A Slice of Life

One of my favourite blogs is Adullamite, and he thinks I should put a bit more about the more everyday side of my life in this blog instead of what seems like the "posh and glamorous" side.  That's a really good idea. While I don't find it interesting blogging about my everyday things just for the sake of it, I have been thinking that it gives a very misleading impression just to write about the fun stuff.   Writing is a very interesting occupation, to be sure, and travel writing CAN sometimes seem quite posh and glamorous, despite the shortage of actual money.... though no, I don't have a rich husband like Adullamite thinks!  

The main thing about what I do is that it is actually very varied.  So here is a description of what I've been up to in the last couple of days. 

I made some butternut squash soup. The slices of prepared squash (above) reminded me of a prehistoric monument. I arranged them like this before chopping them up for the soup. 

We had work to do in Belvedere, a bit of Kent which is mostly suburbs and is to be found on marshland roughly between Thamesmead and Erith

When it got to lunchtime we decided to grab a bite to eat at Belvedere's Asda supermarket, which advertised that it had a cafe.  Here's the very same Asda, when residents were protesting against it being built. (snap from thisislocallondon.co.uk)

The Asda cafe turned out to be a cavernous sort of warehouse labelled CAFE which was almost empty. As soon as I looked around I realised it was a candidate for my dreaded Black Knife award.  All the so-called  "hot" food had been pre cooked and put into rows of white plastic boxes, ready to be heated up in the microwave for the customers, if there had been any.  Pale sweaty chips, deep fried snacks, congealed beans, heavily boiled yellow brussels sprouts all stone cold.  How disgusting. There seemed to be just one member of staff, who hadn't managed to clear the tables or sweep the old food up off the floor.

N, who was with me, said, "Ah, dear old Asda, so reliable -  it never fails to disappoint!"  We named it Cafe of Despair and climbed the hill to Nuxley Road in Belvedere,  a useful high street with a very good eel pie and mash shop called Miller's.  It was a bit late in the day by then and unfortunately Miller's had run out of eels.  But after having queued for 20 mins we were just grateful to get the very nice meat pies, green liqor, mash and a strong mug of tea.

Belvedere has a first class hardware shop (you don't find so many of them around these days) and a good houseware shop where I got a toilet brush and tin opener.

Back home through the traffic of New Cross, Lewisham, etc. a mere two hours to get five miles, although admittedly we had 3 diversions because of three broken down buses en route. Dropped in at a relative for a cup of tea, can you believe it, she had run out of Marmite, (she had three jars of it in the cupboard, all completely empty)

 so we had to have peanut butter on our toast!

By the evening my bug had come back.  I've been intermittently feeling OK but then running a high temperature, don't know why. Today I feel pretty bad but I'm hoping it will pass off. I don't have any other symptoms so it's weird..

it has meant that I have had to put off my latest BBC appointment and may have to reschedule the next if I keep feeling like this. 

 But, so far the water system is still working in our house. If you want to read about our recent plumbing problems take this link to Adullamite's blog.

Back at home, this Sunday morning, these is dew on the alliums. Autumn is  having its final fling.  I can see the other side of the street because the tree outside is dropping its leaves.

In a burst of sympathetic magic, I iced a relative a cake for her birthday which is covered in gold coins and silver balls since she would like to be a bit wealthier.