Julie's got it covered.

Now that the weather is finally beginning to warm up, there are a lot more things to see and do with your time off. On the one hand, it's great, because getting out and about means a lot more things around you. By the same token, however, that also means distractions when you're driving. Our dad was notorious for this, which was troubling when the road you were on happened to be little more than a track clinging to one side of a valley...

It does tend to provide a talking point though... hehehe...

Earlier today, Julie and myself were taking a drive through the Sussex countryside. With perfect timing, though, it began to rain at precisely the moment we walked out of the house. Just a few drops at first, but when we got into the car, the spots turned to a spattering, and as we drove away along the seafront, it turned heavier.

Well, crud.
It goes without saying, of course, that the latest weather report had it as being beautifully sunny all day.

I shouldn't moan, really. As we progressed, we passed one of those open-topped tour buses; astonishingly, there were still a couple of determined tourists staring forward defiantly from beneath soggy raincoats. Pillocks. You'd never catch us doing something as asinine as that (*coughs uncomfortably...).

Something else we saw was an open-topped kit car with a Q registration plate.

For persons not in the know, the letter 'Q' is generally not included on a UK car registration plate, as it's considered to be too similar to the number zero. However, for kits, rebuilds and vehicles of unsure origins, the Government whacks a 'Q' right there for everyone to see.

Julie wasn't too worried about that, though. For her, a far more interesting (and fair, I have to admit) point was how wet people inside that car would get. After all, it wasn't even a drop-top (convertible). I pointed out that the interior was probably mostly if not entirely waterproof to some degree. Not only that, if they decided to use it for a shopping run or similar, they could always throw a tarpaulin over the back seat.

Okay. Time to shift gears.

I have a very curious mind, especially when it comes to words. I love how various languages relate to each other, how words can have different meanings but the same historical root, how the English language evolved... well, you get the idea. I'm a word nerd.

When I mentioned to Julie about the possibility of tarpaulin usage, my WN gene switched on and suddenly decided it wanted to know the historical roots of the word. Unfortunately, I wondered this aloud to my wife, someone who has, at best, a most pragmatic approach to the English language.

Well played, love. Well played.

For anyone that is interested in the etymological roots of the word 'tarpaulin', here is the Wikipedia entry.

Of course, if you happen to be anything like myself, you're going to want to look up the entry for 'palling', and thereby doom yourself to hours of chained searches on Wikipedia....

No zex please, we're Scrabbling

As you may have guessed, Julie and myself we playing a game of Scrabble. We had been out for a stroll, met up with her brother unexpectedly and then walked along the seafront back home. We were a little surprised, actually, as we had been expecting to get rained on, but the clouds held off until we got back. Thus it was that I got the kettle going while Julie set the board and racks up.
Tea for two and a game of Scrabble. Lovely.

It wasn't far into the game, however, that Julie took her turn, playing 'zek' and leaving the board like this:

As I have said before, we don't play strictly to the rules. We have a couple of books with word lists in them, and browse through them in search of a word we think may exist and be viable with the letters on our racks. This, naturally, is how Julie wound up playing the odd-looking 'zek' and frankly libidinous 'zex'.
Except that neither of us knew what the hell either word meant. The book that Julie uses is simply a list of words. Mine, however, also gives definitions, which usually assuages my curiosity.
Mind you, my initial curiosity was confined to wondering whether I could slap an 's' on the end of 'zek'.
I could.
Having confirmed this, my eyes drifted over to the definition.

Well, that's a lot better than the 'Germanic sex' option I had been expecting.
Not that I expect Germanic sex ... I'm not helping myself here, am I?
er...
Anyhow. In case you're interested, a 'zex' is a tool for cutting roofing tiles, according to the book. Not that I can find anything about the damn tool apart from other people mentioning it in their blog posts about Scrabble games. It's all rather recursive, isn't it?

Oh, and if you thought Julie's words were odd, I then followed it up by playing 'schrod' (a young cod) across from 'zek' and grabbing 45 points. Nice.