Monthly Archives: October 2025

Friday? How did that happen?

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Arnot Hill Park – the Pond

It is just before 9.00 and I have just risen. The curtains are not yet drawn and I am now sitting at the computer. This, with small adjustments, is my new routine. Today my time is my own. I am free to write a masterpiece and prepare an excellent repast ready for Julia when she returns from her cafe shift this afternoon. However, I will probably set my sights a little lower. Perhaps I will tap away at a few medium grade numismatic articles and make vegetable stew. I may even have a snooze after lunch.

Last night I read about Mauretania. It’s part of the process of self-education I have decided try in retirement. It will last for a few days and, like my diet, I will let it lapse for a week or so. It just goes to show that life is complicated. I was just Googling the last country to abolish slavery and was amazed by where it took me. That trail started with reading Paol Soren’s blog post on forced labour in the Channel Islands of WW2.  At times like this I feel the weight of my ignorance and really wish for my alternative life – the one where I have an office and an academic career.

Currently I have music playing in one ear. I don’t like having it in both as it allows Julia to sneak up on me. Despite our age we have never really progressed beyond that stage where a it is amusing to tickle an unsuspecting spouse or lay a cold hand on them. I am, of course, less mature than she is, but there is till a danger of being jabbed in the ribs whilst concentrating. Status Quo and You Never can Tell (which I just have been) is an ever-present danger. This just changed to the Eagles and Hotel California. It’s a bit like comfort food. My interest in music seems to have petered out in the 1980s and my taste in music, like my taste in puddings has not really moved on.

However, I now have a title for Monday.

Nasturtiums Wilford Mencap Gardens

 

Photos are from October 2019.

Blood Tests, Reading Ease and Vegetables

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The day started with a blood test.  The nurse took part of a tube before it stopped, never to start again. As she moved the needle to restart the flow I had a sudden, sharp pain in the wrist. I mentioned this, thinking she may have hit a nerve, but was told the needle wasn’t deep enough to hit a nerve. Well, it was deep enough to hit something, which stopped when the needle was withdrawn.

We had trouble after taking the needle out as I suddenly bled profusely, and wouldn’t stop. That’s the nature of Warfarin – you bleed easily, except when a nurse is trying to take a sample.

With the original; hole no longer flowing, she tried again. This time we got 3/4 of a tube before it stopped. A certain amount of tube swapping took place and we ended up with enough blood to allow it to be poured from tube to tube to make a full one. If it isn’t full they call you back for another test, which is always irksome.

Anyway, it is done. The results are on target, which is good. Now I just need to wait for the letter to tell me when my next test is due. They send the results and dosing instructions out by email to mke sure they get to me quickly, but they only send the new appointment date by letter, when they also confirm everything else. This is slightly different from the Nottingham system where they rang if anything needed changing, and made the appointment at the same time. I can’t say which is a better system, as they each have advantages, but it takes a little getting used to.

Last week I helped someone with editing a book. One of the suggestions I made was that he should cut down sentence length and complexity. I’m not perfect at this, but I do know a lot more about the basics of good writing than my work might show. I cannot be bothered to use simple words all the time, remove all adverbs or cut out all the verbal tics. I write for pleasure and don’t want to spend half my time sorting out the faults. This is me, this is my writing and these are my thoughts. I’m faulty and I’m happy with that.

Anyway, I fed the first section of this post through a couple of  online readability calculators. They calculate mysterious figures with strange names. However, they seem to agree that I am writing reasonably comprehensible words and am very slightly above the ideal scores. However, this still leaves me writing at about t5he level of a Harry Potter book, so I’m happy with that. It’s easy enough for adults to understand but not too basic.

Foodwise, we had our standard breakfast and sandwiches for lunch, so didn’t add anything to the food numbers. The evening meal was a Chinese-style rice dish with green beans, sweetcorn, mushrooms, spring onions, pineapple and broccoli.  It also had ginger, garlic and mango chutney, though probably not enough to count. It didn’t have peppers because, in the last couple of days, they have become inedible. This is embarrassing and I hate when I let it happen. They were too bad even for soup.

I was on 23 yesterday, and am now on 27. I have three days to find three more. I’m thinking of vegetable hash tomorrow – sweet potato, swede and cabbage will carry me across the line, which will be good for the first week.

I have mixed feelings about it as a system, but if it starts me thinking about food again, it will be worthwhile. We became a bit casual about nutrition over the summer. We had plenty of salad but teamed it up with too much processed meat and pork pies.

 

One Man and his Menu

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That’s the title I thought of yesterday as I blogged. It’s proof, if proof is needed, for the fact that I can get very pleased about small things, and that once you start having ideas, you have more. That’s the Theory of Creativity – you start and you keep going. Stop and your creativity stops. It’s like those sharks that have to keep swimming.

I also have an idea for the next title. Unfortunately, as I wrote that, I forgot it. That happens a lot.

Yesterday (which is only just an hour away – I’m typing in the early hours) I had beans, tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast, which lifted me to 21. We didn’t have lunch until 4pm. It was a McDonalds. I had a wrap and claim lettuce as my 22nd plant. In the evening we didn’t feel hungry, so ate the corned beef as sandwiches rather than in hash. I had some tinned pineapple and yoghurt afterwards, upping my intake to 23 plant-based items. Small steps, but not particularly difficult. In this case I do wonder if I’d have been better missing out the pineapple, and the calories. It could be that I’m using the target to make excuses for eating more.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for the results of several of last month’s submissions. I submitted eight and have had three answers – two acceptances and a rejection. Four of them will probably reply in the next week. It’s just two magazines, but different forms of poetry and different editors. They have all changed recently and are less willing than the previous editors to accept my work. It could be a blood bath. It’s a strange thing – but this reluctance seems to be a regular feature of editorial changes. I suspect I have managed to become old-fashioned, despite being a relative newcomer. It feels a bit like I’m writing for a different generation. I may have mentioned that before.

It’s my age, you know . . .

Pride Goeth Before a Fall

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I was so pleased with myself yesterday. Or, the early hours of this morning, to be accurate. I wrote a blog post, I didn’t veer off into politics, and I left with the Devil’s Gallop playing in my head and a hamster running round a wheel . . .

I knew there was something wrong as I published, but couldn’t work out what. I even had a title, which is the thing I most often omit.

But there was something . . .

This morning, I realised – no pictures. You would think it was obvious. but I managed to miss it.

Looking on the bright side, it has taken me over 100 words to talk about it, and it’s all grist to the mill as I restart my blogging habit. As a result of that missed step, people all over the world will be able to wake up and read about an ageing man who has mental pictures of hamsters, burns cabbage, and now, it seems, can’t even remember to add photos to a blog post.

As I say, I was so pleased with myself. I really need to work on my memory.

Meanwhile, as I sit typing, I haven’t eaten anything, so can’t talk about my progress in the eating of 30 plants.

That leaves me short of things to talk about, and hungry. I have a choice now – wake Julia up and hope she makes breakfast, or do it myself. Neither will be good. She will produce cereal and fruit again, and I will make a breakfast that is far too meat-based. Actually, no. I can do beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. And with one breakfast 18 food types becomes 21. Only 9 to go.

I’ve just realised I have a title for my next post. I’m happy now. I’m also off to eat breakfast.

 

 

Thoughts of Hamsters, Wheels and The Devil’s Gallop

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The list of things I’ve done today is simple – got up, checked emails, read WP. Read news online, regretted it, wrote a witty political blog post, decided, yet again, that I don’t want to do politics. Unfortunately it took me an hour to write and polish and delete.

Julia made breakfast, we skipped lunch, watched a bit of TV. I wrote. Julia cooked. Watched quizzes all evening. That’s about it.

Vegetables – Carsington Water

We duplicated some of the plants we ate yesterday but added an apple, an orange and Brussels Sprouts. We are a third of the way into the week and are now on 15 sorts of plant, so we are on target.

Wholewheat TESCO “Weetabix”
Blueberries
Bananas
Strawberries
Tea
Mixed dried fruit
Apricots
Coffee
Carrots
Parsnips
Leeks
Cauliflower
Apple
Orange
Potatoes
Brussels Sprouts

We also had spices – Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Mixed Spice not really enough to count and the vegetarian stuff in the sausage.

The bread in the bread pudding and the flour in the cake and pudding batter were both white, so don’t count.  We also had tomato relish, but probably not enough to count.

That’s sixteen so far and I have at least 21 sources of plant-based food in the kitchen, so we are going to hit target. I’m looking to do just over the 30. No point showing off or setting the bar too high in the first week.

Quite apart from the benefits of greater variety to my gut microbiome, there are definite benefits to my menu planning and recipe selection. It’s also making me blog more, which isn’t a benefit I’ve seen listed in any of the articles.

Stir Fry Vegetables

Now, having given a home to trillions of tiny organisms, all I need to do is avoid antibiotics. They have a disastrous effect on my internal functions, though to be fair, they did cure me when I was ill a few months ago, so I forgive them.

\one last thought – if you gather all the microbes in your gut together they weigh about as much as an adult hamster. Are you having the same mental picture that I am – a hamster on a wheel in my stomach? Now add the Dick Barton Theme as a soundtrack . . .

 

Culinary Armageddon

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At lunchtime I stopped work at the computer, had lunch (just a trio of crumpets) and started to bake. I had soaked the fruit for the tea loaf overnight, so that was OK, and I decided to make use of the oven by making a small bread pudding. The tea loaf went well. I used chopped dried apricots to replace some of the dried fruit. It made a moist loaf that was very sweet despite me reducing the quantity of sugar. The bread pudding tasted good, but I used the wrong dish and it was spread a bit thin. However, it did let me use the last of the loaf of cheap white bread I had left.

My sister came round for tea and we had vegetarian sausages with Toad in the Hole, roasted vegetables (carrots, parsnip, cauliflower and leek) with tea loaf and coffee after.

In plant terms we had:

Mixed dried fruit
Apricots
Coffee
Carrots
Parsnips
Leeks
Cauliflower
We also had spices – Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Mixed Spice not really enough to count.

I’m not sure if the vegetarian stuff in the sausages counts as a plant-based portion. It’s some sort of laboratory grown fungus as I understand it, so it should.

Rolling total for Day 1 is about 12. Not bad.

It would have been more, but distracted by a major loss of internet, odd jobs, cookery (Julia was forcing me to make Toad in the Hole – first time in 15 years I’ve made it, bound to be a disaster, it didn’t occur o me that the occasional rich aromas I was getting (spice and apple) signified the destruction of a pot of red cabbage with apples and onions. Despite using the tiniest of flames my loss of memory/lack of awareness resulted in a pan of red cabbage that was mainly welded to the bottom of the pan.  Such a shame, and a worrying step along the road to mental decline.

Then we ate a lot of the cake before I remembered the photos, and the camera battery ran out. Plus the kitchen lights turned the photos yellow. Not my greatest  day.

The New Health Regime

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Last of the Tomato Crop

Yesterday was, in nutritional terms, a bit of a disaster. I’m too ashamed to admit how badly we ate, but I’d been looking at various things in the preceding week and thought it was time to start on the 30 Plants a Week target.

To be fair, during that preceding week we had a hash that included onions, leeks, garlic, parsnip, potato, swede, carrot and cabbage, which took care of the five-a-day in just one meal, so not all our food is as disastrous as Sunday. I’ve allowed things to slip a bit during the summer and need to do better.

It’s simple – try to eat 30 sorts of plant a week. It is good for you as an aid to ensuring you get your five-a-day (which is quite a low target – most of the rest of the world tries harder ) and it is good for ensuring variety. It also means I have to think about it more when I’m shopping and selecting recipes, and if you’re thinking about the good stuff, you also think about avoiding the bad stuff. Pork pies are great to eat, and easy to build a salad around, but they are full of fat and salt and eating them regularly probably counts as slow suicide.

I’ve just been looking at what counts. I knew tea and coffee were in, and chocolate, but it seems that it has to be at least 70% dark chocolate. So that’s out as I only eat chocolate for pleasure, and 70% is more of a penance. Peanut butter and popcorn both count. I’m thinking this could be an American-based dietary regime. I suppose the eggplant/zucchini thing should have been a clue. Herbs and spices, nuts and seeds all count. They specifically say that rosemary on roast potatoes counts. How much rosemary can you get on a roast potato?

Actually, I just found the answer to that. All veg varieties count as one point – in fact red, yellow and green peppers, for instance, count as one point each. same with green and brown lentils and all the sorts of beans. But herbs and spices only count as a quarter of a point as you don’t have much of them. Fair enough.

Brown bread counts, white bread doesn’t. Same with rice and pasta. I thought it seemed to good to be true, though at the back of my mind white bread was never going to count.

Breakfast – 3 fruits plus wheat

Anyway, Julia just called me through to breakfast, and, as you can see, I took the camera.

Monday Breakfast –

Wholewheat TESCO “Weetabix”
Blueberries
Bananas
Strawberries
Tea

Total: 5 (25 to go).

I’m not sure we should be eating so much imported fruit. I may have to look into that.

There is a diet regime, originating in the USA, based on this, but they expect you to be mindful, to think about what you eat and to eschew thinks that are bad for you , like honey. That’s the first time I’ve seen honey listed as being bad for you.  It’s something to think about, but I’m not sure I’m prepared to give up honey. Or Maple Syrup. Julia brought quite a lot back from Canada. Any decisions on sources of added sugar may have to wait a while.

Garden – October

The birds all flew away as they saw me raise the camera – pigeon, blackbird, great tits, robin, magpie – all gone.

 

 

I Have Had Worst days

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Bad Biscuits from a previous Nightmare

Today I woke up with plans. The morning passed in a bit of a blur, with not much done. We had a nice cooked breakfast, because I’ve been struggling to get grocery levels down to something reasonable. With my tendency to over-order, and Julia being away last week, the fridge has filled up and the cupboards are beginning to bulge.

This called for a breakfast of toast, beans, mushrooms, scrambled egg and sausages. It started off as toast, beans and scrambled egg, which the internet tells me is a nutritious breakfast that will keep you full for ages. Then I realised I had a pack of mushrooms in the cupboard, and most of one in the fridge. Then I found the short-dated sausages . . .

Baked Eggs imitating a mixed omlette

Having bought a Large Cauliflower last week, which turned out to be an accurate description for once, we have a lot of cauliflower, despite making it the main part of a meal last week. Most times when you order the large one it turns out to be either Adequate or Disappointingly Small. I made cauliflower cheese for three on Friday night and still have a chunk of cauliflower the size of Julia’s head.  I would make soup, but we are still going through the broccoli and bits soup I made on Friday. It consisted of wilted broccoli and the core of the cauliflower plus the tender leaves, with onions, garlic and the green bits of some leeks. It’s made a broccoli-flavoured soup and is quite decent. We were able to redress the calorific debacle of breakfast by having soup in the evening.

Meanwhile, I had been planning on amazing you with photographs of scones. You may have noticed there are no photos of scones. The plan did noy go well.

First I made cheese scones using a recipe I had taken from the internet.  It was a recipe for ordinary scones but I left out the fruit and sugar and added cheese and mustard powder. It seemed to go OK. The next batch, where I used the original fruit recipe, did not go so well, nd left me with a very wet dough. The cheese ones didn’t rise and the fruit ones oozed a bit, and also failed to rise. They taste fine, but they are not photogenic. They are also difficult to cut in half to butter.

Summer pudding after the first slice

I then did Bread Pudding. Julia likes Bread Pudding but dislikes Bread and Butter pudding. They are two different things according to her and the internet. One consists of bread, butter, milk, eggs, sugar and dried fruit. The other consists of  bread, butter, milk, eggs, sugar and dried fruit. They are not, as I pointed out, that far apart. Bread Pudding uses cubes of bread which are scrunched up, and the butter is melted and poured in to the mix. In Bread and Butter Pudding the bread is sliced and buttered. It also, to me, tastes the same. Do you remember the story in Gulliver’s Travels where two groups fell out over whether to eat their boiled eggs from the pointy end or the blunt end? Exactly.

And now I am going to put the day of culinary disappointment behind me and go to bed. It’s very depressing when you start baking again after a break and find your former skills have deserted you.

Meanwhile, we are still ripening our tomatoes indoors. These, of course, are from a previous year.

Third Attempt

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A couple of days ago I started to write a post about not posting regularly. Then I got sidetracked. Yesterday I rewrote it and guess what? Then, just after midnight I caught sight of an envelope on my desk. It was from the DVLC reminding me about car tax. It struck me that though I remembered having the letter in my hand as I sat by the computer I didn’t actually remember taxing the car. Checking the appropriate website I found out I wasn’t taxed and, because it was now 1 October, this was highlighted in red. Obviously I’d been distracted part way through the process. I’m taxed and legal now, though clearly need to stop letting my mind wander.

Anyway, some good news – I finished my monthly submissions about half an hour before the midnight deadline last night. This is mixed. It’s good to get it done, it’s bad that I left it until the last day to do it. What was definitely good was the first acceptance – which was here when I came back from my blood test. That had been good too – full syringe first time. `

I just had a text. Julia is in the taxi on the last leg of her journey home and I have to get the kettle on ready for her arrival. This is good too. Even though it counts as being sidetracked.

I will be back later, and may actually get this one posted before it is superseded.

12 hours later

We have maple syrup, maple syrup candles, maple syrup biscuits and mugs with raccoon heads poking out of rubbish bins. I need to start looking for maple syrup recipes.

We have also discussed housekeeping standards. Generally – the tea loaf was good, the vegetable soup was good, but in most other areas I have been found lacking.

It’s nice to get back to normal.