February 2021 End of Month Review

February seemed to go by quickly. We are now one sixth the way through 2021. Even in lockdown stuff happens, so I thought I would do another monthly round up.

I joined up with some friends via Zoom to watch the Superbowl. It was especially important this year because the team my friend Bryan supports, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, were in the Superbowl. He was a lot more nervous about the game than the rest of us. But the Bucs won comfortably. 

We had some extremely cold weather and even a bit of snow. That made staying indoors to observe the lockdown rules a bit easier - nobody wanted to be out in the bitter cold. 

At the beginning of the month, I had a surprise. A cuddly bat arrived in the post. 

Cathy had arranged an animal sponsorship with the Cuan Wildlife Rescue Centre in Shropshire. Several years ago we took a poorly hedgehog that we found in my brother's back garden to their centre and I have followed them on social media ever since. They do fantastic work caring for injured wild animals and successfully release most of them after nursing them back to health. 

This year for Valentines Day we decided to buy ourselves a big Lego set and build it together. We both wanted to build the Medieval Blacksmith set, so spent most of the day doing that. It was great fun. The finished article now has pride of place in our dining room. 

The build is full of quirky little details. One of my favourite bits was the brick-built bearskin rug.

I had a week off work, which was every inch the staycation. I had a steroid injection in my frozen shoulder so I had to stay indoors for three days. I used the time productively and caught up on several movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I watched the three Thor movies in quick succession. One thing I like about the MCU are the little cameos between the films. There is a funny Captain America cameo in the second Thor film, and a great scene with Doctor Strange in the third one. 

Now that the Mandalorian has finished, Disney Plus have been releasing a replacement marquee television series in WandaVision, which is set in the MCU. We have been tuning in every week. Having the time to watch all the films again has been really useful for me to understand the TV series a bit better. I blogged about how it offered a surprisngly mature viewpoint on grief in one of the later episodes.

In terms of other achievements, I read a book for the first time in months.

It was more like a pamphlet really, but it made me think, so that was good. I blogged about it here.

On my baseball card blog, I reached the milestone of my 600th card featuring Tony Gwynn and also received my first Tony Gwynn card released in 2021. My collection was also featured in a guest post on the blog Baseball Fans Only. In another milestone, Twitter reminded me that it was my tenth Twitterversary this month.

And in exciting consumer news, we finally found the newly-launched McVities cherry Jaffa Cakes on sale. They have been sampled!