Tired now

Oof. Heavy bags are heavy.

Still, my purse is that much lighter. It's a compensation. I guess...

I forswore work this morning, in favour of making foodlists and shopping for them. I have been ... unwontedly efficient, and didn't even have to backtrack once, except in Waitrose, which is laid out ... most strangely. (Oh, and I went up an escalator in Fenwick's and then straight back down another one: I had neglected to look for the wild mushrooms which were of course not there.)

I now have many things, though I do still need more. There is so much cream in my fridge just now, it's almost certainly illegal without a licence (which I would never get: "you want to do what with it, Mr Brenchley...?").

Also mushrooms, in the mushroom-box-we-cannot-open-can-we-Mac?

Not yet, he murmurs. Silkily.

Next up, I should probably try to find all my spare ramekins (they're in a thing. Somewhere. It might help if I could remember what thing, or even what kind of thing, they're in) and my flexible friend the terrine mould. Which is not in anything, and might be anywhere. Sigh. I hate looking for things. There is one side of me that yearns for an ordered life. Minimalism, I understand you perfectly. I just ... cannot achieve you. *is disordered to the bone*

But now: I have shopped, and need not shop again for an hour or two; I have finished my reading-book; it's not quite lunchtime yet. That work I forswore before...?

*sighs*

*reaches for work*

Petitioning

I don't tend to post political, I'd generally rather talk about cats or confit or, hell, even writing if I have to - but, as badbookworm observes, Theresa May's appointment as Equality Minister is a joke, when you look at her voting record.

She has voted:

- against repealing section 28
- against lowering the age of consent in homosexual relationships to 16
- against gay adoption rights
- against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which would give lesbian couples the right to receive fertility treatment

She also refused to attend the vote on the Gender Recognition Act to allow transsexuals to change their legal gender.

This is the internet; of course there's a petition. You will find it here. 10,250 signatures at time of posting. Wanna make it more?

Trial run

I have just been making a chocolate duck's-egg custard, to give me some guidance how I need to adjust quantities of choc and sugar and cream to take account of extra richness in the yolk. I don't want it set too stiff on Sunday.

I have made a single portion. With a single yolk, and weighed ingredients. It makes me feel just a little like Heston Blumenthal. (I didn't weigh the yolk, though. Shoulda done that. Damn. *fails the Heston test*)

It made me think, though: I never do this. I never test out dinner party dishes before the dinner. Almost never cook anything familiar. At least half the point of dinner parties is to try stuff I haven't done before. I am aware that this runs counter to the traditional advice, which boils down to "Cook what you know" - but nah. Where's the fun in that? If you're not all sweaty and anxious and ducking in and out of the kitchen all the time to fiddle and poke, you might as well just get someone else in to cater...

On this occasion, though, I am the someone else they got in to cater (because my friends love and understand me, and they knew I'd be thrilled). So I wanna get it right. So, test run on the custard...

In other news, if Mac means to continue turning on the vacuum cleaner, now that he's learned how, Barry and I both feel it would be a good thing if he learned also how to turn it off. (I'm fairly sure he's doing it deliberately. Barry is scared of the vacuum cleaner. Mac ... is not.)