Spitting

Tonight, just as Nicktor and I left the Albion after a lovely dinner and couple of pints, the heavens opened up and showered us in very heavy rain. There was thunder, lightning and torrential, very unEnglish rain. We managed to find a handy tree to cower under as the road flooded before our eyes (not that it slowed any of the idiot drivers down). We huddled beneath the branches for about 15 minutes before it eased off enough to continue our walk home.

And, while it’s not been noisy or torrential, that pretty much sums up the day’s weather. Grey, wet on occasion and miserable. I tried sending it over to the Blue Mountains and, strangely, by the end of the day, I read a Facebook update from Lynden saying it was raining in Sydney. Coincidence? Maybe…maybe not.

I had a meeting with the first of our tendering builders today so was unable to walk Mirinda to the station (she had book group yesterday) so she ordered a taxi and I waited. I also had the MOT guys coming over to collect Sidney so it meant staying in the house.

Our first prospective builder (Richard) turned up dead on time and made a massive first impression by fussing over the dogs. He has a dog and his mother used to breed poodles so there was a bit of chat about them. This was, of course, a good start. He also reckoned he could do the work without impacting on the Crazies. More points in his favour.

Given I have to, basically, live with the successful builder for an extended length of time, it’s important that I get on with him. Richard seemed pretty affable. I’m seeing David tomorrow morning and Kevin tomorrow evening, so we shall see.

I had a lovely Skype with Mum and Dad (and yes, Mum, I bought some joint stuff like we discussed) and then, later than usual, headed up to town.

Apart from the usual shopping, I also had to collect our Chinese currency. This always makes it feel real. Strange bank notes with unreadable information…all very exciting now.

One of my concerns was whether Chinese Yuan had our numbers on them as well as Chinese characters. It didn’t occur to me until just before I picked them up. I wasn’t sure how well I’d go memorizing the Chinese characters for 1, 5, 10, 20 and 100.

Nicktor eventually turned up for our last Nicktor Night for a few weeks, and, after dinner at the Albion and our impromptu soaking, we laid down to watch I Spit on Your Grave 2.

A while ago we watched the original followed by the remake – the original was much better though, from memory, I think Nicktor preferred the remake – and I was a bit wary about this one. When these sort of films become a franchise, they suffer from just being the same film with slightly different people in them. Not so, this one.

It was thoroughly enjoyable. Revenge at its best. Plenty of pain and screaming. Yes, there were a few odd things that were never explained, but it didn’t matter (like, how did they manage to get her to Bulgaria from New York in a packing case without someone finding her), we enjoyed it regardless.

The funniest thing was the casting of Joe Absolom. You may remember him from his appearances in a peanut commercial, Eastenders and as Al in Doc Martin. In this he played a strangely accented Bulgarian and had the funniest line in the film (Katie asks him if a particularly painful clamp is tight enough and he answers, meekly, “Yes“…you really have to watch the film to get it but it was unexpectedly funny).

So, not a film I’d recommend to anyone unless they really like blood, gore and revenge. It’s particularly not the sort of film for anyone who takes story lines too seriously.

Oh, and just for the record, and at the risk of turning stomachs…I bashed my toe on one of the bed legs this morning. Here’s what it looks like.

Aghhhhhh!

That’s so Mirinda realises I wasn’t faking the pain.

And, in case you were wondering, Sidney passed her MOT with flying colours. She managed under 3,000 miles over the last 12 months. At this rate, she’ll outlast us.