Sleepypete's Pillow

Ah, you have a picture of the inside of my head!

I dunno about you but I find wandering around the shops to be quite calming. Therapeutic maybe.

It’s weird though, there’s a dichotomy of feelings :

Positive – being out and about, looking at shiny stuff, getting smiles from the people around me.
Negative – realising that you’re looking at everything and not knowing what you want to buy or what’s best to buy

I’ve rationalised the Negative part of that. I don’t often buy much when I go shopping, I just enjoy the wander. Mind you, saying that, I’ve developed a bit of a sweet tooth for Thorntons. Bad Pete.

Picture ?

That’s the Bristol city centre shopping area, Cabot Circus, shown from the top deck. It’s an open air complex with the main part covered by those rain gutters you see above. It lets huge amounts of light in while keeping the rain off.

I’ve been visiting the Showcase cinema that you can just see to the middle right. It’s a better quality cinema than our usual Vue but … you have to pay for parking and the popcorn isn’t as good.

The central area has lots of munchie places around too and I really need to check some of them out. Perhaps with a willing volunteer to escort me to the best ones. That’s still a bit wishful thinking at the moment :

Cupid’s Gift still natters to me over text but we haven’t figured out another date yet. (I still think a midnight cruise would be fun – although I’d want to stop and chat to avoid being distant and half-attentioning* while driving)
* – is that a valid phrase ? Anyway – I’d hate to neglect the other person in the conversation by devoting my attention to not crashing !
The Noodle Queen – I spotted a visit on Friday and it’s much appreciated. You’re a little wonder who always makes me smile. But it would be great to properly meet in person.

(I do hope Noodle Queen reads this and recognises herself there !)

To be honest, I’d still not want to do anything beyond meeting up for a wander and chatting as I’m still looking and feeling like I’ve been dragged through that thornbush. It’s improving, steadily and visibly … but I’m still not fixed yet.

So at the moment, I’m in a place where I’d head out with someone, have a wander, maybe have a bit of chilling out later but I’d then want to go away and hide for a while. My body is reclaiming the bad bits into good bits but I know they’re still there. Plus there’s the bad neck which is actually being quite painful at the moment.

This is going on to a downer isn’t it ?

I hope not. Perhaps that’s a symptom that I’m tired and mentally getting ready for a long Xmas break. I have a fortnight off this year and really must devote some of that to tidying up the place and getting some long neglected jobs sorted out. My boiler is still having trouble, it can heat the water for showers etc but it’s not achieving much with the house heating. It never did really, I have a standalone convector heater that’s really helping out at the moment.

I just heard my dinner bell go off – so I’ll wrap up there.

Just 10 more working days to go ! Really looking forward to the break. Perhaps Cupid’s Gift or the Noodle Queen will give me an excuse to treat them at some point ?

I hope so 🙂 Or maybe they’ll go to that Chinese cake shop (see yesterday).

But – back to the shopping theme :

Books are awesome.

I confess.

I had a plan to get a picture of Christmas Lights. He says. I just overlooked one thing …

Get the picture at night time !

Here we go :

That’s from Cabot Circus in the middle of Bristol. It’s our fairly new shopping centre and … it’s actually pretty decent too. I have a problem with our local Cribbs Causeway Mall – there’s only a couple of shops that sell things I’m interested in. There’s no competition any more.

Well – the competition is there, it’s just in the online domain. But one thing the online people don’t give is the chance to wander around the shops, milling around just being around the people. I’m one of those who is fairly solitary but I can’t be without human contact for long.

I get cabin fever if I’m in the house too much and you can probably imagine the conflict between that cabin fever and my condition with my outsides. Being lonely makes me want to get out more, looking (and feeling!) like I’ve been dragged through thornbushes makes me want to hide inside.

I do need to get around those Cabot Circus shops some more. Why ?

The Happy Cookie Place (see yesterday’s post and I’ll post the pic again in a few weeks).

If you find yourself at the Bristol German Market, you need to have a few things (allergies and dietary preferences permitting !) :

Bratwurst – you need it
Hot Chocolate – with or without the alcohol. Or Coffee if you prefer that.
Visit the Happy Cookie Place*
Visit the cake shop
Buy a minion

I haven’t bought a minion yet and I need one. I need a minion hat too if I can find one. *I bought 2 cookies there yesterday plus a cake. The cake was bigger than my hand.

It was gert lush. As was the cookie. (Doh – slipping into the accent that the “German” Happy Cookie Seller Lady was sporting)

Back to the decorations thingy …

Why did I want to take the picture in the dark ? So the lights would show up more ! The lights in Cabot are quite pretty. They’re understated but really actually a quite tasteful addition to the town centre.

Oh – I mentioned coffee and cakes … One last pic before I go :

I will adore that cake. But I’m not desperate. I just :

Adore cakes and …
… Hate to see good coffee go to waste.

Muahaha – thought you might like that one.

And … fascinating Star Trek fact, the first to die were wearing blue shirts …

Kirk, Spoc, McCoy and ensign Ricky beam down to a planet….. [lol]

Red.

Ok.

Scifi person + Red. Throw in a bit of Christmassy time. Whatever can that lead to ?

Could it have been anything else ? Muahaha.

Don’t worry – I should have worse to come. Actually, the one I took of last night’s shopping ahead of Sunday’s pic is worse. Darn it – shoulda taken the pic of the people walking through Bristol today. I did take a few pics in Brizzle, they’ll come later in the month.

Oh wait ? You want a sneak preview ? Ok.

I found a new Happy Place.

Those cookies are as thick as they look. You could probably use them as doorstops. Except I hope not, because I plan to eat the two I got there today and want some teeth left afterwards. I don’t think I’ll find a better cookie wall pic than that, so I’ll be reusing it again later in the month.

Still not sure what I’ll use for green though. Oh – I have my Hot Drink pic as well, although I may have to GIMP it with extra pics added in to make it truly hot. (Although that may risk my family-fiendlyness)

Quandary time – do I tell you where the Happy Cookie Place is or do I withhold the info in the hopes that there are more cookies left for me ?

Hmm. I’ll be nice. They’re from the German Market in the middle of Bristol.

One last thing for today – it was the return of the name Orion to space travel. It looks like the mission went as you hope a mission goes – Boring. The fact the mission goes ahead is exciting but you want the mission itself to be boring with no surprises. If something exciting happens, that usually means something unexpected (and highly dangerous) has occurred which puts future progress at risk.

So it looks like today’s Orion space capsule test has gone swimmingly well. But it is a shame that it’s a pale shadow of the original Project Orion. Picture if you will :

A Star Trek sized Cruiser space ship. Massive.
An immense shield mechanism like a radio telescope dish.
Bombs coming out of the back end.
Nuclear bombs.
And the blast from the nukes pushing the Massive Cruiser Spaceship across the solar system.

Something that big has a realistic chance of having the shielding to reach the other planets in the solar system, without killing the crew inside. Of course, you’d want full fusion bombs providing the blast-thrust instead of dirty fission/fusion nukes.

That Orion concept died a long time ago, although it’ll hopefully come back if they can make clean fusion bombs for power.

Hopefully the new Orion concept has proven itself today and paves the way to future excursions to the Moon and Mars.

Cya in a brighter future 🙂

You’ll like this one.

Promise.

If I put the tree up, I definitely need one of those.

Wonder if Forbidden Planet do them ?

Firefly was a wonderful series. I think it got so popular, so quickly because it was so well acted with huge amounts of humour. But not just that. There was a certain sense of freedom that I think would appeal to anyone. The sort of freedom where you set your own rules, your own agenda, see new scenery every time you make port and a bit of danger too.

That independence from authority, from legal interfence, from idiots who don’t know how to run their affairs properly (translation – all politicians) and from idiots who grab in resources from everything they don’t have in order to make it cheaper for themselves (translation – all politicians).

Am I being too rough on the politicians there ? Hmm.

Nope.

I’m hoping to make another run into Bristol centre tomorrow. Partly to get me out and about and wandering around, partly because it will give me a chance to get pictures :
6 – Christmas Lights
7 – Shopping (got one but it’s rubbish)
13 – Presents (to be honest, I think this’ll be either lifted from Hannah or somewhere else on the internet)
14 – Hot Drink (am now a confirmed hot chocolate addict again)
15 – Decorations

I can get the pictures from the internet but I’d prefer to supply my own. Cos that makes the meme more uniquely mine. Still wondering what I’ll put in for Reflect 2014 though. (Yep – it says 2013 but … I can’t remember that long ago – or is it wanting to remember 2013 ?). Lol – thinking about it, I was more Zombie Like in 2013 with more visible nasty patches.

I’m steadily improving, although the conditions at work don’t help. We work in air recirculated buildings and the air is incredibly dry. Most people remark on it. I’m continually with a mug of coffee to stave off the dehydration. It gives some of my colleagues headaches while it makes my hands superdry.

The Xmas break will definitely help there.

Cya tomorrow with another pic – you’ll like tomorrow’s pic. Muahaha.

Day 3 !

Christmas tree day today.

These trees these days. No staying power.

I should clear a space so I can put my tree up. I have to admit, it’s not gone up for too many years. I just never really seem to get around to it.

I have a night in planned tonight. I mentioned that there’s some livestreams going tonight and it’s Hannah & Kim’s turn tonight and the plan is :

Watch the end of the cricket. Could be a close one …
Ignore the warm up stream (they don’t really excite me but at least it’s not a case of turn off as soon as they come on – like the people tomorrow)
Grab a pizza after the cricket
And hopefully get back in time for the start of the Hannah & Kim fun.

It’s onesie night tonight and I feel I need one so I don’t feel left out. Here’s one :

So cute.

And the onesie ain’t bad either.

Another reason for the pizza is that I need a picture of it for a post later in the month.

Oh dear – looks like England are falling to bits after a promising start. I may have more time for pizza collecting than I thought.

Cya tomorrow !

And the update – England won ! Yey ! Yogstream – disaster with lots of R.I.P. stream. Oh well. But we did get to see our Kim & Hannah for a little while at least and I read a few chapters of book while waiting for the stream to come back up.

Ok,

Day 2 and I’ve already had to cheat :

Don’t you worry, I’ll be cheating much more over the next few weeks.

I don’t actually have any candy canes in the house. It’s not something I tend to have. The sweeties I have are :

Pure chocolate – well, someone has to eat it to relieve all those on a diet of the temptation.
Lemon Sherbets – love ’em. But I think I’m allergic to the lemony bit.
Fruit Pastelles – these are the current non-chocolate sweetie of choice, although I’m having to be careful because they … erm … do strange things to my digestion.

What do they say about nice things ?

That they come with a price ? Sure do. I fully intend to have a pizza for the Hannah and Kim stream tomorrow and I will love every bit of it. I need a pizza for two reasons : Cos it’s pizza. And because I plan to take a pic to use on day 12. But it will exact its price afterwards. (The cheese causes me to make too much acid)

More non-chocolatey sweeties ?

I’m a cookie fiend. No cookie is safe. Some muffins are safe, that’d be the ones with anything resembling healthy stuff in. So keep your blueberry muffins for yourselves and save me the triple chocolate ones.

Cupcakes ? I used to love lemon topped cupcakes but … see above for lemon sherbets. Allergies can be very cruel sometimes.

Marshmallows. Not had those for ages. That might be a partial answer for my current energy debt problems* because they’re pure sugar. I may pick some up when I avoid the Hat Films stream on Thursday.

* I have a huge suspicion that I’m one of the masses who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’ve been struggling for energy, despite having a bit more sleep lately. I have the usual suspects for it – difficulty getting going in the morning, tendency to oversleep (yep, combined with inability to get to sleep), I’ve got real munchies and want to be continually eating, I’m having issues with concentration. (Yep – I’m reading off the symptoms from Wiki, partly cos I recognise them in myself).

Oh and there’s the Thorntons stuff … Butter Tablet is also pure sugar pretty much. Crumbly goodness. And I’m also a sucker for their chocolate mouseys.

But outside that tendency for SAD, I still get that lift when seeing familiar looksees in the hitlog here, when I get texts or messages from people, when I get the Big Smiles from the ladies in the office. Even better when the giggles hit them.

The counter to that is when I write nice things about people and when I tell them, they don’t bother to look. That’s a little sad. I get sad on their behalf. (I know one peeked – Hello Dodger!) But …

I do like writing nice things about people. It makes me feel better. If they don’t look, they’re the ones who have missed out.

I may have some more of my guilty pleasure later – popcorn ! Dinner first though, it’s about to come out of the oven.

Cya!

Nuts ! Hadn't spotted that one. Must find something suitably apocalyptic from Revelations or ask Google about "silly Bible verses".