PIES AND DRONES

Morning, all. Happy Monday.

Nice weekend? Hope you didn’t melt. I spent a lot of it drawing a pork pie; that's how rock n' roll I am. And yeah, I know. Might as well have used a photo. Everyone will just think it’s AI anyway. Hussssss!

We also went to my nephew’s 40th birthday party. Lovely to see various nephews and nieces. Everyone has their own expanding families now, so we don’t get together often anymore. That seems inevitable; growing up we were close to my own aunts, uncles and cousins, but we barely see one another these days. Must sort that out.

It was odd in that it was kind of our first big family gathering without mum or dad – my sisters and I having become the oldest generation by default. Kind of ready now for life to settle down to some sort of new normal, rather than constant reminders of my own mortality.

It has been a big week for that sort of thing – as of last Monday we now have only one of our many offspring living at home with us, so the time is coming when Sanja and I are sort of just left to our own devices. I think I got over the worst of my empty nest-iness when my eldest moved in with her boyfriend (now husband), but Sanja's feeling it. At the party I was talking to my brother-in-law, who retired recently. His retirement project is building a big train set in his loft.

I'm not retired yet... but Digi is basically my trainset.

Talking of… we’re off to film a fairly simple video this week, plus a Q&A. I lost faith in the original idea – and the 200-odd miles of driving sort of pulled against the intention of doing something relatively quick, light-hearted, and easy.

The pork pie is a clue as to what we’re doing and where we’re going; it's one I've thought about doing for a while. Hopefully… you should get that video next week.

After that, we’ll be heading to Wales to film our next biiiig one. And you should have the first ep of Drong’s Challenge soon. Lots to look forward to.

I had to buy a new drone last week, because our old one - the one that ended up in the tree - also fell in a river. Can't even blame myself this time: it took off and then just immediately lost power and dropped. Drying it out didn't help, so... new drone that we're looking forward to taking out in Snowdonia. This one at least is an upgrade and has sensors - so hopefully no more flying into insect-infested trees.

There should hopefully be a new Bubblegun today. We recorded THREE last week, and I didn’t really love any of them, so they’ll all end up as Bubblegun Extras, I think. It’s strange in that now we know people are actually listening, I feel we need to just make a tad more effort.

Right. That's it for now. More soon! Byebyebyebye.

Paul