Hullo world, hullo sky

It's grey and bleak out there, it's a new tax year, I still have a headache and LiveJournal is down. Again.

If we all decamped to Dreamwidth, this would no doubt mean that the DDoS hackers or whoever had won whatever it is they're trying to achieve, and that would be Bad. But on the other hand, it would at least mean that we could actually talk to each other. If anybody wants an invite code, I have one.

*stomps off downstairs to wash dishes and read Jo Walton*

Because it is delicious, and because it is my heart

I shall go on posting, whether or not anyone can read me. (This is, in fact, my life.)

I have spent the morning in the Lit & Phil, reading extraordinary stories by Joel Lane. Now I am going to make devilled cods' roes with mushrooms for lunch, on sourdough toast; and this afternoon I am mostly going to be making chana masala and sourdough hot cross buns*. Because it is, as it happens, all about me food really.


*Possibly without the crosses, because flavourless iconography is not so much my thing and besides which I do not have a piping bag. Indeed, I have never piped.

Oh, soddit

So the day has turned bright and blustery and really rather warm; so I went out into the back yard to prune the lavender, which is always an expression of spring. I went with a light heart, thinking no more evil than "Now it'll rain for forty days and forty nights. And then I'll go to California."

Then I saw the damage.

The big downpipe from the raingutter on the roof? Is, um, down. Maybe the winter and the wind between them did the harm, or maybe some heavy-footed hopeful tried to climb it, but either way. Down it is.

I think I'll ignore it, mostly. One more reason not to go out there: along with the constantly-spluttering tap and the general chaos and the feeling of crushed too-muchness.

As long as I still have a pulse

In other news, I have a new book of curry recipes. It's called Great Tastes: Indian, published by Bay Books, and doesn't acknowledge an author. It looks like nothing - until you actually open it, and look inside. It has recipes for dishes I've never heard of; it has ingredients I've never heard of, and I've been cooking serious curries for thirty years. It has methods, techniques...

As witness, this chana masala. Which starts with a quantity of oil that's just ridiculous, until you count up the tablespoons of spices going in, and realise you're really just making a roux. A very, very spicy roux. (It's almost ready now, just needs the chaat masala flung in with all the other last-minute fresheners, the tarka; and it is already gorgeous. But sheesh, that's a lot of things gone in there.)

With that and the pork, and the Punjabi cabbage (both from the same book, yup), and the usual lemon-rice-without-the-lemon - well, if food is a comfort, I should feel very comfortable in an hour or so. Which I need it, so here's hoping. [I have been listening to the news all day, and I am just fucking sick of being lied to. How stupid do these people think we are? The policeman who hit Ian Tomlinson, lying and lying on the witness stand, despite video evidence that flatly contradicts him; apologists for Laurent Gbagbo, lying and lying on the BBC; Andrew Lansley, lying and lying about the NHS. Fed up with it, I am.]

Stupid

So the stupid band-aid came off, so I tried to cut my stupid nail.

So the stupid finger's bleeding again.

*hates the world right back*