‘Alcohol is God’s apology for making us self-aware’
I was wondering whether to bother with this or not. I’d enjoyed May’s Our Man In Japan, so I figured, why ever not? And I’m glad I did. It’s great!
May’s quest for La Dolce Vida looks to be going pretty well.
May looks fantastic! Has he lost a bit of weight? His current hair and beard combo is looking better than usual, with a touch of Lord Percy, aka Robert Plant. And he seems happy in himself. All this may sound a bit Hello! magazine. But I think it helps explain May’s enduring (poss’ even expanding?) appeal.
Tragically, watching this only accentuates how bone-crunchingly stupid Brexit is. It’s now much harder for ordinary folk like us to visit places such as those James enthusiastically explores. God how I hate Tories and their hordes of zombie enablers.
Today I brought the infill levels up between the sleepers, with earth from either side of where the shed is. I also popped over to Wisbech and bought four bags of large bark-chips, for a path along the southern edge of the shed/garden.
Raising the infill levels.
I also did a good chunk of my Stick Control Summer Challenge. I’ve been doing a page a day most days I’ve done it. I need to be doing more than one page a day to finish before next term starts!
Watching a video on YouTube, with Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Matthew Walker about caffeine and it’s effects on sleep.
Caffeine is, as they discuss, a psychoactive drug, and a stimulant. According to Walker caffeine is the second highest traded commodity after oil! I’ve heard it said before that coffee is the drug of capitalism/consumerism. If Walker’s claim is true, nothing could better illustrate the link between this drug and our self-medicating slave-driver culture.
‘Caffeine is a sleep disruptor, there’s no question about that,’ says Chatterjee. Two answers these guys give are de-caff, or, better still, no coffee, or caffeine – tea, inc. green tea, also contains caffeine – after midday. The third and more radical option is to go tee-total, and simply cut caffeine out altogether.
Just ordered a copy of this.
According to the very little skimming of Google I’ve just done on Walker, in light of this YouTube vid and re buying his book, he’s ‘in love’ with sleep. So am I! But I imagine his love for and knowledge about sleep are far healthier than mine!
One reason I love sleep is that it’s an escape from the constant and oppressive demands of waking life. And I suspect that both this basic fact about my love of sleep, not to mention my actual sleep habits themselves, are not as healthy as they ought to be.
Anyway, a very interesting and informative podcast style YouTube video, well worth watching. And I’m looking forward to reading Walker’s book.
There has been change, even if not discernibly so!
I didn’t take any more sleeper pics. Or rather, more accurately, I did. But they don’t show the progress I made. I basically levelled the sleepers better, and raised the soul with the spaces. Esp’ along the edge that’s going to be the footpath, along Ruben and Anne’s side (the left as you look away from the houses!).
I’m trying to maintain the FODMAP diet. And I’m convinced that my tummy is less distended than formerly. I’m not sure I’ve lost much if any weight. I just think I’m carrying a little less gas around in my guts! Sometimes it’s hard to be motivated over food choices. That’s when any diet is at greatest risk.
Today’s lunch. Sausage omelette (!?) and salad.
Today I made a three-egg omelette, with two Heck sausages (high meat content, no gluten containing cereals or dairy content!), fried in olive oil and chopped up. The orange cubes are Red Leicester cheese. I’m glad I can still have cheese, as I love it. I just have to keep portions small.
The salad was a leftover from yesterdays dinner. And speaking of leftovers, our dinner tonight was the remains of Satay #2, with the addition of rice, edamame beans and water chestnuts, some Thai red curry sauce and gluten free soy-sauce, all drizzled with lime juice.
Both lunch and dinner were, thankfully, delicious, nutritious, and FODMAP friendly.
I’ve even started to add some little bits of exercise into my daily routines. I’ve started doing timed squats. The idea is to work up to 30 days of 30 mins (in smaller bite sized chunks) squatting on flat feet. And I want to add some free hanging in to the mix as well…
I’m trying to cultivate other good habits. For example I’m doing a Stick Control ‘Summer Challenge’: trying to do at least a page a day of Stone’s ancient but venerable tome. Hopefully by summer’s end I’ll have finished the whole book?
This photo was just shared on Facebook. I love it. Don wasn’t always that photogenic, in my opinion. Interesting to look at, perhaps. But often in a slightly fucked way.
This 1967 portrait by Guy Webster captures the Cap’n looking ice cool, in a be-suited yet beatnik vein. It’s a look that’s aged a lot better than has the acid-casualty freak apparel of the musically terrific Trout/Decals era.
I’ve been teaching a few pupils parts of the superb song Tamborine, from Prince’s Around The World In A Day. It’s a great track, full stop. But from a drummer’s perspective? I think it’s sublime.
It’s funny that sometimes it takes someone who’s not primarily a drummer to come up with the greatest drum parts. Think of Jaco on Teen Town, or Prince here. These guys lay down killer grooves, and then pepper them with some of the spiciest fills I’ve ever had the pleasure to chew on.
I think the fact that I had to dial up Tamborine on YouTube numerous times whilst teaching it has the algorithmic predicto-bots deciding I’m looking for more early Prince. And so it was that I came across the music linked to above.
Apparently it was a trio of Prince, with bassists Cymone, and drummer Bobby Z. And Prince was just 19, at this point! It’s a fascinating and enjoyable listen.
Got the sleepers roughly in place. They need tweaking to get them properly spaced and levelled out. They’re close though. Cross-wise they’re all pretty good, but along the length of the shed there’s a slight decline, as you get further from the house.
Workman’s hands!
It was pretty quick n easy, doing the sleepers, in the end. Somewhat surprisingly so. Teresa helped me shift the first one. But after that I was on my own. Just ‘drag n’ drop’, like Photoshop!
The foreman checks over my work. Seems to approve.
It was very sweet when Chester saw what I’d done. He evidently enjoyed clambering over them all, and even snuggled up to one for a little spell. I’m glad I have the guv’nor’s blessing!
Teresa liked my previous satay so much she asked me to do it again! That’s nice. I’ll take that!
But I didn’t have quite the same ingredients to hand this time. We did, however, have chicken. So in that respect I was truer to the orig’ recipe. But in several others, I wasn’t.
We still had carrots, broccoli, pak choi and green beans. But we had no beansprouts or bamboo. Gluten-free soy, peanut butter and ginger, etc, made up the home-made satay. And the whole thing was finished with sesame seeds, ginger and chilli flakes.
I put in twice as much of the latter this time. As previously we couldn’t really taste it!
Chester likes to daydream in this planting box!
We ate dinner outside, in the muggy heat of a summer evening. Chester was chilling in the greenhouse, whilst we quaffed first Portuguese then Spanish red wines. Nice!
This satay recipe is a good ‘un; easy and very tasty. A one pan (wok) wonder, if desired. That is, one pan if using noodles. But two if, like us today, you go with rice.
Over the last day or three I found myself having to repair the door to one of our sheds. This door – a Freecycle freebie of many moons past – was old and knackered when we got it. And it’s subsequently fallen apart a couple of times.
About four or five days ago, whilst putting stuff in said shed, this same door totally fell apart on me… again! Wish I’d have gotten pics! It was really something.
So I removed it, with a view to repairing or replacing it. I prob’ oughta just replace it. But lack of funds means fixing is the more immediate viable option.
Fixing the door… again!
Last time I fixed it simply by gluing the old joints back together, using clamps and straps, in the hope it’d all bind up ok. And it did, for a year or more.
But lately it’s been falling apart for what is poss’ the third time. And this time the original joints are all snapped off. So when fixing it on this occasion, I’ve added wooden patches, glued ‘n’ screwed, for belt ‘n’ braces double-action protection!
Sadly the door has gone pretty severely askew, and sagged, such that even after re-assembly and patching up, it’s not the greatest fit for the doorway of this shed. I had to both raise the hinges a wee bit, and cut into the lower door frame.
Various patches hold it all together.
And there are still ruddy great gaps, one (triangular!), at the top, and the other, running all the way down the right side on the door frame, fairly parallel. I’ll be adding timber to address both!
But yesterday I simply re-hung the door. Ha… simply!? I had to cut, chisel and saw away some of the basal frame, to allow the door to swing in and out! And I had to move it all up about 15mm as well, and re-drill and re-mount the hinges.
Cutting off a little excess frame.
The door is so skewed it’s almost unreal! I had tried to address this when I first attempted to ‘fix’ this door, ages ago. But it seems that’s a losing battle, so I eventually just went with it as it ‘wanted’ to be.
Once re-hung, I moved the latch. I have plans to add wood to the top gap, and down the entire right side of the door frame, to finish this job. Oh, and prob a new cost of paint.
Replaced and working, albeit rather wonky!
The job that occupied me most after the shed door was putting up four shelving brackets. I got these quite some time back, off the Amazon Vine program. They are black, metal, simple L-shapes, with pairs of small curled hooks at the base.
The biggest arse-ache when mounting brackets to walls is always drilling the holes and achieving decent fixtures. It seems the only really simple material would be wood. But 99% of the time one has to contend with either plasterboard (aka dry-wall) or plaster, bricks, etc.
First shelf up, brackets for second at the ready.
On this occasion it was the latter. Plaster over bricks. Necessitating the use of my Hitachi hammer-drill with masonry drill bits. The biggest issue with this scenario is the drill bit wandering, and/or the holes winding up too large.
I’ve taken to remedying this by filling the drilled holes with Polyfilla, pushing wall-plugs in, and letting that go off for about 24 hours. I did the drilling and filling yesterday. So today I’ll be mounting the brackets and screwing them in. I do hope this works!?
Second set of brackets in place.
The lower of the two shelves is cut, notched, and sanded down now. And already sat in its allotted position. I used an old shelf I got via Freecycle years ago. I wish I’d have kept more of these shelves. I chopped a couple up for kindling/firewood!
I was attempting to shape some boards for the second shelf, yesterday. But the timber is so warped, cupped, twisted, etc, I’m not sure if it’s too much to remedy? Still, the work gave me a chance to use my planes, esp’ my Paul Seller’s style scrub plane. And it was a bit of a work-out. Prob’ good exercise!?
I’m still doing the FODMAP diet thing. Which means I’m cooking a lot more than previously. Trying to make sure I get a good diet, and yet avoid FODMAP triggers is quite demanding! Recent food shops have required more thought than usual.
I cooked this turkey and veg’ (chicken in the orig’ recipe; but I had turkey on hand!) satay stir-fry on wednesday. The picture above is my leftovers lunch, the following day. That following day, the 21st, we had a Chinese take-away – quite poss’ not entirely FODMAP? – as a treat, celebrating the sixth anniversary of moving in to our March home!
Chicken & Veg Satay:
Ingredients * 1 tbsp olive oil * 2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons * ½ head broccoli, chopped pw 400g/14oz chicken breast (turkey for us!), cut into strips * 2 pak choi, shredded * 225g tin bamboo shoots * 150g/5½oz beansprouts * 1 tsp grated fresh root ginger * 300g/10½oz rice noodles * 1 lime, wedges, to serve * 4 tsp sesame seeds, to serve Sauce * 4 tbsp gluten-free light soy sauce * 1 tbsp tamarind (didn’t use this!) * 2 tbsp peanut butter * pinch chilli flakes * 2 tsp sesame oil
Method 1. Heat the oil in a wok or large wide pan over a medium–high heat. Add the carrots, broccoli and green beans and stir-fry for 2–3 minutes. 2. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 3–4 minutes. Add the pak choi, bamboo shoots, beansprouts and ginger and continue to stir-fry for another 2–3 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Add the noodles and cook for 3 minutes, then drain. Add the noodles to the wok and stir through. 4. Whisk all of the sauce ingredients together in a bowl, along with 4 tablespoons water. Add to the wok and stir to mix. 5. Serve immediately, with a wedge of lime and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
