Day Eighteen - Twenty: Various

A bit of a cop-out, but I've got behind with my blogs and want to catch up, so I'm grouping a few days together. The reason is that it was a certain person's birthday last week (me) and another certain person's birthday yesterday (Tom's) and it was those certain persons 30th birthdays, no less. And so we had a very busy weekend with lots of friends coming and going and staying and leaving, as well as a bit of a shindig on Saturday night with family and friends. Hence why I'm behind with the blog, and hence why I'm bunching together. Do forgive me.

Eighteen - The Newton Social Club
On Friday, the eighteenth day in our challenge, we chose to have people round and do some old-fashioned socialising (it certainly feels old-fashioned these days - it seems ages since we had a house full on a Friday evening playing games and drinking wine and having fun). We had a few people over to watch the Rugby, and fun was had by all. My dear friend Jamie, from the Isle of Man, also arrived for the weekend, so all in all a lovely evening. Note to self - socialise more.

Nineteen - P.A.R.T.Y
As I mentioned above (I hope you were concentrating), we threw a little party on Saturday night to celebrate our 30th birthdays. It was fun.

Twenty - Learn a new card game
Jamie taught me a really good new card game, which is ideal for two people. As I said in a previous post, we struggle to find games that are good for just the two of us, so this one was perfect. It was easy to learn - maybe that's just because Jamie's a good teacher and I'm a good learner - and got me gripped very quickly. I think it's called the Sunday Night Game (not sure why, but I can't tell you how happy I am that we were indeed playing it on a Sunday night), but I am told that it is a bit like rummy.

So there we go, that's the weekend caught up with. Back to normal blogs tomorrow!

Day Seventeen: If I win the lottery....

I never play the Lottery, so the likelihood of me ever winning the jackpot is, well, just about as likely as anyone who actually does play the lottery. Let's just say, it's not going to happen. But. If it did..... It's nice sometimes, isn't it, to spend some time daydreaming about what your life would be like if you were ever to win some big money. We used to talk about it at work all the time (particularly if we were having a bad day) - "If I win £15million, I'll share it out and none of us need ever come to work again." That sort of thing.

So the other day for our Fifty Things, Tom and I indulged in a little daydreaming, of the property type (I recently discovered that there is now a term called 'property porn' - I wonder if this is it?) We each had five minutes, and in those five minutes we had to find, on rightmove.com, the best house we could. We were to consider facilities and features (both indoor and out), location, and style. Obviously, money was no object.

I started by thinking of somewhere which is probably quite pricey, but that is also near the coast (that's why I ruled out London straight away); I went for Kent. This yielded no properties sufficient for my excessive tastes, so if you're looking for a £5million+ property to move into, I can save you some time and tell you to give Kent a miss. I moved onto Brighton - hip & happening, lots of wealth, and, of course, a beach. But I found that the majority of the houses were far too modern for my traditional tastes, and so again I rejected that and searched elsewhere. My time was running out.

Next I chose the Cotswolds - beautiful scenery, close to lots of lovely places like Bath and Cheltenham, and near enough to the south coast. Also, I knew there were plenty of wealthy, quaint little villages sure to be hiding (or flaunting) millionaires' mansions galore. And I wasn't disappointed. Here's what I chose:



Isn't she beautiful? You can see the whole listing here, but to whet your appetite, and to show you why I chose this place, here are some more photos:

          


"Dowdeswell House has been transformed by the current owners with cutting edge interiors, wonderful views, an infinity swimming pool, Tennis court and Sauna....dates back to the early 17th Century...Grade II Listed and includes a range of useful outbuildings...Georgian façade faces south west and is covered in wisteria..."

A snip, at only £5,500,000!

Tom chose this place, coming in at a whopping £8,000,000:



          

In case you couldn't tell, that last photo is a cricket ground, which explains why Tom went for this particular house (up until that photo I had been impressed and surprised by his charming, rustic, attractive choice).

I think you'll agree that both properties are quite nice, and really I would be happy enough living in either of them. Or the shed in the grounds of either of them.

Day Fourteen: Vegan for a day

I am a lover of food and drink, and I enjoy all of nature's bountiful produce with appreciation for the yummy morsels found therein and the clever cooks throughout history who have discovered winning combinations and magical ways of preparing meals (who first fried an egg??!) I am well aware of life-choices such as vegetarianism and veganism and fruitarianism (is that a real one, or just something made up from Notting Hill?) but I have never felt the need to embrace such a diet, and have no qualms eating anything, as long as it is actually edible. I feel sorry for those who do live by such rules, I feel sorry for their taste buds because of what they miss out on, and I feel sorry for their tummies because of what they miss out on a Sunday afternoon, trying and failing to digest a huge Sunday roast with all the trimmings.

But I was also quite keen to give yesterday's challenge a go. Keen, that is, until it dawned on me just how hard being a vegan is (and by 'hard' I mean annoying, bothersome and expensive.) My understanding is that a vegan eats anything that doesn't derive from an animal, so in a nutshell (you could eat that), no fish, no meat, no dairy. Easy enough....or so I thought. 

We spent a fair amount of time planning and preparing for this gastronomical mission, to ensure that we had enough suitable foods in the house. One of our conversations went something like this:

Tom: So I can't have cereal for breakfast, because I can't have milk. What am I going to have?

Me: Toast?

Tom: No because I can't have butter. 

Me: You could have toast without butter? 

Tom: Are you an idiot?

Fair point. So Tom ended up breakfasting on what can safely be described as the only possible alternative to toast or cereal - hash browns, baked beans and fried bread. I had the left over baked beans on toast. So far, so yummy - being a vegan is easy, and tastier than normal! 

You can imagine how our conversation about lunch went, bearing in mind the suggestions made earlier concerning toast without butter. So we dined on pasta with tomato sauce and mixed Mediterranean vegetables. Again, so far so yummy. And then for tea I made a Sicilian aubergine stew which you can see here:

It tasted much better than it looked and I think we will eat it again as part of our normal non-vegan food exploits. 

For the main meals, then, my conclusion is that veganism isn't that bad. (However, that is because we only did it for one day. Any longer than that and I would be craving bacon, drooling every time I saw roast beef, dreaming about a ham sandwich, and, well, I would just eat some meat.) No, like I said, the main meals weren't the problem. The problems began with tea. 

I bought a whole carton of soya milk, just so that I could have a cup of tea. That is silly. It makes tea taste different, and it's expensive. Also, how often in the day does an average person fancy a bit of cheese, and just head to the fridge and nibble a little bit off the edge of the block? Yes, probably about 5 or 6 times, and so that's 5 or 6 times you have to quash your desires and eat something boring instead like an apple or a breadstick. Maybe for you it's not cheese, it's chocolate. Well the same applies. Yesterday I had a bit of a mare of a day, and felt stressed and irritated and on the verge of tears all day, and so chocolate, cheese and tea were the three things I needed the most, and the only one I could have was odd tasting tea. I am convinced that had I been able to indulge in these delicacies as freely as I desired, my mood would have lifted.

In conclusion then, I have realised something by carrying out this challenge: my happiness and comfort appears to be directly and intrinsically linked to my consumption of cheese, chocolate and tea. From henceforth, I will valiantly proclaim their virtues to all peoples I meet, especially those of the vegan persuasion, and never again will I deny myself any of these three simple pleasures. Thank you, silly, nonsensical veganism for opening my eyes; thank you, wonderful, joy-enducing cheese, chocolate and tea, for being you. 

Day Sixteen: My name's Danielle and I'm an Ingeniousaholic

Our challenge yesterday was actually, for us, a relapse. There's this amazing board game, called Ingenious, that my friend introduced to us back in February while we were on holiday together. As soon as we got home, we bought ourselves the game, and played it non-stop, two or three times a day, for probably about a month. We were evangelical about Ingenious, to which anyone who had the pleasure of spending any time with us during that month would bear witness. 

But it was, in all honesty, too much of a good thing. We were obsessed. So we had to break the cycle, which we managed to do (which is a relief because it wouldn't have been long before we were turning down invitations to social events in favour of playing Ingenious, or ignoring the cleaning that needed doing in favour of playing Ingenious, or not eating in favour of playing Ingenious....and where would that end up? Addiction is serious kids.) 

Hence why I said yesterday was a relapse. It was a wonderful, heady experience that made us remember the days gone by, and why we had fallen so hard for Ingenious. It's an.....ingenious game. Perfect for two players (which I find is quite a difficult attribute to come by in games), it also works well for up to four players. It's a sort of dominoes-cum-chequers hybrid whereby you link tiles of matching colours and accrue points based on how many matching colours you arrange in a single row. The ingenious bit is the scoring, though. You're trying to be the first to reach the end point, but also you don't want to be the player who's furthest behind. It's hard to explain on here but basically, it's great! Go and play it right now!

Day Fifteen: Write a poem

Untitled 

Despite its crackling, its crunching and its rustling,

Autumn steals away summer

Conceals it beneath a blanket of dry leaves and cloudy mist

Grey skies and chilly breeze

Really, it's been there all along

Summer struggles against it, but

Autumn always wins 

Entombed in their spiny cases,

Conkers break free 

Ready to clatter and collide in pockets, on playgrounds and on pieces of string

Golden, amber, bronze, copper

Royal colours against a blue sky

Harvest moon and September sun

Early dawns disappear 

Evenings draw in, closer, near

Snuggle up in cosy clothes

Autumn's here

The King of Seasons

Day Thirteen: Go for a walk

In the late afternoon/early evening of our thirteenth activity, I was feeling particularly sluggish and lethargic and floppy, and so we decided that, in order to pep me up a bit, we would go for an early evening walk after tea. Now, normally I don't make such proactive and positive choices when I'm feeling so sluggish and lethargic and floppy, so this was quite a step forward for me. Maybe that's the first evidence of this Fifty Things thing doing me some actual good!

Anyway, we went for a short walk around the West Common, which is just behind our house. We're fortunate to have the Common so close to us; apart from the terrifying horses which freely roam the meadows, it's a lovely, natural, sprawling piece of land just perfect for a quick stroll on a late summer's evening.

I still felt tired afterwards, but infinitely better for the fresh air and a chance to chat and muse things over together. We will definitely try and do this more!

Day Twelve: Watch a Film

Well, the title of this blog post explains the challenge we chose yesterday, so I don't need to say that again. But as a result, I'm unsure how to start this post. Well I suppose I've started it now so that's a relief. 

We don't very often watch films. We watch a lot of telly and enjoy box sets (who doesn't?) but it's been a while since we watched a film together. This is silly because we pay for a subscription to Lovefilm and so get sent a blu-Ray in the post once a month (old school I know), and so really watching a film together should be a regular - you could say monthly - occurrence, but it's not. But I really enjoyed the one we watched yesterday, so maybe we'll get back into watching movies again and eschew box-sets in a fit of anti-bandwagon sentiment. 

We watched Before I Go To Sleep, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, and I am happy to recommend it as well worth watching, particularly if you've not read the book. Actually, if you've not read the book, read the book, because it's better than the film. Although maybe I'm just saying that because I read the book first....hmmm. So my recommendations would go, in order of recommendation, thus:

1. Read the book, then

2. Watch the film, or

3. If you need some persuading to read the book, watch the film and then read the book, or

4. If you're not a big reader, watch the film instead 

I hope that helps and brings some clarity. 

It's the sort of plot that once you know it and know what happens, any attempts to re-experience it are noticeably devoid of the tension and suspense you enjoyed the first time round. But notwithstanding this fact, the film was still good, which is good if you're going to go with any combination of the recommendations outlined above. Despite knowing the plot, I still felt gripped, jumpy, and frightened (in a good way).

I don't really like Nicole Kidman but she's good in this. Well I say 'good' as if I am some sort of judge of her acting ability and screen presence and other proper things like that; what I actually mean is she wasn't annoying. Colin Firth was, I thought, also very good, and I was surprised because I've not seen him as anything like the role he plays in this film. 

That is the extent of my film-reviewing skills. As an activity for the evening, it was a success, maybe more so because of the fact that we've both read the book and so found ourselves talking about the similarities and differences, and our expectations, more than we might have done otherwise, which added an extra element of interest to the evening.