#NanoPoblano – Scribble & Scran

No lie in

We both woke at alarm time this morning without the alarm! It’s like a law of physics, when you don’t need to get up you can’t sleep and then when you do need to get up you can’t. If it had been a school day we’d have been flat out. Both in need of that extra hour to refresh. It’s elusive and for no reason.

We decide to get up and make the best of the dry morning the rain is due around 11, in search of a second coffee perhaps something to go alongside. We end up at old haunt, nothing taking our fancy on the way. Soderberg, a Swedish bakery and we know we won’t be disappointed from an eats point of view. The coffee is good just not big enough. The service slow, it’s ok there is no rush today.

We swung by the bookshop, I was hoping to check out the new book by Anja Dunk, Advent. Unfortunately not in stock. I was also hoping to pick up some wheat gluten, which I’d checked on line to see if the store sold it. Again though not in stock. So not very successful. Then the rain came, with a howling wind to the bite we didn’t hang around.

Back home pre lunch is unusual on a Saturday and I as watch the leaves dance on the wind, the rain at a diagonal with the wind crashing against the windows I’m glad I can stay in the rest of the day.

Dinner this evening is already in the bag, I made a slow cook aubergine and lamb stew Thursday evening so I’m hunting around for a dessert to perhaps fill my time. The trouble is it will come with a bout of guilt. There is a tub of sour cream in the fridge crying out to be used and I’m wondering about a cheesecake recipe and wondering if I’d be able to freeze half. I feel I’ve left it too late in terms of cooling down. The veg box came with a couple of beetroots almost the size of foot balls so I feel a chocolate beetroot combo might be the way to go.

The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Natalie the Explorer that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.

Cold Brisk Walk

At about nine last night as we were sitting down for our hour of TV for bed a moment fo dread came over me as I realised I’d not been out all day. Caught up in work, my thoughts and organising I’d failed to make sure my eyes saw something more than four walls.

Woke in the middle of the night a frequent occurrence, probably related to my lack of external light intake and the whirring in my brain. I flipped on the radio to help and came across a great little programme on food and the small changes we can make.

One small change – The Food Chain Your stories of small, achievable changes around food to help the environment.
BBC Sounds – World Service

Thankfully this morning I’m able to make light a priority, a dry morning, crisp and cold. The cars covered in what looks to be the regular arrival of the frost for the season. I made it up Blackford Hill, catching the sun as it arrived for the day. A good round trip of forty or so minutes and I’m feeling better for it.

Right here is…

I’ve got the words of Debbie Allen in my head as she plays Lydia Gray in Fame….’right here is where you start paying; in sweat.’ …..it plays out as I think about NanoPoblamo21..and the whole post a blog entry every day and I think about the goal to pull a cookbook together, it’s a dream, so I need to start the work and get on with it!

More a reflective ramble as I try to get back into the habit of writing daily. I’ve been skirting around the edges for a few days, perhaps weeks if I think about it honestly. I already feel like I’ve lost the month despite it only being the 3rd. The things I’ve written never whole in nature. I dabble with my thinking in OneNote and then share as and when required. The ideas have been building up and I really want to start shaping the structure of these thoughts.

I also dabbled on Facebook today with a page to share posts on moving forward Scribble & Scran on Facebook, think it needs a few likes to make it real.

One recipe to Rule them all

Came across this book on my travels over the weekend, kind of aligned to some of my thinking on a couple of recipe spreads. My thinking that from the basis of an onion you have the foundation for a great many things. Soup, stews and curries.

This book has the premise that from one stock you have the basis for a number of soups. On deeper reading, a cup of coffee in hand. I can see the quantities jump around and the stock is more a pre-requisite to the different recipe. My thinking is a little different in that the onion will be part and parcel of the recipe…..no discards. Not that I won’t give the recipes a go in this book and learn.

Onion, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and away we go….

Covered Cave

My computer cave has been squashed up into a corner, shut down and put into hibernation. The sash and case windows that have served the house for a hundred years and then some need replacing. The breeze that comes in from the tiniest of cracks is unreal, and has been known to tickle the goosebumps. The dust on top of the books on the top shelf is unnatural and can only be caused by particles drifted through the house on the breeze.

We’ve had some windows replaced before, a gradual process as we work through the house, save the money and pick of the rooms that need it most. It’s an upheaval, workmen in the house, banging, shouting, grunting and dust where the house is opened to the elements as the old windows are removed back to the stone.

So the weekend coffee share is one of carnage as we put rooms back together, the hoover doing overtime, soapy water and a clothe to clinch the final deal.

The coffee is a welcome break, and I thank you for stopping by, we discuss the black Friday offers….and they can make one black with the hunt.

Food wise, if you’re looking for a chocolate pudding……this one is a keeper Chocolate Tahini and Banana Pudding from Nigella. It’s a welcome highlight to the day after all the cleaning and If there were any left I’d share some!

The #WeekendCoffeeShare is an informal weekly link-up hosted by Eclectic Alli that serves as weekly heart beat and sort of of a mind-dump. Helps me reflect on my week, with a list of achievements, thoughts and rambles normally whilst drinking a beverage probably listening to music.

It’s come round quick

Fruit Cake

It’s Saturday already, it’s come round so quick. I’m back from the morning messages and a simple light rye loaf with blue cheese for lunch. It’s time for a post lunch coffee and the weekendcoffeeshare.

I’m gearing up for painting the porch, it’s a small affair, a long over-due job probably not been touched in 20 years. I can understand why though, a hotch potch of corners, nooks and crannies. The meter is there for the electric, the fuse box and coat hooks. It’s going to be fiddly.

I’m off the Saturday cooking duty as a consequence; which is a little disappointing, at the same time nice to be cooked for….although that is the case most days! I enjoy the weekend spot and the routine of producing something new.

The Guardian today, had various recipes for lunch time cooking whilst at home. I cannot see myself going anywhere near them given the amount of time between online meetings. Where one meeting ends and the next one starts with the touch of the screen on the iPad. I am taken by the roast chicken legs and radicchio (tomorrow nights tea). Then there is the easy weeknight root vegetable fitters and slaw with Sausages….probably Monday’s tea.

TV has so much going on at the Moment. I’m late to the Mandalorian, and caught up quickly, about to start the next series (no spoilers please) with the youngest. Star Trek Discovery, my guilty pleasure just keeps giving…and nobody is interested in the house but me. Then the BBC has got His Dark Materials an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy and the whole family seems to appear for the Sunday sit down which is nice.

It’s time to start making the fruit cakes if you wish to feed them in time for Christmas, another thing that’s come round quick. The smell lingers in the kitchen for hours….a smell that always takes you by surprise, but right back in time to my grandma’s kitchen.

The Fear

Chair, Headphones

The 7 day streak is long gone and the fear of keeping it going has to. It got too much for me I have to say. That and a number of other things like staring at the computer screen for 12 hours a day over the last few days. A mammoth milestone at work coming to fruition this weekend.

I’ve managed to shape some kind of routine where the first hour of the day is my own over the last few months. If I do manage to not hit the snooze button it starts with a bit of yoga, an attempt to stave of the back pain from sitting in a chair all day. A bout of fresh air, although it’s dark now. The bonus of the shift in daylight hours long gone.

Breakfast, I’m working through some chocolate porridge concoction from Jamie’s Superfoods, the boys tried it once and I’ve since been left with the consequences. It’s a date, cocoa and hazelnut affair, that grows on you as you get to the bottom of the bowl.

I then take my coffee or tea through to front room, head phones on, Einaudi, breathe and then read for the remaining time until such that I need to plug into the real world.

I’ve got through a few leadership books that have sat on the shelf for a while, a treat for me if I get through one book is to intersperse with a lunch time interview with the FT. 42 interviews combined in one book, the rich and famous, an eclectic mix that make me think about the world differently.

Rather than read this morning, I’m plugging away talking to you and if you’re still reading this, then thank-you for your time as it’s precious! I’m sat in the armchair next to a big old fireplace, I’m still powering up with piano music and wondering what lays ahead for the Friday. I hope you have a good one.

Nanopoblano Week 1

View from Arthurs seat to the pentlands

Woke to a strange sky this morning, Edinburgh enveloped in a shrouded mist with patches of blue. The sun was welcome as a source of heat, slowly working it’s magic. Inspired me to a long walk around Arthurs seat to take in a the fresh cold air. A welcome day away from the office and a chance to soak up the last of the Autumn colours.

Brunch out with the boss, a masked affair that saved us having to worry about making lunch, and then a few bits and pieces to supplement the menu for this evening.

Leak and bacon buckwheat pancakes, served with a rocket, sweet potato and avocado salad.
Hazelnut chocolate pots to follow.

With such an early lunch, there was time to crack open the fruit cake (we are not mentioning the C word yet) with a cup of coffee…..which I would gladly share if we were having coffee.

While we were having coffee I would tell you about WordPress and its constant need to tell me about my daily streak. I made it to 7 since last week, the start of nanopoblano regardless of quality! I’d tell you that a daily blog habit is quite hard if you want to provide meaningful content, at the same time as keep to the daily grind of a project that has a major milestone in the next week.

Having missed yesterday’s post I’m now wavering around the journey that I have put myself on. It’s something to add into the mental health stakes of both working from home all day on a computer to add in another item that I need to do. I’m trying to reframe it on the basis it’s something I want to do…..but with an active mind there are another million and one things I would like to do as well. On a postive, My Nanopolblano challenge has given me focus though, making me think daily alongside visiting some other great blogs.