Alexander
posted this on Facebook. Easter was just a month ago! Now he's got not ducklings but ducks.
I finished
the first Pakokku sock last night, including Kitchener’ing and minimal tidying,
and cast on the second one.
Notice how the stripes change and broaden on the foot before the toe-shaping starts. What will happen next?
I also got
Craftsy at last on my husband’s new Toshiba – it kept trying to say I wasn’t
connected to the internet, which was absurd. Wow! It works, here on my aged
desktop, but it’s slow to load and the lessons stutter a bit. There, I was
sitting across the dining room table from Franklin
while he showed me how to sew an edging on.
I’ve got to
do something about this. Getting a new computer, I mean. As well as practising
whip-stitch.
Yesterday’s
post brought chilli fertilizer and mist-er and seeds. Once a week, the bottle
says, for fertilizer – so Monday is Chilli Fertilizer day, henceforth. Misting
is easy and fun and I can do it every day. I’ll let you know whether I think it
improves pollination.
I am filled
with enthusiasm for chilli-growing. Here is a plant which seems very happy on
the kitchen windowsill, safe from deer and rabbits and slugs, and which
produces a useful crop. I mean, it’s not kohlrabi. There would be room for one
or even two more. I have ordered a chilli-growing book.
When
Alexander and Ketki lived in London ,
they had a little conservatory on the back of the house. James used to bring
back exotic Chinese chillis to order. Alexander cooked with them, and also grew
chilli plants in his conservatory from the seeds.
I have
never had much luck with growing vegetables in pots on the doorstep, except for
herbs. I am about to try again – sorrel and Welsh onions and huauzontle. I hope
to get that started today.
Today’s
main problem is what to feed the young woman who is coming to lunch tomorrow.
She has been delegated by the publisher to edit my husband’s work and to plug
the gaps where there are questions that need to be answered. My go-to lunch for
situations like this, where a certain amount of nervous tension is involved (we
have not met before), is a Jamie Oliver salmon tray-bake with French beans and olives
and anchovies and little tomatoes. It’s easy to cook and – very important, in
the circumstances – easy to eat.
The trouble
is, it’s what I fed the publisher himself when he was here six weeks ago. What
if tomorrow’s woman goes back to London
and says, “She gave me some very nice salmon”? And he will say, “Oh, I had
that; it must be the only thing she can cook.”
But I’m
damned if I can think of anything else.