More random stuff

It's been a weird couple of weeks.

I was on annual leave last week, but it wasn't really the greatest week. On the first Sunday special person and I went up to my cousin's house to get her beloved cat, Toby, so he could moved to his new home. He's going to eventually live with Rob and Em, but since they've just started their extensive building works he's being fostered at Em's parents. The poor thing has always been a shy cat and took ages to warm to my cousin. After two weeks alone in the house apart from being fed, he took refuge under her bed and didn't want to come out. After a spirited chase we had to trap him in the conservatory and he finally gave up.

He was very good in the car on the whole - he yowled a bit as you might expect, but didn't do any dirty protests. Upon arrival at Em's parents, he promptly found a very secure hiding place behind the washing machine, but has since emerged and with the care and attention from Em's sister Vicky, he is now having cuddles and being generally adored. Which is brilliant.

Unfortunately that day I started to feel a little iffy and was absolutely shattered after all that day's driving, but I then spent the rest of the week with a cold. Which put paid to any plans I had for the week.

It was the funeral on Thursday. My Dad and I went up with special person on the Wednesday to the hotel where the family were staying in preparation. My Dad had already said he didn't want to drive as it was a bit far for him, but at the same time didn't trust my car, so we went up in his after he'd added me to the insurance. The drive up was fine and we got there just as a few other members of the family did. I was shattered after the drive as the cold wasn't great then, and so we had a lie down before going out to see the family. There was a lot of talking and catching up and my aunt had a lot of pictures of my cousin, which were great to see.

The next day we met up and headed to my cousin's house where the hearse and funeral cars turned up. To my surprise they were all silver - which I think she would have approved of. It took a bit of time to get to the crematorium and when we did there was a delay as someone attending the funeral before us had had a heart attack.

The service itself was short and simple. It was a humanist one, with no religious references. My cousin had said exactly how it was going to go and it was really nice. But she was very cheeky and had Jessica by the Allman Brothers as the exit music - otherwise known as the Top Gear theme. Only she could get away with that! Afterwards it was back to the hotel for the get-together, which was very busy as a lot of her friends and work colleagues turned up. It was very special to see how many people she'd made friends with.

We ended up leaving quite early as my Dad wanted to get back, and I spent the rest of the holiday and weekend, apart from Friday night, round with special person, just hanging out. Typically, today is the first day I feel better, right when I'm back in work. Probably a good thing though as it's been a shit day all round and to cope with feeling ill as well would have been hell.

Not much else to report - up to Series 3 of the great Bluray TNG rewatch and have finished Better Call Saul, which I really enjoyed. It felt a lot like Breaking Bad, but did it's own thing very well. I watched the first episode of the new Daredevil series, but it didn't quite grab me, so I watched the second one and it has got better. I also installed BioShock Infinite on the PC to see how the new graphics card coped with it - very well is the answer, so I want to replay that at some point. I lent the Oculus to Steve about three weeks ago, but he's had it a lot longer due to me coping with other things.

I'm quite enjoying the Pebble watch still. It's pretty limited I guess, but of course it lasts several days, which other smartwatches don't. Also my phone upgraded itself to Lollipop a couple of weeks back which has taken some getting used to. I don't like this new trend of having fields and buttons not outlined properly and making everything flat. It seems like a step backward. When I got my cousin's old iPod touch with iOS 8 on it, I was shocked at how hideous it is compared to the older versions and I reacted similarly to Lollipop, although I don't think it's as bad.

I've been gathering parts for a new project bass, since I haven't had a proper parts assembled one for ages. It's going to be a Jazz bass with an extra pickup by the neck and three Jaguar-style switches to turn them on and off, and the headstock will be shaped like a 51 P-bass, just because. The body was quite cheap though and will need a fair bit of work to look presentable.

Random stuff

Not much to say really - work is much the same...not been to archery in a while...but the big thing is that my cousin passed away last Wednesday.

She'd been struggling for a while after the cancer returned and I went up to see her three weeks ago with special person to see how she was and drop off a new laptop. I knew she'd been having problems eating due to struggling to swallow, but the reality of seeing her at 7.5 stone was quite a shock. As well as dropping off the new laptop, we took her cat to the vet and did a few other jobs for her. The weekend before last, she went into hospital with a chest infection and it was too much for her to fight and she died last Wednesday morning. I heard about it in the evening from my sister and although we knew it was coming, it was still a massive shock. Due to various random communication issue, I heard it from my sister, and had to tell my brother in Berlin.

I've been gradually trying to process it over the weekend but it has been difficult.

In other news, not much to report really. I have upgraded my PC to a GTX 970 graphics card, which involved some modification to the case, but runs games very nicely. I've got Bioshock Infinite to replay on it and it looks amazing. There's probably other things to put on here but I can't really think of them right now.