Tag Archives: vegetarian food

The Beauties of Retirement (Part 1) Infirmity

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On Friday night I noticed I seemed to be getting cold, so I put on an extra layer. It’s been a bit colder recently and we have the thermostat turned down so it is to be expected at this time of year. Later I put on another layer, but as I went to bed I felt even colder. Then I started shivering, and despite the expensive pocket spring mattress I bought when we moved, Julia was able to feel the tremors. This launched her on a path of nursing and worrying and, eventually,  hot lemon cold cure, paracetamol and hot water bottles seemed to solve the problem.

On Saturday morning, I wrapped up warm and spent most of the day watching TV. This included Sharpe’s Waterloo, which isn’t my favourite episode, but was undemanding for an addled brain. It also avoided breaking into any series that we watch in the evening. I didn’t even set foot in the office or check my emails. I was that tired. That’s one of the things with getting older, being ill takes much more time than when I was younger. I used to be ill, go to bed, get up and go back to work. Over the years this has become a much longer process. However, as I annoyingly, tell everyone, patience is the key.

Of course, in those days I was fit and not taking a cocktail of medication to suppress my immune system.

By Sunday I was back on the computer. I entered the BTO Garden Bird data – I’m doing the birdwatch and the blackbird counts. Science that you can sit down whilst eating breakfast has always got to be good science. Then Julia went out to do an afternoon serving teas to thirsty visitors to the Nene Valley Railway and, freed of supervision,  I bought two medallions and a book online.   The medals were cheap, and the book is about Captain Athelstan Popkess. He was Chief Constable of Nottingham for 30 years and was a pioneering modern policeman. He also tended to attract controversy.

Then it was time for a small meal (my digestion has still not settled) of Quorn chilli (my sister came to tea) and a little light TV.  I think you can make a perfectly adequate vegetarian chilli just by leaving the meat out but my sister uses Quorn so we have it a try last week in Bolognese then tried chilli this week. I still cling to my opinion that it is alright to eat meat, but it is also good to eat meat-free some days. Expensively produced mushroom protein doesn’t really figure in my diet as it seems less kind to the planet that just having the veg without additions.

This is part One of my musings on retirement. I expect my readers, being people of intelligence, have already spotted the possibility  of this having more than one part because of the hint in the title. You have also probably spotted that I just said “more than one part”. That’s another hint. I’m not sure how many parts there are going to be. It all depends when I get distracted by something else.

 

 

 

Pigs & Poppies

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Pig Gate Guard

Julia went for a walk yesterday. She came back with potato samosas and vegetable pakora from a vegan stall at the food market they hold monthly in Sherwood. That’s Sherwood, the Nottingham suburb where we live, rather than Sherwood the semi-mythical Forest where Robin Hood lived. The Wiki entry sells us a bit short – the churches section should include a synagogue and a mosque and we used to have two cinemas (the one from around 1912 is still standing) and a cigarette factory.

She stopped on the way back to add a Paneer Saag Wala and a lovely fluffy naan bread from a local takeaway. The Paneer Saag Wala was only pureed spinach, garlic and paneer but it was extremely good. I could have eaten more, and you don’t generally hear me say that about vegetarian food. I am going to look at ways of making something similar. I’m not sure I have the equip,emt for pureeing spinach, but will have to see.

Group effort at Lemon and Poppy seed biscuits in the shape of Scottish Poppies. The seed scattering technique varied in success. The poppy cutters were purchased from the Scottish Poppy Appeal – they are a different shape from the English ones which have a two-lobed design. The British legion, who attend to the English and Welsh Poppy Appeal, don’t do a cutter.

I also had trouble with my keyboard. I could still use the laptop keyboard but the other one stopped working. It has been giving trouble for a few days. The reason is that I have had to use an adaptor to give me extra USB slots. I have been charging camera batteries and the new charger works off a USB socket. As with so many cheap electricals, it has a hit and miss approach to working.

Perhaps, to be more accurate, I should say I have been using an adaptor because I’m lazy. It was on my desk so it was easier to use it than go and find a plug that would allow me to use a mains socket.

As I wrote adaptor for the first time in this piece, the new, irritating, spellchecker leapt into life.  Apparently, it’s wrong, so I looked it up. I always thought that adaptor was a piece of electrical equipment and adapter, not that I’ve ever felt to need the word adapter before today, was someone who adapted something. It isn’t. Nor is it just an American/British English thing, because adapter is the more commonly used word in both languages. Not that it means anything because the whole nation has had its education neglected for so long, and has watched so much American TV, that our entire lexicon has become corrupted.

Salt dough Poppies. We painted them for display. The cutter is plastic so it is OK for salt dough. The ordinary cutters, as we found, rusted after being used for salt dough shapes.

It appears that the Guardian style guide sides with me, though Fowler adopts his usual eay-going approach and is easy about such things.

I’m not sure whether that falls under “irritations in modern life” or “new things I learned today”. Whichever it is, the new spellchecker definitely come under “irritations in modern life”.

It also falls into the category of “poor educational standards in the Uk”. When I was taught English grammar teaching was considered a sin, I have grown up able to write grammatically because I have read good books and because i (unwillingly) did Latin. For some reason Latin grammar was fine, English was out.

Photos are more shots from past Septembers. Top one is a pig made from a silage bale – you can get coloured wraps, and Julia and the group applied a appendages.

Poppies on the windowsill – this one is from November – which is why we started them in September.

 

 

Another Day, Another Post

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Well, the general feeling seems to be that most people write because they enjoy it or they love words (or probably both). Tootlepedal writes to remind himself he’s still alive and write because I’m addicted to it. I also enjoy it, love words and, deep down, believe that someone is going to recognise my talent and give me money.

To be honest, it is looking like the only way i”m likely to make money from writing is by diversifying into kidnapping people and writing ransom notes. I could try kidnapping Boris and threaten to release him unless people send me money. However, I’d better be careful. If someone actually tries it I could find that my blog becomes a matter for discussion in court and what started as “humour” is probably going to be seen in a different light when it is labelled “evidence”. It will also involve buying a suit and tie, which is an expense I can do without.

I dropped Julia off at work this morning and drove back to join the main road via a side-street. That gave me an idea for a haibun and I had two more shortly after. I can’t use the voice recorder I bought recently because it is too small for my big, stiff fingers. I should have spent more money and bought one I could actually use. That is false economy of the first order. That meant I had to keep repeating the ideas to myself as I drove along. If I allow myself to relax I tend to forget. And if I forget I convince myself I have just forgotten my best ever poem. This is unlikely to be true, but it’s annoying to forget anything, even the bad ones.

At work I purloined (which sounds better than “stole”) some office stationery and wrote the rough outlines of the three haibun before making some notes which might turn into something. But they might not/ If I don’t tell you, nobody can ask how the new project is going. Or even if there is a new project…

Tonight we had corned beef hash for tea. It featured the remains of yesterdays vegetable stew, a tin of corned beef, onions, leeks and a pack of ready chopped vegetables. I will have it for lunch tomorrow too, as I made far too much. Fortunately I like corned beef hash. I would probably enjoy it nearly as much without the corned beef, which is something I will have to think about as we eat more veg and less meat.