Shopping and Walking

Earlier in the year, our plans included visiting Whitby this weekend, and seeing Eliza Carthy in concert. While there, we’d try and meet up with a couple of old friends again for a coffee. In the end, the gig was sold out, so we abandoned those plans. We will get to Whitby one day, but not quite yet. On the other hand, what luck, not being able to buy tickets. Liesel’s in Alaska and she would have missed the show anyway. And who knows whether I would have made the effort to go all the way over there by myself. Or I would have had to beg, steal or borrow a +1 again. Anyway, we’ll catch up with you again sometime, Yvonne and Ian!

Christmas stamps this year have a little QR code attached. What a waste of resources. You have to download the Royal Mail app to read the code. And what do you get? The same old Shaun the Sheep film that was put up on Day One as a placeholder for more useful information. Yes, I downloaded the app, tried it, and rapidly deleted it. So now, you don’t have to bother.

The three Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials are still available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ in the rest of the world. Well, I enjoyed them. I’m also enjoying the old, classic series from the 1960s. It’s funny how some stories are still in my head, such as the Sensorites, and the Daleks invading Earth in 2164, and the Zarbi, but I had no recollection of the Doctor and his companions spending time in Rome in the time of Nero.

Do you know what? I think this Zarbi, a giant ant, is really a man in a suit. The costume was so much more convincing when I was about 9 years old and the old black and whote TV set wasn’t such high definition.

I enjoyed a nice walk starting at Sale Water Park with about twenty other folks. The path was very muddy in places: one day, I’ll scrape the excess mud off my trousers and return it. One very large puddle spanned the path, and who knows how deep it was in the middle. So we diverted through the trees.

We passed by another place new to me: Chorltonville. Never heard of it before. There was some profound graffiti on a tall building.

I’d like to think that if I went to the effort of reaching those heights, my daubs would be a bit more interesting. On the other hand, some of the graffiti at ground level was comprised of so many layers of paint, it was beginning to flake and fall away from the wall.

For a while, we walked along the Bridgewater Canal and passed by quite a few houseboats. My friend Kerry will be living on a houseboat next year, and I wonder whether she and her family will find their way to this location?

Last year, we bought a new ‘smart’ Samsung television set. On a return visit to John Lewis a couple of weeks ago, Liesel purchased a Samsung soundbar because the sound quality from the TV itself isn’t that good. How do you connect the two? Either a cable or via Bluetooth. Well, the TV is too old (or too cheap?) to have Bluetooth, so it would have to be a Digital Audio cable. Or an Optical cable, depending on which user guide you believe. So I drove back to John Lewis to acquire such a thing.

I explained the predicament to the assistant, and he told me the soundbar doesn’t come with a cable. I know that, I said, that’s why I’ve come to buy one. Oh, we don’t sell them, he said, looking down his nose, but you can get one from Argos next door. Very helpful, thank you; but I think John Lewis are missing a trick there. Anyway, I got the  right cable, connected everything up and it works perfectly. It’ll be a nice surprise for Liesel when she gets back.

Which reminds me, what has she been up to over there in Anchorage? Packing up several boxes of stuff from her Mom’s house and moving to the new apartment. Liesel and Leslie spent one night at a luxury hotel before moving day.

The new apartment is great, very warm, despite the temperature outside at one point being -2°F, that’s a ridiculous -18.8888889°C, cold enough to freeze your nasal hair. No, I don’t think I’m missing much there. That, plus twelve inches of snow one night, on top of the existing waist-deep stuff. And five hours of half-hearted daylight each day. Brrr. The Anchorage Tourist Board rejected my job application for some reason.

You have to be quick or you miss it, but we had a couple of decent sunsets this week.

I was late for the Friday walk because I had  a big problem. I couldn’t find my hat. I had to wear my number two hat. I even asked in Costa in case I’d left it there the previous day. But no. I probably left it on the bus then. Oh well. In Wythenshawe, I was walking past the market stalls, and my eyes lit upon a cozy looking beanie hat. It was a neutral grey colour, with a bobble, and cost a fiver. Which meant that, yes, it’s 100% polyester. Well, it did the job, it kept my ears warm. But later, I was relieved to find my old hat. I had put in in my bag while at the shops. The new grey one has been relegated to the bottom of the basket, for emergencies.

On the radio show this week, I played two hours of songs with titles that are one word repeated, such as Hello Hello, Pamela Pamela, Sugar Sugar, Rebel Rebel. You can listen to it right here on Mixcloud.