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Mutterings, musings and general brain flatulence. |
Here be mushrooms 
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Challenge: Where are some unusual places you’ve been? What was the most interesting or surprising thing you learned or discovered about those places? I have been very, very lucky in recent years. I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively, particularly in the past seven years. I met Best Beloved climbing Kilimanjaro, and since we both love travel it only makes sense that we would have built on this. Because of the season nature of BB's work (his family run a holiday park), he doesn't traveling more than about forty minutes from home during the summer. So whilst we've been on some pretty exotics holidays, we've also gone camping ten miles up the road and felt like we were a million miles away. We got a shiny new tent for Christmas last year, and then covid hit meaning that the very first time we got to use it was my birthday in July. We camped in the in-laws garden, two miles across town. And had a thoroughly brilliant time. Day Two's challenge asked about food; what do I like cooking and what are my comfort foods. Well, one of the things I love most about travelling is trying new foods. In Hawai'i, we had poke which is raw fish. In Dubai, Arabic coffee and dates - I have never liked dates, except, well, now I do. So much so that I'm trying to grow some date palms from stone. In Peru and Bolivia I had llama, guinea pig, and mountain trout creviche (more raw fish, but this time 'cooked' by soaking in lemon or lime juice). Cornwall, were I live, specialises in pasties, but there's also a local dish called stargazy pie - which is basically fish pie with sardine or pilchard heads sticking out. Funnily enough, I'll try the guinea pig, but I draw the line at fish-head pie.... Every country I have visited, I've tried to learn a new dish or style of cooking - I'm not saying I'm any good at cooking it  but I do love experimenting. My step-mother is Polish and recently we've taken to swopping comfort food recipes; I made kotlets and, when I'm feeling brave, gonna try pierogi, whilst she's now making shepherd's pie and roast dinners. |
Challenge: Write about one of your fondest memories. I've had several pet over the years; I grew up on a farm, so there were always semi-feral cats for taming, alongside the piglets we had in the kitchen once, and the farm dog my sister and I used to play-ride around the garden as a horse (he was a collie-whippet cross; not very big, but lightening fast and as docile as could be with the two mad girls he lived with, and a ferocious guard dog to anyone else). My sister went through a gerbil phase of many years, upgrading to degus as she became a teenager. I discovered birds; finches and canaries in the garden - my uncle gave me his old aviary when he built himself a bigger one - and then parrots. Harry was my first parrot, if you could call him a parrot. Technically, yes, little Haribo was a parrot; a sierra parakeet. Parakeet simply means 'small parrot with a long tail.' In Harry's case, it meant very small parrot. He was about the size of a British robin and, as I believe Tinkerbell was once described, only big enough for one thought at a time. By the time I was at uni, Harry had a younger sister, Akeira. Green-cheeked conures are also parakeets - small parrots with long tails - although conures are also renown for having extremely large personalities. About the size of my fist, Akeira was nearly three times the size of Harry, but they happily shared a cage in our uni-house sitting room. Like typical siblings, they pretended not to like each other, but if you snuck up on them, you'd often catch them playing or snuggling together. Akeira had issues. I've gotten three more conures since Akeira, and they are all mad. Our uni-house was infested with mice at one point (we later worked out they'd made a nest in the sofa and actually lived inside it). Obviously the seed bowl in the parrot cage was free-dining for them, so they used to slip through the cage bars, gorge themselves on seeds and then scramble back out. If you switched the light on fast enough in the night (late-night film watching), you'd catch them in the act. Only, the bars weren't that big, and the mice would be so full of food, they'd get stuck and have to wriggle themselves free. Akeira, not being too bright (or maybe being very bright), used to watch the mice do this and came to the conclusion that if you press your nose up against the bars and wiggle your bum, you can get out of the cage. Ironically, it did actually work for her, because the humans learnt it meant she wanted to come out, so we'd open the cage door..... The cage had two doors; a main one on the front and a vertically opening hatch on the side, right beside the sofa. Being lazy students (still lazy, no-longer student), we used to just unhook the side hatch and let her push it open herself.All well and good. Until conure-brain kicked in. Conure-brain is very much like raging-psycho-brain, but without people-skills. Conures are evil. Well known fact in the bird world. Conures make cats look trustworthy.* Akeira use to press her beak against the bars, wiggle her bum, and of course be let out. She'd climb to the top of the cage, right above the hatch, and just sit there. About twenty or so minutes later, Harry would decide he would like to come out as well (he never came out at the same time, because that would be admitting baby sis had had a good idea). So he would approach the hatch and tentatively try and push it open (it was a bit heavy for him, but he could just about do it), when, suddenly, it would open - like magic! And he'd hop out. Just to have Akeira drop the hatch down on him. Yup, she'd wait until he approached, then lean down, take the hatch in her beak and strain upwards (it looked very uncomfortable) until he was perched on the lip of the hatch, and then drop it down on his face. And she would do that at least once a week. She wouldn't even come across the sofa to me or my housemates (she was in love with one of them) for cuddles until she had dropped that damn hatch on Harry.** *I miss having cats and feel an affinity with conures. Best Beloved doesn't always appreciate my tastes in humour or in animals+..... **Best Beloved really doesn't get my sense of humour sometimes. He has little concept of schadenfreude. +I also have a hedgehog. Hedgehogs eat insects, it's an essential part of their diet. This morning BB found a large cockroach in the living room. We live in the UK. We do not have wild roaches (well, not really). I was in a lot of trouble. |
Challenge:If you were given five million dollars to open a museum, what kind of museum would you create? Natural History - I mean, who wouldn't want a dinosaur skeleton, stuffed dodos, and fossils everywhere? The only other thing I might add would be a zoo and/or botanical gardens on the side. Because the only way I can think of making a natural history more interesting would be a natural history museum with even more emphasis on the nature than the history. Now I just need the five million....  |
Challenge: What is always sure to get your excited? What makes you irrationally happy? Music. I am completely tone deaf and couldn't carry a tune if it came in a bucket. But I love music. It's rare for me not to have any on in the background, and my taste is, um, wide ranging. Including, but definitely not limited to, genres like 80s glam-rock, operatic, indie, vintage punk and punk-rock, 50s rock'n'roll, classical, country, easy listening, and most of the Christian music spectrum. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of music I don't like (rap, R&B, and heavy metal being the biggest contenders), but gigs and festivals - when I get a chance to go to them, which even pre-covid isn't that often, have me bouncing off the walls. |
| Challenge: What is something you started doing during the pandemic that you will continue in the “post-pandemic” world? I'm a pharmacist, so I've been working throughout and although Best Beloved worked from home for most of the first lock-down, he has since been back work. We watched Tiger King on Netflix, but otherwise we seemed to have both missed out on the banana-bread stage of lock-down.We have had to make a few adjustments, but far far less than most people. We don't have kids, so haven't had to worry about childcare or home schooling (and admittedly we would still be able to have school places for key worker kids if we did). We also live by ourselves, so we don't have to worry about crowding in with in-laws or housemates. So all in all, we have been extremely lucky. We are both keen walkers, but I had an ankle operation two years ago that has taken a very long time to heal and regain strength. But we are finally getting there. In January I signed us both up for virtual marathons and we've been trying to build up the distances we are walking. There have been no double-figure mile hikes yet, but we've managed a couple of 5+ miles so far; last summer I struggled to walk 3 miles without needing pain-relief and then struggling for the rest of the week. So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself right now. It's going to be another six months or so before I'm confident enough to suggest an all day hike, but I'm determined to get there. Between my improved ankle and the virtual challenges, Best Beloved and I are going for walks almost every Sunday afternoon and as the evenings get lighter we are trying to squeeze in little twilight strolls too. The various lock-downs have forced us to explore closer to home a lot more frequently than we would normally do, and because we haven't been able to 'go out' and do much, we actually have time to spend exploring. Last Sunday we went to a nearby reservoir; despite living nearby for nearly 12 years, I'd never been and Best Beloved hasn't been since he was a young child. It was a fantastic day - cold, but clear and sunny, and although there were a few patches that required scrambling, most of the path was dry and clear. I checked my map app afterwards and I think we may have accidentally summoned Batman, but nevertheless it was a good walk. |
 Challenge: Do you have a green thumb? Are you a gardener? Do you want to be? Whilst I do have outdoor space, it's a flat roof that has been decked and carpeted with artificial grass. I've got various pots out there, some of which are pretty big; but my options are still fairly limited. For my birthday last year, Best Beloved bought me a lemon tree and followed it up with an orange tree for our first wedding anniversary. Despite the UK being much cooler than they'd like, both trees fruited (well, I got a dozen lemons, but only two oranges). And the excitement I experienced was ridiculous. Father-in-law also bought us a cycad palm (the really dumpy ones that look like brown pineapples with a crazy amount of leaves spiking out) for our anniversary which seems to be doing really well. And that got me thinking, if our garden is sheltered enough for them, what else can I grow? Well, if you make the mistake of asking that sort of question in front of a friend who is a professional gardener, you end up with a very eclectic Christmas present - I've got a kiwi vine, a fig tree, an olive tree, something called a Japanese wine-berry (I have high, but likely misplaced, hopes for this one), and there's a peach tree with my name on it still at her's (thanks lock-down). I am badly running out of space and there are plant pots everywhere. I plan on getting my own back mind. I'm trying to germinate some date palms (and if I have to eat my own body weight in medjool dates to get the stones then that is a sacrifice I'm prepared to make...). They have the awesome Latin name Phoenix dactylifera and take five to seven years to mature enough to fruit, so it's a long-con. But I'm germinating half a dozen for her (and a few for myself) and they will produce 70-140kg (150-300lbs) of dates every year each. Best Beloved isn't pleased; he doesn't like dates and he does like our roof garden the way it is, i.e. a roof.   |
| Challenge: What kinds of things do you like to cook or are good at cooking? What are your comfort foods? I love cooking. I love eating. Fortunately, so does my husband. Tonight I was lazy and we had jacket potatoes and cheese; stodgy, easy comfort food. Normally I'd do bake beans, cheese, & pineapple (don't knock it if you haven't tried it) or egg & prawn mayonnaise, but I'm tired and achy today, so simple it is. For his birthday, Best Beloved got a new curry cookbook with several spice mixes - and oh my, even just plain chicken cooked with a spoonful of any of the mixes makes the whole house smell awesome. A running joke about the English is that we colonised most of the world looking for spices, and then never use them in our cooking. It's true; most English cooking is pretty bland. Don't get me wrong - shepherd's pie and veg, roast beef, a good old homemade pasty... They're all good (if rather heavy) meals. But a pinch of salt'n'pepper and that's about it *shrug* Several years ago I got to go to India with friends; we had an amazing time and I tried a whole load of new things (riding side-saddle on a motorbike? With no helmet? In flip-flops?), but funnily enough, the most vivid experience was walking through the spice markets. The. Colours. The. Sounds. The. Smells. Piles of spices, several feet high, lay coned on squares of fabric and woman squatted behind and beside them, calling out, shading the sun from their eyes, wearing dazzling saris and beautiful scarves. The intensity of the sun should have bleached all the colours and made the ah more rural smells come to the forefront. But quite the contrary; the sun glinted off weights and scales, necklaces, bracelets, and nose rings. And then there was the gold yellow of the turmeric, the brilliant red chilies, black and green cardamons, the russet brown of cinnamon sticks. There were piles of spices I'd never heard of; jakhya, asafoetida, cubeb, and inknut. And there were spices that I used to often that I don't even think about them as spices - ginger, cumin, black pepper, sesame. Don't get me wrong, there are foods I don't like - but there's not many. And I'm lucky neither I nor Best Beloved have any allergies and we both love travel - which means I have cookbooks from all sorts of places. In fact, I'd go so as to say, I might even have too many cookbooks. That is not an admission I make lightly. That being said, during the week, with both I and him-in-doors are working, meals tend to be pretty predictable; curry, stir fry, grilled meat & chips, quiche, pizza, pasta. Things that either of us can whip up quickly and without too much thought. I love cooking, but I don't find it relaxing the way some do. And. I. Do. Not. Bake. Seriously - I'm a pharmacist. I'm used to measuring and counting,* but baking drives me batty. It's too much like work. I have a very approximation style way of cooking (a splash of this, a dash of that, stick it in the oven until it looks cooked), and baking does not lend itself to that. Ironically, my sister - who can't cook worth a damn and has never been known to measure anything in her life - bakes like a demon. *one of my uni lecturers: "never trust a pharmacist that can't cook." |
Challenge: When you are old, what do you think children will ask you to tell stories about? The most obvious and currently relevant answer to that is, of course, covid. But will children want stories about a global plague? Did my parents ask their parents for stories of Spanish flu? What will media look like in thirty or forty years time? Will it actually be easier for children to ask their Google-equivalent than a 'real' person for a history lesson? And will they still want stories? Of course they will. No matter how advanced technology gets and how many films Disney crank out, children will always want first-hand stories. They are fundamental to who we are as human beings. But perhaps what will capture their imaginations will be a rural childhood - dogs and cats underfoot, bottle-fed lambs and piglets, wild swimming before we even understood it was 'wild,' and the same with camping. Learning to gut a rabbit by torchlight, and building a fire with scavenged wood. Hiking for miles because we were bored or sea fishing out past the bar in a tiny motor boat and watching swarms of pulsing moon jellies swim by. Perhaps this will take on a fairy-tale mythos to the children of the future; at university one of my friends found it incredible that I had lived on a farm - a real-life farm! It astounded her more when I said almost all of my friends had grown up likewise; that we learnt to drive not in cars, but in tractors and dumper trucks (and, it is entirely possible, completely skin the bark off a few trees in the orchard in the process). But if that was incredible to someone *gulp* fifteen years ago, how much more unbelievable will it seem to someone in another forty? Maybe my children's children won't want stories of working on the front line during Covid-19; maybe they won't care that I typed this with my arm still stinging for an unlicensed vaccination or that the nurse advised my to keep a photo of my vax card on my phone as thieves are stealing handbags not for cash or phones or bank cards, but for the black market sales on a tiny piece of card that lists me as fully vaccinated against a delightful little virus called SARS-CoV-2. Maybe my children's children will only be interested in stories about near-mythical creatures that lived in odd little places called farms. And maybe my children's children will dismiss the stories as fantastical nonsense from a grandma who clearly grew up in a different world. |
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