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*

 Well, technically he is renting it from school. It is very shiny. And extremely loud. 

This is a rather sudden development. He never showed much interest in music as a child (unlike Ash who has been learning various instruments throughout primary school). Then last year he decided to teach himself guitar (via YouTube). And now he has signed up for instrumental music lessons at school. Learning the trumpet. Apparently he wanted to learn the saxophone, but when he tried out for the classes they said he would be better at trumpet. Which is odd because playing the trumpet requires a bit of a trick (you can't just blow into them), but it seems he has the knack. 

 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. 

 So, I am laid up on the couch with a rotten cold, which is probably going to stop me from getting the 'flu vaccine at work this week. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but apparently we are having a flu epidemic here atm, and there are shortages of the vaccine. As you might guess from the title, it's been an eventful few weeks, and since I have nothing to do but sit around and feel sorry for myself, I thought I might pop in here and complain about it. 

It hasn't all been bad, mind. We had a nice Easter lunch with Andy's family - I made a gluten free carrot cake which came out rather well. Baking is always a bit hit and miss without gluten, and this was actually the first time I've ever made carrot cake. And I took the week after Easter off work, and we had a very pleasant week with nice weather and a bit of pottering around in the garden. I dug 3-4 years worth of compacted compost out from underneath the compost bin and promptly planted some peas in it, and the plants I acquired for the courtyard when dirtygreatknife  and I went to the ABC Plant Fair are doing really well. 

But the week before Easter Erin got up one morning and noticed that the ceiling in the lounge room was falling in. To understand this, you should first know that Adelaide is built on big chunks of reactive clay which expand quite substantially when wet, and shrink just as drastically when dry. It's a problem all over the place to some extent (at our last house 0.5cm wide fissures used to open in the back garden during summer and then close up again in winter and that was a relatively stable area). Houses getting big cracks in the walls or ceilings because the ground is moving under them is a pretty standard problem.

Our street has a bad case of the reactive clays (if you have ever driven down it you would notice how remarkably bumpy the road is). This manifests in all kinds of ways, including weird bulging spots in the driveway and courtyard pavers. The house itself is pretty solid, except for one narrow spot where the lounge and dining room meet. To add to the 'this small part of the house could easily be snapped off the rest' effect, there are a couple of vents for the heating and air-conditioner in the ceiling in this part. Not long after we moved in the ceiling started cracking from this corner to one of these vents. We got a guy in to fix it and he did a pretty good job. But for a while now there has been another crack creeping across to the other vent. We have been ignoring this for probably longer than we should have. Add to this the driest start to the year since the 1880's and the weight of the vent, plus the weight of the fancy cornice tore a dirty great hole in the ceiling. 

We propped it up with a bit of wood, and the same guy who fixed our previous crack has come around to have a look at it. The ease of the fix will apparently depend on whether they can cut out the broken bit of ceiling without breaking the fancy cornice along the top of that wall (if they do then the whole length of cornice will also need to be replaced). Anyway, they will be starting late this week or early next week, so that will be fun. 

I also ended up having an ultrasound just before Easter because I have been having some rather unpleasant pain in my right breast. The ultrasound showed nothing to be concerned about, which is always a relief, and apparently breasts just get that way sometimes. I can't help but wonder if this is some sequelae to the terrible case of mastitis I had after Liam was born (I had a 3cm x 3cm x 2.5cm abcess in that breast - that was some fun I can tell you). If there's scar tissue of some kind in there the sonographer didn't say anything about it. I had some pain on and off in that breast afterwards, but not really anything since Ashwyn was born.

Our local greengrocer also closed over Easter. We have been going there since we moved back to Adelaide (nearly 15 years ago - yikes!), so that was a bit of a blow. I do not like buying fruit and veg at the supermarket, so we are experimenting with getting our fruit and veg at the Central Markets. It's difficult to go to the Central Markets and just buy fruit however. There is a great temptation to splurge on fancy cheese and smallgoods and beautiful pastries. We got some amazing asparagus there last week, and this is what I did with it:

Pasta primavera (yes it is autumn here)
1 small onion, finely diced
2 bunches asparagus (16-20 spears) 
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup of shelled, peeled broad beans
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup cream
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 generous tblsp fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
black pepper
olive oil

Set some pasta to cook. Wash and trim the asparagus (the best way to do this is just flex the stem gently - it will snap off at the point where it is too woody to eat). My theory on asparagus, btw, is that the skinnier it is the better. 
Heat 1-2 tblsps of olive oil in the bottom of a frying pan. Add the onion and saute on high heat until it is beginning to soften. Add the asparagus and continue cooking until the asparagus has turned a much brighter green colour. Add the broad beans and then add the wine and let it boil down until there is less than a cm left in the bottom of the pan. Stir in the cream, then add the peas. Once this also begins to boil, turn down the heat and add the cheese and sage. Season generously with pepper (and salt if you're into that) or according to taste. Simmer gently for 10 mins or until your pasta is cooked. Toss the sauce through the pasta and serve with additional parmesan. 

This is still pretty nice if you don't have any broad beans.  

But I have been up to my eyeballs for what feels like months. Firstly work was really insanely busy for the few weeks leading up to the end of the financial year. Then Andy took off on a two week overseas holiday with his dad and brother. They went to Hawaii and Japan (the latter during the hottest week they've ever had there, and then they only just got out as a cyclone was blowing in). I took the first week of this off to be a single parent (it being the last week of the school holidays), and hosted a couple of friends from Canberra who were visiting. Then my parents came to stay so the kids could go back to school and me to work. The not driving thing was a distinct nuisance, but we managed (including taking three buses to the Aquatic Centre because Ashwyn was desperate to go swimming at least once in the holidays). 

Next up was a rotten cold, which knocked me out for about a week. I dragged myself back to work after that only to discover that my boss had taken some bereavement leave, and I was going to have to do his job for two weeks. That ended on Friday. Today I am at the airport on my way to Melbourne for the Australian Statistical Conference. I am giving a talk. I am woefully underprepared. I come back rather late on Thursday night. Next week I am mostly taking off to do shopping and cooking for Fields of Steel (also feeling woefully underprepared atm), which is the following weekend. 

And the last few days have been the first really nice days of Spring, which has been a shame because I have been too busy to go out and enjoy them. Mind you, the hayfever is also now rearing its ugly head, so maybe that's not such a terrible thing. It's going to be cold and grey all week in Melbourne,  apparently, and I am not terribly disappointed by that. The garden is doing ok, though, although the front garden is suffering from my inability to line up days with decent weather when I am not sick or stupidly busy in order to do some weeding.

 ...and one disgustingly snotty cold. Ashwyn has finally decided that blowing his nose is a thing he can do.

Note that I don't say 'blowing his nose into a tissue'. This is not a matter of etiquette or hygiene. For his entire life, up until today, Ashwyn has vehemently denied that blowing one's nose (ie the expulsion of air and other matter from the nasal passages via a short, violent exhalation) is a thing that humans are capable of, and he has flatly refused any attempts to teach him how to do such a thing. Previous colds have been dealt with by all manner of sniffing and snortling and other unpleasantries. But today, he has been blowing his nose. 

Perhaps next week he will spontaneously learn how to tie his shoes.

A few weeks ago Erin decided she was going to become a vegetarian. A peculiar choice for a person whose staple food is toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, but there you go. 

And yesterday Andy was diagnosed with coeliac disease. This seems a little peculiar to us, as his only symptom was iron deficiency, and he probably wouldn't have noticed that except he kept being told he couldn't give blood. Since chronic iron deficiency is pretty unusual in men I prodded him into going to the doctor, they did a heap of tests, and lo and behold: coeliac disease. I suppose he might have other nutrient deficiencies that we haven't noticed because he has never been tested for them, but I was under the impression that coeliac patients had lots of gastro-intestinal symptoms, and he's had nothing like that. Anyway, Andy is currently in mourning for pies and beer. 

It's going to be interesting reworking our household diet to deal with these developments. The rest of us might actually get a lot healthier...

 This morning the three clocks in my kitchen read 8:04, 8:17 and 8:25 in the same moment. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey....