I think “wow, it’s been a month” is basically the tag line for this category of post! I could just copy and paste the intro paragraph from my last update. Well, with one edit, because, unusually, I don’t have a backlog of book reviews! That’s only because I haven’t finished anything in a couple of weeks!

So what has been going on? … Good question. Most of the weekends in March were occupied with redecorating our living room in preparation for the new sofa to arrive. That turned into more drama than expected because once we removed the skirting boards, it turned out we had a lot of rotting joists that needed to be dealt with. Luckily, the guy who we’d hired to do the skirting boards was able to sort it all out for us in good time! We do still need to deal with the exterior of the house to stop it happening again, which we will do on the next available, and not-wet weekend.

👷🏻‍♀️ Redecorating

The downstairs of the house was disrupted for a few weeks while we had the floor done, and then we repainted the living room walls. The contents of the living room had to be moved into our much smaller dining room, which felt really weird, like we’d had to move into a bunker or something! We had to sit at our dining table to watch the TV, I think this in particular confused the cats, who like to sit on our laps in the evening once we finish eating. We had to try to keep them just in there, along with the connecting kitchen and the utility room. Kitler didn’t mind too much because she generally likes to sleep all day on the radiator, but Valentine did not like being confined to just three rooms, especially when she could see us through the glass diving doors! I felt really bad about it… But it was better than risking getting blue paint all over the cat/house… and cat fur in our new walls!

I also struggled with the change in routine. It was impossible to relax downstairs after work when all we had were dining room chairs. I wasn’t sleeping as well, work was quite stressful, and it also knocked me out of my exercise routines. Valentine and I have both been glad to get back to normal over the last week!

It has all been worth it, though! We love the new sofa, it is so much more comfortable! I also love our new Blissful Blue walls; the new skirting boards have made a huge difference, and we patched up the missing chunks of artex in the ceiling from when we had the downlights changed (I’m resigned to live with the artex, doing anything about it is too messy/expensive, and it’s circular swirl patterns so not too ugly!). We still need to strip and repaint the doors and the architrave, as the blue walls and contrast to the new white skirting, really brings out the yellow in the old gloss!

This week I need to rehang our pictures and my embroideries. I’ve got some frames to experiment with instead of leaving them all in the hoops. I love having art on my walls, but I hate the job of putting it all up! It’s just so many decisions, then all the measuring to make sure it’ll hang right and then I’m terrible at hitting nails with a hammer!

I also want to try zhuzhing our old bookcase, too. It’s an old IKEA BILLY that is white on the outside, but the interior is black, and that just looks odd now. I’ve still got the materials for painting laminate furniture from my adventures in my old house, so I’m going to try doing the inside to match the walls and see how it looks.

🪇 WEEK OFF! 🍹

So yeah, I have A WEEK OFF WORK! Or actually 6 days off work, thank you double bank holiday weekend! I have not had any time off since Christmas, so I’m very excited, and it really feels needed!

I am hoping to get a good balance between productive, fun and relaxed.

I do want to get those decorating bits done, and I’d also like to do a bit of tidying and reorganisation in other areas of the house that I have been putting off, and some gardening.

I really want to finally finish reading How To Be Perfect, which I’ve been reading for over 3 months at this point! Enjoying it, but it is something I want to absorb properly and that only works when I find focus time.

I’d like to plan my next embroidery project, which might be my wedding bouquet, or it might be democracy manifest. Or I might finally embroider flowers over the stains on my cream jumper!

I’d like to write more for the blog, too! I had wanted to write more non-book things this year, and so far it has not happened.

I also found Fable III in Cex at the weekend, so I’m replaying that on the Xbox 360 too! I wish I still had Fable II, but III is better than no Fable games to play. I still do not understand what Past Alice was thinking when she apparently sold the copies of this trilogy she used to own!

I also want to pick a holiday to book for later this year. A proper holiday with sun and a pool!

Telly

• I watched the first episode of Davedevil: Born Again season 2, and I still don’t think it’s good. It’s so bleak, it doesn’t seem to be saying anything interesting, and I find it quite boring. It is nowhere near as good as the Netflix series was, and I think it irritates me because of that! It’s like a cheap knockoff despite having all the same actors in it. Still, I will keep on to see if my fave Jessica Jones brings some life to it, I love her, and I love Krysten Ritter in the role.
• Last One Laughing is back on Prime, and it’s so good. It brings much-needed silliness and joy! Bob Mortimer has to be National Treasure status by now, right? I think Sam Campbell is probably going to win, he just seems to be wired differently! I cannot stop thinking about David Mitchell’s joker, though I think Romesh’s might have been the best.
• I’ve gone back to rewatch Invincible to catch up with the new series. I forgot how insane the voice cast is!
• Still watching Law and Order: SVU, mostly as background watching or when I’m doing my strength workout. I am in S16, and some of the character episodes on specific squad members are annoying (Rollins, and Amaro). I also skipped through the Olivia and William Lewis episodes because that whole plot line is fucking ridiculous and didn’t need to be three episodes.
• I watched the first episode of SNL UK and was pleasantly surprised; it was better than I expected it to be, and it felt fun and almost nostalgic to watch a sketch show again. I was worried the format would feel too American and make me cringe, which it might once we get more celebrity guests (Tina Fey is a pro, so she just blended in), but I thought there were some good sketches! My favourite was What kind of Irish is your grandad? .. frenetic madness just like watching Monty Python or Vic and Bob.
• I watched the Louis Theroux documentary on the Manosphere, which was quite interesting and had a few revealing moments, but I didn’t learn anything new from it, other than the names of those 3 guys.

Podcasts

I’ve been listening to more podcasts recently, so I thought it’d be good to start tracking them here!

• A Journey Through Time by David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell. The hosts are both historians and tell the story of historical events, especially ones that relate to the current state of affairs. David is British, and Sarah is American, which means they can sometimes give different perspectives. I really enjoyed the series on Chornobyl, the Salem Witch Trials and pirates. I’m partway through McCarthyism at the moment.
• One Good Thing is a podcast about bad movies where the hosts have to say at least one good thing about what they just watched. I like this one to go to sleep to; it’s quite light, and I pick and choose which episodes to listen to depending on whether I’ve seen the movie. I don’t agree with all their takes, and based on what they said about The Phantom Menace, I have a horrible feeling they’re the type of Star Wars fans who did not like The Acolyte.
• Panic World with Ryan Broderick is one I’ve not listened to for a while, but I did enjoy it. This podcast looks at internet culture and how it warps the way we think and our sense of reality.
• Oh God, What Now? is a UK topical political podcast which is the closest I get to paying attention to the news in recent weeks. Topical politics is not usually my thing (too depressing), but I’m trying to expand my horizons a bit and work out what my opinions are, and I quite enjoy this one.
• Origin Story I found from Oh God, What Now? and the hosts are sometimes guests on that. They explore the misunderstood and misused ideas in politics. I really like this one. I loved the episodes on superhero comics, extroverts/introverts, and 15-minute cities.
• Backlisted is a literary podcast that reads older books. I like this one a lot, but the problem is I haven’t read many of the books!

What else?

• The garden is looking more lively by the day! I’m back to looking out the windows at the flowers whenever I wait for the kettle to boil!
• It took a month, and a lot of glasses were tried on, but I found some new glasses! They are now ordered. I ended up spending a fortune because I got it into my head that I want to try Transition lenses because I hate swapping glasses constantly when I’m in and out of places on bright days in the summer, but I’m worried they’ll be a bit crap, so three pairs on the way to experiment with what works for me! A normal pair for everyday, a pair with Transitions lenses for the brighter weather, and a proper sunglasses pair for when I’m spending time fully outside, like in the garden or on holiday. I seem to be getting more light sensitive and have had a couple of migraines in the last year, so I didn’t want to forgo proper polarised lenses.
• I have put together a new strength exercise that is much simpler than what I was trying to do before. It seems to be working better for me. I’ll probably write more about this this week. I actually had Claude AI help me with this, so I didn’t have to spend hours and hours trawling fitness blogs and YouTube to get started, because I do find that whole area overwhelming. I am coming around to these AI tools to help with selected tasks where they will save me time on getting started with something.
• The number of unread London Book Review issues I have now is laughable. Literally, my husband and I laugh when a new one comes through the door! I think I’m about at 10 received from the 12 from the £1 an issue trial, I’ve read only 2 cover to cover. Soon they’ll start charging me full price, and I’m so behind! I built a system to track what I’ve actually read and have to read in Obsidian, which is at least helping me check what I have.
• I need some new over-ear headphones for when I go into the office, and picking a pair is overwhelming! I don’t really care about sound quality or noise-cancelling technology; I just want a pair that will stay on my head but not hurt my ears! Thinking about this also made me realise how little I listen to music these days. Pretty much only in the office, otherwise I listen to audiobooks or podcasts for exercise or chores because I find them more mentally engaging. I think that is a bit sad, though, and I know music is better for my mood. This week I might try to use more music!
• I’ve been watching more YouTube lately when I want something short while I eat breakfast or lunch. I’ve been enjoying Rachelle in theory – while trying to mindfully not be influenced to buy a million notebooks (I already have 3 I carry around the house) – and Leena Norms.
• I got to the Substack of Freya India through the recommendation of someone I read in my RSS feed, but I got caught up in exploring her writing and forgot to note down how I found myself there! Whoever that was, thank you; this has given me a new perspective to think about and defined more clearly some of the aspects of online culture amongst the Gen Z that vaguely disturb me, but I can’t work out why. Maybe therapy is the new religion? Food for thought!