Dentist Done!

Woke up and fell properly asleep in Bristol, but in between I was in London.

First up, I had my final dental appointment regarding my braces. They power washed the nuggets off my teeth and provided me with a set of retainers. My treatment is concluded. I asked to see some before/after pictures and the dentist happily obliged. When I was looking at them, it's hard to believe I was looking the same person. It's been a long, painful ride but my teeth look significantly better now.

Then I hopped on the coach up to London for the Rivals Series 2 screening. I saw a bunch of my old team and crew, shared a drink and enjoyed watching the fruits of our labour. We watched a couple of episodes and I was left saying wow. This is going to be a hit. 

Almost Char

Another day home for me, gradually getting round to a handful of bits. I wanted to get back into cooking during this bit of time off, but it oddly feels like my culinary skills have regressed. I wanted to cook dinner for Rebecca and opted to try my hand at a dish she makes quite regularly: veggie tacos. Which is basically roast baby potatoes and mushrooms in a wrap. I forgot exactly what size the everything needed to be cut down to before roasting so I err'ed on the side of smaller means they'll cook all the way through. It also means they cook quicker, crisp quicker, start to burn quicker. The meal was salvageable thankfully, but I still bungled it hard. Back to the old YouTube cooking videos for me I guess, I gotta get better before my skills fall out my hands.

Getting Round to the Written Word

We had Jamie staying over last night and I wanted to extend the hospitality a wee bit so I got everyone some bakery pastries for breakfast. My attention is being drawn towards best man duties ahead of Mark's wedding next weekend. It's mostly speech writing which I naturally will spend far too long on (because I care too much about it). It only needs to be short but I want it to be the full emotional rollercoaster. I'm also catching up on my LetterBoxd review backlog. I'm sticking to my guns on trying to write a short piece to consolidate my thoughts on each film I watch, trouble is I'm watching so many films now that I have a glut of reviews to write which takes up almost as much time as watching a film! 

There's a theme here if me spending too much time in writing... 

Le Stag on Le Boat

Slept hilariously well on the boat, especially since there was apparently a group of ravers who started listening to drum and bass music after 1am - I slept through the whole thing while poor Dan could hear it through his earplugs. Regardless, we hit the water again after a quick pastry breakfast and made great time heading downstream. We even carved out a lunch slot for a cheeky board game session before cruising back into the boat hire place.

And ongoing mission I started was 'lets all try to beat Dan's Tetris highscore' which gained a lot more traction than I expected. I have a little Gameboy which I passed around to the group as we chased for spots on the leaderboard, if we all got a bit more practice then no doubt we could have gone toe-to-toe with Dan, but his skills were too mighty for us.

We all hugged goodbye at the end of the weekend though. It's been a long time since I've been out on a canal and the experience was even more lovely than I remembered. We did it all with a good gang with a great shared attitude, we had a bonafide romp. 

Stag Cruise

Dan drove me across to the outskirts of Oxford to meet up with Mark and Co so we could all hop onto a canal boat together. It's Mark's Stag and we spent the day opening both locks and beers all while cruising upriver and marvelling at the countryside. We ate very well (my early research did us well there), we finished the evening off with some board games before crawling into our teeny-tiny beds, then we get to do it all again tomorrow.

Beers in the Baggage

Packed my things ready for the stag weekend out on the boat. I watched the mandatory health and safety video that heavily dissuaded people drinking while operating the boat. As a result, I moved all the beers out of their boxes and moved them into my personal luggage, rolling them in with my clothes. 

For the record we certainly won't be irresponsible on the water, but I just don't want the hiring company to get the wrong impression if we roll up as a bunch of lads with a few beers too many to seem sensible. 

Resuited

With a wedding looming in the distance and a bit of free time on my hands, I decided it was time to refresh my attire a little. Last year I was at two weddings, and each time I noticed how little I liked my waistcoat and trousers - the materials and colours didn't match eachother and they didn't fit super well (the waistcoat I bought almost 13 years ago). Well I headed into town, found a few winners and spent far too long in the changing room umming and erring. I left with admittedly the same colours as before (I'm a navy man at heart) but I did give a brighter blue a shot. I feel ready now though, already can't wait to get on the dance floor.