My Weekend In Images

A brief summary of my weekend in images, I cooked a little, ate way too much, bought some pumpkins/squashes and enjoyed a very long soak in a hot bath (I also binge watched all 3 series of She-Ra because I’m totally an adult).

A Steak And Cheese Based Pick Me Up

Is it bad that the only thing keeping my head straight is thinking about a little bit of foodie filth from the weekend? I made a thoroughly awesome, if I do say so myself, steak and cheese sandwich with rosemary salted oven chips, grilled mushrooms and onions and a heavily buttered corn on the cob on the side.

Monday Morning Update

This weekend was a very food heavy couple of days and, whilst I definitely enjoyed eating it, I know that I’m going to spend the rest of the week paying the price for it. I shall be somewhat punishing myself mentally, if not physically, as I obsessively count every single calorie that goes into my body. That’s not to say that I’m currently on a massively restricted calorie count, I’m not really looking to lose any more weight, however, I am actively trying to avoid gaining weight. After the weekend I’ve just had (including heading out for a few drinks on Thursday night), I’ll be aiming for somewhere in the region of 1800 calories a day and over the next 4 days this should, more or less, balance things out nicely.

Some Days A Guy Just Needs A Bit Of Filth In His Life

After what felt like a particularly long week at work, and some fairly healthy eating during said week, I decided to treat myself to a little bit of filth over the weekend. Saturday morning I made a full on cooked breakfast of a couple of Cumberland sausages with fried mushrooms, stewed balsamic tomatoes, fried eggs and a pot of honey sweetened Scottish breakfast tea. Lunch was a large bag of Burt’s roast beef flavoured crisps. Dinner was a homemade, including the base, ham and mushroom pizza with a bottle of beer. And I finished off the day with half a Terry’s dark chocolate orange and a small glass of whisky.

Breakfast Teapot

There’s just something deeply satisfying about a breakfast tray with a teapot on it.

Odd Interview

As I was walking into work today I found that I was contemplating the weekend that has just passed, more specifically the interview I experienced on Saturday morning. I feel a small amount of background information is required here, I have recently applied for my first passport and now, in the UK, in order to get your first passport you have to attend an interview to prove that you are who you say you are. A few weeks after sending my initial application I received a letter asking me to call and arrange an interview location, date and time. As I work fulltime I had little choice but to request a Saturday appointment and 8:30am Saturday 29th in Derby was the only realistic option available. In all honesty the time and place didn’t seem particularly bad, it would give me and my partner the chance to make a morning of it and engage in a little retail therapy. So Saturday came round and me and my partner got ourselves up early and headed off to Derby. More or less from the time we arrived it was a somewhat surreal experience. To start with, despite the office being literally just off a main street in Derby town centre, the directions given to me by the passport service took me out of the town centre and round a fairly grimy, derelict part of town. We got to an open area surrounded by boarded up shops and run down houses, feeling a little lost we stopped to get our bearings and check on my partners phone that we were actually heading in the right direction. Almost as soon as we had stopped walking I was approached by a man asking if my beard was real, once he had convinced himself it was in fact real he shook my hand and congratulated me on my obviously miraculous and glorious beard. Oddly this distraction actually helped, while I was busy shaking hands and having my beard admired my partner spotted the building we were looking for. We entered the building expecting to see a reception are, or at least a receptionist, instead we were greeted by a spiral staircase and another door this time with a buzzer, stuck on the staircase was piece of A4 paper with an arrow, directing us upstairs. On the first floor was an identical scene, again with an arrow directing me up a floor. The second floor turned out to be our destination, here there was yet another identical scene, however, this time the paper was on the door and was directing us towards the buzzer. We approached the door and my partner pressed the buzzer, after a couple of minutes the door opening and a slightly creepy looking man in a security guard uniform poked his head around out but said nothing. Slightly taken aback by the situation I haltingly explained why we were there and handed over a letter I had been asked to take with me. The guard asked me if either of us had a mobile phone and refused to let us enter until he had seen that we had turned them off.  Although the outside area gave the appearance of a small building, upon entering the main room it opened out into a large meeting room. At one end there was a bank of chairs set out in ‘U’ formation, obviously the waiting area. At the far end of the room, forming small cubicles, was a series of floor to ceiling dividers in front of a large glass wall with a single door in it. In each these cubicles was a desk which was exactly the same width as the distance between the dividers, essentially separating the room in two. On each desk was a computer and at each computer was a person, these were the people performing the interviews. As I was waiting I could occasionally hear the other interviews taking place and each sounded slightly odd. The interviewers were all of a type, a none descript man or woman, of smart appearance, who could have been any age from 30 to mid 50, all had a kind of fixed smile on their faces and all spoke with a forced joviality. I was called over for my interview and approached the cubicle that I had been assigned, it almost felt like I was entering a trap, the falseness was almost palpable in the air. As the interview progressed I was asked the obvious questions about where I worked, how’d I’d gotten there, did I drive etc. all the time the woman in front of me had a smile fixed to her face and the false joviality in her voice. I think it was this constant forced joviality the disturbed me the most it left me feeling very uneasy as if there was a wrongness about the whole affair. A feeling that stayed with me well after the interview was over, I still don’t know whether I’m being given a passport or not, all I want to do is go on holiday with my partner for a few days....

Awesome Weekends

I’ve been having a really good time as of late, the last few weekends have been just awesome, and I’ve done so many cool things. It started just after we got back from our trip to stay with Kellys grandparents in Scotland and it’s basically continued every weekend since.

We kicked it all off with a gig, our first gig of the year really, we saw The Wildhearts at Rock City. The support bands were great and everyone was in the mood for a good time, with the bar serving up two pint glasses of cider who wouldn’t be. We stayed on after the show and made a night of it, catching the late bus home and spending the next day chilling out.

The weekend after that we did some shopping for our little garden, picked up a few plants and started to get it on the way to looking nice. The Sunday morning we took Bertie out for his first real run of the year to the Limes Cafe with the Midlands Aircooled Collective, as always he looked and ran great, we got the chance to catch up with some of our fellow members and check out their cars.

The last few weekends have been pretty much full of hi-lights, but one of the best of these was Saxon, they’re an epic band that still know how to blow away an audience. We met Steve and Dave down there and had an awesome night, the second support act, The Quireboys, were so good I’d have happily paid to see them headline, in fact I thought they might just steal the show until Saxon came on and showed us what 35 years of being one of the best in the business means. Every time I see them they get one step closer to kicking Iron Maiden and Motorhead from the top two slots of my “awesome bands to see live” list.

Next I have to say a big thank you to my lovely fiancée Kelly for buying me an awesome Christmas present, she got me tickets to see The Lumberjacks. Craig Campbell, Glenn Wool and Stewart Francis, they were just amazing. I’ve been a fan of Craig Campbell for some time now, Kelly bought us tickets on the strength of this and I’m so glad she did, all in all it was an awesome night. Glenn Wool being the real surprise of the evening, having never really seen much of his stand up I wasn’t expecting to be stunned but he was truly hilarious and I will be looking out for tickets for one of his solo shows.

Finally coming to the weekend just gone, it started with a takeaway and a night relaxing with my lady, which is always amazing and a great way to counteract the stresses of the week. It soon started to pick up pace with a run out to Stanford Hall in Bertie for our first, and also our favourite, big classic VW show of the year. As always this was a great show, lots of beetles, vans, campers, gias etc. all well loved and all amazingly presented. There was is a relaxed, family atmosphere that is sometimes lacking in other shows we have attended in the past and the autojumble is always worth a visit, we picked up a new 6v horn which is now fitted and working a treat. The weekend culminated with meeting the living legend that is Mick Foley, he was just awesome and seemed a genuinely nice guy, we got a picture taken with him and he signed a few things for us and his show was just epic. it started with shorts sets by Craig Campbell and Brendon Burns who just blew us all away, they were hilarious. When Mick came out the whole room was chanting and shouting his name, from the moment he opened his mouth to the moment he shook my hand after the show he was amazing, his stories were hilarious, his timing was spot on, he knew exactly how to talk to the audience and new what we wanted to hear. He really shone, he was funny, witty and clever. The only thing that topped his show was actually getting to meet him afterwards.

The best thing about how the last few weekends is that we’re not done yet, we’ve still got more stuff to come, more shows to see and more places to visit over the next few weeks and months. I’ve got a feeling this summer is going to be one of the best yet and I really can’t wait to spend it with Kelly.

Classic Weekend

Well it’s Sunday night, that means another week has passed and another Monday morning is about to arrive, much to my own displeasure. In all honesty today has been a particularly good day, it’s been a good weekend in general, despite the weather. Saturday passed pretty much as expected, I lay in bed late with my lady, I cooked a typical weekend breakfast of sausage and bacon, we did a bit of shopping, I chilled with a bit of Skyrim, cooked dinner and then kicked back with my lady, a few beers and some filmage. The way I see it a day spent relaxing is never a day wasted, infact I’m certain that it’s a necessity, I know for a fact that I’d go completely crazy without regular chilled days.

Today started unusually early for a weekend and then continued in an usual manor in that instead of taking a risk, and heading out to Stamford for a big VW meet, we played it safe and stayed local going to a small classic car show with a few other members of our VW club. It actually turned out to be an excellent choice, we parked up with the rest of the club and then wandered round to investigate. There was easily 200 other cars there of all different shapes and sizes, it was amazing to just wander round and get a close up look at other people’s pride and joy. I loved it, it had a chilled out, friendly atmosphere and my partner, myself and Bertie, our 66 beetle, fitted right in. We originally intended on only spending a while at the show but ended up spending the whole morning there. After we’d finished at the show we took a run up to the Midland Designer Outlet and chilled out with my partner’s parents in Starbucks before wandering off to the book shop to browse their collection of comics.

I feel like I’ve made the most of this weekend and I’m sure next weekend will be even better as we’re planning on running up to Whitby for a weekend by the sea in our favorite sea side spot. I’m going to need next weekend more than ever, all week I’ll be starting an hour early and working an hour longer, which is going to be a total nightmare.