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kaberett) wrote2025-10-08 10:08 pm
In My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.
( Read more... )
kaberett) wrote2025-10-07 06:34 pmThis morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).
Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.
So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)
Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.
kaberett) wrote2025-10-05 08:41 pmReading. So many things. Or at least it feels that way. Unsure if actually So Many.
( Melzack & Wall, McRobbie, McGuire, Duncan, Stock )
( Cookbooks )
And I am now TWO months behind on Dreamwidth. TWO. Ahahahaha.
Playing. Several more rounds of Fluxx.
Tukoni: Prologue, "a point-and-click puzzle adventure" featuring beautiful botanical art. Very very much enjoyed this tiny snippet (a mushroom! that makes it rain! when you pat it!) and am mildly dismayed at the five-year gap between the release of this prologue and the subsequent demo of what will theoretically be a full game...
Cooking. ALSO SO MANY THINGS.
Eating. I have successfully worked out how to make Wagamama's current menu provide me with food I will actually look forward to, which is A Great Victory. Located the last of last year's seasonal Dark Chocolate With Raspberry and have been gently nibbling it. QUINCE. And another variety of apple from an abandoned neighbouring plot at the allotment; this one is Very Crunchy and Very Red but not particularly flavours.
(The tree that got planted so as to encroach on my plot is some kind of cooker, unsure which, because my usual approach to cooking apples is James Grieve from my mother's garden...)
Making & mending. I think that, inspired by some helpful answers on reddit, I have got my clicky fountain pen clicking reliably again? It was doing a thing where it wouldn't lock, and it was pointed out to me that probably the issue was going to be located in the knock not at the trap door, so I... wrote the pen dry, rinsed out the ACCUMULATED DUST OF THE YEARS (THANKS DADFORD ROAD), and since then it's been behaving beautifully. Long may it continue.
Growing. There are still tomatoes? Also kohlrabi. I only managed a single flying visit to the plot this week; at some point soonish I'm going to need to get A to take me over with the car so I can retrieve from the greenhouse the various peppers I'm hoping to overwinter. I do not appear to have been issued with a Non-Cultivation Order in this round of inspections, which is a very welcome surprise!
Observing. A has seen the bat! I have not seen the bat because I have been Preoccupied with Other Things (misc). But the bat has not yet put itself to bed for the winter. <3
rmc28) wrote2025-10-05 08:08 pmTerm is starting, and I'm aiming to play for one of the university ice hockey teams this season (yes alongside Kodiaks 2), and there was a taster session aimed at postgraduate students on Friday evening, with a 90 minute break between it and my usual late-Friday-night Warbirds training. So Friday evening I worked a little late while waiting for the worst of the rain to pass over Cambridge, then cycled home to get my gear and over to the rink to help out with the taster session. All the roads and cycle paths had a lot of litter of leaves and small twigs from the blustery day.
( ice hockey, vaccinations, more ice hockey )
Today has been my first "nothing actually scheduled" day in weeks, months even. I have been enjoying doing very little apart from reading and spending too long scrolling Instagram. While I did enjoy the many many videos about Kpop Demon Hunters / ice hockey / women's football & rugby that I watched today, I finally decided to turn on the iPad's screen time restriction for the Instagram app to cut down on the time wasted that way in future. The machines are better at distracting me than I am at having willpower, so the machines can cut me off too.
liv) wrote2025-10-05 11:50 am
( reactions ) Also, I am deeply grateful for the kind people who checked in with me personally when they heard the news, and for all the leaders, Muslim, Christian and civic, who sent messages of support to the Jewish community and continue to be in solidarity with us.alwaystheocean) wrote2025-10-03 06:46 pmnaraht) wrote2025-10-03 10:14 amrmc28) wrote2025-10-03 08:00 amBooks on pre-order:
Books acquired in September:
Books acquired previously and read in September:
Rereads in September:
I started off strong in September, clearing some of the books from earlier in the year, reading new books, and even a reread of some old favourites. And then the ice hockey season got under way. I'm actually part way through both the RNLI paperback (bought at Bembridge RNLI on the Isle of Wight) and the first of the batch of Martha Wells books from the HumbleBundle but progress is slow when I'm busy.
[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited
kaberett) wrote2025-10-02 10:20 pmvass) wrote2025-10-02 10:16 pmrydra_wong) wrote2025-10-02 08:16 amrydra_wong) wrote2025-10-02 08:14 amazurelunatic) wrote2025-10-01 10:13 pm( creepy AND crawly )!"kaberett) wrote2025-10-01 09:07 pmrmc28) wrote2025-10-01 07:17 pmI went to see the cinema screening of Hamilton at the weekend: this was a three-day release, presumably international, to mark ten years since the musical opened on Broadway. The main show was the recording of the original Broadway cast made in 2016 and shown on Disney+ since 2020, with a short segment at the beginning made up of ten-years-later interviews with the core cast members interspersed with footage of the development of the musical from a White House performance in 2009 to the opening on Broadway.
While I noticed people mentioning this cool new musical now and then during my cancer treatment in 2015, I didn't listen to it until 24 Jan 2016. The next day I was formally discharged from cancer treatment into follow-up. The musical became the soundtrack of my recovery, and my journal title and a number of tags are taken from it. I no longer listen to it daily, but probably every month or two. I've seen the live production in London four times and watched the Disney+ recording several times (I took a day off work to watch it the day it dropped!). Seeing it in the cinema though was a much richer experience: the screen size, the better sound, the (mostly) quiet company of people who also like me wanted to give up 3+ hours to experience this story, again.
1 October starts the University academic year and is my personal "still alive" anniversary (without treatment I would likely not have made it through September 2015). The Hamilton screening capped a weekend in which I went to see Arsenal Women with a bunch of hockey friends plus bonus Rebecca and my nephew; attended an alumnae event at my old College and re-met an old friend I haven't seen in years; ate a delicious pub lunch with extended family and made it to (some of) jack's birthday gathering.
Also in September I went to the Isle of Wight including swimming in the sea, played my first league ice hockey game, rode steam trains and watched football with tielan, and dipped my toe back into indoor cricket.
I am not throwing away my shot.
raven) wrote2025-10-01 07:07 pmkaberett) wrote2025-09-30 10:05 pmAnd then today's cookbook browsing introduced me to the concept of allorino! But the internet can't agree on whether it should be made with bay leaves, bay flowers, or bay berries. So clearly the correct solution here is Some Of Each, right.
(I am also contemplating whether I want to add finely chopped fresh bay to the quince buckwheat upside-down cake that is high on my priority list for things to cook over the next few days, given how much I love the Ottolenghi lemon & bay cake...)
Meanwhile, my other recreational reading today introduced me to the concept of the "Brompton Cocktail".
( End-of-life care circa the 1980s, with specific reference to terminal cancer. )
kaberett) wrote2025-09-28 09:56 pmReading. ( Brosh, McMorland Hunter & Hughes, Melzack & Wall )
Dreamwidth! Down to two and a half months behind.
Writing. So many e-mails about objects. So many.
Watching. Farscape S02E06, Picture if You Will. The discussion about which of the Highly Specific Fetish Big Bads it was who was resurrecting in this particular context was entertaining in terms of highlighting the, you know, motifs. Of the work.
Playing. We have just managed some Fluxx. <3
Cooking. Batch of puff pastry for the sake of making two (of the three) things in East that call for it (because I could not quite bring myself to buy pre-made). Pleased with how the puff came out; mildly dubious about both the tomato, pistachio + saffron tart and the banana tarte tatin, but on the level of "I am unlikely to make these again", not "I regret making them".
Eating. On Tuesday we hit the point of Make The Internet Bring Us Pizza. The Pizza was very welcome.
Yesterday, Saturday, we went to say goodbye to Ruby Violet, i.e. we had cake for breakfast, along with hot chocolate. The flavours were all ones I was familiar with but I'm still pleased to have had them. (It is not impossible I will decide I want to make another trip by myself, though, especially given that they currently have the malted milk on...)
As mentioned we then also availed ourselves of an Ethiopian-and-Eritrean Veggie Combo and a piece of Japanese Curry Bread, both of which I am pleased to have experienced.
Exploring. St Pancras Waterpoint! Brief turn through Camley Street Natural Park.
Growing. Spinach that I thought was unlikely to still be viable turns out to in fact still be Extremely Viable! Spinach is go! And the lambs' lettuce has self-seeded nicely (so in fact I also had some of that plus some allotment rocket accompanying the tomato tart). Tomatoes continue to produce tomatoes. Peppers various looked very happy last time I went to see them so now I want to overwinter them all. At home, the pineapple continues to grow and the lemongrass isn't obviously dead yet (and I'm doing something right with at least the larger of the two orchids...)
Observing. BAT, extremely obliging with the aerobatics. Good sunsets. Cyclamen various. Moon.
kaberett) wrote2025-09-27 10:50 pmRuby Violet, my favourite source of ice cream, are continuing as a business (I feel like that bit is important to say first) but will alas be closing their King's Cross parlour for the last time at 5 p.m. Sunday next, the 5th of October. They're apparently still intending to have their ice cream van at Granary Square during the summer, and to have a variety of "pop-up shops" around London, but... gosh I have a lot of feelings about the amount of post-therapy ice cream I have eaten at the lovely big wooden table indoors and on the benches and grass outside.
So today we went to say goodbye (and I managed to drag a university friend into joining us, as they're also independently fond), in the form of Dessert For Breakfast: apple crumble + the hazelnut & hazelnut brittle ice cream for me; sticky toffee pudding and coffee mocha ripple for A. Hot chocolate for both of us. (I'm very glad we had the Afternoon Tea Experience in 2023 for Animals Week; by the time I thought to try booking a farewell repeat it'd gone from the online shop.)
We followed this up with some slightly more savoury food from around the entire Coal Drops Yard situation (one veggie combo from an Ethiopian-and-Eritrean stall, mostly for me; one Japanese curry bread mostly for A); fifteen minutes or thereabouts poking around St Pancras Waterpoint, an old water tower that was having a serendipitous open day; and a quick poke around the Camley Street Natural Park, which A had not previously met.
I'm very glad we did it.
rydra_wong) wrote2025-09-27 01:36 pm