damerell

 Hoping the photo works...

This is me (in the black hat), my daughter, and my granddaughter, spending a day in the year 1642.

Lindsey has set herself up in the village of Little Woodham as a leather worker, and hopes to learn smithing before long (there are historical records of female blacksmiths in this period).

Oswin, is the leather worker's apprentice, but also showing children how to play games like 'cup and ball'.

I'm currently learning how to card wool, use a spinning wheel (I think I prefer the drop spindle at present) and talking to people about period clothing.

All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Reading. I continue to make slow progress with both What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman) and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke).

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to Labour, mostly? Grumpy e-mails to Labour. Oh, and separately to the DWP courtesy of My UC Journal.

Playing. I have tripped and fallen back into 2048. I do not know why I have tripped and fallen thus. There are other things I would rather be doing. Brain whyyy.

I Love Hue current status: just started The Alchemy/Knowledge/12.

Cooking. Two new-to-us recipes from East: caramelised fennel and carrot salad with mung beans and herbs, of which I am a fan but about which A is a bit meh; and Amritsari pomegranate chickpeas, with the decaf English Breakfast I bought the other week, which I also quite liked but A was mildly dubious of.

Today has featured a different Welsh cake recipe, from one of the charity-shop books I acquired for the purposes of the special interest in EYB indexing. This one includes honey and ground mixed spice; I am decidedly disconcerted by how much they taste like Wrong Texture Mince Pies when cool.

Eating. ... yeah it's been A Migrainey Week, and has consequently contained two rounds of Wagamama. TRAGICALLY I decided on the first of these to branch out and try Not My Usual. Not My Usual turned out to contain The Dread Mayonnaise (I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the number of things called "slaw" I had recently encountered that did not contain mayo). It was mostly salvageable...

Exploring. ADVENTURES in VAN HIRE for the purposes of moving SHED. This involved heading out to Hatfield, because the one fifteen minutes up the road was already Thoroughly Booked. We got to observe MORE FLOWERS and lo they were good.

... I think that's it? I think that's it. (A also went on another adventure to acquire roof box and appropriate rack, but I stayed at home for that one.)

Making & mending. I have not, technically, actually resumed A's pair of gloves, BUT I have now got the information from A I need in order to do so! So that's a progress.

... there has also been. Event prep. So much event prep. The meal ticket booklets for crew are all done; the potions are all sliced and folded ready for laminating (except for the one that needed someone to actually finish writing what it did); ... progress?

Growing. SO MANY SQUASH. Not all of the ones I sowed, but... a lot... have come up.

Somewhat irritated that somebody found my Bravest Dwarf Pea, which had actually managed to find and attach itself to the pea sticks, and severed the stem a little below said attachment. :|

Main infrastructural progress this week was getting all the railway sleepers and shed bits up to the plot (with significant and indispensable help from A). I've not done anything with them yet but they are there, I have plans, necessary hardware is en route, etc.

What else what else? First of the beans are in the ground. I was feeling decidedly surly about my redcurrant but this turns out to have been premature and unfair -- since last weekend it's unfurled a little more and is looking much more promising in terms of potential harvest. The raspberries also seem to be very much enjoying the mulch + semi-regular watering, which is pleasing.

Observing. I totally forgot to mention in last week's section on this topic that on the ride back from Anglesey Abbey we observed Many Cowslips, including at least one that was red!

Tulips continue fantastic. Irises are getting into the swing of things at this point. The bindweed is definitely waking up...

Conveniently I can no longer find the bit of the allotment rules that says No Bringing In Gravel, so I am making plans to blithely bring in gravel for the sake of a base for The Shed, which is Definitely going to Happen this time, Honest.

The chief component I am now missing is a floor. Conveniently, there's an almost-complete house being built just up the road, with a big skip outside it, which currently contains several large sheets of plyboard. I can't actually get at them (it's all behind gates), but I am intending to show up on Tuesday morning and look hopeful at whoever's working there then.

(I am also missing enough sharp sand to level, and the gravel, but gravel at least should be fairly readily acquirable. It is possible I am also missing Some Important Bits Of Wood, but I care less about that because I have so many bits of misc wood at the allotment that I am pretty sure I can cobble something together.)

I am not going to manage to get all of this together before I disappear off to a field for a week, but I'm optimistic about getting it done in time to e.g. actually fill the greenhouse with chillis for the summer (an irritating amount of said greenhouse is currently functioning as storage space and actually I'd prefer it to be growing space. Actually.) Even I have now read enough guides to putting sheds together that I'm at least half-convinced I can probably actually more-or-less work it out.

... I will report back either triumphantly or shamefacedly in a few weeks' time. Watch This Space, etc.

Okay. SO.

Via THE GATE APPRECIATION SOCIETY on Facebook, earlier today I became aware of the Ginkgo Gates at the Adelaide Botanical Gardens. I took one look at the short sections and went I WANT TO KNIT IT.

Ergo lireavue went and poked Ravelry with sticks, and... this shawl fell out.

There Was Shrieking.

And then the shrieking Intensified because all of a sudden the outline of a possible character for the game that Admin: the LRP supports Arrived All At Once. Namely, one of the nations of the Empire is Navarr (summary of influences: "wood elves"). From the look and feel page for Navarr:

The Navarr look draws heavily on the forests for its inspiration. The colours are primarily greens and browns with occasional splashes of dark autumnal red or yellow. Materials are practical, primarily those that come from hunting - leather and fur. [...] Rather than rich materials or unusual colours the Navarr personalise their appearance by adorning their costume with embroidery, beads, feathers, fetishes, and other accessories. It is also common to weave such items into the hair. [...] Layers of well-worn, practical wool and leather in natural shades often serve as the foundation of Navarr costume.

Also relevant context: the existence of magical items that grant you Additional Tricks. Like, for example, mage robes, where I am raising particular eyebrows at the part where the information for Volhov's Robe notes that even the Navarr "see great value in a skilled individual being able to help an established coven".

Additional and further relevant context: there are four events a year. In-game, these events take place during the Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Autumn Equinox.

It Is Also The Case That: a particularly distinctive piece of kit can get very strongly associated with The Specific Character Who Wears It in the general cultural wossname.

... I abruptly very badly want to make myself a set of three shawls identical except in colour: spring green, summer green, autumn blazing yellow. Obviously the conceit is that it is not three shawls, It Is One Single Magic Shawl. It Changes With The Seasons. Do I know anything about this potential character other than "Navarri, magician, magic shawl"? NOPE. Have I ever actually LRPed? NOPE. Am I nonetheless actually kind of tempted? ...

Yesterday’s four games were all worth watching but it was a long day and I was exhausted by the end. I got back to the hostel and pretty much fell into bed and today has been pretty lazy. I’ve read books and napped a fair bit and got some laundry done. We had fancy burgers for brunch and I found the tiny Czech women’s hockey exhibit in the local museum. I booked some tourist stuff in Frankfurt and Paris to do on our way home. Turns out the Eiffel Tower is already booked out online for going to the top on the one day we are in Paris, I guess I should have booked as soon as we knew that was on the wish list. (We have tickets to the second floor anyway - by the stairs! I may regret this but I’d regret more not making the attempt.)

Tomorrow is a three-game day again, the slightly pointless 5/6 place game (now that the tournament format is changing to snake format rather than pool A/B) between Switzerland and Sweden, and then the two semifinals. Sunday is the bronze and gold medal games, and I plan to be packed Sunday before setting off for the arena, so I just need to fall into bed after getting back from the gold medal game, and fall out of bed Monday morning to start the journey home.

( more nerding about the tournament and expected outcomes )

From Sunday: I did not quite believe what I was seeing initially? Or perhaps better I did not quite understand what I was seeing. Brain was entirely made of "daffodil??? backwards?????"

As a consequence of attempting to hunt down the variety (which I had failed to make a note of while actually in its presence) I realised I could ask the RHS to show me a list of all the daffodil cultivars they know about. Apparently this is actually a subgenre with several members! But the thing that has thus far made me squawk WHAT most loudly is, without contest, Narcissus viridiflorus.

We went to Český Krumlov today, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We got an English-language tour of the old town and another of the castle, and we climbed the tower, and somewhere in all the touristing we also had some delicious food on a terasa looking over the river, and generally had glorious weather for it all. (I think we were the only English-as-a-first-language people on either tour.)

Yesterday I managed to meet up with a local from the Lady Astronaut discord for coffee, and we took her recommendation to go to Český Krumlov by bus rather than train, as the bus stops a lot closer to the old town.

Tomorrow is quarter-finals day, four games more or less back to back from 10:00 to 23:00, getting kicked out between each game for cleaning, and probably living on rink hot dogs. Thankfully Friday is another rest day because we will need it. Although I also want to go to the local museum of South Bohemia, and look at its temporary exhibition on Czech women's ice hockey. Unclear how much of the exhibition, or indeed the wider museum, will have an English-language guide but I may as well try.

 I'm not posting much at the moment, because I'm still recovering from various things - but mostly on the up and up now.

So, I thought I'd recc a post instead.  

Try selenak.dreamwidth.org/1602061.html

A very interesting review of the first episode of 'House of David', which also talks about other adaptions of the biblical stories and their pros and cons.  How should David be portrayed? Why do modern versions skip all his bad deeds?  Would it be possible to do a nuanced version that shows his personality changing over time?

It's not a show that I'll ever watch, but SelenaK's such a good reviewer that I always end up thinking hard about what she says.  

Allotment: railway sleepers now ALL AT THE PLOT. Shed bits: not. Questionable contemplations include "dolly?" and "... Tramper?"

Partway through this particular Adventure, there was Rain. Accompanied by Thunder. I am very amused by how muddy the front of my clothes wound up compared with the basically pristine back.

EYB: decided I was going to start adding personal recipes and did that, along with sending in several Messages about Errors and/or Links. In the process of failing to find Waitrose Food Magazine recipes online in any useful format, tripped and fell into Highgate Hill Kitchen, and promptly indexed... most of the cakes? and. some of the salads.

The discover/rerealisation that I can in fact do a combo of indexing misc recipes from The Internet and Actually Making The Personal Recipes Go as a way to scratch the Indexing itch while waiting for things to be Approved is both welcome and Potentially Dangerous.

Reading. Some progress on both Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (I continue to enjoy myself! just... slowly) and What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman) (just made it through the intro, no opinions yet).

Writing. Have not actually technically written anything this week as such, but I have been Contemplating dissociation vs mindfulness in the specific context of (neuroplastic) chronic pain, and the things "pain" gets experienced as if we're tuning it out, and generally organising some thoughts on at least what (areas of) literature I want to dig into.

Playing. GOT UNSTUCK ON I LOVE HUE (The Alchemy/Transformation/22 was wretched to even finish and it took me three attempts to get Under The Global average).

A game of Scrabble, where I made lots of horrid boxes and had a lot of very frustrating not-quite seven+-letter words.

simont pointed me at Bracket City, which I think on the whole I like the concept of, as a stim, but it's fundamentally Too Culturally USAian for me, in that there are a whole bunch of references it makes that are just... so not my default vocabulary that I wind up staring at them blankly more than is actually fun, alas.

Cooking. ... oh heck. Several things. Now officially over halfway through East? See new-to-me recipes post for the year, I think.

Eating. FIRST ASPARAGUS OF THE YEAR courtesy of my mother. Fennel and pepper stew ditto. Cream tea at Anglesey Abbey.

Exploring. CYCLED TO ANGLESEY ABBEY AND BACK AGAIN and was comfortable basically the entire way? Included poking briefly around Cambridge North, which I had not previously had cause to meet. Also bimbled around the block or thereabouts and saw Bats.

Making & mending. ... I have sawed so many railway sleepers in half.

Growing. Things go well! Squash are started! My favourite white patty-pans have come up first! I've come home from Cambs with bonus chillis??? Probably coffee?

Peas beans etc all continue happy. Kohlrabi doing excellently. Jostaberry exuberantly in flower; gooseberry ditto; redcurrant... thinking about it; blueberry has one set of flowers!

Observing. FIRST SLOW WORM OF THE YEAR (and I felt very bad for disturbing it). Red-legged partridge! Cambridgeshire bats and a robin! Lots of excellent spring flowers! SO MANY RIDICULOUS DAFFODILS at Anglesey, specialest mention of all to the ones with white trumpets and yellow petals.

... and that's your lot because Goodness for some reason I am tired. Maybe I will write more about the daffodils In Future. GOODNIGHT.

Made it by train on Tuesday/Wednesday: Cambridge - London - Paris - Zurich - Linz - České Budějovice. Spent most of the time since in the Budvar Arena watching ice hockey. Unexpected London hockey friends found in the central square on Thursday! I also re-met a couple of people who were at Women's Worlds in Herning in August 2022.

The Czechs are making a much bigger deal of this tournament than the Danes did in 2022, lots of people showing up and making noise for the home team (who have won two bronze medals and narrowly missed a third in recent years - it's nice to see their coach Carla Macleod get nearly as big a cheer as the players). The atmosphere is electric at all games with Czechia playing, and pretty good at all others. I am pettily amused that USA & Canada probably have the least fan excitement and smallest audiences.

I am watching a lot of very good hockey and have only had one (1) argument with the 18yo offspring who came with me. Hostel is pleasant and well-located, everything is walkable within 20 minutes, and when there was no morning game yesterday we did a tour of the Budvar brewery. ("A state-owned enterprise, but with good economic results," according to our tour guide.)

I am not sure we will make it to Prague after all, but hopefully we'll manage a day in nearby Česky Krumlov on one of the tournament rest days. Or I might just sleep. Three games a day is amazing but also a lot.

1. Saw a red-legged partridge??? Had never consciously seen one before??? Went That's A Weird Hard Shoulder Bird?????
2. A worked out how to fit my bike into the car. (This means I did not get to swing by University Cycles on my way to my parents' and spuriously buy a second whole entire bike, but hey.)
3. A also brought me tribute from Borough Market, of pastel de nata and Interesting Olives.
4. BATS. Went on a walk! Saw bats! Hurrah finding bats in places I didn't know there were bats!
5. I am enjoying all the ridiculous tulips SO MUCH. Probably tomorrow while it is light I should attempt to get some photos of my current favourites.
6. First of the most recent batch of books arrived! I am really enjoying my current But What If I Got... All The Unindexed National Trust Cookbooks? (I did not get all of them. One of them did not minmax conveniently. If I have not lost interest in the indexing project by the time I've finished the ones I actually want to keep, I might continue down this particular rabbit hole. I'm mildly annoyed that I am become more discerning since the first large order, but on the other hand I am also enjoying gloating over my enormous pile of cookbooks...)
7. ASPARAGUS.
8. New site for Admin: the LRP has been really truly and properly announced! It's the old Cottenham racecourse! I'm enjoying daydreaming about this totally unobtainable house! (For future reference: a 4-bed on the High Street. Pre-installed wisteria and possibly raised beds??? Kitchen.)
9. FIRST SLOW WORM OF THE SEASON. So I suppose I'm not going to bring that particular bed all the way into service just yet after all...

There is about 20 minutes of sawing left to do to get all the railway sleepers cut down to size. I have won some bits of shed (that conveniently complement the bits of shed that actually are in my possession), courtesy of the railway sleepers human having some parts spare. I am very excited about both the potential for more growing space in the greenhouse and the More Growing Space of actually finishing getting in the beds I have been Imagining basically since I got the plot.

(I am also very grateful that I will Have Help in actually making attempt #2 at the shed go. Need to sort out a floor for the thing, but.)

I am also happy about: lots of broad beans??? peas go ZOOM. saffron really very happily established. flowers on all the Ribes, and for that matter the blueberry! ridiculous blue/purple kohlrabi continues ridiculous (and the choi sum in the greenhouse is also looking promising). cherry blossom now delightfully enthusiastic. I am apparently spending enough time there that the fox is getting much more comfortable about me. seed-grown shallots and garlic chives still extant & not dead yet.

SO many things.

Downside: I had forgotten how much I dislike the autoinjectors (and this was a loading dose, so I was reminded by the first and then didn't have a chance to forget again at all before we applied the second).

Upside: medicated again. Fingers crossed for improvement Soonest.