Friday Today

Trying to forget about Spanish bills and post. Survival tactic.

Ate leftovers for lunch and dinner. I met Romy at Sensational where she purchased some really good things for her forthcoming holiday. She kindly offered to transport the Kookster to the vet for his annual jabs.

The locksmith came in the morning and told me he had never seen one of our locks broken and said it must have been forced. It must have been done by my upstairs neighbours as I just found it broken one day, and was surprised that they didn't mention it. Maybe it was one of their visitors. As I mentioned, even half of the repair cost is a bit of a financial blow. I may have to block up the letterbox, disconnect the phones and go and hide for a year or two. Barcelona beckons, but Kook is a bit of a liability here. I don't think he will be happy to be an indoor Spanish cat with no space or garden. Oh well.

Nibby arrives today. Must dash out and replenish food supplied before she gets here.

Lunch with Romy

Romy came to lunch. We had cold salmon and potato salad preceded by pea soup and followed by coffee and tiramisu. Long chat about stuff and good to see Romy again. I miss working with her.

Bad morning today spent trying to decipher all the masses of post from Endesa and Aigues de Barcelona regarding non payment of bills. I simply don't understand why they are failing to remove the money from my bank, not something they used to have a problem with. But not sure if I am currently being sued or what since both my Spanish and Catalan are non-existent. I really do need a reliable English speaking person in Barcelona to deal with these things. If I could only sell the flat I would not be bothered with these wretched bills. My blood pressure was probably at an all-time high before lunch and I have eaten non-stop since. Have tried for the second time to make honeycomb or cinder toffee, slightly more successfully this time. It does seem to depend on not stirring the pot and letting the mixture get so hot it just about avoids burning. Another achievement!

Ringing the locksmith have discovered that to mend the lock in the main front door will be £150. Will have to plunder the money from my savings intended to purchase a new boiler, which I have been warned to provide for by the maintenance engineer. Just what I need now no money is coming in. Trying to keep calm but it's not easy.

Nibby now arriving tomorrow.

Madeleine and Sunday Lunch

It was a horribly cold and rainy day on Sunday. Despite this, Madeleine arrived bearing wine and hyacinths. These are my new air freshener. When they are out of season I shall try and find some scented orchids which will replace them. Last years' hyacinths are blooming in the garden so they are a very good investment.

We had chicken for lunch, followed by coffee and Tiramisu with a strawberry or two. A pleasant afternoon chatting, and a good relaxing Sunday. I do love it when people come around to eat, though I misdoubt my cooking.

Central Heating

The engineer spent ages mucking around with the heating today and bled the radiators so it should get hotter. He drained the boiler thing which should make it a bit better but suggested I might like to start getting quotes for the inevitable as my boiler is about 14 years old, at the end of its normal life. Oh well.

Spent the rest of the day putting everything back in place. Oh, and making a soup out of the remains of the roast, adding cauliflower, beans, gravy, roast potatoes and bread sauce. Plus some chopped cauli leaves. Will also add some beans tonight. The bread sauce turns out to be a good ingredient, distinguished by a rather aromatic flavour of cloves which goes very well with everything else. May well start adding cloves to chicken casseroles. Also discovered that Tesco value vanilla soft scoop (it's not) ice cream is much lower in calories than all the rest including the so-called 'diet' ice creams. Handy.

Feeling a bit more perky today. Finished the Moonstone and starting on Man and Wife. Seems that Wilkie Collins took masses of laudanum (opium) all the time so when he describes this in his books it is from first hand knowledge.

Saw Julian briefly last night, who came to collect the hoover to clean up the studio. Barcelona is warm and sunny it seems, unlike London. I would probably go over there for a bit if I had someone to house and cat sit. Nibby is due to arrive on Thursday. Must have a word with Romy about lunch, which we were due to have on Thursday and the timing will all be out, so I am trying to see her now on Wednesday or tomorrow instead. I need to do some shopping for this, and am looking forward to it. Have decided I quite enjoy a little cooking at home.

Fat Old Bat Eats Out Again

Oh dear. It was absolutely vile and cold last night, but despite this I had undertaken to have dinner at the Bengal Tiger in Carter Lane. Good to have my mobile back to actually find the place which was quite difficult. Oddly I had never been near St. Paul's Cathedral before and was pleased to see Paul's Walk, referred to in Dekker's Gulls Hornbook.

Anyway, there were masses of people assembling and I went to the first sitting, being a lightweight in the sense (only) of liking early nights. Started with lamb tikka, which was very good indeed, followed by chicken biryani, again very good. And only £12 including service. I met a chap who teaches architecture and interior design, a guy who runs a fashion company designing accessories, two translators and two property owners who live from their rents and sales. One of them is a champion rower of world class, apparently. Certainly looked fit enough. One guy lived in Southwark, near Tower Bridge. They were all interesting and seemed very nice, so I had a very enjoyable evening, managing to get back by around ten (having started at six).

The bad news was getting on the scales this morning to discover I had managed to gain three pounds during the week. I am not entirely surprised by this. I suspect the cantuccini I have eaten with coffee and tea have contained many more calories than marked on the package and I have been eating far too much in the evenings. Time to rein this in. Must try harder, as my school reports used to say.

Today it is absolutely pissing with rain, as I discovered when the Kookster walked over me at around 5.45am, brushing his cold, soaking tail all over my face. A rude awakening for a Sunday.

Madeleine is due over later, and we shall eat chicken. My dietary penance starts tomorrow instead of today.

Tame and Tired

That's me. For some reason I have been physically and mentally below par for a week or two. Nothing specific really, just tired and unmotivated. However I have purchased some more hyacinth bulbs and put them around the house, so watering and watching these should provide endless fun. I have also been listening to the Wilkie Collins biog exerpts on Radio 4 which has encouraged me to download several more of his books. Re-reading the Moonstone which is a rest cure after reading Armadale - full of convoluted plots and twists which are hard to keep up with.

Lunch with Romy. We shall not rush to eat at Elliots in Borough Market again. We were given something called 'confit of salmon'. Confit of goose is basically goose preserved in fat to be cooked later. The confit of salmon, though we were assured it had been cooked very slowly for a long time, was a huge hunk of what looked and felt, to the prod of a fork, like dark, raw salmon. At home I have done the Heston low and long cooked chicken which was rather more successful. This looked disgusting so we sent it back to be cooked right through before we could face it. Dear me. Of course it was fine when cooked properly.

Out tonight possibly for a meetup curry. Let's hope it is actually cooked. Perhaps they are trying to make the lack of actual cooking fashionable in order to save money in these hard times.

Looking forward to seeing Madeleine for lunch tomorrow. I must remember to actually cook the food. Maybe Dorothy and Julian might pop in, either for lunch or tea. We shall see.

Exercise

What an effort! HOWEVER I have just been watching a programme on BBC2 which reveals that we burn up quite a few calories even just walking slowly and standing around, basically anything more than sitting. Seems we should not sit for more than an hour at a time, and that even slow strolling is beneficial.

EVEN if we are sitting or lying down, twiddling our thumbs, toes, moving arms or legs is a very good idea according to one expert.

The most amazing thing revealed by this programme though was that certain people (depending on their genetics) will benefit enormously by doing absolutely massive but short bursts of exercise (obviously only those passed as fit enough by the quack). Seems that the bursts of strenuous exercise should go on for 20 seconds only, have a short break, another 20 seconds, short break, and a third 20 seconds. Adding up to one minute, to be repeated three times a week. Apparently even with the wrong genetics, many people can benefit from some kind of release of glucose into the bloodstream caused by this, handy if you are a risk for diabetes. It has been tested and if beneficial for most, would be a great way of exercising.

But it seems that walking is the best of all to increase the metabolism and generally keep the body working well all round.

I may well move about a little more. A gentle stroll beckons.