... and there went the weekend...
But it's been quite successful. I finished
Bane at around 4.30 on Saturday morning, then spent some of the day adding other sort-of-related fics (
Transposition,
Entranced,
Fugitive, the infamous
Silk and Leather, etc.) for completeness - and I finished the cover ->
Planning to burn the CDs and print out the covers tomorrow, then they can all go in the post later in the week.
Having had a really late night on Friday (well, I was still up at six am, and watered and opened the greenhouse before I went to bed!) and not much of a lie-in as I had so much to do, I was knackered come Saturday evening and planned an early night. Unfortunately, as I was closing down, I realised that
Bloodsuckers was on, a film I've been trying to catch for a while. Managed to stay awake to watch it (and very glad I did, wonderful, B-movie stuff but great fun and very enjoyable: it read like the pilot for a series, and I really wish it had been - I'd have watched it!) but then had to get up early this morning as Lutra found a copy of Peter Jackson's
Bad Taste cheap on ebay, and as our video of the film is completely buggered (as we found out when Kai tried to watch it on Saturday afternoon) and it's expensive on play.com, I needed to grab it if I could. (I did, and even with the airmail from Australia 'tis half the price of the play.com DVD.)
Then Kai fancied coming to the
LoveFoodFestival with me, so we headed off at 10.30... It was very interesting (though badly sign-posted) with lots of different stalls with lots of samples to taste. We stopped at the Turkish stall to try chocolate with chilli, which sounds disgusting but was actually really nice, so much so that we bought a bar of James' Chocolate sweet Thai chilli chocolate (£1.50) for us all to share. (Haven't opened it yet...) He was also selling some other varieties cheap (25p or 5 for £1) so I picked up Moroccan Mint, Honey and Almond, Rose and the rather nice Orange and Geranium. And Kai bought some Cappuchino Coffee Beans (bean shaped chocolates). All the stalls were great, though, and next time I must try to take more money.
Kai wanted to walk back on the other side of the river, which was quite nostalgic as I used to take him and Quyn for walks along there back when he was just a wee sproglet in his buggy. Back home I made the belly pork in barbecue sauce for dinner again, and while that was cooking also made a sticky lemon cake and a small spelt loaf (these days I really hate putting the oven on for just one thing...)
Sorry Lutra, I know I said I'd try to take a photo, but the sticky lemon cake just vanished in one. Though I say it myself, it was delicious, not bad since I haven't made any cakes at all in over ten years.
Poppyseed cake next.
Haven't managed much in the garden this weekend, though I did use our own tomatoes to make chilli con carne on Saturday (general census of opinion was it was probably the best I've ever made) - and had a moment of bemusement on Friday evening when I came back in from the garden, three freshly dug carrots in hand to go with dinner, to find Kai watching
The Good Life...
Remember how the new meadow looked when we first cleared it? It's changed a little since...
I think we sowed the seed a little too close together! Still, it's stopping the grasses from coming back.
We have all
sorts of native plants here, many of which I recognise but don't know the names - will have to go out with our identification books when they're all flowering. We'll need to do some judicious thinning though, in order to have it thriving. I'm particularly pleased that we have a lovely patch of foxgloves coming up in the shade of the tree: I like foxgloves. No poppies yet, but there's a pretty blue scabious right in the middle that I'd like to see more of: will try to collect seed later and see if I can encourage it in the couple of bare patches we still have.
It does seem to be encouraging the butterflies though - we've had more than ever visiting this year, including
marbled whites,
cabbage whites (not so welcome, they've made lace of some of my Brussel's sprouts leaves),
red admirals (pleased about that last, as they were becoming scarce: we grow nettles for their caterpillars),
common blue (not so common these days),
peacocks, even a
comma, and this morning in the greenhouse a
meadow brown landed on my hand while I was watering - and wouldn't get off, I had to persuade it gently onto the rosemary bush growing outside before I could finish!
I am particularly fond of butterflies...
Labels: adventures, Alliance Chronicles, domesticity, garden, wildlife
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 11:41 pm
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