Sonic 2

I forced Sonic 2 to pose for a photo when we were cleaning his house out the other day.

 

 

As you can see, he was thrilled and totally worked it.

 

Other than this intrusion, he seems happy enough - eating, sleeping and pooping.  Mrs RC says she can hear him moving about at night.  I can't, but I tend to be out cold for most of the night so that doesn't mean much.

 

OK, time to start the late shift - I help run a computer session on Thursday evenings, which is fun but tends to rule out any writing.  Ah well, I can let my mind run over things to give me more to write at the weekend!

 

Bye!

Thank Crunchie it's Friday!

Been a busy week, so:



Anyway, I have been spending a lot of my evenings working on my zombie book - proofed and edited what I have typed up so far (which was very productive and allowed me to make sure that all character names are now correct and consistent - no more Grant becoming Mark becoming Gary...) and have also roughed out the rest of the story.  I had been torn between two endings, but when I thought about it more I decided that Ending A could actually be a lull before the grand finalle that is Ending B!

Oh, another thing about the book is that a blog friend and her husband have also joined the cast.  They get to dish out some America Justice, kill a few zombies and save a few people's asses.  I will be posting one of their adventures here as soon as I am ready for someone else to read it.

Have a great weekend!

Global Warming? Bring it on!

Recent weather has been wonderful - sunny with warm breezes, the weekend had temperatures pushing into the 20s.  You really can't complain!

 

This was the sky this morning as I set off for work...

 

 

A bit of a nip in the air but it soon warmed up again.

 

Sonic 2 seems to be doing very well.  He is eating dried hedgehog food that Mrs RC found in a pet shop, plus tinned dog food, plus dried mealworms, which seem to be a read treat.  We decided that he should be OK outside, so Mrs RC spent Sunday converting a rabbit hutch for him and building a small enclosure with some dirt for him to snuffle around in if he wants to.  He seems happy enough in there.

 

No photos yet - he is really quite shy, and for a few days the only evidence that he was alive was that his food was being eaten and there was poop in his box!  Add to that the fact that I forgot to take a pic while we moved him from the box to the new run, and you can see the reason for my lack of pictures.  My daughter did catch a bit of video on her new video camera, but that is all.

 

But sticking with the hedgehog theme...

 

Custard is only interested in his cuddly hedgehog.  Frou Frou, on the other hand, is fascinated by it and wants to get up close and personal, spending a lot of yesterday evening staring into the hedgehog's run waiting for movement.  Apparently he did come out at some point and paid her no attention, poor Frou!

Friday: Guess who is 4 today!

 

 

 

Yes, it is our little cutie, Frou Frou!

Where has the time gone?

Sing Happy Birthday to her, please!

Thursday

Woke up to the sound of torrential rain.

Yes, first day with my bike and it was chucking it down outside.

Fed the birds, rabbits and fish - got very wet just doing this.  From the rain, not falling into the pond...

There, headed off one daft comment already!

Anyway, I was just about to wheel out the bike when the rain stopped.  Just like that!  The clouds had passed over, leaving just a bright blue sky!

About to get the bike out again when the phone rang.  A neighbour had found a young hedgehog in her front garden, and everything was trying to kill it - could we look after it?

Softies that we are, I was soon there to collect the little guy.  He was a lot bigger than Sonic (the one we found a few weels ago) which is promising.  Got him home and put him in a cat carrier with some wood shavings and hay.  After I headed for work, Mrs RC gave him some water and dog food, and he seems to have had a real feast.  Hopefully we will have more luck with Sonic 2!

My daughter had an interview today, but in the event it was only a pre-interview filtering session.  When people are out of work and being paid benefits by the government they are pressured to apply for at least one job every day.  The result of this is that people end up applying for jobs that they are totally unsuited for, just to keep the people in the Job Centre happy.  This meant that this job was totally swamped with people who had no chance of being accepted.  Our daughter made the cut, though, was told whe was perfect for the job and is now through to the proper interviews.  Fingers crossed again, please!

Finally, I had a brain storm in the bank - went to do some transactions in the machine (there are no desk staff any more, just a row of machines) and made the mistake of THINKING about my pin number.  Suddenly my 2 pin numbers were jumbled together and I had no idea what the real number was.  Gah, I felt so dumb!  It was only after locking my card that I remembered what the real number was.  Oh well, the rest of the day has been good!

Wednesday

The bike is fixed!

Leaving work early to collect it!

Woo hoo!

That is it for today!

Tuesday

Yeah, another post!

Sitting on the living room floor while I type.  Not working on the book tonight, but as the bike is still in the repair shop so I got a bunch of stuff done on the bus anyway.

Yes, the bike is awaiting more spares.  Seems the last guy used the wrong parts when he replaced the bracket for the peddle crank.  Not impressed, but still a happy bunny overall.

Talking of happy, I am so glad I stopped the vitamins.  I feel completely different, my normal self again.  Thank God for that!  The pills were for over 50s, but to me they were just bad news.  For the first time I actually FELT over 50!  Now I am back to being 19 again. 

Oooooh Yeah! [Said in a you know who voice.]

OK, better go, Frou Frou thinks it is time for the night time walk.

See you soon!

Monday

So, what is happening?

I have spent a good deal of time working on my zombie story again.  All of my rough notes have been typed up and I am dow doing a rewrite before carrying on with the story.  It is all coming together nicely - the character names are now consistent for a start!  Some of them started off as real people with their real names, but switched to new, fictitious names along the way.  This has now been sorted out.  Some other parts have been tightened up, a section moved into a more logical part of the sequence, etc.  I am liking it a lot, to be honest!  More work tonight, as Dungeons and Dragons is cancelled.

Our daughter has got an interview for a job as an office junior at the college she was studying at!  This is great news, at least they are interested enough to want to meet her.  We are hoping that she gets it as it ticks a lot of boxes for her.  Fingers crossed, please everyone!  :-)

I have had a bit of a saga with my bikes lately.  Back in September I realised that my main bike needed work on its gears and chain.  Last time around this cost a lot of money to sort out and I wanted to think through the options.  Fix it?  Get a new one?  Ride my spare bike for a while?

I rode my spare for a couple of weeks (after buying new tyres for it) and all seemed OK for the time being.

Then it all went wrong.

One of the gear cogs snapped.  Yes, it just snapped and fell off!  My first thought was that someone had taken a spanner to my bike and stolen it!  But a guy in the bike shot told me that it does happen, so I accepted his less paranoid explanation.

So, what to do now?  The spare bike was now in the same position as the main bike, so I decided to look around and see what people would charge to do the work.  Mrs RC suggested that I try the big spares shop near where we live.  I have always thought of them as a car spares shop that also sells a few bikes, but sure enough they do bike repairs too.  The guy looked at the bike, listed the new parts it needed (at one point muttering "ooh this is a very posh one, might be expensive") and added on a labour charge. 

I braced myself for the price.

£80.

Yep.  About half the price of the last time it was fixed!

I am a happy bunny!

Cold Turkey

On my second day without the vitamins and already feeling a whole lot better.  I won't totally blame the pills, it could have been other things getting to me, and you can never underestimate the effect of thinking "I am sick of feeling like this and I am gonna change it!"

Anyway, our daughter has now finished at college and is busy hunting for work.  Lots of applications going out, little coming back.  To help pass the time and also get some experience of shop work, she is now doing a day a week in a charity shop.  On her first day she was given the job of livening up the rather dreary and uninspired window display, so she scouted out the store room and put together a halloween display.  The manager was thrilled with her work and even sent a photo of the finished window to head office!  I had hoped to get to see it, but she seems to have done such a good job that people passing by started to buy things from her display, including a mask that formed the centre of it all!  She was kind of upset by that but also kind of pleased, feeling that she had done her bit to boost trade.

OK,  lunch over, back to work!  More soon, I promise!

Return of the Slacker

 

I know, call myself a blogger...

 

Anyway, the last week has been pretty insane.  Work has been mega busy, as it always is at this time of year, with the added excitement of a departmental merger going on...

 

Our younger son has just turned 16!  As he is now a dedicated body builder, Mrs RC made a very appropriate cake...

 

 

At a glance it sometimes looks like a redesign of the Enterprise from Star Trek, don't you think?

 

The band has ground to a halt, to be started up again at "some point" - ie never, I am thinking.  I am a bit disappointed, but I have had a blast, lost my singing virginity and got the immediate urge to play in a band out of my system for a while.

 

In the meantime, this frees up some time for me to return to my zombie book, which I am determined to finish during the coming winter.  Time spent learning and writing songs will now be spent writing about my zombie fighting adventures, which have been stalled for too long.

 

Here is a question for you.  Can taking vitamin pills make you feel worse?  Over the years I have occasionally taken vitamins, but rarely felt any benefit and often seem to be worse off.  Back in the summer I decided that, given my advancing age (yes I admit that time is passing for me) I would start taking some of those vitamins that are designed for men of my age.  I immediately went down with that chesty cough that wiped me out for several days, and since then I have felt generally tired - even edging towards depression, to be honest.  I don't like it and think I might give those pills a rest to see what happens.  Any  thoughts welcome!