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Today in living room tidying has mainly been a process of rearrangement. However, this means that I've managed to free the fire, which was unusable - and in fact unreachable - last night, due to boxes and such in front of it. As the weather is turning slightly chillier over the next few days, I want that to be available.
I went in to the far end of the window bay, which already contained several of the stronger-lidded boxes, and was able to clear it out completely; it's the first time in a good while I've been able to stand there looking out at the road
Then, in the space where the plastic shelves were, I stacked the pre-existing boxes and the ones from yesterday that were blocking the fire, and moved some other stuff back into the end of the bay. The result is that I have much more stuff in the same amount of space as before. Also, a number of boxes which I know for sure contain stuff that can probably, if regretfully, be chucked are now on top of the piles; the ones full of books are at the bottom. This will make it easier to go through them as and when, and also force me to do so when more bookcases arrive and are assembled.
My back is now hinting that this is enough for one day. Tomorrow: back to this side, where some more books need to be packed and three old bookcases are to be disassembled and taken to the tip. After that, I can get into sorting out the magazines, which have occupied that corner of the room against all comers since I moved here, fourteen years ago
when you've done with all that, can you pop down and clear the garage i've been mostly ignoring for 18 months? please?
Following the carrots & onions & the remains of the Sunday roast thing, which was very nice, there was stewed gooseberries and custard, which was very nice too.
Followed by this evening's epic, this being the HBO production of "The Rat Pack (1998)", a tale of how Francis Albert Sinatra and the Mob got JFK elected whilst making Oceans 11 on the side.
Tonight's dinner was an action replay of Monday's, being the rest of the rolled breast of lamb and the rest of its red wine gravy, along with roast spuds, peas, and Yorkshire puds; and very nice it was
I reduced the wine gravy a lot more this time, which improved the flavour; and I think both it and the lamb had benefited from sitting in the fridge a couple of days to bring out the flavours, and let the flavour of the herbs rolled inside permeate the meat more
This evening's big feature was The Last King of Scotland (2006), in which Forest Whitaker gives an excellent performance as Idi Amin of Uganda.
However, the first twenty-odd minutes of the film were mildly annoying, as the director seems to have been pursuing some ambition to make a music video for a compilation album of East African music. A succession of shots of some Ugandan villages seen through the side window of a coach with musical accompaniment does nothing whatsoever to move the story forward; and if the idea was to establish atmosphere, that was done better by the scenes of stuff actually being done by the actors in such villages.
And it can't have been for the purpose of demonstrating the relatively bucolic nature of the Ugandan countryside before Amin took power so that it could be contrasted with the state thereof afterwards, as almost all of the later part of the film takes place in Kampala and the only reference to the countryside is a brief mention by a British Embassy official in an expository speech.
So a few marks off for that time-wasting indulgence, and the further intrusive music serving little purpose from time to time in the rest of the film (though some of it does have relevance); but overall, pretty good.
Booked 3 days off next week while little boy is on half term - just need to last until 13:00 Friday without "teaching someone the error of their ways!".
Deep breaths!
Have a good day all!
Old Greg - In search of acceptance since Mar 2007. Hoping each leap will be his last.
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