For my own good

On QI last night (probably a repeat on a random sky channel rather than one anyone else would have been watching) they mentioned about how people who sleep for between 5 and 7 hours a night will live longer than those who sleep for 8 or more. Clearly these first group need to not all be hard drinking, drug taking, chain smoking overeaters with a basejumping hobby while the second group are clean living zen types for this to hold true but it did give me a proper bona fide reason to stay up til 130am this morning. 😆 Ady did suggest that for the good of my health I spend lots more time with Alison, but he didn’t seem to be altogether sincere in that remark ;).

So I felt rather dragged from slumber instead of tip-top healthy condition when I was woken up before 8am this morning and didn’t even have time to take more than a couple of gulps of my cup of tea. We’d booked to see Happily Never After at Burgess Hill cinema but the manager rang me yesterday to say the film hadn’t arrived and they were going to show Mee-Shee the water giant instead. Ady was headed over that way for the day anyway so he dropped us off in Burgess Hill and picked us up again afterwards. We had a brief wander round the town, getting some popcorn and sweets from Waitrose in advance before heading to the cinema which is a very old fashioned 2 screen cinema. We were greeted at the door and welcomed properly and then listened to a little bit of the manager telling the bigger school group (I say big, there were probably only 20 of them, and then us and another HE mum and her two children) about how the films come in in big reels which last about 20 minutes. They sellotape them together and then run them on big spools – not unlike the two spools on a music cassette tape but on top of each other rather than side by side. He explained that every 20 minutes or so you will notice a black dot in the top right hand corner of the screen. This is followed by a second dot and then the scene will change and that is when the reel has moved onto the next reel – ie where the join is. We kept forgetting to look and didn’t actually see the dots during the film but will try again next time we’re at the cinema (oh, that’ll be Thursday then 😉 :lol:).

We sat right at the front as usual but in this little cinema the front row was almost full reclined with the seats in rows behind gradually getting less reclined. This was nice actually although I was at risk of falling asleep. I decided to track down some tea but when I asked if they were serving it I got made a mug of it infront of me, with milk they’d cast about in the staff fridge to find and my offer of paying was waived away :).

The film was good, very odd school type family film, just like I might have watched as a child – in the style of ET or similar, but nice. It kept Davies totally enthralled with just the odd ‘whoa!’ from him at some of the big scale effects and Scarlett deemed it ‘lovely’ too when it had finished. As we were gathering ourselves together the manager appeared again and rounded us all up for a tour of the projector room. This entailed a trip through screen two, up a spiral staircase and into a tiny room where he showed us the film reels, how they wind onto the next reel and are flashed with light to project onto the cinema screen. He explained about 24 cells per second, how the sound works and showed us the big audio control box, then the system they have of a periscope with mirrors to project onto screen 2 as the cinema was only built with one screen. He showed us a big box of a film ready to go back to the film company and explained (to me, when I asked, cos I was interested) how the films are charged for to them and viewing figures collated. All *really* interesting stuff, even Scarlett was very interested in it all and Davies was obviously totally captivated 🙂 A real Jim’ll Fix It moment for him who has always looked longingly back and up at the shaft of light coming from the projector room when we’re at the cinema. 🙂 After much profuse thanking (and a private pledge to go there for all future film week events 🙂 ) we left there as Ady was waiting outside.

We then toured various garden centres with him in Eastbourne and a couple of supermarkets. We either stayed in the car or wandered round looking at stuff with him. We had budget lunch in Tescos entirely selected from the reduced to clear section so got cheap sub rolls, some sausages off the hot deli, cakes and pancakes for about 2 quid :). We looked in a sports shop for some heelies with no luck and then headed back for home. We got back with about ten minutes to spare before Davies and I needed to head off again to swimming lessons.

At swimming we both managed to demonstrate to an enraptured audience our grace, style and physical ability. I managed to fall down the tiered seating on concrete steps not once, but twice, resulting in very bruised and battered legs, a chorus of ‘ooh are you alright?’ s from the other swimming mums and then an internal struggle not to get helpless giggles at myself once I’d finally sat down. I further drew attention to myself when Davies managed to unthread his goggles so I had to sign to him to chuck them on the side, duck under the barrier to go and grab them, fix them and return them. All the mums were waiting to see if I would provide a hattrick of entertainment by actually falling in the pool fully clothed at that point I think biut I managed to retain just a smidgeon of decorum :). Several of them talked to me as a result though so maybe it’s a breakthrough ;). Davies meanwhile was carrying out a perfectly comically times routine of his own in the pool with two floats, very much in the style of Frank Spencer by losing one so letting go of the other one to rescue it, realising he’d let go of one so letting go of the other to try and resuce it and so on, until the instructor told him to leave it! 😆 The rest of the group got their level one badges tonight – Davies has already passed that last term so when they go back after half term they all start working towards level 2 which is swimming without aids. I think repeating a term has been good for Davies and watching him and the others in his group objectively tonight they are all on a level really so hopefully he’ll come on well with the rest of them now.

We sang Bohemian Rhapsody all the way there and back in the car in a very badly performed duet doing all the instruments too, at the tops of our voices. Very funny 😆

I dropped Davies home and headed off to Book Group at the library. I’d not read the book as it was dry, dusty and boring and I’d struggled through the first third before giving up on the basis that life is too short to read shit books. At least 3 other people had concluded the same and not finished it so that was good. Book group was good, four new faces and five regulars, plenty of teasing and ‘in jokes’ which it’s so lovely to be part of, I’ve really got a lot out of that group. Pat, who is well into her 60s if not 70s caught me at the end and asked if I’d like to go for coffee with her sometime to talk about HE as she’s never met anyone before who actually does it and she’s really interested in it. Rose, the teacher agreed that she’d like to talk more about it too so we’ve semi arranged something for sometime soon which is good. I love the idea of having ‘friends’ generations apart from me – Rose is almost old enough to be my Mum and Pat almost old enough to be my Grandmother. Book group is great for making me feel youthful still ;).

Home for curry and wine provided by Ady while we watched a documentary about the Great Storm of ’87. Can’t quite believe that was 20 years ago tonight – it feels barely yesterday. Work tomorrow followed by one of our now legendary Autumn Walks ;).