Tuesday, November 17, 2015

3BT: Good intentions; sisterly; crunchy bits - and goats


Didn't post yesterday as I thought Sunday night's link would do, and was, I'm afraid, too confounded by heartache, anger and despair which I don't want to spill out, or indeed seem to be fishing for comfort for, here.

But I'll turn to and come back to the daily postings, if only not to give in. Maybe some 3BT for a bit would be helpful, and for pictures, if I don't take any, to have a trawl through the web albums and even the external hard drive, on which languish many thousands of old ones.

Here's yesterday's for today, a pattern I might follow.

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Monday yoga being postponed, but needing to get out after the weekend anyway, I drive out to Lamballe to shop. On one of our frequent resolves for a dietary spruce up, I buy wholewheat loaves, unsliced, and cut them into doorsteps for freezing, and now the fruit and vegetable stocks are also satisfyingly, but realistically (we probably will be able to get through them), replenished. Better still, I persuade Tom to turn the 400 gram bag of spinach into a curry for tonight.

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While I was out, the 'phone went, and rang and rang. Tom doesn't usually answer on the land line when I'm not here, as he can't understand the caller if they're speaking French or hear them anyway even if they're English, and he gets in a state trying. 'I wondered if it was Doreen.' he said. This is a bit odd, since his sister doesn't ring often and he's unlikely usually to think about a call being from her. She is a kind and courageous woman for whom I have always had a great deal of time, not least because she loves her brother with an open, generous, persistent affection despite his rather offhand gruffness with her. I do the redial and it is indeed her number, so I call her back.

'I've been so worried about you,' she says 'I know you're nowhere near, but still. And I've been reading what you wrote on that Facebook thing you do.'

I don't do Facebook.

'Huh? Oh the blog?'

I am surprised and touched. I gave them a link to a post about their beautiful dog Lara, now sadly passed away, which I wrote much earlier in the year after they'd visited, but didn't imagine they'd follow here after that. I tell her Tom had an inkling it was her, which pleases her, and we talk about her new adopted grandchildren, the brave, sometimes hard, but loving road their parents have taken. They are not to spoil them with toys at Christmas, she's been instructed, but rather give them games for sharing, perhaps tickets to a pantomime, and - here her daughter is going back on her initial refusal of hand knits - could she perhaps knit them a traditional Aran sweater, in natural wool to go with everything? We talk soothingly about wool and cables, then end the call easily. We, Tom and I, are both warmed and heartened.

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As often we watch Nigella, not quite sure why we do; the food isn't really our kind of thing, and the lifestyle porn aspect and her awful friends get up our noses somewhat, but it kind of rounds off Monday evening telly after the quizzes, and we did like the her quoting of Terry Pratchett: something along the lines that chewy burned sticky crunchy bits were a separate food group.

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Photo: Goats


A patch of scrubby woodland up the road was cleared a while back, perhaps as a future building plot, and sown with grass. These girls, there are up to half a dozen of them, are sometimes to be seen maintaining it. Though of course any goat worth its salt would rather have had the trees than pappy old grass. 


9 comments:

Laura Frankstone said...

It feels so right to come here for a visit on a cool and still before the sunrise November morning. I've got a cold, caught from our little two-year old grandson Miles, so am not leaping around as usual. Thank you for sharing your words and photos. Even when you write about your sadness & confusion over big and little things, I feel somehow comforted. Here is someone, I think, who lives and writes with honesty and courage and who, like me, has a fondness for goats, clam shells, coriander seeds, garden leavings, and far-flung friends. I was very excited to read of your upcoming trip! Would love it if you had a minute or two to tell me more... lmfrankstone@gmail.com.

Love to you both.

Catalyst said...

I love your goats, pesky animals that they can be. I have a photo of a bunch of them standing on top of a car eating leaves off of a tree in Mexico.

Nimble said...

Thank you for the sunny goats. I hear they are good company and sometimes threaten to keep a few in my dottage. Your delayed yoga reminds me that's something I would like to do. A 'gentle yoga' session to avoid feelings of competition and intimidation.

Roderick Robinson said...

Is bread thawed from frozen OK? VR swears it is but I've always thought if I encountered the tiniest crystal of ice I would honk my ring (A phrase that now seems entirely démodé - probably for good reason). And then there's the other side: doesn't the thawed ice become water and soggy the bread? Does the bread taste fresh? Or is it traumatised? Obviously not, you wouldn't be doing it. And there's yet another worry: frozen bread sounds embattled, as if you were living under siege; reduced to eating rats with Paxo to take the gamey taste away.

Whatever, I've every confidence you'll pull through.

Your post is a glittering garland of minutiae; a fig for those who don't post because "nothing happened". I can almost smell the good work that's going on in the kitchen, as if Aldous Huxley's fantasy has come true.

the polish chick said...

yes to the spinach curry.

yes to the goats - made dulce de leche recently using goatsmilk and it was/is delightful, so a hearty yes to all goats!

and finally a shameful yes to RR's fig for non-posting. sigh.

Lucy said...

Thank you.

Laura - lovely to hear. I shall e-mail and pick your brains about Iceland very soon!

Cat - yes, that's goats, climbing and eating trees are their main aims in life!

Nimble - the little pygmy goats are less troublesome than the full size ones. The billy goats smell.

Robbie - I have not gone so native as to require a daily trip to the bakers, and find thawed bread is just fine, even microwave thawed with care. It's more likely to be too dry than soggy, unless I suppose it's been frozen so long as to collect a lot of condensation crystals, perhaps. Even baguette can be frozen if very fresh. Thanks for the cheering on!

PC - I'm not sure, however creative one tries to be, that posting all the minutiae of an uneventful life can be sustained to the mutual interest of oneself and one's readers! Sic transit blogging, therefore. Though not altogether. Goats are rather fab, your dulce whotsit sounds lovely.

Anonymous said...

Lucy, we have learned that those people on Nigella's programme aren't her friends. They are hired actors. This adds different frisson, knowing there is this extra layer of fakery. Also it is not her home. All locations are hired. Extra fakery. Her show is much more worth watching if you can deconstruct it! Glenn

Lucy said...

Glenn - No! I think I believe you, how fabulous! Looking forward to the next episode then, and maybe it'll still be on when you come.

Lucy said...

... as it is I can no longer concentrate on University Challenge, distracted as I am wondering which one Andrew has chosen for you!