kaberett | vital functions

Reading. ... I have skimmed several more cookbooks?

Writing. OH HEY I HAVE ACTUALLY DONE SOME OF THIS. I now have an introduction to The Book that is (i) longer and (ii) better; I've also expanded several other notes and had a !!! moment about the comorbidity of autism with chronic pain disorders + commonly-observed reduced sensory habituation in autistics. (I'd already got "habituation" in the notes for expansion, but I was thinking of it in terms of the example of having three bowls of water, one hot one cold one tepid, and what the tepid bowl feels like to hands that have spent time in the two "extremes".)

Also at least one grumpy e-mail to Labour. This is not the right week to ask me to donate money to help fund The Change Britain Voted For, it really really is not, good grief.

Watching. We have finished Farscape S1! We attempted to start S2 today but got about ten minutes in before technology just... stopped cooperating.

It is also Migraine World Summit week. I'm really listening more than watching (insofar as I am watching, it's for the captions); I did not even manage day #2 before messing up time zones. I have not yet managed to e-mail in my "sell me a full-access pass for cheap, please" evidence, but I did at least manage to watch day #3, and it did actually contain some useful-to-me bits.

Listening. Waves. Including at 2 a.m. today, when I was Awoken By Pain and trying to soothe myself while waiting for the codeine (et al) to kick in.

Cooking. One-step no-churn coffee ice cream, using CO₂-decaffeinated instant (essentially Nigella, by way of Meera Sodha); delightfully, this does seem to be adequately decaffeinated for my purposes, and I am now plotting CAKE, and the ice cream itself (while not wholly well-behaved) goes very well with frozen berries, to my mind. Also from the desserts chapter: a coconut banana bread, which I consider strictly inferior to our normal, but hey! Tried a new thing!

The other two things are both cases of "okay, well, the principle is sound but I think I probably want to explore less simplified-for-ease-of-preparation versions": bunny chow, in this instance spiced-cabbage-and-chickpeas served in hollowed-out bread rolls, and sweet potato and aubergine massaman curry.

Exploring. Two particularly notable stupid little walks! On one of which we managed to go by the horse field at around dinner time, so they were poking their heads over the fence and willing to be scritched at least long enough to determine whether we secretly had dinner; and on the other we were Going To The Pharmacy, and taking the back route allowed us to discover a COOT NEST with an adult Firmly In Residence, and Patience was REWARDED with a VIEW OF THE EGGS (seven!!!). Think this was the pair we spent a lot of time watching further down the river last year -- one of them in particular has a very distinctive Threat Display sort of Angry Popping Squeak on quite a hair trigger.

And we also visited Barking park! Birds (of particular note) observed included: heron; tufted ducks; greylag geese; Egyptian geese; a moorhen making a really questionable nest; a duck I could not quite confidently identify also firmly sitting on a nest. AND there were Many Excellent Daffodils, and Lots Of Violets. (Locally tulips are starting to come out!)

Making & mending. Tunnel for peas is In Situ and has (or had, earlier in the week) A Pea installed! (I have not made it back to check on it...)

About halfway through A's first glove? I think that's about right.

Growing. Some Trinidad Perfume are hatching and also my second attempt at getting Feo di Rio Gordo going has also worked (emphatically). More beetroot coming up too; also the shallot and garlic chives and SO MANY basil. From this we learn: no really coconut coir is a better idea than general-purpose compost for getting things started; wrapping trays in plastic bags really does work and I really should do more of it; It's Never Too Late. Lots of the next round of pricking out now needs to happen. Fungus gnats treated with extreme prejudice; fingers crossed it sticks.

Observing. ... I think I managed to mostly cover this above.