Sunset from Hill House, Mount Helen. February 2024

Monday, June 18, 2007

A Blue weekend

Hmmm. Must move that hose before the visitors arrive tomorrow. Otherwise someone’s going to trip over it and break their neck. But first I must just get on and do this.

Ambled back inside. Carried on with whatever it was I was doing. Looked out window. Bugger. It’s raining again, and the washing was virtually dry. Ran down the path to the washing. And launched into the air. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Splat. Bounce. Bounce. Hmmm. Can’t get up. Must get up. Washing and I are getting wet. Rolled over. Hauled myself up to my feet very, very slowly. Began bringing in washing.

From behind, The Builder said: “Shall I help with the washing?” Grrrr. “Wouldn’t you like me to help bring in the washing? Mutter mutter mutter. “But which washing shall I bring in?” Bring in bloody **dry** washing!!! Scuffed back all the bark I had knocked out of the currant bed (just as well I didn’t land on one of my little currants!) Went back inside. “Are you all right?” asked The Builder. “You seem quite remarkably and very suddenly cross”. Showed him my poor, poor knees. He hadn’t seen my spectacular, at speed trip over the hose. I thought he was remarkably laid back about it all! And he had been wondering what had happened to fling all the bark around so much

And now you should see my knees. I have the most amazing bruises. My back is absolutely knackered. My wrist hurts. My ankle hurts. I can hardly move!! Freyja has suggested that I should stay here on L3 of the Adsetts Centre all day – and send a runner when I require tea, coffee or anything else from L4!

Back at The Builder’s birthday party in April, Paul made the somewhat startling observation that humans are psychologically incapable of eating blue coloured food because there is no naturally occurring blue edible food. This was a manifestly absurd thing to say. Think of the late, lamented blue smarties. Blue heaven milkshakes. Blue, bubble gum flavoured things. Paul stuck to his guns. “If you colour mashed potato blue, then people will not eat it.” Rubbish, said Tabitha, with whom Paul was having this conversation. Freyja and I were dragged into the debate. And eventually it was decided that at Tabitha’s 30th birthday we would have a blue theme. And we did.

Happily, the rains of last week, and the expected rains of this week held off yesterday and we could all sit outside under the gazebo The Builder bought a few weeks ago for tuppence halfpenny. Paul and Carol were there (just as well, it being All Paul’s Fault!). So was Gill, though not Peter and Alex, for they are in France. Ginger Rich and Rob came. We didn’t have blue pre-lunch snacks because I didn’t really think about it. We did have blue mashed potatoes with our roast lamb and pork (and veggie alternative) though. And I coloured the roast potatoes blue. And made blue gravy (flavoured with tarragon, savoury and garlic.) I had provided uncoloured mash, because Ginge is allergic to artificial food colourings. There was no blue mash left. Not a scrap! There wasn’t much white mash either, but there was a bit. And a blue pavlova with white cream and blueberries and raspberry sauce is quite spectacular to look at. Freyja had decorated Tabitha’s birthday cake with blue icing and blue not-smarties. At the end of the day, there was not one crumb of blue food left! It seems that Paul was wrong! (Though he may, of course, have just been winding Tabitha up!) However, it has to be said that he is right that it is difficult to eat food that has been merely splashed with blue. I got a tiny bit of blue on my fish on Friday, when I was playing with the dye, and had to force myself to eat the blue bit. It looked as if it had gone off - though I knew it hadn't. I did eat it, though. And very yummy the fish was, too

It was quite fun making blue food. Although I have discovered that putting lots of e-numbers in the shape of blue food dye in your diet makes your poo a rather fetching shade of blue as well!! Was quite a shock this morning – though I should have anticipated it, given what loads of beetroot does!!

But I think that the next time I have a Sunday afternoon party, I shall take the Monday off. It was an awful scramble getting off to work this morning (despite the fact that I have been awake since 4) and the house is not yet back straight!



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