Not The One That I Want

Monday: yoghurt, banana, linseeds, cinnamon & nutmeg;
Tuesday: honey nut cornflakes & banana; Wednesday: banana.

Surely we have peaked with the fashion for drippy acousticy covers of songs, with Chanel No. 5's take on The One That I Want. Please, please, let this be the last of it:

The Double Cream Debacle

Honey nut cornflakes & doppelgänger shreddies.

 I found five biros in my handbag this evening, a pair of chopsticks, countless receipts, three ibuprofen  packets (all partially used), some ballet tickets, but not the iPod charger chord I was looking for. One of the biro lids bore some of the remains of the incident I like to think of as the double cream debacle: an episode wherein I thought it was a good idea to transport a pot of double cream (amongst other sundries) in my handbag. It was not. A goodly portion of the cream leaked out of its pot and -- perhaps due to the motion -- churned itself into a diabolical half-cream, half cheese, sludge which covered most of the possessions in that pocket of my bag...

In other news, I went climbing this evening, for the first time in yonks: and, unusually for me, mostly stuck to the colours, rather than opting for the rainbow ascent, as I usually do... I did not, however, attempt the overhang below. Another time, perhaps, when I grow Popeye arms:

The Girl in the Tower

Bacon roll; toast with cream cheese and jam;
leftover egg sandwiches; honey nut cornflakes & a banana.

I went home this weekend to my tower. It was full of leaves. I leave the windows open because a room with four outside walls and no heat and a leaky roof gets a little damp...

It all sounds rather romantic, but I seem to be living in an inside-out fairytale where princes turn into frogs, and your hot water bottle is always leaky.

Still, at least there a plenty of good fairies about.

And I suppose the view's not bad either:

A Band of Peg-Toothed Squashes

Crunchy nut cornflakes.

Sometimes it is quite necessary for a group of adults to get together and carve pumpkins. Pumpkins are a good deal easier to carve than turnips. Not of course that there can be much debate on the matter.

Like any good Scot, the humble turnip was the chosen Jack O'Lantern vegetable in my guising days. One spent hours hollowing out the damn things, risking loss of digits as one did so, before even getting down to the business of carving a likeness. Once satisfied with your gnarly creation, you would thread it with string and tote it about, followed everywhere by the stench of turnip.

The merry band of pumpkin friends we carved out today are a good deal less pungent, and rather splendid (though we do says so ourselves).

My Kingdom for a Dishwasher

Honey nut cornflakes

Much as my bedroom is a generator of unfolded garments and other-half-less socks, our kitchen is a generator of washing up. However often we wash up, more appears. The management of this Sisyphean task is pretty evenly shared, I'd say: in that I see my flatmate washing up, roughly as much as I wash up myself.

However often we wash up though, it seems that more appears. And what I wonder is, how two normal sized beings with normal sized appetites and normal sized proclivities to cook, generate quite so much to soak and scrub.

I suppose if we had a dishwasher though, we'd spend our days wondering why it was always in need of emptying...

A Micro-Flat, You Say?

Honey nut cornflakes and a banana.

I suppose I lived in a micro-flat once. It was in Place de Clichy, a stop-gap one summer between one flat and another. It had the world's tiniest bathroom, in which I had to keep my hands pinned firmly to my sides in order to turn around. Washing my hair was a challenge. And certainly there was no scope for cat swinging.

As I recall the potential for catering was pretty limited, too. I had a small fridge, and a hob ring -- perhaps two -- more-or-less on the sink, and I think possibly a microwave. The fridge hummed all night. And I had to hang my washing out my window to dry it. The wind whisked away a couple of pairs of my pants once and I had to despatch an obliging friend to rescue them (they were nice spotty ones!): they'd landed on top of a flat-roofed extension in the courtyard that I lacked the upper-body strength to haul myself on to.

I can't imagine paying £1 million to live there.

Cholera, Anyone?

Honey nut cornflakes and an allegedly energy releasing drink

This photograph does not do anything like justice to the extraordinarily pondweed-ish hue of this morning's drink -- the inevitable result of shopping at Waitrose whilst tired and lurgy-full (still!).

It was packed full of wizzy ingredients, including something I briefly thought was cholera powder (hair of the dog that bit you?), but was in fact chlorella powder. The google gods tell me this is some sort of algal superfood -- so that explains the pondweed hue, then.

I can't claim to have been particularly energised this morning, but it was -- despite the algae (and some seaweed) -- quite tasty. And my sore throat is, at last, much improved. No more Jazz standards in the shower for me: though this may be down to the pineapple element of the drink (an excellent cure for any sort of throaty-itis, I have found), than the dubious green ingredients.

Make Marshmallow Crispies not War

Honey nut cornflakes and raspberries

I spent this evening in marshmallow crispy mass-production. This seems as rational a reaction as any to a day as significant as this.

And I had a dance party in the sitting room with the lovely Miss(rs) C (what happens when you're married but you keep your maiden name? Ms?).

All in all a productive sort of an evening.

Is it Art…? Or an Industrial Machinery Depot?

Bacon roll

Bran flakes & honey nut cornflakes, and tea
Note tea cosy: knitted waistcoat!

Bran flakes, pineapple & raspberries, and tea

Bran flakes, and tea
And the (non-edible!) bouquet I caught at a wedding this weekend

I drove a considerable distance this long weekend -- all the way down to Worcestershire on Friday, with a giggle of friends (this being the best sort of collective noun I can think of for a group of old friends cooped up in a tiny Peugeot and hopped up on minstrels) -- then onwards to Wiltshire (for a wedding) -- just me for the onwards...

Somewhere near Birmingham my tiredness was clearly setting in and I started to say "Oh look," about to point out to the others the art installation I thought I'd spotted, until I realised that the multi-coloured, bowed-armed display I had momentarily been marvelling at was in fact a cherry picker depot… and that the elegant, multi-tiered crane-like-the-bird structures I'd briefly been tickled by were, well, actual cranes…

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Nineteen-to-Twenty-Six

No. 319: Two apples (nothing else to eat that morning); No. 320: Porridge;
No 321: Porridge again (same photo as I forgot to take one); No.322: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

No. 323: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes; No. 324: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes;
No. 325: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes; No. 326: Scrambled eggs on toast.

Oof, it's been a while. A week in fact, no, more -- eight days. Eight days in which I have become a self-employed person, attended a birthday party, virtually melted my skin off with mould-busting bleach stuff, and knackerd my hip shifting boxes. (My poor hip. I'd feel old, but actually this has been a problem since I was a teenager -- heavy lifting makes for two-to-four days of lameness.)

I am now ensconced at home, where the ambient temperature in my bedroom last night was a balmy 7.5ºC. I think I need thermal pyjamas. And an additional hot water bottle. Today I have been nearly drowned twice.  Once walking to and from the coral beach (horizontal driving rain, you are not my friend). And once streaking from the car to the co-op, a distance of no more than 30 metres: enough to entirely saturate my clothes, and fill my right ear with water. I'm toasting myself by the fire now though, so all is well.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Seventy-Seven-and-Eight

No 277: Breakfast of champions (people who set their alarms too late) -- the Tracker bar.

No: 278 Part I: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and a strawberry & banana smoothie.

No 278 Part II: Boiled eggs and soldiers.

There really is nothing like a costume drama binge to fill you with the false hope of some romantic-hero-shaped chap sweeping you off your feet. I've just watched the wonderful North and South for the first time, reaffirming my love for both Richard Armitage (so much better than the gent before him on Spooks who got exploded) and Brendan Coyle.

Where are the real world versions of these characters? That's what I want to know. Mr Thornton went all the way to Helstone to pick a rose to remember Margaret by. The best most girls nowadays can hope for is some half-hearted Facebook stalking.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Nineteenth

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and banana.

"Gérard Depardieu accused of urinating on a plane": to be fair, this accusation could be levelled at just about everyone who's been on a plane.  I think a better (though I concede less punchy) headline would be "Gérard Depardieu accused of urinating not in the loo on a plane".

My other problem with this headline is my literal minded-ness. I imagine him walking up to a Boeing 747, unzipping, and peeing on the wheel. Or perhaps displaying a prodigious talent for long-range urination and somehow managing to hit a wing.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Eighteenth

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, strawberries and peach.

This evening was lovely, and I will tell you why in two words: butterscotch sauce.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Six to Two-Hundred-and-Twelve

No. 206: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.
No. 207: Forgot to photograph this one; I had muesli, followed by martmite on toast. I love the milk jug.
No 208: First breakfast on board - so yummy I almost forgot too photograph this one too.
No 209: Another fry-up, cooked by me, whilst sailing.

No. 210: Another fry-up effort by me, rather easier this time as we were not yet underway.
No 211: Doppelganger Shreddies.
No. 212: Doppelganger Shreddies.
And lastly, me cooking breakfast (not my best photo!)

Golly, it's been a whole week since my last missive.  I've been off sailing with friends. And *hangs head in shame* it's taken me this long to actually connect camera with card reader with computer.

I had a completely fantastic time and am now more sure than ever that I need to become some sort of pirate. Note the appropriateness of the head gear in the last photo (a necessity given this was day 4 sans shower - yum!). Also, my nose is requisitely red -- though in this instance due to over-exposure to the sun/wind, rather than rum.

I'm sure I'll get to be a great rum-drinker though. Or failing that, whisky. Now that I've gotten over my reservations about it's oesophagus-warming properties (it is an odd sensation), I'm rather developing a taste for it...

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Four-and-Five

No. 203: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Special K and nectarine.

No. 204: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and banana.

I saw Mr Beebe this morning (Simon Callow to non-Room with a View obsessives). I went sailing past him on my bicycle, resplendent in my luminous orange and yellow vest. I considered ringing my bell at him by way of greeting, and then thought better of it.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Eighty-Fifth

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and banana.

I saw the most spectacular sunset as I drove back into Edinburgh this evening after a perfect supper with my goddaughter, and her parents. It was like someone poured lava into the sky. And then, so as not to be outdone, the moon rose in preposterously picturesque fashion also. It's incredible how fast the nights close in after midsummer. Just a couple of weeks ago I was marvelling at how light it was outside, and now the night is restaking its claim on the skies.

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Seven and-Eight

No 177: Fruit & Fibre and a peach.

No 178: Honey Nut Cornflakes and Strawberries.

It's been rather a hectic week this week, I promise I'll do better after the weekend. (That is if anyone's interested).

Recently I've been seeing a lot of adverts for Quorn. I don't understand Quorn. I can't think of any reason why you'd eat it.

It's an odd sort of a choice if you're vegetarian and looking for something tasty, given that it's bland, and oddly textured. And if your non-meat-eating is down to concerns about farting cows, its no good either I shouldn't think -- I imagine that the carbon footprint of all that processing easily rivals that of a herd of flatulent bovines. And finally, if you're a meat-eater but looking to save on calories (this seems to be the angle they're going for), why wouldn't you just eat some yummy vegetable confection instead?

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Two-and-Three

Fruit & Fibre and cherries

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with apricot jam and a nectarine.

I cycled 16 miles today. Now my legs really are going to drop off. And my bottom is rather tender too (why oh why must bicycle seats be so uncomfortable?). I was testing out how long my new commute will take: 45 minutes. Not bad considering my cronky bicycle weighs half a tonne, and has useless gears. Also, it's been so long since I last rode it that it had cobwebs on it, and a flat tyre.

Am falling asleep as I write this so must take myself off to Bedfordshire.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Seventy-First

Honey Nut Cornflakes and nectarine.

My legs feel like they are going to drop off. I think I walked about 6 miles today.

On my travels I went to the cobbler and he worked magic on the worn down heels of my shoes.

When I lived in France, a cobbler actually rejected my shoes. They were so far gone that there was nothing to be done. (As I recall, there wasn't enough toe left to stitch onto a sole).

The rate at which I wear through shoes often makes me feel like one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Although with significantly fewer natty shoes and much less twinkly toes.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Fourteenth

Honey Nut Cornflakes and banana.

The Apprentice is back! I know it's wrong, but oh how I love it. Though not quite so much now that Margaret Mountford and her amazing eyebrows are gone.

Yay, twelve whole episodes of inexplicably cocky people behaving like utter plonkers.