Erm, I actually have a similar (and original antique) lace cap which I wear around the big house, and under my bonnet when out walking, when doing Victoria re-enactment. Mine doesn’t cover my eyes through, that one’s owner must have been especially modest.
Managed to do my emails first thing, then go back to bed for a few hours before re-surfacing for some urgent marking. This afternoon I am feeling much better though my rib cage muscles are immensely painful from vomiting and I can’t laugh, bend forward or move suddenly.
Ready made lasagne for tea.
The good news - I have a clean, shiny oven, which works!
The bad news - the oven-cleaning person has posted a before-and-after on her Facebook page. Fortunately there are no identifying features.
Also, it turned out the main problem re carrying the rock salt was the shape, rather than the weight. Once I manoeuvred it into a bag with handles I could carry it with no problem.
I have a 30 minute appointment at the dentist first thing tomorrow. I'm then going to lurk around the library till my mouth is no longer frozen, then head to an archive to read Kirk Session records. Not just any archive either, but, if memory serves me, one with that glorious foosty book smell.
I thought I should take advantage of decent driving conditions, cold but no frost, to visit my sister in her care home. She has long term mental health problems but at my last visit was incredibly well. Today we had a good conversation. The only weirdness was that she was wearing her coat indoors, plus a sunhat. Optimistic?
On my return, the beef stew in the slow cooker was very welcoming.
I've had a couple of very busy days, including a lovely visit to see Nenlet1 with Much GrandNenling Cuddleage and a Small Domestic Crisis in the past 12 hours, now thankfully resolved. Why do I get so uptight about things and why does something relatively small going wrong feel to me as though the whole world is falling apart? Is this peculiar to me or do others find the same?
Anyway - I'm out with friends this afternoon and Mr Nen and I are out this evening to an occasional group that meets round a meal to discuss a topic that we all take turns to choose. Always a great evening and something to look forward to.
And thank you to @North East Quine for alerting me to the fact there are such things as professional oven cleaners! Mine probably (OK, definitely, if I'm truthful) needs a clean, and I've been avoiding the very thought because hassle and stuff..... I can deal with the prospect of having someone else do it!
We seem to have kept the ovens of our range cooker remarkably clean since we moved here, which is a bit of a first.
I finally have a free afternoon to catch up with stuff. The quiz on Wednesday was OK but not brilliant. We'd have won if only I hadn't been so confident about my ability to answer random general knowledge questions for the joker round. It turns out I was much better at films.
Yesterday I went from lip reading class, to bookshop shift to zoom Italian lesson, a council meeting and then another quiz evening. That one was much better though again we didn't win. It was helped by having a professional singer as the quiz master. He knew how to project his voice. This morning was my philosophy group, which is always fun even if we don't get much further forward with what we think.
Why do I get so uptight about things and why does something relatively small going wrong feel to me as though the whole world is falling apart? Is this peculiar to me or do others find the same?
Rest assured - it's NOT peculiar to you, as I feel the same about silly and trivial things (often fixed with little effort). This, in my case, might be simply because I live alone, but it's hard sometimes to keep matters in proportion.
A minor leak from the base of the WC cistern - kept in check by the use of absorbent J-cloths - is hardly the end of the world, although I have spent some £££ and effort on various arcane substances which are supposed to fix the leak, but don't...
💧💧💧
Yes, living alone is a good way of getting things out of proportion if you don't watch yourself. I can remember roaring at a pigeon who'd had the temerity to land in my garden one morning. "Go away, you fat and greedy creature, you're not eating the bird food I've left out for the small birds, and don't even think about speculating on contemplating the mere possibility of even looking at the tree outside my window, I am not having any pigeon nests there."
Luckily I became aware of what I was doing, but I was definitely annoyed with pigeons for the rest of the morning.
Re ovens, Mr Muscle is very good if you do want to tackle it yourself - spray the stuff on, leave it, come back and just wipe it off with a damp cloth. Just remember not to breathe while working with it. It gets those burnt brown marks off ageing casserole dishes as well.
Fish and chips for lunch, it being Fryday, and arctic out there. Dinner not needed for another few days...
Managed to get the urgent marking done yesterday (social-economic health inequalities and health promotion) and prepped a tutorial this afternoon which I am teaching tomorrow (lifestyle and socioeconomic influences on health). Different courses but related themes. I’m still feeling a bit under the weather though and very tired.
I should really look at dinner soon but lack the enthusiasm.
On a more positive note, I haven’t tried to coax the cat out on to the patio for the last week due to bad weather and then illness. Half hour ago she asked to be let out the back door! Hopefully this is the start of a braver cat and she might even consider using the cat flap in future.
Sounds like a productive day @Heavenlyannie , despite feeling under the weather. I hope you feel on top of things soon. Also that your cat continues to feel braver. I'm grateful that I haven't got to think about cooking food for a couple of days, being out this evening and at a wedding tomorrow.
@Bishops Finger and @Ariel , thank you. I don't live alone and it's probably just as well if it could mean I'd get things even more out of proportion than I do and at least there's someone to talk to about concerns. Mind you, I was talking to Mr Nen this morning about the Small Crisis and his attitude was, "It's one of those inexplicable things that can't be helped so you just need to move on" which certainly didn't help me! I couldn't stop thinking about it until it was resolved.
I've been out for coffee with friends this afternoon which lightened things a bit.
It's getting decidedly parky round these parts (currently 2°, but feeling a bit colder than that); if it carries on I might have to break out my Winter Coat ...
It was the turn of the Bamboo Inn to benefit from the porcine custom this evening, so prawns with cashew nuts and fried rice have been consumed, and there's a bowl of prawn crackers awaiting the same fate.
I'll join the Worriers About Trivial Things club; again, as someone who lives alone (but will probably never get quite used to it), I totally sympathise with other worriers.
Today I went to a funeral of a friend’s husband. She and I used to go to our parish church but we now both sing in the choir of a neighbouring church. What was really lovely was seeing so many friends from our former church. Some still attend, some worship elsewhere, but there are no barriers between us.
Afterwards it was my French conversation group which I enjoyed. It was held in the home of an elderly gentleman who has been waiting seven months for a minor operation. Whilst we were there bemoaning the state of the NHS ( and the Post Office and the fat cats and the Tory government and the Middle East…) he received a phone call from the hospital, and we could not help but hear all his latest symptoms. He was offered a date for it- next week. If only all the country’s problems could be cleared up by the end of next week, we said.
The 30 minute dental appointment was done and dusted in 20 minutes; the cost was less than I expected and much less than I feared.
As it was a crisp dry day I decided to go for a walk whilst waiting for the numbness and drooling to abate. I'm going to be a walk leader for a West End Women's Heritage walk this summer and as I was already in the West End, I thought I'd have a wee stroll round part of the route. @Sandmaniac, this included admiring the fairly new plaque to Dr Laura Sandeman. I had an interesting chat with a passer by who saw me staring dreamily at St Mary's. I wound up outside the Queen's Cross Church cafe. Never having tried it out, I went in for a latte and a chocolate muffin which I managed to consume by keeping my head tilted.
And then I spent a delightful, if somewhat chilly, three hours in the charter room of St Machar Cathedral. Amongst the screeds and screeds of accounts of fornicating couples, I found a few relevant to my subject.
Now I am contemplating the 138 photographs I took today.
Very cold, but very sunny here which is weather I like. I headed into town to do some shopping, most of which was successful. My husband meanwhile has gone off to see if he fancies being in a community choir. Singing isn't one of my talents.
Now off to make some guacamole and hope he returns soon as I'm starting to get hungry.
I have a new washing machine! I am inordinately excited about this fact.
Happy laundering 😁 I remember that feeling when I bought mine. It felt like a mark of becoming an adult, even if I was middle-aged. No more laundrettes, no more waiting for the landlord to sort things out. Amazing.
Lunch is takeaway chicken and smoked pancetta in a creamy mushroom sauce with cheese and black pepper from the lovely Italian takeaway. There's torte della nonna for afters which is lemon and almond and looks like, but isn't quite, lemon meringue pie, Italian style.
Very cold, but very sunny here which is weather I like ...
Same here, and so do I!
Choir practice and gossip, then a little pootle to the Post Office to buy some electricity (they're easier than the corner shop about selling you more than £50 at a time). Then to the butcher's across the road where they had T-bone steaks on a special offer, and the nice gentleman behind the counter persuaded me to buy one. I know this may make me seem like a frightful philistine, but I'm seriously considering cutting it up into bits and making a casserole with it - it just looks so intimidatingly big!
Also, I have carrots and potatoes that need using up, and it being a Cold Day, maybe a nice casserole bubbling away in the slow-cooker would be a Good Thing.
As it's nice out though, I'm now going to have a little amble down to Tessie's and top up my supplies of heavy/bulky items like cans of this, that and the other, orange juice and loo roll.
Still chilly here - 3C or 4C - but dry. More of the same to come, it seems, but a degree or so colder...with overnight Frost.
🥶
The Dragon is doing his stuff, albeit rather too well for the CHIPS I put in a while ago. Cook from frozen for 35-40 minutes (it said on the packet), but they were burnt and inedible after just 20 minutes...
Never mind. I have BREAD and CHEESE to cheer me up.
🍞🧀
That lunch sounds lovely, Ariel.
Lunch here was cod, sticky rice and broccoli. My Heavenly made a Brie sauce for the latter but I am not yet at the stage where I trust my stomach with such exotica.
2 hour tutorial delivered, my half was on lifestyles and health. Mr Heavenly has disappeared to visit his parents so I’m relaxing with a cup of tea.
On to other very serious matters. It is freezing cold, and the cheesemonger had tome fraîche yesterday so I am apologising to our arteries and making truffade. Potatoes and a truly obscene amount of CHEESE. This is one the things I enjoy about winter.
ETA I don't think that recipe is a particularly good one. I linked to it to give you the idea in English. Much better ones are available in French.
Saturday afternoon in a blissfully silent house. Just me, a stack of library books to read, a hot cup of good tea, some lemon puff biscuits, the clock ticking peacefully and the electric fire glowing.
It reminds me of a childhood afternoon once spent in the parlour of a family friend, where I was left to myself in front of a turf fire with a book and cup of tea, while the women chatted over tea in the kitchen while my father had to be at an appointment somewhere. "Won't you be lonely?" they said in some concern. Not I. I can still see that scene in my mind's eye, feel the spell of the quiet magic of the fireside. When I'd finished the book and tea, there was the fire to gaze into and find pictures in, a warm, ever-changing source of beauty.
I don't think many western children would get that these days. You certainly don't get the same feeling from looking at a radiator. I've always felt a house isn't really a home without a proper hearth.
Oh for the scent of a turf fire again. And the slow tick of the pendulum clock on the wall.
All this talk of dinners reminded me that if I wanted beef cheek done in time I'd best get on with it. So have duly gotten and hopefully, after three hours in a low oven with wine, stock, shallots, carrot and mushrooms, it should be cutable with a spoon.
Husband enjoyed the choir so I think that is something else he'll be doing. He came home for lunch and then off to a meeting of the local branch of XR. I didn't go as I feel I've been to enough meetings lately!
It's curry night here. I've made a potato and cauliflower one and husband is in the throws of making a squash, chickpea and cashew nut one. I'll also do some rice to go with it.
Oh for the scent of a turf fire again. And the slow tick of the pendulum clock on the wall.
In 2007 I was on the Isle of Man, where we visited some crofters' cottages at Cregneash. They had turf fires, and freshly baked soda bread. The next day when I'd got back home I opened my suitcase and the smell of turf smoke filled the room.
I was reluctant to wash those clothes immediately. Smells can be so evocative. The turf fire was one of the everyday parts of childhood half a century ago.
It was turf fires in the country, but coal in the towns. As a child I can remember riddling the grate (to catch any still-usable cinders), shovelling the ash, then building up the new fire with newspaper, wood and coal. But then my mother would dump wet slack on to the blaze and you'd be left with a glum and fairly heatless affair until it broken up in the evening.
Our first house after we married, although modern (around 5 years old when we bought it in 1988), had a coal fire that was supposed to heat the radiators, but despite David's best efforts at banking it up, it would never stay lit all day unless he came home to feed it.
As for me, I never got the hang of lighting it - even with a plethora of sticks, firelighters and old newspapers, I couldn't get it to catch.
Peat fires are lovely, and yes - that wonderfully evocative smell! - but I really can do without the hassle!
I'm off to have some beef casserole now - it was looking and smelling very enticing when I added the mushrooms a wee while ago.
I had thought my son was coming over yesterday but he invited me there for Sunday lunch today. Fortunately this was arranged just before I got meat out of the freezer to thaw overnight.
After chores, I did a fair bit of sorting yesterday, including extracting years of learned journals from their bindings and sorting for recycling. I completed those in the study, but there are boxes more up in the loft!
Choir is not needed at church this morning so I think I need to do some of my own paperwork.
In other news I have booked two coach tours, one in April so I am away whilst the decorator is here. Not quite a first, but first time not knowing anybody.
It was turf fires in the country, but coal in the towns.
Here the peat was all dug out a couple of centuries ago and for a while boats to Mull (~20 miles of open water) to cut peat there were the only source of fuel. Once steam ships became common they would bring coal right up to the beach and it would be collected by horse and cart.
my mother would dump wet slack on to the blaze and you'd be left with a glum and fairly heatless affair until it broken up in the evening.
Who knows about banking fires nowadays?
Aah - and then 'drawing' the fire when it was needed. To do that a sheet of newspaper was held across the fireplace until the flames blazed up.
The tricky bit was quickly screwing the newspaper into a ball and tossing it into the grate before it burst into flame!
I know most of the heat goes up the chimney, but you still can't beat the pleasure of a real fire in a fireplace. Staring at a radiator simply isn't the same.
Good grief, banking the fire stirs memories, my dad doing it late at night. In fact, I did it in Norfolk until recently. The sound of a grate being riddled is like Proust's madeleines.
... a sheet of newspaper was held across the fireplace until the flames blazed up ...
We had a piece of hardboard, about the size of an opened-out broadsheet newspaper, with Ladies' Powder Room written on one side*, which lived beside the fire and was used for drawing it. I still never got the hang of it ...
* no - I don't know why either!
Another cool but dry and potentially sunny day here (there are decided patches of blue in the sky). I was on coffee duty for the first time (how do I get myself roped into all these things? I've drawn the line at being part of the church cleaning team - you all know my aversion to housework ...).
It was something of a baptism of fire, as the church was packed - the server reckoned there were at least 50 there, and that was even without a few that I knew to be missing. There's something to be said for having a tiny little building where 50 is a mob!
Chilly here. This morning I was in the parish church for the annual Plough Sunday service along with what the local newspaper called other civic dignities. A very nice service, but a very cold church.
This afternoon we've done some gardening. I suppose I'll forgive my husband in time for mistaking one of my cranesbills for a weed.
Midday Sun Shine has been succeeded by the much more usual Cloud (with Heavy Rain forecast for this evening).
I went on deck earlier, to bring in some Wash Ing, and noticed a large Bird perched on an old pontoon at the water's edge (the tide was in). It took a moment for me to identify it as a Cormorant or Shag - common enough out on the open river, but this was the first time I'd seen one in our Creek. That's not to say, of course, that they haven't visited before...
Quite an impressive Bird. He duly spread his Wings, in approved fashion, before taking off back towards the open river.
STEAK & Mushrooms, with Mash, and Red Cabbage, for a late lunch. I confess to sleeping-in this morning, after a restless night, with achey Legs playing up summink crool.
I can't see the words "cormorant or shag" without thinking of this.
Laundry has been laundered (but not yet sorted), and snoozage has been snoozed (with the help of Quite Large Bear).
What I should do now is set the other half of the beef casserole to heat up for supper and sort the aforementioned laundry while it does.
Not a Bear was to be seen, I'm happy to report - but that's because I was taught to always avoid stepping on the join between paving stones, in order thereby to keep Bears away...
Made myself go out for an hour's walk this evening. I didn't want to, but there's a point at which the sight of the same four walls starts to make you feel fractious. It was quite nice walking by the canal and seeing the lights play on the water, and the boats moving slightly in the darkness. I was hoping to see some birds as there are usually swans, but they're canny enough to know people won't be coming to feed them at this hour.
I'm going to miss these quiet winter evenings when the hours of daylight get longer.
Lovely Sunday lunch cooked by my son and plated up for Tomorrow too.
It was a turkey crown, courtesy of the supermarket where my grandson works. At close of play before Christmas, perishables were going to be thrown out, being too late for the foodbanks etc so when nobody else wanted it ( and knowing there was room in the freezer at home ) he brought it home. Nice to benefit, but I am really surprised there were no better arrangements possible at that time.
Comments
Ai beg yore parding?
Though I'm quite tempted by the sort with the long dangly tassel.
(Seriously, no.)
Managed to do my emails first thing, then go back to bed for a few hours before re-surfacing for some urgent marking. This afternoon I am feeling much better though my rib cage muscles are immensely painful from vomiting and I can’t laugh, bend forward or move suddenly.
Ready made lasagne for tea.
The bad news - the oven-cleaning person has posted a before-and-after on her Facebook page. Fortunately there are no identifying features.
Also, it turned out the main problem re carrying the rock salt was the shape, rather than the weight. Once I manoeuvred it into a bag with handles I could carry it with no problem.
I have a 30 minute appointment at the dentist first thing tomorrow. I'm then going to lurk around the library till my mouth is no longer frozen, then head to an archive to read Kirk Session records. Not just any archive either, but, if memory serves me, one with that glorious foosty book smell.
Tomorrow will be a day of agony and ecstasy.
On my return, the beef stew in the slow cooker was very welcoming.
(with apologies to Celtic Knotweed and the North East Man)
I've had a couple of very busy days, including a lovely visit to see Nenlet1 with Much GrandNenling Cuddleage
Anyway - I'm out with friends this afternoon and Mr Nen and I are out this evening to an occasional group that meets round a meal to discuss a topic that we all take turns to choose. Always a great evening and something to look forward to.
And thank you to @North East Quine for alerting me to the fact there are such things as professional oven cleaners! Mine probably (OK, definitely, if I'm truthful) needs a clean, and I've been avoiding the very thought because hassle and stuff..... I can deal with the prospect of having someone else do it!
I finally have a free afternoon to catch up with stuff. The quiz on Wednesday was OK but not brilliant. We'd have won if only I hadn't been so confident about my ability to answer random general knowledge questions for the joker round. It turns out I was much better at films.
Yesterday I went from lip reading class, to bookshop shift to zoom Italian lesson, a council meeting and then another quiz evening. That one was much better though again we didn't win. It was helped by having a professional singer as the quiz master. He knew how to project his voice. This morning was my philosophy group, which is always fun even if we don't get much further forward with what we think.
Why do I get so uptight about things and why does something relatively small going wrong feel to me as though the whole world is falling apart? Is this peculiar to me or do others find the same?
Rest assured - it's NOT peculiar to you, as I feel the same about silly and trivial things (often fixed with little effort). This, in my case, might be simply because I live alone, but it's hard sometimes to keep matters in proportion.
A minor leak from the base of the WC cistern - kept in check by the use of absorbent J-cloths - is hardly the end of the world, although I have spent some £££ and effort on various arcane substances which are supposed to fix the leak, but don't...
💧💧💧
Luckily I became aware of what I was doing, but I was definitely annoyed with pigeons for the rest of the morning.
Re ovens, Mr Muscle is very good if you do want to tackle it yourself - spray the stuff on, leave it, come back and just wipe it off with a damp cloth. Just remember not to breathe while working with it. It gets those burnt brown marks off ageing casserole dishes as well.
Fish and chips for lunch, it being Fryday, and arctic out there. Dinner not needed for another few days...
Yes, FISH n'CHIPS here (Battered Haddock Goujons, no less), with BREAD n'BUTTER...
🐟🍟🍞🧈
Probably make another effort tomorrow, as there's leftover gammon knocking about (lentils, belike). Then beef cheek with mushrooms in red wine.
Very cold: I'm in max clothing - fleece trousers, long sleeve top and alpaca cardigan.
I should really look at dinner soon but lack the enthusiasm.
On a more positive note, I haven’t tried to coax the cat out on to the patio for the last week due to bad weather and then illness. Half hour ago she asked to be let out the back door! Hopefully this is the start of a braver cat and she might even consider using the cat flap in future.
@Bishops Finger and @Ariel , thank you. I don't live alone and it's probably just as well if it could mean I'd get things even more out of proportion than I do and at least there's someone to talk to about concerns. Mind you, I was talking to Mr Nen this morning about the Small Crisis and his attitude was, "It's one of those inexplicable things that can't be helped so you just need to move on" which certainly didn't help me! I couldn't stop thinking about it until it was resolved.
I've been out for coffee with friends this afternoon which lightened things a bit.
It was the turn of the Bamboo Inn to benefit from the porcine custom this evening, so prawns with cashew nuts and fried rice have been consumed, and there's a bowl of prawn crackers awaiting the same fate.
I'll join the Worriers About Trivial Things club; again, as someone who lives alone (but will probably never get quite used to it), I totally sympathise with other worriers.
Onwards and upwards though - it's the weekend ...
Today I went to a funeral of a friend’s husband. She and I used to go to our parish church but we now both sing in the choir of a neighbouring church. What was really lovely was seeing so many friends from our former church. Some still attend, some worship elsewhere, but there are no barriers between us.
Afterwards it was my French conversation group which I enjoyed. It was held in the home of an elderly gentleman who has been waiting seven months for a minor operation. Whilst we were there bemoaning the state of the NHS ( and the Post Office and the fat cats and the Tory government and the Middle East…) he received a phone call from the hospital, and we could not help but hear all his latest symptoms. He was offered a date for it- next week. If only all the country’s problems could be cleared up by the end of next week, we said.
The 30 minute dental appointment was done and dusted in 20 minutes; the cost was less than I expected and much less than I feared.
As it was a crisp dry day I decided to go for a walk whilst waiting for the numbness and drooling to abate. I'm going to be a walk leader for a West End Women's Heritage walk this summer and as I was already in the West End, I thought I'd have a wee stroll round part of the route. @Sandmaniac, this included admiring the fairly new plaque to Dr Laura Sandeman. I had an interesting chat with a passer by who saw me staring dreamily at St Mary's. I wound up outside the Queen's Cross Church cafe. Never having tried it out, I went in for a latte and a chocolate muffin which I managed to consume by keeping my head tilted.
And then I spent a delightful, if somewhat chilly, three hours in the charter room of St Machar Cathedral. Amongst the screeds and screeds of accounts of fornicating couples, I found a few relevant to my subject.
Now I am contemplating the 138 photographs I took today.
Now off to make some guacamole and hope he returns soon as I'm starting to get hungry.
Happy laundering 😁 I remember that feeling when I bought mine. It felt like a mark of becoming an adult, even if I was middle-aged. No more laundrettes, no more waiting for the landlord to sort things out. Amazing.
Lunch is takeaway chicken and smoked pancetta in a creamy mushroom sauce with cheese and black pepper from the lovely Italian takeaway. There's torte della nonna for afters which is lemon and almond and looks like, but isn't quite, lemon meringue pie, Italian style.
Choir practice and gossip, then a little pootle to the Post Office to buy some electricity (they're easier than the corner shop about selling you more than £50 at a time). Then to the butcher's across the road where they had T-bone steaks on a special offer, and the nice gentleman behind the counter persuaded me to buy one. I know this may make me seem like a frightful philistine, but I'm seriously considering cutting it up into bits and making a casserole with it - it just looks so intimidatingly big!
Also, I have carrots and potatoes that need using up, and it being a Cold Day, maybe a nice casserole bubbling away in the slow-cooker would be a Good Thing.
As it's nice out though, I'm now going to have a little amble down to Tessie's and top up my supplies of heavy/bulky items like cans of this, that and the other, orange juice and loo roll.
🥶
The Dragon is doing his stuff, albeit rather too well for the CHIPS I put in a while ago. Cook from frozen for 35-40 minutes (it said on the packet), but they were burnt and inedible after just 20 minutes...
Never mind. I have BREAD and CHEESE to cheer me up.
🍞🧀
With PICKLE.
And BEER.
🍺
And PICKLED ONIONS (if I fancy a change from the Bran***n)
🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅
I have no intention of going out tomorrow...
Lunch here was cod, sticky rice and broccoli. My Heavenly made a Brie sauce for the latter but I am not yet at the stage where I trust my stomach with such exotica.
2 hour tutorial delivered, my half was on lifestyles and health. Mr Heavenly has disappeared to visit his parents so I’m relaxing with a cup of tea.
On to other very serious matters. It is freezing cold, and the cheesemonger had tome fraîche yesterday so I am apologising to our arteries and making truffade. Potatoes and a truly obscene amount of CHEESE. This is one the things I enjoy about winter.
ETA I don't think that recipe is a particularly good one. I linked to it to give you the idea in English. Much better ones are available in French.
It reminds me of a childhood afternoon once spent in the parlour of a family friend, where I was left to myself in front of a turf fire with a book and cup of tea, while the women chatted over tea in the kitchen while my father had to be at an appointment somewhere. "Won't you be lonely?" they said in some concern. Not I. I can still see that scene in my mind's eye, feel the spell of the quiet magic of the fireside. When I'd finished the book and tea, there was the fire to gaze into and find pictures in, a warm, ever-changing source of beauty.
I don't think many western children would get that these days. You certainly don't get the same feeling from looking at a radiator. I've always felt a house isn't really a home without a proper hearth.
All this talk of dinners reminded me that if I wanted beef cheek done in time I'd best get on with it. So have duly gotten and hopefully, after three hours in a low oven with wine, stock, shallots, carrot and mushrooms, it should be cutable with a spoon.
It's curry night here. I've made a potato and cauliflower one and husband is in the throws of making a squash, chickpea and cashew nut one. I'll also do some rice to go with it.
In 2007 I was on the Isle of Man, where we visited some crofters' cottages at Cregneash. They had turf fires, and freshly baked soda bread. The next day when I'd got back home I opened my suitcase and the smell of turf smoke filled the room.
I was reluctant to wash those clothes immediately. Smells can be so evocative. The turf fire was one of the everyday parts of childhood half a century ago.
Who knows about banking fires nowadays?
As for me, I never got the hang of lighting it - even with a plethora of sticks, firelighters and old newspapers, I couldn't get it to catch.
Peat fires are lovely, and yes - that wonderfully evocative smell! - but I really can do without the hassle!
I'm off to have some beef casserole now - it was looking and smelling very enticing when I added the mushrooms a wee while ago.
After chores, I did a fair bit of sorting yesterday, including extracting years of learned journals from their bindings and sorting for recycling. I completed those in the study, but there are boxes more up in the loft!
Choir is not needed at church this morning so I think I need to do some of my own paperwork.
In other news I have booked two coach tours, one in April so I am away whilst the decorator is here. Not quite a first, but first time not knowing anybody.
Here the peat was all dug out a couple of centuries ago and for a while boats to Mull (~20 miles of open water) to cut peat there were the only source of fuel. Once steam ships became common they would bring coal right up to the beach and it would be collected by horse and cart.
Aah - and then 'drawing' the fire when it was needed. To do that a sheet of newspaper was held across the fireplace until the flames blazed up.
The tricky bit was quickly screwing the newspaper into a ball and tossing it into the grate before it burst into flame!
* no - I don't know why either!
Another cool but dry and potentially sunny day here (there are decided patches of blue in the sky). I was on coffee duty for the first time (how do I get myself roped into all these things? I've drawn the line at being part of the church cleaning team - you all know my aversion to housework ...).
It was something of a baptism of fire, as the church was packed - the server reckoned there were at least 50 there, and that was even without a few that I knew to be missing. There's something to be said for having a tiny little building where 50 is a mob!
This afternoon we've done some gardening. I suppose I'll forgive my husband in time for mistaking one of my cranesbills for a weed.
I went on deck earlier, to bring in some Wash Ing, and noticed a large Bird perched on an old pontoon at the water's edge (the tide was in). It took a moment for me to identify it as a Cormorant or Shag - common enough out on the open river, but this was the first time I'd seen one in our Creek. That's not to say, of course, that they haven't visited before...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant
Quite an impressive Bird. He duly spread his Wings, in approved fashion, before taking off back towards the open river.
STEAK & Mushrooms, with Mash, and Red Cabbage, for a late lunch. I confess to sleeping-in this morning, after a restless night, with achey Legs playing up summink crool.
Laundry has been laundered (but not yet sorted), and snoozage has been snoozed (with the help of Quite Large Bear).
What I should do now is set the other half of the beef casserole to heat up for supper and sort the aforementioned laundry while it does.
Not a Bear was to be seen, I'm happy to report - but that's because I was taught to always avoid stepping on the join between paving stones, in order thereby to keep Bears away...
I'm going to miss these quiet winter evenings when the hours of daylight get longer.
It was a turkey crown, courtesy of the supermarket where my grandson works. At close of play before Christmas, perishables were going to be thrown out, being too late for the foodbanks etc so when nobody else wanted it ( and knowing there was room in the freezer at home ) he brought it home. Nice to benefit, but I am really surprised there were no better arrangements possible at that time.