kestrel

we woke to find that one of the Tribe had thrown up on the duvet. Delightful. Further investigation found more throwing up in the study, and worse in the bathroom – what *is* the matter with them?

after perlmonger very nobly cleared it all up, bless him, we sallied forth to do weekendy things – we took a box of books to the Oxfam bookshop in Clifton village (and, as usual, emerged with more than we took in, and £45 poorer!). Amazingly, they had a copy of The Midwich Kittens Cuckoos, which we’ve been idly looking for for a while, and a *wonderful* tome entitled The Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, which appears to be *not* a spoof, and instructs the great unwashed on how to boil potatoes – a sort of early Delia Smith, if you will. Originally published in 1852, and this volume printed in 1972.

it also contains an advertisement for Blair’s Gout and Rheumatic Pills – and I never even knew he suffered from such ailments …

we finally got round to taking load of pictures into the framers to get them, er, framed, and I bought a wonderful birthday card for kalunina. then a pop into Chandos deli for lunch – crayfish and rocket sandwich for me, and some samosas for perlmonger, a couple of almond croissants, and some *evil* looking triple chocolate brownies …

then off to Sainsbuggers, who yet *again* had no sodding coriander, which means that when I’ve drunk this cup of Dragonfly Chai (and what’s happened to that?) I will have to pop over to the Chinese supermarket, where more damage will be inflicted to the Jordan wallets. One might like to feel a little pity for the Sainsbuggers Store Manager, who I encountered by the salad, and who got a Polite piece of my mind on the stocking levels in his store – he looked quite shellshocked by the time I’d finished. Although that didn’t get me any coriander, all the same.

thanks to dougs. It’s here

we don’t eat pre-prepared food in this house (unless I do it myself) – thankfully, we have the time to cook properly, and I do a lot of batch cooking for the freezer,

last night’s dinner was a box of daube de boeuf, cooked and frozen by my own fair hand, with potatoes roasted in almost the last of the fat from the festering goose, and some steamed broccoli. But for some reason, I fancied a pudding, and had no time to concoct anything by the time I realised this.

but in the fridge was a bought pastry case – I felt a bit guilty putting it in the trolley last week, but my daughter (welcome kalunina!)was staying, and I thought we might use it for something. I’m not very good at pastry (this is something of an understatement).

so I whizzed some bread into breadcrumbs in the Magimix, warmed some golden syrup and treacle in the microwave, mixed ‘em together, flung them in the pastry case, and voila – an instant(ish) treacle tart. And it was *gorgeous*; we scoffed it with great dollops of double cream, and there’s some left for today.

I shall be buying another pastry case to keep on hand, but don’t tell anyone.

distressing – I know that every single one of my friends (or, at least, those with whom I’ve discussed it) is horrified by Blunkett’s surreptious dragging of us all into a police state.

but it would seem that we are a minority, if this BBC Talking Point is anything to go by.

well, perlmonger’s labour, mostly.

a photograph of our “music room” is here

while roaming around Brissle at the weekend, we wandered past Colsonall, and stopped off to see what was coming up.

we now have tickets for

• John Martyn – 1 May
• Bill Bailey (rah!) – 9 June
• Jools Holland – 21 December

am quite tempted by Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua as well.

[edit]
I spelled John Martyn’s name wrong – oh the shame.
and Jamie Cullum is sold out …

has been exceedingly nice. perlmonger started rearranging the living room on Friday evening, so that we could properly fit in my lovely new Kawai digital piano – this task, like anything else in our tiny house, was something like one of those sliding puzzles with one blank square .. as I type this on Sunday evening, it’s almost finished, having involved the emptying and moving of three bookcases, all of them double banked with books, re-siting the monitor stand the iMac sits on, wiring up the little mixing desk, ShedMan decided he had to build a little table for the mixing desk, and much dislodgement and disgruntlement of cats.

yesterday we sallied forth to the purveyors of said piano, Swift Music, to have a Polite little word with them about the Euro power supply that came with it, and the lack of invoice. They were suitably apologetic. Invoice is in our sticky mitts, and the UK power supply will be coming just as soon as he can sort it out. Personally, I find it odd that a shop that sells piano type instruments finds it necessary or desirable to advertise their xian-ness by way of a fish on the door, but perhaps they sell lots of church organs … certainly the chap I’ve been dealing with was oily enough to be a born-againer – I found him quite unsettling, in a peculiar sort of way. I doubt we’ll go there again.

then we popped into the City of Brissle – noticed a new (sheet) music shop, so I got a book of Gershwin, and one of Mussourgsky, then we hoofed down to Sound Control … perlmonger wanted to check out a couple of things about his new electric guitar, and we bought a dual keyboard rack, and another guitar hook. We managed to consume some excellent chips on the way, as the nice chip shop at the bottom of Christmas Steps was still open – just what was needed on such a cold day, even if it is a bit pikey to eat them out of the paper while walking along :)

back to the car, and over to Currys to buy a new clock radio, as the ancient and venerable one has died (it must be about 25 years old – bet the new one won’t last that long), then home via the farm shop for cream and veg and flowers.

perlmonger soldiered on with the chaos that is the living room, while I played piano amidst the mess, then cooked defrosted some spag bol. Watched last week’s Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and slept (in my case) through most of Monday’s Mark Lamarr show (which *used* to be quite a good pop quiz called Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

today we popped out for a brief encounter with brisingamen and peake, who were in Bristol for some science fiction convention thing; it was delightful to meet them both. Then home for berry pancakes, although the maple syrup had grown mould (waaaah).

what remains of the day will be taken up with finishing up the living room (perlmonger is just drilling the holes for the last guitar bracket, so the end is in sight), making a plum crumble to follow our steak and chips for supper, and collapsing in an ungainly heap.

and it’s bloody cold here, despite the new central heating system. But an excellent weekend, all the same.

sharp shiny things!

You are a katana! You are sharp, fast, and easy to
control. sometimes you are too short but you
make up for it with your grace and elegance.

What kind of sword are you?
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