Bradbury

The widow, Mrs Bradbury, walked through the silent rooms.

All of them seemed sterile mockeries of the warm life once shared in this house.

Her husband's study: once stuffed with books and manuscripts, now achingly bereft of all the literature that gave him joy. Vacuumed to within an inch of its life, even the carpet no longer showed the dent of footsteps: his, hers, theirs.

The hall, at least, showed some sign of their life together, even if it was only a plant and a few books.

The idea of someone else living in the house was almost unbearable. But Mrs Bradbury knew that her husband was no longer here. Her husband had gone elsewhere - indeed, he had always been at least halfway elsewhere.

Mrs Bradbury took a final look around the hall. Beautiful, clean, empty.

She sighed, and pushing the front door open, stepped into the carnival.

Her husband, smiling, surrounded by rockets and people and whirligigs, held out his hand to her.

Only you can pick your genre.

A quote from 'Scream', that title, but true. I suppose.

What would I like my genre to be? Not horror, of course, despite my love of the fictional horror. Maybe quirky indie?

Anyway, I made it through a friend's 40th party this weekend, more or less, but I must admit that it was all a little too noisy and crowded, and we left at about 9.30. And then went straight to bed.
We're so rock 'n' roll.

It's Sunday, so we are having a lazy day - naps, sausages for lunch, watching the rugby, drinking a lot of tea, and re-watching some old horror movies. It's only twenty to five now, so in a while I'll wander down to the shop and buy some cream and white wine to make this delicious dijon sauce. I'm defrosting a lump of pork, and I can do potatoes of some kind with it. And I supposed I might find some sort of vegetables to go, too.

I'm also doing a lot of reading - dipping in and out of a somewhat eclectic range of books by Diana Wynne Jones and Barack Obama and Ngaio Marsh. It's a good day. Matt's been playing the Sims, so I got to have a great big fake-offended wifely tizzy because he's made a character that looks like him, and the character has a fake wife that does not look like me! And they have fake children together! OH, THE HORROR!

 

 

I'm trying to remind myself that I have a good life, despite my medical issues that seem so severe right now. I have family and friends and a job I do, actually, rather enjoy. Enough money to keep a roof over my head, and to buy food and other necessities, and enough to be able to spend on distractions. And, more than anything else, I have Matt, and that makes me luckier than any woman has the right to be.

 

After that tweeness, I think I'll leave you with a short "I'm an idiot" story. I was looking out the window, and I saw some birds flying North. And I thought "Oooh, spring must be on its way". And then I realised that they were flying West. And they were seagulls. Which don't migrate. *sigh*

Crashing down in front of the Reichstag

I need to get healthy again. I'm not one for dieting and New Year resolutions, but I have been mostly eating crap for at least a month now, and I feel like crap.

It doesn't help that the fall a couple of weeks ago means I'm finding it painful to exercise, and that I'm generally ill and tired (I ended up having to take the day off work yesterday, having been up half the night with gastric issues. I slept from 7am until 12.30, then 2.30 until 6pm.) I also suspect that my levels of depression are related to lack of exercise, which of course is a vicious circle, as lack of exercise can make depression worse.

Anyway, I'm getting some good healthy vegetables on the go - at the moment I either have vegetables and red pepper houmous or a great big (delicious) salad for lunch. The difficulties come, I'm finding, in trying to put something healthy together for dinner when I'm tired and in pain and hungry. Don't get me wrong - Matt does a lot of cooking - but most of the time I'm just too tired and miserable to wait for food, so we end up having something very unhealthy or just having toast in order that I can have eaten something and go to bed. It's really annoying because I usually love cooking, but I just have no urge at the moment.

So I think the best bet is to try and prepare a bit beforehand - I want to try these grilled vegetables with balsamic vinaigrette, which can be prepared in a big batch and be put in the fridge for use over a couple of days.
Tonight we're having some very simple stuffed peppers - halve the peppers, chuck in some halved cherry tomatoes and olive / canola oil, roast in the oven until they're nice and wrinkly, then add some chopped anchovies and minced garlic, and put back in the oven for another 15 or so minutes. Recipe from my uncle.
I found this link to a goat cheese and spinach pasta which sounds delicious. I don't think I've had whole wheat pasta before. Has anyone tried it? Is it very different from yer regular pasta?

I'm always open to learning new things. What are your healthy yet quick go-to recipes?

And I'm trying to not let my brain get on my case about how crap I'm feeling. Annoyingly, the tireder and more in pain and miserable I am, the more my stupid brain chemicals try to take me to task about it. I've been going to this site for a while now. It's funny how much calmer my brain can get in just two minutes.

PS: I made it to the gym tonight!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

So, hey. I have a blog. I sort of just remembered.

How's tricks?

I am feeling very old at the moment, due to having a lot of back pain from my fall on Monday. I have decided to try and counteract the old feeling with being extra uber immature for a bit. I do not know if this is scientific.

So I've been watching a lot of Sci-Fi (a lot, even for me) - Doctor Who, superhero films, Misfits, Prometheus, Warehouse 13 - and reading a lot of cheap steampunky and horror novels. I've been playing games on Rory (my Kindle) and not really doing much else (work and festive days aside).

Oh, and I just bought myself a ring that looks very like a ladygarden, because I thought it was funny.

The thing is, I'm just not feeling right at the moment, and there's not really anything I can put my finger on. I'm in pain, and Noser looks like she's not going to last much longer, and I'm being quite solitary (interaction is so much easier through a computer screen, isn't it?), and I can't upload any damn photos, and I think the rest might just be post-holiday blues, and... and...  I don't want to turn this blog into any more of a whinge-fest than I have already.

So go and read this fascinating article about a man who makes furniture by moulding fungus.