mustela_nivalis

Reading. ( Scalzi, Wells, Gordon + Ziv, Burch + Penman, McMillan-Webster )

I have also done a bunch of variably directed online reading about models and theories of pain, and will happily recommend the British Psychological Society's Story of pain should this be relevant to your interests!

Writing. I am several thousand words and 18 (of 52) questions into the consultation on the EHRC Code of Practice consultation. The deadline is in a little under 24 hours. Approximately two thirds of the questions appear to be very simple and straightforward tickboxes. I am not super enjoying the free-text responses, and especially did not enjoy that despite the total lack of any indicator of a word limit there is in fact a word limit and it's 1000 words. I discovered this having written 2511 of the damn things.

More cheerfully I am also, as mentioned, enjoying playing with my pens for the purposes of notes about pain. I am increasingly convinced (cannot remember if I mentioned?) that I have Solved the Problem of one of my fancy pens having an unwelcome tendency to dry up when looked at funny, via the method of "giving the cap a bonus little wiggle once it's on". (It's the Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age which, second hand, was a PhD completion present from A, because -- for those of you who aren't massive fountain pen nerds -- it's made out of a resin that's got crushed Etna basalt mixed in with it; I spent a while going "is it just because red-family inks are typically quite dry???" but nope, the effectiveness of the extra little wiggle suggests quite strongly that the spring for the inner cap isn't quiiite activating when I'd ideally like it to. This isn't necessarily a huge surprise given how sticky it was when I first got the pen, but it still took me... a while... to catch on.

Watching. Up to date with Murderbot. Remain grumbly about Decisions including "how little time the poor thing spends with its helmet up" and "how bad people are at poly" and also, fundamentally, the word "throuple" (I AM TOO OLD AND CRANKY FOR THIS NONSENSE, APPARENTLY), but am also mildly peeved that we've run out of episodes.

Listening. An Indelicates gig, which I almost could not make myself leave the house for but was very very glad I did. Not having yet managed to scrape together the brain to listen to Avenue QAnon significantly increased the proportion of new-to-me songs!

Cooking. Bread? Bread.

Eating. The branch of Tonkotsu a short way from the Indeligig venue turned out to have outside seating! And an updated menu since last time we made it to them, so we both delightedly consumed the chilli tofu ramen and also shared the cauliflower 'wings' and some edamame and the very pleasant yuzu lemonade and also also I tried A's Smoked Hibiscus Margarita and it was great. (I mildly regretted not being in fit state to actually want an entire cocktail of my own.)

Growing. I... harvested and processed 1.7 kg of redcurrants! And ate several handfuls of raspberries! Depending on how badly my neglect since Wednesday has damaged everything given The Heat there's at least as much again to come off the redcurrant bush, and the jostaberry and gooseberry were also both looking extremely promising. AND the second sowing of kohlrabi has started to come up.

1. Went on an Adventure to post a lost item back to someone (hopefully in time for the next thing they want it for...), and was rewarded with DUCKLINGS.
2. Not too warm to achieve fallback dinner of I Don't Know, Bake A Potato, with the result that we finished the lurking salad leaves and also stuck some of the cook-from-frozen pasteis de nata into the oven once potatoes were done.
3. Ridiculous organic greengrocer had an option on sending us rainbow chard this week, which means I might actually manage to cook one whole new recipe this month (!), which was otherwise... not looking likely. (I have been comprehensively failing to sow any, but there we go.)
4. Went fossicking in sofa to try to at least rationalise my horrid piles. Found one (1) of the two (2) fancy watch chargers I own, and not the one I was expecting to turn up (because I thought I'd probably mislaid it in a field), which hopefully means that given a leeeetle bit more fossicking I might even find the second.
5. Really enjoying playing with pens for the purposes of making notes on the pain reading. (Today has been Mindfulness for Health, with detours to read up more on the gate control and [neuromatrix] theories of pain; I was surprised that Model First Proposed In The 1960s is still apparently more-or-less the best we've got for "how the fuck does psychology and emotional affect and other sensory input actually affect how pain is experienced?")

It is warm. We have the bedroom window open at night. Dusk is currently around when we are heading to bed.

... I realised I could prop the bat detector up in the open window while we went about our Bed Things and it worked. (Alas A missed most of the activity on account of being in the bathroom, but Proof Of Concept still valuable.)

Other achievements of the day include "1.7 kg of redcurrants picked, processed, and in the freezer" and "finished All Systems Red: the reread" and also "almost finished The Way Out reread".

(I am so so pleased about the redcurrants; turns out that mulching and pruning heavily and watering... works?! Who knew.)

... is a placeholder because I am doing so badly at routines in general and bedtime routines in particular, still, augh.

Reading. Adventures in Stationery, James Ward. Not entirely sold on the way anecdotes were strung together, and definitely dubious about the broader social history, but a pleasantly undemanding diversion in a week where I really needed that and for bonus points it finally explained The Thing About Blackwing Pencils to me.

( Stationery nerding. )

Watching. One more episode of Farscape (S02E02 Vitas Mortis), while bleaching A.

Cooking. Mostly Pasta With Things. (Things have included "kohlrabi and misc other greens from the allotment" and "psuedo puttanesca".)

Eating. STRAWBERRIES. Have also nibbled, from the allotment: peas! broad beans! aforementioned kohlrabi! cherries! the first raspberries! redcurrants! jostaberries!

Exploring. ... bits of a field? OH and I bimbled down to the post office and, en route, checked how the local quince tree is doing. (FRUITING.)

Creating. Painted A colours!

Growing. Iiii just about made it to the allotment to water things on, like, Tuesday, but I have otherwise been... struggling.

... the ginger at home continues to go zoom, though! And I really really need to pot it on, eesh.

Observing. BAT.

I went "HOLD ON I HAVEN'T POSTED--" at 00:01 last night, when I had already been in bed but failing to sleep for about twenty minutes, and so I will tell you that part of the reason that I did not manage to actually post, actually yesterday, is that my reward for having finally e-mailed the headache clinic and said "so yeah I took my loading doses in mid-April, sorry I didn't manage to e-mail at the time, executive dysfunction has been eating my entire brain"...

... was of course a response like "well ideally your follow-up appointment would have been last week but, okay, fine, how about Monday? :|"

"... oh and by the way you know those questionnaires we want you to submit a minimum of a week in advance? yeah if you could get those done too--"

-- which: ENTIRE brain.

(I managed to confirm the Monday appointment. I did not manage to get the headache diary and questionnaires done.)

The watch tells me I achieved +102 "body battery" points, which I am amused to see.

But I have also visited the allotment (on my way back from physio) and have eaten: raspberries, a strawberry, a cherry, redcurrants, jostaberries, peas, broad beans, kohlrabi. V pleased.