It's been a hot month this time around – at least at the end, it was!
I'll start on Sunday, the 2nd (even though I have a story from the 1st – it makes more sense if I put it later) when I had another croque madame with Maia!
Sure, the angle is so bad you can only really see the eggs… but shush, nobody said I was a professional photographer.
On the morning of Wednesday, the 5th, I had a dream where my birth somehow contributed to stopping a financial crisis in the 1980s, even though I was actually born in the 90s (which still isn't true, because I was in fact born in 2001.)
That evening, we all went out to Portsmouth, where we had dinner!
And I saw a really nice sunset, so I took a photo of that, too!
Also, more importantly, Dad had bought us all tickets to the D-Day 80th anniversary event, so we went there.
I got ice cream!
It was supposed to be a twin cone, but we couldn't see a listing for twin cones on the side of the van, so I got two single cones instead. I mean, it worked?
On Friday, the 7th, it was Maia's birthday! Looking in my diary, it turns out we… kind of didn't do anything for it. Whoops.
Two days later on the 9th, meanwhile, we went up to Dad's home village for the yearly village fête! Here's the sign.
While there, I had ice cream again – this time, it was really expensive (£3 per scoop!) but it was artisanal ice cream, so of course it was expensive.
I also went walking with Mum at one point and took some photos of some nice-looking flowers!
I also tried to take a photo of a bee, but things kept going awry (mostly because I kept jerking my hand away too soon after taking the photos because I was worried it'd try to sting me) so I'm choosing not to include that in this post.
On Thursday, the 13th, I finally went to ask after whether or not I actually have an official diagnosis of ADHD, because we all think I do have it (and as such I'd like to get medication if it could help me focus better, because my attention span is horrendous) – and it actually turns out I don't have an official medical diagnosis, though (based on what the receptionist at the surgery told me) they apparently seemed to think I might have it, but didn't quite have enough evidence.
I think I should look into getting a diagnosis properly… except that my attention span and memory (i.e. the reasons we all think I have ADHD in the first place) don't want to co-operate with me.
Father's Day was on the 16th (obviously) though we had some trouble with getting dinner, because our booking had to be cancelled due to a lack of staff, and while we were able to get a booking elsewhere, there was a problem with the software and we shouldn't have been given it in the first place, because they were full to capacity.
We wound up going to a nearby pub instead, where I had fish and chips.
Then, the next day, I found there was another burst water main (just like almost a year ago) near work, though this one was somewhat further down the street than the last one.
Blue text, by the way, is clickable links. I might've been somewhat loose with whether or not that was the case in the past, but from now on I'm going to make sure blue is only hyperlinks.
And then for the main event this month!
On that very same day, they suddenly announced a Nintendo Direct presentation, which would have announcements and news about various games (like they always do) scheduled for the very next day!
There were three announcements (more than the usual one or two) that caught my attention:
First off, the very first trailer announced a new Mario & Luigi game, Mario & Luigi: Brothership (releasing on the 7th of November!) This is notable, because the company that used to develop all of the Mario & Luigi games, AlphaDream, actually went bankrupt five years ago, so clearly a new developer is handling this game – but Nintendo haven't said who so far.
Next up was about halfway through the presentation, where they announced a new Mario Party game, Super Mario Party Jamboree (releasing on the 17th of October.) I'm not as bothered about this as the other two (though i still think it looks interesting) but I know my cousins Gráinne, Molly, and Isabelle all like playing Mario Party Superstars whenever we see them, so perhaps they might like this one too!
Then, immediately afterwards, we saw a dungeon, where a hooded figure was sneaking around… and then the hooded figure turned out to be Link, but the art looked just like the Switch version of Link's Awakening, so I thought it was a remake of the Oracle games (which were, like Link's Awakening, originally on the Game Boy) – but I soon realised it was, in fact, a whole new Legend of Zelda game!
It's The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, releasing on the 26th of September, which has you play as Princess Zelda herself*, something the fans have been asking for for a very long time, because mysterious rifts have opened up all over Hyrule, imprisoning many people – which includes Link!
*We don't talk about Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.
That game is just weird. And it was also struck from the official record by Nintendo many, many years ago.
Over the course of the month, I watched the remainder of Doctor Who series 14 (the BBC insists on calling it "series 1" again, but I don't think that's justifiable, because it wasn't cancelled for sixteen years this time) and I enjoyed it!
People are whinging about it online, but what's new there?Spoilers for Doctor Who series 14
Episode 5, "Dot & Bubble", left me slightly disappointed that Lindy and the other surviving racist nepo babies didn't get their comeuppance – but that's the point of the whole thing, after all.
Episode 6, "Rogue", saw Richard E. Grant get surreptitiously added to a slideshow of the Doctor's past faces.
Episode 7, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday", featured the return of Sutekh, a villain last seen in 1975's "Pyramids of Mars" and an explanation at last for Susan Twist's multiple roles (Sutekh, having latched onto the TARDIS, created copies of one woman throughout time and space in order to spread death to the whole universe.)
And finally, episode 8, "Empire of Death", saw everybody (except the Doctor, Ruby, and Mel) die, and then Mel died, and then everybody came back to life and Ruby found her birth mum after all (which was the driving force of her character arc.)
Also, Ruby's neighbour Mrs Flood appeared on a rooftop, and warned us (the audience) that the Doctor's story would "end in terror"… ominous!
On Sunday, the 23rd, Maia and I planned to have a (mostly) full Irish breakfast (the only major difference from a full English is the addition of soda bread and white pudding) but we couldn't find the black pudding that she'd bought, so we just ended up having brunch without the black pudding.
Three days later, we were (of course) in the midst of the heatwave that's just ended, and the weather with us shot up to 29°C!
Ouch.
And then the next day, my bed snapped – that is to say, one of the corners of the frame snapped off.
Dad was able to get it temporarily fixed, but we're now on the search for a new bed for me, a little bit earlier than planned.
Anyway, that's all from me for this month.
Now, I said last month to watch this space, and so I have an announcement to make!
Since I'm looking for a paid job, when I get that job, I won't have nearly as much free time as I have now – so these monthly posts will stop when I get a paid job (although I'll still post the one for the month when I get the job.
Anyway, that really IS all from me for this month, and so I'll be back at the same time next month!
Bye for now!