Pissed-up piscines on acid

Julie and alcohol. What a combination. Mind you, Julie without alcohol is possibly just as bad. The thing is you just never can tell.

I was sat in my office, pootling around the internet, looking for things to feature here. Things to post to Facebook. Things to watch and listen to, and things to blow up (in games, naturally). It was late in the evening, and I was thinking about closing up shop, as it were, when Julie came upstairs and popped her head around the door to say 'hi'. Not just 'hi, actually. Once the greeting was out of the way, my wife embarked on a particularly surreal series of non sequiturs.
As I said last time, the best way to cope with a full flow is to ride it out, smiling and/or nodding at the appropriate places. Or staring blankly. That works quite well, too.
However, bear in mind that I told you that this little rambling run was so far off the wall it was out the window and into the street. When I managed to get my head together long enough to say something, I rashly accused Julie of having had a little tipple. Something that she vehemently denied. In her own little way, of course...

Surely it says something about your mind when, upon forgetting the word 'judge', the only possible alternative your brain can offer is 'fish in sulphuric acid.
I'm just going to file this one under 'WTF?' and move on rapidly.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Fancy a mouthful of perverted prawn?

This weekend is shaping up to be a busy one. Friday night (tonight), we are going to a local production of the Madness-themed musical 'Our House' and then the following morning, it's up to London for a makeover, photoshoot and interview for Julie, regarding the weight loss surgery she had a couple of years ago. It's been an amazing journey and it's done her the world of good, both physically and mentally. Before, Julie would hug the walls and avoid being seen in public, but all of a sudden, she's the most gregarious of people, and I like that a lot.
That aside, because things are going to be a little hectic when we get home from work, it was agreed we would have a take-out the night before, ordering enough for the two nights; this meant all we'd have to do is whack some left-overs in the microwave and have a half-decent meal before heading out again.

For this time around, we decided to have Chinese. Now, if you are anything like us, you probably have a favourite place to go to for your Indian food, the Chinese, pizza, etc... Again, if you are anything like us, you have a benchmark dish. By that, I mean a certain food that you order often enough that you can use it to compare various restaurants and take-outs with. With Indian food, for me, it's chicken biryani. For Chinese food, it's the starter, prawn toast. With prawn (or shrimp. Whatever.) toast, the toast has to be crispy and there has to be a decent amount of topping. I remember I had some once from a take-out my sister used to use and the topping was a smear of rubbery ... something, and the toast was a soggy mess of grease. Guess where I spent much of the next day or so.
This is what a decent bit of prawn toast should look like.

Nice and crispy underneath, plenty of sesame seeds on top and enough minced prawn in the middle to use as a parking block for a 747. Yum! Just don't try moving too much afterwards, OK?
There's only one slight problem with having such a generous portion of prawn; that much juicy, minced filling tends to mean a certain amount of leakage when you bite into a piece. Sometimes, 'leak' isn't the right word. Try, instead, 'spurt'. Or, as Julie puts it...

I am so very glad I wasn't eating or drinking right at that precise moment. How about y... oh, sorry. Here, have a tissue...

A war of worms and words

Last weekend, as I said in Wednesday's post, Saturday was hot, damn hot. Even bearing in mind I had some slow-cooking sausages in my backpack, we just wanted to get home, where it was cooler inside than out.
Some time later, after a refreshing wash and a drink or few, dusk had fallen and the air was beginning to cool down. Even then, it was still rather pleasant, sitting in our back garden.

When night proper had arrived, we decided to go for a brief stroll up to the sea front. There was very little wind and there was that stillness you get where every slightest noise sounds louder than it should do. That in mind, we were talking in quiet, conversational tones when we reached the prom (promenade, for those confusing the term with a school ball*).
As we reached what is known as The Splash Point, I saw torch light coming from the shoreline.
Julie's explanation for it?

(Translation: they were fishermen looking for fish bait on the freshly revealed sandy part of the beach. This may not be entirely true, as they may also have been looking for razor shells. They're rather tasty, but you don't have much time to get them between the tide retreating and the 'shells digging down to avoid predation and/or drying out.)
It also has to be said that this Gem reminds me so very much of the Spike Jones and his City Slickers 'version' of 'The man on the flying trapeze'. Fancy a listen? Of course you do. Here's the link.

That's it for this week - have a great weekend, folks!


*Although, just to confuse you even more, the term 'Prom' for a high school ball also originates from the full term 'promenade', because the bright young things were being seen to be 'stepping out'. Indeed many of the original dance styles included a promenade.