Saturday: 3 hour antenatal class in Henley, drive home, train to Richmond, chocolate shop, meet up with Pete’s mum and sister, early dinner at Giuliano’s, geocaching on the bridge, train home, vomity child, collapse on sofa.
We were geocaching in some woods today near Frimley, Surrey.
The geocaches that we found were the SWEETS ROUND some others including the one that UborkaPete popped out of the car for. I got some chocolate buttons which were very rich so I think I know why they were so much money. The SWEETS ROUND geocaches were 16 caches long and I got a prickly hand after SWEETS ROUND #4 I had 1 chocolate button after each one and 1 just after a geocache so even though we were looking for 16 I had 17 and I thought for Xmas we should make a cake out of them. SWEETS ROUND #16 brought our geocaching finds up to 210 then the one that UborkaPete popped out of the car for took it up to 211.
It’s a select gathering tonight. Here in Casa Uborka, I’m eating crisps for tea and finishing off the miraculously leftover wine from last night. Pete’s gone out to play poker, which if he’s any good at it, might be his new job.
The highlight of my week was being offered a job within half an hour of the interview, despite the interviewers having told me that they would be making the decision that evening and phoning the successful candidate in the morning. Yes I am smug. One of the questions they asked me was what did I consider to be the challenges of working from home. I answered, honestly, that my biggest challenge was being distracted by internet forums. As I was being interviewed for a job on an internet forum, this did not appear to have been a bad answer.
But this does bring us nicely to Lyle‘s claim that working from home makes him “flumpy.” We don’t know what “flumpy” is but we assume it’s to do with taking frequent breaks to do laundry, make bread, accept a supermarket delivery, have a nap, and watch last night’s episode of Masterchef on iPlayer. This is what I do, when not being distracted by internet forums. Lyle, of course, does it with vodka.
Asta, on the other hand, claims that visiting Ikea is work. Some of us would agree with that. Happily she finds time in her busy day to make apple peel bourbon, for which we require the recipe.
Ms Gammidgy appears to be the only one with a proper job here. She also has a proper house, so she’s a proper grown up and everything. Ms G, I raise a glass to you: you have Made It.
Bring some virtual hugs for Pete, who is having a tough time at work; and high fives for me as I picked up a new job this week. What’s your working week been like?
[n.b. drinks will be served later this evening]
After weeks of feeling meh about running, also tonsillitis, half term, and general disruption from having walls painted etc, I managed to get out for a whole 2.25 miles on Monday, and fully intend same again tomorrow. Perhaps even a little bit more. I need your help to keep me going, my head has completely lost the discipline of running, especially as far as distance is concerned.
Congratulations to Pixeldiva for her successful W5R3 on Saturday!
What have you all been up to?
Over the last two weeks we’ve had some walls plastered and painted, and a heating engineer has been in to scratch his chin and tell us how much it will cost to sort out the central heating (to fix a small mechanical fault). We asked him if it was worth us replacing the system with a combi boiler, and his response was to ask if this was our forever home (and if not, then no).
We moved in here 8 years ago, with a newborn baby and very little furniture. Pete and my stepdad took the van that we hired for the removal to Ikea to buy everything. The designer garden was not yet overgrown with weeds and de-gravelled. This house was both better than we expected, and not as good as we wanted. The plan was to stay for ten years.
Since then we have had the walls and loft insulated, ripped out a hideous stone fireplace, replaced some carpets with laminate, built in a bedroom wardrobe, block paved the drive, and completely neglected the garden. Piece by piece we have been replacing and fixing and fiddling with bits of the house until it… still looks much the same as it did. And the really unsatisfactory bits (tiny kitchen, only one bathroom, too many plants in the garden most of them weeds) remain the same because they’re too big to do anything about. If we decided this was our forever home, perhaps we would stop fiddling and build an extension, instead of trying to improve the place piecemeal.
But I don’t think our forever home is semi-detatched on a suburban cul de sac; I’m holding out for something better. Not necessarily bigger, though my wishlist includes two bathrooms, large kitchen, and one extra room to be the study. Fields or woods or something nearby other than the main road to Reading. But then on the other hand we don’t want a whole load more mortgage when we’re managing perfectly well with the one we’ve got. How am I going to know when we find our forever home?
I’d been warned. But we have to do this.
Not a terrible start to this album, Loving The Alien is a bit of a cheesy 80s pop song with ballady tendencies, but I can endure it. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that I quite like it. Some fairly tasty bass work too, including a squelchy bass riff and some pleasant harmonics here and there. Miraculously, despite the fact that this song is over 7 minutes long, it doesn’t feel it.
Things start going downhill with Don’t Look Down. Bowie takes an Iggy Pop song and makes it reggae and it’s quite quite abhorrent. I’m not a big fan of reggae at the best of times, but hearing Bowie applying a Caribbean inflection to his singing just makes me cringe.
Did I say something about cringing? The third song is a cover version of God Only Knows by The Beach Boys, and this is even worse. I wouldn’t say that I’m desperately keen on the original, but it does have a certain delicacy, a tenderness that hints of an old couple sitting on their porch. Bowie’s cover does away with that, and replaces it with preposterous bombast and drama. I’ve listened to this song once and skipped it every single time since then. It’s poison.
The title track is another silly reggae song. This song was co-written by Iggy Pop and Bowie for Lust For Life, and was not a reggae song. So obviously, making it into a reggae song, and having Tina Turner (and you know how I feel about Tina Turner, dear reader) sing backing vocals was the logical next step. This song reminds me of Where’s My Plectrum? from the first Shiny Tight Stuff album. I’d been listening to a lot of Finley Quaye and decided that it would be a good idea to write a song in his style, complete with accent. In hindsight, it comes across as a little bit racist.
Immediately followed by another song from Lust For Life, Neighbourhood Threat. Seriously, it’s like Bowie isn’t even trying to make it look like he’s making an effort. This is probably one of the better songs on the album, though there are moments where it feels like it wants to be on the Top Gun OST. He’s too close for missiles, I’m switching to guns.
I’ve always found Blue Jean to be a fairly dull and unengaging song, it just plods along a bit. This, and Loving The Alien, are the only two songs on the entire album that aren’t either a complete cover version, or a collaboration with Iggy Pop. I’m starting to doubt whether Bowie really deserves to have his name on this album.
Let’s move swiftly on to Tumble and Twirl which instantly slaps you about the face with its Mark King esque bass line. Never been a big fan of Mark King’s sound, it reminds me of a two-stroke engine. I can’t help but find this song a bit ridiculous. It’s another song where I’m not sad when it’s over.
I Keep Forgetting is also ridiculous, it’s a cover of a blues song from the early 60s is speckled with little drum breaks that seem to be a little bit ungainly, I’m not sure whether the timing is off or not, but there’s something disorientating about them. Not a very fluid listening experience.
Thank god, we’ve reached the last song, it’s Dancing With The Big Boys. It’s hard to describe, it’s just this big theatrical production with bellowed lyrics and horn stabs and a very abrupt ending. As Bowie rightly points out, “this can be embarrassing”. I’d say he’s unintentionally hit the nail on the head.
Hits from this album: Blue Jean and Loving The Alien both did fairly well in the singles chart. Tonight was released as a single, and was successful in some European countries but not in the UK.
My favourite song from this album: Loving The Alien wins by default.
Next up: Never Let Me Down (unless you think I should do the Labyrinth Soundtrack).
Thanks very much to everyone who took photos, and everyone who looked at them. Thanks also to the birds and bikes, leaves and flowers, babies and bobbies, and dogs and noodles for staying still long enough.
Have a good weekend and remember to never return to a firework once lit.