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Monday 22 January 2024

F is for Fitness - or not!

Often in the winter I struggle with the blues but that hasn't really been so this year.  'Orrible inertia, yes.  The blues, no.  What I have struggled with is physical fitness.

At the beginning of the year, I was walking around the block most days but alas! no more.  This year the cold has affected me more than I can ever remember.  If I get cold, I take several hours to get warm no matter what I do.

And the cold has affected my joints.  The batmobile looks very tempting at the moment!  On good days I get around the house unaided but I've needed my stick a few times recently.

But, all that is better than the winter blues!  I'm happy to phone friends, zoom a bit, sort my stuff and be cheerful.  I'm making myself get out of the chair a couple of times each hour and Fitbit tells me I'm doing around 2000 steps on the better days.  I'm cooking.  I led worship yesterday.  

I may not be fit (to be honest, I'm definitely not fit) but life looks pretty good.


Friday 19 January 2024

E is for Energy Gap

 


I googled "energy gap" looking for the old advert about snacks  to get you through (can't remember which snack!) but was surprised to find that energy gap a "thing" in physics!  I never was much of a scientist.

What I am is a woman who is in her personal energy gap today!  I feel as though I have been busy this week.  I've visited a couple of friends who are ill or have been in hospital.    I've led on-line worship.  I've been to a new sewing group.  I've sorted a new bank account.  I've done a day of doggy day care.  Come to that, this is my fourth blog post of the week!

And I've hit my personal energy gap.  No oomph.  No mojo.  My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone.

I feel OK with that.  There's nothing spoiling.  Everything can wait until tomorrow.  I need to give myself a little TLC.  Soup from the freezer.  A nap.  Maybe paint my nails.  Or maybe not.

How do you deal with energy gaps?


Wednesday 17 January 2024

D is for Ducks

 

Mallard



Not the sort that floats.

Bombay duck






Nor the sort that swims.  


Savoury ducks










But these.  

Savoury ducks are real country food.  They are called faggots in many parts of the country.  I used to buy frozen faggots until I read their ingredients list! From now on, it's homemade only.

Lincolnshire has a strong tradition of pork-based dishes.  When I was a little girl one of my favourite meals after the pig had been butchered, was pig's fry.  There would also be haslet, stuffed chine, "scraps" as well as more recognisable pork recipes.  Our sausages are wonderful but the items labelled "Lincolnshire sausage" or (even worse, "Vegetarian Lincolnshire sausage"!) bear little resemblance to the offerings made by my grandmother or, indeed, by local butchers today.

Good, old fashioned food.  Local specialities.  Can't beat them.  

Ducks are made of pork, pork liver. bacon, onions and breadcrumbs with lots of herby seasoning and baked.  I then make a rich onion gravy and cook them a second time in the gravy before serving them with carrots, potatoes, cabbage - the vegetables which grandad grew.

A feast fit for a King!


Tuesday 16 January 2024

C is for Cranford

Anybody else love theTV adaptations of the classics?  I find that a good drama series really inspires me to read or, more likely, listen to, the original book.  

Over the years I've read The Forsyte Saga, Nicholas Nickleby, Vanity Fair and many, many more.  Until they are brought to life on the small screen so many classics look too boring to leap onto my reading list   

I loved the TV adaptation of Cranford and rewatched it recently.  With a cast including Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and Julia MacKenzie, it was bound to be good!  I got an audiobook read by Prunella Scales and it is now my bedtime favourite.

But I can hardly believe how different the TV series and the book are.  The televised version is actually a conflation of three books: Cranford, My Lady Ludlow and Mr Harrison's Confessions.

Mrs Gaskell's "Cranford" has no real plot.  It was written as a series of short pieces about some spinsters and widows who work very hard to keep up an appearance of "gentility".  It's about a changing society and strong aversion to change.  Threats to the established order must be fiercely resisted - and they are!  The lack of a plot doesn't matter: what I enjoyed is the insights into mid-Victorian provincial life.

Have you been inspired by classical adaptations?