter House, including myself, have had letters from the maintenance contractors, Mears, today. Reading down the list of things they are going to do, caught my attention. It reads 'Slip and trip hazard free pathways from external doors to the scooter stores, from the fire exits of the scheme to external gates, and from the scooter stores to the external gates.' Which means, if I am right, but don't hold your breath, they are actually going to do the work, which has been held up for at least 3–4 years! SOMEONE in the hierarchy within Milton Keynes Council, has decided to act on this work, or at least, signed the piece of paper which means that, at last, the work can be done and the electric scooters, which are stored at the moment, in common spaces, for example, the corridors, and were deemed a fire hazard by a fire officer years ago. I have been watching the brilliant sitcom 'Yes, Minister' on BBC iPlayer. This business of the scooter stores seems very much like a storyline straight out of this series. 

Well the work begins on 6th January, so I will report on here how things progress, but don't hold your breath.

Saturday. 9.45 a.m. It's yet another gloomy and overcast day here in Milton Keynes. I see from BBC Breakfast, that vast swaithes of Britain is covered in thick fog, but this area seems to have escaped. There are problems with visability as airports and flights have either been delayed or cancelled. Drivers have been told to be careful on the roads, and, in particular, because visability if poor.

I went to the prayer meeting at SCF this afternoon. A lot of the people who are in the Thursday morning group were there.

Sunday. 7.35 a.m. I've been out with Alfie. There's a bit of fog hanging around although it's thin and is likely to disperse as the day progresses.

Monday. 9.35 a.m. A bit of a misty, rather than a foggy day. Overcast and murky is the best way to describe it.

I found that I was running low with some of my medication, so I decided it would be advisable to put in a repeat prescription. I went on the on-line pharmacy I use, Pharmacy2U or whatever it's called. When you can order, then those medications which you have signed up to a 'clear', but those they say you can't have yet are screened out, being 'greyed out.' As most of my repeat medications were 'clear', I clicked to order. I thought to myself, 'ok, that's done!' and they will arrived in a few days time through the post. But a few days ago, over the Christmas period, I got a text message from my surgery to tell me I had ordered too early. Which bothered me, because, by this time I had finished the Bisoprolol tablets I take, which I think are to control my heart rate and, hopefully, prevent me having a further heart attack. This morning, rather than ringing the surgery, because I knew it would likely take me about 45 minutes for them to respond, hence causing stress, it was far simpler to drive to Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre and get the medication ordered, which I did. I was concerned that they might not be open, due to the Christmas and New Year holidays. But I needn't have worried, as they were open, and I spoke to a receptionist, who did the order on her computer and I will hopefully receive the medication in a couple of days, maybe a bit longer than usual due to New Year getting in the way.

Well, Did You Ever?

Thursday. 5.45 a.m. Well, I'm awake (let's say, almost!) dressed and already taken Alfie out. The pain in my lower back (I think, to be far more precise, my hip.) is still causing problems. I imagined it would be fading away by now, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything of the sort.

9.00 a.m. Goodness, gracious! The sun is out. It's almost (I do stress the word almost here!) the right sort of weather for August. Just don't hold your breath. I haven't recorded the room temperature from my digital thermometer for quite a while, but as I write this, it's currently 26ºC.

I have decided (now, there's a thing) that I will give this blog a break once I get to the end of this particular post. I will start it up again at the beginning of September.

Friday. 6.05 a.m. Spits and spots of 'sort of' rain when I took Alfie out. Apart from that, nothing very much to report.

Saturday. 11.05 a.m. Another bright and sunny morning. It is hot in the flat. My digital thermometer currently reads 27ºC.

I have reactivated my Netflix account. I'm glad I did because there are a couple of films I want to see, particularly the film version of Matilda, The Musical, and a stop-motion animation version of Pinocchio created by Guillermo Del Toro, and coming in December, a sequel to Chicken Run. I'm a bit of a fan of Aardman animation, who made those brilliant Wallace and Gromit films, which I really love and have watched countless times. Also, the spin-off series, Shaun The Sheep, which are so brilliant and funny. I have to say, their work outshines any of the modern Disney animations, doesn't have to resort to sentimentality and is so beautifully crafted and executed, the detail in the sets, props and puppets is remarkable.

I am currently watching the 5th season of 'The Crown.' I have seen all the earlier episodes. This season seems a good deal more intimate and doesn't seem to concentrate so much on the politics of the time covered. As usual, the detail is exceptional, and the costumes, production design and acting is really excellent. My only reservation would be that it's a bit boring. Some of it doesn't exactly grab your attention.

3.25 p.m. I have just been watching Guillermo Del Toro's film Pinocchio and I have to say, it's quite brilliant. It doesn't shy away from some difficult subjects, such as death, and is certainly not a sentimentalised version. The stop-motion animation is faultless, along with the voice acting of such actors as Ewan McGregor and David Bradley, while the set and production design give the whole thing a real depth. I think Disney might learn a thing or two from this film, If only they would just stop remaking their classic animation films, but messing them up by tampering with them and altering parts of the stories and characters which don't fit the modern politically correct agenda. It certainly deserved its Oscar win as Best Animated Film.

All In A Day's Work!

Wednesday. 6.30 a.m. It's another mild and pleasant morning. Alfie was ready and waiting for me to take him out, barking at me madly.

Yesterday evening I appeared to have got into something of a time-slip, or so it seemed. I fell asleep on my bed and woke up under the impression that it was morning. It's odd what your mind does to you when you're half asleep. Not so much sleep, just groggy. I got dressed and took Alfie out, and I was intrigued to know why there were children playing on Oldbrook Green. It wasn't until I got back inside that I realized it was 8.30 p.m. Not having my FitBit working and on my wrist, nor any sort of timepiece, it was difficult to know the correct time. Well, for all that, at least Alfie got an outing, even when he didn't want or need one.

I have found a great app on the Apple App Store for doing animation. I have paid for it, around £5 and you can do stop frame animation, a bit like Aardman, the Wallace and Gromit people. I now need some sort of rig to support my iPhone and have ordered a gadget on Amazon which does just that and also comes with a microphone for doing videos. I can't wait for it to arrive tomorrow so I can try it out. I have even done a test bit of animation, of one of my rubbers moving across the top of my coffee table. It worked!

Yesterday, one of the buttons came off my shorts. They are by Weird Fish, if you know the brand. Without a button in a strategic place, I'm reluctant to wear them, as you can imagine. I have sewing thread and needles, which I bought in John Lewis a few months ago when I had a similar incident with a pair of chinos. But could I remember when I put either of them? Having moved so much out of the kitchen so that renovations could take place, it's difficult to find anything much. I will eventually return a lot of the things to their rightful places in the new kitchen units, but as regards sewing things, forget it. I did find the needles and decided to go to Hobbycraft to attempt to find sewing thread. I also bought some card and some Plasticine, which I intend to use for the animation I mentioned. The card will become the background which I will construct and the Plasticine will be made into some sort of character which will be the star of the movie I will attempt to make. I bought a cafetière in Sainsbury's yesterday, along with some ground coffee. I love proper coffee and making it in either a filter coffee maker of cafetière is, to me, the best way to make it. I just needed an air-tight container to store it. So, on the way back from Hobbycraft I had intended to go into The Range to have a look and see if they had anything suitable, but when I got down as far as  Childs Way and had hoped to turn right onto the roundabout which leads into the retail park where The Range is situated, the road was coned off, conveniently blocking my exit and therefore preventing my getting to where I had wanted to go, so I changed course and ended up back at Sainsbury's and managed to get exactly what I was looking for regarding an airtight container for my ground coffee. 

On returning to Dexter House, I then intended to sew the loose button back on my shorts, but it was then that I discovered that the aforementioned button was broken, so when I attempted to attach it back to the shorts, it just came off. It then occurred to me that a pair of trousers I had in my wardrobe had conveniently got spare buttons sewn inside the lining, and on removing one of these buttons, it turned out to be exactly the right size to replace the one that had come off. I was then able to sew this spare button on, after some considerable effort, because the material where it was to be sewn, was quite thick, with several layers, but after some effort, the job was done