July 2022 - The first in the family to graduate!

 July was sweltering, and I mean sweltering. It also felt incredibly muggy too, unlike the more tolerable dry heat we had the previous two summers. I felt like I was constantly sweating buckets all the time. Correction, I was sweating buckets all the time. It felt like I was going to drown in the puddle of my own sweat.

I've probably grossed you out now, I promise I won't mention it again!

I think one of the funniest things to ever happen to me happened at work, when one of the other managers went outside for a short breather, and a gust of wind swept a very important piece of paper into her hand and deposited it into the tree about twenty feet off the ground. While she panicked, I was wetting myself. We ended up getting one of the contractors who was working in the building to go up the tallest ladder we had and managed to retrieve it using a litter picker! The poor bloke then had some sort of hayfever reaction come on, possibly from the sticky leaves of the tree. He gave it back to her, and that's when she realised that it wasn't the very important piece of paper, she'd forgotten that on her desk and this bit of paper was just a scrap piece with some notes on it! I don't think the contractor was very happy about that!

My Nan made this for James for his birthday, which was actually in January, but she was running a bit behind with everyone's presents. She always knits us something every year, and it is fantastic what she can make! This is a cat-cus, a cat styled cactus. Combining two of James's favourite things! She'd been running behind a little, because she was running out of the little pots she was putting them in, and didn't want to spend lots of money buying them. I cleared out the shed and found her about a dozen, and then when I was clearing out the dead plants at work, I found some more. I checked with my manager, and she said if I didn't take them, then they were just going to go in the bin. So I put a fiver in the charity pot and took her another half dozen round.

I had a fantastic night with my friend Ro, we had met at work, and kept in contact after she left. This was our attempt at following a TikTok idea for a punch, using flavoured ice lollies. It kind of worked, but with the amount of vodka she had poured in, it was hard to taste anything else! We get on so well, we have similar sense of humour, and we just seem to get each other.

Does this really mean we are at a point in time where Pokemon players are old enough to drive???

The news was dominated by the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, over multiple things, it needed a book being written, just listing everything that had gone on. But the final nail in the coffin for him had been Chris Pincher. There had been multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him, and Boris failing to take any action against him had caused political turmoil, with MP's resigning left, right and centre. Apparently, Boris had even uttered the phrase "Pincher by name, pincher by nature". I think by this point we were beginning to realise that the Conservative party was rotten to the core. Numerous police investigations and fines were already being made public due to parties at Downing Street during the covid pandemic, and we started to see the party crumbling, after what had been, in my personal opinion, them making the best of a bad situation in the pandemic. No they didn't get everything right, but when something was evolving and changing so quickly as the Covid pandemic did, you're never going to get everything right. However the fall out from this was immense, to the point where more MP's had resigned from government positions than on any other day in history, over 60 of them. I think when that happens, you know it's time to go. And that Boris did. Makes you wonder though, who will be next?

It was perfect weather for a BBQ, and I was looking forward to eating lots! I'm sure food tastes better and is juicer when cooked on a BBQ. Anyone else find that? We love our grilled meats, but also love garlic breads cooked on the BBQ, as well as foil wrapped onions, baby corn and seared apple slices. Try it, you'll love it! I also experimented by putting scotch eggs onto a skewer and sitting them on the BBQ once we had cooked everything else. They were fantastic, the outside had crisped up, and the inside was warm and soft, they were so, so good.

And finally, one of the proudest a achievements in our family. This is me with my Brother Connor, who graduated from university. He was the first of our family to go, and it was such a fantastic outcome for him for all his hard work. When he did the hard work that is! Here we are, he has a terrific sense of humour, and had just said something clearly hysterical as his girlfriend took the picture. But many congratulations to you!

I never went to university. I left college very disillusioned with education, because I love to learn, I love to research and deepen my knowledge and interests in something. But doing it in a school/college setting just isn't for me. Several times the ADHD or Dyslexia terms were thrown at me, but no one ever really did anything or tried to help me in anyway aside from mentioning it, so I just never thought it was right. Maybe it is, maybe there is something that stops me from learning in that way. Instead of going to Uni, I worked full time for a few years until I had saved up enough money to go travelling (twice!). So it all worked out in the end. I do sometimes think about going to university, but what would I study? What am I good enough to publish a degree about? I'm not sure, and so until I become sure, I'm going to continue how I'm going at the moment. Working hard, so I can explore the world and learn how I learn best. By going there, exploring it first hand, and really getting the vibe of how the place worked.