The New Hair

 

Told you it was the same as the old hair...

Weekend HIghlights

On Saturday morning, Mrs RC took me to do something that I had never done before.  I was really unsure about it, especially as I have never paid for it be for.  In the end it was OK, Mrs RC watched the whole thing and when we left I felt like a new man.  My new hair cut is great - it is just like the old one, only slightly layered so I get more curls. I have been at work for an hour and no one has noticed - even when I told someone they did not seem to believe me!  Love it!

In the evening we went to a niece's 21st birthday party.  It was in a pub in the town and the start of the evening was not encouraging when someone was found snorting cocaine in the toilets.  There was a bit of a fight as he was thrown out but that was the end of it.  The rest of the evening was great, especially when my niece's boyfriend proposed to her.  We were trilled to see that.  She is such a lovely girl and he is such a nice guy - it is always a worry that the younger ones will fall for some complete slime ball, isn't it?  Now the real fun will start - Mrs RC seems to have been appointed as chief wedding planner!

Sunday was a lazy day, the highlight being me and Mrs RC slobbing on the sofa and watching Rock of Ages.  Not a fan of any of the stars (Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin), but I had heard good things about it so watched it expecting it to be OK.  It was actually very funny - and Tom Cruise is very good at playing the arrogant ass...  My favourite scene was the Boy and the Girl talking about how bad life has been to them since they split up.

Her:  I am a stripper!
Him:  I am in a BOY BAND!
Her:  OK, you win...

So now it is Monday again.  This morning was cold, grey and miserable, but the sun is out now so, hopefully, it will be nice by lunchtime - I want to spend an hour in that garden writing more of my zombie book...

Make Hay while the Sun Shines...

Yesterday morning...

 

 

Yesterday morning, just after I arrived at work, I heard someone complaining about how hot it was.  Yeah,we have a couple of decent days and they forget about the crappy winter and crappy spring - some people seem to have the memory of a goldfish...

 

This morning...

 

And it was cold too - hat and ski gloves cold!  I am sure the complainer is now moaning about the rain...

Lunchtime in the Sun

Mrs RC found a lame excuse to come into Canterbury today, so she visited me at lunchtime.

 

We went and sat in the garden that I have been visiting this week.

 

 

The sun was really warm, and we had a wonderful time sitting and chatting and generally feeling like a daft young couple who can't stand to be away from each other.  I think the impending honeymoon has done something to us!

 

Sadly the string quartet wasn't there today, but hey ho, you can't have everything.

 

Mrs RC decided that I would need a desert, so she bought me this.

 

Mmmm, good, eh?  Even better that there were 2 of them!

 

On the way back to work after lunch, I did one of my point and click photos - standing on tippy-toes, stretching as high as I could into a tree...

 

Spring is here, guys!

 

Well, maybe.  The weekend weather looks a bit bad for most of the country, but hopefully our corner will escape as it sometimes does...

Hump Day

Woke up to a wonderful morning...

 

 

There was a slight chill in the air but not enough to stop me leaving off a couple of layers. 

YES YES YES!!!!

 

Which leads me back to yesterday's question about sex in my story.  Your comments confirm that I was right to go with subtle.  To be honest I never really contemplated the p0rn level of detail but was interested to see if there was support for a slightly more rude level of detail.  My readers obviously have great taste!

 

I hope to spend my lunch break writing the first of my sex scenes.  I will let you know how it goes...

The book...

I have just finished another scene in the book - while sitting outside in one of the uni's gardens.  This was a wonderful place to sit - trees, flowers, lawns, sun, even a string quartet practising in one of the rooms that faced onto the garden!

So there I sat, writing about how I was going to survive the Zombie Apocalypse, trying to lead a group of youngsters to safety. That scene ended with us hiking up a road, foraging for weapons as we went....

Next scene - hm, this is where I have to make a big decision.  There is a couple having a "romantic encounter" in one of the hotel rooms. They have no idea what is going on outside.  The big question is:

How to deal with this couple?

How much detail do I go into?  Do I go for subtle suggestion or blatant p0rn?  "Shades of Grey with Zombies"?  Somewhere in between?  My instinct is to be subtle and let the reader's imagination fill in the gaps according to their own tastes.  What do you think? 

Sunday Morning

Siting at the kitchen table.  Mrs RC is using her new net-book (bought for her by Number One Son, the "impoverished student" who has more money to spend than I do) to read Facebook.

We are waiting for a strawberry, chocolate and cream flan to chill.  Hm, wonder if I can sneak in a quick photo....

CLICK

Mmmm, going to be wonderful.  Yes it is heart-shaped, made by Mrs RC.

After we have had some of that, I think we are off to the garden centre to order some new fence panels for the back garden.  The old ones are feeling their age - well they were put up over 12 years ago and have been exposed to all sorts of weather and other abuse.  Time they were retired, I guess.

This afternoon, I am hoping for some more time to get my zombie book typed up.  I am writing the first draft by hand in a notebook (with "I Love Malta" written on it) which I take with me all over the place.  This allows me to use moments of spare time to quickly write a scene, and it is working well.  Bits have been written on trains, walking down the road, on lunch breaks, even while sitting on the toilet!  Yes, even guys can  multitask there!  Hey, don't complain - it is Sunday morning! By rights I should still be in bed!  Anyway, when I get the chance, I type up the hand written version onto my laptop, making the odd tweak here and there, but generally my hand written version seems to be OK.  The story is rolling along nicely right now, seeming to have a life of its own.  The only problem I have is that having put a couple of people into a certain-death situation I now want them to live at least a bit longer. Not sure how to save them without seeming to cheat.  Hm, think I might have it.  Thanks for listening and letting me work that out...

OK, I think the flan should be ready by now.  I can hear it calling to me from the fridge....

Yes, I am coming...

Hmmm....

 

It was a bit grim this morning - threatening clouds and a strong head-wind.

 

But it wasn't cold, which I took as a good sign - that biting cold seems to be a thing of the past now, and I rode with bare hands without regretting it.

 

As you can see, there is blue sky up there too, and as the wind blast the cloudbanks  along we get moments of dazzling sunshine.  Oooh Yeah....

 

OK, so it is not shorts and t-shirt weather yet, but we are slowly shuffling in the right direction...

Spring?!?!?

I took these yesterday, and I am glad I did.  Today, the clouds have returned, making everything look dreary again.

 

Back to normal

The Easter Holiday has come to an end - the kids go back to school tomorrow and Number One Son headed back to Uni today.  He still has a week before lectures start again but he wanted to get some revision started and get his head back into Uni mode before it all starts again.

Yesterday we all went out for a family meal.  We returned to the all you can eat Chinese/Indian/Thai place and had a great time.  After a couple of plates of starters I headed to the stir fry bar.  Taking a plate I got some noodles, beansprouts, spring onions and a pile of prawns.  The chef asked me how I wanted it done - I said "Spicy".

A waitress looked at me.  "Are you sure? It is really hot!"

I smiled.  "Bring it on!"

It wasn't hot.

It was very tasty.

It was DELICIOUS!

But it was certainly NOT HOT!

So I returned to the stir fry bar, piled up another plate, and asked the chef to make it hotter.  He smiled and nodded.

The waitress was very timid when she brought me the cooked food.  She told me repeatedly that it was going to be really hot.  She even asked me not to go back and complain about it!

I tasted it.

It as hot.

After a couple of mouthfuls I could feel that I was starting to sweat.

That was more like it!

I turned and, catching the chef's eye, gave him a cheery thumbs up.

Mrs RC and the kids seemed to expect me to overheat at some point, but I didn't, although I did sweat a fair amount...

So life returns to normal again - for a while at least...


PS

While in London on Sunday, Number One Son and I started talking to a Scottish guy.

He loudly declared:|

"Ahm frm GLAZ-gor!"  (trans - I am from Glasgow!)

My reply was understated in a very English way:

"Clearly."

This made him really happy as, having lived in London for 20 years he felt he had lost his accent - apparently people in GLAZ-gor refused to accept that he was a native any more!

I love encounters like this, you meet some great people.

Odd Photos from the Malta Trip

 

This one made me think of my MIL and FIL who made similar (but smaller) butterflies at one point.  I am sure that my FIL would have loved making one this big!

 

Simple things amuse me...

 

 

The hunt for a Maltese Terrier continued...

 

 

 

 

 

And I think we actually saw one in the car below.  It was sitting on the driver's lap, but I was too slow with the camera to get a good photo, so you will just have to take my word for it.

 

 

When I first visited Malta, mutter mutter years ago, there seemed to be a lot of homeless dogs running loose in the countryside.

 

This year I was more aware of semi-feral cats...

 

 

These were in a garden in Valletta.  The people running the cafe/ice cream parlour there seemed to look after them well.  There are at least 2 more cats inside the cupboard...

 

 

Valletta has some very sudden level changes - the main city is quite high up, but the docks are, of course, at sea level.

 

To make it easier to get from one level to the other they have just built a new lift, which also includes some stairs...

 

 

Heights have a funny effect on me, giving me a terrible urge to jump.  However, the view from here just made my feet go funny!

 

This suit of armour is in the foyer of the hotel we stay at.  The weapon (a Partizan) will feature heavily in my zombie book.

 

 

 

 

In the middle of nowhere there are the remains of a water pipe system.  No idea how old it is, but bits of it are still in use to feed water into timy fields.  One of the quirky things that I love about Malta.

 

 

The hotel corridors have a gentle curve to them.  My room was at the far end - the walk seemed endless...

 

Found this outdoor chapel during my wanderings on Gozo.  Isn't that wonderful?

 

Finally, I saw a castle on the horizon...

 

Except that closer inspection showed it to be about 5 feet high...  Looks good from a distance, though!

The Honeymoon...

So, Mrs RC had the interview for her Passport.  I thought it sounded like it went OK, she was not so sure.

We were both surprised when, on Friday evening, I found an important looking envelope that had come through the letter box...

So, what to do next?

Saturday saw us heading to the travel agents to see what they could offer us.

As I have said before, we like to think that we are good customers - we know what we want and are happy to pay for it.  We could probably have got a cheaper deal if we had gone online and hunted around, but we like important things like this to be someone else's responsibility, and if we pay a few quid extra for that then so be it.

We told the woman where we wanted to go and when we wanted to go.  She phoned for flight prices, and I was pleased when Air Malta came up cheapest.  I have flown with them every time I have been to Malta and they are always good.  The final price was pretty much in line with the prices we were seeing on the web so that felt good to.  We paid up in full to save any messing about and left - Mrs RC seeming to be a bit dazed now that it was really going to happen, so we ambled down the high street and let it sink in.

After that, the weekend was very lazy - lots of time being spent watching True Blood DVDs (I think we must be near the end now) with me spending a few hours working on my zombie novel, which is coming on nicely and seems to have a life ( or "unlife"?) of its own.  I am really enjoying writing it and should be able to post a snippet by the end of the week...

Have a great week!

April Showers

This time of year is famous for its April Showers...

This is a light, warm, springlike rain that feeds the plants and invigorates people who have had enough of winter...

It is fun to go for dog walks in it, as there is no need to rush, you can just stroll along chatting, enjoying the day...

All winter I look forward to the spring...

and April Showers...



Except this year, the showers are different...

They are not warm and invigorating...

The showers take the form of balls of frozen snow...

It freezes the face and fingers...

And it really puts the mockers on a romantic stroll across the fields with the dogs...

********************************

On a more upbeat note, I think that Mrs RC's passport interview went well yesterday.  I will let her tell the whole story, but we also managed to turn it into a nice day out too!


Hope you are having a good week!

Photography

The Uni recently held a photography competition - the theme was Wildlife and Society.

 

My entry was called Roadkill...

 

 

Not pretty, but I thought it fitted the theme.  I was nearly roadkill myself when I stopped on the busy, narrow road to take it!

 

I came 2nd!

Writing

Some of you will remember when I became Zombie Rock Chef.  My bank record showed that I was dead, for some reason.  Not that this had prompted them to cancel my card or anything, and no one has ever been able to tell me how long I had been dead for.

Anyway, I mentioned a week or so ago that I am writing a Zombie novel, and I am still at it, grabbing odd moments to add a scene in my notebook. It is taking shape really well, and I hope to have the first draft typed up in a few weeks.  I am having great fun writing it and keep thinking of new bits to throw in - the latest addition is a zombie Elvis impersonator.  My favourite character has to be the news reporter, though, who is based on a certain female British news reporter.  I detest her, she is utterly lacking in feeling and compassion and just goes for reactions or tries to put words into people's mouths.  I have her interviewing people who have just seen relatives eaten by zombies - wonderful stuff...  I might post an excerpt here at some point, if there is demand.

Tomorrow is a big day - Mrs RC has to be interviewed to see if she can get her passport so that we can book our honeymoon.  Shouldn't really be a problem, but we do wonder what happens if they refuse to believe that she is who she is.  What happens if they think she is an imposter?  Do they deport her to Romania or something?  Would she have to claim asylum as an illegal immigrant? 

Watch this space to find out, I guess!