kaberett | vital functions

Celebrating. Adam's birthday!

During yesterday's trip to drop some things off for the food bank (inter alia) I tripped and fell and bought a bunch of cut-price purple tulips and, separately, a tub of cut-price clotted cream.

a frying pan containing Kaiserschmarrn; purple tulips; blackberry compote; teal notebook cover

So. Successful impromptu appropriately-coloured flowers for birthday. And his birthday present got delivered! So I snuck around wrapping and hiding it AND HE NOTICED NOTHING MUAHAHAHAHA.

This morning I made Kaiserschmarrn (as pictured) and blackberry compote (and alas no Apfelmus because we couldn't get the lids off). Adam had not previously been aware that this was a foodstuff that existed, because I apparently haven't made it in over a decade (?!). I am informed that it ought be Added To The Rotation.

AND THEN. WE GOT OURSELVES TOGETHER TO GO OUT FOR A WALK. And I let Adam go out first and hung back "to lock the door" as he caught sight of the brown paper stuffed in our letter box. WHAT, he said. WHY. WHY IS THERE RUBBISH. WHO HAS PUT RUBBISH IN OUR--

... and then he trailed off because, as he indignantly pulled it out of the letter box, he made contact with the actual solid matter. Which consisted, obviously, of bats. (I ordered the Metal Bat and the Metal Bat With Open Wing, but got sent a Metal Fruit Bat instead of a Metal Bat. So I've e-mailed Kew to say ;_; and ask what do, as the Metal Bat is clearly superior.)

I GOT TO WATCH HIS FACE PROGRESS THROUGH THE STAGES. THE IRRITATED "WHAT IS THIS AND WHY IS IT HERE". THE "WAIT THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED". THE "... IT'S A BAT?!?!" And then an AMAZINGLY gratifying mix of hilarity and delight as he realised that the actual present was not per se the schmunti but The Experience of Finding A Bat In The Postbox.

AND THEN we went for a walk -- he took me on a New Adventure that I had not previously been on that involved SO MUCH stained glass and many excellent wooded bits -- and came home via the supermarket, where I had the BRILLIANT BRAINWAVE of making the bread-and-butter pudding A had requested as his birthday cake with the massively cut-price brandy butter.

Upon getting home he happily spent a bit of time bimbling around playing with his media server to the point that I was actually getting slightly worried... EXCEPT THEN he asked if I was okay to have him turn the internet off and on again and I said yes, sure, and could I show him something on the internet afterwards?

WHEREUPON I SENT HIM A LINK TO HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY which is still in progress at time of going to press. \o/

(Though fairly shortly we will be stopping and having dinner...)

Reading. SEVERAL things good grief. The Silver Sea, Seanan McGuire: Patreon short in the October Daye universe. I think basically all my previous comments on this series stand.

Boris Anrep: The National Gallery Mosaics, Lois Oliver. On the one hand I am kind of appalled by Boris Anrep as a human being, and on the other going through this made it completely obvious why I had decided it was worth spending £2.99 on the explanatory guidebook on a visit to the National Gallery in 2012. Had great fun showing it to A. Did not put it straight in the charity shop box, because I think actually we want to go to the National Gallery with it purely for the purpose of looking at the mosaics...

If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You, John Chu. Oh this is DELIGHTFUL. Such evocative mime, good grief.

Manage Your Pain, Michael Nicholas et al. This was in the library's "UK Disability History Month 2023 Collection" and is sufficiently bad that I'm probably actually going to write in and say "so, uh, not saying you should divest yourselves of all copies, but that particular curation choice was... Not! Great!"

In progress: Aliette de Bodard, The House of Shattered Wings, acquired lo these many years ago from a charity shop; Recovery, Gavin Francis, also from the library under the Wellcome imprint.

Watching. Good Omens S02E05. ... abruptly more into this. Would have been delighted to skip the excruciating build-up.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, rewatch for an Adam, still charming.

Playing. A couple of rounds of Blood on the Clocktower, for Adam's birthday! And then I observed some more rounds of same.

Cooking. KAISERSCHMARRN. Bread and butter pudding (with brandy butter!). And very shortly I will make Spätzle, possibly using a variant method...

Exploring. Trent Park, for a new year's day walk -- made friends with the square water again, lots of EXCELLENT mushrooms, etc.

And a small adventure this afternoon poking around some local footpaths -- see celebrating. :)