Tuesday 30th August 2022 - too much for one post?

There's been a bit of a gap - and I find once a gap in something has happened it gets increasingly hard to restart.

What have I been doing for a week and a half?

The simplest way to try and recall everything is maybe to post all the pictures I have taken since the last post on 18th August;

Which I have just done, and then deleted anything which was in the nature of a reminder to myself about something or other, or relating to a piano lesson...

Ah, here we go, this was the Johanna Basford picture for week ending Sunday 21st August. I'm pleased with how it came out, but I still hadn't decided what to put in the diary spaces on the facing page. I have a diary on my computer, linked to the phone, and a paper journal-cum-diary, and also a page-a-day diary I write up in the evening.

Scibbly sketches; - one of the folksongs set by Benjamin Britten is 'Oliver Cromwell is buried and dead - hee, haw, buried and dead'. I've always loved this song, and the setting.

How Peter Pears can get the words out so quickly and clearly is a marvel.

We have developed a terrible mini-magnum habit. "Just the one," as Mrs Wembley always said in the sit com "On the up". I can barely remember anything about it except Joan Sims as the cook, Mrs Wembley.

There have been quite a few takers for the apples I have left out at the gate.

and there is a slight possibility of someone wanting djembe lessons, or wanting to be in a djembe group. There are significant problems in running a drumming group over zoom, namely the time lag between the different people on the zoom! I suspect that drumming in the garden would have to be severely limited too, for the sake of the neighbours.

Wednesday morning is always and event - our on-line grocery order arrives - what shall we actually get this week? We usually accept the substitutions unless they are truly bizarre. This tie a pizza was squashed, and we got to keep the pizza AND received a refund. There was always the memorable time our curry meal with rice for 2 turned out to be two packets of rice and no meat... 

I packaged up a couple of water brushes (where you fill the handle of the brush with water) for a friend to try, but she had gone ahead and bought them. Just as well, with the postal disruptions. They are so convenient.

My side of the dining room table;

His side of the same table. We are still managing to clear half of it in order to eat. It has saved considerably on the laundry, and one is far less likely to get spaghetti sauce all down one's shirt.

I should say I am far less likely to get spaghetti sauce all down my shirt.

This is something called Plum Shrub. The jar is two-thirds filled with halved and stoned plums (you add the stones as well), then one third filled with sugar, the zest of a lemon also goes in (I now have an odd-looking bald lemon in the fridge...) and then you fill to the brim with rum. Seal tightly - I've added tape as the lids leaked - and keep in a cool dark place until Christmas if you started it in August. Then you can strain and use the liquid as a mixer or a liqueur to drink, and eat the plums. 

I have never made this before, so you can follow this recipe at your own risk. It comes from 'It's Raining Plums' - a collection of recipes from the Daily Telegraph, edited by Xanthe Clay. One of the cookery books I saved from my mother's hoard.

Perennial Kale. I might give this a go. The suppliers look most interesting and I shall have a browse around their website.

I've posted these pictures of seed packets here as I got sick of having them hanging over my guilty conscience. So the other day I emptied the contents over a couple of bare patches in various flower beds and will just see what happens next year. I put the picture here as I didn't know where else to put them, and the last thing I wanted was to have Empty seed packets cluttering up my life!

I reckon that's more than enough for now - we are up to Saturday 27th August. I must reassure Ang that I have started on the stitching for August (better late than never?) and will hurry it along...