The local, seriously grotty, shopping centre near my church has just (after 10+ years of Council dithering) been rebuilt. One trader who has survived the move is the excellent butcher, who I am now using much more often than hitherto. He doesn't have fancy stuff, but we had a very good chicken from him on Saturday, and his home-made meat PIES are excellent.
I agree that M&S food has gone downhill recently. We don’t often have ready meals, but on occasion if we are out somewhere we buy something to take home to have rather than cook. The last couple of times, the food has been hugely disappointing. I don’t think we’d bother again.
Yesterday evening, we went to Choral Evensong at a village church. Perfection listening to the choir with the sun streaming through the windows in a place where people have been worshipping for 700 or so years. The tea and cakes were good, too!
I quite fancy a pie now.
My workload lightens up this week as I have now finished my regular marking (until dissertations come in) and formal teaching sessions; most of my work is now advising students and one to one support. It’s also a chance to claw back some hours I’m owed from a rather hectic few weeks. I’m only employed term time so in about a month I will have a lot of free time!
I’m about to walk to Waitrose to do the weekly shop, then get some work done. I might take the afternoon off for a walk
What are we all up to today?
Today, since you ask, I will begin by writing a 150 word "Thought for the Week" for the local paper. Then I have to prepare a primary school assembly, make notes for a Kirk Session meeting, and begin the work on two different sermons for a fortnight's time (I am away at the Church of Scotland's General Assembly from Friday till Friday). There is a lunch time prayer group, then the primary school assembly. After than I am meeting the worship team from my new church to help them plan for this coming Sunday when they are taking the service in my absence. This evening I hope to do some gardening and read more of the papers for next week's Assembly. But I may in fact find that I am taking my Giraffe of a son for some driving practice as he has his test tomorrow... I do like the variety of my work!
Today we're about to go swimming, then frantic preparation for next Sunday as I shall be hearing School Appeals all day, every day for the rest of the week! I also have to write ab article for the church magazine, get my glasses fixed and mow the lawn.
This mrning I will be attempting to phone the council about a Notice of Enforcement letter we got on Friday - about a parking offence Mr RoS has no knowledge of.
He probably did park in a restricted area - he was picking up a donation for TWAM in an unfamiliar area on the date in question, but has not received a PCN, nor any other communication from the council, in the 8months since it supposedly happened. Hopefully we can contest it on that basis - it's a lot of money!
After that, I will be going to my U3A singing group , and then doing a bit of gardening after lunch, if I have recovered sufficiently from yesterday afternoon's gardening
Best of luck with the parking problem, Roseofsharon, they can be murder to sort out. The only good thing is that they usually have decent photographic evidence, which saves you from the sort of idiot who thought just moving the parking ticket to my car would get him off the hook.
Today I suppose I will be gardening, and worrying about the complete ass I made of myself at church yesterday. But that's a Black Dog discussion.
I had a parking ticket some years ago ... fortunately my son recognised the date as being the garage had my car in for service! The mechanic clearly stopped of on his way to return the car - of course he "knew nothing about it" but the garage admitted that it was their ticket and paid up.
Today, since you ask, I will begin by writing a 150 word "Thought for the Week" for the local paper. Then I have to prepare a primary school assembly, make notes for a Kirk Session meeting, and begin the work on two different sermons for a fortnight's time (I am away at the Church of Scotland's General Assembly from Friday till Friday). There is a lunch time prayer group, then the primary school assembly. After than I am meeting the worship team from my new church to help them plan for this coming Sunday when they are taking the service in my absence. This evening I hope to do some gardening and read more of the papers for next week's Assembly. But I may in fact find that I am taking my Giraffe of a son for some driving practice as he has his test tomorrow... I do like the variety of my work!
Actually it is not abnormal. But I have given you the details. My parishioners will not know about all of this, different ones will know different bits!
These are appeals by parents who have applied for their children to attend a Church in Wales high school but who haven't secured a place for them. The school is massively over-subscribed; these parents have the right to appeal against the decision and believe there is a good case for their child to be admitted. I volunteered to do this job (which I've done before) and will be one of a panel of three members. We won't be doing them on Sunday, but every day from Tuesday till Friday. There are over 100 appeals to hear this week!
School appeals will be parents appealing that their child should attend the church school and why. This is more likely to be a primary school. And I suspect this is happening all week, hence needing to prepare for Sunday in advance.
I’m still quite gruntled with Marks and Sparks, but I don’t buy a lot of ready-meals. They are my purveyor of choice for British stuff that you can’t get anywhere else, like English tea, crumpets and baked beans.
The public holidays are all finished until the end of the month and it’s going to be rather odd to have to work four whole days in a row (I never work on Fridays).
Well, the admin, enquiries and emails are done. I’ve had leftover roast lamb and a fried egg for lunch and I’m about to get stuck into some individual student support. No afternoon off but at least I will actually get my reading and study day tomorrow which I haven‘t had for weeks.
The Episcopal Telephonic Engine* has been playing up, buzzing like a hiveful of Bees, so I have been to Asda, and purchased a replacement.
All seems well, and the new Engine (a basic BT corded phone) has some useful gubbins and gizmos, whose acquaintance I shall no doubt make over the next few days!
The old Engine has been in use for 25+ years, so I guess I've had my money's worth...
(*Engine, as in Engines of Satan™ , i.e. most modern Teck No Lodgy).
This mrning I will be attempting to phone the council about a Notice of Enforcement letter we got on Friday - about a parking offence Mr RoS has no knowledge of ...
I probably told you about this on the Old Ship™, but when we got back to Canada after my mum's funeral, D. got a parking ticket from a company called Town and Country Parking for an offence committed in Dundee. We'd been nowhere near Dundee while we were over, and as D. pointed out in his reply, at the precise time of the alleged infraction, he was playing the organ for his mother-in-law's funeral in St. Magnus Cathedral, the hire car in question was parked on the Kirk Green and about a hundred Orcadians would be willing to testify to that.
They grudgingly refunded the fine (which had been taken automatically from our credit card), but not before insisting that we provide a copy of the ship's manifest from Pentland Ferries proving that we couldn't have been in Dundee at the time.
I haven't really got anything planned for today, but it's a sunny day, and an Amble might be in the offing; it's supposed to be much cooler and wet tomorrow, so I ought to take thr chance while it's nice.
Later on, I might concoct something with the remains of the chicken in the fridge.
Best of luck with the parking problem, Roseofsharon,
After many hours on the computer, before and after I went singing, to find the right information and the right forms to deal with the problem, then downloading and filling them in, followed by a 15minute queue on the phone to ask help from the Traffic Enforcement Centre with a minor query- it turns out that it wasn't a parking infringement at all, but driving in a bus lane (most unusual for Mr RoS!). That's a whole different kind of offence!
So, another couple of forms to be filled in, plus a visit to the county court to sign them before a commissioner of oaths - for the same reasons, none of the appropriate documents sent ahead if the Enforcement Notice. He will have to pay the bailiffs up front but will, we hope, get the money reimbursed.
I once had to write a letter to confirm that a couple in my congregation were in fact present in worship at the time that they were being booked for a parking offense in Wales….. Maybe the car in question had false number plates, which would open up a whole other raft of offenses.
The North East Man was sent notice of a fine for being in a bus lane. The accompanying photo clearly showed that an approaching lorry had taken a corner wide, forcing the NE Man to swing into the bus lane.
Apparently, the correct course of action legally would have been for the NE Man to remain in the correct lane, forcing the lorry to stop, whilst blocking the road. They should have remained like this until a policeman turned up to authorise the NE Man to move to let the lorry past. And in fairness, it wouldn't have taken long for the police to turn up, as traffic would have backed up quickly, and the A90 would have ground to a halt, creating gridlock and chaos in Aberdeen.
I'm intrigued as to what the police reaction would have been, if they ended up having to sort out a major traffic snorl up caused by someone obeying the letter of the law.
We had various people agreeing from the photo that the NE Man was forced into the bus lane by the lorry, but also telling us that there was no wiggle room with a bus-lane violation.
I got collared with one of those bus-lane things once. It makes me want to encourage one of the plastic letters on my (old, old) number plate to fall off.
Those number plate recognition gizmos are too clever for their own good. I heard of one around here that got shot into oblivion.
Having been proud of myself to be almost accident free for almost a year (keeling over on a stationary bike didn’t really count) I’ve attracted 2 mishaps in 3 days: on Sat morning I slid standing up in a friend’s shower and did a backwards flip out of the bath onto the floor (no apparent damage apart from a bruised back where I landed on the edge of the bath - astonishingly no headaches after seeing stars), then today I tried to drive over the bottom half of a lamp-post (someone else must have taken out the top half already as it was missing) while trying to avoid a lorry that didn’t see me (and drove on). Ho hum. Thankfully I was able to drive the 185 miles home, but I can do without being car-less while it’s being fixed as I have work in fairly inaccessible-to-me locations coming up.
This was at the end of a rather foodie 10 days in northern parts - the Lakes (lamb from the fells but sadly no sign of sticky toffee pudding), Durham (proper fish & chips), Leeds (breakfast foraged at Headingley Farmers’ Market, including Rhubarb Triangle honey) and Sheffield (including a balti, almost as good as those from the Balti Triangle). Back home now to try to lose all the weight I’m sure to have gained.
There's such a thing as the Balti Triangle? The things you learn on the Ship!
I'm a very happy piglet, as the veggie man has opened his stall at the bottom of the road for the summer season, and he's got fiddleheads!
I bought 5lbs for $20, and have trimmed and blanched 3lbs for freezing (that was all I could get into the stock-pot - I'll do the rest tomorrow or Wednesday). That amount will make several lots of SOUP - when it's being whizzed it doesn't matter if they've been frozen - and I might leave a small amount unfrozen to put in a stir-fry.
I had to look it up too, Ostrich ferns appears to be a local delicacy. What do they taste like?
I finally have a reading day, my first for weeks (I supposedly work just over 3 days a week and have allocated myself a Tuesday as a study day and Thursday as a mental health day). I’m going to walk to the garden centre first thing and then come back and read a new book I have on disability and inclusive education.
The Balti triangle is an area of Birmingham bordered by three main roads - making a rough triangular shape. It's population is (was?) mainly Pakistani, and that is where the Balti originated - oh, some years ago now, but sadly long after I had moved south.
It is past it's heyday when it comes to quantity of restaurants, and I can't speak for the quality of the remaining ones, as I only get to eat Balti when visiting my brother on the other side of B'ham. His home-made ones are pretty good.
My brother used to be quite the authority on Balti. He claimed the best one of all was an establishment called Sher Khan on the Stratford Road, which has sadly closed down since. Balti is one of my favourite things about Birmingham. They have a cooking school there and people even come from Pakistan to attend it.
Most French people aren’t keen on spicy food so when you buy subcontinental cuisine* here, it has no kick. I miss it.
*Such restaurants almost always describe themselves as Indian, but in my experience, many of them are run by Bangladeshis or Sri Lankan Tamils
I'd heard of the rhubarb triangle, and now I think about it, the Balti triangle makes sense. We once found ourselves in Bradford at a point when we wanted to eat (it's a long story involving chasing round the country to find an IKEA that had a dining chair to complete a set we were collecting), and decided we ought to have a curry. We found a little place with very unprepossessing surroundings, but excellent food.
I had to look it up too, Ostrich ferns appears to be a local delicacy. What do they taste like?
I had assumed they were local to the Maritimes, but I had a Facebook conversation last night with someone in Alaska who said they get them there as well.
It's difficult to describe the taste - "green" might cover it! To my taste, they're a little like broccoli in taste and texture, but D. likes them, and he claims not to like broccoli at all.
Quite a busy day today: we've just had breakfast at a little caff on the way in to town, and I'm messing about on here while D's at his weekly staff meeting. We've got a funeral to sing at this afternoon, so it wasn't really going to be practical to have lunch at home in between. I'll do a chicken-and-fiddlehead stir-fry for lunch tomorrow.
It's a bit cooler today: 9°, and due to start raining any minute, with the threat of flurries* later in the evening!!!
* At least at this stage it shouldn't lie for long ...
Today I’ve been mostly gardening. This morning at daughter Erin’s I planted 20 livingstone daisy plantlets, I just hope some flourish as they’ll brighten up her border.
This afternoon at home I’m busy cutting back daffodil leaves, making room for other plants ‘burgeoning ‘ as Mr Bee would say.
I think my thighs might be aching tomorrow.
Also took some rosemary cuttings and planted them in a pot. They’ve gone very droopy.
I used to live inside the Balti Triangle until about 27 years ago, when the absolute best 2 were on Stoney Lane (Jasper Carrot agreed as he’d be there regularly) with a couple of close runners on Ladypool Road. Oh how I missed it when I moved south One naan the size of a duvet when there were 4 of us; sweets that the Indian/Pakistani community would drive from the other side of town for but were mind blowingly too sweet for even me.
Today I celebrated the sunshine and pottered in the garden, including pruning & feeding the peach tree which had been given a warning last summer because in 10 years I’d only had about 5 fruit from - well, the threat must have worked because it is covered in them. All it needs now is a summer like last year.
the peach tree which had been given a warning last summer because in 10 years I’d only had about 5 fruit from - well, the threat must have worked because it is covered in them. All it needs now is a summer like last year.
I had a honeysuckle that was given a similar warning. It had last summer to redeem itself and is now no more.
I've been out to my book group ("Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" since you ask) and ate too many nibbles and dips so am now curled up in bed with stomach ache.
...Such restaurants almost always describe themselves as Indian, but in my experience, many of them are run by Bangladeshis or Sri Lankan Tamils
That makes sense. My Dad, a Mauritian Tamil, has visited Paris a couple of times to attend a big Ganesh festival (and several other times as a tourist.) Tamil food is near impossible to find in the UK outside of a couple of specific areas. My Surrey-based aunt gets all her Tamil-related needs met in Tooting, the best place to get masala dosa. Bangladeshi/North Indian cooking is more common in these parts.
Arachnid, former inhabitant of curry house adjacent student accommodation in Bradford, reporting from the Rhubarb Triangle.
There are many Sri Lankan shops in several suburbs near where DIL works.Also an Indian area a bit closer towards Sydney.
We occasionally buy enough for a meal and leftovers but need to be careful that we are not given the westernised food. Three of the family have been to Sri Lanka many times and eat street food etc. One son owns property there too. They love the food.
I used to live near Brick Lane and a good curry was one of the many things I missed moving here; Brick Lane also being useful for buying bagels at 4am. The curry houses round there were also mostly Bangladeshi (I worked in an eye clinic in the East End and lots of our patients were Bangladeshi - I can consequently do an eye examination in Sylheti).
My husband lived in Streatham and went to a small Baptist church which had a monthly cafe where they served the popular local fusion of African goat curry followed by jam roly poly.
I also did some gardening yesterday, I bought and planted a small hardy fuschia for the front border.
When the Gantry* was running in Southampton, on a Friday night they did fantastic Southern Indian vegetarian curries, and onion bhajis the size of a baby's head <drool> The whole family could have supper and go to whatever weirdness (underwater marionettes, anyone?) was playing there, for about £20- bargain!
*The Gantry was a small arts centre running in an old drill hall next door to the enormous Mayflower Theatre. We loved it dearly, but a fire safety inspection closed it down overnight, which is how we came to see Fairport at the Hulse Road Social Club, and Snake Davis at the Turner Sims Concert Hall!
Mrs. S, who now makes her own onion bhajis
ION, the birdies dining at our bistro are eschewing the fat balls in favour of seeds and nuts - Mr. S says they're getting beach body ready
Have seen Mr F off to all-day conference on Important Scientific Stuff, have a couple of hours before going out to last Art class (until the autumn). Having worked though plants and fruit and shells, today is Feathers.
Puzzled as to how I would source these until I bethought me of the dreamcatcher I bought in Colorado several decades ago. Seven of what I fondly imagine to be eagle.
I used to live in Kensal Rise/Willesden Green - which meant South Indian cuisine - Vijay and Geeta - although that one has changed its name. And my favourite place for ages was the Malaysian café in the Whitechapel Idea Store - they did eventually stop warning me about the chilli in the stuff I liked, because I kept buying it from choice. Digging to find more about it, they have now opened a couple of restaurants, one in Westfield Stratford and another in Bayswater as Cafe Rasa Malaysia.
Heavenly Annie’s comment reminds me: African food is also delicious.
During my four month-long vale of woe and misery last year, we were magnificently looked after by an absolute saint of a woman from our church called Maman B (by us, anyway, I think everyone else just calls her B ). She is Congolese. The greatest moment of consolation provided by anyone in the whole saga was when Maman B came round our house and cooked her African cuisine. Catfish, manioc, plantains… it was amazing.
Maman B is a pretty remarkable woman all round. She is a paediatric psychiatrist, which for an African woman of her age is an extraordinary accomplishment. Little African girls of her generation very much did not go off to France to study medicine. And she cooks a mean catfish.
Oh yes! but I have just finished the bag of gram flour - out of date - that Mr. S brought home from the food bank (they weren't allowed to distribute out of date food, so we often ended up using it rather than see it go to waste) and am not sure where I'll find it in this neck of the woods.
Heavenly Annie’s comment reminds me: African food is also delicious.
During my four month-long vale of woe and misery last year, we were magnificently looked after by an absolute saint of a woman from our church called Maman B (by us, anyway, I think everyone else just calls her B ). She is Congolese. The greatest moment of consolation provided by anyone in the whole saga was when Maman B came round our house and cooked her African cuisine. Catfish, manioc, plantains… it was amazing.
I gather from my friend Mr Go Ogle that 'manioc' is the same as (or similar to) 'cassava', and I understand that 'plantains' are a sort of close relative of the banana.
Maman B's dish does, indeed, sound delicious. Fish and Bananas together??
But why not? An Indian colleague of mine, many years ago (he was Punjabi, IIRC) used to bring in, once a month, a home-made dish for the office to share. On one occasion, the 'dessert' was Curried Bananas in their skins - absolutely mouth-watering, so I guess plantains would do as well!
Plantain is like banana but is savoury and generally treated as a vegetable. It’s very nice fried.
I get gram flour from Tesco too so it should be widely available.
Tonight’s tea was tacos with Mexican pulled pork (courtesy of Waitrose), fried chilli greens and guacamole/salsas/sour cream. And very nice it was too.
... Brick Lane also being useful for buying bagels at 4am ...
It most certainly is - bagels generously stuffed with smoked salmon and cream cheese for 50p a pop* from the Bagel Bake! <yum>
* that was some years ago - I expect they're a bit more than that now ...
It's a pretty manky sort of day here - Spring seems to have temporarily buggered off, it's cold and wet and socks have been re-applied.
However, I think we've finally conquered the f****** Permanent Residence forms, after much faffing about,** and they've been dispatched. I fully expect that in about six weeks they'll be returned to us (minus the fees) with some abstruse error in them, which won't be explained.
** why the AF would a Government department accept Interact debit payments from only two Canadian high street banks - ours not being one of them?
Comments
Hope the sparkling new shopping centre satisfies.
Yesterday evening, we went to Choral Evensong at a village church. Perfection listening to the choir with the sun streaming through the windows in a place where people have been worshipping for 700 or so years. The tea and cakes were good, too!
MMM
My workload lightens up this week as I have now finished my regular marking (until dissertations come in) and formal teaching sessions; most of my work is now advising students and one to one support. It’s also a chance to claw back some hours I’m owed from a rather hectic few weeks. I’m only employed term time so in about a month I will have a lot of free time!
I’m about to walk to Waitrose to do the weekly shop, then get some work done. I might take the afternoon off for a walk
What are we all up to today?
He probably did park in a restricted area - he was picking up a donation for TWAM in an unfamiliar area on the date in question, but has not received a PCN, nor any other communication from the council, in the 8months since it supposedly happened. Hopefully we can contest it on that basis - it's a lot of money!
After that, I will be going to my U3A singing group , and then doing a bit of gardening after lunch, if I have recovered sufficiently from yesterday afternoon's gardening
Today I suppose I will be gardening, and worrying about the complete ass I made of myself at church yesterday. But that's a Black Dog discussion.
May I enquire as to what "School Appeals" are? And on a Sunday!?!?
And thank you for the explanation. Very interesting. Best wishes.
The public holidays are all finished until the end of the month and it’s going to be rather odd to have to work four whole days in a row (I never work on Fridays).
All seems well, and the new Engine (a basic BT corded phone) has some useful gubbins and gizmos, whose acquaintance I shall no doubt make over the next few days!
The old Engine has been in use for 25+ years, so I guess I've had my money's worth...
(*Engine, as in Engines of Satan™ , i.e. most modern Teck No Lodgy).
They grudgingly refunded the fine (which had been taken automatically from our credit card), but not before insisting that we provide a copy of the ship's manifest from Pentland Ferries proving that we couldn't have been in Dundee at the time.
I haven't really got anything planned for today, but it's a sunny day, and an Amble might be in the offing; it's supposed to be much cooler and wet tomorrow, so I ought to take thr chance while it's nice.
Later on, I might concoct something with the remains of the chicken in the fridge.
After many hours on the computer, before and after I went singing, to find the right information and the right forms to deal with the problem, then downloading and filling them in, followed by a 15minute queue on the phone to ask help from the Traffic Enforcement Centre with a minor query- it turns out that it wasn't a parking infringement at all, but driving in a bus lane (most unusual for Mr RoS!). That's a whole different kind of offence!
So, another couple of forms to be filled in, plus a visit to the county court to sign them before a commissioner of oaths - for the same reasons, none of the appropriate documents sent ahead if the Enforcement Notice. He will have to pay the bailiffs up front but will, we hope, get the money reimbursed.
Apparently, the correct course of action legally would have been for the NE Man to remain in the correct lane, forcing the lorry to stop, whilst blocking the road. They should have remained like this until a policeman turned up to authorise the NE Man to move to let the lorry past. And in fairness, it wouldn't have taken long for the police to turn up, as traffic would have backed up quickly, and the A90 would have ground to a halt, creating gridlock and chaos in Aberdeen.
I'm intrigued as to what the police reaction would have been, if they ended up having to sort out a major traffic snorl up caused by someone obeying the letter of the law.
We had various people agreeing from the photo that the NE Man was forced into the bus lane by the lorry, but also telling us that there was no wiggle room with a bus-lane violation.
It did get cancelled, eventually.
Having been proud of myself to be almost accident free for almost a year (keeling over on a stationary bike didn’t really count) I’ve attracted 2 mishaps in 3 days: on Sat morning I slid standing up in a friend’s shower and did a backwards flip out of the bath onto the floor (no apparent damage apart from a bruised back where I landed on the edge of the bath - astonishingly no headaches after seeing stars), then today I tried to drive over the bottom half of a lamp-post (someone else must have taken out the top half already as it was missing) while trying to avoid a lorry that didn’t see me (and drove on). Ho hum. Thankfully I was able to drive the 185 miles home, but I can do without being car-less while it’s being fixed as I have work in fairly inaccessible-to-me locations coming up.
This was at the end of a rather foodie 10 days in northern parts - the Lakes (lamb from the fells but sadly no sign of sticky toffee pudding), Durham (proper fish & chips), Leeds (breakfast foraged at Headingley Farmers’ Market, including Rhubarb Triangle honey) and Sheffield (including a balti, almost as good as those from the Balti Triangle). Back home now to try to lose all the weight I’m sure to have gained.
I'm a very happy piglet, as the veggie man has opened his stall at the bottom of the road for the summer season, and he's got fiddleheads!
I bought 5lbs for $20, and have trimmed and blanched 3lbs for freezing (that was all I could get into the stock-pot - I'll do the rest tomorrow or Wednesday). That amount will make several lots of SOUP - when it's being whizzed it doesn't matter if they've been frozen - and I might leave a small amount unfrozen to put in a stir-fry.
And a Rhubarb Triangle.
I'm off to google fiddleheads.
I finally have a reading day, my first for weeks (I supposedly work just over 3 days a week and have allocated myself a Tuesday as a study day and Thursday as a mental health day). I’m going to walk to the garden centre first thing and then come back and read a new book I have on disability and inclusive education.
It is past it's heyday when it comes to quantity of restaurants, and I can't speak for the quality of the remaining ones, as I only get to eat Balti when visiting my brother on the other side of B'ham. His home-made ones are pretty good.
Most French people aren’t keen on spicy food so when you buy subcontinental cuisine* here, it has no kick. I miss it.
*Such restaurants almost always describe themselves as Indian, but in my experience, many of them are run by Bangladeshis or Sri Lankan Tamils
I had assumed they were local to the Maritimes, but I had a Facebook conversation last night with someone in Alaska who said they get them there as well.
It's difficult to describe the taste - "green" might cover it! To my taste, they're a little like broccoli in taste and texture, but D. likes them, and he claims not to like broccoli at all.
Quite a busy day today: we've just had breakfast at a little caff on the way in to town, and I'm messing about on here while D's at his weekly staff meeting. We've got a funeral to sing at this afternoon, so it wasn't really going to be practical to have lunch at home in between. I'll do a chicken-and-fiddlehead stir-fry for lunch tomorrow.
It's a bit cooler today: 9°, and due to start raining any minute, with the threat of flurries* later in the evening!!!
* At least at this stage it shouldn't lie for long ...
This afternoon at home I’m busy cutting back daffodil leaves, making room for other plants ‘burgeoning ‘ as Mr Bee would say.
I think my thighs might be aching tomorrow.
Also took some rosemary cuttings and planted them in a pot. They’ve gone very droopy.
Today I celebrated the sunshine and pottered in the garden, including pruning & feeding the peach tree which had been given a warning last summer because in 10 years I’d only had about 5 fruit from - well, the threat must have worked because it is covered in them. All it needs now is a summer like last year.
I had a honeysuckle that was given a similar warning. It had last summer to redeem itself and is now no more.
I've been out to my book group ("Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" since you ask) and ate too many nibbles and dips so am now curled up in bed with stomach ache.
Arachnid, former inhabitant of curry house adjacent student accommodation in Bradford, reporting from the Rhubarb Triangle.
The rest of the fiddleheads have now been trimmed, cleaned and blanched, and are cooling before being frozen.
It's a dreich evening here: 4° and wet (although no sn*w yet). More of the same tomorrow.
We occasionally buy enough for a meal and leftovers but need to be careful that we are not given the westernised food. Three of the family have been to Sri Lanka many times and eat street food etc. One son owns property there too. They love the food.
My husband lived in Streatham and went to a small Baptist church which had a monthly cafe where they served the popular local fusion of African goat curry followed by jam roly poly.
I also did some gardening yesterday, I bought and planted a small hardy fuschia for the front border.
*The Gantry was a small arts centre running in an old drill hall next door to the enormous Mayflower Theatre. We loved it dearly, but a fire safety inspection closed it down overnight, which is how we came to see Fairport at the Hulse Road Social Club, and Snake Davis at the Turner Sims Concert Hall!
Mrs. S, who now makes her own onion bhajis
ION, the birdies dining at our bistro are eschewing the fat balls in favour of seeds and nuts - Mr. S says they're getting beach body ready
Today is art class for me - we are painting with coffee!
Have seen Mr F off to all-day conference on Important Scientific Stuff, have a couple of hours before going out to last Art class (until the autumn). Having worked though plants and fruit and shells, today is Feathers.
Puzzled as to how I would source these until I bethought me of the dreamcatcher I bought in Colorado several decades ago. Seven of what I fondly imagine to be eagle.
During my four month-long vale of woe and misery last year, we were magnificently looked after by an absolute saint of a woman from our church called Maman B (by us, anyway, I think everyone else just calls her B
Oh yes! but I have just finished the bag of gram flour - out of date - that Mr. S brought home from the food bank (they weren't allowed to distribute out of date food, so we often ended up using it rather than see it go to waste) and am not sure where I'll find it in this neck of the woods.
Also lots of fresh coriander...mmm
Mrs. S, salivating
I gather from my friend Mr Go Ogle that 'manioc' is the same as (or similar to) 'cassava', and I understand that 'plantains' are a sort of close relative of the banana.
Maman B's dish does, indeed, sound delicious. Fish and Bananas together??
But why not? An Indian colleague of mine, many years ago (he was Punjabi, IIRC) used to bring in, once a month, a home-made dish for the office to share. On one occasion, the 'dessert' was Curried Bananas in their skins - absolutely mouth-watering, so I guess plantains would do as well!
I get gram flour from Tesco too so it should be widely available.
Tonight’s tea was tacos with Mexican pulled pork (courtesy of Waitrose), fried chilli greens and guacamole/salsas/sour cream. And very nice it was too.
* that was some years ago - I expect they're a bit more than that now ...
It's a pretty manky sort of day here - Spring seems to have temporarily buggered off, it's cold and wet and socks have been re-applied.
However, I think we've finally conquered the f****** Permanent Residence forms, after much faffing about,** and they've been dispatched. I fully expect that in about six weeks they'll be returned to us (minus the fees) with some abstruse error in them, which won't be explained.
** why the AF would a Government department accept Interact debit payments from only two Canadian high street banks - ours not being one of them?