Tag Archives: bad night

Carrot & Ginger Soup

The Twilight Zone

I had a very bad night last night, due to several factors. Heat, too many thoughts and pain all contributed. As a result, I hovered. Part awake, part asleep, part wondering whether it was all worth it. And, of course, part wondering whether I would get anything done. My inactivity this summer has been stupendous. Comparing what I need to do with what I have actually done I don’t ever remember such a mismatch.

Fortunately, as I said to Julia, we have quite a lot of leeway and though we will move inefficiently it will be inconvenient rather than a disaster. She didn’t seem particularly pleased at the news. In fact she was quite snippy with me. She felt, it seems, that I could have left this news a few hours longer and told her after her alarm had gone off.

As a result of my night spent hovering between sleep and wakefulness, I spent a lot of my day hovering in much the same condition and achieved very little.This is made worse by the fact I am currently reading a biography of Terry Pratchett, who seems to have packed quite a lot into his life. However I do take comfort from one thing _ I am disorganised, but I have never lost, as he did, a royalty cheque for quarter of a million pounds. I can’t imagine that I will ever get a royalty cheque, but if I do, I know it won’t be for that amount of money. Fortunately it will all be done by bank transfer these days – a piece of modern life that I can appreciate.

Tomorrow I hope to be more with it, as I have carrot and ginger soup to make, amongst other things. The catering has gone slightly awry over the last few days and I need to make an urgent cauliflower cheese. Alternatively I can make cauliflower soup, but carrots and ginger with cheese sauce, which will be the companion dish, don’t sound altogether edible.

Cauliflower Steak with vegetables and Nut Cutlets

 

Lack of Sleep and an Accidental Poem

After rising at 4.40 am yesterday I expected to sleep well last night. I didn’t.

First waking at 3am I was up again at 4.30, 5.30 and 7.30. Good bit of planning there – I missed 6.30 and slept through the alarm.

You’d have thought that after 60 years I’d have got the hang of sleeping, but it appears not.

As part of my cruise through poetry I now know that if I add a haiku to this post (and grandiloquently call the post an essay) it becomes a Japanese-style poem called a haibun.

Following on from yesterday’s condensed sonnet I’m going to condense another well known poem into haiku form. I originally tried to condense Daffodils, but it kept trying to turn itself into a Limerick. This one worked better. If I acknowledge a debt to John Keats it will reveal the base poem, even if the first line doesn’t.

mist and fruitfulness

poppies and the cider press

swallows gathering

It even falls into 5-7-5 format, even though I wasn’t aiming for it.

 

Breakfast, Bench and Bug Boxes

The day started badly, as I had passed a disturbed night and felt tired, stiff and fragile. As the first light of a non-too-rosy dawn crept through the curtains, I groaned and turned over.

This was how I slept in, set off late and was unable to accomplish my first task of the day. We had barely laid out the parts for a new garden bench when the Monday group arrived, two hours earlier than we were expecting. As I’m not allowed to be a volunteer (due to the conflict of interest thing) we had to leave.

As a consolation prize Julia bought me breakfast at Harvester, which was excellent. Fruit, yoghurt, Full English, toast, marmalade, a quick crumpet (because it was there) and refillable tea. All for 75% of the cost of two Olympic breakfasts at Little Chef. I passed on cereal.

After that we returned home to find the internet was down. BT claim we hadn’t paid the bill. They seem to do this about once a year – cutting us off for non-payment without actually sending us a bill or a reminder.

By the time it came back on we were already back at the gardens tacking a pallet bench together ready for tomorrow.

Then it was shopping, chip shop and try to get a blog post done before midnight…

Done, with 12 minutes to go. I will add photos later.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Bug boxes made from frames out of the school skip and filled with the hollow stems of scabious