instant pot – Kathleen Jowitt

A street corner on a bright wintry day. Above the houses a cathedral tower rises, hazy in the mist, and surrounded by white-frosted trees.

The good

I dragged myself out of the house this morning and was glad I did: a heavy, spiky frost had turned all the trees white, and the cathedral was wearing a misty veil and looking like an enchanted castle from another dimension.

I have had a little more go, and even managed a bit of piano practice on two days. (I have been teaching myself to play the piano, very slowly, for the last five years at least.)

Lots of post on Thursday: my author copy of Bicycles and Broomsticks (Tony got his on Friday, so I think most people should be getting their Kickstarter rewards soon); cotton mending yarn in jolly bright colours…

The mixed

… and the probate application form, which has been doing the rounds of us executors. It is a sad thing, but it is good to keep things moving.

The difficult and perplexing

Never mind Blue Monday, Wednesday was an actual depression day. I am looking on the bright side and thinking that it is useful to know that I can in fact tell the difference between being knackered and being depressed.

Mixed news from the Church of England, and as usual I’m having trouble working out what I feel about it and feeling hesitant about expressing that, whatever it is.

Also, I shrank my favourite jumper. I’ve stretched out out again over the drying rack, but it is not what it was.

What’s working

Alternating activity with lying on the sofa.

Reading

I seem to be starting loads of books and finishing none of them. Yet. I continued with Sisters of the Forsaken Stars. My romantic suspense book club is now reading Death in Cyprus (M. M. Kaye) – satisfyingly awful characters, including the ones who are meant to be sympathetic, and some gorgeous descriptions. I also returned to Switzerland’s Amazing Railways, which had the entirely predictable effect of making me want to go to Switzerland and ride on (more of) the railways.

Writing

Not a huge amount, but I did type up all the longhand I did on the train last Monday. I still haven’t worked out a routine or set-up that works in my current state, and I’m not sure whether there is a routine or set-up that would theoretically work, or if I just need to wait things out and write little bits when I have the energy.

Mending

Two of Tony’s tops and a pair of my tights.

Watching

As in the rest of the month: Detectorists, Our Flag Means Death, quizzes and winter sports. I am not all that invested in the sports, but I enjoy looking at the snowy mountains.

Looking at

Small but Perfectly Formed: an open exhibition at the local art gallery. There were a few pieces I really liked, quite a lot that were just Not My Thing, and several that I would have liked had they not been given horrific twee names. (I am much more a ‘willows with heron’ person than a ‘gone fishing’ one.)

Cooking

I continue to experiment with the Instant Pot. Last Sunday I made a stonkingly good boeuf bourguignon on the slow cooker setting. Yesterday I did lamb tagine with the pressure cooker. I like this thing.

Eating

As above. Also, yesterday I had a falafel and halloumi wrap from the market; it was not as good as the ones from the stall in St Pancras new churchyard, and was also more dribbly than I’d have liked, but was still not at all bad.

Drinking

Tony and I tackled the mocktails menu at Poet’s House yesterday, considering all four items on it (I noticed too late that there was a Dry January blackboard with several other options) before going for a Virgin Mary (him) and a Galaxy (me). The latter is made of pineapple juice, and I think soda water, and made partly purple with butterfly pea powder (sole function of latter seems to be making things purple). Then I was falling asleep again so went home.

Moving

Swimming on Friday morning: probably a bad idea, in retrospect, even if I was careful and did about half what I’d usually attempt. Still, I’ve managed to walk into town and back, or further, every day since Thursday, so maybe that’s progress. People keep assuring me that the fatigue will pass. But why does nobody mention it alongside the sickness and the forgetfulness?

Playing

Home on the Range. Repeatedly.

Noticing

A goldfinch.

In the garden

Finally got all the pear trees and all but one of the apple trees pruned. And obtained an enamel soup plate to replace the birds’ water bowl, which cracked in the last frost.

Appreciating

Long johns. Hot shower. Bed. All the organising I did in November.

Acquisitions

The copy of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Rebecca West) that’s been tempting me in Oxfam for months got sufficiently reduced for me to buy it. And I got Arsenic for Tea (Robin Stevens) and Unseen Things Above (Catherine Fox) while I was in there too.

Hankering

I wanted to get a peanut feeder for the birds with an anti-squirrel cage, but such a thing was not to be had in Wilko. I want interesting socks, but not enough to learn how to knit them for myself. And I am still tempted by a 21-hook darning loom.

Line of the week

Loads of candidates this week! Either I am reading some very good writers or I am reading more attentively and appreciatively. Both good. This is from Death in Cyprus:

Amanda’s hair – a deep golden brown with glints in it the colour of the first chestnuts in September – was a glorious anachronism.

Sunday snippet

This is from the ‘don’t quit your day job’ workbook thingy.

One of the great gifts of all this has been that I have ceased to feel guilty about the things I’m not doing, whether that be writing, or washing up, or piano practice, or getting cat hair out from under the TV stand.

Things happen when they happen. I am actually pretty good at getting things done, but I get them done when I have the time and the energy, and when I don’t I don’t waste time and energy worrying about them.

This coming week

The long haul south. Pancakes. And what looks like it’s going to be a very frosty cycle to the station tomorrow morning.

Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!

The good

My team’s Christmas lunch happened on Tuesday, having been postponed due to rail strikes in December (solidarity forever, obviously). The food was extremely tasty and we ended up in a pub admiring a nineteen year old cat named Jackie Onassis. What more could you want?

My writing brain is back and I did three pages on the train on Friday (half of them in red, because my black pen ran out). Hurrah! I survived the week better than I’d expected, actually, and even had the energy to peel potatoes when I got home last night.

One of my colleagues bought me ginger biscuits, which was very sweet of her.

Writing

Lots! Hurrah! I began with a reflection for today’s online Cursillo meeting. Then I finished off the questions for Exeter (will link, if they end up being published in linkable form), then polished up Starcrossers and threw myself on the editor’s mercy regarding the fact that it was half as long again as the advertised maximum wordcount. We’ll see what happens. Then yesterday I wrote three pages about the fact that some times you just can’t write anything at all. This is going into the Don’t Quit The Day Job workbook I’ve been prodding at for a while. I haven’t done so much today, but I’m feeling quite encouraged.

Watching

Today, the Wengen downhill skiing. I have skipped a lot of the Alpine skiing in the last couple of weeks because the swathes of green were just depressing, but Wengen was displaying proper Alpine weather. And of course it’s always worth watching just to see if the Wengernalpbahn train will cross the track at any point when people are skiing down. Which reminds me, I must go back to Switzerland’s Amazing Railways.

Cooking

I had a go with the Instant Pot we have on approval, and made something that claimed to be Greek Chicken. I am not convinced that it was as Greek as all that, but it was quite tasty and the pot cooked it adequately. It was useful just to get an idea of how long the thing takes to heat up, get up to pressure, depressurise, etc. I haven’t got to grips with it by any means yet, but it does feel plausible that I might. Recipe recommendations welcome.

Eating

Tuesday’s lunch, at Drake & Morgan and King’s Cross, consisted of: chestnut hummus with flatbread; goose with a plum wrapped in bacon and typical roast dinner accoutrements; chocolate opera cake. I’d never had goose before, and was surprised (though thinking about it I shouldn’t have been) what a rich, dark meat it was.

Line of the week

There remained presents to be bought for sundry difficult relations, there remained clothes to be purchased for their gigantically-growing children, there remained even frocks to be found for themselves, and then shoes to match these frocks: there remained almost everything to play for, and they were resolved to win.

Saturday snippet

From Don’t Quit The Day Job:

“Average author earns £100,000 a year” factoid actually just statistical error. Average author earns £10,000 per year. Megabucks Bestseller Georg, who lives in French chateau and earns £5000 per word, is an outlier and should not have been counted.” Of course we don’t want to believe it. We like books – at least, I assume you do, or why are you here? – and it feels deeply unfair for something that brings so much pleasure to us to return so little reward to its creator.