So, it’s that time again – and it’s going to be happening pretty frequently over the next couple of months, it’s time for Kate to switch her body clock around to nights.
The advantage of this, and there are few advantages* is that I get to see this:
It’s snowing again. To be fair, it was snowing when Kathryn went to bed, but had kinda stopped. It’s obviously started during the time I’ve been sat here meaninglessly staring at the computer and waiting for something interesting to strike. It hasn’t, so you’re stuck with me rambling again (well, for limited values of stuck with**).
Anyhow, so, it’s been a very pleasant weekend – we’ve experimented with food (and found a recipe for Vegetarian Biriani that we have no desire to repeat making, in fact, while we were on the phone to my mum today we asked her how to fix it, because while it’s not inedible, it’s not very nice). Cloves and a herb who’s name escapes me (this has been happening a lot, of late); and frying the whole damn lot with some fresh onion, apparently.
She wasn’t impressed by the recipe (which is fair enough, we weren’t impressed and I spent ages making it). Smelt good though. We shan’t be repeating that one. The irony is, we’re really bad at actually exactly following recipes, not because we’re inherently bad at it, but because we favour Sainsburys with our custom. This essentially means that every week we take our list shopping, and every week we come up with an acceptable list of substitutions. ‘Oh, there’s no babycorn’, ‘ah, they’ve run out of celery’, ‘hrm, there’s no…’ oh, you get the picture.
But in this case, we had all the ingredients, and they’d mostly been bought that very day at the store. Kathryn cooked desert (a Plum cake to use up the gooshy plums, it’s very nummy) and I trundled through the Veg Bir’ recipe. Marinated the veg I did. For 2 hours… and then we tasted it and were in a world of disappointment.
Not so with todays cooking task. Spaghetti with Pear (Substituted with Apple) Walnut and Dolcetta (or, as they don’t stock it anymore, Stilton). It was delish. Not quite as delish as our seasonal favourite, Cashew nut Paella, but a nice change and very tasty. It was especially good because today I managed to get the spaghetti really good. It could do with a little salt in it, it’s a very simple recipe (just flour and egg, actually); and incredibly easy to make (with the food mixer), but getting the consistency right has been a bit difficult.
It, incidentally, is snowing a fair amount now. It’s a shame that by the time I get up tomorrow it’ll all be gone – so I won’t get to enjoy it :(
That said, I do want to get the DAF’s windows done…so snow’s actually not terribly convenient.
This whole cooking thing, I really enjoy it. I like spending time with Kathryn doing something which if not strictly creative is a sort of creative activity. I love eating such good food. One of the things that Kathryn commented on this morning was how I find our proper civilised Sunday breakfasts a somewhat decadent experience. But truly, the only actual decadent thing about them is the leaf tea (which is hardly a great expense) and the time spent enjoying them.
But it’s my idea of decadence.
Anyhow, enough rambling. Nikki reminded me of the existence of a show called Being Human. Not being someone with much of a TV habit (well, okay, someone who’s got no Digital receiver at all) I’d missed the 2008 pilot. But the 2009 series is apparently the same – just with different cast – more or less. The show looks to be awesome, although the ‘comedy’ aspect of the pilot was pretty small. There were some extremely funny moments, but overall it was definitely more drama.
But it was inventive and funny and quirky and all the things that the BBC does really well, when it does them. It’s vampires and ghosts and werewolves (oh my!), and has characters with flaws and who are interesting. In fact, the vampireyness or werewolveyness is more of an aspect than the entire individual – which seems to be the case in some films / shows.
It’s also shot in Bristol, which makes me miss Bristol. It’s also shot in the BGH, which is somewhere I did a few shifts, way-back-when. I do like to see a local show :)
Anyhow, between Being Dead, the L word, BSG, Hustle and Big Bang Theory my TV watching schedule is full (yes, seriously; that’s more shows than I really have time for). All of the shows seem to be doing a line in awesome, incidentally.
Oh, and why did no-one mention that season 3 of the I.T. Crowd was much funnier than season 2? Season 2 just didn’t get me laughing *that much*, but season 3 is excellent.
Anyway, I’m going to stop now, because I’ve written about 1/4 of an when-I-was-doing-my-nursing essay, and none of it’s really deeply interesting. It’s just pre-nights waffle, as my brain unravels through sheer tiredness and I try to keep myself from sleeping as much as I’d like.
Incidentally, this week I shall be making (for nights) Banana Cake.
* Few advantages: More pay. Uh, that’s it on the advantage front. Well, more pay and a week off to get more stuff done.
** The same sort of level of ‘stuck with’ as the level at which I was ‘forced to’ go on a course at work. I.e. I was given the option.
