Tough beans

I tried to make the 'Australian casserole' from Peta Lyn Farwagi's "Full of Beans" (which I've definitely done successfully before). Layers of celery, onion, tinned tomato, pre-soaked beans with a few sultanas, and meat on the bone sitting in the middle, topped with cheese and breadcrumbs.

I got in about 7pm, assembled the whole thing and put it in a hot oven for the prescribed 20 minutes, then turned it down to Gas Mark 2 for two and a half hours. Poked it. Beans not cooked and the neck of lamb still clinging to the bone. ( Read more... )

Lack of fic progress

I thought I was well away on the final scene between Christine and Hertha, with a point-to-point route planned to include all the necessary dialogue... and then I decided it really wasn't credible for them to be having this fraught and above all *loud* conversation within a few feet of a sleeping Raoul :-(

( Read more... )

Meanwhile I'm still hung up on this ridiculous business of the three winters in Arctic Raoul. The sensible thing to do would be to let it be tacitly assumed that, after despairing in summer, the d'Artois Expedition do indeed pass the whole of another winter and then most of another summer on the ice before Raoul meets up with them. It just seems like an awfully big gap, when I thought I'd been to such lengths to come up with a complete narrative that would plausibly provide them with activities for the whole of the 'three years' by cleverly abbreviating it to two-and-a-bit :-(

Gas prices

I've just received a letter telling me that my estimated annual gas bill is about £200, but that I've already used £388 worth of gas in the last six months and only paid £90 in direct debits (knocking my accumulated surplus down into the ground) — and that to my astonishment my direct debit payments are being reduced in consequence. ( Read more... )