This many things make a post

Actually, I walked in the door and thought "Ooh, I should post that thought!" - and by the time I'd taken my boots off and remembered the half-dozen other things I had to do immediately, I had of course lost that thought entirely. It's only one letter different, y'know.

So instead, I shall post randomly, because one could not possibly not-post.

Someone thought it would be a bright idea to erect an open-air climbing wall, with ropes and slings and attendant persons and all sorts, for kids to Discover! Climbing! on - only they thought this would be a good idea in Newcastle town centre in late October. Granted it's a Saturday, but still: it's bitter cold and freezing wet out there, town is empty, no one wants to play on their wall. No one at all. There are just the attendants, utterly muffled to the eyes in scarves and gloves and hoods and heavy coats and sadness.

Talking of sadness, I hate being this predictable, but the year is turning into dark and so am I; and it would probably be a good idea not to feel too sad to turn on the blue-light thingie that is maybe going to alleviate my sadness.

But! Helen and Mark are coming to dinner. I am inventing things, including but not limited to a new way of mixing ciabatta-dough (in a food mixer that lacks a dough hook: it's not ideal, but hey) and a pear-and-ginger sticky pudding cake thingie. Also, potato-and-beetroot gratin. I am currently cooking the beets, which I like to do whole and then peel 'em after. Trouble is, these beets came from my veggie bag, so of course there is a huge one and a middle-sized one and a tiny one. I am juggling time.

(If you're wondering why Brenchley is being a wuss and not mixing his ciabatta-dough by hand, that's because you've never mixed ciabatta-dough. Of course it can be done by hand, people have done it that way for generations; but it is an appallingly sticky process. One looks for an alternative.)

That seems to be about it, except for whatever I have forgotten. It might come back to me. If not, no matter. It's not like you hang on my every word, and are let down if I don't utter...

Oh, wait! I remember! Word of the Day: petrichor! The smell of rain on dry earth! (NB, geosmin is also found in beetroot. Which I am cooking. Which is why it was on my mind.)

PS

Also? I have just remembered the other other thing I was meant to be doing, as soon as I came in the door.

*fries sausages*

Luncheon? Will be late. Which is a bit of a pity really, given that, y'know. Dinner and so forth. No matter. They're very good sausages. If everything else goes horribly wrong, H & M can have sossidges for dinner. Sossidge and pink mash. And fight off the boys.

Gin gin gin gin, gin gin gin gin...

Right. The ciabatta is baked [note to self: please stop believing other people about oven temperatures/times; you really do know better than they do] (why yes, it is a little on the dark side of golden, and somewhat crisper than is ideal for a slipper-loaf; how insightful of you!). The coq au vin (and I know no unsniggery anti-innuendo way to say this, but what the hell, I come from the land of the Carry On films: so pardon my bug eyes, but that is one really big cock) and the potato-and-beetroot gratin are in the oven, and this is my first drink of the day and I'm entitled.

I have less than two hours before my guests arrive, and I still have to:

* cook the whisky/sage/parmesan pasta (which really needs a proper name, y'know?) as a starter [note to self: small portions, Chaz!], but that's all last-minute;

* make up my mind about the buttered cabbage (we have coq au vin, we have gratin; buttered cabbage on the side, or not?);

* invent and prepare the pudding (I was going for individual little puddings, but actually I think I might make one big cake; that way is less insistent portion-wise, people can just have a sliver if that's all they want, and if there's any left come Monday I can take it in to the Lit & Phil and make them love me, if it's not too sticky);

* sweep the floor;

* shift my dress, as the Duke of Avon would have it; change my grubby garb. I could do that now. When this glass is empty. I am incapable of cooking without spillage. Mostly I like to blame the poltergeist*, but sometimes it is just my own heedlessness and/or lack of dexterity.


*The older I get, the more people ask me if I believe in ghosts. This seems to me perverse; faith is surely more a feature of the young and credulous? It probably has to do with all these ghost stories I keep writing. But no: I do not believe in ghosts. I don't believe in anything, I am a determined rational atheist. Also, I live with two hectic vandals. Things that go bump in the night are pretty much always one cat or the other, if not both. And yes, I do have a shocking tendency to stack things inappropriately, such that they are prone to fall if nudged or jolted. And yet, the longer I live here, the more the evidence mounts up pro-poltergeist. Things fall over when none of us is near. I have watched this happen, time and again, and utterly fail to find an explanation for it.

Further notes to self

* I need to clear and then clean the table too. People would find it awkward to manage a meal among all those manuscripts, bottles, books and generic clutter.

* Leeks, perhaps, instead of cabbage? I have leeks. And they might go better with the palate (or, possibly, palette) of that course. (There are whole shallots and mushrooms and bacon in with the chicken.)

* If I cut some butter and put it out to soften, and think to put it somewhere out of cats' reach - it would be a really good idea if I also thought to put back in the fridge the block from which I cut it. Really, it would. *eyes butter-fat cats*

* Yes, I can have another gin. But not until I've done something useful.