(no subject)
Dec. 13th, 2004 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewxI habitually have lunch in the office on week days but last week every single day was an exception; lunch out with Aldabra on Tuesday and Vicky the following day, with the rest being occupied by Christmas shopping. I'm not sure I'd call it completely finished but all the really important bits are done.
Evenings were filled with their usual mix of Karate and people, Friday evening being a particular highlight, starting with seeing The Phantom Of The Opera with Vicky. No particular opinion on the singing, personally, but I did like the sets - someone behind that film really liked statues.
Saturday started with a to-do list, which I largely got done; the only slippage being posting presents, which should happen tomorrow. Most of the time was occupied with duck-editing schemes and the various disasters they included; Vicky has photos of the end results, which hopefully will find their way onto the net at some point.
The explanation ... the theme to Vicky's birthday party was "heaven and hell", and so I wanted a comic-style shoulder angel and demon (you must know the kind of thing I mean) ... but, obviously, they had to be ducks. So I ordered a devil duck, intending to use the bath duck we already had on the other side, with a halo on top.
Sinister arrived during the week but I inadvertently destroyed the bath duck early on Saturday. My initial somewhat panicked reaction was to phone LNR, who was in town at the time, to ask her to look for a replacement. The ones she found were a bit small so I spent much of the afternoon fighting my way through bimbling Christmas shoppers to eventually find success in Robert Sayle ("ooh, that's a challenge ... most likely the toy department".)
Anyway a suitable duck finally acquired I proceeded to glue velcro to the bottom of a pair of ducks, sewing the other half of the velcro to a sacrificial T-shirt. Unfortunately velcro turns out to be much stronger than copydex (at least against the surfaces in question and with the drying time available) so the first test run undid half my work; after the frustrations of earlier in the day, and given that it was getting rather close to party-o'clock this was rather an upset. Fortunately superglue proved perfectly adequate for the job; next time I'll try that first. (My rather amateurish sewing held fine and I only jabbed myself twice.)
With the addition of a halo for Dexter I was ready to go. I enjoyed the party, and the ducks seemed to go down well. Had to be more than usually cautious about how much I drank, though, in preparation for Sunday morning; in the event I seemed to have got it about right. It was good to see various people from out of town turning up.
An unintended consequence of all the duck-hunting is that I now have a great many ducks:
(...and that's not all.)
Got up early on Sunday morning to get to Becky's for a lift to Karate grading, for the first time with Kirsten and Pete; we were heroically early but given how late some other people turned up I'm pretty happy about that. I noticed I made a bit of a coordination error at one point in my uchi uke combination but if I got anything else wrong I didn't notice it. (We didn't get asked to do Heian Nidan, which is probably fortunate; lately I've made some mistake or other about every second time I've done it.) Anyway I now have a blue belt, which corresponds to 6th kyu.
So thankyou Becky for the transport and well done to her, Kirsten and Pete on their own gradings.
Back then to Becky's for lunch followed by mulled wine, mince pies and various other edible delights. I'd have liked to stay for the extended version of The Return Of The King, but not at more than four hours at that particular point in time.
Spent a little while at home advancing my to-do list, then back out to see Vicky again. Ross earned great praise by unexpectedly springing well-timed food on us, after which, and after the rest of the day, sprawling on the sofa watching Tintin was about as much as I was up to. And after that back home to an LNR who I hope I've not been ignoring too much this weekend.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-12 05:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-16 12:02 pm (UTC)How to post picture on livejoural? The ducks are cute, I like the orange one =)
How to post picture on livejoural?
Date: 2004-12-17 11:09 am (UTC)