Upwards and onwards
16 April 2020 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI'm definitely getting fitter. I went back to find the elderflowers that I stumbled across during my Unintentional Adventure (when I almost got benighted on the golf-course after trying to take a short-cut across a corner of it one evening), taking my bicycle this time in order to save several miles of shoe-leather, and managed to cycle all the way up the steepest part of the hill (a gradient of about 1 in 8: a sharp pull on foot, a nightmare on a 3-speed bike) without having to get off.
I used to have to do that on a daily basis, but not without being in regular training and practising for several weeks first before I made it non-stop!
But the elderflowers still weren't open yet. I assumed that after a couple of days of hot sunshine they would be ready to pick, but they weren't. Usually the problem is that I leave harvesting the flowers until far too late in the season and have to search for heads that aren't laden with browning petals and half-set fruit -- I've never got round to it early enough to have trouble with blossom still in tight-balled bud before!
I decided to leave it, although I don't relish the thought of cycling up that hill again. (The strain of so much heavy breathing has rasped my throat and left me trying to cough up/choke down phlegm for hours, which of course is completely socially unacceptable at the moment...)
I really need a couple of oranges if I'm to make elderflower cordial anyway, and since the greengrocer isn't coming I may as well leave it another few days, go to the shops, and hope to find some flour in stock at the same time. (Yeast and baking powder are also absent from the shelves, but fortunately bicarb and cream of tartar aren't -- obviously nobody knows how to use those. I'm all right for bread with my self-breeding sourdough, but my yeast is getting very elderly and probably ought to be used up. I used it for making hot-cross-buns, and had to leave them to rise overnight because despite the heat over the weekend the yeast had barely activated.)
I did see some dried milk when I was looking for sauerkraut... and bought it. (It wasn't the only packet, and at least if I've got a back-up supply I don't have to be so very, very careful of it all the time.)
Sainsbury's, being more upmarket, didn't have quite so many left-over Easter eggs, and they weren't at quite such rock-bottom prices. But the shelves were full and labelled prominently 'No restrictions on buying Easter eggs', which under the circumstances sounded rather like a desperate plea to please purchase :-p
(I didn't.)
I used to have to do that on a daily basis, but not without being in regular training and practising for several weeks first before I made it non-stop!
But the elderflowers still weren't open yet. I assumed that after a couple of days of hot sunshine they would be ready to pick, but they weren't. Usually the problem is that I leave harvesting the flowers until far too late in the season and have to search for heads that aren't laden with browning petals and half-set fruit -- I've never got round to it early enough to have trouble with blossom still in tight-balled bud before!
I decided to leave it, although I don't relish the thought of cycling up that hill again. (The strain of so much heavy breathing has rasped my throat and left me trying to cough up/choke down phlegm for hours, which of course is completely socially unacceptable at the moment...)
I really need a couple of oranges if I'm to make elderflower cordial anyway, and since the greengrocer isn't coming I may as well leave it another few days, go to the shops, and hope to find some flour in stock at the same time. (Yeast and baking powder are also absent from the shelves, but fortunately bicarb and cream of tartar aren't -- obviously nobody knows how to use those. I'm all right for bread with my self-breeding sourdough, but my yeast is getting very elderly and probably ought to be used up. I used it for making hot-cross-buns, and had to leave them to rise overnight because despite the heat over the weekend the yeast had barely activated.)
I did see some dried milk when I was looking for sauerkraut... and bought it. (It wasn't the only packet, and at least if I've got a back-up supply I don't have to be so very, very careful of it all the time.)
Sainsbury's, being more upmarket, didn't have quite so many left-over Easter eggs, and they weren't at quite such rock-bottom prices. But the shelves were full and labelled prominently 'No restrictions on buying Easter eggs', which under the circumstances sounded rather like a desperate plea to please purchase :-p
(I didn't.)
no subject
Date: 2020-04-18 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-19 01:20 am (UTC)