weekending
Dec. 19th, 2006 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perlmongerIt’s Tuesday afternoon, and bits of me still ache.
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ramtops and I are on the village footpath users’ group and, on Saturday, I did my second[1] bit of maintenance work: three of us (that’s John and Anne <= in the photo) spent two and a half hours shovelling wood chippings into barrows, trundling them over the (by the time we ran out of chippings) 300-odd feet of enchipped muddy path, tipping and raking.
I enjoyed the process thoroughly, and the weather was perfect, but it’s more simple physical work than I’ve done for years. Saturday afternoon, we went to Whiteladies Road and the Kitchen Shop (more baking hardware to feedramtops‘ newly acquired baking frenzy) and visit Corks to replenish our supplies of Rowans Creek bourbon - ramtops was a little surprised to find that the whiskey she uses to render her infamous Chocolate! Mooooose!!! as delicious and lethal as it is costs 40 quid a bottle - and make an experimental purchase of the new 12yr old Bruichladdich[2].
I felt fine up until this point, and indeed until we went to bed, but by Sunday morning I was feeling aches on top of my aches. So, given another fine morning, what else would we do but go out for a walk, before breakfast even? Half way up the ridge, round and down to Gatcombe Farm we went, stopping at the farm shop to buy a chicken, a hunk of gammon, bags of apples and potatoes, two packets of sausagemeat, a ring of black pudding and some bacon. This lot all fitted snugly into my backpack and accompanied us on the starboard half of our journey across the railway line as we headed back spinward and home across muddy fields filled with crazed and menacing sheep, pausing to tighten the bolts on the latch of one of the footpath gates as we went[3]. That pack was starting to weigh me down by the time we returned; not the weight in and of itself, but the straps are quite narrow and were starting to do a fair job of circulation cutoff...
Thankfully, movement post-return became largely optional. ramtops proved once again that good, unbuggeredaroundwith, ingredients simply and well cooked produce something profound: the chicken, roast with a lemon up its arse, spuds roast in the last of last-year’s-goose-fat-supplemented-by-a-year’s-duck-fat, and carrots and leeks from the Riverford veg box cooked in chicken stock. It were gorgeous. ![Driving Lessons [2006]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/4db00b08a00e/157081-106175/www.skydancer.org.uk/amazonimage/tiny/B000ICME4K.jpg)
The evening was well rounded off by a re-viewing of the very fine TV film of Stephen Poliakoff’s Gideon’s Daughter. Bill Nighy fine as ever, but the film is owned by Miranda Richardson, who is the only one of the three leads (Emily Blunt, as Nighy’s daughter, is the third) not to be nominated in the 2007 Gloden Globes (hey! she’s a middle-aged woman, of course she doesn’t get a nomination...). Recommended. The film features that most civilised of cities, Edinburgh, as does Driving Lessons, which we watched off the TiVo last night; another fine film, but Julie Walters can do no wrong for me. The real star of the film, of course, was the green DS Safari; can’t help wondering how Rupert Grint’s 17yr old learner driver character coped with the column change and rubber-tit-on-the-floor instead of a brake pedal, but continuity wasn’t really the film’s strongest point ;)
[1] First time was a month ago, heaving half a dozen 20kilo-ish sacks of wood chippings from the back of Heather’s Merc estate however far it is (80 ft?) down the path and over the stream bridge, through the kissing gate, and tipping and spreading them out.
[2] First impressions? Good, but not that special, actually. I’ve not any 10yr old to hand so can’t compare directly, but I don’t think it’s any significant improvement.
[3] My Leatherman Crunch may be illegal to carry (locking blade, innit) but the folding miniature mole grip it contains is by a considerable margin the most useful, and most used, tool I possess.ramtops bought it for me, years ago; may she be blessed for that, as for so many other things.
ramtops and I are on the village footpath users’ group and, on Saturday, I did my second[1] bit of maintenance work: three of us (that’s John and Anne <= in the photo) spent two and a half hours shovelling wood chippings into barrows, trundling them over the (by the time we ran out of chippings) 300-odd feet of enchipped muddy path, tipping and raking.I enjoyed the process thoroughly, and the weather was perfect, but it’s more simple physical work than I’ve done for years. Saturday afternoon, we went to Whiteladies Road and the Kitchen Shop (more baking hardware to feed
ramtops‘ newly acquired baking frenzy) and visit Corks to replenish our supplies of Rowans Creek bourbon - ramtops was a little surprised to find that the whiskey she uses to render her infamous Chocolate! Mooooose!!! as delicious and lethal as it is costs 40 quid a bottle - and make an experimental purchase of the new 12yr old Bruichladdich[2].I felt fine up until this point, and indeed until we went to bed, but by Sunday morning I was feeling aches on top of my aches. So, given another fine morning, what else would we do but go out for a walk, before breakfast even? Half way up the ridge, round and down to Gatcombe Farm we went, stopping at the farm shop to buy a chicken, a hunk of gammon, bags of apples and potatoes, two packets of sausagemeat, a ring of black pudding and some bacon. This lot all fitted snugly into my backpack and accompanied us on the starboard half of our journey across the railway line as we headed back spinward and home across muddy fields filled with crazed and menacing sheep, pausing to tighten the bolts on the latch of one of the footpath gates as we went[3]. That pack was starting to weigh me down by the time we returned; not the weight in and of itself, but the straps are quite narrow and were starting to do a fair job of circulation cutoff...Thankfully, movement post-return became largely optional. ramtops proved once again that good, unbuggeredaroundwith, ingredients simply and well cooked produce something profound: the chicken, roast with a lemon up its arse, spuds roast in the last of last-year’s-goose-fat-supplemented-by-a-year’s-duck-fat, and carrots and leeks from the Riverford veg box cooked in chicken stock. It were gorgeous. The evening was well rounded off by a re-viewing of the very fine TV film of Stephen Poliakoff’s Gideon’s Daughter. Bill Nighy fine as ever, but the film is owned by Miranda Richardson, who is the only one of the three leads (Emily Blunt, as Nighy’s daughter, is the third) not to be nominated in the 2007 Gloden Globes (hey! she’s a middle-aged woman, of course she doesn’t get a nomination...). Recommended. The film features that most civilised of cities, Edinburgh, as does Driving Lessons, which we watched off the TiVo last night; another fine film, but Julie Walters can do no wrong for me. The real star of the film, of course, was the green DS Safari; can’t help wondering how Rupert Grint’s 17yr old learner driver character coped with the column change and rubber-tit-on-the-floor instead of a brake pedal, but continuity wasn’t really the film’s strongest point ;)[1] First time was a month ago, heaving half a dozen 20kilo-ish sacks of wood chippings from the back of Heather’s Merc estate however far it is (80 ft?) down the path and over the stream bridge, through the kissing gate, and tipping and spreading them out.[2] First impressions? Good, but not that special, actually. I’ve not any 10yr old to hand so can’t compare directly, but I don’t think it’s any significant improvement.
[3] My Leatherman Crunch may be illegal to carry (locking blade, innit) but the folding miniature mole grip it contains is by a considerable margin the most useful, and most used, tool I possess.
ramtops bought it for me, years ago; may she be blessed for that, as for so many other things.