Annual Advent Eve Excitement

It is the last day of November! It’s unbelievable how quickly this month has gone by for me. Tomorrow we enter my favourite month of the year, which also happens to be our busiest month of the year for birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations. I love it all, and this year we have the added bonus of me NOT working in an industry where December is the most profitable month, and where the people running the company you work for are constantly driving you on to sell more, more, more. More than last year; more than your competitors; more than other stores in the same company.
I am EXTREMELY glad to be out of all that.
And I am EXTREMELY glad that I managed to use the word ‘more’ four times in a row in this blog posting, with it still making sense!

RC 30-11-21

Forgive me for this, but...

It is seen as very childish to talk about poo, but it is a bodily function that we do every day and I don’t see why we should shy away from it. When you become a parent, it becomes a bit of an obsession. Is the baby pooing enough? Or too much? Have we got enough nappies to keep him clean? Should we take spare clothes in case we have a leak around the sides of the nappy? Will there be changing facilities where we’re going or will we end up changing him on the table? Why is his shit GREEN for God’s sake?
Etc. Etc.
Anyway, the reason I mention it is that I have just blocked the toilet at work so badly that I have had to call a maintenance man out. I blame Beryl. Normally, my bowel movements are reassuringly regular and satisfyingly solid, but what came out of me today was like something you’d see in the rhino pen at a zoo.  The sheer volume of what I ate yesterday, coupled with the fact that it was a bizarre combination of sweet treats, succulent sauces, rich ingredients and alcohol-laden pastry products, has obviously given my digestive system no option but to ‘abort and reset’ by throwing the whole lot out in one awe-inspiring, gasp-inducing expulsion. I feel exhausted, and yet strangely proud of my body for the way it has dealt with the onslaught I put it through on Sunday.
Now I think I need to stick to toast, soups and salads for a few days.

Apologies to you all for writing about it, and apologies to Joe for having to fix the toilet.

RC 29-11-21
1655 GMT

Already looking forward to April

Holiday centres take on a weird, other-worldly feel when the weather is bad. It’s a bit like looking at pictures of a Christmas dinner when you’re already full, or being told about a great shop that has recently closed down. Actually, those aren’t great examples of what I’m trying to say, but they’ll do for now.
The point is – our sites are created and maintained to be colourful areas of fun and vacation, and now it’s dark and drizzly all day, they seem a bit out of place and unusable. Haunting, in a way.
Hasn’t it been bloody cold in the past few days? After that lovely, long, lazy Autumn that stretched nicely into mid-November, Winter has arrived with a vengeance and in full force. I’m wearing warmer clothes, but by the time I’ve walked from the car park to the office I’m shivering and reaching for the coffee pot.

RC 29-11-21

So full its frightening

I have, somehow, managed to survive the onslaught of Beryl’s Annual Extravaganza Of Christmassy Culinary Delights. I was so uncomfortable driving home that I had to stop twice to stretch out and help my stomach in its attempts at recovery.
Beryl once again surpassed herself. I’m not sure how many times someone can surpass themselves before they reach a point beyond which they cannot advance, but knowing Beryl she’ll keep on pushing and probing and finding new ways to amaze and astonish us in her ongoing quest to achieve Yuletide feasting perfection.
Where do I start?
We had a mince pie with a cup of tea shortly after arriving. The mince pies were shortcut pastry made with so much butter they were yellow, and containing enough brandy to keep a city-wide fire fuelled for a fortnight. After that rather indulgent starter we had about seven hours of tasters and titbits that left me salivating and stuffed in equal measure. I’m not sure how many courses she’s planning to produce for her family on Christmas Day, but if she ends up doing EVERYTHING we sampled today, they won’t stop eating til Easter.
The woman is a genius.
Or dangerous.
Or possibly both.
She’s a dangerous genius, like the people working on A.I. or the scientists who created the hydrogen bomb.
I think my personal favourites today were the honey-glazed carrots, roasted until they were borderline crispy, and the parsnips, which had been grown in Ted’s allotment this year, and which Beryl finished off in a fryer. SO tasty.
There were other assorted brilliances, but I know that at least two of Beryl’s children like to read this blog from time to time, and I don’t want to ruin any surprises she has planned, so I shall stop here. But let me just tell you, if you’re lucky enough to be spending December 25^th where we spent today, you are in for a day of exceptional flavours and ridiculously rich gravy. I would advise wearing loose-fitting trousers.

RC 28-11-21

Parenthood... Pah!

Mathew is being a little terror.
There’s no other way of putting it. He’s being a boisterous, unpleasant, narky, snarky, tantrum-throwing, mood-inducing ball of anger and attitude. People always talk about ‘The Terrible Twos’ and I was confidently (and foolishly) saying we’d got away with it. But now, less than a month shy of his third birthday, he has obviously decided to make up for lost time and to make our lives a bit Hellish. I keep trying to use the ‘Santa doesn’t visit naughty boys’ angle, but he’s too young to remember previous Christmasses and therefore impervious to the threats. He is waking us up with a scowl on his face, spending all day pushing our buttons, treating us as if we are the root cause of all the world’s problems, and then refusing to go to bed.
I love him, and he’s brilliant, and I know this is just a stage, and I know we’ll get through it, but right now our homelife is a struggle.

RC 26-11-21
2220 GMT

Am I becoming The Hulk?

With my recent bouts of annoying ‘illness’ and with me feeling generally run-down and susceptible to infections, I have gone back to using Berocca. For those of you unfamiliar, they are chalky pills that you drop into a glass of water, that fizz up into an orangey flavoured drink that gives you lots of artificially-created vitamins and supplements.
I used to take them a lot, then I stopped completely, and I have to say that this morning has reminded me why I ceased.
I have just been to the toilet and my piss is light green….

RC 26-11-21

May need an ambulance Monday

We are off to Ted and Beryl’s this weekend, for one of her ‘Christmas Is Coming And I Want To Try Out Some New Recipes On Friends Before I Prepare Them For My Family On 25^th December’ overindulgence extravaganzas.
I wonder how much longer she’ll be doing these things. She’ll kill me if I reveal her age here, but she’s not on the shy side of 70, and has had a few health problems and ‘little issues’ over the past 10 years. She has slowed down and toned down her efforts, but she still insists on being the host for a full-on Yuletide indulgence with her family every year, and who are we to stand in the way of her annual fun?  Getting old is not a fun thing to deal with, but the ones who deal with it best are the ones who keep themselves active and refuse to give up and succumb, so the longer she keeps on going the better her later years will be, I hope.
And my small part in that process is to sit my arse on her sofa and gorge myself on whatever culinary delights she is producing for Christmas 2021.
I have a feeling this year may be even more exceptional than usual. With the minor irritation of Covid last year, she wasn’t allowed to have a big gathering like normal, so she couldn’t be quite as outlandish. With (hopefully) no restrictions in attendance, she can let herself go, throw her shackles to the wind, and produce a feast for the ages that will be talked about Christmasses hence ad infinitum.

I feel like this posting is not making sense. I am getting so excited typing about food that I am salivating profusely and my fingers are trembling. I seem to be throwing down random words and making up phrases without really thinking what they might mean, and how they might read. So I shall leave it there for now and try and be more coherent tomorrow.
I’m REALLY looking forward to Sunday, though….

RC 24-11-21

Trumpet blowing

I had a meeting with Gavin today, which was a combination of a supervision, a performance review, a planning meeting, a business lunch and an onsite inspection. True of most of my ‘meetings’ with Gavin, it involved sitting in a decent gastropub eating a fine meal and drinking lots of coffee.
It went very well, I have to say.
From previous employment, I’m used to these sort of encounters being an exercise in frustration; a waste-of-time, box-ticking extravaganza of closed-eared bosses indulging in corporate line-toeing and meaningless Management Wankspeak. Many are the days I have sat in bland Meeting Rooms, or participating in online conference calls, wishing for the time to pass quicker so I could get the hell away from the over-promoted pricks and fresh-out-of-uni power-dressers who make up most Senior Management teams in the world of retail. For every good idea suggested by a participant, there are a dozen monumentally stupid, ill-advised ‘blue-sky-thinking’ gimmicks that end up taking valuable man hours away from already over-tired employees and causing more problems than they solve.
Anyway – if I may pause to breathe here for a moment – that wasn’t the case today, and will never be the case for me again, unless something goes horribly wrong.
So, to summarise, Gavin is very, very pleased with the new structure he put in place this year, and my part in it. There may still be a few tweaks to the ‘who does what’ playbook, as we reflect on a first season together and learn from it, but all in all we all seem happy with each other, and confident that 2022 will see even more improvements and even more enjoyment from all concerned.
And I shall celebrate tonight by eating a large chunk of Mint Viennetta as my dessert…..

RC 23-11-21

Coming soon - CHRISTMAS!

Sorry for mentioning it early (only apologising to those who think the Yuletide build-up shouldn’t start until we’re in December) but it is wonderful to be facing The Onset of Advent without the usual full-on nutty busy-ness that comes from working in the retail industry. I can’t remember the last time I was approaching the last month of the year without apprehension about keeping shelves stocked, not running out of petrol, or avoiding confrontations with insane over-shopping pensioners and angry mums determined to get the last Cadburys calendar on the last day of November. I shudder now, remembering some of the crap I had to put up with when people were trying to get their groceries for The Big Day. Most supermarkets are only closed for about 30 hours these days and yet most customers attack the store like it’s the apocalypse and the only way their family survive is if they get their hands on a year’s supply of mince pies and enough Pringles to sink an aircraft carrier.
This year should be tame in comparison; relaxed and much, much calmer.
I am, to say the least, rather pleased.
(I’m also quite chuffed about how many ways I found to mention Christmas in this posting without actually using the word ‘Christmas’)

RC 22-11-21

Decimovies

I’ve watched quite a few films in the last few weeks, but I don’t want to bore you with a slew of long-winded paragraphs reviewing them all (especially after over-doing it with Bond yesterday) so I’m limiting myself to just 10 words for each movie:

PARALLEL – “Well-written, interesting take on multiverses and how to abuse them.”
DARK CRIMES – “Jim Carrey as a Polish detective. Brilliantly acted. Beautifully shot.”
DON’T LOOK NOW – “Still great to watch, 50 years on. Haunting. Mesmerising. Magnificent.”
EXPOSED – “A rare beast indeed – a Keanu Reeves film worth watching!”
ARCTIC – “Snow-bound Survival epic. Mads Mikkelsen excellent as determined, lost soul.”

RC 19-11-21

Too Much Time to Die

So last weekend I finally, finally, FINALLY got to see the latest James Bond film. In an alternate universe, we’d have watched it back in 2019, but it was delayed by a change of director, then delayed by – ahem – The Thing We Try Not To Mention.
So was it worth the wait?
Personally, speaking for myself, and being honest, I have to say No, it wasn’t.
For a start, its just too bloody long. By about 45 minutes. You could have pressed PLAY on the projector on Day 1 of the pandemic and still be watching the end credits when the vaccine was produced. It’s TOO LONG. They seemed determined to make it the longest Bond film ever, regardless of whether they had anything worthwhile to put in the runtime. WARNING – this next joke works better if you read it aloud…
I know they want to give people value for money, but when it comes to Bond (as we all found out from the 1972 – 1985 era) more is not always better.
I never thought I’d say this about a 007 offering, but I found it boring. I really didn’t like it. Lots of things happened that I just don’t think should happen in a Bond film, and the ‘ordinary man with extraordinary capabilities’ persona seemed to have given way to a ‘superhuman superhero with almost Godlike status and importance’ one. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has a lot to answer for, and I think this franchise is another one of its victims.
They made a big thing about the fact that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought in to spruce up the script and give the female characters better dialogue, but I’m not really sure what she did. Lashana Lynch’s ‘new 00’ was feisty, spunky and interesting, but ended up being a fawning Bond fan who stepped aside to let the experienced white man take over proceedings, and I can’t imagine that’s what they were originally aiming for. Ana de Armas is a superb actress and featured heavily in the promotional material, but she only seemed to be on-screen for 10 minutes, and didn’t do much while she was there. She will go on to have a great career, but I doubt this film will be seen as a highlight.
I’m not going to go on and on about it, because then this blog posting will be displaying the same faults and failings as the film it is reporting on – too much of too little – but I guess my one-word review would be ‘disappointing’.

RC 18-11-21

Fire on the Common

And so, two years later than the last time I did it, and nearly two weeks after the event itself, I get to write a blog about one of my favourite annual spectacles. GUY FAWKES NIGHT.
This year, we took in a display on Saturday 6^th (due to our other excursion on Bonfire Night itself, as outlined by me yesterday).
We chose a medium-sized affair in a fair-sized village in Suffolk, rather than an overcrowded, overwhelming big city extravaganza where it takes an hour to leave the car park and the queue for the toilets is huge.
Our venue-of-choice was a playing field on the edge of a large farm, and was a fundraiser for the local scouts group, who were in attendance as ‘hired help’ selling raffle tickets and directing people around the site. It was JUST the kind of fireworks do that I love. Low-key, a couple of hundred people, a modest-but-meaningful display, the smell of fatty hot dogs in the air and plenty of smiling faces on lots of local families. The only thing from my ‘List Of Ingredients For The Perfect Bonfire Night’ that was missing was soup, but that can be forgiven when everything else was so enjoyable.
I can’t even tell you why it is that I find these things so lovely, but I do. Maybe it’s the shared sense of spectacle, or the camaraderie of the community, but I just love the feeling of being outside on a cold Winter’s night, surrounded by like-minded souls and wrapped up warm against the crisp air, a hint of palpable excitement wafting through the crowd as we all wait for Jim the farmer to light the first firework and give us 10 minutes of colourful respite from reality. It’s just lovely, and I am so, SO glad it wasn’t cancelled again!
Lockdowns were an absolute shitter, for many reasons, but I think I can honestly say that seeing Bonfire Night scuppered by Covid was the worst part of it all for me. I know that makes me seem petty and childish, and highlights how little the pandemic caused me problems, but I’m probably not alone. It’s the little things in life that make a difference, and when those little things are denied us, we are not ourselves and we struggle to cope with the big stuff. I’m only now realising how much that is true, and maybe that’s why November 6^th felt so needed and so special.

RC 17-11-21

Fire on the Water

I thought I’d tell you about the way we spent Bonfire Night.
I know, I know, it was nearly two weeks ago, but it made a good impression and I wanted to share it with you.
There is - as some, but not all of you, will know – a seaside town on the East Coast of England called Great Yarmouth. It is simultaneously one of the most deprived areas in East Anglia and one of its most popular tourist spots. There is a nicely spruced-up, well-maintained seafront area with several attractions and a multitude of gaudy amusement arcades, but travel less than half-a-mile inland and you encounter overcrowded, outdated housing, teenage pregnancies and drug problems. (Apologies to anyone who lives there, but I believe I am not doing it a disservice).
Anyway – every September they put on a simply brilliant international festival of circus acts and street performers, and this year the team behind that festival created something different for the end of October. In an already-pleasant venue called The Venetian Waterways they set-up a series of sculptures and installations, all incorporating fire, so you could have a nice after-dark walk through the ornamental gardens and around the boating lake, while seeing steel heads with flames in their eyes and brass band instruments shooting fire into the sky. There were arches of fire over bridges, twirling and twisting metallic creations that reflected the dance of the flames, and all manner of weird artistic projections that cast shadows over sheets and portrayed images such as dancing couples and mermaids.
We went on November 5^th because it was the only night we could get tickets for, so we got to experience it while seeing fireworks exploding at a big display slightly further up the coast. It was absolutely packed – (I think someone told me they’d had 30,000 visitors in total) – but you were let in at the set time you had booked, groups were encouraged to keep away from each other, and a one-way system was enforced, so it all felt fluid, well-organised and safe. Staff members (or volunteers?) were stationed every 50 yards or so and they did a grand job of keeping things moving and keeping everyone entertained and informed. I hate to sound like an online reviewer, but all in all it was a great evening out and a unique experience. Mathew was absolutely captivated by it all, and it gave me a lovely feeling of nostalgic connection to the past. It reminded me of old Victorian street fayres you see in old books and on Christmas cards, with folk gathering outside round a lit brazier to enjoy the warm and sing songs and tell tales.
The walk took over an hour and almost every step of it involved something to do with fire.
God knows what their gas bill must have been, but I have to say it was brilliant.

RC 16-11-21
2135 GMT

Absence makes the, etc.?

Okay – let’s get this back up-and-running. Enough dilly-dallying, procrastination and downright laziness, it’s time to kick myself up the virtual backside and make sure I start blogging regularly again. I’ve had a break, I’ve had a rest, I’m ready to go again.
I can’t make a start right now, as I’m running late for work, but believe me, from here on in you’ll have posts from Rory falling out of your lower orifices hourly. So to speak…
Planned highlights to come include:
A review of Bond 25
My reflections on Fireworks Night
A preview of our family Christmas
The Return of Rory’s 10-word Film Thoughts

Let’s go….

RC 16-11-21

Another month, another long gap between postings

I don’t really feel like blogging tonight, but I didn’t want to go a whole week without putting something on this site, so here I am, so be prepared for some waffling nonsense that will probably make zero sense.
I’ve been feeling bloody knackered again. I put in a lot of work, in a short space of time, to get the Hallowe’en ‘Party’ successfully sorted, and that was at the end of a long, busy Summer season in which I was dealing with the busiest year on the business’s books while also learning the job as I went along. In the middle of last week, when everything was starting to calm down a bit and we finally had time to think and reflect, it all caught up with me and I felt my energy disappear and my brain try to shut itself down. The Long-Covid-That-Wasn’t-Long-Covid-So-I-Don’t-Know-Why-I-Keep-Calling-It-Long-Covid bug I had seemed to rear its head again for a third (or was it fourth?) assault on my immune system.
So I’ve been getting lots of sleep, taking lots of vitamins, watching lots of films, and generally being good to myself.
I finally got to see ‘No Time to Die’ (which I’ll blog about another day), we went to an interesting fire-and-sculpture event on Bonfire Night (which I’ll blog about another day) and I got to see some impressive fireworks on Saturday (ditto on the ‘another day’ thang).
So I feel a bit better now, and looking forward to a calm few months of low-key interactions with the public, and lots of onsite maintenance, before it all kicks off again next Spring.

RC 9-11-21

Musings on meteorological misalignment

I actually wrote this on Monday afternoon, but didn't get round to posting it, as i got distracted by tiredness and indigestion. You might as well read it anyway....

I hate to revisit past points and go on about the same old subjects, but I have to say that I think September and October went by so quickly and so enjoyably because they were unseasonably warm and pleasant. Normally I am borderline suicidal when we change the clocks back to GMT, but this year it doesn’t seem to have affected me at all. If anything, it crept up on me unexpectedly and therefore I didn’t spend a fortnight dreading its imminent arrival.
I know I’m in a different work situation to this time last year, so it all feels unfamiliar and new, and maybe I was distracted from my usual late-October mindset, but I’m pretty sure that it would have been different if we’d had frosts and rain and temperatures in single figures all month.
I’m not the oldest person in Britain, but I can remember November normally starting with the trees bare of leaves and with everyone wrapped up warm against the Winter cold. As I look out of the window here, it resembles the Septembers of my youth – the trees are browning, but still adorned with their leaves, there are still plenty of birds and insects about, and everyone looks dressed for Autumn.
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, but I’m sure I’ve probably said it before, and I’m sure other people have said it before too, and they were far more eloquent about it than I’m being so I’ll shut up and leave it there. Except to say that it feels nice to have a mild end to the year after the horror show of August, but it also fills me with despair because it probably means we’ll have a freezing cold April and May again next year. The seasons are well and truly f**ked, but at least I’m ok about it today.

RC 3-11-21

Bang, bang, blah, blah, bang

I’m trying not to get too contrary about it, but I don’t like this “Fireworks Should Be Banned Because They’re Bad For The Poor Animals” movement that has gained strength this year. It seems to be an agenda being pursued by middle-aged women on facebook; most of them the same people who post pictures of their pets dressed in human clothes, saying the animals love it because it makes them feel part of the family! It worries me a bit when people with no training or qualifications claim they know what is best for the creatures we share this planet with. A) There’s a reason it takes so long to train as a veterinarian, and B) It’s easy to claim you know what’s best for something that can’t speak up and correct you.
I had a cat that absolutely hated loud noises, and yes – Bonfire Night could cause him a few traumatic episodes as bangers went off in neighbouring gardens. But, as I remember it, he would be fully recovered and back to his usual self about 10 minutes after the last firework had fizzled itself to death. There were no lingering after effects, just as there were no ongoing issues after a thunderstorm. He just got on with life and forgot about the noises once they’d gone.
Maybe there’s something we can all learn from that.

Anyway, I’m keeping out of it (despite what I’ve written above!) and I’m looking forward to a splendid display or two this coming weekend. I don’t care if they’re silent, as long as they’re bright and beautiful. It’s one of my favourite events of the year, and missing out last year was a bummer of extreme proportions.

RC 2-11-21

The morning after the fright before

The title of this blog has nothing to do with what I’m about to write, but it just seems like such a great title for something written the day after Hallowe’en. So great in fact, that I’m now convinced someone must have used it before. Several people, in fact. Oh God, I’m so unoriginal and obvious.
Anyway, enough of the self-flagellation and self-hatred, on with the writing.
The party went GREAT! Even with my afore-mentioned self-hatred, I am able to acknowledge that I did a good job, and we pulled it off, and it was a good event!
There was a steady stream of families wandering around the park for my ‘Treasure Trail’, the entertainers were on great form and got a good response from the kiddies, and the fireworks – despite Gavin’s reservations – went down a treat!
All in all, I am extremely satisfied. And rather hungover, as we went a bit mad with the leftover punch and Budweiser. It accidentally became a bit of an end-of-season shindig for the staff, so it felt rude to leave too early. I think I got rolled into a taxi at 11.15pm, but I may have that slightly wrong.
Today could be a struggle….

RC 1-11-21