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General update
I acquired three and a half pounds of windfall plums, picked over 2lb of blackberries (and gathered some windfall apples to go with them) and paid £3 for a box with 8lb or so of overripe cherries -- so I have been drowning in fruit! Preserves: bramble jelly (2 1/2 jars), plum chutney (2 half jars), roasted savoury cherries and cherry-stone cordial. I have also made plum soufflé, German plum streusel cake, boiled cherry vareniki, and other desserts, and still have a fridge full of the least squishy plums and cherries, not to mention a summer pudding waiting to be turned out...
Contrary to my belief, the upper trusses of the Roma tomatoes did in fact set some fruit; the first and largest truss is now pretty much ripe and will need to be picked and cooked with.
Frustratingly, my bicycle has blown out another inner tube, precisely as it did in July last year; the tube when extracted was full of bulges and further weak spots (I tried patching the initial split, but it was useless) despite only having done a few hundred miles. Cheap Chinese product aimed at the cyclist who takes his mountain-bike out on the occasional Sunday and transports it to his destination on the roof of his car :-(
Current odometer reading is 220.17 since May 2024 -- about 18 miles a week over 12 weeks as usual, which is not exactly heavy usage, but not occasional leisure riding either.
Very surprisingly, the mantel clock which stopped several months ago (and failed to start again after being wound up and having its pendulum set back into motion several times) spontaneously came back to life after I took the back off yet again and turned it upside down to try to see how to remove the pendulum for transport, with a vague thought of getting it mended. I didn't even notice, and was very surprised to come back into the room several hours later and find not one but two clocks ticking away!
Of course I don't actually need two clocks in my bedroom (it was only ever in there as an 'overflow' since I no longer have enough rooms for a clock in every room) but it has been surprisingly pleasant to wake up in the morning and be able to open my eyes and look directly across the room to my chest of drawers and be able to see the time. My main alarm clock, due to the exigencies of fitting in the furniture between the window and the wall, is located on the 'bedside' table directly behind the head of my bed, and is invisible without turning over and getting up on my elbow; a good thing from the point of view of waking up the recipient of the alarm, but rather uncomfortable when you simply want to know what the time is!
I could of course have positioned the alarm clock on the chest of drawers, which would have the advantage of requiring me to get out of bed and cross the room in order to silence it. :-p
Anyway, I now need to remember that I have a second clock that once again needs winding on Wednesdays, having got out of the habit of winding it along with the other one...
I have finally managed to get into the backstory part of de Brencourt's interview with Gaston, after several weeks of struggle. I was seriously considering simply omitting that element altogether, as I couldn't seem to get it to fit (or perhaps delaying it until the interview with Valentine, but I think it needs to be a story recounted between men). I'm still not entirely sure it's a good idea, but it seems to be flowing now -- and I'm still not sure *any* of this is a good idea, as I am not happy with the results and know that there will be no market for it among any readers other than myself :-(
I was definitely right about not having room for it in the back of the Hertha book, though. At the current rate of progress/deletion I wonder if there is going to be room for the Valentine-scene plus ending in this notebook...
I was surprised to get a number of notifications about new 'followers' on FFnet, accompanied by PMs -- apparently the notifications are working at the moment, but it all appears to be spam ("Feel free to connect with me on my social media so we can discuss the art further. Let's create something amazing together!", "I would be delighted to discuss potential partnership opportunities and explore how we might work together to achieve our shared creative goals", "i have a some great ideas according your story so if you're interested so let me know, i would definitely draw is minimum price, even i have a some payment plan, like you can split the payment in two terms first down and second once i share the initial draft") :-(
Contrary to my belief, the upper trusses of the Roma tomatoes did in fact set some fruit; the first and largest truss is now pretty much ripe and will need to be picked and cooked with.
Frustratingly, my bicycle has blown out another inner tube, precisely as it did in July last year; the tube when extracted was full of bulges and further weak spots (I tried patching the initial split, but it was useless) despite only having done a few hundred miles. Cheap Chinese product aimed at the cyclist who takes his mountain-bike out on the occasional Sunday and transports it to his destination on the roof of his car :-(
Current odometer reading is 220.17 since May 2024 -- about 18 miles a week over 12 weeks as usual, which is not exactly heavy usage, but not occasional leisure riding either.
Very surprisingly, the mantel clock which stopped several months ago (and failed to start again after being wound up and having its pendulum set back into motion several times) spontaneously came back to life after I took the back off yet again and turned it upside down to try to see how to remove the pendulum for transport, with a vague thought of getting it mended. I didn't even notice, and was very surprised to come back into the room several hours later and find not one but two clocks ticking away!
Of course I don't actually need two clocks in my bedroom (it was only ever in there as an 'overflow' since I no longer have enough rooms for a clock in every room) but it has been surprisingly pleasant to wake up in the morning and be able to open my eyes and look directly across the room to my chest of drawers and be able to see the time. My main alarm clock, due to the exigencies of fitting in the furniture between the window and the wall, is located on the 'bedside' table directly behind the head of my bed, and is invisible without turning over and getting up on my elbow; a good thing from the point of view of waking up the recipient of the alarm, but rather uncomfortable when you simply want to know what the time is!
I could of course have positioned the alarm clock on the chest of drawers, which would have the advantage of requiring me to get out of bed and cross the room in order to silence it. :-p
Anyway, I now need to remember that I have a second clock that once again needs winding on Wednesdays, having got out of the habit of winding it along with the other one...
I have finally managed to get into the backstory part of de Brencourt's interview with Gaston, after several weeks of struggle. I was seriously considering simply omitting that element altogether, as I couldn't seem to get it to fit (or perhaps delaying it until the interview with Valentine, but I think it needs to be a story recounted between men). I'm still not entirely sure it's a good idea, but it seems to be flowing now -- and I'm still not sure *any* of this is a good idea, as I am not happy with the results and know that there will be no market for it among any readers other than myself :-(
I was definitely right about not having room for it in the back of the Hertha book, though. At the current rate of progress/deletion I wonder if there is going to be room for the Valentine-scene plus ending in this notebook...
I was surprised to get a number of notifications about new 'followers' on FFnet, accompanied by PMs -- apparently the notifications are working at the moment, but it all appears to be spam ("Feel free to connect with me on my social media so we can discuss the art further. Let's create something amazing together!", "I would be delighted to discuss potential partnership opportunities and explore how we might work together to achieve our shared creative goals", "i have a some great ideas according your story so if you're interested so let me know, i would definitely draw is minimum price, even i have a some payment plan, like you can split the payment in two terms first down and second once i share the initial draft") :-(