Easter 2024

Low-key forgot the clocks did their thing last night so when I woke up at 9am my shock got the better of me. Gingerly I arose and went down for breakfast, absolved by my family reminding me of Daylight savings. A hot cross bun and a croissant slathered in homemade marmalade kept me going until Dad's roast dinner. Leg of lamb, roast potatoes and a side of cabbage + bacon. Real good stuff, probably one of the best Dad has done in a while in fact.

Louis and I drove back to Bristol a little bit later and I was invited to join Rebecca and her parents out for a drink. I never thought I'd be the kind of person at a pub on the evening of Easter Sunday, but I got a chance to mingle with exactly that type at The King William for a swift pint of stout. It was certifiably quiet in there, minus a few oddballs like us, but it was charming enough. I have a mountain of chocolate to get through, but that what Bank Holiday Monday is for!

Muddy Muscles

My legs were as stiff as tree trunks once I got up this morning. I clearly overexerted myself playing Padel yesterday and now I'm paying the price... Especially once it was decided that we would take a big walk along the muddy bridlepaths of Newbury. It was actually really pleasant doing leaps of faith over vast puddles was torturous.

I started falling asleep on the sofa earlier so I took it upon myself to do something useful so I helped Dad cook dinner. With the help of a trusty recipe, I was charged with making a tomato and okra side dish. I'd never really done anything like that before but I was incredibly willing to give it a go. Turned out great, but then again I'll never turn down any excuse to eat tomatoes.

Padel

Though I wasn't at work today, that didn't stop me from seeing my colleagues. A few of us met up for a game of Padel, the lastest racket sport sensation. Most of us were first timers but after knocking the ball around a bit things quickly became competitive. Because the nature of the game operates on some different rules to badminton or tennis it took a little while to unwire my brain - I only really got the knack of it 5 minutes until our session was over.

My time out the house meant Rebecca could prepare a small egg hunt around the house for me which was very sweet. I usually do the honours of setting one up for her, so it was a little strange being the seeker for once. After the eggs were sourced and scoffed I packed for heading home to Newbury. Louis and I got there without traffic and got to hang out with our parents. Quite nice to enjoy each other's company without the hoo-haa of Christmas, it's just easy breezy.

4 Day Stretch

A little bit more running around today to fit everything in before the Easter Weekend. 4 day weeks are meant to be the way forward for many office jobs but in the TV industry it's one less day to get everything done by. My team were certainly feeling the pinch more than me so I did my best to support them as I could. I was handed over one very nice job to call up a prospective job applicant for an internal role to tell them they got the job. It sounds like one of their first big gigs so hopefully this is a big deal for them. I'm just tired and jaded though and can't wait to languish in the long weekend. I can't remember the last time I got all 4 days of Easter off, I gotta make the most of it.

Happy Hamper

 A lot of my jobs self evaporated over the course of the morning. That freed me up to compile a hamper for our director, a task I took great pride in. I headed to North Street and popped intoy favourite shops to gather the very best 'made in Bristol' stuffs. With a near blank check I bought chocolates, fancy toiletries and boutique snacks then arranged them in a wicker basket with straw. By the time I was done, I wished I was the one getting a hamper!

70%'ing

Doing my darndest to treat my workload like a big conveyor belt. Tick off jobs so new ones come in. But so far I feel like I'm 70%'ing most of my tasks as I'm forever waiting on final greenlights from my higher ups. We're all super busy at the moment so I hate chasing people up on stuff, with any luck it'll start to peeter down a smidge so we can regroup and refocus. Coming back home to Rebecca and the cat is nice though, it helps remind me why we put ourselves through the ringer for 10 hours each day.

Automatic Brownies

My latest hire car got dropped off first thing - a hybrid mini SUV which is perhaps a little too big to park on our street. It's an automatic too which always takes some time to rewire my brain to recall how it works. Luckily I got plenty of practice going to and fro to the train station to pick up members of our team. Just a day with the car and I'm bedded in nicely with it. 

I baked some brownies for my colleagues as well which went down even better than I had expected. And that's saying something because we got sample platters of catering style food for lunch and my brownies still came out on top. I just hope there's some left tomorrow now...

Poutine and Pints

The whole of last week Rebecca and I were looking forward to going to a local brew pub near us for a Canada themed event. Beer and pop up street food... 'Poutine and pints' I kept jokingly referring to it as and that wasn't too far off the mark. We both enjoyed eating some high end and layman poutine while in Quebec and Montreal recently so we knew what to expect. Yet for a dish with only three ingredients (chips, cheese curds and gravy) they somehow managed to bungle every element. Fries that were both cold and overdone at the same time, gravy that had congealed blobs in it, and the cheese was just straight up red leicester torn into makeshift cubes. 'A mockery of Canadian culture' says I, a man who has only been there for a fleeting visit. Still, it was fun to go on a little date lunch with Rebecca on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

A Human Write Off

My head was heavy after catching up on a bit of sleep. Bleary eyes, I stirred the porridge and went out for a food shop, but I didn't feel like I woke up fully until midday. A friend of Rebecca popped round for Rummikub and a chat this afternoon, after being a shell of a person all morning it was nice to see that I wasn't a total human write off amidst company. 

I'm slowly getting better and pan sauces. Usually I over reduce them so there's nothing left to enjoy, but a YouTube video broke down what to look out for. With my newfound wisdom I made a Chicken Piccata for dinner which was saucy in all the right ways, my culinary capital continues to climb.

Grown Up Food

You forget how much you look forward to weekends when you're not working. Now I dream about them like 10ft tall ice cream sundaes I can suba dive into. We had a few niggly bits at work we had to get over the line by end of play. As usual, I got asked to do a bit of catering correspondence and brokering. I think I did ok overall and I got out a little early so Rebecca and I could jet up town to hang out with Mark and Lucy. Mark was determined to cook us 'grown up food's after we apparently made a meal for them that raised the bar. The irony is they're both better chefs than us! Lamb meatballs on a bed of couscous on a bed of yogurt was a real winner, the height of home cooking sophistication. A few drinks and a few games later and I was already getting good weekend vibes.

I Live for Spreadsheets

The workload is very slowly ramping up. The rest of my team are a little snowed under with emails and finding crew so I've been enlisted to help where I can, even if it is just by updating spreadsheets aplenty. Our little monkey brains love excel documents don't they? We delight in numbers going up and despair when they go down, those thin gridded lines hold truths once everything is in it's right place. We love them so much we pay each other to make new ones all the time, then update them - what a time to be alive.

Offering Roles

I continued my deep dive into the scripts for the show, intermittently getting brought in to help out on a couple of odd jobs. At the behest of a colleague I messaged a few people in the Art Department to offer them a position on the job. Felt very benevolent providing the hope of employment to strangers, with any luck we'll assemble a dream team who'll keep the job calm and professional. In between I'm cleaning the kitchen and keeping everyone generally happy, that's the best I can do now until some bigger tasks come my way, no doubt they'll start flooding in soon.

Paper Ponderer

We needed A3 paper ready for first thing today and it turns out that's a relatively tricky thing to source locally... Unless you have a detective like brain and access to the Internet. Turns out there's a big old stationery warehouse just on the opposite side of the park from me AND it opened before my starting time. Crisis averted, everyone was happy and I managed to do my hardest job of the day before my day had even started.

The remainder of the morning and afternoon was reading scripts and swotting up on some sustainability measures we're implementing. We really are putting our best foot forward on this job which is lovely to see, I'll do the best I can to safeguard that practice too.

Snacks and Stationery

I returned to the studios that I remember wistfully saying goodbye to about 6 months ago. My new job has begun, I'm mostly just getting the office all set up and happy, snacks and stationery basically. Saw a few chaps from my team which was fun and overall the vibe seems pretty good so far. This has the makings of a very nice gig, I just want to pace myself a little better than I did in the last one to keep my enthusiasm and my energy high.

Baklava in the Rain

A nearby London farmers market tempted us to brave the drizzly weather. The customary meats, eggs and cheeses were there but what really caught our eye was the Middle Eastern gazebo with their trays of glistening baklava. We couldn't resist (and the prices were hilariously agreeable too), so with a coffee we took a bite and all locked eyes and smiled.

That was certainly the days highlight, we spent the remainder of the day traveling home where I begun packing my work bag. I'm not kicking and screaming about returning to work but I will miss my cosy routine. New challenges are welcome though and first days have the tendency to be easy breezy, I just hope tomorrow goes well and I get good vibes from the project.

Featherweight Taproom

A light breakfast was all that lined my stomach from a very dark pint of stout from a London taproom. We went out to stay with our friends who have recently moved to a place with a significantly larger footprint. We walked through a muddy trail in a nearby park to get to said taproom, I spent most of the journey back pretending to be sober. 

Dinner with our hosts brought me back from the brink though, that and a few board games and watching Stanley Tucci sample the delights of Italy (they saw the book I was reading and hit play on the program, there was no protest from me). I'm already sad tomorrow is Sunday, I'll have to make the most of our time with our chums before we head back to a new reality.

Writing Flow

I was not ready for the sudden flow state I found myself in as I sat down to try and finish my current writing project. All week I'd been chipping away at it, like a sculptor using a toothpick, but today I busted out the hammer and went to town on my work. I blocked out my day but all that went out the window as I found myself writing, editing and sharpening - all making the end product better and more cohesive. I dragged it to 95% completion before backing away to give more thought to my conclusion... Which came to me while reading a book on the subject a few hours later. I basically had one of those thrilling days where you end up smashing your goals. More of those please!

Pi Day

I'm doing a wee bit of research into films about food so I woke up extra early to watch Like Water for Chocolate. I think I did anyway, the movie kinda passed me by as if I was in a fever dream. I was super on board for the magical realism at the beginning but it lost all momentum by the second half. But you got to hand it toexican filmmakers, they know how to make something explosively emotional and allegorical.

Seeing as it was Pi day too (03.14, hohoho), it felt apt to watch Waitress, a movie that concerns itself mostly with pies. This one was much more watchable while dripping with mid-life crisis revelations and that cosy early 2000's small town comedy feeling. It's a cult classic with the heart of an angel.

Halcyon Days

Continued to peck away at my keyboard, writing and rewriting one more short project before I'm back to work on Monday. I'm going to miss the freewheeling days of quietly sitting at my desk, sipping coffee and stroking the cat. But then again, I miss financial security more.

Still, if I have to stop writing I'll at least keep reading - that's my resolution to myself. It took me a while to get back into the swing of being an unpublished nobody, but if I keep reading I'll at least keep my hand in. I got Stanley Tucci's biographical cookbook from the library and Blood Meridian to keep my mind sharp, very much looking forward to starting one of them this weekend.

Numbers Go Up, and Up

The iconic mizzle in Bristol kept me locked indoors when I should have been out running. Eventually it staved off and I completed a 3.7k - not bad for a third run since a hiatus. The rain was unbelievably fine throughout the run though, I felt like a pampered vegetable, getting continuously misted in a posh grocery store.

I ticked off a new game (Dordonga) and a new film (Mrs Doubtfire) today too. I certainly do derive some reptile brain satisfaction from updating my online databases, but really they just feel like another body for the pile. Why do I feel compelled to record every film I watch? I guess I like seeing that little number go up and up but is that a healthy way to treat art - as something to consume rather than consider? I need to find people to discuss these things with really, otherwise I watch movies and impress no one but myself.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Endured a few weeks of speculative waiting, but this evening I got the deal memo for my next job land in my inbox. I'll be back in a job starting next Monday going up to the end of the year. It been a long time before confirming this so I feel mentally prepped, but also a little surprised - I'll have to remember all the steps, just hope I haven't lost my touch in making other people coffee.

I caught up on a famous film I'd never seen til today: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Lord it was ropey. It's been a long while since I felt so numb to a movie, even the bits that were 'funny' I didn't feel like laughing to. The romance was non-existent too on account of fundamentally intolerable characters.

Mother's Day 2024

For Mother's Day Mum and Dad made the trip out West to see the Bristol collective. I made reservations at a Lebanese place that none of us had tried before, so it only made sense to try all the mezze heavy hitters like falafel and baba ganoush. Dad helped himself to the mixed grill, narrowly dodging the meat sweats while the table chatted away. We saw the restaurant advertising a free desert for mothers on mother's day - what none of us for saw was Rebecca and Rachel getting a free pud as well. As Rebecca lifted a spoonful of free panna cotta up to her grinning lips I had never felt so jealous in all my life.

Once the family dispersed back home Rebecca and I did one of our quietly favourite things: channel surfing through the Sunday Night telly. It's dire, but in a way that's easy to make fun of, our commentary making each other laugh before unironically getting more invested in Crufts than we'd expected. Monday tomorrow, and what could mark the last full week off I have before returning to work (fingers crossed). Time to make it count.

Julie and Julia

Little Victories by the Harbourside do some amazing coffee. I was craving a cuppa so Rebecca and I did a tiny pilgrimage there for a long black and a flat white. Sipping it while watching the weekend rowers glide along the water is a Saturday pleasure. It was back to business at home as we cleaned and hoovered the house within an inch of its life. Always nice to step back and admire the fruits of your labour though, it made for a great space to watch a film in. Julie and Julia was my vote for movie tonight and it was a charming little surprise. Every book about screenwriting drills in the notion that conflict = story, yet this is one of those rare examples where even a frictionless plot can make for an engrossing watch. It won't change the world, but it's heart is firmly in the right place and sometimes that's enough.

Sofa Scribbler

I drafted up some new video ideas, but I didn't want any of them to feel forced. So I joined our cat on the sofa with my notebook and scribbled away before landing on what I think is a fun little project. It low-key looks like I'll be back to work again fairly soon so I'm wondering how's best to carve up my remaining time off. Part of me wants to write and part of me wants to bucket list a bunch of films, games and friend hangouts. I just want to spend my time well but that thought is oddly crippling.

Updated Website

My sports watch informed me I completed my longest run ever with it this morning. It was only a little over 3K but in already jazzed to see that new record pop up again very soon. 

I finished up moving over all the bits from Sick Critic over to my website, plus a little extra review I completed this week. Again, I've been meaning to do this for years so it feels super to finally have a home for all my older work - a fair amount of it still holds up too!

https://eyebrowowl.wordpress.com/

In the Bag?

The great article transfer nears its completion! By a inexplicable stroke of luck I managed to reclaim all the words and pictures from my old posts, some were saved in the metadata, others I had to boot up my brick of an old laptop and others I managed to splice together from The Way back Machine. In between all this I was accosted by the good folks at Malory Towers who asked if I could hop on a new project. I'm still technically waiting to hear back from my big Bristol job but I learnt today all they're doing is finishing up the wording on people's contracts before sending them out very soon. I think it's in the bag?

Training for Training's Sake

Laced up my new shoes for another run. Shame on me for not going out sooner, but better late than never in this case. I winded myself a little bit early on going uphill so I got home panting, but after a power shower I felt like a million dollars. I'm keen to get back to a good level of fitness where a a quick and easy run feels... quick and easy. Just gotta keep training and it'll come. 

I finished writing up a quick game review for my website, again in an effort to keep my practice up. I haven't posted it in there just yet but I'll link it here when it's there. Not my finest work, but it was written at a pace I'm significantly happier with. Mostly I just want to prove to myself that I've still 'got it'.

Plundering for Pictures

I continued the effort to transfer my past articles onto my personal website. I got all the text ok which is great, I am missing a lot of the old pictures is the only wrinkle. I'm weighing up how much effort I go to in order to recreate them as I don't want to get overly bogged down in the weeds of that task. In the meantime I'm writing a small review for a game I recently played (not a video mind). I'm doing it as a small palette cleanser after my latest effort on YouTube as that project was so lengthy and manicured, I want to do something quick and fun - a joy to work on in other words.

Sunshine and Cake Slices

Threw the curtains wide to find the sun shining down on the world - the first nice day of the year as far as I was concerned. Lucky then that it also happened to be Lucy's Birthday party by the Harbourside, we took in the sunshine in the walk down and made merry with all our good friends. Even Dan came down for the occasion. We all just chatted for what felt like a few minutes but before we knew it a couple of hours had passed by. Time really does fly...

The Zone of Interest

We wanted to take advantage of every second we had this weekend so only an hour after we finished breakfast we were off to the cinema! The Zone of Interest had been on our radars for a while now and seeing it on the big screen was 100% the right call for this film, mostly because the sound design was a sensory feast. It was almost like witnessing an art museum installation at times as the camera work and imagery evoked darkly cerebral energy. At times it knocked my socks off, but it plays everything in such an understated way that it never feels like it's going guns blazing to force a thought. Great stuff.

We discussed the film the entire walk back and even while we finished painting the kitchen. Completing a task like that warrants a humble reward so we got some warming fish and chips for tea. Productive, thought provoking and nutritionally beige, what more could you ask for on a rainy Saturday?

The Great Transferral

I was pleased to see my video gaining a little bit of traction overnight - with any luck it'll pull in a few more views over the weekend. it's certainly a more personal video but the topic does seem to resonate with those who have stopped to watch.

I started the big task of transferring over all my articles from Sick Critic. That website has gone the way of the dodo and I always felt a bit sad my work couldn't be accessed anymore. The Way Back Machine caught most of my posts thankfully so I've copied everything over so I can post it onto my EyebrowOwl website soon. I look back on that period fondly, some of my best work was done then so giving it a more permanent home will be a great comfort to me.