This week, Monday 17th March 2014

Thrashed, Utterly Thrashed

I seem to have almost annihilated my health by working too hard and worrying too much. There are loads of stupid consequences of such behaviour: lack of suitable free time for messing about with Lego, the consequent difficulties sleeping (plus the loathsome sun waking us up early), having just one more drink to relax more effectively in the evening, and the consequent poorer quality sleep… and it just rolls on.

Last week I endured two days of being given information that was either unclear, ill conceived, trivial or shouldn’t have been first shared during the conference. It was very annoying. My preference for receiving information is in the written form – that way I can read it (far faster than someone can read it to me off a powerpoint slide), consider it, refer to it and discuss with colleagues and respond with comments and further queries. I’m baffled that others don’t also work this way. What made the days worse was having to get a lift there… I don’t get on with car journeys and despite my colleagues’ fine driving I still ended up with crippling headaches by the time I got home.

That burned away two days of potentially useful work time that still needed to be crammed into the week. Thank unicorns for being able to work from home. Most of the quality time this week has been spent underneath our cat.

Gorilla Burger

So that killed off most of the week’s evenings, except for Thursday’s Gorilla Burger at The Corner. I was too devastated to play, but we had a fantastic turnout, thanks in part to the University of Nottingham’s Improv! society arriving en masse. They were very welcome and fun to watch. Hopefully next month we’ll get them to do a show slot for us. We also had our first ‘monoscene’ – performed by Martin, Ben and Lloydie. It was an excellent scene set in a vampire’s lair…

The Weekend (at last)

By Saturday I just felt horrible. Nonetheless I tootled off to Derby with MissImp‘s Lloydie and Colin to give some quality free improv in the street as part of Knickerbocker Glorious. I got through that and we seemed to amuse ourselves and the crowd – the kids in the audience were particularly excellent. We gave the bell for Should Have Said/Sung and the rollercoasters to the keen young lad in the front row (he also got a badge).

In between our sets Marilyn and I wandered about Derby (I bleary eyed and staggering). We acquired an unholy volume of new books (aaaagh!) and I stocked up on my beloved Bavaria 0.0% Wit Beer. After that I actually went back to bed… and have been able to do little else all weekend.

Lego

I’m prepared to utterly dismiss the mess of last week because this week we are off to the Lego Store in Merry Hell once more! Hurray – I cannot wait for Wednesday. We have three boxes to fill for free with Lego pick-a-brick, plus two containers with a discount and the sheer joy of all those gorgeous boxes of Lego to paw over. It’s going to be brilliant.

We’ve also discovered Lego’s new range – the Mixels. As ever, our local Tesco is at the vanguard of flogging new Lego products. I think they’re really cool and sweet. I hope it proves a profitable joint venture with the Cartoon Network.