Backsliding

September was going to be the month when I caught up on things - get the post count on the blog back to where I would like it, get caught up on reading, get everything else motoring. It didn't work out so well.

The fundamental problem is that I'm just too busy - work is in an extremely busy phase (which doesn't look to be ending soon), while the rest of my time is soaked up with family matters. There just isn't time to read or blog.

So it looks like I'll end the month further back on the blog, and if I'm really lucky at the same place on the reading. And don't expect October to be much different.

Practice Resumes

My band finally had our first face-to-face practice back last week, after around eighteen months away. I was pleasantly surprised on two counts: there were twice as many people present as I'd expected (all pipers, though), and it seemed the band hadn't lost just as much over the time away as I had feared. An uncharitable person would note that we didn't have a great standard to slip away from, and relative to even the weakest competing bands there's a lot of truth in that, but then there's a good reason why I'm no longer with a competing band - and the lack of stress and pressure is a huge part of that.

Hopefully, this now marks a permanent return to practices. Also, over the next few weeks we'll hopefully be able to get the bagpipes themselves going (rather than just practice chanters), and we may even start taking on some actually performances - of which the Christmas lights switch-on will be the first.

The Obsession

My birthday BBQ is now firmly established as a tradition, albeit one that doesn't manage to happen every year (the BBQ that is!). In aid of that, for my birthday this year I received an actual book on BBQ cooking, and then a few weeks later I picked up a second. hat second book is an interesting one - it's very much a textbook on the subject and is extremely thorough.

As a consequence of that, I proceeded to spend several weeks gaining an appreciation of just why it is so many people become obsessed with BBQ in all of its forms, as I found myself examining all aspects of BBQ kit, deciding on the four (!) BBQs I wanted to get, all manner of new toys, and so on and so forth.

Fortunately, the upshot is that I have purchased none of these things. There are one or two items I may buy over time, but those are pretty minor, and in the long term I may come to replace our BBQ with another should it eventually wear out. And, finally, I might invest in a portable one, but only if we reach a point where such a thing would be justified - which is very much not the case right now.

In the meantime, we've had a few BBQs, but relatively few this year compared to years past (though, of course, one turned out to be on a rather eventful day!). We're now getting to the end of the season - I'm on the lookout to see if there is one more suitable day for it, but either way I'll be packing it up for the winter come the start of October.

#42: "Rebel", by Bernard Cornwell

Experimental Cookery 2021: Chicken Panzanella

This one doesn't really deserve a post, given just how simple it was, but for completeness if nothing else...

This one came from the Tesco magazine. It was very quick and simple, and came out nicely. There were a couple of cookery stages, one for the chicken and then one for the bread, but it was mostly about assembly of a warm salad.

We concluded that there were several tweaks we would make to this if we had it again - we'd probably use leftover roast chicken (if we had such a thing), less onion, and a little less vinegar. But there were no major changes we would insist on making.

#41: "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft", from Wizards of the Coast

Day 254: Update on... Stuff

I was away this week, and so was not able to post my update (and didn't have time to compose it before I went). So, here it is...

The last few weeks have been much more normal than the rest of the year, which is good. Though, oddly, they have also featured the disruption of two lots of packing for holidays, and also a bout of illness for Funsize and then Surprise!. Fortunately, it was just a cold, though still fairly horrible for them. Funsize is now fully recovered, thankfully, with Surprise! now very much on the mend.

• Books: By Day 254 I should expect to have completed 41.753 books. I've finished 40 and am halfway through one other, so I'm fairly far behind. I'm now doubting whether I'll hit the planned 60 for the year, though I do expect to complete the 12 from The List. So not all bad.
• Weight: This is in a pretty bad way - the two holidays have caused me to gain weight, and so there's a definite need for a pretty serious bout of dieting. Watch this space.
• Blogging: By this point I would have hoped to have posted around 83 times here and 42 or so over on the Imaginarium. I'm way behind on both blogs, and unlikely to hit my targets on either. A shame.
• Redecorating the Spare Room: Done.
• Tadpole #2: Done.

And that's that. Two complete, two behind and unlikely to complete, and one going in the wrong direction. It's lucky I didn't set any formal goals for the year, because this is a pretty poor showing.

#38: "Warlord", by Bernard Cornwell (a great end to a great series)
#39: "The Notebook", by Nicholas Sparks (a book from The List - ten to go)
#40: "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", by Suzanne Collins