2008 — 2 May: Friday again already
My picture of Christa in the pond during its earliest days went down well in faraway New Zealandland,1 even if those of the giant squid are more dramatic, so here's another:
She also did all the cementing of the pond surrounds, just as she'd done all the construction of the concrete patio several years earlier. It's still all in pretty good shape2 over twenty years later. Of course, Junior was mightily disappointed when he realised that the only regular swimmers allowed in it were to be fish, though I must admit he promptly went off to the local brook and brought back some tiddler candidates for us.
Time (00:27) for some sleep.
In later news...
It's now 09:40 and I've been busily stuffing the crockpot while listening to a radio documentary about the appalling prison riot at Strangeways in April 1990. Almost as appalling, of course, is the time that has to elapse in this country between an event and the inside story being made known. Nanny state knows best, of course. I do wonder why we have the largest prison population in Europe (now, and I believe, back then too). Lives get rebuilt, but it surely takes time.
It started off bright and sunny but I've just had to shut the skylight to keep out the rain. Still, if you're going to be a cloud, better to be a magnificent one:
Nice game rant here, by the way. I don't remember ever being called a "smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossil" before...3 But if the (flat, tweed?) cap fits.
Lunch already?
It's 14:00 but I'm not actually hungry. I've been ripping, scanning, and hopping around radio channels. Not to mention hopping around between computers. (When my kindly next door neighbour asked me yesterday what I was doing I admitted to her that my various PCs were keeping me sane — possibly a dangerous thing to say to a newly qualified "specialist psychiatrist" it only belatedly occurred to me.)
Still, the sun is currently out, so I may just take myself out in the car for a little pootle. Apathy can largely rule, some days. Back when Christa started bouncing in and out of hospital last May I (not surprisingly) couldn't really "settle" to anything for very long; I took my mind off my misery with rather mindless MP3 ripping. Now I've yet to decide what I actually want to "settle" to in any case. I realise I have lots of choices — I'm retired, you know! — but my life is on such a vastly different vector... Everybody tells me that's "normal" when your steady state4 existence of the last 33 years or so has recently been inverted and shaken violently about.
Having kept half an ear on "Sally Traffic" I've been put thoroughly off any local driving this afternoon — chaos and carnage out there, by the sound of it, and most of it very slow-moving. Since my journey is far from necessary, I'm staying at home surrounded by all the toys. Must say, the sky has perked up immensely since I snapped the cloudscape six or seven hours ago. And the crockpot is making its presence felt, too, in a promising way.
Bookfest
I was often wont (love that word) to list minor retail therapy acquisitions made on a Friday afternoon, and that little burst of capitalism was a very long-running Mounce family tradition. Whether it was a minor psychological compensation for a five-day lifetime endured in the office each week is, I suppose, an issue I could explore with Madame Dr Professor Specialist Psych next door. Certainly, the sight of Christa driving up to whisk me away from the Lab on a Friday afternoon was always a very happy one.
Today, I shall settle for the three books I actually bought yesterday in the Arcade bookshop. I'm a fan of Dilbert (though I must admit that, having put cubicle life firmly behind me, I only rarely catch it these days). I like his non-Dilbert stuff, too, and his blog. So we have:
The RAF memoir was a genre I used to devour avidly as a kid; the post-war history also looked very enticing. Right! Time (18:08) to lever the lid off the crockpot and tuck in. Good grief, Christa! The other fruit loaf in the freezer was "best before" last June, you rascal.
Delicious!
Today's crockpot variation involved using a "store-bought"5 red wine and shallots gravy rather than the usual can of chopped tomatoes and garlic in olive oil. So I've at least established where the uniform colour of the previous dishes has been coming from. I ended up with lamb, pork, onion, potato, carrots, swede, cooking apple, splosh of red wine, lamb and pork stock, dab of flour. I withheld the salt and Worcester sauce without degrading the tasty result.
I've just (19:30 or so) rung to wish Junior a happy weekend and now dear Mama's just rung me to offer "anything I want or need at any time", which is (putting it mildly) an uncharacteristic offer. Still, it's the thought etc. etc. I genuinely don't know what to say, or feel. But I can tell she's upset by Christa's death, that's for sure.
Another word I had to look up. Normally, I'd just have asked Christa:
I am no longer in New York during passover and a papal visit (which means the chance of my actually being able to say "Good yontiff, pontiff," has now dropped back from astonishingly faint to none).
Yippee! Here's the latest Ansible for some guaranteed chortles.