Divali mubarak everyone! We had spag bol again for our Sunday dinner, followed by individual apple strudels with our inexhaustible apple crop and the rest of the filo pastry. We did two weeks’ worth of quizzes and scored 8 on one and 10.5 on the other. Oh dear. Average now 9.66666666666666666666666666666666666666666 and so on.
A2 is now rereading Schrodinger’s Cat III: The Homing Pigeons by Robert Anton Wilson. Can’t find SC1 but the volumes aren’t contingent on each other and 2 out of 3 is not bad. Sex and drugs and quantum electrodynamics and all in the worst possible taste.
Category: food
Friday Food
Our family dinners have been creeping back from Sunday to Saturday Night, then Saturday lunch and now Friday night, when we ate toad-in-the-hole with mash, multicoloured carrots, broccoli and caramelised onion gravy, followed by apple strudel made in the traditional way with filo pastry. So we couldn’t do the Guardian Saturday quiz and were reduced to asking Faye questions about syzygy, palolo worms, nerve cells and recent elections and discussing cloning techniques with Bob.
A1 is reading The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves. A2 is rereading Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguru.
Saturday Lunch
Happy Independence/United Nations Day everyone!
Storm Austen is coming at us from the south and Storm Boelo from the north so we had our family lunch of baked potatoes, eggs and salads followed by plum cobbler before the roaring winds and pouring rain arrived in both directions. Hatches are staying battened down for the foreseeable but meanwhile we scored 9 on the GSQ, reducing our average to exactly 10.
A1 is reading Precipice by Robert Harris, about the relationship between socialite Venetia Stanley and PM Herbert Asquith in the run-up to WW1. Contains many letters from HA to VS, all of which are, astonishingly, genuine. Fun fact: the author is married to the sister of Nick Hornby, author of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and others.
A2 is appropriately reading The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves.
Chicken Tonight
A Saturday dinner, for a change, with roast chicken, potatoes, Yorkshires, carrots, broccoli, stuffing and gravy, followed by a Swedish apple cake. We did two weeks’ worth of quizzes and scored 10.5 on the first and 9 on the other, so our batting average is still above 10, just.
Dish of the Day: Cottage Pie
Served with sprouts and followed by apple crumble with clotted cream and custard. We did last week’s and this week’s quizzes and scored 9 on one and thirteen on the other, bringing our average back above 10 at last.
A1 is reading Cold Sunset by William Boyd. A2’s lav lit is Y: The Descent of Men by Steve Jones.
Cucu
Here’s a garden cucumber which looks a bit like a parrot.
September was slightly more sunny, a bit colder and quite a lot drier than average.
A1 is rereading The Predicament by William Boyd. A2 is rereading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
Apple and Pear Pie
A fruity pudding is served after a meal of pork in cider and everybody is sitting around reading instead of getting stuck in. Afterwards we did the quiz, with long-distance input from Dave who was hors de hangover, and scored a not disgraceful 10.
A2’s bog book is The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow; a rather thin argument for M Theory. M is for, um, Maybe.
Stew Sunday
Our Sunday dinner was lamb stew with stodgy dumplings (sorry wrong flour) and mashed potatoes, followed by homegrown apple strudel and by the quiz at which we scored an atrocious 6, bringing our average below 10. Curse you Thomas Eaton!
A2 is reading Cold Sunset by William Boyd (thank you A1).
Happy Birthday
A2 blows out the candles on her exquisite cherry almond cake after a succulent roast chicken dinner and before we scored 9 (8 would be more accurate but hey it’s a special day) on the GSQ.
The cat wanted to join in too.
It is also (and is on this day every year) National Read a Book Day. A1 is reading The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davies. A2 has 6 exciting new books to choose from (thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you A1) and is beginning with The End of Everything by M John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic alien invasion story which was like a weird dream but good all the same. First book I’ve read where the colophon warns AI not to scrape.
Chicken Pasta Bake
Today we had a chicken, courgette, cheese and pasta bake with a veggie version for Bob, followed by air-fried peaches and ice cream and the GSQ on which we scored 10, or possibly 11.
Blimey, is it really more than a week since we had new books? Well, Slow Gods and The Bone Clocks are both big books which require close attention. A1 is now reading The Silent Bones* by Val McDermid (something of a return to form) and A2 is reading Body of Lies* by Jo Callaghan.
Dish of the Day: Toad in the Hole
A1 assures us no amphibians were harmed in the creation of this bangers-and-batter dish, followed by a banana and carrot cake and by the quiz at which we scored a sad 9.
Food of the Day: Porky Vegetables with Rice
Another old favourite, followed by a sublime blackberry crumble and the quiz at which we scored an acceptable 12.
A1 is reading Slow Gods by Claire North (thanks A2!), which was a Slow Read — partly due to other commitments, but mainly because it’s a dense and intriguing hard sf novel, worth savouring. CN isn’t usually noted for hard sf, and they* do slip up a bit here: a supernova neutrino burst isn’t planet-destroying, and for neutrinos to hurt a human you’d have to be at about the same distance from the supernova as Mars is from the Sun. And that would be the least of your worries…
But the meat of the book is about a star pilot, strangely changed (“I am a very poor copy of myself”) by the experience of FTL travel — through “arcspace”, or the “dark”, in an echo of Adrian Tchaikovsky — to be near-immortal. He is born in debt-ridden servitude in a hyper-capitalist society, and his only escape is the nearly always fatal piloting job. It’s the story of his coming to terms with the changes he undergoes, and what it means to be human … or at least a conscious entity.
It’s an impressive book, if flawed, which I suspect will appear on various award shortlists.
A2 is reading Silent Bones* by Val McDermid.
* CN prefers non-gendered pronouns, and this novel contains more variations on pronouns than you can shake a stick at.
Dinner with the Family
Our family meal today was at Gez and Dave’s house and featured cod loins wrapped in parma ham with green beans and potato gratin with sausage rolls for the fish refusers. Present at the gathering were Dave with a broken foot in a velcro boot, Bob and Lena all the way from Sweden and Ivy visiting Faye.
A2 contributed a Dubai-style chocolate, pistachio and shredded wheat cheesecake but unfortunately dropped it and had to scrape it back together and apply another layer so it did not look as good as the before photo here but it tasted pretty acceptable. And we scored an astonishing 14 on the GSQ, bringing us back above 10 at long last.
A1 is reading The Killer’s Mark by MW Craven. A2 is reading Pinball 1973* by Haruki Murakami.
Dish of the Day: Chicken Bacon and Broccoli
Another old favourite for our family meal, followed by ice cream in colourful cones and by the GSQ at which we scored a slightly improved 11. And thanks go out to Gez and Ceri for bringing us coffee from London and Rutland respectively.
A2 is reading The Killer’s Mark by MW Craven.
Dish of the Day: Curry
Welcome home Gez, to a warming curry cooked by A1 and followed by a damn fine cherry pie and damn fine coffee, after which we scored 10 on the GSQ with Faye as quizmistress.
A2 is reading The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves.
And later, an unexpected noctilucent display, later in the year than we have ever seen them
Dish of the Day: Spag Bol Again
Gez and Bob are off on an adventure so our dinner companions were Dave, Faye and a bonus Ivy. We had fruit salad for afters and scored a satisfactory 10 on the GSQ with Ivy as quizmaster.
A2 is reading Solace House by Will Maclean, an absolutely phenomenal book featuring a bunch of alienated students, a house packed floor to ceiling with rubbish, a secret cave, a mysterious poem, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke and a shedload of magic mushrooms.
Salad Days
A fabulous family feast featuring green stuff, eggs, potatoes, salmon, tuna, cheeses, cold meats, chicken legs, sausage rolls and a peachy pie pudding, after which we scored a calamitous 8 on the GSQ. Outside, the street party was going on with more people than usual, most of whom seemed to be complete strangers.
A1 is reading The Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsay Davis. A2 is reading Buyer Beware by Catherine Ryan Howard; a woman with a dodgy past moves into a house with a dodgy past. What could possibly go wrong?
I Love You
The air fryer leaves a message on A1’s pork chop.
A2’s bathroom book is Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Coq au Vin
Another Sunday, another family meal, followed by pineapple upside down cake and a score of 10 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading Deadly Election by Lindsey Davis. A2 is reading The South by Tash Aw; the opener of a four-volume family saga about a Chinese clan in Malaysia. Aw’s books normally arrive about five years apart so we will see how it goes.
Silver Surfers
It has been 25 years since we tied the knot at Lusaka Civic Centre so we celebrated with a lunch of baked potatoes, cold meats and salad with the family, who brought wonderful presents and an unexpected bottle of champagne. We had cherry cake on galaxy-themed paper plates for afters and scored a disappointing 9 on the GSQ. Must try harder.
When darkness fell, the first noctilucent clouds of the year filled the sky; a special gift for us on our special day.
A2 is rereading Bad Actors by Mick Herron.
Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
The cherries are a small selection from our garden tree. The books are presents for the birthday boy.
On the equal hottest day of the month A2 cooked a dinner of roast pork, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, gravy, carrots, broccoli and garden peas, followed by a leftover carrot cake trifle with garden cherries on top. Enjoy!
A2 is rereading Slough House by Mick Herron.
Happy Solstice
And happy Dad’s Day too! We had spag bol and carrot cake for tea and scored 11 on the GSQ.
A1 is rereading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. A2 is rereading Joe Country by Mick Herron.
Roast Chicken
For our family dinner today we had A1’s lovely roast chicken with halcyon potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, mixed vegetables, stuffing and gravy, followed by tiramisu ice cream (which took a lot longer than the recipe’s stated 5 minutes to thaw), followed by the quiz at which we scored a sadly deficient 8, bringing our average down below 10.
A1 is rereading The Three by Sarah Lotz. A2 is rereading Spook Street by Mick Herron.
Rhubarb Crumble and Custard
First home-grown pudding of the year, following a dish of porky vegetables and rice and followed by our worst quiz score of the year: a totally miserable 6.
A2 is rereading Slow Horses by Mick Herron. Always a pleasure.
Dish of the Day: Spag Bol
A pastalicous respast, followed by a fruity trifle hand-sprinkled by the ever-helpful Gez, after which we scored a poor quality 8 on the GSQ.
Despite our hottest May day ever, the month was somewhat cooler and wetter than average, with average solar panel output.
A1 is rereading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.