5 march - plate (ok - bowl)

salmon and shitake green curry. life may be uncertain but supper will be delicious.

4 march - far away

this was the view 1 km into my morning run - i run to the end of this road and back. it was sunny but windy. i was listening to tom petty singing "love... is a long long road..."

3 march - my view today (night)

tuesday night is brass band practice. this is my view to the right. we have a concert next week so it was a tough session tonight. you have to blow hard to hear yourself over 4 basses!

3 march - oops - yesterday's kitchen!

ok not starting so well as missed yesterday entirely!

well better late than never - so -

kitchen

the lovely artichokes are the result of n learning the hard way the difference between globe and jerusalem artichokes. the jerusalem ones are being roasted for a spring salad for dinner tonight. not sure what we'll do with these two beauties - any suggestions?

1 march - my shoes

i've had these shoes since i was 18 - well the top bits anyways. the soles and cork have been replaced a few times. i still love them. i am always kicking them off here so i can put my feet up and knit while i watch telly, and in the morning i can never find them.

love this idea...

well we all know how rubbish i am at seeing through - well - anything! but i'm going to give it a go! I think this idea is really lovely so i will try to keep up and post my pictures here.

oooof

well, i've made it through 3 weeks of actually exercising and i can tell you that it is absolutely exhausting. this whole "running sets you up for the rest of the day"  stuff is utter bollocks. i am hoping this will get easier so i am still slogging through but dear lord am i ever tired. and my back is currently ageing about 2 decades faster than the rest of me which can't be good.

on the upside, i've learned that running in the morning isn't as bad as it sounds. mornings are so rubbishly awful anyways that it turns out even running can't make them substantially worse. i've taken to setting my alarm an hour before i need to get up to run, and when it goes off i scarf down a banana and a pint of water and go back to sleep for another 45 minutes. the key to this whole process is not to think about it too much, which is fairly easy at 545 am.

an even nicer upside is the post run snack n had for me this afternoon. so wrong, and so right.

running may make you thin but probably not the way i do it!

baby steps

i've just recovered from my first run in 2 months and have cut myself a slice of cake and poured a glass of wine. isn't it great how doing one healthy thing helps you make better decisions for other healthy things?!  i have to start running again though. it's not to get slimmer (i'm not that fussed, although it's a nice benefit) or even to be happier (which it really does - you would have thought that would be motivating) but it's because it really really cuts down on my migraines. i had an awful one on friday and this has spurred me back on the running wagon. wish me luck.

the cake was a bit of a disaster but it tastes ok - (although after what can only be described as a painful, demotivating trundle in the freezing cold, ANYTHING would probably taste good). I read through the recipe and smugly thought to myself, i know step one takes forever (one of those nasty "cool to room temperature" sneaks) so i'll start with that and then butter and flour my cake pan. which i did. only to discover that i don't have a cake pan. i do have a vague memory of throwing it out in the great kitchen reorganisation of autumn 2014 (rusty, never that fond of it in the first place - "will buy another to replace next week" harumph). While i looked up "cake replacement pans" in the living room, my mixture boiled over on the stove in the kitchen. messy. very messy. and now no idea of how much remained or was lost in the sugary sticky mess coating the stove. well, i figured, it takes time to cool to room temperature, i will suck it up and go buy another pan. there are no bundt pans in faversham. not one. so i winged it. after all that, the fact that it is even edible is frankly impressive.

in much nicer news, i also finished a jumper in record time. i admit, i did get a bit compulsive by the end - i was just having so much fun seeing the pattern evolve over the yoke that i lost my head a bit and spend the bulk of several days - days, i should add where i should have been - you know - working (ahem) - knitting and cackling and getting quite carried away.

n has just pointed out that we do not have any white wine for the carbonara, which is annoying because he has only just coming in from getting the eggs that we also didn't have. it is, apparently, my turn. the planning faeries have obviously deserted this house.

come back faeries! we clearly need you!

best laid plans...

well.

it's tuesday evening and my lovely lovely mother arrives from canada tomorrow at heathrow at 630 am.

that part was planned.

coming down with the go-straight-to-bed-do-not-pass-go-do-nothing-but groan-and sleep-and-shiver-and sweat-for-several-days flu on saturday was not planned. i am on the mend, but not quite there.

now it seems that n may have caught it too - i've sent him and his sudden-onset fever up to bed.  the plan (don't you love how i keep using this word?) is to get up at 4 and leave by 445 to make heathrow on time but we'll see if the poor fella can even drive tomorrow. we rented a car and everything. plans, eh?

well, what can you do? if he's too ill, i'll hop a train and be a little late and will try not to think about the money on train fares and the rental car sitting in the drive. (ha ha i just corrected that from "renal car" - see? it could always be worse!)

and anyways tomorrow my mom will be here! in 9 hours! and so what if we're sick and the house is a bit messy. it's almost christmas and we're going to be together.

i need to go to bed now. i plan to get a good nights sleep....

(not exactly) working from (not exactly) home

but needs must, some days.

we took an unscheduled unplanned break this afternoon - beer instead of running, knitting instead of working (i was thinking about work honest gov) (i was actually - sad bastard).

this is the fireplace at the sun inn in faversham. it's a sheps pub (shepard neame) so the ales are limited but the fire is in my opinion the best in faversham (although the back room at the anchor may be giving it a run for its money).

what you can't see are the two gigantic armchairs we are nested in, and the "just the one" followed by "oh go on then" and finally the "we really shouldn't but" pints.

sometimes you really really should :)