Day 180 - music and jokes and dead chickens

I've got a lot to get through today so I hope you're sitting comfortably. The day's celebrations started with some music. Reggae. I have a pretty eclectic taste in music but reggae isn't something I'd usually go to. I don't mind the summer party tunes or a bit of Shaggy but in general I find it all a bit samey. I put on reggae mix from YouTube and lasted about twenty minutes. Not bad going. It started well but each song was worse than the one before. I also squeezed in some Guns 'n' Roses (the classic live version from the Freddy Mercury tribute concert when Axl invited the band to give him some reggae). The kids enjoyed it and sang along with the audience participation section. Son 1's comment however was "that guy's weird" so I don't think that his future music direction will be impacted by GNR in the same way that mine was.

In addition to International Reggae Day it was also Blink-182 Day. I'd have thought that 18th February would have been more fitting but hey-ho. I swapped the tunes but they only lasted until we'd listened to What's My Age Again? The rest was uninspiring, besides, we needed to celebrate in the garden.

One of this week's odder celebrations was Build A Scarecrow Day. I'm sure that scarecrows are useful in the right settings (fields) but in a garden they look a bit unsettling.  (Why was the scarecrow given an award? He was outstanding in his field!) We made one from Son 1's t-shirt and shorts and a paper head. The best part was tying the sticks together to make the frame.  We don't really want to scare the birds but I'm writing this from the garden with about 10 Swifts flying about overhead (they live in our attic) so thankfully it doesn't seem to be working.

The joke above wasn't just thrown in because I'm a natural comedian, it is also International Joke Day. To celebrate I simply put "jokes please" on Facebook and received a number of jokes in response. If you were one of the contributors, my heartfelt thanks go out to you. The kids enjoyed this one:

Knock knock
Who's there?
Europe
Europe who?
No, you're a poo!

I didn't get a chance to experiment with ice cream so Creative Ice Cream Flavour Day will have to wait for another day. I did however celebrate International Chicken Wing Day by barbecuing some with a 7 year old marinade which I made from damsons which grew in our old garden. I miss that Damson tree. The wings weren't bad, the sauce was still edible and my wife who doesn't do meat on the bone even gave them a go. With the sun refusing to let up I expect that I'll be able to regale you with more take a of barbecue this week, especially as Wednesday is Barbecue Day!

Finally for today I am celebrating Second Half Of The New Year Day. This is a chance to reflect on the year and think about what the rest if the year had in store.  This is quite useful for me as I have 6 months worth of blog to read up on if I want to see how it went. I started the year at 12 stone (it was Weigh-In Day remember? ) and I was weighed this week for my new doctor and was still 12 stone.  That's not surprising given my comments back in January but I did think that after 6 months of eating cake and drinking cocktails and beer that it might have had an impact.  Nope. I've enjoyed celebrating random days, I learnt a lot about religion, history and America. I've found some good recipes and my eyes have been  opened to issues going on in the world. j hope that some of you have enjoyed reading along over the last six months as well. If you'd like to help celebrate over the next six then just say, I'm happy to spread the fun. I managed 615 celebrations in the first 6 months. How many do you think we'll get to by Decemeber 31st?

That's enough for tonight. I'm off to make sandwiches for tomorrow. Good night.