January 2025 Favourites

Well, hello there, and welcome to my first roundup of the year – which has got off to a very cold, wet and windy start here in the UK. We’ve been better off staying cosy and warm indoors, so I haven’t done anything really notable out and about this month. I did buy myself a lovely new winter coat in M&S though, plus I got a much-needed haircut and had a few little walks, but that was it really. I have plans for the months ahead though, so I’m not concerned about that.

Besides, a quiet start to the year is quite welcome, especially after a busy and somewhat stressful Christmas thanks to our old cooker breaking down. But thankfully the new Beko cooker we had installed this month is working wonderfully. It took a little bit of getting used to at first, as the numbers on the dials go in the opposite direction than we’re used to, and the method of ignition using a button while pushing in the dials is slightly different to our old cooker. But we soon got the hang of it, and it cooks everything really well, better than our old appliance did. We’ve done meat joints, steaks, pizzas, fish, etc in the oven, which have all come out perfectly when following the packaging instructions, I’ve become a dab hand at doing delicious cheese on toast under the grill, and the hob heats things like vegetables and gravy very efficiently. So we’re happy with it, and let’s hope that remains the case for a while!

So with all that said, there are just a few bits of entertainment to mention in this month’s post and video. I did consider holding back my next update until February, but after an epic Christmas roundup, followed by a couple of lengthy reviews that I’m going to highlight here, it’s nice to do something a bit shorter. So I’m sorry it’s relatively brief, but nevertheless I hope you enjoy!

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Aardman Animations Reviews

Back in December I rewatched all of the old Wallace & Gromit films, and then thoroughly enjoyed their latest special that came out at Christmas, called Vengeance Most Fowl. You can see my thoughts about all of those in my comprehensive review post that I published shortly after Christmas.

Consequently, I thought I would further celebrate the amazing talents of Nick Park and the team at Aardman by checking out all of their other animated films as well, plus a classic TV series. I’m not interested in seeing absolutely everything they’ve done, as I don’t have the time or desire to do so, nor do I feel a strong urge to buy any of these titles I’m about to mention either. And this post isn’t sponsored of course. It’s just been fun to look at a selection of things that I either haven’t watched for ages or have never seen before, and I hope you enjoy reading about them!

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Christmas 2024 Favourites – Part 2

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely time over Christmas!

Following on from Part 1 of my festive Favourites that I posted on Christmas Day, I’m now going to talk about a free exhibition I was given a tour of, give an update on events at home, and trawl through the many things I’ve been watching and listening to. And while the tour was courtesy of a PR invite, there have been no other incentives for anything to appear here, and all opinions are my own regardless.

So let’s dive into this bumper post, with an accompanying video that also features everything I mentioned in Part 1. I hope you enjoy!

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Journal – October 2005

Welcome to the next set of entries from my personal journal. Things have been much calmer this month, as I now have job security with my new permanent position at the Council. It means I’m able to get much more support as a visually impaired employee. And there are various other bits and pieces to mention about things I’ve been buying, things that have caught my eye in the news, the loss of a comedy legend, a few technical mishaps, and a day trip to London with a couple of colleagues for a trade show. So I hope you enjoy!

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