Hay and other fevers

Our brush with DOOOOOOOM* seems to have passed fairly quickly, compared to some people. I still have no sense of taste and very little sense of smell, and we are both still far more exhausted and achy than usual - even at our advanced ages.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, I am trying to get stuff done every day so that I can at least feel like I am being reasonably productive. Admittedly, sometimes that stuff consists of "an hour doing my jigsaw puzzle" but hey, it's SOMETHING.  

Whilst in the throes of plague I wasn't able to concentrate or focus, so anything creative was out. I have a couple of embroidery projects on the go (one has been "on the go" for at least 5 years) but lacked either the eye-focus or inclination to make any progress. I have a couple of new dressmaking projects in mind, and it's only been this weekend that I've given any real consideration to starting them.

Today I have baked a loaf of bread, and had a go at making gnocchi for the first time, using leftover baked potatoes I made a couple of days ago. The gnocchi had a splendid texture, and I am reliably informed that they tasted of "mostly potato." Result. 

I boiled them for 3 minutes, then pan-fried them in sage butter till crispy on the outside. Served piping hot with grated parmesan cheese and (because we're BEASTS) tomato ketchup. I am quietly confident that if Stanley Tucci made my house a destination on one of his TV shows, he would not be disappointed by the food. 

Appalled by the leering middle-aged woman serving it to him, possibly. 

It was Mr WithaY's birthday yesterday, and we had been invited to lunch with some of the lovely neighbours. The sun shone, we sat outside and drank the finest wines known to humanity (I couldn't taste them, so it was a waste of fine-ness) and had a truly memorable meal.

I took along a coffee and walnut birthday cake for dessert, and some jaunty unicorn and rainbow candles, which were all eventually lit at the same time - it was breezy in the garden. 

When it was time to go, I boxed up the remains of the cake (I did check with the gracious hostess if that was ok) and took it out into the garden. 

As we were saying our farewells, the boxed cake was left on a low wall. Within reach, it turned out, of at least one of the resident black Labradors.

 It seems dogs like cake. Who knew?

Anyhoo, we had a slice of it today (not from the dog-nibbled side) and it was still delicious. Apparently. 

All I could smell/taste was a faint whiff of coffee.  The texture was good though.

I'll be glad when my senses are back to normal, and I can actually enjoy food again. And no, I'm not getting thinner as a result of not being able to taste anything, which is annoying.

Today is a Bank Holiday, although I suppose every Monday could be viewed as a holiday from now on. 

I'm starting to half-heartedly look at job websites, but haven't seen anything I fancy yet. I definitely don't want a full-time job, and I don't fancy working at weekends, so my options are limited. 

I might just become a lady of leisure, and swan about wearing a big hat and a flowery frock all day. Or become a village busybody, in the style of Miss Marple, delving into everyone's business, whilst solving murders and drinking tea with locals of note.

Early days.  

*Covid. It was shite. 

Style matters

Today I am pondering the nature of Time.

This is mostly in the context of a party we are heading off to in a bit, up there in Cheltenham.  Coo er gosh posh eh?  A dear friend is having a Significant Birthday this week, and we have been invited along to help him celebrate.  When the invitation arrived, I looked at the clever vintage-stylee design, and the large, highly visible Date of Birth thereon.

Me:  "I can't believe he's 50!  Already!  it only seems a couple of years since we all went to his 40th birthday!  Remember that evening?  That Chinese restaurant in Gloucester?  What a laugh."

Mr WithaY:  Read the date again.

Me:  1954.

Mr WithaY:  And 2014 minus 1954 is....?

Me:  (uncertainly, what with my terrible Maths Blindness affliction)  Um...50?

Mr WithaY:  No.  60.  He's 60.  It's TWENTY YEARS since we went to his 40th birthday.

Me:  But I still have the handbag I took to that party!

So, we are off to a birthday party for a friend who is, incredibly, 60 .  The lithe bugger started long-distance running a year or two ago and is fitter and healthier than he has been in all the time I've known him.  He posts photos on Facebook of him running 10k races, and 25k races, and wearing medals from races, and he looks less knackered than I do after I've hoovered the stairs.

This morning, Mr WithaY has been preparing himself for the event.  He's been rummaging in his wardrobe, selecting garments, then rejecting them, then picking them up again to see the effect with a different waistcoat.  He has, and I am not joking, just been in a quandary as to which pocket watch he ought to wear.
I suggested he forgo the pocket watch, and wear a wristwatch like any sane human, but apparently if you wear a waistcoat, you have to wear a watch chain, and if you wear a watch chain, you have to wear a pocket watch. Well duh.

Mr WithaY has two modes for clothes. He has Work Mode, which involves multiple layers of fleece, Goretex, moleskin, gaiters and heavy boots, with a complicated belt arrangement which has knives, a firelighting kit and his phone attached to it, and he has Going Out Mode, which involves cravats, waistcoats, 1930s trousers, or possibly overcoats, and the same heavy boots (minus gaiters.)  I'm pretty sure that if I didn't put my foot down, he'd wear a monocle.  Maybe two, as he's short-sighted.

To make matters worse, today he has been having to make additional holes in his belt, as he has lost so much weight due to being a manly outdoor type*, so he's smugly looking forward to showing off his svelte shape in front of our friends later.

Next week we're going shopping to buy him some sensible shoes, as all his shoes look like Ray Mears has been tromping across Africa in them.  I haven't told him yet. I'll pretend we're popping into Salisbury for a mooch round the market and lunch at Wagamama, then drag him to a shoe shop.  Bwahahahahaha.

I'm wearing a new skirt and a pretty top, and some lipstick, in order to fulfil the dress code of "smart casual" which is the most hellish of all dress codes. I can do smart - I have ballgowns, and tiaras and evening gloves and feather boas - and I can do casual - look, I am doing that right now - but Smart Casual is a nasty mixture in the middle.  Will I be too casual?  Will I be overdressed?  Will anyone care?

Thankfully, the answer to that last question is a resounding "no," because these are very old friends who for 20 years only really saw me in a field, dressed as a Seventeenth Century musketeer.  Their expectations are low.

In other news, we have had a bit of a health scare with the dog.  A peculiar lump appeared on one of her paws, just above the dewclaw, so I did what you should never do, and Googled "weird lumps on Labradors."  Immediately, inevitably, I became convinced she had terminal Death Paw Cancer Lumps, so we took her to the vet the next day for a check-up.  The vet took a biopsy and added to the alarm by telling us it could either be a cyst (not too bad) or a tumour (GAAAAH WHAT DID YOU SAY??) but that she wouldn't know till after the results came back.

A stressful few days followed, with us playing telephone tag with the vet, trying to get the results. Things were not helped by them leaving a message saying "It's not massively bad, can you ring us please?"

What the hell does "not massively bad" mean?    We only need to amputate one foot?  She could live at least another six months?  Brrr.

Anyhoo, eventually I spoke to the vet, who told me it was most likely a cyst-type thing as a result of an irritation like a bite or a sting or a thorn, and it should go away by itself in six to eight weeks. We have to take her back for a check up in a fortnight though, just to make sure.

The most encouraging thing was that they didn't find any cancer cells, which is what they were looking for.

Here she is, being all stressed out by the situation.

*And not eating 5 custard doughnuts a day whilst sat on his arse at a desk

Canally retentive

I've been away on a canal boating holiday! A very short one. Alright, a weekend. Well, a day and a night and a half a day.  It was very nice too, and despite the freezing wind which whipped around us intermittently, the weather was glorious.

Our lovely mates Bill and Jayne have bought a narrowboat, and invited us to come and admire it, so early on Saturday morning we set off for Oxfordshire.  The sun shone, the roads weren't too snarled-up with traffic, and we arrived almost exactly on time, to be greeted by our mates, offering cups of tea.  Marvellous.

As well as the four adult humans on board, there was a charming dog. We'd sent ours off to have a holiday with her family, and thus avoid the possibility of two excited dogs falling onto the canals.  Anyway, this is the lovely dog who lives on the boat with his owners:

He's a Bavarian Mountain Hound, and a more relaxed dog you'd be hard-pushed to find.

This is the boat, complete with gorgeous hand-painted bargeware bits and bobs:

We went from the boatyard, down the canal to Cropredy, where we went to the pub.  The Red Lion, as well as serving beer, selling excellent cheesy chips and housing a beautiful golden retriever called Shandy, has a guitar shop.  I had a chat with the guitar man, who also runs the pub, and he told me Rickenbackers are buggers to play. Yeah, I knew that.

Oh, they also had a funky clock on the wall:

A stroll around Cropredy, then back to the boat for drinks, pre-supper snacks, and then a mighty fine supper cooked by Jayne.

An evening of chatting, laughing, catching up on 30 years of friendship, then wrestling with the spare bed to allow us to get to sleep, followed by an early morning tea and Jaffa Cake-fest.  A leisurely stroll to the local shop, a look around the Cropredy battle-site memorial, and back up the canal to the mooring.

This little sign took my fancy.  You walk through the Hell Hole to get away from the church.

 The view up to the pub from the canal bridge.

Making way back towards a lock.  The pointy bit you see there is the front.  Sorry if I'm getting too technical.

I liked being in the locks, and I particularly liked this one; the gates look like the entrance to Mordor. In my head.

We passed this sad wreck, seemingly a victim of the storms, where I was intrigued by the musical instruments and amps left on board.  Just across the canal from it was a fallen willow tree, blocking the thoroughfare (is that the right term? I'm not sure) which had fallen across the canal and meant everyone had to risk bumping into the sunken boat to get past it.

As a favour to the canal-dwelling community, it was decided that on the way back down the canal Mr WithaY should wait in the front of the boat with a long trident/rake thingy, and a bill-hook, and when we got close enough to the fallen willow, he would hack away enough of the branches to clear the channel for other boaters.

What a great idea.  You can see the tree there on the left, making it difficult to pass the sunken boat safely.

We got close to the fallen tree, our stalwart captain held the boat in position, and Mr WithaY leant out of the boat with the bill-hook, lopping off the longer branches.  Most of them were so dry and brittle that they snapped at a touch, making his task easier.

Most of them.

Almost as soon as our captain cheerfully shouted "Don't drop the bill-hook in the water, mate!" Mr WithaY hacked at a branch that was NOT dry and brittle. No.  It was green and lush, full of bounce and vim.  So much bounce and vim, in fact, that on contact the bill-hook bounced off with some violence, causing Mr WithaY's hand to release his grip on the handle, and it dropped into the canal with a gentle "sploosh."

Dear readers, there was some bad language.

Fortunately, our sensible (and experienced) boat-owners had a large magnet on a length of cord, and after a little bit of fishing, the bill-hook was recovered, none the worse for wear.

The remainder of the journey to the boat yard was completed with the bill-hook and trident securely stowed away, in no danger of falling in the water.

This is the boat yard, where they had HUGE chickens roaming around outside.  I look forward to seeing it again on a less chilly afternoon.

In other news:  I am pretty much fully recovered now, and am able to drive, carry stuff, lift things (carefully) and walk the dog again, so I am much happier.

I've rediscovered my desire to sew, and have been cutting out all the bits to make a shirt.  Today I went down to the excellent Hansons Fabrics in Sturminster Newton and had a good old poke about.  Tomorrow I shall start actually sewing all the bits together, and by the weekend I plan to have a funky new shirt finished.

It's all go here.

Jubilant

So, what did everyone do over the long Jubilee weekend, eh?  Street parties?  Picnics in the park?  Champagne and strawberries under a glorious blue June sky?  Lining the streets of London to wave a flag and cheer at the Queen?

No, me neither.

I was in a field.  In Derbyshire.

Why oh why oh why was I in a field in Derbyshire?  You may well ask.  Well.  Mr WithaY's new chosen career is that of bushcraft instructor, and he had been asked to go along to the Bushcraft Show to help out with one of the trade stands - a company he has been training, and latterly working with.

He asked me if I'd like to come along, to meet his colleagues, look at all the other stands, and see what it was all about.  I said yes.  But only on the condition that I could book us into a local B&B, as I have decided that I am too old, too creaky, and in all likelihood too wheezy to camp much these days*.

I found a pub with rooms a few miles from the showground, booked us in for three nights, and off we went on Friday afternoon.  It was a hellish journey, inevitably.  A long Bank Holiday Weekend, plus the usual evening rush hour traffic meant that it took us probably two hours longer than we had expected, but we arrived eventually.  Mr WithaY rang his colleagues to find out if we were needed to go and help set things up, but they were only then leaving home, and weren't likely to arrive much before midnight, so we were free to go and grab some dinner and have an early night, ready for an early start on Saturday.

So.  Saturday morning - having left the pub too early to enjoy the included-in-the-room-cost breakfast chiz chiz chiz - we drove across to Elvaston Castle, and this is how the showground looked:

As you can probably tell, it was a bit damp.  I did like the giant three-point teepee though.  It had a big tv screen in it.

Saturday was successful, there were a lot of people wandering around, and there were many demonstrations of various skills going on.  Flint knapping proved very popular, and drew crowds every time the knapper started working.

See how he knaps.  I asked him what he does with all the broken bits of flint once he's finished, and apparently they all get placed in a special spoil heap at a university, to ensure that the archaeological record isn't polluted with 21st Century flint arrowheads.

There was also a lovely lady making willow baskets and things.  I watched her for ages.

It made me want to have another go, after the excellent day Mr WithaY and I had last Autumn in Somerset, basket weaving.

There was also a chap there who had made several canoes and kayaks.  He told us how he'd travelled to Canada, visited some Colonial re-enactment type place and asked them if he could learn to make a canoe in their workshop.  They considered it, finally told him he could, but only if he agreed to dress as a Voyageur while he did it, and talk to the public.  He spent three months dressed up, learning canoe-making, and said he loved every minute.

Unfortunately, all day on Sunday it pissed down.  The rain woke me in the night - did I mention we were staying in a pub, not a tent? - and it didn't let up for about 36 hours.  The numbers of people coming through the show were correspondingly low.  As I hadn't packed my wellies, by lunchtime my feet were soaked and I was cold and miserable.

I think this encapsulates the mood:

Hopelessly optimistic, offering strawberries and scones in a sea of mud and cold, cold rain.

I took myself off to the car and sat there in the dry, if not the warm, reading my book, playing Angry Birds and snoozing intermittently until it was time to leave.  One bright spot was a phone call from some lovely mates who live nearby, who were:

(a) miffed that we hadn't thought to ask them if we could stay at their house, and

(b) seeing if we'd like to meet them for dinner later.

That cheered me right up.  A wet, cold, grim day was thus lifted by a lively and good-humoured evening with our mates, and several large glasses of wine.  Mmmmm wine. These are the mates we went to Cornwall with a couple of years ago.  When Mr WithaY fell in the river. Yeah, you remember.

Monday was much better.  The sun shone, there were loads of people, and suddenly everything looked cheerful and interesting again, rather than just rain-sodden and squalid.

We left at about 6 in the evening, having helped to take down the tents and so on, and had an uneventful and much shorter journey home in the bright evening sunshine.

One other highlight of the trip was travelling over to Matlock to pick up my clock.  Remember I said I'd commissioned a clock as a "Congratulations on doing 23 Years in the Civil Service" present for myself?

It was ready for collection last weekend, so we went and collected it.  Readers, it is a thing of beauty, and I am completely thrilled with it.

Look, here it is in the box, about to be put up on the wall in pride of place.  The brush is for dusting it.

And here it is in situ:

It is keeping excellent time so far, but my genius clock-making mate assures me it will need to be adjusted sooner or later.  In the meantime, I am enjoying the look of it, and the rather reassuring tick-tock it makes.

It's joined my Rickenbacker on the list of Things I Will Save In A Fire.








*Although if we get one of those funky circular tents you can fit a wood-burner in, I might reconsider

Goop

To celebrate the glorious weather, I decided to colour my hair.  Yeah. That's how I roll, me.  I am fortunate to have a nice natural hair colour to begin with - dark brown with a fair bit of red in it - and I didn't want to change it very much.  What I DID want to do was disguise the increasing number of pure silver threads which are starting to appear.  Not just in ones and twos any more, either.  No, these bastards are multiplying, and having very dark hair, they are incredibly noticeable.

Well, I think they are.

Mr WithaY gets a bit tetchy when I whine and bitch about all the grey in my hair. He makes harrumphing "retired brigadier" noises at me, grumbling that "I can't see any" and "it looks fine."  Men.  He looks distinguished with a bit of grey in his hair.  I look like a witch.  Cuh.

So.

I went to visit my lovely mum last week, and decided to pop into town* before we went home in the afternoon.  Well, there's a Lush there.  Mr WithaY refuses point blank ever to go into a Lush shop "because of the awful smell."  I said they'd soon get used to it, but no, he stayed outside.

I stocked up on their lovely shampoo bars - these ones, if you're interested - and also bought a block of their finest, brownest, henna.

The next day, having Googled the instructions, as there were none provided with the product, I prepared to get a-colouring.  I have used henna before, and am well aware how revolting and messy it can be, so I decided to do it in the garden as much as possible.

The first thing you have to do is melt the henna block in hot water.  It looks like a giant bar of chocolate, and you break off as many chunks as you think you'll need.  I decided to go for two blocks, as my hair is pretty thick and fairly long, but I wasn't looking to change the colour very much.  I have no idea if those are the correct criteria for henna-block allocation.

So.  Into a GLASS bowl went the two chunks - it stinks, by the way - and then boiling water.  I stirred it for ages with an old wooden spoon, adding more water intermittently.  Several of the instructions I'd found online suggested that a bain marie was a good idea to keep it all warm while it melted, so I put the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stirred for bloody ages.

After about 20 minutes of simmering and stirring, it was ready.  I carried the pan and bowl out into the garden, where I had already stashed an old towel that I wasn't worried about staining, a box of clingfilm, some hair clips and several old tea towels.  It looked like someone was about to have a baby pioneer-style, and then smear it with hot green poo.  Outdoors.

There was an uncomfortable hiatus where I thought "How the bloody hell am I actually going to do this?"  I briefly considered ringing a friend** to come and help, but decided to crack on on my own, and see how it went.

After considering several options, I went for the "grab a handful and slap it onto your hair" approach.  Then another handful.  Then another.

And so the long afternoon wore on.

I spent 20 minutes working it into my hair, whilst trying not to fling it all over myself, and I was running very low on both patience and henna mixture by the time my hair was covered. I kept adding more hot water to the henna left in the bowl to eke it out, and sort of squidged it through my hair, hoping it would reach all the bits I'd missed.

Once you've created a stylish set of mud dreadlocks, you have to wrap your head in clingfilm.  TOP TIP: Don't do this outside.  Especially if it's a bit breezy.  I must have spent at least 10 minutes persistently untangling a long strip of clingfilm, trying to wrap it around my goopy mud-filled hair, only to have a gust blow it all into a spiral of uselessness, when I would have to start untangling again.

I gave up and went indoors to wrap up in the end.

This was the result.  CAUTION:  You may be struck with nausea and/or desire, depending on your tastes.

Note the attractive beetroot shade of my face after hours of standing over a hot stove, bending over in the blazing hot garden, and fighting with recalcitrant clingfilm.  Sexy, no?  You'll be relieved to know that I wiped off all the henna from my face before it stained me patchily brown.

Anyway.  I wrapped the revolting mess in an old towel, then left it to mature.

Three hours later, with a stiff neck and a banging headache, I started washing it out of my hair.  Readers, this took bloody ages.  AGES.  The instructions suggested using a lot of conditioner to help get all the twigs and gravel out, so I did just that.  Two big handfuls of conditioner later, the water was starting to be less brown and muddy, so I bravely moved to shampoo.  Ugh.

Several shampooings later, yet more conditioner, and finally the water was running clean, so I could assume I was about done.  I dried it, and eagerly looked at it in the mirror.

It looked almost exactly the same.

Gah.  Five hours well spent there, then.

Still, the silver hairs are now sort of pale brown/gold, which I prefer, and it is VERY shiny.

Also, please admire my domestic goddess pinny.

In other news:  We have arranged to have our garage converted into a storage room (for me) and a workshop (for Mr WithaY) for our respective business plans.  Mine will contain a fridge, a freezer, some cupboards and a lot of jam jars.  His will contain a lathe, some antlers and a giant heap of woodshavings, as far as I can make out.

I'm quite excited about it, as it will allow me to get Plan B underway, since our farm shop idea bit the dust.

In other, other news, we went to a barbecue with some neighbours on Saturday night.  I decided to take my little travel guitar along, as it was that sort of a day.  Well, every day is that sort of a day, to be honest, but you know, sunshine, barbecue, wine, yadda yadda yadda.   On the way there, walking through the village we ran into a friend***, so we stopped for a chat.

"Are you off to the barbecue?" she asked us.

We said yes, we were.

"Oh, is that your guitar?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said proudly.  I'm still absurdly proud of my travel guitar.

"Did they ASK you to bring it?"

"Um.  No."

Her peals of laughter followed us along the road for quite some time.







*Hello Chichester!
**Jo, it would have been you.  Sorry.
***Hello Sarah!

Cheep and nasty

Activities in my life since my last post can be summarised thus:

Sewing, fitfully and without enthusiasm, with a growing sense of panic about deadlines.  Self-imposed deadlines, mind, not anything that I have been ordered to make.  There's a cake sale and sort-of craft sale in a couple of weeks in the village, and in a fit of enthusiasm I agreed to have a stall there.  So of course, I need some stuff to sell.  It's very strange making things that other people will  look at and then decide if they want them enough to give me money in exchange. Previously when I have made things for people it has either been as a gift, when they respond politely, or on commission, when I know that what I am making is what they want.

Knitting, whilst watching TV and complaining about the programme I happen to be watching.  I'm about halfway through Mrs Jones' scarf, and I am pleased with how it looks so far.  I've never tried making anything that involved short rows before, and I shall definitely be using them again.  Perhaps for a charming hat.

Watching TV, usually criticising whatever is on loudly, whilst looking stuff up on IMDB to validate my assertions.  Unless it's MasterChef, in which case I just shout at Gregg Wallace and his odd shiny head.   Oh, and make monstrous "gnnaaaaaaaaarghkkkk!" noises whenever he opens his cavernous maw to devour a huge forkful of whatever the sweating terrified contestants have produced.

Cleaning the house.  The place looks like some sort of bizarre show-home, one occupied by wild animals and someone with a baking fetish.  And Davy Crockett. And a Medieval robber baron.  And a Victorian seamstress who likes cushions.

Grocery shopping.  The high spot of that particular achievement was getting a discount on diesel because I spent more than £60.  Which meant when I filled my car up, I saved almost £7.  It all adds up.  I did go to the Frome Farmers Market yesterday, though.  I bought mild goat's cheese from a tousled and attractive young man, and a horseshoe-shaped load of olive bread which is delicious

Dicking about on the Internet.  Obviously.  I've been trying to get my head round Twitter again, giving it a rather longer period to win me over than I did last time. I think I gave it about 48 hours last time, and then gave up on it, deciding it was a sack of arse.  Oh, and playing World of Warcraft with a friend in America, which has been terrific fun. Yes, I know.  I can't get my head round Skyrim, I find the look of the game rather depressing, and that limits my desire to play it.

So yes, I've been reacquainting myself with Twitter.  It's a process of trial and error.  It's been great for finding some interesting new blogs to read but I get very bored with my feed when it's full of the same two or three people saying much the same thing over and over again.  There are a few very funny people out there, and I am enjoying their input, but I'm afraid anyone who just constantly pushes their website, or re-tweets stuff I'm not interested in gets removed from my feed.

One gem I found, and which has been making me cry with laughter, is the Star Trek - The Next Generation Series 8 feed - @TNG_S8 if you're inclined to take a look.   It runs as-yet unfilmed plots for the 8th series of TNG, and whoever is writing it is inspired.

Examples:

A transporter error quickly fills the ship with hundreds of excited dogs. Worf calls them "fools" and "disgusting". 


A world with a terminal plague tries to attract the Borg as a cure. Geordi's visor falls off into the toilet for the millionth time.


Alien minstrels trap Riker in a 90's dreamscape, only Picard can swashbuckle him free. Data and Geordie tie the hula hoop competition again.


If you're not a Star Trek nerd, I daresay you will merely sigh and move on, but if you are (like me) you will love it. Take a look.  

Cooking.  Actually, the last entry on the list of non-achievement reminds me that we had some friends over for dinner last weekend. More or less on a whim, which is something that I like very much, and I spent much of Saturday making a variety of Indian dishes.  Nom nom nom.  I even made coriander flatbread - from scratch - which worked reasonably well.  I made (brace yourselves):

• Lamb and aubergine curry, with a home-made spice mix, which was fab, though I say so myself
• Tandoori chicken, basically chicken pieces marinaded in yoghurt and spices, then baked till tender
• A red lentil daal, with loads of ginger and black pepper.  It tasted lovely but looked like workhouse gruel.
• Sag aloo, with potato, spinach and spices, very nice
• Plus the afore-mentioned flatbread and rice, and some little samosas which I bought from the supermarket and which we had as an appetiser.

My excellent mate* brought a pudding.  I love living in a village.

There were a couple of pieces of sad news, unfortunately.  One of them involves our mates with the mad spaniels.  They had to have one of them taken to the vet for the last time as she was - in addition to being a venerable old spaniel lady - quite poorly.  I remember when she was a teeny tiny puppy, I spent an evening in the pub with her flopped bonelessly over my shoulder like a rag doll, completely comfortable, sleeping.  She was a sweet-natured character and will be missed.  On the plus side, she probably had about the best life a dog could ever wish for, and it was a long one too.   And she got to be a bridesmaid a few months ago.

*Hello Jo!

Godzilla service pack

I've got several blog posts sitting in the Drafts folder, started, then abandoned, like a too-big sandwich that you thought you could manage, but it turned out you couldn't.

There are several reasons for this, including the old favourites "utter laziness", "lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter that is my life" and of course "distracted by watching a film on TV and forgetting all about the blog."

Additional reasons which are slightly less dull and objectionable include:

Christmas.  I know it happens at the same time every year, but even so.  Things were busy, what with going out a fair bit, and enjoying spending time at home with Mr WithaY and various friends who have been calling in to visit.  A couple of Mr WithaY's former colleagues called in the week before Christmas for tea and mince pies, and it was very nice to hear about how shite things are in the office.  Mr WithaY was able to enjoy the gossip and then sigh happily to think that he is well out of all that madness now.

We had a party.  It was successful, in that all the food was eaten (and I think enjoyed), nobody left in a high dudgeon (as far as I know) and nothing got smashed.  Well, only a few of the guests.  In fact, that felt like the start of Christmas, and things have been mostly very nice ever since.

However.

The night of our party, ten minutes before the guests started to arrive, we had a phone call from a very dear friend.  His wife, another very dear friend, had been gravely ill following a heart attack.  Horrible.  We'd been informed of this by her brother a few days earlier, so were already anxious.  Anyway, her husband rang us to let us know that there had been more tests run, including an MRI scan, and that the results were devastatingly bad. In fact, he all but said that they were now just waiting for the end.  Well, fuck.  We (me, Mr WithaY and our recently-married mate who was staying with us for the party) had a stiff drink, I had a bit of a cry, and then we had to put on our best smiley faces and greet our guests.

All things considered, it was a very good party, but it was a bit weird.  At one point I went and sat outside on the bench in the front garden and looked at the stars, and had a surreptitious little weep (I had been drinking a fair bit, if that's any mitigation) but other than that, it all went well.

Recent news of our friend's progress  is fractionally encouraging, but not much.  We're waiting to see what happens.

The traditional Christmas Cold has made its annual appearance too.  Mr WithaY succumbed to it on Boxing Day, and since then has spent his time wrapped in many, many layers of fleece and wool, taking Beechams and accruing a huge mound of balsam tissues on the floor beside him, which then get ritualistically thrown on the fire, in a sort of Viking burial for germs.  I thought I'd got away with it until today.

I have not got away with it, however, and today I am developing my very own germ Valhalla mound.

Also, I got my car back this week.  It had a broken turbo, it turned out, and as a result I had to spend £1500 to get it fixed.  Fucking Toyota parts.

For that kind of money, I want my new turbo personally delivered by Godzilla.  On a bed of carefully-sliced fugu fish.  With a band of high-ranking Samurai warriors as escort.

They should do that.  Call it the "Godzilla Service Pack."  I'd buy it.

Anyhoo, the car is running well again, and if I felt less shite I dare say I'd go out in it.

So, Happy New Year to you all.  Thank you for taking the time to read and sometimes comment on my blog, I appreciate it very much.

I'd still write it, but it's more fun knowing there's an audience out there.

Master Chef

Hello virtual mates!  Hello hello hello.  Yes, it's been a while, hasn't it? 

Every time something has happened which I have thought would make an interesting and/or amusing blog post, I've self-edited in my head until I think "Actually, it would be dull and a bit shite, so I won't do it."

Bad habit to get into.  Baaaaaad. 

So, what has been going on in my life since the last rambling set of unrelated semi-anecdotes I inflicted on you all?

1)  A wedding.  Remember I told you about the hen party?  Yeah you do.  Mr WithaY went to the related stag party the following weekend - beer, watching a rugby match, curry, beer, whisky, sleep, nausea and pale fragility for the next 48 hours - which he said was "fine." 

As an aside, whenever I ask him how something was, it was usually "fine."  Sometimes it was "ok,"  occasionally it was "a bit weird," but in the main his go-to review of all social events at which I am not present is "fine." 

Many years ago, he went to a re-enactment event in Cornwall without me.  It was one I had been really looking forward to, and to which practically all our friends were going. 

I had appendicitis, which for about two years was misdiagnosed as "a stomach bug" or "food poisoning" or even "a dairy allergy" and this was during that dark, miserable (but skinny) time.  Eventually I had to be rushed to hospital to be operated on, and was able to gloat, pointing at my stitches and telling everyone "See?  I TOLD you I was ill."

Anyhoo, this particular weekend I was vomiting and dizzy and feeling awful, so I said I wasn't going to go to Cornwall.  Mr WithaY offered to stay home and look after me, but I said no no no, you go, you've been looking forward to it, have fun, you just enjoy yourself without me.  So he did, the bugger. 

He returned home on Sunday evening, sunburnt, muddy, bruised, exhausted, and I said "Well?  How was the weekend?  Who was there?  What happened?"  And he said "Yeah, it was fun." 

I interrogated him for the best part of the evening.  Who was there with who?  Were there any relationship breakups?  What scandal and gossip?  Was anyone injured on the battlefield?  What outrages were committed in the pub?  Tell me!  TELL me! 

In the end I gave up and rang a female friend.  We had a two hour conversation where she filled me in on all the many and varied events of the weekend.   Gah.  Blokes.

So, yeah.  The wedding.  It was lovely.  But, lordy, I have never been to a wedding where so many people cried.  It was like some airborne chemical had been sprayed into the room to make us all weep like children whose hamster just died.  The bride walked in looking stunning, in floods of tears, which set all the women off.  The groom started choking up as he said his vows, and ended up weeping, which set all the blokes off, which then set all the women off again.  There was one small child there who took exception to the "noise" in the room, and she started weeping loudly, until her poor mother took her out, and spent the entire service weeping on her own in the bar as she was missing the ceremony.

Honestly.  It was a soap opera wedding in emotional terms.  The sun shone for the photographs, everyone looked lovely, including the specially-bathed mad spaniels, and the food was incredible.  They'd arranged a Blues Brothers tribute band for the evening, who were excellent, and I think pretty much everyone there had a dance or two. 

We were staying the night at a pub/hotel locally, along with a dozen or so of the wedding guests, so it ended up being a convivial team breakfast the following morning, then a huge mob went to the newlyweds house and drank tea, then huzzah, off to the pub for lunch.  Mr WithaY and I finally got home at about 4pm.

Marvellous.

2)  I've been making stuff. A neighbour asked me to make her some fabric-y bits and pieces.  We bartered.  She gave me a pedicure and some gorgeous nail polish (she's a beautician, not a foot fetishist,) and in return I did her the cushion covers and a noticeboard. 

I like barter. 

The photos don't do justice to the colour of the fabric she wanted me to use, or to the perfectly-matched ribbon and fabric I found for the criss-cross straps and fabric-covered buttons.  That I made.  Yes I did.

Today I have been finishing off the last cushion cover, and will take a picture of that too, just for completeness.  I bet you can't wait.

3)  Future business plans for the WithaY household are taking shape.  I won't go into detail now, for fear of jinxing things, but I am feeling positive about the future.  Plus we paid off half our mortgage this week with some of our redundancy money.  Yay.  Watch and learn, Greece.  And Italy. 

4)  We had friends round for Sunday lunch last week, and I decided to have a go at making a sticky toffee pudding.  I've never made one before, and was inspired by the delicious one I was given for my pudding at the wedding reception. 

I followed the recipe to the letter - to the LETTER - and the end result was perfect.  Rich, sticky, dark, sweet and fruity* with a light yet dense texture.  The sticky topping was perfect too, the cream, butter and sugar sauce formed a dark toffee-coloured emulsion, thick and gooey and smelling of caramel and butterscotch. I poured a little onto the pudding as it baked and it formed a sticky, unctuous topping, as specified in the recipe.  Which I followed TO THE LETTER. 

The main course was roast pork, with a selection of vegetables, stuffing balls** and roast potatoes, served with delicious meaty gravy.  Mr WithaY made the gravy, and it was perfect.  Thick, rich, dark, savoury little flecks of pork meat floating in it from the roasting dish, just enough fat to make it cling to the food, not so much that it was greasy. 

We ate our pork and vegetables, enjoying the delicious gravy.  We enjoyed the delicious gravy so much that the gravy jug was almost empty.

I asked Mr WithaY to refill it from the pan on the stove top, as he was nearest to it.  He jumped up with alacrity and returned in a moment, the jug practically brimming.  Mmmm delicious gravy. 

One of our friends poured a generous helping of gravy onto her greens.  I picked up the jug and went to do the same.  I sniffed at it, a sudden cold thrill of suspicion running through me.

It smelled like butterscotch.

Mr WithaY had refilled the jug from the wrong saucepan.

I was mortified. 

Our friends declared that greens with pork and butterscotch sauce was wonderful, so, possibly influenced by the wine we had been swilling down, I tried it.  And you know what?  It was bloody lovely. 

For pudding we had sticky toffee pudding with pork and butterscotch sauce, and that was bloody lovely too.

Last night, all on my own, I made up some more cream, butter and brown sugar sauce and had it with leftover sticky toffee pudding.  It wasn't the same. 








*much like me, except for the rich part. 

**fnar

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap

This week is the (sort of) official start to the new way of life in the WithaY household. 

Mr WithaY finished his job last week - although today is the last formal paid working day for him - and had a leaving party on Friday lunchtime at the pub.  It was very pleasant, a lot of his colleagues came to join him, some travelled some distance to be there, which was very touching.  There were the traditional semi-embarrassing speeches, the giving of gifts and cards, and then it was home for tea and medals.

Twenty eight years and one day, he's done.  It's a long time, and a lot of memories.  But now it's all change, moving forward with the new life and all that.  We're both still feeling positive about it all, despite the facts that:

a) We are no longer earning any money
b) The world economy seems to be doomed.  DOOOOOOOMED
c) Winter is coming

Hey, what's the worst that can happen?  Frankly, given the amount of shite* that we have coped with together over the last few years, I think we can handle it, whatever it is. 

So.  Today.  Dawning of a new era etcetera etcetera etcetera.

We began by getting up at a reasonable hour, drinking tea, eating porridge and listening to Radio 4 Extra, a radio station I like more and more.  All very domestic. 

Then Kevin the Decorator arrived.  He's great.  He's fixing the huge unsightly crack across the bedroom ceiling, repainting the (cracked) bathroom ceiling, repainting the water-stained patch on my study ceiling, and replacing the broken front doorstep in our porch.  He can do anything. 

Mr WithaY made him a cup of tea, then headed off to see his mate Josh in Somerset.  They are both on the bushcraft training course, and he handily lives nearby**.  Josh is having our hideously uncomfortable futon for his house (although the more I hear about the house the more it sounds like a shelter made from brash in the forest) and in return he is helping Mr WithaY make a knife.  For bushcrafting. 

Mr WithaY has lately also been making lengths of cord out of nettle fibres.  It was the homework he was given after the last bushcraft course instalment.  The mice set up home in the bundles of cord-making and fire-lighting vegetation he has been garnering, hence his determination to remove them at all costs.  Well, peanut butter doesn't grow on trees.  Unlike the bark he needs for kindling.

He is thoroughly enthusiastic about his new career choice, which is excellent. I am going to have to learn to tolerate the seemingly endless collections of twigs, bark, reeds, plant seeds and Interesting Bits Of Wood that are accumulating around him.  He's like Saint Francis of Assisi, but for woodland detritus.

I've been sorting out stuff around the house, hence Kevin the Decorator's visit, partly in preparation for the winter, partly to try and kick start myself a bit as I have got lazy over the last couple of weeks.  In fact, once I finish this, I am going to cut out a load of cushion covers that I have been meaning to do for about 3 weeks now. 

Yeah.  Lazy.

Later on this week we are off to Gloucestershire for our lovely mates' wedding, which I am very much looking forward to.  I am hoping their mad spaniels will be dressed as bridesmaids, with baskets of rose petals around their necks but I fear I may be in for disappointment.
 
The hen party I went to last week was interesting.  I'd never been to a hen party before, which for a woman in her mid-40s is remiss.  It was at a "Spa Hotel" near Bath***, and whist the hotel part was mostly ok, the spa wasn't great.  Perhaps I am spoilt by having been to Ragdale Hall a couple of times.  However, I don't think that having to walk across a car park and a fairly busy road in your robe and slippers to get to the treatment rooms is very nice, or wait in the lobby of the block while guests and conference attendees squeeze past you.  Not classy.

The treatments themselves were fine; I had a sparkly manicure:

It lasted approximately 36 hours before I'd mangled the polish to such an extent that I had to take it all off again.

We had Champagne and nibbles and balloons and all sorts in one of the rooms before dinner, everyone dolled up in their party finery:

The photo is blurred due to Champagne.  Note the straws with plastic cocks on.  Niiiiice. 

We ate a pleasant dinner in the restaurant, in a little side room that was semi-private so our laughing didn't (I hope) disturb too many other guests.  However, after dinner we went back to one of the rooms and had more Champagne, and I suspect we may have been a tad noisy.  But bugger it, I'll not be going back there, so it doesn't matter, eh?

The hotel could be really lovely, but they consistently failed to get things right - everyone's bill was wrong, so we had to get them all recalculated, and even then they didn't seem to charge us for all the wine we had, despite being asked several times to check the numbers.  The bedroom I was in was clean and comfy, despite one or two issues with the bathroom****, and the food was (mostly) good, if a bit chaotic and disorganised.  It was ok for a one night "party" awayday.  I'd have been very disappointed if I'd booked it as a spa weekend break. 

I had a two day hangover afterwards, which I am blaming on lack of sleep. 

Right.  Cushion time. 










*See multiple previous posts about ill health, various family crises, the Shitstorm From Hades, many and varied tiresome work hassles, yadda yadda yadda...

**Within 50 miles.

***We went here...the reviews are a fair reflection of my own experience. 

****The shower head was hanging on by a thread from a large ragged hole in the ceiling, and the sink drain stank of sewage.  Not nice when brushing your teeth with a hangover. 

The Underworld

We've just had the last Bank Holiday of the summer here, the traditional signal that Autumn is on the way, and then in no time it's winter, and then we might as well all just DIE in a howling void of ice and gales and closed roads due to 20 foot high snowdrifts. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Mr WithaY was away for the weekend, taking part in a re-enactment thingy as part of his cunning plan for future solvency through swordfighting.  I was, therefore, at home on my own for a 3-day weekend. What would Captain Kirk do?  Call his mate and suggest going out for a curry, obviously.

As it happened, Bestest Mate was available at the weekend as well, so we went out for a curry on Saturday night.  Mine was fab. His was good but not brilliant, partly due to unfortunate menu choices. For example:  garlic mushrooms as a starter. In an Italian or French restaurant, yes, fantastic.  Mushrooms. Garlic.  Butter.  Nom nom nom.  But in an Indian restaurant?  I'd suggest sticking to something a tad more traditional.  That way, there's not likely to be any surprises when you cut into your vivid orange-crumb-encrusted mushroom to discover a strange yellow curry-flavoured paste nestling in there along with the mushroom. 

As an aside, I learned a good deal about a product called "Ruskoline" that evening.  It's a (possibly) vivid orange breadcrumb-type "crumb dressing" used to cover fish. I expect it could cover all kinds of other foodstuffs but Bestest Mate seemed most knowledgeable about the fish aspects.  I'd never heard of it, he was insistent that it was well-known. Possibly only in Shetland, though.

The things you learn on a night out.

One thing I like about that particular curry place is that everyone in there seems to know everyone else.  I saw some of our neighbours, and said a quick hello, but the surrounding tables were full of people exclaiming at seeing old mates around them.  The restaurant used to be a Little Chef, so it's huge.  I like that; it never feels crowded even if there are 30 people eating in there. 

They have a childrens slide out the front of the restaurant, left over from the Little Chef days, in the shape of an elephant.  I noticed that now it has been adorned with eyeliner and golden bodypaint highlights, rather than just plain grey paint.  Excellent. 

The following day we decided to go to the coast for a nice walk and a crab sandwich.  Mr WithaY and I live in a landlocked county a surprisingly long way from the sea.  It's always a bit of a shock to realise how fara way the coast is.  We drove and drove and drove, miles and miles and bloody miles, till we got to Weymouth. 

"There's the road to Portland," I advised, in my role as unwilling human satnav. 

"Are you sure?" was the reply.  Never a good sign. We had an agreeable - if accidental - scenic tour of Weymouth seafront, before finally turning round and following the road I had suggested initially.  The one with the sign on it saying "Portland." 

*sigh*

Portland itself is an odd place.  As you drive through it on the way to Portland Bill, you pass a small shop for Portland's Feral Cats.   I imagine it is a fundraising shop, rather than a hellish room crammed with spitting furry pointy-eared bastards wearing labels saying "This one half price" or "Special offer - buy one get one free" and a terrified sales assistant in full body armour, poking at them with a long stick if they get too close to the till. 

We kept our eyes open but I failed to spot any cats whatsoever, never mind exciting feral ones.  I had hoped we might witness a lynx perched moodily atop a rock on the cliffs, or perhaps leaping onto the fish and chips of unsuspecting holidaymakers.

No such luck.

As an aside, I just did a Google search for the Portland feral cat place, and found this news story in the Weymouth newspaper.  It's got nothing to do with my post, but I like this quote in it:

               Photographer Dave Haysom of Tollerdown Road said: “I didn’t see the car go up in flames but when I got there I saw the police photographing a pair of trousers which had been discarded in the road."

Never mind chasing the arsonists.  Photograph their trousers, dammit!

Anyhoo.  Portland Bill.

It was a breezy day, with big black clouds blowing across from France, so there were plenty of "Jeeeeez it's cold!" comments interspersed with basking in the sunshine.

Here's the lighthouse under moody and magnificent skies.

Here it is from a different angle, demonstrating the changeable-ness of the weather rather nicely.

There were plenty of people wandering about, a few brave souls canoeing in the sea off these cliffs.  Mental.

I liked this boat-lifting crane, and the tumbled blocks of stone.  It all looks half-finished somehow, as if someone will be back to put a last wall up or something.  Once they've had their tea break.

And of course Portland is where they bury demons, to prevent them taking over this dimension. It's hard to bestride the human realm like a mighty terrorising fiend, subjugating all mortals to your eternal will when you're up to your horn-tips in Portland stone.

They also do a nice line in signage here.

I was tempted to stand on the clifftop, pointing at the sun, just to see what happened.  Maybe they release the demon from his stone prison to fling you into the uttermost abyss of perpetual darkness.  You and your unsupervised children, puny Earthling. 

And there was this place.  Is it a beach hut?  A stable?  A dairy?  A hobbit holiday home?  It looks like it's made of corrugated iron that's been plastered over, but the front is all stone.  And it has a stable door.  And a chimney.

I was very taken with it, anyway.

Maybe it's where the demon-wrangler lives.

Other news: The carrot crop is starting to get freaky.

Brrrrrr.  It's the end of days, my friends. 

Bootiful

It's the middle of August, supposedly the height of summer.  We've got all the lights on in the house in the middle of the afternoon; it looks like November outside.  The rain hasn't stopped lashing down all day. Apparently there has been flash flooding in Dorset.

Ahhh, English weather.

Last weekend things were different.

Mr WithaY and I had a long-planned few days away to see some friends in East Anglia.  Remember Tall Richard, who took me to dinner at the RAF Club?  Yeah you do.  It was a visit to see he and his lovely family.  We've known them since before they had children, and now look at us.  Their eldest is halfway through his time at University now, which makes me feel older than I like.  I commented to Tall Richard that his son is now the same age I was when I first met him.  That made us look faintly appalled for a moment. 

Age-related trauma aside, it was a lovely weekend.  We went to look around Thetford - sadly most of it was closed - but we wandered through the hill fort, supposedly the highest in the country.  I'm not sure if it really is, or if it just seems that way to the people who live there, Norfolk being so notoriously flat and all. 

On Sunday they took us for a look at the north Norfolk coast, which was very scenic.  Flat, though.  At one point we were driving along the coast road and realised that the sea was actually higher up than we were, thanks to the dykes.  Not something I am used to.

However, low-lying land fears and all, we had a very pleasant day.  A stroll on the causeway to look at the view, a fine pub lunch featuring crabs, then a wander round some art galleries, followed by a little walk around the town to look at the interesting architecture. 

Lots of the towns and villages in Norfolk and Suffolk have these signs. Not all of them say "Blakeney" though.

There were people swimming, which I thought was rather ambitious.  Rather more people were catching crabs off the quayside. 

It really was a beautiful day.  And there is an awful lot of sky up in that neck of the woods.  Not many woods, though.

I did like the buildings made of flint, particularly the white-painted ones.  Very pretty.

Worryingly, we saw metal signs in the walls of one house showing where the last lot of flood waters had risen to.  It would have left only the very top of Tall Richard's head out of the water.  We measured.

Other news:  Today I made a chocolate and courgette cake.  Nom nom nom.