Mary Wesley, instant soup and all change

 I just finished a great Mary Wesley, they're all great, that atmosphere she creates immediately, that surrounds you to the end of the novel.

I also like the way her characters wander in and out of each other's stories. Here Calypso, from Chamomile Lawn, has a cameo, and her son, Hamish plays a small but important part in this story. It's like Barbara Pym, where someone is described and the reader knows them from having read the novel where they were leading characters. You feel you have the inside track. 

This one is about recovering from crushing grief and the loss of a child, trigger alert in case you don't want to go there, and people plunging about trying to make life work with varying degrees of success. 

It's set mainly in London with a quick business trip to the US, and some excursions into the country. And there's a lurcher. I'm always game for a lurcher 

There's also a little echo here and there of Margery Sharp, the rangy, unconventional heroines, the men whose appearance is nothing like their inner longings, the rough trade that appeals surprisingly to some conventional women. I wonder if Wesley read Sharp. 

Wesley published her first novel at 70, so I expect there was a lot of reading in her life before then. And some of her writing comes from her lived experience with her own family, uncaring and callous to her, but paid out in her fiction, maybe after their deaths.

The storm seems to be coming to nothing much. The library closed because of the declared state of emergency, cancelling our art opening, and I cancelled my dental checkup. Then I thought I may as well cancel the cancellation, and found my dentist, who evidently works Sundays, had already reassigned the slot. 

He'll call with an appointment for the same day. Gary, who's driving me,  assures me no problem, Monday is flexible for him, so it will work. I was being courteous, not wanting to cancel last minute, but oh well. 

Lunch was soup, made from the rest of the chickpeas, tomatoes and spinach from that pasta dish. All heated together, worked fine. Canned mango chunks and yogurt, beaten with lemon juice and sugar for dessert. Easy, A noncooking day.  Another can of mango goes to the food pantry. I think someone will like it.

There being no rain, I caught up on walking, A nice half hour. It's surprising how soon your strength falters when you don't walk daily.  Weight training Sunday evening.

This account was interrupted by Gary rushing in with a pot of boiled eggs, to practice shelling them! 

He's been working on his eggs lately, unfamiliar with boiling and shelling them successfully. Many consultations! I think he's cracked (!) it now. He's very happy. I'm encouraging him to buy free range, easier to work with, more nutritious etc.  

He suddenly said "I'm going to go nuts when I don't live next door to you! So many questions answered." I think there may be a lot of calls after he moves, what with plants, cooking, medical decisions, the gamut.

Happy day everyone, teach your grandma to shell eggs, sez Ted and Big Ursy.

And resist 

See Portland's brilliant turnout for further information on the frog.

And a Happy Thanksgiving, Canajuns!

Memorial Day and the weather is rainy

Remembering those who died in war in the hope that we would have peace.

Quiet day, cool and rainy, great for the flower seeds.

I overcame my phonophobia, to call Gary this morning and got great news. They've been able to disconnect the machinery, he's breathing well, feeling much better, voice stronger and more cheerful. 

He's hoping to get out soon. Meanwhile an out of state cousin arrived at the weekend to hold the fort at home. So all's much better on that front.

And here's what happened to the linen and cotton napkins from Florida, thank you Ms Moon.

Lovely piece of linen I'd dyed and stamped for a possible skirt, just temporarily in place in the upstairs bathroom cabinet doorway. Narrator: temporarily? Several years. 

And here's the new hanging 

Three napkins strung on the rod no stitching required. The rod slid easily through the hem.

Likewise downstairs, the other three napkins replacing a plain white piece of linen, which you see on the floor.

So this easy fix has freed up two pieces of good linen for other uses. I'm beyond pleased. 

I used the rest of the sweet potatoes to make a sweet potato walnut bread.

Same old recipe for banana bread but mashed sweet potato instead.  Very nutritious cake. Yes.

I thought a rainy holiday might be good for a bit of Freecycle, so I'm offering these magazine holder things. 

The two remaining on the shelf are in use, and they show how the holders work.

Happy day, everyone, indoors keeping dry, or outside, with an umbrella,  trying to fire up the grill.

Busy day for better and worse

 I'd decided to make sausages rolls, my mom's way, small, rolled and sealed with pinching, no egg wash. Not the doorsteps with a handle on of the Budget Baker. But he gave me the idea, so there's that. 

Also the apricots were soaked and all plump for the cake.

So I embarked on a marathon of baking. I made my yogurt based pastry, always just crisp enough but not all flakes everywhere. I used this for pasties a while back and liked it a lot.

It's years since I made sausage rolls, decades even. Handsome Son will probably have a stroll down memory lane when he tries them.

The sausage is the very spicy plant-based stuff, no need to do anything to it other than shape it and roll it up. Served here with great tender Florida pole beans (!) and pickled red onions.  A dozen rolls, from one roll of the sausage stuff.  Really good too.

Meanwhile I was making the batter for the apricot snacking cake. It uses two sticks of butter but it made 32 pieces of cake, so, when amortized, fine. It's also not very sweet, which I like.

Notice the clean curtains from upstairs while you're strolling round the kitchen.

 

Apricots halved, ready to stud the cake batter. 

This was originally Melissa Clark's Figgy Demerera Snacking Cake. I've used various fruit including plums in the past, but ripe figs aren't a thing here, and I didn't have Demerera so I sprinkled regular white, and I didn't have brandy so I did without.

But it's really good and supplies enough for a battalion or a couple of neighboring kids plus Handsome Son, Gary and me.

In the middle of this I got an alert to tell me the special online lecture on Ndop cloth was not at 1pm, as I'd thought, but at noon.

So I ended up pushing tablet buttons to get screenshots while rolling pastry and sausage and wielding bench scrapers, and generally trying to do several incompatible things at once. 

In the middle of lunch, sausage rolls hot on my plate, while the cake was in the oven, and I'd finally sat down to watch the presentation as planned, a neighbor stopped in.

Gary's in the hospital, sudden pulmonary thing, yesterday morning. They're keeping him three days, he's seemingly doing okay, but everyone is worried.  Neighbor and I may visit tomorrow if he's up for it. Definitely uneasy. 

So I missed a bit of the Ndop program but I think I got the gist for you, and blogged about it in a special post.

Also in the local news 

The scallions are growing!

And I found in reading the current Sacks, that Humphry Davy, the chemist, inventor of the miner's lamp, was also a poet. In his time, early nineteenth century, academic disciplines weren't so separated.

Here's what stunned me 

He had great respect for the elegance and inventiveness of Davy's use of language. And he too was a chemist as well as a poet.

Also a later improved version of the miner's lamp was invented by an ancestor of Oliver Sacks. The stuff you learn from books.

Anyway I did get to sit and stitch, after all this activity today.

I've been dreaming about this book, all kinds of new ideas for stitching the next page,  as well as anxiety about how to construct it! Brain never rests, despite the daily chair yoga.

About which I'm happy to say my hip is much happier, which seems to confirm my thought that's it's the cartilage, not the joint, complaining. Stretching is working. Neck, too, is doing better. All's good. 

Happy day everyone, don't do all the things at once like me. A person gets tired.

Dog, morning glory and other company

 Yesterday I was planning on how to give the rapidly growing morning glory a place to grow, rapidly growing, that is,  out of the beginning pot.

The ground cover takes up all the planting space, so I have to do other things.

Earlier readers may remember my mini greenhouse caper, a while back, using a bag of potting soil set on a lid with its upturned translucent plastic container over it for a successful winter crop of greens.

I'm thinking of a similar idea with a bag of potting soil, one of these

pierced for drainage as usual, but directly on top of the ground plantings. No cover though.

You pierce the underside for drainage, turn it over, cut out a section on top  and plant into it. It works like a growbag. Anyway I'm going to try it. Placed next to the shepherd's crook it's currently hanging from, for a climbing support.

Without my interference, nature's doing a lovely job out front, some planted by me, all lovely, and look at all the green colors and tiny yellow flowers.

Yesterday suddenly exploded with company, with the warm weather and clean air bringing an old friend to drop by with her dog Abby. She's one of the few people I love to see without an invitation. 

Then Gary appeared on the patio, including my plants in his watering, so I invited him in, since he hasn't seen her for ages, though she only lives down the street. 

So he and Billy the Pup joined us, except B the P had to stay on the patio, shouting, because Gary wasn't sure about the two dogs together. 

Abby was delighted to pose for her close-up

Billy not so much

I did get my chicken roasted, after friend left, with a bunch of lavender.

Marinated overnight in yogurt and garlic. Great supper of buttered pita stuffed with salted chicken breast slices and fresh spinach. Can't beat it.

Then my Haggard Hawks puzzle book arrived, days ahead of schedule, and I tried a few beginner puzzles, succeeding here and there.

Full disclosure: when I put a puzzle on this blog it's always one I can, and did, do. I play fair. Which means there's quite a few that never make it into here. Although maybe I could try one of those, asking for help in solving it, come to think of it. What do you think?

So that's the picture Chez Boud today. I think puzzling might take my mind off my hurty neck. It's not the shoulder joint, or any joint, more likely, from the tingling and shooting pains, an irritated nerve. Not as miserable as last time, definitely, but nonetheless whineworthy.  

Happy day everyone, life's a puzzle, ain't it?

Shot, weeded, relocated, mourned, chutney

Yesterday I went along and got yet another Covid booster

Waited here on a tiny metal chair, one of two, very small corner of the pharmacy. In came a really ancient Asian lady and her daughter, saw the one available chair and a three sided wheely stool thing, and clung to her daughter, very worried. 

She was clearly unable to manage alone, so I suggested they take my chair and the other, and I'd have the wheely backless stool. They were profoundly grateful, clearly the mom needed to be physically supported by her daughter at her side.  

Meanwhile I in turn was profoundly grateful I didn't have long to wait, balanced uncertainly on this stool, the kind medics use to scoot about. 

Once home I did my arm weights, because I'd been told by a nurse that arm movements avoid a lot of the local pain from the shot. 

Then, since the dove nest is no more, I cleared the general area where it had been, ready for planting something once I decide what 

And on a roll, before I plant, now's the time to move out the ficus for its summer at camp.

Now between the Japanese maple and the butterfly bush next door. This worked out well last year.  

It's strenuous, hauling an eight foot tree in a big pot across the room 

then over the step and across the patio, getting tangled in the maple on the way. It also involves hauling cinder blocks and wedging them to lodge it evenly in the ground so it won't fall over.

Then the living room needs to be swept, quite a bit of debris left.  And it's now summerized 

The ficus will put down roots through the pot into the earth and get a whole new lease of life before it comes in again in October.

Later Gary came over to confer about some vegetables he's planting, and was very upset to learn about the dove. 

I showed him the remaining egg, which had evidence someone had just started to peep

We had a little wake. Meanwhile rambunctious Billy the Pup distracted us, and the chat ranged all over. 

He'd never heard of chutney, and I offered him a sample pot. He insisted on tasting before he accepted, then said, whoa, this is great! I'm putting it on ice cream. 

A good idea, which I hadn't had, thinking more about main courses. Anyway he took away his vegetable plants, Billy the Pup and his pot of chutney. 

In the later afternoon I felt very tired, fell asleep reading and thought, gosh, that shot knocked me out. Then I remembered the heavy lifting and thought ah, maybe not just the shot.

Handsome Son visiting this afternoon, but I'm not doing much physical work, arm a bit tender, poor me. I might make yogurt.

Happy day everyone, tend your garden, metaphorically if you don't have a physical garden plot.