Sweet dreams are made of this??

Posted on by Ali

I usually don’t sleep very well, mainly because my joints seem to believe that ‘lights out’ is their cue to set up a round of the popular ‘Who Can Ache the Most?’ gameshow.

Will it be your pelvis because you sat and wrote for most of the day?

Tonight, your neck and shoulders be joining forces with the pelvis?

Perhaps there will be a surprise late entry from the knees because you were out walking?

It could even be that old favourite – the screaming heebie-jeebies of carpal tunnel syndrome…

Or will they just take it in turns every time you turn over…?

Remember contestants, points mean prizes!

I sometimes take a herbal sleeping tablet and a pain killer if they’re really working up to a series finale but mostly a few nights in a row of listening to my sleep hypnosis recording will work wonders and send me off to the land of nod.

My problem is that once I get there I am bored shitless.

Hubby regales me with tales of battling evil aliens and flying above the rooftops. In his dreams he is a vital part of all his favourite TV shows and movies doing all his own stunts and saving the day left, right and centre.

I had a dream the other night that I was doing the shopping in our local supermarket and didn’t have enough money on me to pay for everything.

Wowzer, right?! Scream if you want to go faster.

I have had dreams where people have invited me round their house and we sit and watch TV. Not even good TV.

I’ve dreamt that I am cleaning the house.

Yes, doing the hoovering.

Seriously.

Sometimes I’ll get really rock and roll and go to work. I am at a theatre or school I worked in and I just…well….work. Sort stuff out, have some lunch, put things away, even do photocopying on occasion.

Seriously!!!

I don’t even get to go places. I never travel in my dreams; never even get in a car let alone fly like a bird. I am always already in the place where the dream takes place, whether it’s a school, someone’s house or the supermarket. I never leave and I never go outside.

Never ever.

All my dreams are indoors.

Just the other night I spent my dream time in a very tiny tree house apologising to my friend for ditching her to hook up with a guy the night before.

I didn’t actually get to do the hooking up bit; didn’t even get to experience it in flashback. I just spent the dream trying to get her to talk to me again and failing to find my school books in among all the branches in the tiny tree house.

Big old whoop!

Maybe that’s why I can’t get to sleep; my brain is trying to avoid being bored shitless in my dreams.

I’m sure if I looked into it these dreams probably say more than I need to know about myself.

I’m going to stick to running errands and dusting the living room rather than find out it all means I’m a mad, psychotic woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

We know that already…

Busy doing something.

Posted on by Ali

When you run out of things not to do, eventually you have to just get on with stuff., so after a much longer wait than usual my next novella should go live on Amazon any day now.

This will be book 3 of the First Person Singular series and the other two were both written during NaNoWriMo Novembers and ended up going live the following March or April.

This one was written during the madness of summer 2020 (and the fun of moving continents during an apocalypse) and as such it was written and then sat and then got a bit edited and then sat and then got a bit more edited and then sat and then finally got completely edited, sent out to my lovely Constant Readers and now…finally…is uploaded and waiting to go live.

It felt a lot more like pushing a rock up a treacle-covered hill than any other book I’ve written.

I blame Covid.

It’s always nice to finally get a book up on the virtual bookshelf because, if nothing else, it proves to people that I actually do some work sometimes.

Writing is a hard profession to justify because you do a lot of sitting around and staring into space. There’s also a fair amount of googling stuff (if only to find out how to spell words) and generally staring at your laptop screen in a zombie-like state.

When I clean the house I move around, feel knackered and there is an immediate, tangible result. Look! The floor is now not covered in hair and bits of dried noodle…Look! The toilet no longer whiffs….Look! All the crumbs have disappeared and you have clean pants to wear.

Writing is not like that.

I can sit and type all daylong but when Hubby or the Teen ask me how it went I can just about manage a shrug and a roll of my eyes. The word count might make me happy but there’s always the very real chance that what I’ve written is actually a bag of shite and most of it will get edited out at a later date.

And that’s on a good day.

I also did The Literal Challenge 28 Plays Later in February and am taking part in their other challenge where you write a full-length play every month. So, all in all, February has been pretty darn productive. Written 28 new short plays, one long play and edited/uploaded a 42,280 word novella.

Go me.

It means the next little idea or strange voice can start pestering me and I’ve got some notes scribbled down already. And there’s always another challenge or submission to write for. And I’m starting work as an online ESL tutor. So it seems there’s no chance of getting bored anytime soon.

The icing on the cake is that the school is going back to 3D from March 8th so I get to wave goodbye to my far-too-near(est) and dearest, lock the front door and have the apartment all to myself.

I might do some tutoring sessions. I might go out on my scooter. I might get writing the next book.

Or I might give the apartment a damn good clean…no prizes for guessing.

So, for those of you who don’t already know:

…and…

…will soon be joined by…(insert drum roll)

If you haven’t already, do give them a try.

Or if short stories are more your thing…

And, as always, If you enjoy them – please leave a kind review.

If you hate them – keep it to yourself!

Wet Market tour.

Posted on by Ali

Now, that title probably makes you think that I’m going to lead you on some guided tour around the delights of our local Penang wet market…that I will explain all the ins and outs and show you photos of delicious local food with an explanation of what it is and half a dozen ways to use it in your every day meals.

In which case you’ve only just starting reading my blog or have a hell of a lot higher opinion of me than I deserve.

Anyone who has read my blogs about our safari adventures in South Africa will know that I am, without doubt, clueless about pretty much everything.

But never let it be said I let that stop me.

So, here we go…

A wet market in Penang is one that sells food. Not to be confused with any other sort of market that doesn’t. Like the night market, which sells clothes and tacky tourist crap. Except our local wet market sells clothes, but we’ll gloss over that for now.

Looking a bit like a boot sale in the UK that’s had to set up inside the nearest car park due to bad weather, a wet market is just a big old hall filled with stalls and presumably smells both delicious and nasty in equal measure. I wouldn’t know, thank goodness.

It is kept a heck of a lot cleaner than some markets I’ve been to in the UK and is also a lot less stressful. People don’t seem to be in such a rush and everything flows at a certain pace.

There’s the bit with hundreds of dead and incredibly pink chickens piled up. Most of them still have their heads etc and look a bit like one of those squeezy rubber toy chickens that has been left outside in the sunshine for too long.

There’s also other kinds of dead, pink things but since I was taught it’s rude to stare I decided to just give that section a wide berth.

There was also the fruit area with hundreds of beautiful, bright fruits. No, I don’t know what most of them were. No, I didn’t ask.

Some came with helpful signs to give you an idea of what the heck you were looking at. And some, apparently, are so good that you should be envious of them. I was. They are huge!

Even I knew what these were. Always good to have some pre-bananas ready to go in the back. ‘One branch or two, madam?’

And if you like fish then you’re in luck. Nothing teeny tiny here, mind you, so you’d better be really keen on fish for at least the next week.

They even had a sort of a pick-n-mix section although I couldn’t see the white mice or flying saucers….maybe next time.

Most of all, I was glad to see that Penang is living up to my high standards regarding health and safety.

Because it’s not a trip to the shops unless you’ve seen a rusty old hatchet lying about somewhere.

Penang…Ghana…same, same, but different.

So that’s my guide to the wet market of Penang. You can buy fruit, fish, meat and a summer dress.

What else do you really need to know?

The subtle application of Chinese New Year.

Posted on by Ali

I have been accused of going overboard sometimes with my seasonal decorations and in this I am guilty as charged. I tend to throw myself into whatever festival is going on and embrace it with open arms.

Now that we live abroad and have to pay to ship our belongings every few years I have scaled things down a bit at Christmas because #scottish but I still love to decorate and celebrate stuff regularly throughout the year.

Living here in Penang I have the opportunity to celebrate Chinese New Year for the first time and I am in awe of the all-out frippery that goes on over here. It is a magnificent thing and I can’t hope to compete…but I gave it my best shot.

Everywhere you look at this time of year there is red and gold and more red and more gold and then some extra red and gold for good measure…

I mean, why have a dozen paper lanterns when over a hundred will do? And what everything is missing is a big red bow or a lucky cat. Or both.

As sorry as I felt for the lucky bamboo having to support all those lanterns and tassels there was no way I was pausing to admire the display. By this time in the month I was pretty convinced that it I stood still for long enough I might end up with some lanterns and tassels attached to me…and nobody needs to see that!

It works like a charm though and you feel yourself drawn to buy more and more CNY decorations every time you’re out. They look so bright and festive and your apartment or house starts to look drab by comparison. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to buy one or two more things…?

…or three or four?

Nothing costs more than about RM10 and before you know it you’ve got enough CNY decorations to do the whole apartment and probably a large section of Oxford Street in London.

And it’s all lucky. Everything is lucky. Pineapples are lucky…lucky cats are lucky…ingots are lucky…intricate knots are lucky…the list goes on and on. If it is red with gold braiding then the chances are it’s lucky and in the current climate I wasn’t taking any chances.

‘More lucky things madam?’

‘Don’t mind if I do’

‘That’ll be RM25’

‘Throw in an extra cat, two more pineapples and a golden pig my good man…’

Or something like that.

Who doesn’t need a crystal cut-glass pineapple in their life? Wishing I’d got the large size now, maybe next year?

And this little ‘beauty’…which may look a trifle tacky but believe me when I say it’s even more cheap and plastic in person and I adore it.

We decorated outside….(oh, I forgot to say, red cloth draped above the door is lucky too)

We decorated inside…

We ate delicious food…and even found a replacement for fireworks since Covid managed to put a stop to most of that for us.

We read about the different meanings of each day of the New Year period and watched parades and Lion Dancing on YouTube.

Next year we look forward to being able to get out and about to experience more of this amazing festival first-hand but until then we will have to stay at home eating mandarins and admiring our epic gold/glitter covered plastic pig…

Happy Year of The Ox everyone…may this year be kind to us all.

If it works, stop doing it.

Posted on by Ali

I like to complain. My life is always much more satisfying if I have something to complain about and my health is usually a great topic in that regard.

I don’t like to just make stuff up or lie so I need to have a genuine thing to moan about or it’s not nearly as much fun.

Luckily life usually presents me with lots of material to work with – 2020 in particular. I mean, leaving South Africa during an apocalypse…? It doesn’t get much better than that if you’re looking for material to moan about. Africa really is the gift that keeps on giving.

But when life slows down or just keeps giving me the same old shit to moan about I like to adult myself into a good old moan by creating problems for myself out of something that was previously going fine.

Hypnosis for instance. I have trouble sleeping most of the time and so I found an old Sleep Hypnosis recording I bought online years ago and decided to give it a try. For the first time since I got it I actually listened to it every night for about a week. Guess what? It worked. Who could have predicted that, right? There I was just shoving it to the back of a drawer and writing it off as useless when all I needed to do was listen to it to get the full effect.

It was great! I slept like a log for the first time in months. I woke up feeling rested and didn’t pass out every afternoon or gibber too much. Result!

So, of course, I stopped.

Guess what happened next?

Yeah, you got it.

You see, in my tiny mind I had done the hypnosis and given it my best shot and it had worked. That meant I didn’t need to do it again. Like the toddler who does day 1 of school and thinks they’re good to just get a job and leave home now.

Same with my physio. Straight after I was given the all-clear to not be made to cry anymore by my tiny, evil pain devil I could be found doing my exercises twice a day like clockwork. My sciatica didn’t kick in when I sat for more than 5 mins, I felt so much better and even Hubby commented that it was great to see me being so committed.

So, it’s all his fault that I then ‘forgot’. If he hadn’t said that….nah, who am I kidding!? I dropped down to once a day then every other day then wondered why my pelvis was trying to burrow its way out with a heated spoon.

But at least pain has a great way of convincing you to change your ways. After only a few weeks and half a dozen episodes of spasms that made me jump like an electrocuted cat I am back on track.

I even started my hypnosis again last night.

When it comes to adulting and taking care of myself I may be as easily distracted as Dug from ‘Up’…

(‘squirrel’)

…but I always get back to it in the end.

Mainly because I don’t get any sympathy from Hubby and Teen otherwise. And anyway, moans are like buses…there’ll be another one along in a minute.

Ultimate lockdown distraction?

Posted on by Ali

We adopted a hamster just after Christmas.

For years the Teen has been asking for a dog and we’ve been saying ‘hell no’ with bells on. Then he asked for a cat and we said…well, Hubby said ‘hell no’ and I said ‘oooh, maybe?’. Then just after Christmas I saw a post saying that a hamster needed a new home and we went for it.

Well, I went for it and then did Puss in Boots eyes at Hubby when he got home and used the ‘lockdown is hard and Teen deserves a special present on his birthday and it will be really quiet and never in your eyeline I promise’ card.

It worked and now we have a hamster. Officially Teen is the one who has a hamster but it has become a source of distraction for all of us in these crappy times.

The idea of owning a dog was never really going to fly because we live abroad and you can’t guarantee that the next place you live will have a garden or space for a doggo to be happy. Also there’s the hassles and emotional torment of flying your beloved pooch to a new continent and the costs involved. And the poop. Always the poop to consider. I could easily see that after the initial elation wore off I’d be the one walking and picking up shite in little bags so…nope to that idea.

Owning a cat seemed a bit more likely – to me, not to Hubby – but our new apartment in Penang is a no cat/dog place so that was that.

A hamster seemed like a good alternative and this one was especially friendly…and free.

It was also not pregnant.

We got a hamster once before. For Teen’s birthday, long before he was a teen. It was a tubby little thing that proceeded to give birth to tons of babies. We kept it quiet and safe and undisturbed and it repaid us by biting the head off one of its babies on Teen’s actual birthday. Nothing adds to a birthday breakfast like knowing that your main present is chowing down on a newborn in the next room.

But this hamster is perfect. Perfect for us anyway, and perfect for the Teen. She loves a cuddle, is amazingly cute, and falls over in an amusing way.

We have named her Chiquita. We have also bought her pretty much every hamster toy available to mankind and celebrated her birthday. There’s only so much Netflix you can watch in a day, give us a break okay?!

If we’re at a loss for what to do or experiencing lockdown-itus we get out the paddling pool that is her playground and watch her squeeze her furry butt through toilet rolls. We don’t have to worry about how to ship her to our next country because, let’s face it, she’ll be long dead before that becomes an issue. A quick tip out of the bedding and a wipe around and she’s as fresh as a daisy…no bags of shit to carry about in the sunshine.

And did I mention she was free?

Chiquita, you are every locked-down Scotsman’s dream….we love you.

Try anything once(?)

Posted on by Ali

I like trying new things. Sometimes. Within reason. As long as they don’t mean I have to stay up past my bedtime or travel long distances. Or talk to strangers.

I am a hybrid of routine-addicted homebody and what-the-heck adventurer.

We moved to Ghana nearly 8 years ago now and that was 99.9% my idea. Well, the crappy Scottish weather helped. Then after 4 years in Ghana we moved to South Africa and now we’re in Penang. So I am quite obviously happy to move about and not be tied down to one place. I have moments of yearning for a place to call my own, a forever home where I can paint the walls and mark the furniture without worrying about it or paying through the nose. I will even admit that the thought of retiring back to the UK fills me with dread and I spend most of my free time looking through the ‘A Place in the Sun’ website to see what my (hopefully) forever home in Cyprus or Malta will look like. But all that is in the future and for the moment I am happy that we live abroad and will continue to do so until the Teen leaves school and becomes a millionaire overnight.

Hey, dream big or wake up…right?

I have to say that my ‘abroad’ life and my previous life do look similar in a lot of ways. Although now I buy fruit at the side of the road (and sometimes shoes or football shirts) rather than the supermarket and I can’t remember where my jacket is and only wear flip flops rather than being in boots, thick socks and jumpers for most of the year. But, I still refuse to go out or be sociable in any way if it’s after 9pm and I’ve got my slobby clothes on, and I will complain about the weather being too darn hot.

Some things change and some stay the same I guess.

But I do like to try new food now and then. Nothing that is still moving and nothing that screams salmonella as soon as you look at it but I am open to a new taste.

I say taste but I have a really crappy sense of taste which is pretty much non-existent so it’s more about texture I suppose.

I have eaten plantain and loved it. Especially the crispy stuff at the traffic lights in Accra. And the pies. Traffic light pies in Accra are surprisingly delicious. I tried coconut milk straight from the coconut and that was a nope. I’ve eaten banku and fufu…equally a nope. Tilapia fish was too boney but most variations of chicken and rice were great.

In Joburg we were lucky to have restaurants from all around the world on our doorstep. I fell in love with Greek food; especially the spinach or cheese pastries and anything involving honey. We also tried all sorts of Italian, Spanish and Chinese dishes and of course all the dead, cooked animals you could throw a stick at.

Here in Penang there is ample opportunity to do the same. It’s famous for it’s street food and in our small area alone there are about 5 food courts and 15 restaurants. When we’re not in lockdown we are truly spoilt for choice and even when we are we can still get takeaway or have Grab bring us poke bowls, noodles and even Subway!

I have fallen in love with Char Keuy Teow, Char Hor Fun and local fruit juices. We regularly have bao for lunch too.

There have been some nopes along the way though.

The biggest one lately was a sweetcorn lolly.

Just think about that for a moment. Let the image get really settled in your brain.

Sweetcorn.

Lolly.

I thought perhaps it might just be vaguely flavoured with sweetcorn. A hint perhaps. Something that I could, with my shite sense of taste, happily ignore.

Nope.

It had chunks. Chunks of sweetcorn in sweetcorn flavoured ice cream.

And as it melted – because I put 99% of it in a bowl on the side after getting my first mouthful of corny goodness – it started to look like vomit. I know they say there’s always carrot but this melting mess looked strangely familiar from my student days.

And because I am the caring, sharing kind…

I went back the next day and got a Coconut Black Sticky Rice one to try (because never let it be said that I learn from my mistakes) and it was a lot better. Still strange to have black bits in the mix but not as disturbing as sweetcorn.

I suppose I’ll have to try Durian next.

Maybe I’ll leave that for next month.

Or the month after.

Or never.

Kevin versus Kermit

Posted on by Ali

I love Kermit.

(Just to clarify – for the purposes of this blog I am referring to my electric bike who I have christened Kermit. Not the frog. Although I do love him too)

Kermit gives me freedom to go places and see things. With just a few short hours of charging I can cruise out to the fishing village or up by the dam. On a Sunday, I can head over to the bakery or the wet market. I can even get as far as Tesco and Cold Storage if I don’t rev too much.

Kermit has opened up a new world to me and allowed me to spread my wings and explore my new island home.

I love Kermit.

Kermit also makes people smile. I would like to think they smile because of the large, happy sticker of Kermit the Frog that adorns my front basket and not because I look like a total tit. (But I’m not one to lie to myself so it’s 50/50 at best)

Although Kermit is officially a bike I don’t pedal. With his battery and my crappy joints he is just too heavy to pedal anywhere so I turn on the power and scoot instead. I silently zoom about with the wind in my hair giving everyone I (slowly) pass a jaunty greeting.

I love Kermit.

But I have recently found a new love…Kevin.

Kevin is the scooter next door. I covet Kevin. Even more so since I got to have a go on him and realised that much as I love Kermit, Kevin is the only way to travel.

Once I got used to Kermit and went out and about more often I realised that his speed wasn’t all I could hope for. His range wasn’t all that and a bag of chips either. If Penang had any charging stations in their little bike rest stops then there’d be no stopping me but as it is Tesco is my furthest destination and that’s just not cutting it anymore.

I was also getting more and more annoyed that little old men on scooters with heavy propane gas cannisters could go faster than me. Pretty much every scooter – even the ones that are falling apart – can go faster than me. Especially up a hill.

This is when I spotted Kevin. Not a motorbike…Kevin is a motor scooter with a step-through frame. He runs on petrol and as such can take me all around this beautiful island for the princely sum of about RM30. A full tank costs RM5 so I’m being generous. RM30 would probably cover petrol and a noodle feast when I get home.

Kevin belongs to a neighbour and she kindly allowed me to have a go on him, despite having spent time with me and knowing what an epic klutz I am. I was fully prepared to wimp out, hit a tree and decide to stick to Kermit’s more sedate speeds but something else happened.

The phrase ‘where have you been all my life’ went through my mind as I took corners with ease and went up hills without slowing to walking pace.

I love Kevin.

It’s not that I don’t love Kermit any more but Kevin is the way forward. Literally. Kevin is the way to Georgetown or Gurney Plaza or beyond. Kermit is the one for me if I want to pootle up to the fishing village and pick up some bananas. Kevin is the one for me if I want to head into town and don’t want to be passed on hills by a family of six and their pet goat on a push bike!

So perhaps I will get my own Kevin. Although he might not end up being called Kevin.

Why is Kevin called Kevin? I hear you ask….

Well, Kevin is a Honda Spacy………..

Nuff said?

The new (social) norm.

Posted on by Ali

I know people who hate the phrase ‘the new normal’ and I don’t entirely blame them. If nothing else, there is no ‘new’ normal. There was no ‘normal’ to begin with!

My normal was getting up, waking my son and making sure he got to school, cleaning the house, writing, tutoring and shopping for food.

In Ghana the time for getting up was about 5:30am, here in Malaysia it was 6:30am but with online learning it’s now 7am.

My son is 14 so waking him up is harder now than it used to be and can take anything from 10-30 mins to achieve the elusive feet-on-floor-eyes-almost-open state. When he was younger he would wake up happily on time and when he was little he would wake up stupidly early and learn new swear words from mummy.

School was a walk away in Scotland and Ghana, a car ride away in South Africa and is a 5 minute bike ride here in Malaysia. Or a stagger to the corner of the living room for online.

Here in Malaysia food shopping consists now of going to the food court for takeaway, the mini market or the guy at the side of the road for fruit and then Tesco delivery for heavier items.

I could go on but I won’t, just this once. You get my drift…there was no ‘normal’ because it was always changing and evolving.

And my normal was different to your normal, which is different from the normal of people in Denmark or Saudi Arabia or Africa or Australia…and so on.

So, there was no great big generalised ‘normal’ to begin with and now this ‘new normal’ isn’t going to last. We’re never going to go back to exactly how everything was before and even if we could, things are still different for each person but even more so at the moment because some people are getting vaccinated, some have been vaccinated, some are due to be vaccinated and some are just waiting until they get pointed at by a hazmat Oompa-Loompa.

(As expats we’re mainly just smiling politely and waiting our turn. Also crossing our fingers we don’t have to go all the way back to Scotland just to get jabbed with needles.)

But one thing I do know is that there is a new social norm and I am doing my best to embrace it. Not literally though, for obvious reasons.

In the past I, and lots of people I know, would come over all British about socialising in person. Some of them weren’t even British. What I mean is that they would sort of dance around or circle around people in an attempt to find out what they had in common or whether they could perhaps in the future possibly be friends, without ever actually daring to catch their eye or interrupt them.

It can take years. I’m not even kidding.

Speaking as people who have moved to a new continent during the apocalypse I’m here to tell you that shit doesn’t work any more. We have to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. There is so much more nowadays that unites us than divides us.

If nothing else we all have the perfect conversation starter. Be honest, you’ve all got your favourite apocalypse, mask-related, Covid-themed story that you’re dying to tell someone. It’s the ultimate pissing contest and we’re all in with a chance of winning.

‘I had to do 2 weeks in quarantine’

‘Luxury…I had to sleep on the floor of the airport and then be told that if I leave now I can never fly back into the country!’

‘Easy life! I haven’t seen my entire family, my dog or even my own toes for 6 months!!’

And so it goes on…

No need to stand around wandering if commenting on the weather is the right opening gambit any more. Covid is the way to go.

And with the world falling in and out of lockdown like…well, a thing that falls in and out of stuff…we can’t afford the luxury of waiting and weighing up our options like we used to.

If you see somebody who seems to be able to put one foot in front of the other and string a sentence together you must immediately exchange phone number, criminal history and inside leg measurement with them.

Immediately, do you hear me?

If you wait a week or so to see if you’ve got anything in common or check they’re not a serial killer you’ll have missed your chance! Before you know it you’ll be stuck back in lockdown with only the potted plant and your nearest and dearest to keep you company, and nobody wants that.

When lockdown eases up just run up to random people and give them your phone number, then say something like ‘Wednesdays are good for me? How about you? Let’s Zoom!’ and run away again.

Job done. Social life kickstarted. Well done you.

Obviously remember to do all of the above while wearing a mask, staying back the requisite (and changeable) amount of social distance and washing your hands afterwards.

Why? Well, you may be a hermit-like social loon but you’re not a monster!

Although if after reading this any of you get arrested for lobbing bricks with your phone number written on them at total strangers then I want nothing to do with you….clear?

Netflix and stress.

Posted on by Ali

As a recent convert to Netflix I would like to ask a serious question…how the fuck do you get anything done any more?

We didn’t have Netflix for years and only in the last 6 months decided to go for it. We have the basic, Asia-based package which probably contains everything the rest of the world finished watching during lockdown last year but even so I still can’t find enough hours in the day to watch everything.

There are crappy old movies that I would never normally want to watch if you paid me, and tons of series that are tedious but addictive and then if you can’t find a serial killer documentary you like they’ll be another one along in a minute….

Aargh!

We have finally found out what all those Tiger King references meant. We got lockjaw from staring at the screen open-mouthed in shock and just when you think it can’t get any stranger…it did!

But why am I telling you lot? You’ve been there and seen that months ago probably.

I’ve watched an eclectic mix of things and have an almost never-ending list still to get through.

I’ve watched ‘The Changeling’, ‘Gerald’s Game”, ‘Klaus’, ‘Birdbox’, ‘Enola Holmes’, ‘Fred Claus’, ‘Rebecca’, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, ‘The Good Place’ and know even more about the darker side of human nature than I thought possible. We’ve still got ‘I am Mother’, ‘The Silence’, ‘Criminal’, ‘John Wick’, ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ and tons more to watch.

We only got Netflix to be able to see ‘Stranger Things’ and we haven’t even glanced at that yet.

We’ve found that we love ‘The Meg’, ‘Spy’ and all things Jason Statham or Melissa McCarthy. We’re not so fond of remakes or anything too syrupy. And we are willing to give something a try while we wait for the next series of ‘The Good Place’ to come along.

It’s opened our eyes and our viewing choices so much and this is only on the Asia-available version. Our heads would probably explode like in ‘Scanners’ if we had the full version.

So there are officially not enough hours in the day to get everything done, so from now on the house will look like a tornado has hit it and the washing will pile up.

So, just like it always does, but this time I’ll have the perfect excuse.