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lupestripeThis weekend was one of connecting with old friends. Over the last few years, I have felt that our local friendship group has somewhat drifted apart. This is due to a number of circumstances, the main one being all of us acquiring houses, but without a core group of friends, I had started to feel somewhat redundant in the fandom. This was brought home last weekend when there was a BBQ to which we weren't invited, making me feel increasingly more alienated. After my usual 48 hours of moping, I resolved to do something about this, and this weekend proved to be a huge step towards re-establishing those contacts.
Admittedly, we had already had our Friday night plans sorted before last weekend as Adia had invited us around to her house to watch Sing. We hadn't seen the movie and had missed it in the cinema, so we thought it a perfect opportunity. Mid-week, she widened the invite to Taneli and Arcais, with the cheetah accepting and the panda unavailable due to work commitments in Derby and Leicester. This meant that there was to be five of us in the house - Adia, Soma, me, Taneli and Wolfie. Unfortunately, Wolfie would end up being delayed as he was sent to Chester by work at the last minute, and this meant that we didn't get to see the movie in the end. He arrived shortly after 8:30pm so we contented ourselves by watching The Chase and the new version of The Crystal Maze with Richard Ayoade. It's hard to judge the reboot as we are still trawling through the celebrity specials, but they seem to have done well with the zones and the games themselves were of their usual high quality. Ayoade himself I feel will grow into the role, but his constant remark of "Tuck In" has already started to grate. Still, watching how useless the celebrities were provided great mirth while we shared a whole host of junk food, which made for a fantastic evening.
We had nothing planned on Saturday until the evening, when Arcais was coming around. This afforded us a lie-in, but having arisen around noon, I didn't want to waste more of such a beautiful summer's day, convincing Wolfie to drive to Brighouse. There he has a cousin who has just opened a small craft beer shop called The Trembling Hand. We had kept meaning to go, but we are only ever usually free on Sundays when he was closed. This was therefore an opportunity, so we popped down there, spending a good fifteen minutes chatting to him about beer. The shop is quite small but stocks an impressive array of stuff, and all for fairly low prices too. We decided to come back as we were leaving the town, taking advantage of the sunshine by having a pleasant forty-five minute stroll by the canal. It was very tranquil when we weren't dodging youths on bikes, with the canal dawdling its way alongside the river, with beautiful green foliage draping into it. There were a number of modern warehouses on either side of the canal, something it would be churlish to complain about as it was for the eighteenth century equivalent of such industry that the canals were built, while it was great seeing the old locks and stone bridges dotting the canal's course. At one, we saw a newly wed couple getting their wedding pictures taken while at one of the locks we saw a gaggle of scouts working as a team to get their barge up. After about twenty minutes, Wolfie's foot was starting to throb though, so we had to double back and head back into Brighouse, where we saw a number of interpid kids climbing up the sheer faces of the rock climbing centre, reacquisitioned from a former industrial plant. We then dodged back into the Trembling Hand to pick up twelve beers in the end, as well as advising a charming elderly gentleman about craft beer. He had just started getting into Tyskie and bless him he thought that was exotic, so I pointed some fresh German examples to keep him happy. He had actually come in to speak to Wolfie's cousin about local history and left, only to return and admit he felt a little churlish for not buying a beer. We were only happy to help.
We got back home shortly after 4:30pm and were fortunate to see Taneli and Arc drive down our street. Arc pretended to be a dog and barked at us from out of the car window as Taneli pulled up. They disgorged and we spent a pleasant hour in the garden setting up our brand new BBQ, which still needed to be chained to the wall and cleaned. As this was being done, Arc and I went to ASDA to get some food for the BBQ, while we also got some new Mini Cheddars Stilton as Taneli wanted to try them. They were quite nice, with a slight tang of stilton, but certainly not the most faithful adaptation. Taneli had to go to a family meal so needed to head off around 7pm, after which we grilled the meat, using lettuce leaves rather than bread buns for the burgers in an attempt to reduce calories. We also had some grill steaks cooked on our new hotplate, while Arc had made a delightful fresh salad from couscous, tomatoes and basil. It was a great way to end a summer's evening and after this we ended up watching Don't Tell The Bride and pissing about on Snapchat pretending to be goths and dogs. A happy evening indeed. It would have been great had Arc stayed but her tattoo - which had just been finished off that afternoon - had started to leak and she was conscious of getting it all over our sofa and bed. She headed off just before 10pm, while we chilled for the rest of the evening.
We were up quite early on Sunday as we had agreed to do some mascot performance work at St Gemma's Hospice for their annual summer fete. It was going to be another gloriously hot day so I packed my EZCoolDown vest for the first time in forever, noting as the day went on how it became more and more like an insulating vest once the ice packs had thawed. We were out of the door at 9:30am and had picked Shiro up twenty minutes later, not aided by Kirkstall Road being closed for a fun run. We then drove to Cross Gates to pick up Cosmo before heading up to the hospice, arriving ten minutes before our scheduled arrival time of 10:45am. I chatted to the organisers and they guided us to our changing rooms, and twenty minutes later we were out and about, mingling amongst the crowds. There were a range of great concessions there, including a rope twining one and a cheese stall that sold a range of gourmet cheeses. It was great to see the Otley branch of the North Bar down there serving Pimms and I even got to meet their pug Stan, who was very barky when I was in suit but calmed down as soon as he had been picked up. There were also some delicious cakes there while after the suiting we got free hot dogs and burgers for our efforts. We donated the monetary equivalent. The highlight for me was the book stall though as I kept acting out Fifty Shades of Grey, as this was one of the books they were selling. I also kept putting 'My First Children's Bible' next to it, which caused me a fair bit of amusement. The mini putting range was also a highlight, particularly when I nudged the ball down the track with my snout. The fact there were so many stalls meant it was so easy to act up and make people laugh, such as when I used the hook-a-duck poles as conducting rods for the choir, while the kids of course loved the furry critters. There were three of us and Wolfie monitored our welfare, with the temperature being so hot that we had to really be careful. I managed four hours in the end, which wasn't too bad considering the temperature. The others lasted different amounts of time, while Gemma the Giraffe and West Yorkshire Police's own PC Bob mascot were there too. We were given buckets but considering there was so much to spend money on there, we didn't collect loads, but I am delighted we added a lot to the day. This was particularly the case in the garden, where kids were conducting a pirate themed treasure hunt and playing games like quoits. A few showed me the prizes they had won too. With an hour to go, I decided to get out of suit and walk around, introducing myself to all of the stallholders I had taken the piss out of in suit. They seemed quite happy, and it was good talking to them, particularly the book stall people who wanted to know all about furry. It was difficult to tell them until ten minutes later the gentleman told me he was a huge fan of Lara Croft and went to Cosplay conventions. Had he mentioned that, it would have been an awful lot easier. We left at about 4pm, and dropped Cosmo and Shiro off, returning home to do mundane things like DIY and slide slowly into the working week.
Admittedly, we had already had our Friday night plans sorted before last weekend as Adia had invited us around to her house to watch Sing. We hadn't seen the movie and had missed it in the cinema, so we thought it a perfect opportunity. Mid-week, she widened the invite to Taneli and Arcais, with the cheetah accepting and the panda unavailable due to work commitments in Derby and Leicester. This meant that there was to be five of us in the house - Adia, Soma, me, Taneli and Wolfie. Unfortunately, Wolfie would end up being delayed as he was sent to Chester by work at the last minute, and this meant that we didn't get to see the movie in the end. He arrived shortly after 8:30pm so we contented ourselves by watching The Chase and the new version of The Crystal Maze with Richard Ayoade. It's hard to judge the reboot as we are still trawling through the celebrity specials, but they seem to have done well with the zones and the games themselves were of their usual high quality. Ayoade himself I feel will grow into the role, but his constant remark of "Tuck In" has already started to grate. Still, watching how useless the celebrities were provided great mirth while we shared a whole host of junk food, which made for a fantastic evening.
We had nothing planned on Saturday until the evening, when Arcais was coming around. This afforded us a lie-in, but having arisen around noon, I didn't want to waste more of such a beautiful summer's day, convincing Wolfie to drive to Brighouse. There he has a cousin who has just opened a small craft beer shop called The Trembling Hand. We had kept meaning to go, but we are only ever usually free on Sundays when he was closed. This was therefore an opportunity, so we popped down there, spending a good fifteen minutes chatting to him about beer. The shop is quite small but stocks an impressive array of stuff, and all for fairly low prices too. We decided to come back as we were leaving the town, taking advantage of the sunshine by having a pleasant forty-five minute stroll by the canal. It was very tranquil when we weren't dodging youths on bikes, with the canal dawdling its way alongside the river, with beautiful green foliage draping into it. There were a number of modern warehouses on either side of the canal, something it would be churlish to complain about as it was for the eighteenth century equivalent of such industry that the canals were built, while it was great seeing the old locks and stone bridges dotting the canal's course. At one, we saw a newly wed couple getting their wedding pictures taken while at one of the locks we saw a gaggle of scouts working as a team to get their barge up. After about twenty minutes, Wolfie's foot was starting to throb though, so we had to double back and head back into Brighouse, where we saw a number of interpid kids climbing up the sheer faces of the rock climbing centre, reacquisitioned from a former industrial plant. We then dodged back into the Trembling Hand to pick up twelve beers in the end, as well as advising a charming elderly gentleman about craft beer. He had just started getting into Tyskie and bless him he thought that was exotic, so I pointed some fresh German examples to keep him happy. He had actually come in to speak to Wolfie's cousin about local history and left, only to return and admit he felt a little churlish for not buying a beer. We were only happy to help.
We got back home shortly after 4:30pm and were fortunate to see Taneli and Arc drive down our street. Arc pretended to be a dog and barked at us from out of the car window as Taneli pulled up. They disgorged and we spent a pleasant hour in the garden setting up our brand new BBQ, which still needed to be chained to the wall and cleaned. As this was being done, Arc and I went to ASDA to get some food for the BBQ, while we also got some new Mini Cheddars Stilton as Taneli wanted to try them. They were quite nice, with a slight tang of stilton, but certainly not the most faithful adaptation. Taneli had to go to a family meal so needed to head off around 7pm, after which we grilled the meat, using lettuce leaves rather than bread buns for the burgers in an attempt to reduce calories. We also had some grill steaks cooked on our new hotplate, while Arc had made a delightful fresh salad from couscous, tomatoes and basil. It was a great way to end a summer's evening and after this we ended up watching Don't Tell The Bride and pissing about on Snapchat pretending to be goths and dogs. A happy evening indeed. It would have been great had Arc stayed but her tattoo - which had just been finished off that afternoon - had started to leak and she was conscious of getting it all over our sofa and bed. She headed off just before 10pm, while we chilled for the rest of the evening.
We were up quite early on Sunday as we had agreed to do some mascot performance work at St Gemma's Hospice for their annual summer fete. It was going to be another gloriously hot day so I packed my EZCoolDown vest for the first time in forever, noting as the day went on how it became more and more like an insulating vest once the ice packs had thawed. We were out of the door at 9:30am and had picked Shiro up twenty minutes later, not aided by Kirkstall Road being closed for a fun run. We then drove to Cross Gates to pick up Cosmo before heading up to the hospice, arriving ten minutes before our scheduled arrival time of 10:45am. I chatted to the organisers and they guided us to our changing rooms, and twenty minutes later we were out and about, mingling amongst the crowds. There were a range of great concessions there, including a rope twining one and a cheese stall that sold a range of gourmet cheeses. It was great to see the Otley branch of the North Bar down there serving Pimms and I even got to meet their pug Stan, who was very barky when I was in suit but calmed down as soon as he had been picked up. There were also some delicious cakes there while after the suiting we got free hot dogs and burgers for our efforts. We donated the monetary equivalent. The highlight for me was the book stall though as I kept acting out Fifty Shades of Grey, as this was one of the books they were selling. I also kept putting 'My First Children's Bible' next to it, which caused me a fair bit of amusement. The mini putting range was also a highlight, particularly when I nudged the ball down the track with my snout. The fact there were so many stalls meant it was so easy to act up and make people laugh, such as when I used the hook-a-duck poles as conducting rods for the choir, while the kids of course loved the furry critters. There were three of us and Wolfie monitored our welfare, with the temperature being so hot that we had to really be careful. I managed four hours in the end, which wasn't too bad considering the temperature. The others lasted different amounts of time, while Gemma the Giraffe and West Yorkshire Police's own PC Bob mascot were there too. We were given buckets but considering there was so much to spend money on there, we didn't collect loads, but I am delighted we added a lot to the day. This was particularly the case in the garden, where kids were conducting a pirate themed treasure hunt and playing games like quoits. A few showed me the prizes they had won too. With an hour to go, I decided to get out of suit and walk around, introducing myself to all of the stallholders I had taken the piss out of in suit. They seemed quite happy, and it was good talking to them, particularly the book stall people who wanted to know all about furry. It was difficult to tell them until ten minutes later the gentleman told me he was a huge fan of Lara Croft and went to Cosplay conventions. Had he mentioned that, it would have been an awful lot easier. We left at about 4pm, and dropped Cosmo and Shiro off, returning home to do mundane things like DIY and slide slowly into the working week.
