Bus Wencher

Long time no post, but l now have time to start again.

Right now I'm sitting on the 15 bus to town, will shortly change for the X7, and as these are not the snug, comfy, tall seats of the Gold buses they seem to have removed from my journey to work, I shall not be sleeping at any point in the journey unless the bus makes me. Which it probably will. Definitely on the way home anyway.

I have been using this travel time as an opportune occasion to get on with my sadly neglected TBR pile, currently enjoying Blood of Assassins by RJ Barker and feel much happier for it... Traveling by train is great, it's quick, but doesn't give you time. And I may have to get up half an hour earlier, but I get back into town quicker on the way home. The bendiness of time! Or the fact that the train is not so great: it's expensive, often late and despite the gratitude I have towards all the guys who helped me get to work on the scooter when my ankle was kaput, I just can't afford it right now. I'm saving £60 a month by traveling on the bus, baby! Sweet smackaroony!

The ankle is still very much making its presence felt in my life. Shoes are a mare. It hurts. I can't dance. Plus ca change. Running for the bus is a no no. Also, I remain quite the chubster. Haven't been swimming for a while though, and really, really must.

What have I been up to in the intervening wasteland of time?

Campaigning for the libraries was reduced to occasional angry tweets, as NCC passed the buck on the 21 libraries they want to close to 'groups' that didn't include Save Kingsthorpe Library, and slapped a big NDA on each of them. I've been keeping an eye on the politicos from the side, and watching the section 114 notices roll in accompanied by a lack of sensible financial decision-making subsequently. The ex- leader got all tired and emotional (which is the press way of saying she cray cray, like drunk cray cray, but not drunk. Though it would make sense if she was) and swore the Jeffrey et Al at the press about my young Tory fellow campaigner in the council chambers who was one of the few who delivered the et tu Brute blows that finished her off (and ushered in the equally complicit Matt Golby). That was funny. You know when you see steam coming out of the ears in cartoons? Like that. I think my young friend has quite the future in politics. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Anyway a small child took NCC to court over the library closures and won. Hooray! We now just have to see the way it plays out, but some dastardly moves are still going on, like the stripping of book stock, redundancies, cancellation of periodicals and newspapers, selling of gifted property assets (that were gifted with usage conditions, so definitely not on).

Also for the last few months, I have been organizing a festival!

View from my tent

Jimtom

Tré Ventour

Cameron Grace

  

Kezzabelle

That's the Bardic Picnic, which took place in Beckett's Park on 5th August. Still on the paperwork, report and financial side of stuff, so can't relax just yet, but what a magical day.

Quite frankly it was exhausting and I went just a tiny bit insane as I wibbled and almost fell off my coping pole. So much to organise, plus an almost straight 10 hours of MCing and performing on the day itself , whihc beats my previous longest gig of a couple of months ago by 6 hours (4 hours of storytelling at Kettering Museum - because I am a tour de force!). The sun show down, everyone enjoyed some awesome spoken word and music, and there was vegan ice cream and rhubarb cider  - heaven! A bijou crowd remained for my headline comedy performance at the end, clashing with Jono and the Uke Dealers, but I made them laugh and that's what mattered. Plus we made two fantastic new bards: Sami the 9th Bard of Northampton, and Coral McShane junior bard.

Sami

What else? Well I've been working on my downsized allotment plot. I had yellow courgete pasta for tea last night and will have homegrown lettuce on my sandwiched today! Spuds are nearly ready, plus I have more lettuce, beets, caulis, cabbage and kohlrabi on the way.

Can You Dig it?

I decided to spend some time on the allotment today. The lower half is running away from me and very grassy. I've put some tarpaulin down and had a go at digging a square foot where it's a bit tough. The advice I got from my neighbour with the immaculate-plot 2 down is just keep doing that, and it will soon be clear, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it any more than I clearly have done already - my goodness, I ache!

The potato beds cleared easy enough, and I now have two great bags of spuds to store. And these...

Beans, aubergines, squash, tomatoes, onions, alien cucumber, slug-eaten courgette

Raspberries - still!

Look at my pumpkin now!

I abandoned the plot in a brief shower and popped to the library to grab a Chris Brookmyre, so I can read ahead of meeting him at a convention in a couple of weeks. By the time I got back to the plot, the sun was beating down and the crickets were singing. That's what it's been like all day!

I've had a long bath, but I'm still very, very stiff and achy from digging, and I got a bit dizzy this afternoon again, which might be over-exertion. Also, I have accidentally cut a chunk out of my little finger near the nail - again, probably lacking coordination due to over-exertion. I've tried not to do too much else and have been in a onesie for hours.

But it did fell good to make dinner out of things I'd grown myself - sausage and mash for mains with some of my potatoes and beans, and rhubarb crumble for dessert. With custard, of course, I'm not a monster! Plenty crumble left for tomorrow's lunch.

Big week this week for me... got a couple of gigs to prep for and a writing group. Also, I think I promised just to help clean a motorbike. Sucker!

I've Hardly Done a Thing Lately

Sorry for not blogging for ages... I've had a very busy couple of weeks. I've been doing a lot of editing work, and other things too.

Not everything has been a fun thing. We had to say goodbye to a friend who died of cancer a couple of weeks ago. What with his being a biker, though, it was an amazing funeral, attended by lots of his friends on bikes. I rode pillion, so had to overcome some nerves for that. Such a thoughtful day. He  had planned for what he wanted for his ceremony, but he had also very much planned to live as well, and I think there's a lot we can learn from that.

I've not had much time to get to the allotment, so things have been growing again... oh my goodness.

These are earlies. I dug them up laties.

1950s Flying Wall Marrows

Some squashes

Another squash

Squish

These are definitely not pinstripe.

Pumpkin with hand for scale. Mind it's my hand, which is tiny.

Last weekend was the Umbrella Fair on the Racecourse  - a wonderful coming together of performers and artists, organised by UFO. I started doing some MCing in the Umbrella Fair Café on sturday to help advertise Northampton Soup, and then de-camped to the spoken Word Tent to watch some great acts. It was fab to see some folks I hadn't seen for ages.

Poets with Babies

On Sunday, I was an early act in the Spoke Word tent... doing me comedy 'n poems while the greater part of the audience hovered in the vicinity of the tent flap entrance thing (to run away)... but we got there. I went to the pub for lunch, but came back for The Anti-Poet, who were very good indeed.

This weekend, I've had my birthday (my 4th eleventh one), and I've done my history-based comedy show in Leicester (at the Guildhall in the mayor's parlour again!). This time OH came on the adventure! And one of my friends from uni came to watch, which was brilliant. I've had a lovely, lovely time, but I am quite pooped and ready for bed now.

Zzzzzzzz...

"Pie" and "Chips"

I came up with a bit of an (I think) ingenious use for those patty pan squashes my brother gave me... they look like pies. Why not make them into an actual pie?

First of all, I cut off the "pie" lid, and scooped out the seeds in the middle (I have no idea if they'd grow again, but I saved some nonetheless).

I scored the flesh slightly to make it cook up a bit mushier, then added a small, chopped clove of garlic, a few roundels of goats cheese and a splash of milk, then grated some nutmeg for extra umami. (Hindsight Tip: I would probably add cream instead, or a bit less milk, then halfway through, spoon some of the cooked flesh into the middle, then top up the liquid - but it still made a tasty gooey pie centre).

 It was ready in about 45 minutes at 180*C.

 For the "chips", I made sweet potato wedges (sweet potatoes from the cheap town grocers, 7 for £1), just roasted in the oven with a spritz of Frylight.

Served with grated carrot salad (dash of smoked paprika, white wine vinegar), oven roasted allotment tomatoes, lettuce and fresh olive oil vinaigrette, a chicken leg for OH and half an avocado for me. Yum!

What's a Marrow You, Hey!

Trapped in the house by chutney as I was on Saturday, I never made it to the allotment until yesterday, and things have grooooooooown!!!

All apart from the melon. No longer getting twisted. It died... having been convinced it was in a hot Mediterranean country for the first few weeks of its life, things suddenly getting a bit crappy and British again were too much. Also, I should have grown it under cover.

But even as we are still chomping through the marrow my brother grew, the tiny tiddler courgettes on our plot are turning into zeppelins.

Weeeeeds!!

Things OH grew.

Hidden round the plot, several pumpkins! And that's a weed...

Stripy marrow

Not stripy marrow... and a ladybird.

I'm doing a lot of sitting in the house, working on books. As for getting out of the house for anything other than the day job, I've got, like, 3 proper gigs coming up... and a handful of open mics. Loads of my mates are at a science fiction convention in Helsinki, doing plays, or are in Edinburgh for the festival. Or Camden for that one. Or off on the first leg of an exciting European tour... So, I'm feeling slightly meh...

I need to be a bit more RAWK.

I might dye my hair pink.

Yeah, and sit in the house looking all bright and that.

Un-Squashed

This weekend, I've had a huge change of pace.

I'd been feeling very anxious... and I still am really. I think I've been letting things get on top of me. I knew I needed to look after myself, so I've been paring back and engaging with the world as little as possible.

I did do a gig on Friday, as that was pre-arranged, and it was good fun. But I avoided meetings and parties that were happening, and instead chose to spend some time with my family. I took the bubble wands I'd bought for the Star Wars party a few weeks ago, and had fun running round the garden with my nephews, chasing after bubbles.

I've also spent a while tackling the ironing mountain, while watching Top of the Lake. I actually found it very calming.

Of course it helped a bit that OH spent the weekend camping with friends, as that gave me lots of time to tackle the things I needed to do. I did miss him, but sometimes you just need space and time to get things done, I find. And it's meant he's been able to come back to a peaceful, relaxed house. It was a bit windy on his campsite, and his pagoda got blown over into his tent after the first night, so both of those got wrecked! Oh no! We were meant to be under canvas for our friend's wedding in September! Well, one of his friends was prepared to leave her tent behind, unless we wanted it. o that's saved the (big) day (for us)!

I was also quite proud of myself for tackling a low pressure fault on my boiler - all by myself! It was nothing really, but that was a bit worrying when I first googled it and read the words "not expensive to fix, please ask for a quote". Just needs the boiler refilling, was all.

And of course, I've been to the allotment... and here are my progress pics.

Raspberries so ripe they're going purple

Crown Prince squashes getting bigger

Tatties!

Tiny pumpkins.

Give peas a chance!

Aubergines getting bigger - can't see the pinstripes yet.

Little Veg Courgette - Baby you're much too fast.

But, someone's green-fingered efforts are putting mine to shame - a gift from my brother and sister in law! Flipping heck! Massive or what!

Yellow Stickers, yellow flowers, yellow me

Something is definitely working for me as I find myself a couple of lbs lighter again, and another squidge further into the yellow.

Well, maybe this won't help... at work an colleague who is another yellow sticker aficionado decided it was his turn to bring in the treats, and at 3p for 5 doughnuts, that was a sweet treat indeed!

I should be sweet enough already. OH needed to clear some freezer space for his last purchase from the butchers, so I thought it might be time to turn some of this year's gooseberry glut into jam.

And here are some pics of things growing in the allotment this week. First up, tomatoes...

Tiny aubergines, like little bumble bees in the flowers.

The melons are spreading like wildfire. See those tiny yellow flowers? Little melons are growing underneath.

My lovely allotment.

Glorious Bounty!

Hello everyone. I thought I'd share this picture of the railings by St Giles church in Northampton. I passed last week when I was in town sorting out things for the launch of a book I edited. These shoes look a bit too pristine to be recycled, but what an idea! An interesting way of displaying plants while celebrating Shoe Town.

 

 Part of me likes to think these might be the shoes of drunken women exiting Bridge Street clubs in the wee small hours, cast off Cinderella-like to the gutter, only to be ignored by the be-Ben-Shermaned princes of the town. Alas.

Anyway, despite the weather being hotter than Aiden Turner (i.e. very, very hot), things on my allotment are still alive! It's looking very fruitful indeed.

 

I got given a load of spinach by one of my allotment neighbours, so I made spinach and ricotta cannelloni! OMG, this was flipping tasty.

I got the broad idea from Jamie Oliver's website, except if I had followed his recipe, this would have been a lot more expensive.

I used no-pre-soak lasagna sheets for the cannelloni, and just soaked them a bit so I could shape them, which was filled with a mix of cooked spinach with nutmeg, a tub of ricotta  and an egg. I topped this with a sauce made of passata, flavoured with garlic, bay and basil.  Jamie Oliver's recipe called for Mozzarella and Parmesan on top, but I didn't want to go out to buy fancy cheeses, rendering the dish a lot more costly, so I made a small amount of white sauce and grated over cheddar instead.

After 40 minutes at 190 C, it was ready!

And I ate way too much...

Really enjoying being back to veggie. No more weight off, but I feel trimmer.

Right, will finish this blog post now, but will be back to talk about my amazing weekend!