Well this week has been much less eventful, although, thankfully, no less enjoyable. I’ve spent most of my time in front of the television watching Royal Ascot, as is only right and proper. It’s rather sad because, as I’ve mentioned previously, I was planning to attend again this year, but I haven’t let it bother me too much because that decision was obviously taken out of my hands. It was strange watching races that are usually run in front of tens of thousands of fans be run in front of a few hundred trainers and stable staff but this did not affect their significance one jot. I fucking love the racing and I fucking love Royal Ascot, crowd or no crowd. I ended the week in profit, which is always a bonus, and with a reaffirmed love of the ponies.
On Tuesday my beautiful best friend Adam Griffiths-Vernon came round to watch the racing with me (we watched it on my laptop outside don’t shit yourselves). I lost about £70 which was rather depressing but I managed to have a delightful afternoon nonetheless. We discussed the intricacies of modern life at length, had a few games of chess (I won both, obviously) and I even cooked us sirloin steak & homemade wedges for dinner, which was delectable if I do say so myself. It was weird having to spend the whole day outside but we’ve got a gazebo in the garden now so that wasn’t the end of the world and we made the best of it. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit and talk shit with someone without having anything in particular planned and I personally think that being able to enjoy each others company without incessant, unnecessary conversation is the sign of a solid friendship – it’s just a shame that Geeves wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
I was operating a one in one out policy for my garden on Wednesday. I had been feeling a bit crap on Tuesday evening (hence the Untitled piece) so Sian popped round in the morning and brought me some chocolate, a monster energy and a pack of fags to try and cheer me up, which obviously worked. She certainly knows the way to my heart. Kiera came round in the afternoon for a cup of tea and a catch up which was nice but also fairly weird as it was the first time I’d seen her properly since lockdown came in. I usually see her two or three times a week whilst I’m at home in Derby so to go from that to once every few months has been saddening, but I hope I’ll be seeing a lot more of her now restrictions are being eased. Finally, Elia came round in the evening to share a Chinese takeaway with me (another by-product of my shit mood) and we played a few games of scrabble (I obviously won). It was nice to fill my day with three of my favourite women but once Elia was gone I was left longing for the times pre-lockdown where we’d have probably gone out for a nice meal instead of ordering in – god I miss going out for food.
The latter half of my week has been really quiet and I’ve quite enjoyed it. Thursday and Friday I did little other than watch the racing and it was nice having nothing to worry about except whether to back my selection to win or each way. Saturday night was much quieter than last week as Adam and I descended on the House of Morris for a takeaway. We all had chicken kebab and chips, followed by kinder bueno cookie dough from Sweet Retreats, resulting in all three of us feeling severely bloated. Although Adam had a few carlings, Sam was feeling too delicate from the night before to drink and I didn’t really fancy it, but it was nice nonetheless to just sit and talk shit with two of my oldest friends, even if they are utterly insufferable whilst I’m sober. I dropped a chip on Sam’s seating area outside and he wouldn’t shut up about how it had “stained the woodwork” – remind me to inject heroin into my eyeballs the next time I agree to going to the chip shop for him.
I fear I may have become addicted to my phone throughout lockdown, as if I wasn’t already spending too much time on it beforehand. I find myself struggling to complete basic tasks like reading a book or watching television without checking for new notifications at least once every few minutes. I turned it off this afternoon for a few hours and, as sad as it sounds, I actually felt sort of free, as if I was finally able to read a chapter of my book without feeling the need to interrupt myself to check my Snapchat. I think Dany summed it up quite well in the guest piece he wrote for this blog and I do genuinely believe that it is difficult to use smartphones in this day and age without succumbing to the inevitable urge to have them in your hand almost constantly. Perhaps I’ll turn it off for a few hours once a day this week and see if it really does make that much of a difference.
Speaking of guest pieces, from now on I won’t be posting them every Tuesday. I will continue to post them when I feel like I have one that matches the standard of the fantastic pieces we’ve seen so far but, to be honest, I’m running out of people to write for me. Those who have already written for me have done a great job so I wouldn’t expect them to do it again unless there was a subject they were particularly passionate about and there are a few others I have asked who aren’t prepared to share their writing publicly, which is completely understandable. If I haven’t asked you, I either don’t like you or I think your writing would be shit, take your pick. The point is, I prefer quality over quantity and will therefore be posting guest pieces less regularly from now on. Thank you to everyone who has written a piece for me so far, I am genuinely grateful and it’s been very interesting to see different peoples’ viewpoints on different subjects.
Happy Father’s Day. Stay safe.
