Back to reality tomorrow with a bang.
After 18 days off it’s back to work but I’ve just had a look at my rota for the next two weeks and only just realised I’m going to be doing 7 x 12.5 hour shifts in the next 9 days!! 87.5 hours total and virtually all of it on my feet.
On the up side, I get 6 days off at the end of it….. if I survive.

There’s no more alcohol in the house and won’t be for a while.
I had my last milky coffee this morning. I’m going cold turkey tomorrow so watch out!!
I will be denying myself savoury snacks and going healthy.
When I’m not doing rediculous hours at work I will be starting my walking again.
My aim is to lose 2 – 3 stone (28 – 42 pounds) by Xmas.

I know that sounds like a lot but the last time I did this I managed to lose 3 stone in 3 months. So doing the same over the next 4 months is doable.
I’ve just got to stay focussed and not give in this time.
I want to be able to wear a nice dress to my brother’s wedding in August next year and I am seriously considering getting a cosplay costume tailored for me but I need to be a little slimmer first.

It’s going to be a bit of a wrench over the next week not being able to spend as much time on my PC.
I’m going to miss Tumblr and I’m really going to miss AO3. I just won’t have time to read a lot of fan-fiction for a while. I’ll just keep my eyes open for any updates on the pieces I’ve already started and that will be it.

I’ve watched 16 films over the last couple of weeks.
I actually only got to the cinema 4 times which is a little disappointing.

We saw ‘Star Trek Beyond’ which was good. I don’t think It quite had the flair of ‘Into Darkness’ but I still enjoyed it and the Spock/McCoy interaction was brilliant!

We saw ‘Jason Bourne’ which was also good but that’s just it, it was your typical Jason Bourne outing and nothing special.

Then we saw ‘Suicide Squad’ twice!
We went to a 2d midnight showing on 4th August and then we went to an IMAX presentation on our anniversary on the 6th August.
I loved it. My Husband loved it. The kids loved it but apparantly the critics hate it!

Other films I watched via Bluray or streaming services like Netflix and Prime included…..

‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. This was a must watch after I took two of my girls to see the stage show early in my annual leave.

‘True Grit’. The 2010 re-make with Jeff Bridges.
It’s good but doesn’t quite get the feel of the original. My hidden agenda for watching it was an early performance by Domhnall Gleeson who played ‘Moon (The Kid)’. Scared whitless and panicking. Something Domhnall does very well.

‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’.
A film I’ve been meaning to watch for a while and just a little disturbing.
Starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller.

IMDB states ‘Kevin’s mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly vicious things he says and does as he grows up. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined’

Kevin is the personification of evil literally from birth but he’s only like it around his mother and no-one else believes her. Very creepy.

and then ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. Just because……

‘Batman v Superman’. Released onto Bluray it would’ve been rude not to.

‘Non-Stop’ because I wanted to snuggle and watch something with the husband so I picked something a bit manly and not containing any of my current obsessions. Then the hubby fell asleep and left me to it anyway. Sod!

‘The Revenant’. Sod Leonardo DiCaprio, I watch this for Captain Henry played by Domhnall Gleeson!

‘Midnight Special’!!! Yay. Finally out on Bluray and the ONLY Adam Driver film I’ve watched in weeks (shock horror!!)

‘Eddie the Eagle’ also just released onto DVD and one of the best films of the year so far.

An then there are 4 films I watched because of another current obsession.
My fan-fiction. Both reading and writing has got me a little hooked on gay male relationships.
I started with going back to a film I haven’t watched in years, ‘Brokeback Mountain’
Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. What more needs to be said?

Then I discovered a wonderful film called ‘A Single Man’
As I said in a previous post (HERE)

Starring Colin Firth, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult and Julianne Moore, it tells the story of an English Professor (Firth) in the 1960’s. One year after the sudden death of his boyfriend of 16 years (Goode)
It is set during one single day as he is obviously preparing himself for suicide as he struggles to cope and the events throughout the day that bring memories and realisations to the ultimate and achingly heartbreaking conclusion.
It’s a beautiful film.

Then I watched a film on Netflix called ‘Holding the Man’
IMDB states ‘Tim and John fell in love while teenagers at their all-boys’ high school. John was captain of the football team, Tim an aspiring actor playing a minor part in Romeo and Juliet. Their romance endured for 15 years to laugh in the face of everything life threw at it – the separations, the discriminations, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses – until the only problem that love can’t solve, tried to destroy them.
Based on Timothy Conigrave’s cult-classic and hilarious memoir, and the inspiration for the award winning stage play, HOLDING THE MAN is the remarkable true-life love story that speaks across generations, sexualities and cultures’.

I ended up LOVING this film.
My only issue was that the 30 something year old actors playing John and Tim, also played John and Tim as high school students and that looked and felt a little strange but once you get past that, this story is amazing and had me blubbering at the end.

And then I found ‘4th Man Out’ on Netflix.

About Adam, a car mechanic in a small, working class town who comes out of the closet to his unsuspecting, blue-collar best friends. The results are touching, hilarious and endearing and I’ve watched it twice already! It’s just a lovely gentle comedy.

On top of all those films I’ve also managed to write 2 pieces of fan fiction.
The pair of them totalling around 9000 words.
I’ve really surprised myself at how much I’ve been enjoying the writing.

Apart from the usual housework and gardening in between all that, that’s it!!
Today I have to do a tidy and clean from top to bottom this afternoon and then I think I will have an early night to try and charge my batteries for the next 9 days slog.
You never know, I may get to squeeze in another film.