Well, it's been even more manic than usual...
Brief run down. Fill in the gaps with shopping, gardening, cooking etc.
On the gardening side... Everything is doing well, the greenhouse is now providing us with all our tomatoes, cucumbers, and most recently peppers. They don't grow as big as the bought ones, but they are really nice. We now have a nice load of runner beans in the freezer ready for winter too.
Kai has started constructing the dry stone wall he wants between the slope and the 'dewpond' up in his slowly evolving mini-meadow at the top of the garden. A little while ago we caught an item in a news programme with an artist who balances stones, and Kai fancied having a go. It was astonishingly successful...
Photos © Kai Taylor.
(He disassembled it by blowing on it! The top stone just tumbled down.)
Thursday 20th we went for our first bike ride - not far, just down along the river. Rode down to the end of our road, walked through the park and down to the start of the pathway, rode across Sparke Evans bridge and along to the railway bridge, then back again.
Dotted line was walking, solid line was cycling. By no means a long ride - possibly a mile in total? Less? - but I managed it (wobbling all the way but hey, you try riding with vertigo!), and to my amazement not only did it not make my legs or back hurt, but the painlessness lasted for several hours after we got home.
I was going to get rid of the exercise bike, but Tom (Kai's physioterrorist) recommended him using it as a source of gentle exercise - don't have the time to go riding every day, we'll be lucky if we can manage once a week at the moment - and given it does me so much good too, I now have to make space for it.
Oh, and the new train service from Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach has, I believe, space for bikes, so with a little luck (and some decent weather) by the end of the summer we'll be able to take the bikes to Severn Beach and ride up (or down) the estuary. Nice wide paths and flat terrain - should be great!
On that Saturday Ken and I went to Wells/Glastonbury/Street for a day out and to scour the charity shops. I found a pair of pullup 'jeans' which will do nicely for shopping in the winter, and a double DVD of B movies, Galaxina (of which, more later) and Hunk. Looked bad, but we like bad sometimes, and at only £1 we decided to risk it.
It was a lovely day out, and a good break from Bristol for us both.
Media... Films watched: Logan. Hm. Well, as a portrayal of life for aging mutants trying to survive in a hostile world it was feasible and very good. I didn't like it, personally. It was grimy, unnecessarily foul-mouthed, extremely violent (then again, when was anything Wolverine not?), and really rather unpleasant. Parsecs away from the usual Marvel fare, which I knew going in, but... not for me. Kai enjoyed it. Ken didn't offer an opinion.
Galaxina. Oh dear... We knew it was going to be bad, but hadn't quite expected approaching Plan 9 bad. Overall idea OK, full of jokes and sight gags that in any other film would have been hysterically funny, here delivered so badly they were just cringe-worthy. And yet as the film ended Kai and I both burst out laughing. Not sure if it was relief, or disbelief that a film could be so bad, or hysteria, but something tickled us both.
And just for the hell of it, I've ordered both Plan 9, as Kai has never seen it, and First Spaceship on Venus, which is the film being watched by the crew in Galaxina. Never heard of it but it sounds interesting...
The Time Travellers. This was the last of the B movies on Ken's birthday DVD. After reading the blurb I was sure I'd seen it, but I didn't recognise the opening, so we carried on watching. Fifteen minutes in I realised that I had seen it before - on my parent's black and white TV when I was a child. It's a strange film, the acting and sfx standard for the time (1964), but the story is amazing, and introduces a time paradox not usually explored in films. The middle section is pretty naff, but the rest - yeah! It prefigures some much better known titles, and is a little gem, in my opinion. Well worth checking out. And if you hate it, all you've lost is an hour and a half of your time.
Virtual Nightmare. Well, it had obviously been recorded from the TV, but the quality was pretty good, the sound excellent, and overall it's something of an unknown gem. Australian, no actors I recognised (great performances), and obviously with a fairly low budget, it nevertheless kept us gripped. And the ending came as a surprise, which doesn't happen often these days!
Kai and I are now half way through B5 season5. When we've finished, either the five related films are next, or Crusade, which Kai has never seen and which I remember enjoying immensely. Ken will probably watch these with us.
Last Friday GoodTwin and Sue came to visit! The usual fun day was had, with quizzes and Zoolander 2 (I like that film more and more. Why is there no fanfic!?) and the pilot ep of The Expanse, which Sue had heard of but not yet seen. I think she may now buy it! (Can't wait for season 2 on DVD...)
GoodTwin brought over a hamper -
With the most adorable fox mug we've ever seen. I might just reserve that one for me...
Thank you, both. I had a fantastic day!
Kai's last venesection (last Sunday) went well and quickly, and his last ferritin reading was 1,553: at present it seems to be coming down by 200 points every time. This is excellent news, and with a bit of luck the end is in sight.
Yesterday evening Kai came with me to the Showcase De Lux at Cabot Circus to finally see Transformers: The Last Knight in 3D (the 19.00 hour screening: it ends its run tomorrow so we were just in time).
... oh dear...
It was worse than I was expecting, and deserves less than its IMDb rating, although it did at least more or less follow on more or less from AoE. Oh yes, the sfx and production were as stellar as usual, beautifully designed and portrayed Cybertronians, but the acting was dreadful, the action rushed beyond all hope of making sense of it, and the story even more incoherent and inconsistent than usual. I'll get the DVD when it becomes available, of course, but it's not likely to be watched all that often (and even then I'll probably skip the 'human' parts, which were absolutely abysmal). Very, very disappointing.
I think I'll just ignore it and continue Poppy as though it never existed.
However, the trailers before it looked very interesting. The Dark Tower (Idris Elba is always a great watch), Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - a must-see at the cinema in 3D for the sheer awesomeness of the visuals - and Thor: Ragnarok, which looks to be fun and daft. Geostorm also looks interesting, but might be one to simply buy rather than go see in 3D. Lots to look forward to.
I've finally had to give in and accept I no longer have the strength to drag heavy loads of shopping back, and have got a Tesco account for home delivery. (£36 per year for mid-week delivery and no extra charge if the shop is over £40, which it always is). Most of the heavy stuff comes from Tesco these days - Tyjer's gone off Sains cat food in favour of Tesco's own, and Sains no longer produce their organic orange juice: Tesco does and Ken gets through about four litres a week. Add to that bottles of tonic, coke, cooking wine, vodka, tetrapaks of organic beans and tomatoes... well, having someone else bring it home is wonderful. First delivery arrived this morning. Great!
And that's about up to date for now. No doubt I've missed something, I always do, so if I remember I'll add later. Time to make lunch, then make a start on Kai's wardrobe curtain...
Labels: busyness, films, friends, garden, shopping, Transformers, visits
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 1:28 pm
3 Comments:
It was the mugs which made it a must-buy for you! :)
I doubt it's your sort of film anyway, but don't waste your money on Dunkirk. Adrian went to see it yesterday and felt like walking out after about 15 mins.
Ai LUBS dem! And that fox... [bg]
Will give Dunkirk a miss. As you know, when it comes to buying DVDs we're ridiculously eclectic, but when it comes to paying to see a film, I'd rather be sure first that we're going to enjoy it (or in the case of Tfs just 'cause...) Even with our Insider cards (which are now so old the computer system at the De Lux didn't recognise them [sigh]) and having our own 3D glasses it still comes to 17 GBP, cash I'd rather put towards something we can all enjoy.
PS. That's 17 GBP for Kai and I. Also, I misspelt the title of Transformers: The Last Knight - now corrected!