Adam’s Cerebral Spillage

British Summer Time. The three greatest words in the English language to me at the moment, I am unbelievably pleased that the clocks have gone. Our American neighbours might call it Daylight Savings, but to me it’s British Summer. Unfortunately that can mean months of damp, grey weather (which reminds me of an appalling joke – What’s Snoop Dogg’s favourite weather? Drizzle! ….. sorry), but I’m holding out hope that this year will be better, even though sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes. If you ask me there’s no greater gift for lifting your spirits and making you feel wholly better than being given an extra hour in the evening. I’ve already made the most of it; Murphy’s agility class moved to a Monday evening yesterday so I spent the whole evening outside running around a field after a very busy ginger dog and his friends.

Those that know me know I live for barbecues and the summer, and so it’ll probably come as no surprise to learn that I’ve already got one eye on charcoal and grills. In a way I feel a bit jealous of most people and am not looking forward to the big stores setting out their displays of barbecues and associated paraphernalia, just because I’m going to be very jealous of everybody with a house capable of hosting one. Work has ground to a halt on our place for the time being while nine inches of concrete goes off to create what will be our kitchen floor. I’ve still got one eye on the goal, but for the time being it still feels like I’m stood at the other end of the pitch. An uphill pitch. Once the walls start going up I think I’m going to start feeling much happier.

Today sees the official end of the company I work for, but not in as drastic a fashion as that might suggest. As the local councils merge, our old parent company changes to a new one, but it’s essentially just a change of name. I’ll still be sat at my desk, doing the same things tomorrow. In celebration of the ten years of its existence, and the leaving of our MD, we’ve booked a bar out in town and are all off there for a few drinks in the afternoon (with some of us staying on for a few hours for a few more drinks ). Not too many drinks mind, it’s a school night after all, but it’s a nice way to welcome in midweek – the official start of my weekends.

This place has gone quiet lately in terms of games talk, and it’s just because I’m in a bit of a lull at the moment. A few big games have been released, most notably Resident Evil 5, but I’m not really interested in it. When I can pick it up for under twenty quid I’ll be more interested, but not before. If anything I’ve been concentrating on making sure I can play the ones I have properly after a slight mishap a couple of weeks ago. I took some beers, games and pads around to a friend’s house for an evening in and had a great time. The next day I woke up and found a puddle of beer in the bottom of the bag which had my pads and games in. Not only did it ruin the inlay and instruction manual of one of the games, one of the pads was soaked in beer! I let it dry out and ignored it until last week when someone tried to use my recently infused gamepad, and found that half the buttons and triggers were either stuck or sticking. I bought myself the screwdriver needed to open the thing – or at least I thought I had, it turns out I’d bought a T10 driver and not the T8 necessary (360 pads use nuisance anti-tamper Torx screws). With enough pressure you can get the screws out with a T10, which I have done twice now. No matter how clean I’m sure everything is, the damn thing still has a sticky trigger and d-pad! It’s payday today so I might invest in a T8 and have a proper go soon. It’s nice to know that like its owner, its capable of absorbing a beer or two, but if you too have suffered similar misfortune there’s only two things you really need to remember: 1) get a T8 screwdriver and don’t try to make do with something else unless you want to wreck the screws, and 2) the seventh screw is under the battery compartment, directly behind the barcode on the sticker.

Technorati Tags barbecue, dog agility, resident evil 5, sticky 360 pad, summer

Looking out of my office window right now all I can see is grey skies, rain and the trees being blown about. Some July huh? It’s been a really sunny summer so far so I can’t really complain too much I suppose, but it’s got me wishing for brighter skies, which in turn reminds me – only three weeks until holiday! In 22 days my friends and I are jetting off to Spain for a week to share a villa and have a damn good time. We have a pool, barbecue area and lots of space, so I intend to do a lot of relaxing, plenty of swimming and no doubt partaking in the odd sangria or two . Usually foreign holidays for those of us living in ‘The Country’ have an added annoyance, and that’s the sheer amount of travelling involved before you get anywhere.

Cornwall has traditionally had really poor transport links – we’re talking 90 miles to the nearest stretch of Motorway, trains that take forever, no airports – but all of that has begun to change. Most of the above is still true, but with the advent of Newquay Airport and its subsequent improvements, the rest of the world has started to move a bit closer. Take this holiday I’m due for example. In the past it might have meant a drive to the nearest airport (normally Bristol – 3.5/4 hours, sometimes Gatwick/Heathrow @ 6.5/7 hours) before even starting. This time however we’re flying direct from Newquay (20 minutes drive away) to Alicante (30 minutes from the villa), and I feel so much happier and more relaxed about it. I have a really small list of things I want to take with me, mostly various swimming shorts, books and hopefully a very trashy inflatable for the pool. I’m fancying a giant inflatable dinosaur, but I think I might be out of luck there .

It’s back to the dojang tonight, time to infuse those mats with some more hard work and sweat (and hopefully not too much blood – it’ll stain!). I’m still aching all over from Wednesday’s antics, my shoulders aren’t used to things like dragon pushups any more. Between that and a stiff back from the Kickboxing warm-up which involved slapping the mat a lot as we changed direction, we ended up looking like apes (anyone who knows me can kindly refrain from any further comment there please), I’m not moving so freely. From the looks of things at least we’ll know if there are any leaks in the building.

I managed to find the single other person in the world who seems to not only have read Hyperion, but loved it as much as I do. Good day!

I can’t post songs from here, but I shall definitely be singing along to Snake River Conspiracy on the way home tonight, probably Breed followed by Lovesong.

Technorati Tags alicante, holiday, hyperion, inflatable dinosaur, rain, Snake River Conspiracy, summer, training

The sun’s out big and bright today, and it’s actually really warm. This coupled with the fact that it’s nearly April means that as far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty much summer .

I rose really early this morning and got myself clean, showered and presentable for going back to work for the first time in 6 days. I’ve been sleeping really well lately, I think it’s working hard in training and stuff wearing me out and setting me off nicely. Driving to work this morning was just glorious, I was singing along (like a choir of angels obviously) to an old Blink 182 album I dug out, had the windows down and was feeling good. I’m pretty lucky to be able to say I was having a really good time going to work I guess.

It’s Tang Soo Do again tonight and I think I’m going to pop home at lunchtime and see if I have any deliveries left for me, I’m expecting a few things but mainly my new heavyweight dobok and belt. This new dobok is going to have to last me a long time, so I’m getting a decent one. I’ll have to wait until the end of the week to trim it I think. I’m learning Pyung Ahn Oh Dan now, and it’s by far the hardest form yet I’ve had to do. There are lots of odd little movements and turns, and the jump gets me every time. It’s great though, and now replaces Pyung Ahn Sa Dan and Ee Dan as the most tiring to perform. For the rest of the evening, I’m not sure what I’ll do, I dare say I’ll find something to keep me busy and my hands occupied though – I don’t like being bored.

Now if we can just keep that sun up there burning hot and bright for the next oooooh, 5 months or so, that’d be great. Does anyone have a magic wand?

I’ll leave you with a couple of songs today (I know, I spoil you). Firstly is the first song I think about when I think of summer, and I love screaming along to it on a sunny evening, driving nowhere in particular. I defy you to scream along to the chorus, I love the continual guitar riff in the final section too.

Lost Prophets – Last Summer

And this was the main track for the ride in this morning, I love the whole album.

Blink 182 – Going Away To College

Technorati Tags blink 182, lost prophets, pyung ahn oh dan, summer, sunshine

No, the title is not an example of my poor spelling, it’s an oh-so-clever play on words by yours truly, for this past weekend was truthfully like summer. Weekends at the moment have slots reserved for walking Murphy because by the time we get back from work on a weekday it’s already dark. The woods and the beach aren’t much fun at night for a very sociable little dog. The forecast was supposed to be quite good, but it was way beyond anyones expectations I think, we were treated to glorious sunshine and warmth.

On the Friday evening I went with some friends down to a couple of new local bars to check them out and see just how much money sitting in nice surrounds would cost per drink. First off we headed out to the Sand Sifter at Godrevy which was really nice, if completely bereft of people. We had a quick drink there and then headed over to a new place in Hayle called Salt, which was really nice. Very laid-back and really nicely done out, which as anyone who’s spent any time in Hayle will tell you, is quite something! My friends crashed at our house that night, none of them (me included) making it through the screening of Die Hard 4.0 which seemed like such a good idea at the time.

The next morning we took the world’s gingerest spaniel down to see my friend and her dogs, and took them for a run and splash at Gunwalloe, down at Church Cove. It was so gorgeous, you’d swear it was summer and not officially the middle of winter.

 Church Cove

The poor pup was absolutely shattered after this, and I’m reliably informed would barely move that evening. He’s such a sorry sight if he’s knackered.

Sunday came around and it was still sunny! I didn’t think it could match up to the previous day but I was proved wrong, it was hotter again. This time Murph was joined by his three usual cohorts and our other friend’s dog, a particularly speedy greyhound. I’m not sure how long we were down there, but I’d wager it was easily a couple of hours. The beach in question this time was Perranporth.

 Perranporth Beach

That picture was taken where we sat for a glass of something cold outside the Watering Hole, which isa pub rather handily built on the beach itself. Once again Murphy made the most of it with plenty of dog-chasing, dog-sniffing and splashing about in rockpools and the river. It was all he could do to lift his head to look at me when I got in from training last night. It’s easy to forget sometimes that he’s still only 10 months old.

Thanks to Mother Nature for this sneak-peek at what summer may be like this year, I can’t wait for barbecue season.

Technorati Tags beach, church cove, dog walking, hayle, perranporth, Spaniel, summer