Calm before the Storm

Friday. For many, this means cathartic release from the stresses of the week for those with Friday on their minds, a half-day, a half-arsed day, a reason to thank a god of your choice, or a chance to wake up at 2am on the sofa with a second bottle of whisky still open on the table and white noise on BBC2.

But for Jof and I it was a time for quiet contemplation, gentle laundry, comfortable sofas and the last registered day of half-term. OK, so we went out into the briskly breezy outside world and visited the park.  

Storm Doris had ruffled the still-hibernating trees and dislodged the last of the dead branches. Thus, the ground was covered in the redacted dry twigs of last years' growth, amongst the brave new shoots of the new spring bulbs, a Crocus contradiction and Daffodil doublethink.

Ah, we thought. The Scout Group is doing a skills-demo and camping sleepover soon so they'll need tinder (not the online discovery tool for like-minded bearers of red-hot desire, but stick-thin young scions capable of red-hot fire) so we got a free plastic bag off some woman using the bottlebank and brought home a sheaf of firestarters, because the Group Quartermaster needs all the help he can get.

You know the way models in adverts have to look overjoyed to be holding the Yogurt or toothbrush or garden tool that is paying their fees? Well, I tried. But ground-breaking magazine 'Bingo Life' just made me think of dentures, colic and flatulence.

Apparently I have some kind of Lego-related national competition coming up. So, in honour thereof, Jof baked cakes and created other chocolatey culinary delights and I helped decorate them. So here we have Marzipan Lego blocks (6, 8, and 12 nobbers) and some cupcakes with Lego motif and some shortbread fingers with chocolate dip and some marzipan fingers with chocolate drips and brewer's droop.

For Film Night we saw 'Gremlins', a 1984 Spielberg kiddie-oriented spookathon that freaked me out for the first section and then made us all laugh. The gunseller from T1, 2 guys from Beverly Hills Cop and numerous others from the 80s graced its frames and it was good to point them out.

So if that's the calm before the storm, can't wait to see the eye ...