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| DB on the Oreo Slide! |
Friday was an excellent day. At lunchtime I went to play ping pong with the Enforcers, and did quite well, considering I hadn't touched a bat for 43 years.
In the evening I met up with S in the docklands. It was a beautiful evening, sunny and warm - the sort I would have loved to have while on holiday, in fact! The Orio Cookie Company had a slide down a set of long stairs, so I glided down in a fit of youthful exuberance. S alas wasn't able to, because they closed the slide after my trip - nothing to do with me, I assure you! Then we went for a long walk on the riverside, sat in a cafe overlooking the skyline and had raspberry cocktails, and finally ended the evening in an Italian restaurant. A lovely start to the weekend.
It didn't last. At home my toilet handle had broken off, so I spent the morning buying a spare part and fixing the miscreant facility. This involved having to saw off half an inch of piping, which took an hour with my little hacksaw and nearly did my wrist in. Duh! I then fled my deteriorating house and went shopping to distract myself, and bought a flan dish.
Today I almost overslept. Usually I meet a friend on Sunday mornings for coffee, and this morning I was five minutes late - unforgivable, really. She didn't show up at all, I later read that she had a nasty cold. I read three newspapers, gave up the wait, and returned home, taking a few photos on the way, seeing that it was a nice day.
At home the garden beckoned. It had overgrown somewhat, and I wanted to do laundry. First I tackled the quince tree. The fruits were ready to pick, but so high up I couldn't reach any of them. My garden used to be very shady, courtesy of neighbours' trees, so everything grows tall and spindly in an attempt to reach a bit of sunshine. But recently those trees have been trimmed back, and the garden has become sunnier. My quince tree has taken no notice of this, and continues to grow beautiful fruit half way up the sky. So I had to pick my quinces with a hacksaw yet again. Now I have two buckets full of fruit, and the tree looks decidedly stumpish. Never mind, it will develop bushier growth habits, I hope.
Harvesting the damsons was pointless, they have all gone feral and smell of alcohol. Maybe next year - I am thinking of having my holiday in October next year, that way I don't miss the harvest season anymore, and can go to the Wadham College donor dinner, and maybe even the alumni weekend. My hotel offered me a discount if I go in October as well, so this may well be a winner.
Finally at 15:00 the garden was good to hang laundry up in, but it wasn't long enough for everything to dry, so now the house looks like a Chinese laundry with half dry clothes hanging all over the place.
To create a bit of heat inside, I decided to bake the quinces that had fallen down during my brutal harvesting and developed cracks. I cut them all up, mixed the pieces with butter, spices, raisins, and some elderberry and rosehip syrup I had laying around, and dumped the lot into my new flan dish. The recipe calls for baking them in a slow oven for four hours - I figured that would be enough to heat up the house. Turned out very nice to eat, as well!
