Does time go faster the older we get? It certainly feels that way at times.
For example, I haven’t updated this website since October 9th. It doesn’t seem that long ago, and of course I’ve been really busy.
Christmas
For a start off, there was Christmas. December is always crazy, essentially a month with two working weeks (occasionally three if the weekends land right). Because of Christmas and family birthdays, it always ends up a morass of shopping trips and meals out, with two or three big home feasts showhorned in. Both my dad and I have our birthdays in December, which also doesn’t help to keep a firm footing. And then Father Christmas comes along and throws any semblance of normality into the bin.
80th Birthday
Dad was 80 in December. Absolutely baffled about what to buy him for such a landmark, Justine and I decided to club together and get his cine film collection converted to digital format. Classic airshow footage! Headless wives! Children attacking parents with hosepipes! It’s all there, and looks amazing – better than it ever did projected onto the chimney breast.
I’d once tried recording the cine film through a converter box, but the results were never close to satisfactory. Digital conversion (we used TVV, based here in the north east) results in footage that is perhaps clearer and crisper than it has been since the day it was recorded.
Leeds
In early December, Ceri and I took a trip to Leeds. Save for stops on a coach or train, Ceri hadn’t previously visited the city; I hadn’t been in any meaningful way since 1998. Back then I lived there for an ill-fated six weeks when I tried co-habiting with strangers, studying a third choice subject, and voluneteering myself for £1800 of debt.
It’s hardly a surprise I didn’t stick it out.
As such, I’ve always been a little bit wary of trips to Leeds. However, Ceri and I had a grand time, just the two of us, performing some light Christmas shopping without worrying about the relative position of an exciteable child.
Garden Office Shed Room
Throughout October and November, we had built (and then furnished) a garden room, intended as my office. The build was courtesy of www.solidsheds.co.uk (it’s a version of this one) and gives me the space and quiet I need for writing, editing, filming, and podcasting without demanding silence or absence from the rest of the house.
While largely furnished, it still isn’t decorated. This is mainly due to the fact that the plaster has only just fully dried. I’ll be sharing more on this soon.
What Else?
Over the past few weeks, I’ve entered a scriptwriting competition, seen Spider-Man: No Way Home with my son, Bruce, and even got on top of my receipts for 2021. There was also a trip to Meadowhall, which made a change to the usual shopping centres (read: Teesside Park and the Metrocentre), and I took receipt of an Evercade VS retro gaming system. I’ve spent a bit of time playing the classic games available with this system, on both the new home console and the old handheld model. And as the family as addicted to Mario Kart 8 Delux on the Switch, we’ve played a bit of that, too!
