11 January 2022

anything you want

This is about all that's left to harvest in the winter garden, for us humans that is.

In the bed behind, there's phacelia growing which will be dug in to prepare the soil for the corn runner bean squash mix. Also, the first little pots with seedlings have appeared on the window sills. It's a start, as every year. 

It's really cold now. It takes me ages to warm up when I have been outside. I tried pretending I am an arctic explorer while cycling along the river. It doesn't make it any easier and for the last two days, I've stayed in pretending to be old and unwell. Instead, after working in my snazzy home office until late afternoon, I do a bit of this and that. Not that there is much of this and that to do. I could roll into a ball and hibernate. But:

I will admit that there are other people who are primarily interested in doing something. I am not. I can very well live without doing anything. But I cannot live without at least trying to understand whatever happens.

Hannah Arendt

My employer stipulates daily self-administered lateral flow testing which means that every morning, R can poke with a narrow white stick into my throat and around my tonsils or rather the space where my tonsils once lived. He enjoys doing this. The things that make a man happy. He has also turned into a kitchen tyrant manager, I am allowed a slot on Sundays for dinner and the occasional banana bread baking. And even then, he walks in to check whether I am using the proper ingredients. As the saying goes, a marriage is an economic relationship built on trust.  

Anyway, I made this risotto with the Brussel sprouts and it went down a treat.

And soundtrack. I taught the chorus line of this song to a gang of kids under the age of seven while driving them to Brittas Bay for a Sunday afternoon by the sea. I shiver when I think that back then we had neither seat belts nor kid's car seats in the back.

 
All that natter and telling of anecdotes is me cleverly disguising that I am truly deeply scared now. I know from past experience what well-known, middle-of-the-road infections, the ones with medication to treat, can do to my immune compromised body. Basically, always a hard time. So this covid bastard could top it all. 

7 comments:

ellen abbott said...

I need to start food gardening again. But it seems I have time to work on art or work in the yard. Yesterday I pulled up all the dead orange cosmos. Today I consolidated three big piles into one very big pile waiting for me to empty the truck onto the burn pile and then fill it up again. What do they say about Omicron, worse than a bad flu? Though I'm sure a bad flu would be very bad for you. Oh, and after being responsible for dinner for the past 10 years or so the husband requested that I cook two nights a week. However he seems to think I've forgotten how to cook as he's always hovering making sure I'm doing it right. I have to demand that he get out of the kitchen, I'll call you when it's ready.

Anonymous said...

Roger and I have a pretty basic routine for cooking our dinner. I cut most of the veggies. He does the stir-fry. We try to have a plan everyday because I am obsessed about food. I love knowing that you made risotto. We have that every few weeks. It's so delicious. Yum.
About Covid, I live in fear. I really do. There is some idea going around right now that we're all eventually going to get it. I really hope that's just internet speculation and not actual science. Stay healthy there, Sabine.

am said...

It is scary. Sending love and encouragement always.

Brittas Bay is incredibly beautiful.

Ms. Moon said...

I wish you could work from home, Sabine. This is just too scary.
Is that a possibility?
I love Roy Orbison. That voice.

Sabine said...

Thanks Mary, I do work from home most days and when I am in the office, there is a lot of protection like distance, masks and airfilters/airing etc. All my colleagues are triple vaccinated but we all have our private lives and kids and commute. I probably have to stop going to the office soon. My boss will understand.

Roderick Robinson said...

Scared? It's six to eight weeks (after the op) before I get the histology results. So another three weeks to go. Previously the Que sera, sera philosophy has worked; these days little - otherwise unimportant - matters tend to undermine Doris Day music. At about this time of year my younger daughter (Occasional Speeder) and I start looking at villas-that-can-accommodate-eight in the Béziers region for a booking in July/August. I have looked but there's no fun in it at the moment. As Doris puts it:

... The future's not ours to see,
Que sera, sera.


Chin up, kid.

Elizabeth said...

Stay safe. I'm sorry this whole thing is so much more harrowing for some.