Welcome to May! The fifth month of the year – and slowly but surely we are creeping out of lockdown and back to a vague semblance of normality – whatever that is. It’s also time for the latest Meerkat Muse!

Dates!

It’s a rare occasion when my wife and I get to spend the day together as just the two of us. Obviously we love our daughter dearly and as a group we’ve had many a lovely day out, but for it to be just the two of us – husband and wife, rather than mum and dad – it was a refreshing change. We took a walk into town in the morning and treated ourselves to a McDonald’s breakfast (a double sausage and egg Mcmuffin is a thing of beauty, it really is), then headed to the leisure complex in the afternoon for lunch at Wagamama.

(warning: the following images could be considered food porn)

I went for a cod dish that was absolutely amazing, and I can’t wait for things to be back to normal so we can go back. Sitting outside in the semi-cold wasn’t ideal, however nice the food was. Oh, I also brought home a souvenir…

It was thoroughly enjoyable, even if we both felt absolutely shattered from all the walking we did!

Threats

The trouble with some people, when confronted by certain subjects, is that they lose any sense of perspective. Their ability to think rationally (assuming they ever possessed such a thing) dives when facing a hot-button topic. I’ve encountered many people who are unable to be logical or objective about things like sci-fi, sport, religion, politics – some have been rude, others dishonest, and still others petulant, but it was on the subject of guns and gun control that I had one individual take things up a notch. I’ve got a screenshot of their remarks, but for now I’ll transcribe… and I’ll leave in place their grammar/spelling.

Id love to spill your blood with my fist honestly you need your ass beat then left in a shallow hole. Bring on the blood shed

I don’t see it as something to take seriously, but the kind of person who’d lose control so easily, just because they cannot confront facts and logic, is clearly somewhat unhinged. To threaten physical harm against another human being because they are losing an argument is a whole different level of crazy. My wife and I have been watching a lot of Criminal Minds lately… sometimes, this guy’s rhetoric makes me think of some of the unsubs…

FNAF

I know what you’re thinking. ‘FNAF?’ Well, it stands for Five Nights at Freddy’s. The popular series of games revolves around a guard watching over old, creepy animatronics overnight. The animatronics naturally come to life to cause you trouble. As the security guard you can monitor their progress via cameras and you have a disguise (at least, you have a disguise on FNAF 2) to protect yourself against most – but not all – of the creepy costumes.

My daughter has decided she loves the series and after a fair bit of pestering I got FNAF 2 (she didn’t want to start at the beginning, for some reason). Like Bendy and the Ink Machine, this game is filled with jump-scares, and being the wuss that I am, I usually end up jumping. I don’t deal with the scares very well.

So, is there anything else? Well, not really. The last couple of weeks have generally been straight-forward. Work is chugging along quite nicely. Orders are coming in quite regularly. From a work perspective, things are starting to become a little more normal. I wouldn’t say they’re nearly normal or even half-normal, but they’re getting better. I wish the weather would get better, because that’s still too cool for my liking, and there’s not enough sunshine. I feel like we’re owed a good, long summer after all the crap we’ve endured over the last 18 months. Whether we’ll get one is a different story.

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