No, I'm not dead. Hurrah! Although I do have a cold/cough thing at the moment which is annoying. It's the time of year, I suppose.
I'd love to be able to report on three months of thrilling activity, a varied and exciting tapestry of activity and adventure. All I can offer is the following:
1) Dog walking. I've lost over a stone since we got the dog, and (cough and cold aside) have been thoroughly enjoying taking her for walks in the beautiful - if rain sodden - Wiltshire countryside. It's far more pleasant to walk with a dog than on your own, and there's the thrill of wondering if she'll discover a body in the woods. They used to say that on the news, didn't they? When a body was found, it was always a "person out walking their dog" who made the grisly discovery. So. Other than that constant and nagging fear, dog walking is great.
2) Working. Christmas was busy. We had a few catering jobs for friends with the fledgeling company, and we also did the bazaar which I banged on about in the last post. Since then, I have been sorting out the various admin tasks which needed doing - proper labelling for the jars and so on, invoices, some sort of formal record of income and outgoings - and making STUFF to sell. What kind of STUFF? Well. I have made:
Chinese Style Plum Sauce
Spicy Tomato Chutney
Hot Chilli Jelly
Traffic Light Chilli Dipping Sauce (so called as there are red, yellow and green chillies in it)
Mango Chutney
Lime Pickle
Redcurrant Jelly
Blueberry Jelly
I was given some excellent cook books for Christmas and birthday, and have been experimenting with various STUFF from those. One of the books is all about sweeties, and has a recipe for rather excellent coconut ice, which (of course) has been covered in dark chocolate, and is marginally more addictive than heroin. There's another batch of chocolate-covered ginger underway too. That proved popular last time.
I've given up trying to make the bloody honeycomb stuff. I just waste sugar trying to get it to the correct consistency, and end up throwing away 4 batches in 5. I have no idea why it fails so often - I measure everything carefully, use a proper sugar thermometer, follow all instructions to the letter. Bah. Bollocks to it, I say.
Oh, I sold some of my tomato chutney to a new deli in town, which I was very pleased about. I must pop back in and see if they've sold any of it, and more to the point, would they like any more.
There is a new blog purely for the business, linked from here, so feel free to pop over and take a peek if you can bear more food-related nonsense.
My other job is still going well, other than having to take time off when I have a cold, as I can't risk taking germs in and making everyone else there poorly.
3) Good grief. I can't think of a number three. That's poor. It seems my life has contracted to the point where cooking, going to work (and cooking) and messing about with the dog is all I do all day. I suppose "reading Twitter," "watching TV" and "doing the ironing" don't count as lifestyle choices that anyone would be proud of.
I suppose that's one reason why this blog has become such a sad neglected little waif, withering away in a gloomy cobwebbed corner of the Internet, rather than the boisterous lively monster I liked to think it was a while ago. On the other hand, I am far happier (mostly) than I was at that time. It's easy to write about events when your entire day is made up of stressful arse-filled meetings, horrible commuting, shite food and not enough sleep. No news is good news, in general, and the lack of eventful days is probably a good thing.
It feels deeply ungrateful to whinge about the occasional minor stuff that worries me - OhmyGod... I don'thaveaproperjobandnomoneywe'llbeoutonthestreetsin6months - because I still wake up most mornings knowing that there is very little about my life now that I would change. In fact, apart from the whole "no money" thing, I can't think of anything that relates directly to me or Mr WithaY. It would be lovely if everyone we care about was in perfect health, and so on, but just for the two of us, things are really not too bad at all.
