Lewes

After my walk this morning we went to Lewes.  It was a longer drive than we anticipated, but considering that we did not look to see where it was, that could have been expected.

The forecast for the day was not good, but it showered and had sunny spells at times.  Most of the time on my walk, it did not rain, but did drizzle at times, and rained a bit more for a short period, the wind driving the drops into my face like little knives.

At times on our drive to Lewes, it poured down, and at other times, it was sunny.  When there we ate in a lovely shop that also served food before looking for books.  My son wanted to buy a book on magic which we found displayed in a shop for older books.  Needless to say, my wife and I said no.

Not sure what we will do tomorrow, but I do hope I get to walk around again.

Painting at Slap N Dash Ceramics

Today we did some painting. My wife saw that it would rain a lot today so booked a session painting ceramics.  We have done this on other holidays and have enjoyed it.  This time we painted dog bowls.  The kids want a dog and I think that they are hoping to break me down.  My wife appears to have her heart set on one particular breed.  I am more open to the different types of breeds, including mongrels.  

The lady in charge of the place arrived late as she was stuck behind a learner driver, but it was worth the wait.  Unlike other places, the tutorial before painting was much better and we also got to use stamps and stickers, something we never had the chance to use in the past.  I used stickers, as did my wife.  My son appeared to want to use them at first, but I am not sure what happened after that.  My daughter made use of a stamp.

Unlike before, when my creation was the worst by far, I would like to say that mine was best.  The rest of the family disagree with me, but we all agree that this was our best experience yet.  And we loved the previous ones.  In addition to the tutorial we got given helpful ideas and suggestions as well as advice how to make our creations better.  In other places, we were left to get on with it after the initial much briefer talks.

I had been for a walk in the wind and rain before we went, but despite my stomach getting bigger my wife did not want me to go for a walk when we got back.  Instead I played Among Us with the children and also Dobble.  My son was very pleased when he beat his sister and me.  Normally she wins which made his victory even sweeter.  

For those wondering about Twitter and me, I deleted the offending tweet when a neutral voice said that it was a bit suspect.  So I am back to tweeting, and reading stories behind the headlines.

Good night all!

Rye, East Sussex

 

Am still suspended from Twitter.  Which is still annoying but I expect it to continue for a long time.

Back to the holiday though.  It rained a lot last night which woke us up at different times at night.  And then the local cockerel decided to wake us up.  Which it has been doing since we arrived.  

So in the morning the kids were up when I ate the remnants of the takeaway from last night and then my daughter and I went for a walk.  I had asked my son but he was not interested.  We went to find the wild ponies that I had seen yesterday.  But they were not to be found.  We did walk down a path to find them but my daughter was concerned that the ponies would attack us and that birds would feast on our corpses.  So we turned around.  We did walk everywhere that she wanted to go, which put her in a bad mood.  

We then went on a drive to Rye.  It was lovely driving through the sun but once there, the heavens opened.  Fortunately this was only for a short period of time and we walked through part of the town before stopping for lunch.  Initially we had only wanted to stop for a snack, but the place was so nice we stayed for longer.  We drove to Battle afterwards but it was too crowded to walk about in a safe manner.  I have always wanted to visit here so we will have to return another time.

I did have a chat with my son about bonding.  After my father died, and watching Life on BBC, I wanted to act to try and bridge the increasing gap between us.  We have watched The Mandalorian together before, but he has decided to watch it without me.  I go for walks with my daughter and we watch several television shows together.  I hope that my son and I do not drift apart beyond the point of repair.

Tomorrow it is meant to rain a lot more so our day has been planned in advance.  Hopefully I will have Twitter back but I doubt it.

Day one (or two) in East Sussex

 I am not sure if this is our first day or not here.  While we arrived yesterday, it was at nighttime so while we are charged for the day, we have not spent any daytime here, until today. 

After waking up, enjoying the extra hour in bed, we relaxed and ate bits of food, this being cheese on my part, followed by a large packet of crisps.  After this, we went through the inventory and noted a few issues.  Saying that, the place is great and the few issues do not really matter, but they are issues which were present before we got here.  We also found out why we ended up in the wrong place last night, and that was because the last two letters of the postcode had been switched around in the email telling us how to get here.   I had intended to go for a long walk in the morning but did not get round to it.  My daughter and I went for a brief exploration and saw the garden attached to where we are staying, accessed from the balcony in the upstairs bedroom.  We may explore the garden more during the rest of the week.

Afterwards we went into Hastings.  We had intended to find a supermarket but needed food and ended up driving to a McDonalds which was not a drive though.  During this exploration of Hastings, my wife showed the kids where she used to visit when younger and we ended up having some substandard fish and chips on the sea front.  Two supermarkets later we headed home and I went for my walk in the end.  

The walk was awesome.  The place we are staying allows dogs to stay and I can see why dog owners would come as there is lots of places for them to walk.  The view from there was spectacular and I found wild ponies,  I am hoping to return tomorrow to walk more, with or without the rest of the family.

Doleham

We have begun our holiday in East Sussex.  I had to try and finish my work before we left Colchester, and in this, I was unsuccessful, though I did clear a lot of it.  It was light when we left, but the sun soon set and the wind came.  The drive was not as interesting as it would have been in daylight, though my wife, who used to journey this way on occasion recognised familiar parts as well as changes.

But it was a very windy drive and in addition to that, our final destination was not where it was meant to be.  But after an initial bout of understandable concern as Doleham did not look like the destination we had seen on the internet, we have ended up in our holiday home.  And it is very very windy here! 

We  have managed to work out that the sofa bed my son is to sleep on is not a sofa bed, and as my daughter got freaked out by a woodlouse in the room, I had to remove that, and the companion it had which she was not aware of.

Kimmel on US healthcare

Jimmy Kimmel has decided to talk about healthcare in the USA.  The issue has come up in the US presidential debate and allegations have been made by both sides,  I can understand his concerns about this matter considering what has happened with his son.  Thankfully he has had the money to fund the healthcare that is needed, but under the US system, it means that he has been born with a pre-existing condition.  He has spoken to politicians about this before as he (like me) feels it is unfair that others who have less money would not be covered if pre-existing conditions are not covered.

In my job, I have some dealings with private healthcare, and I have it as well.  I have seen how pre-existing conditions are not covered and how insurance companies try to avoid paying out (not an issue with me when I had to use it).  So far, that has not been to the levels seen in The Rainmaker, but I have had to word referrals to make it easier for people to be covered at times.  But here, when someone is not covered, we still have the NHS.  

The Affordable Healthcare Act has meant that people are covered in the USA and while I understand that the GOP want to ensure that Americans are covered for pre-existing conditions, I do not understand why they wish to remove cover before they reinstate it with a bill that no one has seen.  A cynic would say they want to return to the situation before the ACA, but I am sure that they would not do that... 

Chasing Amy

I love this film and have just watched it with my daughter.  It is a lot more serious than Mallrats, though still has many laughs and appeals to my twisted sense of humour. Watching it this time, I realised that I had not noted the name of the club where part of the film is.  One of my favourite characters in the film is Hooper LaMante a.k.a. Hooper X.  The film touches on the homophobia that he faces and for nerds like I was when younger, helps to educate many about how this is wrong.  But that is not the core message of the film.  While the plot is engaging and not conventional, like with the other films in this universe, it is the dialogue which makes it.  

I am not sure that my daughter would want to watch Clerks, but it will be interesting to see Dogma with her.  I just need to find the other films though!

And when it comes to the music video (not visible without this link on the mobile version of this site), it was something I saw when looking up Chasing Amy on You Tube.  I like both the song and the video.