Mark Thomas at Pocklington Arts Centre.

It’s rare we get out for the night, even rarer that we get to see great comedy and even rarer that both arrive on our doorstep. But tonight it was Mark Thomas at Pocklington Arts Centre.

Just got in and really tired, so only a quick blog about it, but it was, as expected, a thoroughly great evening. The best bits; a description of Pocklington as the heterosexual Hebden Bridge, and the frankly brilliant idea of a new national maximum wage based on a percentage of the average wage. The more we thought about it, the better the idea got – for the highest paid to get even more money would mean the lowest paid had to see an increase as well.

That and much more in a really long, really great show

Snow Day.

Yep, today it snowed. A lot.
My school called it early so I knew I wasn’t going in anyway. Which was pretty lucky seeing as I’d stayed up to watch the fantastic Superbowl. (So much for the pledge to try to get to bed earlier). But Molly’s school decided to open which meant taking a rather pissed off child through all this gloriously fresh white stuff this morning. Oh she was not happy.

Come half ten and I get the call that they’re shutting at lunch and can we pick up. Out I go again, into the slightly less virgin, slightly more churned up ugly brown stuff and pick up a very excited child. I was pretty much soaked with snowballs by the time we made it out of the school gates. Molly has a good throwing arm.

After that it was across to West Green for snowballs, snow angels, diving into snow and making snowmen. And although the hands went red with cold very quickly it was a glorious day.

We’re now waiting to see if the forecast big drop of snow will ever get to us. It’s still looking an awful lot like rain. But Molly went to sleep tonight with all her fingers crossed and a prayer for snow on her lips.

Pics of the day:

Snow. Chaos. Britain whinges. Britain should be quiet and go outside, it’s lovely.

Every time it snows, without fail, all we get is the phone-in shows full of the same miserable swines bemoaning the fact that they can’t get into work and the roads are in chaos and where are the snow plows and why aren’t the buses running and is this really the sprit that got us through the blitz? etc etc etc. For hours.

They often point out that other countries cope really well with snow. And that’s true. But these other countries; Norway, Sweden etc, all have one thing in common – they have a lot of bloody snow. And because they have a lot of bloody snow they have every reason to spend an awful lot of money on specialised equipment to deal with all of the snow.

Britain, on the other hand, has perhaps one or two snowfalls a year. This one is the worst in many years. The maths are very simple: do you want to spend the money to make the country run smoothly on the two days a week it’s worthwhile or would it be far better to spend it on something more useful?

So please, stop moaning. The country can cope without you at work for one or two days. Everything will be fine. Look outside; clean, white, beautiful snow. Relax. If you’re able, stick warm gear on and make snowmen. If you’re not able, stick the fire on, make a lovely hot coffee and enjoy the beauty out of your window.

I’m off to pick Molly up from her school in a moment. And then we’re going to be making snowmen and throwing snowballs. And then we’ll spend an hour by the fire thawing out. But it will have been worth it.

Snow, oh yes we have snow….. good and bad

It’s snowing here, just like it seems to be snowing across much of the country. In Birmingham this may well have meant a day off school for Molly and I, but tomorrow we’ll take a very slipery walk to Molly’s school and see how many folks have turned up. Then I’ll see if I can get to my school and if not, see if they want a hand at Molly’s place instead.

But whatever happens it’s looking like snowmen will be made, snowballs shall be thrown and a general great time will be had by all.

The one slight downside – we have leaky roof still. Leaky roof currently has layer of snow several inches thick on it. Snow melts. Arse.

Pocklington Late Night Christmas Event 2008

This time last year we were home, wet, miserable and fed up. The annual late night event in Pocklington had pretty much been rained off, ruining what was, in our first year, a lovely night with fairground rides, local shops open till 9 and serving drinks and nibbles and everyone having fun.

But this year all was good. We had real snow on the ground, fake snow being squirted out at various points around the place, Santa was in his grotto and the real reindeer were in their pens. The town was packed. I forgot my camera. Again.

All in all a very good night for Pocklington

Waiting for the snow to come….

We’ve already had one big drop of snow this week and it’s been freezing all week. But today at school we got word that we’d be having really heavy snow overnight. So lots of excitement and planning for tomorrow.

But looking at the BBC website now it looks like we’ll be missing out and just Scotland will be getting big snow. We’ll just get little snow. Molly will be upset – she was looking forward to waking up to the snow up to the door. Looks like we’ll all be heading for work and school in the morning afterall.

How tired? bed before midnight tired.

Tonight I do something I rarely do. In fact, so far this year I don’t think I have actually got into bed before midnight. But I’ve just set a couple of things for the blog to pop up over the next few days and then I’m turning off the computer and going to bed. It’s 11:35 Monday night as I write this. I’d like to think this is some major turning point in my ongoing battle with sleep (or lack thereof) but I think this is just a minor skirmish won in a war where I’m playing the British with the Zulu hordes advancing.

The last few days have been exhausting. Today at school was just as exhausting and tonight, back at mom and dads again to fix TV, sort more stuff out and just say hi was utterly exhausting. I fell asleep on the sofa when we got back in from mom and dads. Woke up half an hour later and was utterly convinced it was Tuesday morning. Brain just not working properly anymore.

Luckily, I have half term coming up. But seeing as I’ve got 20 plus things to finish before half term and today I accomplished absolutely none of them I think I’m doing schoolwork that week. It just never ends.

Night night.

Weekend – moving house but not ours

Spent all weekend moving mom and dad into their new house. Am now completely exhausted. To the point where doing anything that involves thought, especially creative, reasoned thought is nigh impossible.

A rather trying experience really. It started early on Friday. The removal van arrives at their old house in Dudley at 8am and they start the packing and loading. Working solidly the removal men are all done and on the road at midday.

We told mom and dad they had to be ready to be on the road as the removal van left. But in the end, it was 2:30pm before they set off. At 3pm the removal van turns up outside our house, having been given instructions to do this by dad if they weren’t in Pocklington in time. Mom & Dad eventually show up at 6, long after we’d told the removal men to park up and turn up for unloading in the morning. In the end it wasn’t so bad, as the Pocklington house they were buying was owned by an old couple as well, who were just as bad at organising themselves as mom and dad are. So at 4pm and then 5pm we got worried phone calls from the lady asking for more time to move out. At this point Louise and I realised that we’d suddenly become the move organisers.

Resigned to this wonderful new role, we got up nice and early Saturday morning and headed down to the house. Which is where we’ve spent the last couple of days. Exhausted, aching and mentally and physically wiped out – perfect for a Monday morning at work.

The good news is that all of the hard work seems to have paid off and mom and dad are settled in and mostly unpacked. Louise and I have worked our arses off to get them to this state. Kichen, Lounge, Dining Room, Bedrooms – all done. All that’s left is dad’s study and the garage. But there’s still work to be done in between the paid schoolwork, the writing, the blog, the reviewing, the catching up with schoolwork etc etc.

All the stress, none of the fun. Someone else’s house move:

My parents are moving house this weekend to come up to Pocklington.

So we get all the stress of the moving house process and yet none of the reward. Lovely.
So this weekend will be a little light here on the blog. I plan on being too tired to function properly and I imagine my back will be singing by the end of it as well.

And I still can’t drink on these tablets. Bah.

Wanted – Graphic Novels for a small bookshop to try….

The local bookshop where I live; Simply Books of Pocklington, is a wonderful place. Tiny, cosy and an wonderfully inviting bookshop run by locals who care not only about the books but also about the town. (Just look at these great pictures from the Harry Potter book launch to see what I mean).

They’ve decided to move into slightly bigger premises from the incredibly tiny shop they have at the moment. And I happened to email the owner and congratulate her on her move and suggested that she might want to think about stocking some graphic novels.

She’s very keen, but has no idea what to order to try it out. I’ve got ideas, of course, and will be talking to her about them. But I thought it would be interesting and fun to see what everyone else thought about it. What would you stock in a small bookshop to accurately reflect the medium? To start you off, I think a small adult selection of maybe 10 titles and a slightly larger children’s selection would be good.

Over to you…. comments or email…..