OK, let's try to get up to date...

[sigh] I typed that ^ 39 hours ago and then the day descended into the usual chaos.

Let's try again.

Don't know how many people heard about the pilot cheering people up by making smiles in the sky with his vapour trail, but we saw it ourselves from the garden back in June (? I think. Mid lockdown anyway.)

© Kai Taylor 2020

Lithops flower, and the new orchids...

Pretty!

Medical: had a phone call from orthotics - I have a pair of shoe inserts coming (in maybe 8 - 12 weeks) which should help fix the foot. Fingers crossed. It'll be winter, at any rate, and I'll be in trainers, luckily, as the inserts can't be worn with sandals.

We've carried on watching a lot of films/series. I found the first ep of Space 1999 on Youtube, so we watched it (on the TV, it's nice having access to Yt on the bigger screen), and enjoyed it so much I bought the complete boxed set. Note, if anyone ever does this, whatever you do DON'T screen it in the order on the box. The second ep there is actually ep 14: the first three should go Breakaway, Earthbound. Black Sun. After that it's not so important, but not watching the start in that order leaves you hopelessly lost. (One day I'll get around to pointing that out in an amazon review...) It's OK, but tends to lose its interest after a bit.

Then we FINALLY got around to watching the Death Note/Death Note: The Last Name that Adrian recorded for me back in... 2009? Thanks Adrian - it's fabulous! So much so that I had to buy the followup, L Change the World which we all loved (although there's a very annoying flaw in the production at 1 hr 21 mins in, where the action becomes horribly jerky. I was sent a replacement DVD when I got back to the seller, but alas it has the same flaw. It's watchable - the jerkiness only happens when the action is fairly fast onscreen, and quite a lot of the end of the film is quite static or takes place on a moving plane, which is jerky anyway - but frustrating. Fingers crossed someone brings out a better version.) Have ordered the fourth chapter - Light up the NEW World; there's a fifth chapter, New Generation, which isn't available to buy yet...

I found the two Death Note figures I was missing - the shinigami Ryuk and Rem - on ebay, so have those coming for Yule.

Then thought I'd try and get some of the films the main actors in my favourite live action anime productions star in... I'm fond of the Rouroni Kenshin films - Rouroni Kenshin I: Origins, Rouroni Kenshin II - Kyoto Inferno (both of which Ken and I have watched in the last few days, now planning time for the third film, Rouroni Kenshin III The Legend Ends - though in fact it doesn't as there are two more films planned for release in 2021...) and the lead actor, Takeru Satoh (who has the most beautiful mouth I've ever seen) is also in Inuyashiki, so picked that up. Cracking film! The same company had The Wandering Earth for sale: I love the story and have been hoping to find the film for a while. Ignore the reviews on the IMDb - this film is fantastic.

Tatsuya Fujiwara - Light in Death Note, is in Rouroni Kenshin II and III - and also in Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler, which is rollicking fun. Ken'ichi Matsuyama - L in Death note - is also in it, as well as in Gantz and Kamui, both of which have arrived and will be watched soon.

For a change of pace - In this Corner of the World, which is beautiful and desperately sad but with a sort of hopeful ending, Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies, ditto, and Melancholia, which is hugely depressing and fatalistic. So to cheer ourselves up we then watched Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw - such fun! Then again, with Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba and Ryan Reynolds, four of my favourite actors, in the same film it couldn't really be anything else...

Caught the first 15 mins of The Librarian III: The Curse of the Judas Chalice on the SyFy channel, and decided it looked so much fun I'd order the boxed set of the three Librarian films - The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines and the aforementioned Judas Chalice. They sound like a melange of Indiana Jones and Warehouse 13, with a dash of Dr Strange thrown in, and should be interesting!

And we still have the whole of Deep Space 9 to work through. Maybe start that in October...

Talking about October... my hair hasn't been cut since last December and it's driving me nuts - in my eyes and in my mouth and up my nose... Finally decided to risk The Zone, and have an appt for Sun 4th Oct - earliest Jeff can fit me in. Tempted to say to cut it to an inch long all over, but would probably regret it on leaving the building.

Drove Tyjer to vet for his annual boosters (or, as Ken said, Tyjer's passed his MOT and Derpy's been to the vet...) and check up in August, and he's fine. Getting older like us all, but no new problems, which is great.

Started getting the garden ready for the winter (yes, already. It's cold and everything's more or less finished!) Kai and I planted the saffron crocuses I ordered back in the spring, and have covered the higher raised bed with weed suppressing fabric - and pricklestrip over the crocuses - until next year.

Ken had annual leave end of last week/beginning of this, and we bussed out to B&Q for the afternoon on Tues. Everyone was being very sensible, socially distancing and wearing masks, but it was exhausting. Still, we had 156 grey pavers delivered yesterday - Kai, bless him, wheelbarrowed them all from the drive to outside the greenhouse, took ages and he's knackered today. Going to be great fun getting them into place, but once it's done I'll be able to assemble my fruit bush raised bed, and we'll have a platform for the telescope for those rare clear nights. Still waiting for the paint and shelf makings to be delivered: we're redecorating Ken's office, since he may be working from home for a while longer.

Interesting ride back. Everything was fine until we got to the top of Union Street: then, after the driver had indicated and started pulling away, an incredibly stupid young woman - no mask, of course - with a pram and a couple of young kids, started hammering on the side of the bus, and the windows, demanding to be let on (legally, once a bus has indicated and started moving away they aren't allowed to stop.) She carried on screaming insults and battering at the driver's window, recording him on her phone - then tried to reach into the cab.

Then she spat in his face.

.....

He started the bus alarm (never heard it before, it repeats - 'Warning, this bus is under attack, ring 999' over and over again) and once she was out of the way, back on the pavement with her kids, he drove to the next bus stop, pulled up, and rang the police.

Once he'd confirmed that they were coming, we could all get off the bus and he stopped the next no 1 for us all to get on to continue our journeys. I was on first - and the stupid bint was on it, still no mask, grinning her head off. So I backed off, told the assaulted driver she was there, and she got hauled off and pulled to one side to be questioned by the police, shouting rubbish about him being rascist and hate crime and how could they do this when she had her kids with her? (The rascist bit confused me, as I thought she was just white with a bad fake tan, but apparently she was mixed race? You'd never have known...) Anyway - our poor driver now has to go into 2 weeks self-isolation, and we were nearly an hour late getting home.

Hope she was charged with assault.

I'm reading through the Orczy Scarlet Pimpernel books. I already had five of them: found there are 13 in total, so have hunted ebay and got another five of them on the way...

I think that's most of the news, though I've probably forgotten something. If so I'll edit later or add it to the next update. In the meantime - I'm going to treat myself to a vodka and tonic while listening to Wave Anime Radio on Radio garden Tokyo.

Cheers!!

Labels: busyness, Derpy, films, garden, Japanese films, medical matters, nothing's ever easy 'round here..., Tyjer