I just went to let Eloise cat in. She’s wanted to be let out about an hour ago, after helping me eat my dinner (she had a morsel of cheese, because it wasn’t particularly cat-friendly) and I’ve been reading and then talking to Weeza on the phone. Last night, I went to the door and called, but she didn’t come in, so I assumed that she’d gone in to visit Wink. I went to bed early, I was tired and I don’t like to doze off in an armchair in the evening. This morning, Wink told me that she was on her way to bed last night when she heard a pathetic mew and found eCat outside her front door, damp and sad as I’d locked her out.
She has a cat flap. She can go out and come in whenever she wants to.
Anyway, I called, she didn’t come, so I started to lock the door and she hurried up towards me. So, although it’s only 8 o’clock, I’ve locked up and she isn’t going out again if I can help it.
I was supposed to do paperwork yesterday and today. I haven’t. I’ll regret it – I regret it already, but that’s how it goes. Our friend Rose is coming over on Wednesday, we haven’t seen each other for a while, so it’ll be good to catch up. I also have to try to book a ticket for Zerlina to go to a concert – I’d say gig, but what do I know? She calls it a concert – next July. I’ve registered with Ticketmaster and logged a credit card with them, but the whole thing is decidedly sketchy. They don’t give any clue how much tickets cost, in advance, and I’ve a feeling that they won’t say until you go to pay. But there we are, I’m here to indulge my grandchildren – and children – if I can. Weeza has indicated an unreasonable price, so I’ll hope to get something for merely expensive.
I have both a mouse and a trackpad for my computer. Sometimes I use one, sometimes the other, but usually the pad. But it wouldn’t connect. The computer found it on Bluetooth but wouldn’t connect to it. I attached it with a lead to the computer, but still not. I restarted the computer, I switched the trackpad off and on again, but nothing. Eventually, it occurred to me to turn off the mouse. The pad connected, I turned the mouse back on and it connected too. Machinery can be so irritating.
After the run was mended, Harriet Bantam was disconsolate. I saw her standing in the run, looking at where the gap should be (it was raining, all the sensible chickens had gone indoors) and clearly trying to work out how to open it up again. I let them all out today, for the first time since the weather turned nasty and, when I went to check on them about 3 o’clock, she and one other were the only ones still out on the grass. The others, still being sensible, were on the perch. But they went in and everyone had mealworms, so that’s all safe and sound. The wind was still gusty but it was much milder, I suppose storm Bert is fading away.
At least I got around to making naan bread yesterday. And more kefir. One batch is draining through muslin to make cream cheese – curd cheese, I suppose – and another is on its second ferment, the third will probably have to be strained tomorrow. I know it’s supposed to be terribly good for me, but I can only manage it if I happen to make a really good batch. Sometimes, it reminds me too much of school milk in the 1960s, left out in the warm all morning and slightly off. I put the whey into the naan.
School milk was just as bad in the 1960s. And in the early-80s when I was teaching. I wouldn’t have the milk crate in my classroom as I was so traumatised from my 60s experiences of being forced to drink it when it had stood in front of the heater all day (or sometimes 2 days).
Today I taught a group of 20 older ladies from several local villages to make yoghurt by your recipe, which I have done for us non-stop on a 10 to 14 day basis since you kindly gave me the recipe some years ago. “Is that all there is to it?” asked one. “Why is it so expensive in the shops then?” I asked what they’d like to learn to make next… “Can you make tomato ketchup?” one asked. They all agreed that would be good as they used “gallons” of the stuff. Presumably on their pies and fry-ups. Life in a Northern village.
Cats love playing the martyr don’t they? The mobile library man brings cat treats for The Black Familiar now – I think he believes we don’t feed her at all.
50s was a typo, I can’t really remember the 1950s, but my 60s were still later than your 60s. It was peculiar, wasn’t it? It must have been delivered really early, to have gone sour by 11, even in the hottest summer. In winter, I don’t think it was kept by a heater (not much heating in my school) as I remember that sometimes the top was frozen. I suspect more young people voted for Mrs Thatcher than anyone realised, in gratitude for her stopping school milk when they were still young enough to be obliged to drink it.
I think that Eloise has me well trained, but it’s nothing compared to Wink’s obedience. It’s hilarious, the way she’s bossed about. Of course, Eloise tells each of us in turn that she’s not been fed.