Sunday, 2 August 2026

Book Club Basher

I forgot to mention that a couple of days ago I officially became the owner of a car. Rebecca transferred ownership of her old and faithful Vauxhall Viva over to me (after I gave her a couple of quid of course). Rebecca has recently acquired some new wheels which took us up to London today. Because it had air con and that new car smell I was half convinced it was an airport rental vehicle... Hopefully that magic lasts for a long time.

I brought my laptop and microphone along with me so I could attend my virtual book club. Everyone rated this month's book 4/5, minus me who gave it a significantly lower score. I didn't want to dunk on the book too hard though because I didn't want to make anyone feel too embarrassed for enjoying it - I kept circling back to 'and that's why I personally didn't get much out of it' which absolved me of a lot. These days I'm in the business of speaking my mind but not cruising to rustle feathers. 

Impressionable Stranger

Dropped in to my usual barber up the road for a trim. I've been seeing him for almost a year now and we've seldom said more than a dozen words to eachother in that time. It was only when I mentioned I was getting it cut for a funeral that he tentatively made conversation. A lot of my life I think about the strangers that have made an impression on me - I wonder how many people's lives I've touched who don't know my name.

People that aren't strangers though are Mark and Lucy, whom we shared an almost twelve hour Saturday with. They had a board game they were eager to share with us called Eclipse - an epic scale space war game which took us from lunch til dinner to play. I got trounced, but I didn't mind because they put on an immense spread of food for us. Homemade pizzas, strawberry mess, a light salmon dinner and simmered peaches with ice cream - what a bloody treat. The day went too quickly though, we looked up at the clock and the next thing we knew we were catching the night bus home.