angharad_gam

 I suppose we had a couple of weeks reprieve between 'aaargh, the whole country is on fire' and 'omg, we're all going to get coronavirus'. 

So far the instructions from work are 'only stay home if you're sick or in an at risk group', but the office was half empty on Friday anyway. We're pretty well set up for working from home (and I have been doing that three days a week for a couple of years now), but I think they are still concerned about load if everyone tries to do it at once. That means, for me at least, things are continuing more or less as normal for now, except for the things that aren't. All the gardening and craft fairs dirtygreatknife and I were planning to attend have been cancelled. There's a good chance the yoga classes I have been attending on Mondays since 2006 will be cancelled. My parents were planning on visiting in the Easter school holidays, and it seems like that will probably not happen. Ashwyn's parent teacher interview this week will be done over the phone.

Erin managed exactly two weeks of university before they put all her lectures and tutes online. Despite the horrible commute (her uni is on the other side of the city) I think she has been enjoying getting out of the house, and now she is stuck inside. 

I have, after doing some reading and investigation, decided I am not in an at risk group. There is no evidence that auto-immune diseases put you at more risk from COVID-19 apparently,  unless you are taking immune suppressants to manage them (which I am not). In fact it seems like an overclocked immune system means more likelihood of having a mild version of the disease. All the evidence suggests that unimpaired immune response is helpful, and the symptoms (unlike those of colds) are not driven by the immune system itself. This does leave one danger from the illness - the chance of triggering another auto-immune disease. Viral response is a very common trigger for auto-immune diseases (that's how I ended up with the one I have - thanks to the Hawaiian flu). But the evidence is not very clear on the likelihood of this. There is some research that suggests repeated exposure to viruses mutes the overreaction (ie over time your immune system gets a little smarter at distinguishing between stuff that is you and stuff that isn't - even if it does still go a bit nuts if have the audacity to inhale a pollen grain or rub a bit of grass on your skin). So in other words, being old and having gotten sick a lot may actually be helpful for once!

To cut a long story short, I am not too concerned about this whole business for my sake, more for my old and/or unwell friends and relatives.

I am more concerned with the fact that on Monday I reinjured my dodgy ankle by the simple means of stepping on a large pebble at the bus stop. I had hoped that it would settle down after a day or two, but no such luck. Now I am back on the 'has it healed enough to start strengthening work? Nope not yet' wagon, which from experience I will probably be on for months. Funnily enough just last week I was thinking 'you know, the ankle's been stable for ages, maybe I could occasionally wear heels again'. But nope. Which is frustrating because all this talk of stay home and make do is making me want to go outside and dig up the vegie garden,.

In other news I  have gotten back into garb making lately (just in time for the SCA to cancel all events for the next two months. For the moment I am trying to finish off a couple of projects I started ages ago, but I went rummaging in my fabric stash the other day and I have some rather lovely wool and silk I had completely forgotten about.  Of course, what I really need is a couple of new chemises, but who wants to do boring stuff like that...

I also got a new toy - a Scandinavian style band weaving heddle. It's currently in the process of being sanded and oiled, so I can't use it just yet, but I will have to start planning some weaving patterns. Hmmm, maybe some of that wool could be a nice bliaut with hand woven trim. *wanders off doing yardage calculations in her head*

 The world is feeling pretty awful and scary this evening, but this made me laugh until I couldn't breathe:
wtffanfiction.tumblr.com/post/58751946361/lube

(Edited to add: this is pretty NSFW btw - just in case)

 We went to see Sisters of Mercy last Sunday night. We have had the tickets for months, but the closer the night got the more I started getting the 'I'm getting too old for this shit' jitters. I mean - going out on a Sunday when there's work the next day and kids to get to school; loud rock music when the ears have lost their youthful resilience. But we went. And it was really, really good. 

And then the next day I got really sick. As best as I can tell it seems to be a combination of irritation from overuse of the smoke machine at the concert, on top of existing hayfever inflammation and a cold that Liam had a few days before and my upper respiratory tract went a bit nuts. So here I am a week later flat on my back on the couch, stuffed full of steroids and antibiotics and feeling like I've been run over by a steamroller. Yay. 

 Yet another space of months passes without posting, I haven't been super amazingly busy (well, I was for a few weeks around the end of June), just not terribly inspired to come in here and write. In July I went to a couple of fairs with dirtygreatknife  - a craft fair and a book fair. Much yarn and many books were acquired. Erin also went off to the UK for most of this month, where she had a great time meeting various extended family members and traipsing round all kinds of historic sites. August is usually the month of getting colds and 'urgh, isn't winter finished yet?'. I did indeed get an unpleasant virus that really knocked me out for a couple of weeks. September has so far been the month of things breaking. The pump on the rainwater tank, and the car have broken. The pump was replaced relatively painlessly (except for the part where we discovered it was installed in such a way that was against building code and doing far more than any pump that size is meant to, but that's another story). The car's transmission (the gears) was basically completely wrecked and that has not been painless to replace, not to mention the additional pain of being without a car for nearly two weeks. Fingers crossed we are done with that for a while. 

In pleasanter news, the garden is bursting out in Spring at the moment. We are swimming in broccoli, and will shortly be swimming in peas, and last night we ate the first of the spontaneous potatoes. They were really yummy. Next month I am going to the Great Southern Gathering (an SCA event focused on the less martial arts) where I am teaching three classes - two on cooking and one on fibre arts. I am also looking forward to the ABC plant fair. 

I have been cooking rice dishes around the world a bit lately. Here are some recipes - Hoppin' John is a traditional southern US dish, and Paella is, well, paella. I made a really amazing paella with prawns once, but Andy is not a big fan of seafood, so this is a purely meaty one. 



Paella
2 chorizo sausages cut into 1/2 cm slices
500 gms chicken, diced
300 gms (about 1.5 cups) arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
1 400 gm tin diced tomatoes
1 red onion, roughly diced
1 red capsicum, roughly diced
3/4 cup peas
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 tsps paprika
pinch saffron
2-3 tblsps fresh parsley finely chopped

Put the stock and saffron in a small saucepan and heat until it reaches a low simmer. Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a large, lidded frying pan (you will need the lid later, not right now), and fry the chorizo slices until they are starting to get crispy. Add the onion, and when that is beginning to soften, add the garlic and then the capsicum. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add the chicken and cook until it is browned all over. Stir in the paprika, then the rice. Add the hot stock, bring to a boil and then turn down to a gentle simmer. Put the lid on the frying pan and allow to cook for ten minutes. Add the peas, stir well, replace the lid and continue to cook for another ten minutes or until the rice is completely soft. You may need to stir a bit during this last part to stop it sticking and to ensure the rice evenly absorbs the liquid. You may also need to add a bit of extra stock or hot water if it's getting a bit dry. Many recipes for paella (or risotto) state that the rice cooking part will take 15 minutes, but I have never met any arborio rice that will cook properly this quickly. Maybe I always get the tough batches. 

Hoppin' John
1.25 cups black eyed beans
300 gms bacon sliced into strips
2 sticks celery, finely sliced
1 onion, finely diced
1 red capsicum, finely diced (or 1/2 red, 1/2 green)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 litre vegetable stock
2 tsps paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 large or 2 small bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 cup long grain rice

About 2-3 hours before cooking, place the beans in a bowl and cover with hot water. Add more if the beans swell above the water level. 
Add 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large frying pan with a lid, or a large heavy-based saucepan, and fry the bacon until it is starting to crisp. Add the onion, capsicum and celery and fry until the vegetables are beginning to soften. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes more. Stir in the paprika and cayenne pepper, and then add the drained beans. Stir well to combine everything, then add the stock, the bay leaves and thyme. Bring to the boil, then cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in the rice, and simmer for another thirty minutes. Season with salt and pepper, remove the bay leaves and thyme stems, and eat. 

Note: you can add more cayenne, if you like spicy. You don't need to soak the beans before hand, but the first part of cooking will need to be at least half an hour longer, maybe more and you will need more liquid. Traditionally Hoppin' John is served over rice, not with the rice mixed in, but I overestimated the liquid needed to cook the beans and my rice cooker was dirty, so i threw it in with the beans. If you cook the rice on the side you will probably only need 3 cups of stock. 

 Life has been pretty quiet lately, divided mostly between work and video games, which is not entirely unusual in summer, when I tend to bunker down against the heat. Now that Autumn is officially here I am going to try and tear myself away from the screen a bit more. The last week or so has not been a good start, delivering in approximate order - three new staff at work, a cold, and a foot injury. I don't know what I have done to  my foot, only that it hurts when I walk on it. There's no causal event I can remember , there's no bruising or other surface sign of a problem, the pain feels different from a soft tissue injury, and it's not located at any obvious joint, and I seem to have exacerbated it doing the grocery shopping yesterday. Maybe this is like the time my knee swelled up for no reason. 

The other news is that I have signed up to run the kitchen at a weekend long rapier event in September. Still very much in the planning stages at the moment.

 I am generally pretty happy about the public transport in Adelaide,  especially since there's  bus route about 500m from  my house that goes direct into the city (and back again) every 15 mins during rush hour. However, if I have one complaint it's that the bus that supposedly leaves the city at 5:25pm frequently either doesn't show, or arrives so late it might as well be the 5:40 bus anyway. You would think I would have learned by now to not bother showing up until 5:40, but I  tend to leave work when I have run out of either brain or things to do for the day, rather than at a specific time, so it's not unusual for me to turn up in the vain hope that the bus will also do so. After all, 15 minutes is not really that long to wait if it doesn't  (unless it's 42C out of course). They have recently installed those 'real-time' electronic signs at my bus stop in the city and it has only further highlighted the liminal nature of the 5:25 bus. This is what happened the other day:

Angharad arrives at bus stop a bit early for the 5:25. Sign states it is 8 minutes away.
Wait 7 minutes. Sign states bus is 1 minute away.
Wait 5 minutes, during which time the two buses listed as arriving after my bus come and go. Sign still states bus is one minute away.
Bus dissappears from sign.
Next bus appears at bottom of sign. Sign states this bus is 11 minutes away.
Wait 5 minutes. Sign now states 5:40 bus is 6 minutes away.
5:25 bus appears at top of sign. Sign states it is two minutes away. 
Wait 1 minute. Sign now states one bus is 1 minute away and another bus is 5 minutes away.
Wait 1 minute. Bus listed as arriving after my bus shows up. Sign states one bus is 1 minute away and another bus is 4 minutes away.
Bus actually shows up!

 Just read 'cut-rate' as 'cute rat'. 

A brief timeline first to hopefully clarify things. Today is the last day of the South Australian school holidays, which are two weeks long. Preceding these two weeks (with no overlap) were the Queensland school holidays, also two weeks long. As I believe I mentioned last time I posted, my parents were intending to spend the last week of our school holidays visiting us  (as indeed they did and went home yesterday). Now to the drama....

Last Sunday, aka the day before they were due to fly down here, mum and dad rang up and told us my nephew had just been diagnosed with whooping cough. He was not terribly ill (he was vaccinated), but he had spent the entirety of the Qld school holidays staying with mum and dad. He had been ill while he was there (in the second week of his visit). They took him to the doctor just before he went home and it takes a week for the whooping cough test to come back, so they had only just discovered that he had it. 

We spent half the day going around on whether or not mum and dad should cancel their trip. Whooping cough is most contagious in the first few days you are ill, which meant that it was almost two weeks since mum and dad had been most exposed. Whooping cough has an incubation period of 7-10 days, although it can be longer. Neither of them were sick (although my sister, who had visited them during the relevant period, was). It seemed like if they were going to get sick, they would have by this point. In the end, we decided that they should come.

All went swimmingly for the first couple of days. Then Andy and I went off on the overnight trip we had planned to celebrate our anniversary (and which, to be honest, was a big motivator for deciding in favour of them coming - his family are much much more reluctant to kid watch, especially if it involves more than sitting around for a couple of hours). When we came back on Thursday,  mum was sick. The next day she was still sick, if not worse. On Saturday she went to the doctor to get some antibiotics. They don't help much with the illness, by all accounts,  but they do help to make you less contagious, which is probably important when you have to get on a plane. We won't know if it's actually whooping cough for another week. 

If it is, and I have caught it (and I have not been vaccinated against it - something my mother did not see the need to tell me until now) it might be two weeks before I get sick. But at least if I do get sick in the next couple of weeks I will know it is likely more than just a cold and not go randomly spreading it around. There is nothing to do now, but play the waiting game, and as Homer Simpson so sagely said "The waiting game sucks..."

 Last night I dreamed that the new doctor stepped out of the TARDIS  on her first episode and said "Actually, I'm not that good at maths."

And then I dreamed that I was annoyed with Andy because he had pulled up all the parsley and nasturtiums from the herb garden. 

I would lay these at the feet of something I ate or did yesterday, except that I know my brain is perfectly capable of all this and more without any stimulus whatsoever...

As for yesterday,  I spent most of it wandering around the University of Adelaide Open Day with Erin and one of her friends, alternately beset by nostalgia and freezing half to death. The fact that I already had a cold makes me surprised I am not as sick as a dog today, but go figure. Also a professor of linguistics gave me a Toblerone, so there was that.

 Andy strained a groin muscle drying himself after a shower (no I don't know either).
And I popped my TMJ out again. I haven't done that for a while, and I forgot how much it hurts.

In other news, I  have decided to try and wean myself off Dragon Age with Mass Effect: Andromeda. I tried the first Mass Effect game when it came out, but I suck at shooting things, and after a certain point this became a barrier to making further progress. However, this newest episode in the franchise has a 'narrative' mode, which supposedly focusses more on story than combat, and I have become slightly more adept at using an Xbox controller since then, so I thought I would give it a go. It turns out I still suck at shooting things. And also I suck at driving the space tractor thing (on my first outing I drove it straight into a pond). So we'll see how long this lasts...