Post 594 Cold of both kinds

I made it to World Embroidery on Wednesday, after a bit of coughing overnight but a fairly normal waking. The meeting went really well, largely thanks to Margaret’s skill and generosity in managing the setup of our new screen. It means we can all sit around the table in the foreground and see a presentation rather than being spread out around the room. Those present loved it (encouraged, perhaps, by the hummingbird cake brought by Pam).

There was interest in my effort to trace Celtic embroidery from motifs carved in stone, to metal engraving, to illuminated manuscripts to printed patterns.

It was a miserable day - maximum 10.1C (coldest for Adelaide since 2021) and 7cm of rain. I managed to get a bit cold and wet closing the gates as I left and within an hour I was sneezing, coughing and blowing my nose. 

I cancelled my Thursday Pilates, fell asleep on the couch, waking to make a lemon drink (someone had kindly left help-yourself lemons at the Guild) take Codral and fall into bed at 7.30pm. I woke a couple of times but basically slept for 10 hours. Thursday I stayed in, warm, dozing, using up the best part of a box of tissues, drinking a lot of tea in between hot lemon and weaned myself from Codral to paracetamol. By the end of the day I had enough energy to write up the summary of our meeting and  dig a piece of ham out of the freezer to boil with dried peas since I had run out of tinned and packet soups. It fit the bill and kept me going for a couple of days.                               .

I felt a lot better on Friday, but stayed indoors for most of the day, venturing out around 2pm to my local pub, which was surprisingly busy,  for calamari lunch, which I ate outside to avoid noise and hot air.It seems a few office workers have discovered POETS day. I nevertheless got served fairly promptly and was home by 3. I took Margaret Hickey’s An Ill Wind with me to read. I really enjoyed this one. She is an engaging writer.

On Saturday I ventured to the supermarket and stocked up on soups. I also bought some fresh chicken livers, bacon pieces and mushrooms to make myself chicken livers on Sunday and Monday. I'm not great on cooking for one, but I can whip this up quickly and I really like it. 

My cold is now following the five stages I find listed on a variety of websites. I am staying inside and warm most of the time, taking things easy, staying hydrated and using a lot of tissues. I'll continue until the symptoms completely disappear.   I'll make a decision about Thursday Pilates at noon tomorrow.  

Over the last 18 days I have read nine of Alison Golden's Instpector David Graham detective series set on Jersey. Obviously I am hooked.

I finished the Schwalm embroidery from Carol Stacey's May workshop. Details in my embroidery blog.      

I've taken concentration breaks from Schwalm by advancing the Rowan shawl. With 400+ stitches now on the needles, it takes me 20 minutes per row. I calculate I have about 90 more rows to go before I consider finishing it. I'll see how I feel in 30 knitting hours time.

I've been taking my cold to bed a little bit earlier than my norm. I managed to snap this before I fell asleep on Sunday, two nights after the full moon.  Tonight is cloudy with rain forecast and moonrise just before 10pm, so I'm unlikely to take a comparison photo.

Until next week.

Post 429 Bookended by lunches.

There were plenty of birds present at the beach on Wednesday when our quarterly lunch group met at HNLY restaurant.   My order of Yellow Fin Whiting got messed up - maybe I said 'tuna' when I ordered (quite possible), maybe the waitress got it wrong. In any case I ended up with battered fish and chips, which I enjoyed!.

  

It really was a lovely day at the beach - pleasant breeze, sunny without being too hot. 

The birds were enjoying it.

I finished the second bag-from-jeans and have started on the third.  As usual, there is more in the blog link.

I spent a few hours organising my new furniture.  My books are now in some sort of order and findable. I have sorted and labelled the containers in the sewing room cupboard. I still have the files in the filing drawers to cull, sort and label.  I had planned to do it yesterday but when I couldn't find a tube of ointment in the bathroom, I was distracted into cleaning out and reorganising the bathroom drawers and cupboards.  Definitely on a roll!

After the files I have to tackle the boxes of papers and folders of  knitting and embroidery notes in the spare bedroom - and my family history archives. 

Sunday was book club and we had a very productive and engaging time sharing our reading.  It's stimulating, supportive and sustaining. Outside the home in which we met there was a jacaranda tree laden with inspiring seed pods.

I'm the book chooser for next month and have chosen three books called A Spoonful of Murder.  I began with one by JM Hall, a UK school deputy principal whose recently published first novel was recommended of Prof. Pat Thomson who has worked with him. While I was trying to source a copy in Australia I came across the same title by Robin Stevens and another by Connie Stevens, so got all of them. It will, I think be an interesting exercise.

Over the weekend I also made my first pot of soup for the year. It's a variation on those my mother made - the Christmas ham bone defrosted, swede, turnip, parsnip, carrots, pulses, tomato and celery. There's a lot of it! It will help boost my vegetable intake this week. 

I've had a few challenges in the last few days. The cover of my mini iPad is disintegrating. The Officeworks replacement I bought yesterday after much discussion with staff  turned out not to fit.  This morning one of the 5 cords in my 180cmx250cm bedroom blind broke, producing a kind of hernia in the blind, and there was no signal on my Vergola controller so I couldn't open it. I find all of this stressful, but took a deep breath, returned the iPad cover (easy, no hassle), ordered another one from Apple online,  and made phone calls to Vergola and to a repairer of blinds. One impact of Covid is that such businesses are short of staff and take longer to respond and to deliver.

Someone is now coming to collect the blind next Monday and the Vergola people are scheduling a service visit - all organised before  11.45 a.m. when a friend picked up me and a kitchen chair, and drove us to Nairne, in the Adelaide Hills to visit another friend who had prepared a delicious, healthy lunch of cold rolls, soup and lemon drizzle cake with strawberries. The chair matches others she has. We had a brilliant time - relaxed, loving, renewing, nurturing. I came home feeling renewed and very connected. 💪.

I didn't take photos in the Hills, where autumn is very much on display, but this is the evidence around the corner from my apartment. Lovely pleasant days in Adelaide.

Although it appears from this post that I am a 'Lady who Lunches', I, and most of my family and friends, are still operating 'from an abundance of caution' - avoiding crowds and events, wearing masks indoors in social settings, eating outside, monitoring ventilation, socially distancing. Covid cases are slowly increasing in Adelaide, as are hospitalisations and deaths. Schools returned today with masks mandated, although they are not mandated more generally. I've just refused an invitation to a 70th birthday bash.  With only one kidney, even with 4 vaccinations, I will do as much as I can to avoid any contact with Covid.  

For the most part, I am sticking to my knitting and embroidery.

Post 381 Mostly on my laptop, recovering.

I said last week that a quiet week at home was called for. I kept my word, staying in and watching the garden grow by day 

and the moon set slowly over the city at night.  

There have also been some charming sunrises.

As a result of this physical inactivity, my ribs have substantially healed. The damaged spot is still slightly tender to touch and needs to be protected from pressure, but it's otherwise fine. I'm planning on returning to my Pilates class this Thursday. Thank you for all the good wishes.

I had plenty to occupy me. Edwin, who designed my website and has managed its licensing and maintenance over the last ten years has finally moved out of the web business to focus on his video business. This has meant moving the hosting of my website, which, with his help, I have managed to do. I have not, however, managed to find a web maintenance service to help me keep the site up to date. The one recommended by Edwin has not responded to my message. I suspect my requirements are too small to be of interest. I don't want to do a great deal with the site, but I'd like to maintain it as a legacy. I feel a bit old and out of the loop of web support to manage it on my own.  I hope I can find a solution.

This has given me even more incentive to push on with converting my Conversations with Baby Boomer Teacher blog into a book. I've spent much of the week organising the Conversations into groups,  uploading them into a single file, editing and hopefully preparing to upload it into publishing software. There's still a way to go, but I'm close to having the text of all 49 conversations organised in a single file. Rereading them reinforces how good the stories are, and the importance of making them accessible. I will push on.

Writing and website anxiety took up more time than embroidery this week, but I did manage to finish the Fisherton-de-la-Mere pouch, working the needlelace on the back of a small cushion.

I skipped the picots. I'm very pleased with the result. The photo reminds me that I need to add a pearl button.

I also worked the design on to the smaller piece of linen suggested in the class description for making a needle case. I used the back to practise the eyelets and add my initial and the year. I have the edge yet to work, but I'm  pleased with the eyelets.

The shawl has grown, but isn't finished. There is probably wool for a couple more inches before I cast off.

I picked Niamh up from JEMS on Saturday and cooked most of Sunday - pasta bake for Monday night, lamb shanks and soup for myself.  I enjoyed the soup tonight after taking the girls to netball training.

In the coming week I have an appointment with the renal specialist my GP wants me to see to monitor the health of my single kidney. Several of my friends have had medical issues requiring attention in the last week. We are fortunate to have access to good medical services.

On Saturday I am teaching Icelandic Embroidery to the Guild's Certificate Course. I'm well prepared - but nervous. 

There's still no news on the re-scheduling of our electricity outage. The forecast is for a wet week - never a cause for complaint in Adelaide!

Post 56: Food

The big event for today was to be a delivery from Romeo’s Foodland between 12.00 pm and 5 pm. I had time to get an email out to the World Embroidery Study Group with a sample of Miao embroidery designs. I’m going to try sending something out every Wednesday, 

I was just emerging from the shower when my phone rang. A neighbour was outside the front door of our apartments with something she wanted to bring up. It turned out to be two rhubarb and apple mini-muffins she had just baked. A kind thought. 

I had just dressed when my phone rang again. It was the Romeos deliverer telling me the delivery was outside the apartments. He had buzzed me but I hadn’t answered. It was just after 11am. I went down and collected it, then rang him back to say that in future, if the delivery was going to be early, I needed to be informed in advance. He said he understood. We’ll see.

It was a good delivery, a fresh ham hock to roast, a smoked ham hock for soup and French cutlets. Parsnips, turnips and swedes for the soup, milk, berries, grapes, mandarins, butter, margarine and disinfectant. I got most of it put away except for the soup ingredients.  I put the ham hock on to boil and pulses in a bowl of water to soak.

While the hock was turning to stock. and after the muffins had proved delicious,   I figured I might as well give the ANZAC biscuits a go. After my last year’s failure, my daughter obviously decided I needed scaffolding. The ingredients were weighed and labelled. I had to supply a tablespoon of water.

The recipe was specific, including a note that I was not to skip the step of pre-heating the oven and preparing the trays. I rolled my eyes, but obeyed.  I was determined that this batch would be the control.
No deviation.

My plan is to make another batch in the coming days using my recipe and methodology.

The dough was  pliable and produced a very promising tray of 20 biscuits. I did heat the oven - and I even used the timer for the first time in case I got absorbed in my stitching as they cooked.

The result was, I must admit, almost perfect ANZAC biscuits. I know because I made coffee and ate two of them.

I turned off my stock and left it to cool while I worked on he Mellerstain screen.  While I was working on this a friend phoned. She worked on the first edition of the Macquarie dictionary and has written a history of that dictionary. She told me of some of the original debates around the dictionary entry on ANZAC biscuits. During WWI, apart from the four basic ingredients, women added whatever they had in their pantries. My next batch might be interesting.

I was well into the rhythm of the squirrel’s branch, but I stopped to skim the fat from the stock, add the pulses and chop the vegetables.

While at the stove, I  cooked a potato, lamb cutlets, tomato and broccolini for my dinner. I finished it while catching up with one of my daughters by phone. 








I have made inroads in the squirrel’s tree. It is becoming more and more addictive. 

My soup is looking good. Tomorrow I'll add tomato and maybe try it. Rain is forecast, so soup might be just the thing.