Another cold and cloudy days, but without rain thankfully. I benefited from getting to bed just a bit earlier and slept well, so I got up before Clare did, which is unusual for me. It meant I could start the breakfast by cooking our Saturday pancakes for a change. It's ages since I last did this, and was pleased with the result. It was the first time I used a smaller frying pan rather than the big standard sized one, and found it much easier to cook with. No burnt or broken pancakes! Savoury as well as sweet pancakes is what we do these days. It's good to have the variety.
Clare made jam using dried apricots yesterday. Unfortunately the jam stuck to the bottom of the pan and carbonised. It seemed like the jam would taste terribly burned, but the apricot flavours came through with a slightly caramelised sweetness, pleasant and hard to reproduce. She found a new remedy for burned pans on-line, using boiling water with sodium bicarbonate added to it. The jam jar labels read 'Burnt Apricot', written before we discovered the surprise flavour.
After breakfast, following up on a request from Ruth to take Communion to housebound nonagenarian Ray I phoned him and made an arrangement for a visit next Thursday, after I take Communion to Sandra. Then I went to Iceland opposite Canton Library to buy packets of Brace's Welsh Cakes to take to my sister June on Monday as these were a success last time I took them. Then I improvised a veggie pasta sauce, by frying together a leek, a parsnip, a chunk of cabbage, some sunflower seeds, with herbs spices and garlic. I never combined these three like that before and was pleased with final flavour. A day of two culinary successes. Good for morale.
After lunch I made an effort to prepare the four sets of reading that are required for next weekend with Advent 4 falling on Christmas Eve. Now they're all ready to email to the usual recipients on Monday. I have services morning and evening tomorrow. It eases the pressure of the 'to-do' list. Then I went over to the big Tesco's on Western Avenue where there's a phone shop, to buy one for my sister. I wanted to get her a Motorola phone, though not necessarily as powerful or expensive as mine unless the price was right. Her needs are less varied than mine. The key issue is battery life. She uses my old Samsung 2016 model. Even with a replacement battery it doesn't hold its charge well. Battery life and quality has improved greatly over the past seven years. The Samsung has at least introduced her to the workings of a smartphone, and Motorola ones don't have nearly as many added Samsung apps that few bother to use getting in the way and confusing things.
The Moto e13 I bought for her was £89, including a PAYG SIM card and a ten quid top-up voucher to boost her phone credit. It's a clean and simple version of Android on a phone which came to market in the UK about nine months ago. It has the same amount of memory as my Moto G22, but a less powerful processor, which won't make that much difference to her. And the screen will be bright and sharp for old eyes, and the sound a lot better. I'll keep the SIM card, in case it comes in handy in an emergency. I still have my Blackberry to use at home with wi-fi on occasions when having two mobile devices is handy. Before walking back, I went to the Aldi store nearby, and bought a couple of bottles of wine for Christmas. All their really fancy bargain buys had sold out.
It was quite dark by the time I reached home, and the park was almost deserted. Clare was holding a study session meeting in the lounge when I arrived, so I pottered around in the kitchen. Then we had a surprise visit from Fr Stewart with thank you Christmas gifts a Rioja for me and a poinsettia for Clare. How very kind!
Earlier I had intended to go to the coach station and buy a ticket for a trip to London Monday - Tuesday, but ran out of time, so I booked on-line instead. The National Express user interface has improved and seems to work faster than it did a year ago. Still easier for me on a laptop than on the phone. I never feel I have as much control over a small touchscreen. Or the big one on my Chromebook come to think of it. Coach takes twice as long, but is a third of the price, and does away with the underground section of the journey, as Victoria Coach station is just a ten minute walk from the train station. No need to queue for a ticket now that tap and pay is available for travel to Wandsworth Common. The train is great if available time is constrained. The coach station is a fifteen minute walk from home instead of thirty five to the train station. It's good to have such convenient options when planning a trip.
Clare asked me to accompany her to King's Yard near St Catherine's church where Pipes Craft Brewery and The Wardrobe Coffee House occupy areas of an old industrial space, which houses craft markets and assorted social and musical events in a warehouse space on the site which has been renamed 'The Yardbird'. It's a venue where her jazz piano teacher George McDonald is expecting to perform in a few months time. She wanted to confirm this with the guy who runs jazz events there, but we didn't leave until nine, so she could meet local drummer Finn who manages Jazz events, to check if George's group is scheduled. A gig was just finishing when we arrived, and I had to hang around while she hunted him down and chatted, and we were back by ten.
Kings Yard is very much a work in progress, scruffy exterior, with piecemeal adaptation and renovation of spaces in use, and prodigious use of strings of white lights to cheer the place up. 'Derelict chic' might well describe it. The place is privately owned by a couple who bought it with the aim of making it a community venue. It's popular and well frequented by young adults with a sprinkling of bald or grey headed older people in the beer drinking crowd.
Other other side of the street, a yard next to the Co-op and behind the row of houses has been converted into several retail units, with a gift shop, hairdresser, cafe snack bar. This looks a lot smarter catering for daytime clientele, whereas greater number frequent King's Yard by day and in the evening. When moved into Meadow Street fourteen years ago, the Co-op was still an antique furniture store using what had been Pontcanna's dairy and bottled milk distribution depot. The Co-op bought the site and then gentrification of the neighbourhood was destined to take off. The King's Road site was bought just a year earlier. A visionary initiative indeed.
I was glad to get home and start winding down, satisfied to have got everything done as intended for a change.
No comments:
Post a Comment