Z muses

 It's a funny thing.  When I was having tests,  I was more concerned about the nuisance of possibly having to rearrange things than anything else.  There are a number of things every single week from now until the end of the year, and quite a lot after that.  Anyway, it seems probable that my nice white blood cells are successfully fighting some viral infection and that is most likely to have skewed the red blood cells.  So I'm being prescribed iron tablets and am to be given another blood test in three weeks' time.  I've been extremely impressed by the GP practice and the two doctors I've spoken to/seen.  

Wink and I have been talking about being too busy for a while.  It's not just being busy, it's the structure of it.  Too many things that happen every week or every month and having to fit in extras where we can, then more crops up and we keep on juggling our time.  We don't see a way out of it.  We'd like to be able to be spontaneous, but it's a matter of looking in the diary and noting a day or two, three weeks hence, when we have the opportunity for spontaneity. That isn't being spontaneous, is it?  

Anyway, at least tomorrow I'm free until 6 o'clock, when we're going to the local theatre for dinner before a film.  Lovely, I can catch up with paperwork.

Z plans to relax

 I'm trying to clear the decks of paperwork over the next week or so, to take July off as much as I can.  Once August comes, I'll be working on the auction catalogue, which takes weeks, so this is my best chance.  

It's hot out there, but not in the house.  There is only one window that faces south and the main rooms are west-facing, with one east and west and the other being east and south.  So it's never oppressively hot, unless I've forgotten to open my bedroom window in the evening for an hour or two before bed.  

I spend my early morning and evening time listening to birdsong.  I'm having another go at identifying different birds - I don't have a very good ear for it, but have realised how many different ones we have.  A linnet, for instance.  I've never seen one in the garden, but according to Merlin, it's out there.  I was told, by the guys who came to inspect the bells at the church, that jackdaws had been nesting in the church tower, which surprised me as I've never noticed any, but yes, now I know what they sound like, we've got 'em.  Learning birdsong will be my mission for the rest of the nesting season.

Blog party done for another year

 It was a relaxed and cheerful blog party.  There were only 8 of us, but that made it easy.  I made pulled pork (slow cooked overnight, pulled apart with forks) and sirloin of beef, plus salads and eggs.  Then orange cake and chocolate cake, syllabub and strawberries, also local cheese.  Puds were dairy and gluten free, but I can always cater for any and all dietary requirements.  So much easier than it used to be and more necessary, as increasing numbers of people develop problems with various foods, as well as being vegetarian/vegan.  A friend posted photos on social media today, his partner is vegan and, whilst his lunch was vegetarian, hers was baked potato and baked beans and, honestly, that wouldn't make me very satisfied.  Stodge on stodge isn't very enjoyable.  I love vegetables, but the more obviously protein-rich vegan foods would be a problem, long term.  Tofu is deeply boring and tastes of nothing.  However much it's been marinated, I've found that I eat the veggies and push the tofu aside.  Dhal is good, but it's stodgy, to me, and I can't eat much of it.  I like beans and chickpeas, but once or twice a week at most.  Just adding an egg makes it all so much easier.  And I'm attempting to help my anaemia by adding red meat, which I'm enjoying, having rarely eaten it for months.  I don't know how I'd replace that iron quickly without supplements.  This is not to be critical of anyone in the least, I just wonder how someone who loves all food and cooking can possibly deal with having so many foods out of bounds.  An allergy forces it on you and a religious or cultural reason, that means you've never eaten a food, means you don't miss what you have never tasted.  

Anyway, I digress.  Zoe, Mike and Scout stayed overnight and we polished off most of the leftovers for lunch, apart from an unseemly amount of rice salad.  Now, I'm going to pretend to watch the Belgium/Iran match and root for Zoe's team.  But let the best team win, hey.

Keats had a point

 I went to an excellent lecture today about Japonisme, the influence of Japan on Europe from the second half of the 19th century onwards.  I already knew a fair bit on the subject, but this lecturer went beyond paintings to textiles, clothes, ceramics, furnishings and so on, which was really interesting.  She also went beyond the usual Impressionists and Post-Impressionists to the early years of the 20th century.  

There are things I used to enthuse about that I don't any more.  I do no gardening at all, for instance.  I haven't even bothered to plant up the tubs outside the house.  Bare earth or what has survived from last year and I don't care.  I'm sad that I don't care, but I can't pretend to.  My love of art, in all forms, has increased, however.  It's most of what I care about - obviously, not including people.  I want to go to art galleries, concerts, see and hear about beauty.  I don't mind at all if it's not, initially, my idea of beauty.  You can appreciate something that you don't necessarily like.  Only by seeing it or listening to it enough times to start to understand it, can you know if you do like it - or if it's any good.  Plenty of fashionable emperors are not wearing any clothes, but some of them are, resplendently.

Z loves getting ready for a party. It makes me very happy.

 I did cook the fish, as well as cabbage, last night.  I still have some of the fish left - when I think that, back in the day, my parents cheerily tucked into a pair of kippers for breakfast or a whole Dover sole for dinner - the sole would overlap the plate at each side, it was enormous.  Now, none of us can manage half as much and I'm not sure when it changed.  I know that we never snacked.  A couple of olives or cheesy biscuits, with an aperitif, perhaps, but no one munched on anything between meals.  But nor do I and I still can't manage a fillet of plaice.  Tim and I often used to share a steak or a big piece of fish.

Today, I have done all I planned to do, remarkably.  I have cooked two gluten and dairy free cakes, ready for Saturday, which will be wrapped up and kept cool.  Everything else is planned and will be done on Friday and Saturday morning.  I'm energised by the anticipation, so not tired unless there's good cause.

Tonight, because the fillet steak I took out of the freezer was actually two, I'm making Boeuf Stroganoff for dinner, to use up the second one (I realise that I won't eat it all, so I'll frugally squirrel one away in the freezer.  I've opened a bottle of very good red wine.  I've been saving it, but who's better to use it on than me?  When I ask people over for dinner, we're all too busy talking and eating to notice what we're drinking, unless it's rather poor, so I might as well savour a glass or two.  Two, frankly.

All the same, I've noticed, over the years, that when a wine is very good, I drink less of it.  I relish and appreciate it, so it's more satisfying.  I've also noticed that it diminishes in quality on the second outing and, by the third day, it could be any decent plonk.  I do have a gizmo that's supposed to remove the air from a bottle, but I've forgotten how to use it.  Ho hum.

I also had trouble removing the innards from my coffee machine to wash it.  I fiddled about with it yesterday, without success, looked for the instructions this morning, also without success and sprayed water around in case something was stuck.  Without success.  Then I found another small moving part and moved it and, hurray.  Success.  The rest was easy, except that I forgot that it has to be reinserted on the huh, so it took a couple of minutes.  Then I made coffee, obviously.

Oh, I made a loaf of bread too.  Such industry.  Now, time for the beef.  I've soaked some rice in preparation, because I'm totally on a roll.  Which has nothing to do with bread.  I'm very tempted to make bread rolls for Saturday, because I'm making pulled pork as one of the dishes, but I hope I'll have more sense, because cooking them will be really fiddly without the Aga.  And, since a heatwave is forecast, I don't want to turn that up.  Also, I'm limited for time.  I'm busy tomorrow and Thursday.  

Z is listening to a blackbird singing in the evening sunshine

 When Weeza was a little girl she would announce, at the end of a busy day, "I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm tired." I thought that at lunchtime today, after more than three hours spent with china.  So I poached two bantam eggs and toasted a slice of bread for lunch and then, having gone too long without food, ate a chunk of cheese too.  I have a sizeable fillet of plaice in the fridge, that I bought from Paul the Fish this morning, but I'm not sure I can be bothered to cook it.  I'm trying to think of something healthy that I want to eat and I happen to have, instead.  It may be simpler to cook the fish.

Most of the time, I'm enthusiastic about cooking, but a few times a year, I become completely bored with it.  This time, it's been sparked by turning the Aga off - it had been far too hot to bear it for a week, then I've resisted any temptation with the memory of the last propane bill, for the fill-up just before the war started, since when prices have rocketed.  I'm making this last as long as possible.  I bowed to the trend for heated blankets in the winter and, in the last chilly days, it has saved me from turning on an electric fire.  I admit also to switching on the electric blanket at night, a couple of times, too.  This, only days after finding a summer duvet far too hot and just sleeping under a sheet.  English weather is endlessly entertaining.  Another heatwave is promised for later in the week.  Bring it on, darlings.  At least we've had plenty of rain.

The bantams are laying enthusiastically.  There are only eight of them, all either four or five years old.  But there were six eggs yesterday and another three today.  I am planning a good many egg-based dishes for Saturday - cakes, mousse and good old egg mayonnaise, at least.  Thank goodness no one is allergic to eggs.  With the obvious exception of vegans, vegetarians and committed meat enthusiasts (because the first two and the last don't fit easily)  I aim to serve food that everyone can eat, not to make anyone feel as if they have to be careful and ask.  Luckily, I can and do eat pretty well anything, but a lot of people can't or choose not to.

Anyway.  As ever, I start to write without knowing where I'll end up.  I'll go and cook that fish.  I've got a blood test booked by the way, for tomorrow.  I had a speedy response from the GP, which is slightly disconcerting.  I know how triage works.

Z's chatty morning

 I went to church this morning - we only have one service a month now, though an informal church group has a meeting every week.  From last month, we've combined forces.  I won't say that the very informal services really suit me - they use the Communion service with their coffee morning style - but it's very friendly and pleasant; just not really going to church.  But never mind that - as I was going in, I saw two friends I haven't seen for ages, literally not for several years.  Phil asked me delicately if I had a partner, it's that long.  He knew I'd married Tim, but not that he'd died, though Chris hastily corrected him.  I don't take any offence, of course.  Better to just ask.

Later, another old friend came and we sat together - she'd come for someone's 80th birthday party; he and his wife taught her at high school and they've been friends ever since - she's now in her early 50s.  After the service, we stayed and chatted for a long time and really connected - we've always liked each other, but we know more about why, now.  We think and react similarly about things - it's not about opinions, which we didn't discuss, but the way our minds work.

On the way out, Chris, Phil and I started talking again.  They've had a fairly rough year, with a major health issue and very aged parental problems.  Again, we just got on and had a very sympathetic conversation.  It was all rather lovely.

I had lots of vegetables for lunch, plus halloumi - I was just using things up out of the fridge.  I'd had steak for dinner last night and liver and onions this evening.  I don't really feel much like cooking and eating, but I need to put myself right.  I also had an afternoon nap rather than catalogue china, and have only done five pieces.  I need to get my arse in gear tomorrow morning.