Monthly Update!

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Hello to you all. I think the last time I was here would have been about a month ago. I had done some things and was about to do some other things. I used to have a blog that I kept, in which I would detail holidays or trips that I've enjoyed. I forgot about that blog a while ago and probably still have a draft article of a holiday from 5 years ago or more. I like telling you here anyway. I don't get the same interaction on WordPress! What I've been doing in June: My big sister's (Dory) birthday was 4th June. The day before, she had a barbecue at her house. That was nice but a little crowded. Thankfully, the weather was nice so we were mostly in the garden. We were all chatting about various things when there was suddenly a plan for my sister's mother-in-law's birthday later in the month. I'll tell you about that later. On my Dory's actual birthday, we (me, Dory and her sister-in-law) went for a spa day at a local place. Dory's partner drove us there and back. I'd booked us in for an afternoon package which was a two course lunch and a couple of hours using the facilities (swimming pool, sauna, steam room, whirlpool). It was an absolutely lovely afternoon. A fantastic meal, great service, lovely weather to sit outside drinking cocktails in between other things. We would definitely like to go there again. 10th June - I went to get some pirate-themed clothes ready for the party I mentioned previously. I also went to see a show called Spamalot. Dory's mother-in-law was in it (which is the main reason I went). It was fantastic, especially as two characters had to be understudied due to cast illness. One of the characters was King Arthur - the lead, so the understudy did a particularly fantastic job of that. The show was very funny and I've been very tempted to return to the stage myself. Unfortunately, the place they rehearse is a bit out of the way for me to get to. Hopefully, however, we'll have our other local venue back eventually. 17th June - I went to Leamington with my dad. We didn't do much but he did buy me lunch in a nice Japanese restaurant called Nana's. The food was nice. My dad had a drink of lemonade that came in a strange bottle for which he needed instructions to open! We didn't do much else other than wander, get a couple of bits I needed, and I bought us an ice-cream on the way back to the train station. 18th June was my youngest son's (Mini) 18th birthday. He didn't want any fuss so we had no fuss. He asked only for pizza. We had a chilled day at home. Both of my sisters popped in to drop off gifts. Mini opened his gifts from us, and had already opened a few cards he'd been given or had come through the post. He mainly got money and gift cards. I gave him enough to buy one of the things he wanted - it was a download so I didn't want to do it and mess it up! Of course, it also meant he could change his mind if he wanted something different. One of his gift cards was the Nintendo so he used that towards Final Fantasy games for the Switch (I think they're old games but recently released as a collection and on the Switch for the first time). We didn't do anything after he opened presents - he didn't even want a cake or anything. We had takeaway pizza for dinner, and we had ice-cream for pudding. I got Mini some Oreo ice-cream because that's his favourite. That was his 18th birthday. He did have another gift from my mum later in the week as it had turned up later than expected. He also had another gift from me, which I will tell you about next. 22nd June - Mini's birthday gift from me. I bought him a ticket to see his favourite comedian. Of course, he couldn't go by himself so I had to buy myself a ticket as well and had taken the day off work so we didn't need to rush about . Mini's favourite comedian is Russell Howard. I had tried to get tickets for one venue in Birmingham but it had sold out. There were some tickets left for extra dates that had been added to another venue in Leicester. We went into Leicester on the train, getting there unnecessarily early! I'd planned on us having something to eat first, which we did. I'd asked Mini to choose a place as we walked. I was expecting him to choose a pub or restaurant where we would sit down for a while. Instead, he chose a small burger takeaway. That was OK but it did mean that we had more time to kill afterwards. We got to our destination about 2 hours early. We decided to go to a nearby pub for a quick drink. I'm glad we did as it started bucketing it down. We got wet inside the pub because there was an open window near us! It was a nice pub, though. Mini had a couple of chocolate milkshakes while I had a bottle of cider. We meandered back to where we needed to be (thankfully, the rain had slowed and was only a drizzle). We went in but still had quite a bit of time before the show started. We worked out important things like where the toilets were, had a wander where we were allowed to wander, and then sat chatting for a while. The show was really good. There was a warm-up act by the name of Andrew Bird. I have a feeling he seemed familiar but I don't know why. Mini didn't find him particularly funny. I think his was more older people humour. Russell Howard himself, on the other hand, had us both in stitches. I think I was crying with laughter and possibly nearly wet myself at one point. I am glad that we went to Leicester to see him in the end. We had good seats anyway but it's one of the smaller venues, which I often find to be much better. I've been to some larger venues where you see everything on a screen and you might as well have just bought the DVD or streamed or whatever it is that people do these days. On the way back to the train station, I was treated to more human from Mini. He is an aspiring actor and comedian. He is very silly. I told him he should write down the jokes and comedic observations he made. He didn't have anything with him on which to write so I ended up making notes on my phone and texting Mini's own jokes to him (he hadn't got his phone on him at the time). Mini had been working on a script with the intention of taking it to the Edinburgh Festival but he said it didn't seem funny when he read through what he had. If he still wants to work on it, I've offered to help. I can help him to set out a script but I can't make it funny. In the words of a much older comedian, Frank Carson, "it's the way you tell 'em". 23rd June - I'd taken this day off work as well. I think originally it was in case we got stuck or were late back from Leicester. However, I chose this day to do something different. My husband and I went into Leamington (which is a lovely town) to a place called Spa Float. I thought it hadn't been there for long but it has, apparently, been there for two years. They do various things there. I had been wanted to try a sensory deprivation tank but couldn't find one we could get to easily. When I saw that Spa Float did exactly that, I booked for myself and my husband. I have "me money" which I save throughout the year and spend on something just for me. There was a special deal on this for two people, and I didn't really want to go by myself so husband came with me. We travelled there on the train. Spa Float isn't far from the station. I think it took us about 15 minutes to walk. The people there were lovely. It was very relaxing. They explained the whole process. It's probably the most relaxing experience we've ever had. My husband, who has an illness that means he's always in pain, said he was pain free after coming out of the tank. I think the people there were really pleased with his feedback on that. It's quite hard to describe the experience. You are in a room, which has a small shower, space for your clothes and things, and the tank. You're asked to shower before you get in and the tank begins to fill with a solution of water and Epsom salts. You get in while it's filling (you can wait until it's full if you wanted to, I suppose). The lights outside of the tank go off (they're motion activated so will come back on if you get out of the tank). There are lights inside the tank, and they play relaxing music for a little while to ease you in. The lights and the music go off and you're floating. There is a lid on the tank that comes down a little way with a button but then you can control it by hand so it can be completely down and closed or you can have it open as is comfortable. There is also a button inside the tank if you wanted to keep a light on in there. I was not sure what to expect but felt it might be a bit of a scary experience to start with. It wasn't. Knowing you are in control of the environment is helpful! At one point, I felt like I was lying on something solid rather than floating. My husband said he had the same feeling. It was most certainly relaxing and we would do it again, especially with my husband being pain free afterwards. It's quite an expensive thing but the results were certainly worth it. After the float spa, we went for lunch. We went to Yo! Sushi because we both like it. We spend as much on food there as we spent on our float session. We said we'd find somewhere cheaper for lunch next time! There is a new restaurant opening up near to it so we might give that a try. Yesterday (24th June), I didn't have any plans. Then Dory called me to ask if I was doing anything. I think she was bored. We were going to go for a walk, perhaps along the canal, but our legs seemed to have other ideas as we walked in the complete opposite direction from the canal. We went on a train to the next town (just because there happened to be a train due). We bumped into my nephew (Dory's son) and his partner. We were all looking for somewhere to have lunch but everywhere we would have gone was busy. We ended up at a dessert place and had ice-cream for lunch. Well, I had ice-cream, Dory had a crepe, and I can't remember what the others had. I think mine was called a 'tropical dragon' or something like that. It was dragon fruit and kiwi ice-cream, I think, with green saw and kiwi slices on top. It was nice to have met up with Nephew and his partner. We had a good chat with them. After eating, they went to do whatever they were doing while Dory and I came back to our home town for some shopping. Dory bought a game from a charity shop, which we played at her house after we'd been shopping. The game was a quiz game. I think it was called Isaac Asimov's Quiz Game or something. It was old and I hadn't seen it before. I won the game but it was very close. Later on, I came home, made some dinner, and watched some TV. Today is 25th June. I've done very little today. It's taken me the best part of 2 hours to type this! Well, I have been up and down to do things and have visiting other discussions. Now, I need to get on with some writing work because I have seriously neglected that for a while. By the way, my real life new job is going well. It's nearly two months since I started so I should be almost finished with my training/coaching period. I've been doing most of the work myself for the past two weeks anyway so that's good. Speaking of jobs, both of my boys are looking for one. Mini still wants to act, of course, but he's looking for some sort of admin work in between auditions. He had been working for my sister as an unpaid intern but she's given up the business. My other son, Midi, is looking for a teaching job. He's also looking for other things just to get something but his goal is to teach. I have every faith that they will find success with their searches. They both work hard and are very capable. The rest of the plans for this month are... actually, there is only one more thing - the party I mentioned previously. Discussing birthday's during Dory's barbecue, it was decided that Dory's mother-in-law (P) and sister-in-law (A) were to have a pirate-themed party. It's mainly for P to celebrate her 80th but A's and P's birthdays are only a couple of days apart, and it's A's partner doing the planning including getting a band (I think they're called Captain's Beard. Never heard of them myself but they're supposed to be good). Anyway, looking forward to that. I've got A and P a card and a bottle of wine each. I've also burned a keyring for P - I don't make the keyrings but I use pyrography to burn images and text on them. I think P will like her personalised design. That's me, anyway. I don't think I've got much planned for July except going to see a UB40 tribute (I'm on the guest list for that so that's nice) and my youngest granddaughter's birthday - I almost forgot how old she would be but she was born the same year I got married... I also almost forgot how long I've been married How are you? Up to anything nice? Have you got any holidays or day trips planned? Have you been to any nice restaurants lately or done anything more unusual?