[plague diaries] year 2

[kaberett]

Sort of.

A year ago today, I posted about the Kew orchid festival, 2020. I actually went on the 9th -- the Monday -- following an obnoxious early-morning GIC appointment. On the Friday we'd headed home from a holiday on the French-Italian border, catching a train up to Paris and then the Eurostar and then the Tube, landing me home just in time to attend the penultimate rehearsal for my orchestra's Saturday concert. I was tired and groggy and almost didn't drag myself the extra several miles from Hammersmith to Kew, because what if I just went home and slept instead--

-- but I thought, hey, the orchid festival got extended, and I might not get the chance to do this again any time soon. On the Wednesday I dithered a little and then poked around town, for (as far as I can tell from my notes) the last time, including spontaneous purchase of baking sheets and a visit to a supermarket in regard to which I noted "the white but not the brown bread flour was sold out, there'd been a run on giant boxes of teabags, most of the pulses were gone, and a yoghurt lorry had evidently gone astray..."

(Oh, and apparently I also got last year's tomatoes started around now, which means I'm running a few weeks ahead; let's see what good it does me, mm?)

This was also the week in which we had a... fraught exchange of views on the topic of A driving a minibus full of LARPers up-country for an indoor LARP, in the face of confusing and unclear gov't advice, and he ended up not. (And also, thankfully, ended up having his therapy appointment cancelled at short notice for logistics reasons... only for his therapist to develop symptoms of The Plague less than twelve hours after the scheduled appointment time.) Tomorrow is the anniversary of his last day in the office; as of the following Monday he was working from home full-time, my notes indicate. Which was unexpected -- it was going to be a week-long trial, and then he was going to go back, and, well, then he... didn't. For some reason.

The cookies I bought during the trip to Kew? Were from Ben's. Which I promptly ended up missing enough that we now make them regularly (or at least A does, while I hover), and freeze the balls of raw cookie dough so we can have A Cookie Each in as much time as it takes to heat up the oven, plus fifteen minutes for cooking, plus another five minutes' cooling for structural integrity.

We have also learned to make injera (sort of) and roti canai (... medium-competently), because we miss Kokeb and the Roti King so much.

Here we still are.

Comments

[fyreharper]

<3

[alexseanchai]

I have a sex-adjacent question for a geologist from a Discord. (is also adjacent the malachite tumblr post.) wanna hear it?

[kaberett]

Sure!

[alexseanchai]

I keep wondering what the safest rocks are to make dildos with. As discussed (at length) on Tumblr, malachite is not safe, not even with a condom, but are there any that are? I think clear quartz might be, if only because glass is safe and is also, IIRC, really chemically similar/near identical to quartz, but is it true? Does it count for any or all of the quartzes? What about other rocks?

somebody else subsequently found "A Geology Lesson in Crystal Dildos", though, so

[jjhunter]

Here we still are.

Yes. <3

[catmancer]

Of all the final pre-plague activities, a Kew festival certainly sounds like one of the more lovely things to have done. I had a look at the post you linked and it really does look amazing; I haven't been in many years, so the next time I'm able to get to London I think I'm well overdue a visit ^^

[silveradept]

Here we still are, and the fact that we're alive is a miracle, it seems.

Here's us hoping that soon there will be orchid festivals and LARPers again.

[booksarelife]

Here’s hoping!

[booksarelife]

Some of my friends and I had a “it’s been a year since we had to leave college because of the Plague” Zoom gathering last night, which was very fun but also very weird because wow what a year (we actually didn’t even really talk about that last week of in person school at all, we just mostly talked about random stuff and shared random college memories, which was great)

[alexwlchan]

Here we still are.

We are still here. <3