Tuesday 5th May - concentration

Books

My current ook needs concentration to remember which century I'm in, who the characters are, and keep hold of the two mysterious back stories... I can't remember which blogger recommended Kate Morton, but thank you, who ever you are! I've downloaded The Lake House, which I'm reading now, and Homecoming, the next in the series.

 A welcome change from 'Wifedom' by Anna Funder, which was a biography (with fictionalised episodes fleshing out details from her notebooks and other people's memories) of George Orwell's wife, Eileen Shaughnessy. It's also a fierce diatribe against 'the patriarchy'; George Orwell doesn't come out  too well...

Sewing

I'm currently obsessed with the Collaboration Cover Story for this month! There are 10 edges to be decorated, and I've done 6 so far. I'll slow down soon I'm sure; I'm not one to stick at anything for long these days.

Gardening

Not so much planting, but assembling. We had two cheap, and now elderly benches 7nder the apple tree. One would definitely have collapsed if sat upon, and the other might well have done. I ordered two more which were delivered today. BB has assembled one already.

The old benches will have a bit of repair work done and then become raised pot stands along the side of the house. They'll last another year, but I'll make no-one is able to sit on them!

I bought a bunch of mint, mainly to add to bulgar wheat salad. It's been sitting in a jar of water, and I noticed quite a few of the stalks were growing roots, so I've stuck them in a pot and see what happens. 

Music

It takes a lot of concentration to play Steve Reich's 'Music for Wooden Instruments'. I'm astonished this ensemble can play it from memory. 

The score looks unbelievably complicated, but it us based on repeating patterns. I guess the trick is to learn the patterns, and then... go for it!

I suppose it's similar to the drumming and samba rhythms I used to teach. But several degrees more complicated!

I realise that not everyone will want to listen to it. Personally I rather enjoy listening to the way the rhythms weave together.

Here it is again, the same piece, but with a graphic score to watch;

Monday 5th May - VE Day

 Great celebrations everywhere,  but not in our street. I confess, I even forgot to put our flags out... and by the look of things, so did all our neighbours. 

We  watched snips and snaps of it on television... but for us VE day might have stood for Very Easy Day.

Real Fast Food

Nigel Slaters 'Real Fast Food' is on offer on kindle for 99p... so I downloaded it and had a browse before going to make lunch. This was a 'fast food meal, but don't let Nigel know how I put it together;

Some frozen diced onions fied with some frozen grilled Mediterranean vegetable mixture, to which I added a pouch of Rana Sicilian-style pasta sauce and some cooked chicken picked from a roast. Meanwhile I zapped a pouch of Tilda rice.

Ta-da! A fast lunch. Reasonably 'real' as well; the sauce and rice didn't have any ingredients that I couldn't have found in my cupboard. 

After lunch I attempted to deal with some outstanding admin. I think I need to try again tomorrow when I'm a bit more 'with-it'.

Gardening 

What happened to last week's weather? It was cold and sunny, or cold and cloudy, and even, very briefly, cold and wet. Not enough rain to save us from watering the garden tomorrow,  unless it rains properly during the night.

I nipped out and sowed spring onions at least, so I can put that packet away. 

Music

Ronald Binge composed a massive amount of light music. I suppose 'Sailing By', played before the Shipping Forecast, might be one of the most well known. 

This is called 'Piccadilly'.

Sunday 4th May - easy day

 It's Star Wars Day... 'May the Force be with you...'

Apparently the All Age Family Service at my home church was themed around Star Wars. I have joined a zoom congregation started by several Anglican churches in Leicestershire which started in 2020 and kept going ever since. No Star Wars theme for us, which suits me nicely! 

My lightsaber wielding days are long gone; although I have been known to flap a flyswat around from time to time.

Sewing

I was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from not doing any sewing for several days. With care and consideration in my movements I was able to complete another seam without any many twinges. If I continue to be careful with everything I do I'm sure I'll be back to what passes for normal in a few days. It probably helped that I did no gardening at all - too cold!

Sausages cooked in the oven for 4

Now these were pretty good... 6 sausages, 450g (2 large) large potatoes and 2 medium onions. Some oil for roasting. 

Preheat oven to 180°C fan

Slice onions into rings, and potatoes into rounds (not too thin, not too thick). Tip into a roasting pan, toss in 2 tablespoons oil (I used olive), season and roast for 20 mins.  

Cut the sausages into thirds and add to pan, stir everything up to coat the sausages, and put it back in the oven for another 20-30 minutes, until the sausages are cooked through and everything is nicely brown.

And serve!

The recipe comes from the Lavender and Lovage site. It popped up when I searched for 'sausages potatoes onions bake'.

I made half quantities and cooked them in the airfryer in a metal pan which fits inside the basket. I reduced the temperature to 170°C as the onions were heading to Well Done.

 Using the airfryer is easier for me as I don't have to stoop to get things in and out of the oven.

Music

here's a bit of frivolity... 'Popular Song', no 5 from William Walton's suite 'Facade'

Saturday 3rd May - undecided weather today

 Is it chilly today? Is it hot? It all depends when you were asking. It seemed to change from one to the other in a blink of an eye. We watered the garden in the morning anyway, as there's no rain forecast for a few days yet.

Gardening 

I cleared and sorted another two tubs, and planted beans; borlotti and dwarf French. Now I'm all out of compost so I will have to rest from my labour's until some more is delivered. That's probably a good thing for my elbow, which is slowly improving. I've also evicted load of snails which were hibernating in all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies. The first skirmish in the long battle to come...

One of the pots had a few puny leeks in it; we had these with our sea bass at lunchtime. BB did all the lifting of the tray in and out of the oven today, so the cooking proceeded smoothly without any risk of dropping it!

I shan't bother to grow leeks again; they clutter up a pot for too long.

Music

Something languid for when the sun was out; The Old Castle from 'Pictures at an Exhibition' composed for piano by Mussorgsky and orchestrated by Ravel.

Friday 2nd May - How does your garden grow?

 Too soon to say... 

The radishes are up, the spinach is on its way. The fridge potatoes have made it to the top of their tubs, there's enough room for a little bit more earth and then they can grow in peace.

More lettuces, 'Reine de Glace', these ones are called. 'Delicious in salads or cooked' it says on the packet. Cooked? I've seen Jamie Oliver and other chefs charring 'Little Gem' lettuces on a BBQ or in a frying pan, but I haven't tried it myself. 

The carrots went in today as well. These were on a seed tape and that did make life very easy.

The only obvious plants in this view are the original Egyptian Walking Onions, and the radishes. You might make out the tops of the potatoes further back.

This is from the other end. Two tubs of broad beans, and two of peas. On the right is a leek. Only two survived; they are puny things and their days are numbered as that's where the French beans are going.

I summoned my courage and pulled up one of the younger Walking Onions. It looks an enormous spring onion, and smellsa bit like a very mild shallot. 

I prepped it like a spring onion, chopped it up as for a stir fry and cooked it in a little olive oil with a couple of tomatoes and half a red pepper. Delicious! Why did I wait so long? We shall steadily munch our way through the rest in time for the original ones to produce all those bulbils again.

Yesterday I heard about 'asparagus peas' for the first time. There's another thing to try!

My elbow

Yesterday I did quite a lot of knitting, about an hour of Cover Story Stitching, extensive gardening, rather too much sudoko, and the usual cooking. Oh, and also taught a piano lesson. My elbow, which has been a bit twingey recently, was in open revolt this morning! So much so that I nearly dropped our plates at lunchtime when I was lifting them out of the oven. Ow ow ow!

So I've been revisiting the activities of yesterday to find what caused it. Gardening was fine  as was knitting and using my tablet (I'm tapping away on it now). Chopping vegetables was OK... and then I did a little more stitching. Ow ow ow! It's pulling the larger-eyed needle with perle cotton throughout thicker layers of fabric! I've been working on areas with layered fabrics for a couple of days, and it was a bit of an effort to get through the thicknesses. I'll be fine working on a different bit where there are fewer layers, but I'll take a break from sewing a break over the weekend to give my elbow a chance to recover. 

Music 

Up until now I've been doing my own research, delving through 60 years of listening to and playing music. I thought I'd give my 'little grey cells' a rest, and look at the playlist for 'Another Year Of Wonder' by Clemency Burton-Hill. 

I've got the original book; each day of the year has a piece of music and information about it. I don't have this second book, so I can't crib any programme notes! 

This is one of Schumann's 'Kinderscenen'. I've had the book ever since I was quite young, but was disappointed to find the the pieces aren't so much for children to play, are literally 'Scenes from Childhood'. Schumann's own childhood?  I've no idea. I sort of managed to get my hands around some of them, but apart from 'Traumerei' which I was nade to learn and don't like, never really pkayed any of the others properly.

This is Kind im Einschlummern', or 'The Sleeping Child'

Thursday 1st May - a perfect day!

 Today was right up there with the best days of the year so far...

I slept in for an hour, for which I was grateful after yet another rather disturbed night... (it's getting better, I've had a bit of a cold so I wake in the middle of the night needing to blow my nose!)..,

BB watered the garden after breakfast as it didn't get done yesterday evening. They say it's better to do the watering in the morning anyway.

I had a lovely piano lesson and chat on zoom before lunch...

BB rescued lunch, which I had loaded into the crockpot after breakfast. Unfortunately I set the control to 'low' instead of 'high'. Between us we wrangled it (red Thai chicken) ito the microwave for a speedy finish and it came out tasting none the worse...

I got into the garden, and between us we have earthed up the potatoes again, and I've planted out my supermarket basil and parsley, and sown tree spinach and lettuce and rainbow chard. Stirring up the earth in one pot I discovered it was FULL of SLUG EGGS! I'm glad I dealt with those now before they turned into hungry molluscs!

And Ang has received my Collaboration stitching, so I can post the pictures;

Here's Ang's, about childhood memories of beach huts

Her Aunt and Uncle had a beach hut, so that's where they and the children spent long Summer days. 

This is going to be my book cover when we've finished. It just so happens that the four pictures on the back will be each of the four seasons. 

For my April stitching I created a sampler of potential embellishment stitches.

I used perle cotton throughout, and really like the texture and boldness. I was puzzled about how to get my stitching even, and eventually remembered I had a sashiko kit. The fabric in the kit had a very faint grid printed on it; you can just make it out at the top of the picture. Then I just tried to add so juch stitching that I would obscure the grid!

The yellow circles are meant to be Easter eggs. I'm thinking of adding a bit to them the next time we swap covers.

This month we are sewing along all the vertical edges of the patches.  I've made a start already...

Music

I listened to an excellent piano solo version of Percy Grainger's 'English Country Garden', and copied the link, when this piano duo started playing it! I love the absolute concentration, and how they have to have their hands overlapping each other... if you were in any doubt as to how much fun they are having, just look for the little smile at the end...