who only by moving can balance

Reading. I continue to make slow progress with both What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman) and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke).

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to Labour, mostly? Grumpy e-mails to Labour. Oh, and separately to the DWP courtesy of My UC Journal.

Playing. I have tripped and fallen back into 2048. I do not know why I have tripped and fallen thus. There are other things I would rather be doing. Brain whyyy.

I Love Hue current status: just started The Alchemy/Knowledge/12.

Cooking. Two new-to-us recipes from East: caramelised fennel and carrot salad with mung beans and herbs, of which I am a fan but about which A is a bit meh; and Amritsari pomegranate chickpeas, with the decaf English Breakfast I bought the other week, which I also quite liked but A was mildly dubious of.

Today has featured a different Welsh cake recipe, from one of the charity-shop books I acquired for the purposes of the special interest in EYB indexing. This one includes honey and ground mixed spice; I am decidedly disconcerted by how much they taste like Wrong Texture Mince Pies when cool.

Eating. ... yeah it's been A Migrainey Week, and has consequently contained two rounds of Wagamama. TRAGICALLY I decided on the first of these to branch out and try Not My Usual. Not My Usual turned out to contain The Dread Mayonnaise (I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the number of things called "slaw" I had recently encountered that did not contain mayo). It was mostly salvageable...

Exploring. ADVENTURES in VAN HIRE for the purposes of moving SHED. This involved heading out to Hatfield, because the one fifteen minutes up the road was already Thoroughly Booked. We got to observe MORE FLOWERS and lo they were good.

... I think that's it? I think that's it. (A also went on another adventure to acquire roof box and appropriate rack, but I stayed at home for that one.)

Making & mending. I have not, technically, actually resumed A's pair of gloves, BUT I have now got the information from A I need in order to do so! So that's a progress.

... there has also been. Event prep. So much event prep. The meal ticket booklets for crew are all done; the potions are all sliced and folded ready for laminating (except for the one that needed someone to actually finish writing what it did); ... progress?

Growing. SO MANY SQUASH. Not all of the ones I sowed, but... a lot... have come up.

Somewhat irritated that somebody found my Bravest Dwarf Pea, which had actually managed to find and attach itself to the pea sticks, and severed the stem a little below said attachment. :|

Main infrastructural progress this week was getting all the railway sleepers and shed bits up to the plot (with significant and indispensable help from A). I've not done anything with them yet but they are there, I have plans, necessary hardware is en route, etc.

What else what else? First of the beans are in the ground. I was feeling decidedly surly about my redcurrant but this turns out to have been premature and unfair -- since last weekend it's unfurled a little more and is looking much more promising in terms of potential harvest. The raspberries also seem to be very much enjoying the mulch + semi-regular watering, which is pleasing.

Observing. I totally forgot to mention in last week's section on this topic that on the ride back from Anglesey Abbey we observed Many Cowslips, including at least one that was red!

Tulips continue fantastic. Irises are getting into the swing of things at this point. The bindweed is definitely waking up...

Reading. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke: reread, for the first time in... a while, status ongoing. I am enjoying the mix of things I had entirely forgotten and things I half-remember and being totally unable to tease out what's actually foreshadowing from what's memory, real or invented.

I am currently less than a month behind on Dreamwidth.

I have also been dipping in and out of various cookbooks & Joy Larkcom's Grow your own vegetables, but nothing thorough enough to make it into the spreadsheet!

Writing. An e-mail to my MP? Quite possibly the most writing I have done this week is an extremely resentful e-mail to my MP.

Oh! and I actually submitted my second indexed cookbook to EYB. Now I get to wait impatiently while it's proofread, and then I can ask for book #3...

Playing. Finished a jigsaw! ... which is missing a piece. We bought it second-hand; did it arrive this way? Or did I manage to knock it off the table and then feed it to the robot vacuum without noticing...?

Regardless: absolute nonsense. It was a bit of a slog to start with but turned into Lots Of Fun, so I suppose I'm keeping this one as well.

Cooking. ... so I am doing the thing where I am making Lots Of New Recipes and it is honestly quite tiring and I should probably attempt to do slightly fewer New Things? But this week featured:

• sweetheart cabbage okonomiyaki from East; not this recipe but same basic idea. I actually gave up on attempting to cook this last week because I was so convinced I was going to dislike it (or at least the sauces she advises to go with), but... actually it was a very tasty and very quick cabbage fritter and it is Getting Added To The Rotation. (I have a Sous Chef tab open with okonomi sauce...)
• an Ottolenghi rice pudding with roasted rhubarb and tarragon: I think I prefer our usual, but I have also been sneaking bits of the roasted rhubarb out of the fridge entirely by themselves, which I had not anticipated...
• one-tin Korean style aubergines with spring onions and sesame rice: entirely adequate as a way to eat a pile of vegetables (and, to be fair to it, better on day two, and genuinely very straightforward), but not particularly memorable.
• Ottolenghi olive oil courgettes with eggs and potatoes: I am unsure how much of my absolute delight with this was simply that I've not eaten enough fried potatoes recently, but it was very pleasant. Might well reappear should I actually manage to grow three different kinds of courgette this year.

Eating. Two rounds Solero Exotic Fruit, because it was sunny and pleasant and A wished company in eating Take Away Ice Cream, and I was more into the concept of these than into the concept of Cornettos (of which I was very fond in childhood, but which I'm afraid will turn out to Not Be What I Want any more, and I would on the whole prefer to err on the side of preserving the memory). Two rounds of pizza (one at the allotment). Wagamama, because I had a flap about not getting to eat it in The Usual Fortnightly Dinner Slot (replaced by a Social Pizza, not at the allotment).

Ottolenghi dark chocolate, pistachio, and raspberry brittle: annoyingly I think I significantly prefer the salted caramel & hazelnut brittle.

The last piece of Ottolenghi cake -- "cooked fruit tart" i.e. pear frangipane -- with a slightly ridiculous quantity of Chantilly cream (because I was whipping cream anyway for the rice pudding...)

Exploring. Whipsnade Zoo! Lots of fantastic sleepy animals and a new-to-me goose.

Barking Park, with new duck food dispenser.

Making & mending. ... honestly it was mostly A? but there is Tiny Progress toward fixing the book chair (which will if absolutely nothing else be extremely helpful for cookbook indexing...)

Growing. SO MANY THINGS. To my surprise several things I'd given up on (having sown them direct) are sprouting, and are not promptly being obliterated by gastropods. I've moved garlic chives and shallots from modules into the allium bed, and sown the rest of my leek seeds (which might actually do something, which I'm very excited about). Buoyed by this unexpected success, I have direct-sown a whole lot more peas.

The jostaberry is now in full flower; the cherry is still thinking about it but not quite there yet.

Infrastructure-wise, reorganising the footprint of the fruit cage to make it easier to actually close went surprisingly well. Both oak saplings from the bed I want to grow tomatoes in this year have been Removed, one entirely by me (and unlikely to survive) and one mostly by Adam (about which I am more hopeful). Do I wish to donate them to The New Site for Admin: the LRP? Yes of course I do. And the capillary matting I am using in the greenhouse seems fingers crossed to be more-or-less doing the job I want it to.

Basils continue happily. I might have two germinated aubergine after all? Ditto pineapple physalis? I have also sown the rest of the calabrese seeds in my possession (highly unlikely to germinate, but at least no longer taking up space in my seed box); the pak choi I'm hoping to generate seed from this year are sorta progressing (though I have discovered just how badly they don't like being transplanted, so am sowing the remainder in newspaper pots).

... lots and LOTS of plants. And also some Freecycle railway sleepers, though I need to arrange to go back to the house they exist at with a pry bar and a saw, to cut the longer ones up enough they'll actually fit in the car...

Observing. COOTS. BABY COOTS. SO MANY BABY COOTS.

Zoo animals! Birds Of Barking Park! The allotment foxes are getting much more comfortable with me!

And, also at the allotment, my first peacock butterfly of the year :)

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.

Reading. Max Gladstone, Wicked Problems. ( Read more... )

Skimmed a couple of cookbooks.

Watching. More Farscape. I am now having less "... what the fuck" than I was in the first half of season one, but I would not yet go so far as to call myself invested. (We have just had episode 19, Nerve part I.)

Playing. I Love Hue: The Dream/Dreamwalker/15 complete! Aaaaalmost to the triangles. Whereupon I expect to rediscover why I wandered off last time through.

Flight Rising: ( Read more... )

Cooking. More East: celeriac, tofu and kale gado gado (BAD. NO.); saffron, lemon and almond cakes.

Ottolenghi: roasted red & golden beetroot, from the first cookbook.

Misc internet: Japanese soufflé cheesecake with yuzu caramel sauce, to use up half a tub of cream cheese and some egg whites. Delighted by this as a Novel Experience; not super likely to make again, but nonetheless -- happy!

Eating. A has been making me lots of pancakes. I have nibbled a nontrivial quantity of garlic at the plot.

Creating. Penelope's Gloves continue: I got most of the way through glove #2, then discovered that on this one I'm doing something wrong such that I'm winding up with the hand flap at a decided and unhelpful slant. And then I frogged back to the top, and rewound the yarn, and redid, and the same thing is happening again! DO NOT UNDERSTAND but deeply displeased.

In other string news, I have been gently working out what I need to do to join the two chunks of netting I have already made. I think I understand the principles but I am not entirely sure how to achieve the required tensioning.

Making & mending. I did most of the changing a punctured inner on my bike! (Got A to do the handling-the-latex-track-pump bits.) A then also narrated me through their process of unfucking the dynamo front light, which had been Not Working; the magic trick was probably unplugging all the connections, cleaning out the literal cobwebs, and then plugging things back together. (Possibly the multimeter scared it into behaving.)

An overdue Admin: the LRP job: updating the catalogue of sigils with which people mark their arrows. This involved working out how to replicate a stylised fox face drawn in orange highlighter. I am quite pleased with the result.

Growing. ( Read more... )

Observing. THE BAT.

Reading. As mentioned: I Overcame My Autism ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʟʟ ɪ ɢᴏᴛ ᴡᴀs ᴛʜɪs ʟᴏᴜsʏ ᴀɴxɪᴇᴛʏ ᴅɪsᴏʀᴅᴇʀ, Sarah Kurchak. I almost unreservedly love this; my one minor quibble (this being something that has tripped me up Several Times over, say, the past year or so) is that she more-or-less presents special interests as an Unalloyed Good with None Downsides. I understand why she does so -- she's writing against a literature that considers them Inherently Bad with All Downsides -- but having (as I say) had multiple recent rounds of "I am miserably hitting refresh on the same four forums about my current Overwhelming Hyperfixation, and while I would consciously rather be doing pretty much anything else, attempts to stop are actually physically painful" I'm a bit sad that that particular community-internal nuance didn't get page time. Overall, though, lots of wry cackling, and heartily recommended.

One further excerpt (consisting of a footnote, in its entirety):

To my non-autistic readers: I want to warn you that the next handful of paragraphs are going to be a shift in tone. I've been tempering my natural autistic inclination to spew large amounts of information in a single burst up until now in an effort to keep you as comfortable, engaged and amused as possible. But I fear that I need to be a bit of a lecturing eccentric aunt on these key points. So few autistics are given any kind of platform to tell our stories at all, and fewer still have a chance to touch on love and sex. Most of the material that non-autistic people have produced on the topic strikes me as patronization, mockery, exploitation or fear-mongering. I have a fairly rare chance to attempt to shift the conversation in my own small way here, and I believe that I owe it to my fellow autistics to squeeze as much as I can as seriously as I can into this section.
To my autistic readers: You'll be fine. It's info dump and mildly pedantic argument-making time!

(Okay, one more quibble: she does not anywhere introduce the term "allistic".)

I cannot at all remember who it was that recced this (and utterly failed to make a note of that when noting the rec), but thank you very much for doing so!

Watching. Farscape S01E16. I am spending a steadily decreasing proportion of each episode going "... what the fuck". ( Spoiler. )

Playing.

Cooking. More East recipes! The beginning of the week featured pineapple: pineapple love cake, with the leftovers getting turned into chilli salt pineapple (minus the lime, which we had run out of, and which I think she describes not inaccurately as "less of a recipe, more of a serving suggestion"). This evening I did her peanut celery wontons (we were slightly short on celery, so I chucked in a punnet of chestnut mushrooms I'd been failing to get to...) AND THEY WERE EXCELLENT AND I AM DELIGHTED. We had other things to eat as well, so some got frozen and I'm going to make us another batch tomorrow (for lunch? as a starter? as yet unclear). In consequence of how unexpectedly delighted I was by these, I've moved "garlic chives" from the "maybe seeds?" to the "DEFINITELY SEEDS" list. (They're not included in this recipe, but it turns out this style of dumpling is in fact very easy at least if you are buying the wrappers??? a delight.)

The other undertaking, prompted by A asking on a bit of a whim in t'supermarket yesterday, was Ottolenghi's saffron and cardamom panettone pudding. It is extremely pleasant.

Making & mending. GLUB. Sort of. I have started referring to these as Penelope's Gloves? I have more-or-less tehcnically completed it (ish -- three stitches short of actually managing to bind off the thumb, having lost the game of yarn chicken) for a third time (for a grand total of Not Quite One Glove of the pair), and I've now confirmed that everything works in terms of what I want it to, the palm bind-off has loosened up enough with wearing it that it's not uncomfortable to type in any more.

... so I'm going to frog it again. Obviously. BUT probably only back as far as not-quite-finished back-of-hand: firstly I made a slightly untidy error picking up stitches on the way down the side, and more importantly (in that if that had been the only problem I was going to wheedle myself out of bothering, at least until I'd finished the right glove for the first time) I reckon that if I shape the very top of the mitt a tiiiiny bit more I can free up enough yarn to actually, you know, finish the thumb (in a single skein. yes I have plenty of spare. it's cotton and I don't want to have to faff with any more ends than I can possibly avoid.)

... at the cost of removing the Little Ears. I have just actually demonstrated the ears to Adam. The reaction was such that I am going to take a photograph for the class before I frog them.

(Bonus points: I have pressed one of my Traveler's Notebook-format inserts into service as Dedicated Repository Of Knitting/Crafting Notes, so I now have most of a page of veeeeery tiny handwriting on what's been working and what hasn't and reminders about which way various purl decreases lean...)

Growing. I have partially constructed the framework of a potential bean tunnel (with gratitude for inspiration)! I need to find a few more bits I'm happy to use as bonus supports on the sides, and having now experimented with putting the netting over it I have worked out what modifications I need/want to make to same, so that's a job for the... imminent-ish future.

I have also: pruned the jostaberry such that it is (or was, for at least five minutes) entirely within the fruit cage; distributed yet another layer of cardboard around the redcurrant (i.e. the site of the most frustrating weeds on my plot) on top of the existing woodchip-on-top-of-cardboard; planted beans and my remaining garlic; discovered that part of the reason last year's garlic harvest was so poor is that I missed several bulbs when digging them up (and now need to work out whether I think I can safely split the largest clump...); did a bit more misc weeding; and also made a tentative sowing of a first batch of spring onions (in a bed in the greenhouse).

There was a rainbow.

I have also: inventoried my seed collection; ordered two lots of seeds; got a bunch of tabs open for my Final Seed Order of the start of the year; failed to find the packet of Sugar Magnolia I'm sure is Around Here Somewhere.

Also, the lemongrass is doing well! I am very excited about my developing Clump Of Lemongrass.

I have not managed to get any of my nightshades started this week, but I am attempting to sneak up on the concept.

Observing. My mother has started seeing bats. I have not yet, alas, seen bats. BUT there are many MANY spring flowers (daffodils are actually out now!!!), and the days are getting longer and warmer, and it is definitely spring, and I love it.

Reading. Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher. An entire delight, to the point that I am reconsidering the merits of attempting some of her other horror. (Because I agree with her that this one really is sweet, but A Minor Mage was Sufficiently Upsetting that I did not want to try sleeping before I'd finished it...)

Tales From Out There, Frozen Ed Furtaw: finished! And indeed spent a bit of time browsing subsequent race reports...

Prophet, Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché, as mentioned previously. I have just hit Chapter 61/75% of the way through it (some screeching in comments on that linked post) and am looking forward to rolling around in all of rydra_wong's posts On The Topic soon. Very soon.

I have also flipped through the modern vegetarian (Maria Elia), and indexed the first chapter of Leiths How to Cook Bread) for EYB.

Watching. Knitting belts! Which is how I came across the rest of the amazing structural story-telling knitting linked t'other day.

Cooking. Ottolenghi's ultimate winter couscous: it is definitely good (notwithstanding that we are largely ignoring the directions re harissa and leaf coriander) but it is also not quite what I want, somehow, and I am trying to work out why that is. The good news is I'll have plenty of opportunity to do so, because I slightly made four days' worth...

Playing. This week I am very excited because yesterday in Flight Rising the RNG disgorged A MANTICORE for me. Last of the gathering familiars!

Making & mending. I am up to row 60 (of 115, plus some faff with a thumb) on glove #1 of the Firstfall convertible mitts -- i.e. I have just separated out the thumb stitches and then rejoined the hand section. This is cast on #3 and I had to frog one and a half pattern repeats yesterday, BUT I have subsequently invested in LIFELINES (v useful when I looked up from The Book I Am Inhaling to realise I'd put the start of the thumb increases on the wrong side of the palm...) and I'm honestly impressed by how well the cables are showing given! that it's cotton!

Tomorrow I get to either remind myself how short rows work (for a suggested modification I suspect I want to implement...) or, uh, stall.

Growing. I had been Avoiding some Sad Lemongrass out of Guilt but one of it has sprouted and! indeed! since I put it in soil! has developed more visible leaves. Fingers crossed for not killing this one.

At the plot: the garlic I'd given up on is coming up after all! Or, well, at least three of it is, but I'm Hopeful about the rest. Alas only a handful of the broad beans I sowed in the autumn appear to have survived the depredations of winter.

Reading. Gideon M-K's series of posts on the Cass Review.

The Beatryce Prophecy, Kate DiCamillo. A Delight, feat. Key Character Answelica, A Goat.

Otherlands, Thomas Halliday. ALMOST FINISHED CHAPTER 12. :| (Yes I would like my brain to let me DNF this one. ALAS.)

Watching. More Farscape. I think I lost track of how far through we were and misreported episode numbers from last week? But this week we have had 1.10 (feat. reproduction) and also 1.11 (feat. reproduction and More Kink). I do not think it has become good yet.

Playing. Iiiii have tripped and fallen back into I Love Hue, as I think I have mentioned, on a new device, which means I was starting again from the beginning, and now that I am well into The Hexagons I have caved and bought the cheapest prism pack so as to buy my way back out of ads thus increasing the timesink properties.

I am up to date with Redactle. (Things went a bit wrong in November, and then more wrong the week of surgery, For Some Reason.)

Cooking. Baby's first Welsh cakes! A required A Treat, and was very pleased with them; we will have the rest for breakfast; I am not sure why I was quite so convinced that they were Difficult.

Eating. Holtwhites Bakery banana loaf cake, at the Green Bee Coffee Company van on the market, as part of...

Exploring. ... a bit of a poke around the New River Loop on Saturday morning with a visiting university friend, which was a delight :)

Creating. Have I cast on the gloves I very much want to have finished by April? A hollow laughing.

Observing. Two lanky teenage foxes, still hanging out with each other, halfway down the hill! Much larger than when they were curling up on our patio!

Reading. I am GOING to finish Otherlands, So Help Me. SIX AND TWO HALF CHAPTERS TO GO.

I am partway into Flannelfeet and enjoying myself immensely. I am nearly up to All New To Me pieces. (I would like to be able to read in chunks of more than a couple of sentences at a time.)

Writing. 'nother few bullet points scrawled into The Pain Book.

Playing. The jigsaw puzzle Pixel! I have got all of the blues and aaaaaaaalmost all of the greens (I am making myself Wait to do the final half-row as a Bribe to Get Me Out Of Bed In The Morning). ( Spoilers? )

So much Net. So much Net. The game I am about halfway through at the moment is The Platonic Ideal of Satisfying: middle block is a straight line, with the starting position having it connected to two terminals, which means that it is guaranteed that for my final move I can rotate it 90 degrees and have the whole board light up all at once in one fell swoop. I am looking forward to it.

Cooking. Tarte tatin the second. Now very comfortable describing myself as Confident With Puff Pastry. Extremely pleased to have acquired this skill.

Also some disappointing soup.

Also my nonsense puttanesca, which I should probably make more often, because it is quick and easy and I enjoy it. (... it has just now occurred to me that I might want to experiment with adding some of the veg*n "fish" sauce to it. HMM.)

Eating. The last of the non-Christmas-and-therefore-perishable cake we got sent home with by my mother. Tonight: delivery Pizza Express. A variety of Chococo chocolates (we got A Hamper), some of which I am (thus far) more convinced by than others.

Creating. Tiiiiiny bit of colouring in The Botanical Illustration Colouring Book.

Making & mending. Chopped up a cardboard box from the new desk for the 3D printer to live on, in order to turn it into A Larger Puzzle Board (... because Pixel is 1500 pieces and, er, bigger than our previous solution) (and also the new cardboard box was enough bigger that this board does NOT have inconvenient pre-folded collapsibility). I then managed to transfer the part-assembled puzzle to it with ZERO disasters and only mild swearing.

... I have not cast on The Mittens. I did get as far as sitting down and reading through the beginning of the pattern and thinking Really Hard about it, though...

Growing. ... the volunteer tomato is trying to flower. What on earth am I supposed to do with this.

(I am vaguely intending to Order Some Seeds but that means I need to sit down with The Existing Seeds and everything is Very right now.)

Observing. FROST. It is VERY PRETTY and also VERY COLD. Excellent small carnivore footprints in it. V pleasing.

Reading. ... accidentally Maggie Stiefvater's entire Dreamer trilogy.

And then my digital loan of Otherlands (Thomas Halliday) showed up from the library (after Some Time in the hold queue), and I am indeed making faster progress through it than I have been managing with the hard copy!

Misc children's books: The Enormous Crocodile (Roald Dahl), most of Florians wundersame Reise über die Tapete (Franz Karl Ginzkey), The Escape of the Krollsnork (Generowicz Witold).

Playing. Three rounds of Scrabble, most of which were absolutely dire on my part, but I quite enjoyed codA/fAYNES with the S on a triple word score.

Cooking. Experimental savoury tarte tatin that worked Sufficiently Well that A has requested More Of It, Please!

Also tonight: variations on lemon and curry leaf rice (plus cinnamon leaf) and squash with cardamom and nigella seeds (using pre-roasted and subsequently frozen non-butternut winter squash).

Yet More Biscuits!

Eating. Christmas cake! Many cheeses! Et cetera!

Growing. Made it to the allotment today (courtesy of A). Alarmed by the apparent total absence of my wheelbarrow, which does not seem like the kind of thing one ought to be able to lose track of! But otherwise things tick over and most of the pre-surgery-sown broad beans are extant and producing leaves...

Celebrating. Minimally-invasive best-case surgery!

Reading. I have almost finished Decoding the Heavens (Jo Marchant). I have been EXTREMELY INDIGNANT about an explanation of isotopes that blithely asserts that thulium-170 has an extra proton (!!!), and am consequently doubting the reliability of basically all of the other science -- but I have also been merrily wandering off and skimming bits of the internet on the topic, so hey, I will at least concede that I am having fun.

Watching. Comfort rewatch of half of The Old Guard on Tuesday evening, before bowel prep solution kicked in and I retreated to the bathroom...

Eating. FIBRE. I AM ALLOWED FIBRE AGAIN. I HAVE PANETTONE. I HAVE FRUIT WITH SKINS ON. I HAVE EATEN SEEDS AND NUTS AND BROCCOLI.

Hospital food remarkably edible, on the whole.

Ottolenghi almond & orange cake with chocolate ganache.

Exploring. A lot more of the innards of the Royal Free Hospital than I had previously investigated, including the theatre level (though I was in Theatre 1, which means there was a lot more of it I didn't get to see...), PACU (just around the corner), two (of four) wards on the seventh floor, Clinic 9 on the first floor ("am I really supposed to be coming back in 48 hours to have the stents I was told would be in situ for 6 weeks removed???"), and then a chunk of the lower ground floor including the waiting area for ambulatory A&E, SDEC ("Same-Day Emergency Care"! had not previously met!), Emergency Imaging (passing via the doors to Resus; contained a mobile scanner with its long long neck painted to resemble a giraffe), and divers corridors and toilets.

Making & mending. Muscle???

Growing. Also muscle and skin and such??? But also: I got A LOT of manure delivered to the allotment site, and managed to move a fair bit of it around onto Plants, Misc on Monday. And can expect to be back to shifting it much sooner than I'd dared hope, given the minimally-invasive etc!

Observing. A jay, on our way to hospital. Flocks of birds from the window at 7 North.