Thursday 28th July - Walk-free step counting continues

Well, that was a pleasant surprise - studying a Schubert Impromptu (Aflat, op 109);

Notes written on a copy of the first page to send
to the student after the lesson 

and then teaching it added an impressive 600 steps to my daily count. I have set a very modest target of a mere 1750 steps, partly because I am so lazy, and partly because I like to succeed and get the little 'flying feet' cartoon when I reach my target, but on a 'slow' day I wasn't even reaching that. So piano practise has suddenly become a more welcome activity. As I am only at 400 steps (just after lunchtime) I think I will sit down at the piano and do some more work after I have finished this blog post (typing does not affect my step count, I find).

The consultant said he would like me to reach 10,000 steps a day; I gave him a hard stare and he suggested maybe 5000 to start with. That's over 2 miles, which would take me heading for 3 hours to do in one go. Some days I walk so slowly that I am in danger of falling over, especially if I'm on a footpath rather than a pavement!

Of course, playing the piano should be a pleasure - and I am coming back to that mindset after years of doing so much teaching that the last thing I wanted to do to relax was play some more. I have just a scant dozen pupils now; two or three in a day, several days a week, instead of maybe as many as 60 per week at one point, plus some class teaching as well. How did I do it?

Piano playing will be even more of a pleasure in ten day's time when the piano tuner has worked his magic. I am lucky in that my piano has always kept in tune in spite of a seemingly endless procession of students. But it has recently become well beyond bearing - after nearly three years, it has to be said. I don't think Mr L has visited since 2019.

Drawings; another four completed;

Monday - tomatoes

Tuesday - I was sitting in the car park waiting for Himself to be signed off after his cataract ops last month. We went together in case I had to drive him back, but in the event they did not need to put those drops into his eyes, and he appeared looking extremely happy with the outcome. Meanwhile I enjoyed the view; wild flowers, butterflies, and then, joy of joys, a steam train! I missed it when it was 'going there', and moved my chair to the top of the embankment as I reckoned it would be coming 'back again' fairly soon.

I really enjoyed listening to the engine - the simple chuffer chuffer pattern becoming infilled with more complex sound patterns as the train drew near, which faded as it continued out of sight. 

The Gershwin Rhapsody takes some of its rhythms from steam trains.  I also read somewhere that he hadn't quite finished composing the piano part so improvised a chunk of it during the premiere. Have a listen - this is Leonard Bernstein performing and conducting (only 17 mins long). It is also worth reading the comments.

Also,

I see I miss remembered the lyrics, after all these years...

Well, you must know all about the pointy ends on my tomatoes by now. I nipped the ends off and roasted them with a little olive oil to accompany out breaded sole at lunch time. I can see there are another bowlful ready to pick - I'm glad I only have four small plants!

Yesterday, Thursday, Himself put in an energetic hour collecting up all the fallen apples and other debris from under the apple tree. 

Time has flown by, and I must get on and do something useful now! 

  

Wednesday 27th July - how to eat tomatoes

 The tomatoes in my garden are ripening fast now. But they have fairly tough skins and sharp pointy ends which tend to overshadow the pleasure of wandering out into the garden, picking a few tomatoes and eating them as you look around.

Today I discovered that if you pinch off the pointy end they become much more pleasant to eat. I have tested this out on at least half a dozen and it worked every time.

We have had a kind of tomato gloop as an additional vegetable several times - I just skin a handful of tomatoes and rassle them around in a pan with a bit of butter or olive oil - chilli oil even - and a few torn up spinach leaves. Not enough of any particular vegetable to make a portion, but combined they become a sort of Mediterranean style sauce. I might start off by sweating some finely chopped shallots or onion in the oil first, possible a bit of garlic. It all just depends. The one courgette I harvested got incorporated once.

I added 600 steps to my step counter doing some concentrated work on a Mozart piano sonata this afternoon. I shall be going through it with a student tomorrow morning and thought I ought to put in a bit of work. It is a bit of an incentive to bump up my step count, although it does feel a bit like cheating. But only a little tiny bit. It felt like hard work at the time.

Drawings;

I tend to fill a double page spread in the book - four days-worth - and then colour them in at the end. 

Thursday 21st July - a bit of a 'this, that and the other' day. Gosh, was that a whole week ago? 

I didn't know what to draw on Friday, but then I remembered the gooseberry jam from a few days earlier. 

 

Saturday was the day of the Apricot Jam Disaster. It is good jam, though; I had some on sourdough toast this morning.

 

End of the month, and I decided on Sunday, at last, what to do for the postcard project, and made a start on it. 

It is quite a lot further on now. I'm about halfway through, but I have a problem with how to do one area  so am still thinking about that. The design will be inside that circle, but I have been careful not to include and details in the drawing!  

Saturday 23rd July - many a slip and all that

 

If I'd have taken this photograph a few seconds later, I could have included a bemused cat.

And then another photograph of the cat having decided that it was safe to walk on.

And then the cat not liking the warm sticky sensation on her paws, and being held upside down while I wiped all her paws before she could go any further.

However I can confirm that no people or animals were hurt when this happened, and that the microwave recipe I used for the gooseberry jam works very well for apricot jam.

 I managed to save half a jar.

In other news - is it news - just the ordinary day-to-day goings on in an maybe not quite ordinary household; my third tub of potatoes yielded 750gm, and I had some of them washed, boiled, buttered and on the plate a scant half hour after excavating them from the tub where I had been growing them.

They were delicious. I was 'cooking', if you can call it that; ham, new potatoes, coleslaw and a three bean salad. The salads came from M and S. (I did make yesterday's salads; tomatoes thinly sliced with finely chopped spring onions and vinaigrette dressing, and cooked and cooled french beans in a lime and ginger dressing).

Thursday 21st July - Gooseberry Jam - Rain - Drawings

A kind friend gave me 250g of gooseberries from her garden. Well, it was slightly less than that by the time I had 'tested' a couple. They were sweet/tart, juicy, and a beautiful red.

I'm the only one who eats gooseberries, soit was entirely up to me what happened next;

Half an hour later, I had one pot of gooseberry jam. (A coupe of hours later I had one pot minus a couple of teaspoons of gooseberry jam - one has to test...)

It was a very quick make in the microwave. I found a recipe for jam using any fruit;

500g fruit

1 lemon

335g white sugar

Juice the lemon, and cook the fruit with the juice and the lemon halves for 6 minutes on full power, stirring occasionally.

Remove the lemon halves and add the sugar, stir until dissolved, and cook for a further 20 minutes on full power or until setting point is reached. 

Bottle in sterilized jars.

Notes; I halved the quantities and made this in a 2 pint Pyrex mixing bowl. I didn't trust any of the plastic microwave bowls to cope with the temperatures.

Full power on my microwave is 1000W which has everything bubbling furiously. I found that half power once the jam and sugar had begun to boil was ample.

I cooked the fruit and lemon juice for a couple of minutes less than 6 minutes.

20 minutes was too long - I reckon it must have reached setting point after about 15 minutes. I've ended up with a firmer set than I was expecting. This could be because I was using half quantities.

.........................

The rain on Tuesday evening was very welcome; one of my 'piano families' had dropped by with a bottle of wine - how very lovely! - and we were in the garden at the time. I don't have any covered area, but it was so warm we were just standing in the rain. I commented  on how the children in Indonesia would all be playing in the street when it rained, as we played in the snow. She told me how they all used to rush out to play 'in the first rains' when she was little.

.....................

Drawings

Yesterday - Wednesday - we were back at Standen, the National Trust House I visited a number of times last month. I toiled up a grassy path - toiling not for heat, but for steepness - so that we could walk along the path to a sort of belevedere. The views were well worth the effort. One of the glorious things about going out is having a long distance to look at, rather than just the garden behind our house, or the bungalows opposite, or a book, or a screen.

Tuesday was Too Hot. I spent the morning sitting in the shade with my feet in a bucket of water. The cats just shuffled around from one patch of shade to another.

Monday was spent following the sun round the house, opening or closing windows and curtains depending on whether they were in sun or shade.  

Sunday - this was the last day we used the hose. The water pressure is quite low, and it is better, and more economical, to use buckets and watering cans. 

Monday 18th July - There's some truth...

 ...

in the song 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun', although the lyrics are showing their age.

We are just moving from one cool place to the next, according to where the sun and shade and breeze have reached.

Pictures of Brighton Beach appall me - I can't think of anywhere worse to go to on purpose! 

https://www.sussexlive.co.uk/news/sussex-news/brighton-beach-rammed-people-thousands-7341393

Unbelievably, our neighbour several doors along the road has been out in the sun all morning and half the afternoon ripping up the roof on his garage and breaking it into smaller pieces. I do hope it isn't an asbestos roof. He was wearing a mask, but only an ordinary every day one. He's older than retirement age too.  

We have placed two emergency cat litter trays a short distance from the house, so that they don't burn their paws on the hot brick path. Even the grass is too hot for bare feet. I know, I tried.

One of the cats has found a tray; this wasn't actually why we put it out for them...

 

Sunday 17th July - At a snail's pace

Apparently snails have no reverse gear. Is that true? I didn't know that.

But this unsubstantiated utterance has nothing to do with anything much. Today is proceeding at a snail's pace. Because heat, sun, more heat, more sun.

That is, slow, and indirect. We can see snail trails on the bricks of the patio; they seem to go in aimless meanderings between the pots at one side, and the agapanthus tubs and kitchen herbs at the other side.  

Today's excitement is I have made some sauerkraut, or rather more truthfully I shall know in a week or two if I have made some sauerkraut. 

Here's the recipe I have used this time, from Abel and Cole. I've been very tempted by their vegetable boxes but so far resisted.

The jar comes from Lakeland; I bought it several years ago. It has a valve arrangement so that it lets the fermentation gas out but stops the oxygen from getting in, according to the destructions that came with it.

The items on the right are not for the sauerkraut - that is just cabbage, salt and caraway seeds. The next is to construct a plate of cold salady-type things for our tea. 

  

Saturday 16th July - where's my woolly jumper?

 Here's a thing - there are weather warnings out for extremely hot weather, but it is actually COLD outside. Not 'winter' cold, more like Autumn or Spring cold, and I have just found a warm jumper to put on and made a nice hot cup of tea.

I expect as the day goes on the temperatures will rise, but it's not hot yet.

I'm on lunch duty today - we shall have salad, with cold meat, potatoes from the garden tossed in butter, and various salads. 

I'll have the rest of the padron peppers I bought a few days ago as an experiment;

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/padron-peppers

BBCgoodfood says to fry them in a little very hot olive oil for about 5 minutes, stirring them about, until they are wilted and beginning to char, then tip onto a dish and season with salt and eat. They are served in Spain as a tapas dish. It's an interesting flavour - like ordinary green peppers, and not at all spicy-hot like chillis. 

I had half yesterday for tea, and thought they were very good. All for me, as Himself didn't care for them. 

One of the ancient cats, McCavity, sits in the kitchen, pointedly close to her dinner plate, and looks beseechingly at us. A teaspoon of superior pate-style cat food seems to satisfy her. And why not? She's nigh on twenty years old and needs several snacks through the day rather than a couple of main meals, especially while it is warm.  

We've been very abstemious with water in the garden, and the clematis and Japanese anenomes have registered their dissatisfaction. So yesterday we did get out the hose, and give those plants a real soak. I console myself with the thought that at least we don't have a paddling pool. But I think one would be nice to sit in, with a glass of wine, and a plate of tapas-style goodies... Ah well.

Thursday 14th July - Another Day of Hot Sun

 I'm sure I've seen pictures of subsistence farmers creating little dams around their plants. While I was hunting for the information, I came across this quote in an article on drip irrigation systems in agriculture.

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water,” Benjamin Franklin wrote in a 1746 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack. He didn’t know the half of it. Today’s global population is 10 times what it was back then, and freshwater sources are in decline. The biggest water hog by far is agriculture, which accounts for almost three-quarters of global use.

 I'm sure I've seen pictures of subsistence farmers creating little dams around their plants. While I was hunting for the information, I came across this quote in an article on drip irrigation systems in agriculture.

Aha, this is the same idea;

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/desert-ancient-farming-009493

and I think I might take steps create a little well around my plants to control where the water goes when I am watering. My vegetables are all in patio tubs and pots, which must have a similar effect.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was going to blog about.

I finished making the creme de cassis earlier this morning. From half a pound of blackcurrants, I got about half a pint of liquid for the next stage (adding sugar and reducing over low heat). It didn't take all that long to reduce, even t a very low heat, because it was such a thin layer in the pan. I added the brandy after reducing while it was still warm, as the residue in the pan was beginning to set like blackcurrant jelly. Yes, I did lick out the pan, and yes, it was delicious.

My final yield is a bit less than 6 fluid ounces, and has gone back into the little wine bottle that supplied the wine for the first stage. Ice cream and creme de cassis sounds like a good summer desert to me.

I'm also enjoying the consequences to the white cotton cloth I used to drip the pulp through; It turned a beautiful vibrant red. Then I rinsed it through and it became a dark purple blackcurrant colour, and now it is drying to a kind of violet. I wonder what if the colour will transfer to whatever I use it for next?

It also occurred to me that you could take a jar of, say, orange jelly marmalade, or apple jelly, or something jelly, melt it, add brandy or vodka in the proportions of 1 part hooch to 3 parts fruit, and see if that turned into something delicious? Worth a try? 

Drawings

Next door's sunflowers are humungous - about 8 or 9 feet tall at the back, and a mere 5 or 6 feet at the front of their border. We can share the beauty from our garden. I think I have identified an approximately similar-facing spot in our garden to try them next year, is this year's sunflowers have been disappointing .  

We've had the parasol out once or twice. Eating out side (in a shady spot) makes me feel like we have gone abroad for a holiday, and are having a meal in some bistro somewhere. 

The window box on the shed is dull, and never gets the sun. So I have decided to draw some fairly simplistic flowers, laminate them, and put them in the window box instead. Still a work in progress.

 

Wednesday July 13 - Buckets, Siphons, Pumps, Drains

We've started seriously saving water, as a hosepipe ban is threatened. There's a tub just outside the kitchen door where we can collect 'grey' water from the washing up, or from rinsing vegetables, or washing our hands

Yesterday we collected enough through the day to give some to the tomatoes and the rest to various other plants that are looking sad and shrivelled.

Today I decided to have a bath. Unfortunately I let it become too hot, so had to add extra cold water. This meant I had a substantially deeper and more luxurious bath than I had intended. So what to do with all this only slightly soapy water?

I considered siphoning it through the window, but we don't have a suitable hose. Maybe carry it down in buckets, like pre-plumbing days of yore? Heavy work, and probably a disaster for our wooden stair case which really does not like having water spilled on it.

If we got some kind of pump, a stirrup pump, maybe, that could be a solution. 

The idea that really appealed was to try throw the water out of the window by the bucket-full into the biggest of the plastic gardening tubs that I bought years ago as part of my home-made samba kit.

The first thing to do would be to find out where the water would land once it reached the ground. I filled a 2-pint plastic milk container that I keep upstairs for watering plants, checked that outside the window was clear, and launched. Then I leant out of the window so see where the splash marks were.

There, below me, was a bemused cat, sitting at the edge of the wet patch on the patio, obviously trying to make sense of what was in front of it. I am pleased to report that she was still dry.

The experiment was enough to convince me that throwing water put of the window was not going to be a solution. The window end of the bath slopes markedly, which is why it is such a comfortable shape, but makes the whole effort of reaching the window a bit strenuous. I would have to persuade Himself of the brilliance of this plan, and I could see that this was not going to be possible.

Ah well.

A few minutes later, Himself did appear upstairs. He had been tidying in the kitchen when I conducted the experiment and gone to see what was happening. The strange wet patch was a bit of a worry - the joints in the ancient cast iron downpipe seemed secure and dry, and the area round the nearby manhole cover was also dry. Then he saw the open bathroom window, and recollected that I had just had a bath.

We've been married for nearly 45 years. So it all made complete sense to him.

But there's another point to consider. Our drains (as old as the downpipe) rely on frequent rushes of water to keep things moving along. We are the third of four houses sharing the same run of drains, and the number of times we've had the manhole cover up, and pressure-hosed hundred and thousands of gallons or litres of water 'up-along' and 'down-along' to clear blockages are too horrible to remember.

The worst was when the end house got a water meter AND instantly put a water saving device in the cistern of their loo. The money they saved on their bill went onto ours as we dealt with the consequences!

So, in this case, we really do have to let the water go down the drain in order to save water.

Tuesday 12th July - Just about half an hour left

 I've just another half hour, I reckon, sitting at this table before the sun reaches me. Then I shall move - to the table under the apple tree if my wifi will reach that far, or to the table by the shed which is currently in the sun, but not for very much longer.

It is 11 am - I have sons lettuce in pots, and pak choi in the now empty broad bean tub. I expect 'Veg in one Bed' will have thoughts about that - but then Huw wants me to plant turnips and that is never going to happen. I will read this book this evening and discover what I should have done.

I have a horrid suspicion that the cuttings I have tenderly nurtured since last Autum are not, after all, Salvia Armistead, but WEEDS. I shall ask Vicky-the-Gardener before I chuck them, just in case. But my hopes are low.

To business; Elizabeth asked me about the creme de cassis recipe;

I had only half a pound of black currants, and a small bottle of red wine made a very scant half pint. I'm still at the 'steep the black currants in the wine for 48 hours' phase.

Drawings; - Ah, in reverse order of the days. That's rather appropriate, considering the difficulties I was having with 'which day is it today?' last week.

On Friday, I finally finished up the postcard project for June and sent it off. I'm glad to say it arrived the following morning. I can't show you my embroidery for June, as I forgot to photograph it first. However Ang did so today.  I'm not happy with the wonky vase bottom right, and had thoughts of cutting out, and then dismissed them. Maybe that tile was painted by a beginner!  

Thursday I had a fit of housecleaning. This doesn't often happen, so was worth recording.

Wednesday felt like a 'too many people', 'too much communication' day. Which is a bit mean of me, because I did enjoy each of the zooms and emails and so forth. Maybe it was like eating a whole box of chocolates in one go?

On Tuesday I discovered a stealth anti-slug and snail weapon that had been hiding from me; A large and rather flattened toad under the potato sack I emptied. How did he survive under that weight of earth, I wonder? He slowly inflated a bit over five or ten minutes, and then, when I was looking elsewhere, disappeared.

The sun has reached me, my tea has gone cold, and it is time to make a move. We shall shift a little table and two chairs to right up close to the house, where it will remain in shadow until only just after lunch. But the area by the shed will be shady by then. (it is in full sun now!)

  

Moday 11th June - still the weekend for another few hours

Monday morning still feels like the weekend, because the first piano lesson isn't until 4pm. Then two more, brother and sister, at 4.45 and 5.15. I'm not so keen on teaching back-to-back lessons as I like a couple of minutes to stretch, get my thoughts in order and change my focus, literally.

I'm only teaching over zoom, so 30 minutes staring at the screen on top of the piano or the piano keys, and listening intently can be wearing. After Monday evening I'm in a rhythm; write up the previous afternoon's lessons, and sometimes teach a lesson in the morning, and then another couple of lessons in the afternoon.

I've only got eleven students now - at one point I had about fifty piano or theory students, and maybe a dozen or more classes. How ever did I do it? Although I hardly ever wrote up any piano lessons back then, as I made notes in the student's practice records or on their music. Now I write up and email their notes.

I've found a new whizzy way of doing this - I made a copy of their music on my computer (I have also bought ALL the books, another cost I never incurred before!) and annotate it through the lesson.  Then I just screenshot it (if it is still remotely legible) and email it. Whizzo!

Let's see what she makes of this! (Mozart Sonata in A, First movement, one of the killer variations unless you have man-size hands, which I don't). The weirdo diagram at the bottom is from trying to teach half-pedalling... it's very hard to hear what she is doing over zoom but hopefully she will send me a recording.

This wasn't meant to be about piano teaching - how did that happen?

I'm sitting in the garden, drinking coffee, eating a small (honestly, it was a VERY SMALL) piece of chocolate cake. It isn't even 10 am, but I have watered the plants by the front door

I suppose I should remove all those plants growing in and around the cracks, but they are snapdragons and columbines and even a lobelia from somewhere. So they stay.

I have started a batch of creme de cassis from half a pound of blackcurrants a friend gave me from a her garden. This is a new experiment for me. I'm at the 'soak the fruit in a reasonably good read wine for 48 hours' stage.

I have the dough for ginger biscuits, a shortbread recipe, not gingernuts chilling in the fridge. I am feeling Very Virtuous. 

I have half cleared a tub of lettuces and washed them all ready for lunchtime (using the washing water to water the plants in the front).

And I have taken a picture of my spaghetti marrows to share;

because of this short passage in the July section of 'The Morville Year' (hence the picture at the very start of this post!)

   

Sunday 10th July - Nearly back on track

 I will be back on track tomorrow, when the Daily Bible Readings will have caught up with me.

Meanwhile - today is hot! hot! Hot!

I am drinking flavoured water - what else could I call it, to make it sound more enticing?

Peace, Cleanse, Relax

I do enjoy the flavour - I am experimenting with those herbal teabags I bought a while back (April). It was one of those orders where you got free shipping if you bought too much, so I bought too much for the free shipping;

I chose the teas for their names. As good a reason as any. Now I am infusing the teabags in cold water overnight in the fridge for a refreshing, 'interesting' (not always in a 'good' way!) unsweetened cold drink. (You can do the same thing with ordinary, or green, or china tea).

Currently I am drinking 'Relax'. diluted 50/50 with cold water. Peace is looking pale because I have only just this minute filled the bottle and added the tea bag.

Himself is content with chilled water (currently we are both being very diligent about refilling the water filter every time!) And we are nibbling some 'cheesy feet', thank you Nigella, for the recipe.

Except, of course, as usual, I've done it slightly differently;

Her recipe is

• 100g grated cheddar
• 25g soft butter
• 50g plain flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Blitz in food processor until it becomes a dough - takes a small wee whiley. (I suppose you could rub in fat and flour, and then combine with the grated cheese, working gently until it became a dough?)

Here's where she and I differ; I make my dough into a long sausage shape, actually a 'square-sage shape', about an inch square i cross section and as long as it is. She makes hers into a flat disc. Then we both chill the dough in the fridge - hers for 15 mins, mine is better a bit longer.

That's because she is going to roll it out to 1/8 inch thick and cut it into feet shape with fancy cookie cutters, and I am going to slice off pieces about 1/8 inch thick - around the size of a pound coin, if I remember rightly.

She bakes hers for 10-12 mins, depending on size, at 200C, and I cook 16 at a time in the air fryer for 8-9 mins at 190C. The air fryer does not need pre-heating - I put the little squares straight into the basket in rows, press the button on the air fryer and walk away until it beeps.  

Sixteen little pieces between the two of us is actually a fair sized mini-snack- the rest of the roll waits in the fridge for next time.

I suspect that for grown-ups (this is the children's party version) a pinch of English mustard powder, or cayenne, or other seasoning will improve an already more-ish snack!

Drawings

Friday 1st July - practising this piano piece added about 700 or more steps to my step count. If ever there was an incentive for doing piano practice, this would be it!

Piano is one of my starter words for wordle.

Saturday 2nd July was spent in stitching for the postcard project - already well overdue. I just about had it ready to post for Monday, but then... this needed doing, and that, and the other...

Sunday 3rd July - the copper tape rings around the sunflowers seem to be working. The slugs and snails haven't found them yet.

On Monday morning we walked round to friends in the next road for morning coffee - what a lovely hour or so that was.

More pictures to follow, and then I might well be properly 'back on track'!

 

Saturday 9th July - The Missing Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week

Last night, as I was writing up my diary, I found I was writing on the page for Friday. But somehow I was convinced it was Saturday... I went back and relabelled a couple of pages, but was still convinced that something was wrong. It does happen that some evenings I don't write up the page, so that the following evening I have two pages to do. It has crept to three pages in the past - but bitter experience has told me that this makes things difficult when I try to catch up.

Anyway, sometime around mid-morning I finally realised my mistake - it was when I was wondering why the link to the Sunday morning service, live-streamed from our church, was so very late in appearing in my emails.

I blame the heat.

Tonight I shall re-relabel the pages in the diary, and all will be well again.

One consequence has been, that as I listen to David Suchet reading through the Bible in a Year every (well, nearly every) morning I am now several days ahead of where I should be. Do I listen again? Or risking breaking a habit?  It's Acts of the Aposltes at the moment (every day is a chunk of a Psalm, and currently the next adventure in the Acts of the Apostles and a chunk of Old Testament - Hezekiah has just asked for the sun to go backwards ten degrees. 

Acts is, at the moment, sounding rather like a script for an adventure of the 'Indiana Jones' variety; Paul has just survived a shipwrecked in a storm, only to be bitten by a snake and worshipped as a god by the locals.

(I'm a bit unimpressed with Hezekiah, he was very happy to hear the prophecy that there will be peace only in his life time, as it means at least he will have a quiet life, and after he's dead he doesn't care. But then 2 Kings is full of Kings who behaved in a more or less appalling fashion. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.) 

Tomorrow, everything will be back to normalish maybe probably.

Tonight will l be another hot night I expect.

Saturday 2nd July 2022 - New month - new start

 I've decided to leave June behind me and start afresh.

Today I started sewing my picture for the June episode of 'the postcard project'. I have already received Ang's embroidery, here below; 

So neat! She's used the vanishing cross-stitch magic paper to sew perfect vegetables! 

Ang has been following the month-by-month plan for growing vegetables in a raised bed, set out by Huw Richards in the book 'Veg in One Bed'. I thought I meant to follow the plan too, but things very soon went 'off-piste' for me. As usual, I am missing several prime ingredients for success;

• I don't have a raised bed, but a random collection of large and medium patio pots
• I keep forgetting to water things
• I sow seeds and plant things out BEFORE I look at what I am supposed to be doing according to the plan
• I plant the wrong different vegetables in the wrong different places  
• I have been invaded by slugs and snail. (I'm hoping the evil vine weevils have all met their doom thanks to an application of nematodes.) 
• Lots of other reasons

I have had some success; broad beans, lettuces and potatoes. It wasn't blight that was afflicting my potatoes, but slugs and snails. Battle has commenced; my remaining sunflowers are all protected by copper tape or 'slug-wool', and I have pulled up the first of my garlic plants, a little early, to boil up into GARLIC WATER - apparently a sure-fire creepy-crawly deterrent.

You boil up a whole bulb of garlic - I've cut mine up a bit to increase the surface area of garlic - in a litre of water until very soft and squishy.

Then you strain the water, and squish as much garlic through as you can, pour the resultant liquid into a sprayer and set to work, spraying leaves. stalks, everything. The garlic-water was still too warm to use yesterday evening, so I went out slugging with a torch, but couldn't find any! Have I caught them all over the last two nights? Unlikely. Maybe it was too cold for them - certainly was for me.

I shall spray everything today, and see how the garlic scented sunflowers, and ready seasoned lettuces will fair in the coming week.

Recipes; my turn to cook lunch yesterday and today. Yesterday was a version of 'sausage supper' which came out very well - even if I say so myself. But it is a sure-fire success. (My word, I first posted that recipe in February 2012!)

Today I used most of a Wagama kit to make chicken katsu. But (there's always a but when I 'follow' a recipe) I used udon noodles instead of rice, and cooked the chicken in the air-fryer.

Now, if you have an air-fryer, breaded chicken becomes simplicity itself! I've always had a bit of a disaster with home-made breaded goujons of this that and the other, but listen, or rather, read, 

you have one plate with a beaten egg, one plate of breadcrumbs (a couple of tablespoons per person), and a clean plate to put the finished chicken on. Then - magically - you stir a bit of vegetable oil and seasoning into the crumbs, so that they are still crumbs, but slightly coated.

Do the chicken-into-the-egg-into-the-oily-crumbs bit, and dump each one onto the plate as go.

Arrange in one layer in the basket of the air-fryer, zap at around 190 for around 12-14 mins. That was easy!

Also crispy kale - dribble a bit of oil and salt on your kale, stir it in with your fingers so everything (including your fingers!) is coated, and zap at 180 for 4-5 mins. That worked too!

The kit was a bit of a swiz - aren't they always? - but was helpful to give me an idea of taste and consistency. You supply your own veg, chicken, coconut milk.... the kit had a sachet of katsu paste, a sachet of salad dressing and a sachet of breadcrumbs. (Per favore, No comments required about plastic waste, grazie. I've recycled most of it.) 

Dulingo Italian continues well. Mangio pollo su un piatto.So far, so good ...

Ciao