Occasionally Snarky and Meta

The weekend began with oppressive, 38 degree heat that didn't really leave the air until after 9pm, and the fright of my life when I — along with other residents of England and Wales, received a government emergency alert on my phone blaring uncontrollably at 7pm on Friday. The alert was warning of a total fire ban; I, in an Australian manner, had been quietly horrified all summer that such a ban hadn't been in place, since water restrictions and total fire bans in times of extreme heat and drought have been a routine part of the summer since my childhood.

( Small rant )

Right, let's move on to nicer things. I spent a lot of time yesterday out in the garden, sweeping up the mulch (which the resident blackbirds immediately hurled all over the garden path again, as they do every day), pruning the lavender plants and bundling the dried flowers into bunches tied with string (I now have hooks in the kitchen skylights where I hang massive bunches of drying herbs, slowly creating the cosy plant-filled kitchen of my dreams), picking apples and tomatoes, and doing other bits and pieces that I'd been putting off due to the extreme heat. I need to ferment some more tomatoes, as we have far more ripe on the plants than we'll ever be able to eat.

On Saturday evening, Matthias and I headed out to Saffron Walden for one of the planned day trips that I mentioned in a previous post. This was made more complicated by our train terminating abruptly at Cambridge, with all further trains in that direction cancelled due to a problem with a level crossing, but astonishingly in such circumstances, the railway staff had everything in hand by the time we left the cancelled train, and we were whisked into a (free) taxi, along with four people travelling to Stansted, and dropped at Audley End station only about ten minutes later than planned. We then walked the forty minutes into Saffron Walden, along a winding country road, past bleached wheat fields, stands of ancient trees, and old stone walls, until we found ourselves on the approach to the town centre. We wandered around a bit, admiring the various independent shops and historic wood-framed houses, and ended the evening having a fantastic dinner at this place, which has only been operating for six weeks, and which was outstanding. It's a tiny little space (apparently it was a former hairdresser shop), and only seats about fifteen people, all along a bar where we could see the food being prepared and hear the chef talking us through everything. The whole ethos is foraged/local food (right down to the herbs and spices, which are all things found in England), minimum waste (almost everything got used multiple times, such as a cream cheese that was infused with a kind of flavouring made from the peelings and scraps of vegetables eaten in other courses; there was a lot of fermentation and pickling and fruit and vegetables infused in alcohol), and limited storage (they only have two tiny bar fridges). Absolutely incredible! Some of the other guests there had spent the whole day in Saffron Walden, visiting a local winery for lunch, and staying overnight in a little hotel in the town centre, and I think both Matthias and I were keen to do the same thing at a later point.

I haven't really made much progress with reading, in spite of having ample spare time. I'm making my way painstakingly through a reread of a six-book series of Celtic fantasy that I loved in my early twenties, and am feeling embarrassed on behalf of my younger self. I can totally see why these books were among my firm favourites, but they are really, really not good at all. But I will save a detailed accounting as to why until I've finished all six. Those are my current work commute and lunch break books — I usually have another book on the go as 'reading at home' material, but this weekend, I've been a bit distracted.

Beyond that, it's just been a lot of pottering around at home and wrestling with the rather confusing Bulgarian rail tickets website in advance of our holiday. We will succeed eventually!