Arabihen nights aka why my play script has muddy footprints on it

Posted by louisa on Thursday 1 March 2012 in chickens | 1 comment

Lime the chicken has dramatic aspirations.

“Why there no role for chicken in play? I could even play duck or turkey, I has range.”

“Well, if not starring role, how about backstage? I helps with the page markers.”

“Mmm, neon is my favourite flavour.”

(In related news, today has been a lovely day and I sat out in the garden to do some non-computer work & have a cup of tea. It wasn’t quite warm enough really but it was still very nice. Hurrah for spring-like days!)

Things from the last week

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 13 July 2011 in eating, growing | 6 comments

Last week was our “summer showcase” production week at drama, meaning I was there every night, and most afternoons, for either rehearsals or shows. Compared to how unprepared everyone was at the start of the week, they pulled off some great performances on the night/s. I’ve also learnt a lot about what to do, and what not to do, for future years.

That took up a lot of my time – free or otherwise – so I didn’t have time to do much else. I did though have to do some crafty stuff for the show – making props/costumes, including most notably some six-fingered gloves (they looked rather weird!). Drama productions really do draw on a lot of different skills – we didn’t have a lot of costumes/set for these ones but our big shows in April draw on lots of people’s craft skills. If you like sewing or building/painting stuff, and want a new outlet, I’d definitely recommend joining an am dram group.

John did some fab cooking for us to keep me well fed last week, including a lovely lasagne, layered with our homegrown courgettes. Last year showcase-week was the week when all my courgettes grew into marrows without me noticing – this year, I made sure to pick them. We now have a shelf in the fridge full of courgettes and I know there are at least two in the garden that needed picking yesterday. I must make them into ratatouille for the freezer.

After the show finished on Sunday night, I gave myself some playtime on Monday. I made a big batch of pizza base dough – which grew into an insanely big batch in the perfect-rising-temperature porch! – and made lots of bases. As I said on Twitter, my pizza bases don’t usually qualify to be euphemised as even “rustic” in shape so I wanted to try a lot in one go to figure out the best way to do it. By the end of Monday afternoon, I hadn’t perfected it but I feel a lot more confident about shaping them than I did before. I also part-baked all the bases, which seemed to result in a stable-but-very-thin pizza, which made me happy. And we’ve got four part-baked bases (and a couple of batches of dough balls) in the freezer for super quick homemade meals in the future.

On Monday, I also ate some out of date (cured) sausages. I’ve had a long time love of sausages and I thought the feeling was mutual. It was not. Yesterday was a slumped-on-the-sofa and bland food day as a result.

I’m still not feeling perfect today but I thought I should check in. How’ve you been?