As I’ll be doing anything other than writing the 50,000 word novel I have to finish by the end of November, you can probably expect to see posts here.

It’ll be that bad. I’ll be blogging to avoid writing. That makes sense, right?

‘Nothing interesting’ I answered without thinking.

‘But you flew Ryanair!’ she laughed.

She had a point. I had just flown from Shannon to Gatwick and I had witnessed the following:-

1.  Twenty or so adults pick up their belongings and run at full tilt from one gate to another so that they could maintain their places in the boarding queue. I was sitting at the time and couldn’t get my phone out of my pocket fast enough to take video.  Needless to say, it is a sight I will never forget.

2.  Everyone in the queue in front of me walk across the tarmac to join the queue at the door at the rear of the plane.  Myself and my travelling companion got the steps leading up to the forward door of the plane, looked at each other, looked at the long queue at the rear door and then mounted the steps straight on to the plane and were in our seats while the people who had been directly in front of us in the queue were standing on the tarmac at the bottom of the steps to the rear door.  I know this because I bumped my face off the plane trying to peer out the window.

3. The last passenger rushing onto the plane, sitting beside me, fumbling with her belongings in a terrible state, only to freeze in place once the plane began to taxi. She held onto both armrests with such force I thought she was going to pull them off.  She didn’t relax until the plane had taken off and was somewhat level again. It was at this point that I took out my ear plugs which I need on take off and landing to protect my ears and I realised she was talking to me.  When she saw me take out the earplugs she stopped what she was saying and told me she had been talking to me the entire time and hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t replying.

4. Ryanair trying to sell me everything from lottery tickets to an overpriced national newspaper. I know for fact that as soon as Michael O’Leary figures it out he will charge for the use of the toilets, as promised.

5. Landing so fast on at Gatwick that I thought we were going to drift around the first corner. The poor terrified girl beside me was pale by the time we ground to a sudden halt.  It took her nearly a minute to uncurl her fingers from the armrests. She again admitted that she had been talking to me the entire time during landing but this time she knew I couldn’t hear her.

6. On the way towards baggage claim we came to a set of stairs together with an elaborate, all around the world for sport, wheelchair/baggage cart ramp. Two people, in flight uniform, chose the wheelchair ramp and a good eighty percent of our flight followed them.  I nearly fell down the stairs laughing at the look on some of their faces when they saw the rest of us tramp down the stairs and get to the bottom before they reached the first turn of four on their little trek.

And so, I will never again say nothing interesting happened on a Ryanair flight, where the passengers are more sheep-like than actual sheep.

I got a list of items today from a friend and while I was aware of some of them, one or two caught me by surprise. Completely and totally by surprise and I’m still laughing at the hodge podge collection. It’s such a very odd list it must be true. I’ve demanded photographic evidence.

People are so very strange.

And if nothing else it might make you want to tidy that filthy desk drawer just in case anyone asks you what’s in it.

For the record, I write at a desk with no drawers.

Sandra Bullock can have her moments too.  The movie has a cute angle to it and hits all the right spots.

Hands down though the most memorable scene is the two of them running slap bang full on into each other fully naked. It’s awkward in a way that makes it completely plausible and I nearly died laughing. To cheer myself up I often replay the scene in my head. Slapstick and naked Ryan Reynolds.  Does it get any better?

So now along with not updating my blog with all the movies I’ve been watching I will now be procrastinating about writing 50,000 words in one month.

Anyone interested or who thinks I’m making this shit up – www.nanowrimo.org

On the plus side. I now feel guilty enough about the blog to start updating it again.  It seems I would rather do anything that work on the novel, and I only started today!

Okay, so it’s a little of a let down at the end. If you’ve read the book you know what’s coming and the final scene is flat. But I’d watch it again and there aren’t that many movies I can say that about.

This reads like every other review on this movie but there honestly isn’t much else I can say about it.  I love Harry Potter. Of course I love the movies. I’m going to be quiet now.

Without the 3D you ask?  Standard family fun.  We have always been fans of Ice Age in this house and on boy do we love dinosaurs so it was win win on that account.

Me, not so much.  The plot was yawn.  The acting was yikes.  The special effects were wow, but so fast I hadn’t a clue what was going on most of the time.

I rolled my eyes and groaned out loud at the cheesiest moment and got the look of death from himself.

Was I entertained?  Just about.

He wants to be a “doctor tiger” after watching a vet stitch a white tiger’s foot on tv.  I’ve explained to him that he’ll have to go to big school and secondary school and then college before he can be a vet.  His response was “okay, can I go now?”.  I patiently explained to the kid that he can be a vet when he grows up.

“No” he responded, “when I grow up I want to be a dinosaur”.

Okkkkkay.

So with all this animal talk I figured that sooner or later he will decide that he wants more pets and I had decided he will probably ask for a dog.  A dog to go with the two cats we already have.  We can’t have a dog.  Only because nobody is at home all day long.  We leave the house before 8am and often don’t return until 8pm.  That’s no life for a dog and why we have two cats.  As long as we come home eventually to feed them the cats are very content with sleeping all day while we are out.

I have been preparing the simplest, kid-proof argument in my head as to why we can’t get a dog, for months now.  I was mostly prepared for all the arguments.

The question finally popped up, out of the blue, the other evening.

“Mama,” the kid announced “the cats have to lay eggs because I want kittens.”

What the…………. where do I start with that?  Cats and eggs?  Where kittens come from? The fact that we have a boy cat and a girl cat so only one of them can lay eggs?  Wait.  That’s not right.  Ammmmm.

I explained as best I could about cats not laying eggs and that only the girl cat, Tink, could have kittens and thankfully he didn’t ask how the kittens got out of the cat.  Mostly we focused on the fact that he wanted kittens because they would be “soooo cuttttte”.  I stumbled and stuttered and tried not to fall off the couch laughing.  It was a disaster.

And then, a couple of days later the tiger programme is back on tv and before we can change channels or avert his young eyes he gets to see a tiger birth a cub.  Out it slides, all curled up tight in it’s embryonic sac, and it looked like, well……

“Ohhhhhhh Mama,” says the kid, “the tiger laid an egg!  Is there a kitten inside?”

“Yes honey,” I reply  “but a baby tiger is called a cub.”

A different spin on the usual batchelor party in Vegas and some of the funniest characters to appear in a buddy movie.

Was so thankful that there was no real cringe comedy, I despise cringe comedy.  It’s just not funny.