The Sunday review of the week

in #life6 months ago

I was hoping to be sharing photos of baby seal pups today, but alas that won't be happening. I've been nursing a mild case of gout for the past few days and thought I had it under control. Last night it lobbed everything it had at me; it was so bloody painful. I had very little sleep, got up watched some Dr Who (1963/4 style) and tried to keep myself busy. I gave in at 05:30 and took some co-codamol pain killers and they've done the trick nicely. Unfortunately, they make me as high as a kite so there will be no driving today! ... that and my mobility is a bit sketchy.

I'm still feeling the rather wonderful affects so who knows where this little post will go 😁.

I've mentioned before that I try to journal on a regular basis as I find it has a positive impact on me mentally and helps me sleep. I've recently started to add showing gratitude in the mornings to get me in a positive frame of mind. More recently I try to think about the past week on a Sunday and think about what I've learned and what I'd do differently. This post isn't one of those reviews though, just some ramblings of some random stuff I've done.

Guitar Stuff

I had COVID recently and it was the perfect opportunity to start playing guitar again. There are 4 of us in the household so I locked myself away for the 10 days I was positive, it was a great way to keep myself entertained whilst feeling up to it.

I dug out my old Crafter acoustic. I love this guitar as it sounds wonderful but is nothing fancy. I need to either get myself some guitar friendly cleaner (or at least look at what normal "about the house" stuff I can use).

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I've also spent some time playing my SixStringBliss Podcaster. This was a collaborative build that I won by submitting a recording for a community album (SixStringBliss was the name of a guitar podcast and forum some 15 years or so ago). The simplicity of this guitar makes it fun to play as there are no pickup switches to keep fiddling with!

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I managed to fix my Line6 Variax. This is an interesting thing as it's a modelling guitar. You can see it has no visible traditional pickups, instead it has what they call piezo pickups that the strings run over. It can model lots of different types of guitars from all the big names (Fender, Gibson, Gretsch etc), plus acoustics (6 and 12 string) and a banjo! It does it rather well!

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Saving the best until last, I've played with my custom design/built Steve Benford guitar. It has a few electric gremlins in that it's quite "noisy". That makes it difficult to play when recording on my iMac, but seems to be much better in my little practice amp.

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I've spent time during the evenings trying to work out how to record on my iMac. It's great as you can download free MIDI files, convert them into tracks, import into a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), I use one called Reaper, then assign virtual instruments to those tracks and play along. It's like building your own digital band. I've just about worked it out again.

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Dr Who

@steevc mentioned in a reply last week that the old Dr Who episodes were available on iPlayer. It's a show I enjoy, but one I've never followed. I always seem to forget when things are on and "catch up" or binge watch these days.

I've watched a bunch of the more modern shows which I think were from the mid '90s but nothing before that. It used to scare the crap out of me when I was a nipper!

Yesterday I started watching from the very beginning with William Hartnell as the Dr. I've been thoroughly enjoying them. It's amazing how the simplicity of the production doesn't impact the enjoyment.

Food

I've been a but lazy on the cooking front recently. We had a roast beef dinner last week. Beef it always a difficult one in this house as the family all like it cremated so it's often a bit dry. My Yorkshire pudding makes up for it though!

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Meat free day was a Spice Tailor Keralan Coconut curry with mushrooms, aubergine, courgette, pepper, spinach and some paneer cheese.

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I guess that's enough waffling for now! Happy Sunday!

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I hope you are feeling better now. You have a great set of guitars to keep you busy. I may watch more of the old Doctor Who to see if it matches my memories. Of course I wasn't around for the first few years. I do need to watch the latest episode as we were out last night.

I've not watched the latest one yet. I might put it on a little later.

I've never seen any of the back and white episodes before. I've been stuck with my feet (well foot) up and have managed to get through the first few storylines. 24 mins an episode is quite binge friendly.

That curry looks amazing!

all like it cremated

😂
It is the only way I'd eat it too.

It's a favourite and so very easy. A bit of a cheats meal using a packet sauce (with dry spices to add). I'm lucky that my youngest loves both veggies and curry.

Manually curated by ewkaw from the @qurator Team. Keep up the good work!