I'm having a Good Patch. This year, it's been mostly Good Patches.
Friday, I ran flat out all day, doing housework and gardening, including chopping back overgrown lawn with scissors of all things. Only an hour and I cleared a surprising amount.
I say only an hour - that's an hour solid's effort. This is a bizarre amount for me to be doing, with getting up at each handful and carrying the grass to the bucket. I went on from that to make proper rabbit stew from scratch (including chopping the rabbit into servings), to do laundry and make up the guest bed, which is a king-size, so it's not easy. Then I greeted guests, Carol and Gary, saw to their needs and crawled to bed.
The next day, I got up, did my morning routine, took Carol to the Bodyworks exhibition and came home with her and Sessifet both. There was a side-trip to look at a Roman fort. I managed to be together enough to find the time of the train I wanted, notice at Bolton station that it didn't go through to Deansgate, stop and get food, water and tickets, get us on the right train and even arrive in Deansgate on time. My only anxiety was when we couldn't find the well-hidden group that were, from the main entrance, past the car-park, down spiral stairs, through another car park and under some columns. I call that well-hidden.
We saw dead people. They were very beautiful and strange. Then I came back and served us
the rabbit stew. Wisely, I decided to rest inside, instead of going out to the pub. I had a nice, quiet evening chatting with Gary and occasionally feeding him things. He made tea. We watched television. I had a wonderful time. I fell asleep on the sofa later on, being hair-fuzzled into a coma by Pol. I don't remember putting myself to bed.
Why did I need to rest? Well, on Sunday I had to be up at eight, to go on a walk. It was a long walk, and a hard walk, and my legs are sore. Claire came too, and I persuaded her, after, to come over to say hello to Carol and Gary. Then I felt peckish and offered a fried breakfast. But we were out of eggs and bacon and sausages, so off Claire and I walked to the Co-op, and back, and we both put on a slap-up feed, with toast even.
The day didn't finish there. Carol showed me how to heddle-weave, and I was able to pay attention, which was wonderful. No having my concentration 'bbzdt'ed away by blasts of migraine. Carol and Gary left, and Angela came over, so we went for a long drive. I coped with all of this.
Then, after Pol went to bed, I did another hour or two in the garden, losing more skin. The torn-off blisters on my hand are, at worst, mildly annoying, so I suspect my pain threshold is up, or I am Tramadoled to oblivion.
Stress-wise, I was getting a bit anxious about the neighbours shouting outside (playing with their portapool and getting into arguments), so I put on my Bolton Hospital relaxation CD and tried track 6, the body scan. It worked wonderfully and I don't even have too much of a headache to mark the day.
We'll see how I am tomorrow when all the excitement is over.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Thursday, 17 April 2008
In which the Rodent discusses meal planning and its online profile.
Look for Supermouse The Rodent, migraine on Google and what you get is myLivejournal. There's no trace of this blog at all. To be honest, that's the way I prefer it. It's just a mild nuisance when I am on a borrowed computer and don't have my bookmarks to hand.
My Livejournal is more or less a report to my friends of everything I've been up to. This blog is a report to myself and possibly medics about how my migraines and ME and other health issues are affecting me. It's much duller, on the whole, but neither are exciting.
Today I want to talk about food, meal planning and how migraines affect what I eat.
On Tuesday I baked trout stuffed with a mixture of sweet potato (which should be precooked), lemon grass paste, ginger paste (very little, but enough) and spring onion. I was intending to cook mackerel, but in my un-drugged addledness accidentally clicked the (much more expensive) 'responsibly raised' trout from some Lord's lake.
It was very nice. It was also three times the price of the meal I'd intended to have.
Migraines make it hard to budget. It's harder to plan a journey properly, because I get confused about when things are, what date is 'now' and what day goes with which date. Even with a calendar in front of my, I can get puzzled. It also makes it hard to work out where to get buses, so I end up with taxis a lot of the time out of a need not to have to think too hard. And, as above, they complicate meal planning.
ME does similar but with extra problems on top. You have the difficulty of planning, and the additional joy of not knowing whether or not you're going to be able to cook the food you've bought. Fresh trout looks very pretty in the fridge, but what if you then are exhausted from putting the shopping away, and can't cook it before it goes off? I eat more fresh food now, just because I can usually rely on myself to be able to cook, for example, fresh meat before it goes green and smelly. I use less tinned milk and tinned fruit. I cook proper meals and then have the energy to freeze portions.
Just as being rich lets people save money that the poor can't (tax rebates, bulk buying, better quality therefore longer-lasting goods), being full of energy lets me save energy. I can cook a huge meal and freeze it later in the same day or the next morning. I've been able to clean up the kitchen right away, so I don't have to scrub off dried-off gunk before I start portioning things out. The kitchen is tidy, so I can find the pen and the freezer containers.
The payoff is that for a while after a cooking session, I can just throw in a home-made frozen meal, nuke it for five-and-a-half minutes and know I've got good food going. I can use the getting-food-ready energy on other things, which might make it even easier next time as I shop for new ingredients and plant food plants so I can pick my own. And, of course, I save money too, money I can spend on taxis.
If I could plan food out properly, I'd save even more. I think, once the Tramadol is properly back in my system, I'll be more able to. I don't think it's worth taking a break of more than three days, just because the migraines then take such a hold that I spend days drugged up but no better off thinking-wise.
Last night, newly back on painkillers, I was in terrible pain and so the planned painting session didn't happen, but I did get to socialise and the planning ability was there, in that I knew it was Wednesday and I knew that Wednesday, therefore this day, was art day. I'd even managed to buy a vinyl table cloth for art, and remember I'd bought it, and put it out before the evening began. I'm quite pleased with the level of joined-up-thinking this implies. I am just greedy and want to be able to apply it to meals.
Tonight's dinner is tinned soup and Matteson's U-shaped sausage. The delicious taste of planning failure.
My Livejournal is more or less a report to my friends of everything I've been up to. This blog is a report to myself and possibly medics about how my migraines and ME and other health issues are affecting me. It's much duller, on the whole, but neither are exciting.
Today I want to talk about food, meal planning and how migraines affect what I eat.
On Tuesday I baked trout stuffed with a mixture of sweet potato (which should be precooked), lemon grass paste, ginger paste (very little, but enough) and spring onion. I was intending to cook mackerel, but in my un-drugged addledness accidentally clicked the (much more expensive) 'responsibly raised' trout from some Lord's lake.
It was very nice. It was also three times the price of the meal I'd intended to have.
Migraines make it hard to budget. It's harder to plan a journey properly, because I get confused about when things are, what date is 'now' and what day goes with which date. Even with a calendar in front of my, I can get puzzled. It also makes it hard to work out where to get buses, so I end up with taxis a lot of the time out of a need not to have to think too hard. And, as above, they complicate meal planning.
ME does similar but with extra problems on top. You have the difficulty of planning, and the additional joy of not knowing whether or not you're going to be able to cook the food you've bought. Fresh trout looks very pretty in the fridge, but what if you then are exhausted from putting the shopping away, and can't cook it before it goes off? I eat more fresh food now, just because I can usually rely on myself to be able to cook, for example, fresh meat before it goes green and smelly. I use less tinned milk and tinned fruit. I cook proper meals and then have the energy to freeze portions.
Just as being rich lets people save money that the poor can't (tax rebates, bulk buying, better quality therefore longer-lasting goods), being full of energy lets me save energy. I can cook a huge meal and freeze it later in the same day or the next morning. I've been able to clean up the kitchen right away, so I don't have to scrub off dried-off gunk before I start portioning things out. The kitchen is tidy, so I can find the pen and the freezer containers.
The payoff is that for a while after a cooking session, I can just throw in a home-made frozen meal, nuke it for five-and-a-half minutes and know I've got good food going. I can use the getting-food-ready energy on other things, which might make it even easier next time as I shop for new ingredients and plant food plants so I can pick my own. And, of course, I save money too, money I can spend on taxis.
If I could plan food out properly, I'd save even more. I think, once the Tramadol is properly back in my system, I'll be more able to. I don't think it's worth taking a break of more than three days, just because the migraines then take such a hold that I spend days drugged up but no better off thinking-wise.
Last night, newly back on painkillers, I was in terrible pain and so the planned painting session didn't happen, but I did get to socialise and the planning ability was there, in that I knew it was Wednesday and I knew that Wednesday, therefore this day, was art day. I'd even managed to buy a vinyl table cloth for art, and remember I'd bought it, and put it out before the evening began. I'm quite pleased with the level of joined-up-thinking this implies. I am just greedy and want to be able to apply it to meals.
Tonight's dinner is tinned soup and Matteson's U-shaped sausage. The delicious taste of planning failure.
Saturday, 12 April 2008
In which the Rodent settles back home and catches up.
I've been away, first to Nottingham, then to London. This has made it impossible to update my blog. It's also mean doing a lot of travelling, alone, which I got through just fine, even with all the physical work involved.
It's also meant taking Tramadol nearly every day for several weeks, and I want a break, even if it makes me very headachey. So I am taking a break from any sort of opiates and I've kept my calendar more or less empty. On Monday I have a flute lesson, Tuesday I have a walk in the morning, Wednesday I'll take drugs because we're having an evening of painting and chat and that's a huge problem without the drugs.
Day two drugless and I am headachey but still able to enjoy life. I am eating Skittles Crazy Sours when the pain hits, as a distraction. Oddly, the pain isn't much worse than without the opiates, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Yesterday was very busy, cold and wet. Today is bright and sunny after a cold, wet start. Neither weather pattern fills me with joy. Getting everything done I wanted to have done does make my life joyful. However, it's getting more difficult to join my thoughts together and do anything needing concentration or memory.
I have an appointment for relaxation training with the Pain Clinic, finally. It's this month, even.
It's also meant taking Tramadol nearly every day for several weeks, and I want a break, even if it makes me very headachey. So I am taking a break from any sort of opiates and I've kept my calendar more or less empty. On Monday I have a flute lesson, Tuesday I have a walk in the morning, Wednesday I'll take drugs because we're having an evening of painting and chat and that's a huge problem without the drugs.
Day two drugless and I am headachey but still able to enjoy life. I am eating Skittles Crazy Sours when the pain hits, as a distraction. Oddly, the pain isn't much worse than without the opiates, but my thoughts are starting to scatter. Yesterday was very busy, cold and wet. Today is bright and sunny after a cold, wet start. Neither weather pattern fills me with joy. Getting everything done I wanted to have done does make my life joyful. However, it's getting more difficult to join my thoughts together and do anything needing concentration or memory.
I have an appointment for relaxation training with the Pain Clinic, finally. It's this month, even.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
In which the Rodent reluctantly updates.
I recognise the signs. That urgh, don't wanna that says if I drop the blog now, I will never, ever, ever pick it up again and then I'll feel guilty, despite the fact that it's something I do for me and so far as I know there's a maximum of one other reader.
This blog is also where I talk about my migraines and health, an indulgence I don't allow myself as much rein on in Livejournal. This is a depressing blog about a depressing subject so a little urgh is to be expected.
Yesterday was bad. I woke up at 4am and went back to bed at 6am when the painkillers kicked in. Then I was woken up again at 8am, full of migraine. The migraines are a lot better if I am allowed to just sleep them off. Yesterday was another reminder of why I go to bed ridiculously early if I need to get up. I woke up because I got bronchitis which is a good thing, honestly.
If I exercise too much in cold weather, by which I mean to the point where I take in a nice, deep breath of cold air, I get a warning pain in my lungs which will invariably turn into a nice chesty case of sick-sheep-coughing bronchitis. This used to be a real problem when I was a child and a teenager, but it hasn't bothered me since I got ME because I haven't been fit enough to exercise to that level. Well, on Thursday I got my lungs seared climbing up Forest Hill Road in Nottingham carrying a week's clothes and my flute and laptop. This is why I woke up at 4am coughing sadly and unable to breathe well. A cuppa and some sitting up time made all better but it did not make me feel much better when I had to get up and start being active outdoors.
Yesterday I helped my sister move. Despite feeling very, very sick (nauseated) and bronchitic and with a pounding head moving between six and eight all day long, I managed to help my sister. She was upset because her landlord isn't getting basic things like her heating sorted out. I have been in crappy housing before. Her house is decent, but not when it doesn't have heating. I know how easy it is to end up just sitting in despair and when my mum said she'd been crying on the phone at the latest problem (shoddy workmen pulling cupboards apart to put in a fridge that doesn't fit) then I had an idea of what to do. I looked around and grabbed a few pretty things I knew she liked. My mum took her blankets and I greeted her at the door with a cushion she owns that has a very smiley happy yellow cat on. This got a smile.
We were sat in her sitting room all full of bags, lamenting how bad the landlord had been and how awkward it was not to be able to hang anything on any of the walls. It came to me that this was a miserable room but full of nice things and that it didn't have to stay miserable. I then got into bullying mode and spent a happy day mercilessly browbeating my relatives. I made her take all the rubbish outside which was a one-minute job she'd not bothered to do. I got a picture white-takked to a door and the blankets put away instead of dumped on the sofa, and suddenly we were off and the place was being put back together.
She said it was as if she was a junkie and we were running an intervention, because everything we made her do was so obvious and made such a difference but she'd just not been able to work out how to get started doing it.
The meter-cupboards had post and phone books dumped on top and looked depressing, so I made her put the phone books away and she white-takked album covers onto the white doors.
I had to argue with my mum about a fireplace behind the chair that the telly is currently balanced on. She told me not to decorate it because it was a depressing, dusty hole and half-hidden anyway. Now it has a little green dressing table (about eight inches high) my sister picked out, with a potter rabbit on top that sis had had on display in her old room and cheerful matching candles and it's a lovely little background note.
Her computer table has had a vintage scarf fastened to the front to hide all the wiring and I put her monitor-decorations back and cleared the table top but for her tiger-print mouse and pretty speakers.
The meter-cupboards have an album cover, a lot of pink tea-lights in stacks and a coloured tile. Her little tiled coffee table she'd stuffed into the corner is now on display, and the room-heater that was sitting on top of an old suitcase is now on her little table. There's a rug in front of her sofa. I hung up a light shade and covered the non-functional radiator. Suddenly the room is part of a home and not what it was before, which was a place to dump things.
Inspired by this, my sister did her room herself, unpacking everything and putting it all away. The task had seemed overwhelming to her, but we'd got things started and that's the hardest part, usually. When we struggled home at 8pm, it was all just about done.
Going home was awful. Since my sister was nearly done, we ended up staying in a house that was getting colder and colder, while we both got hungrier and hungrier and more and more tired. She did need us and I am glad we stayed, but I was crying with pain on the way home and threw up several times after I got back. I did manage to keep down some cocodamol and by 9pm I was back in the land of the living. It did make me realise how much better I've been recently. I felt so ill, but a few weeks ago that level of pain was normal living. I was also amazed at how well I functioned when in so much pain.
I read recently that slow release opiates should be taken for chronic pain (I mean, if you're going to take opiates at all) and quick-release for top-up. This accords with what I have worked out myself through trial and error, that if I take a single Tramadol in the morning of what looks to be a bad day, and perhaps another in the afternoon or evening, then I can top up with cocodamol and perhaps as a last resort have aspirin as well and I am unlikely to end up unable to cope with the pain.
Last year I was taking Tramadol as a last resort and of course I then needed more and often ended up unable to cope. The current regime suits me very well.
Today I've been out shopping and also spent a very happy time hanging my sister's earrings from a ribbon fastened along the top of a door. My migraine is at about a four after drugging up with tramadol at 4am and cocodamol at tennish. I feel so much better than last night.
This blog is also where I talk about my migraines and health, an indulgence I don't allow myself as much rein on in Livejournal. This is a depressing blog about a depressing subject so a little urgh is to be expected.
Yesterday was bad. I woke up at 4am and went back to bed at 6am when the painkillers kicked in. Then I was woken up again at 8am, full of migraine. The migraines are a lot better if I am allowed to just sleep them off. Yesterday was another reminder of why I go to bed ridiculously early if I need to get up. I woke up because I got bronchitis which is a good thing, honestly.
If I exercise too much in cold weather, by which I mean to the point where I take in a nice, deep breath of cold air, I get a warning pain in my lungs which will invariably turn into a nice chesty case of sick-sheep-coughing bronchitis. This used to be a real problem when I was a child and a teenager, but it hasn't bothered me since I got ME because I haven't been fit enough to exercise to that level. Well, on Thursday I got my lungs seared climbing up Forest Hill Road in Nottingham carrying a week's clothes and my flute and laptop. This is why I woke up at 4am coughing sadly and unable to breathe well. A cuppa and some sitting up time made all better but it did not make me feel much better when I had to get up and start being active outdoors.
Yesterday I helped my sister move. Despite feeling very, very sick (nauseated) and bronchitic and with a pounding head moving between six and eight all day long, I managed to help my sister. She was upset because her landlord isn't getting basic things like her heating sorted out. I have been in crappy housing before. Her house is decent, but not when it doesn't have heating. I know how easy it is to end up just sitting in despair and when my mum said she'd been crying on the phone at the latest problem (shoddy workmen pulling cupboards apart to put in a fridge that doesn't fit) then I had an idea of what to do. I looked around and grabbed a few pretty things I knew she liked. My mum took her blankets and I greeted her at the door with a cushion she owns that has a very smiley happy yellow cat on. This got a smile.
We were sat in her sitting room all full of bags, lamenting how bad the landlord had been and how awkward it was not to be able to hang anything on any of the walls. It came to me that this was a miserable room but full of nice things and that it didn't have to stay miserable. I then got into bullying mode and spent a happy day mercilessly browbeating my relatives. I made her take all the rubbish outside which was a one-minute job she'd not bothered to do. I got a picture white-takked to a door and the blankets put away instead of dumped on the sofa, and suddenly we were off and the place was being put back together.
She said it was as if she was a junkie and we were running an intervention, because everything we made her do was so obvious and made such a difference but she'd just not been able to work out how to get started doing it.
The meter-cupboards had post and phone books dumped on top and looked depressing, so I made her put the phone books away and she white-takked album covers onto the white doors.
I had to argue with my mum about a fireplace behind the chair that the telly is currently balanced on. She told me not to decorate it because it was a depressing, dusty hole and half-hidden anyway. Now it has a little green dressing table (about eight inches high) my sister picked out, with a potter rabbit on top that sis had had on display in her old room and cheerful matching candles and it's a lovely little background note.
Her computer table has had a vintage scarf fastened to the front to hide all the wiring and I put her monitor-decorations back and cleared the table top but for her tiger-print mouse and pretty speakers.
The meter-cupboards have an album cover, a lot of pink tea-lights in stacks and a coloured tile. Her little tiled coffee table she'd stuffed into the corner is now on display, and the room-heater that was sitting on top of an old suitcase is now on her little table. There's a rug in front of her sofa. I hung up a light shade and covered the non-functional radiator. Suddenly the room is part of a home and not what it was before, which was a place to dump things.
Inspired by this, my sister did her room herself, unpacking everything and putting it all away. The task had seemed overwhelming to her, but we'd got things started and that's the hardest part, usually. When we struggled home at 8pm, it was all just about done.
Going home was awful. Since my sister was nearly done, we ended up staying in a house that was getting colder and colder, while we both got hungrier and hungrier and more and more tired. She did need us and I am glad we stayed, but I was crying with pain on the way home and threw up several times after I got back. I did manage to keep down some cocodamol and by 9pm I was back in the land of the living. It did make me realise how much better I've been recently. I felt so ill, but a few weeks ago that level of pain was normal living. I was also amazed at how well I functioned when in so much pain.
I read recently that slow release opiates should be taken for chronic pain (I mean, if you're going to take opiates at all) and quick-release for top-up. This accords with what I have worked out myself through trial and error, that if I take a single Tramadol in the morning of what looks to be a bad day, and perhaps another in the afternoon or evening, then I can top up with cocodamol and perhaps as a last resort have aspirin as well and I am unlikely to end up unable to cope with the pain.
Last year I was taking Tramadol as a last resort and of course I then needed more and often ended up unable to cope. The current regime suits me very well.
Today I've been out shopping and also spent a very happy time hanging my sister's earrings from a ribbon fastened along the top of a door. My migraine is at about a four after drugging up with tramadol at 4am and cocodamol at tennish. I feel so much better than last night.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
In which the Rodent goes for a walk and then does other things instead of going back to bed to recover.
It's been snowing, raining and beginning to blow outside, thankfully after I finished a nice hour-long walk. Bolton Primary Care Trust have come to the conclusion that more people would walk if they had someone to walk with. I filled in the questionnaire last year that helped them to come to this conclusion. The result is a set of Get Active walks, where you turn up at, in this case, a local library and all set off together to tramp around a country park, taking in the sights and keeping up a flow of inconsequential chatter as a nice distraction from the fact you're outside in the freezing cold being weathered upon.
It works. I've spent a full hour, more than, walking around. On my own, I get too tired in ten minutes. I'm looking forward to going and doing it again. This after doing two sessions of tai chi over the weekend (I seriously recommend tai chi) and various running around for a science fiction convention.
Part of the mental discipline is going to be finding something innocuous to talk about while doing it. I've got a leaflet, Zeppelins over Lancashire, from the Bolton museum, so I'll read up and be able to spout off at will with any luck. I'm having a lot of fun gathering local knowledge and putting down roots like a dandelion.
I didn't feel, somehow, that I could share my memories of a fascinating weekend learning how to deal with a Cyberman invasion. Or about the really cool person in the really cool Jack Harkness outfit who got chosen to lead a team on account of being the most smartly dressed (and most hung over and least able to wriggle out of it.) Or the fun of watching a scenario writer seeing her scenario get played out and enjoyed while all goes to happy chaos. Or the mummer in a flame costume collecting money, or the table full of body parts, or the new author hawking his book (Johnny Nexus is his name, I forget the title of his book but I'm enjoying it so far). Or how cool it is to watch someone you know run a panel next to one of their heroes and manage to look as though he does this all the time.
I did share the tale of Pol giving me a lift back to the Travel Lodge and leaving me in the Landrover to go and get something. As he was coming back, the weather suddenly came up, with literally howling winds. There was a crow trying to land in a tree and being blown back, but it managed to get a grip and, once safe, sat watching poor Pol struggling across the car park as about twenty tonnes of hail and rain were dumped upon his head and blown up his nose. I was digging hail out of his ear when he got back. Of course, as soon as he got into the car and closed the door, all the rain and hail stopped.
We went off to get Moth and the traffic was so awful I had to call my flute teacher. She postponed me until 4:30 and I got through the lesson, albeit badly. I've had two doses of cocodamol and I feel not too bad now. Headachey but it's bearable. It's definitely a migraine. I'm not getting the space between migraines I was hoping for but I am functional and I am only taking about 50mg per day, and not even every day.
It works. I've spent a full hour, more than, walking around. On my own, I get too tired in ten minutes. I'm looking forward to going and doing it again. This after doing two sessions of tai chi over the weekend (I seriously recommend tai chi) and various running around for a science fiction convention.
Part of the mental discipline is going to be finding something innocuous to talk about while doing it. I've got a leaflet, Zeppelins over Lancashire, from the Bolton museum, so I'll read up and be able to spout off at will with any luck. I'm having a lot of fun gathering local knowledge and putting down roots like a dandelion.
I didn't feel, somehow, that I could share my memories of a fascinating weekend learning how to deal with a Cyberman invasion. Or about the really cool person in the really cool Jack Harkness outfit who got chosen to lead a team on account of being the most smartly dressed (and most hung over and least able to wriggle out of it.) Or the fun of watching a scenario writer seeing her scenario get played out and enjoyed while all goes to happy chaos. Or the mummer in a flame costume collecting money, or the table full of body parts, or the new author hawking his book (Johnny Nexus is his name, I forget the title of his book but I'm enjoying it so far). Or how cool it is to watch someone you know run a panel next to one of their heroes and manage to look as though he does this all the time.
I did share the tale of Pol giving me a lift back to the Travel Lodge and leaving me in the Landrover to go and get something. As he was coming back, the weather suddenly came up, with literally howling winds. There was a crow trying to land in a tree and being blown back, but it managed to get a grip and, once safe, sat watching poor Pol struggling across the car park as about twenty tonnes of hail and rain were dumped upon his head and blown up his nose. I was digging hail out of his ear when he got back. Of course, as soon as he got into the car and closed the door, all the rain and hail stopped.
We went off to get Moth and the traffic was so awful I had to call my flute teacher. She postponed me until 4:30 and I got through the lesson, albeit badly. I've had two doses of cocodamol and I feel not too bad now. Headachey but it's bearable. It's definitely a migraine. I'm not getting the space between migraines I was hoping for but I am functional and I am only taking about 50mg per day, and not even every day.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
In which the Rodent makes fish pie.
Today's not a bad day, although I am considering a nap before people turn up tonight. I woke up at half past four in the morning again and used the time to clean up, watch telly and get Pol his breakfast.
I don't feel quite up to going out, but given all of yesterday's activity, that is to be expected. I did have enough energy to make a fish pie.
This is my first attempt at a home made fish pie, so the recipe follows exactly what happened. The final recipe will of course be altered to produce a better result.
Home made fish pie.
Take two fillets of coley defrosted the night before.
Put on baking tray and sprinkle with sunflower oil.
Add a lime leaf to the top of each and cover only the top of each fillet with a tinfoil hat to protect it from scorching and thetans.
Place into cold oven because you forgot to preheat, at gas mark 4
Set timer for fifteen minutes.
Peel and slice five small/medium maris piper or other mashing potatoes.
Cover in cold water in a thin-walled pan and put on to cook. Immediately wash knife and chopping board to guard them from starch thetans.
Place about 30g/quarter of an inch of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan at a low heat. While it's melting, grate a sad little carrot which, while not at all rotten, is about a day past its best. Put grated carrot into the bottom of a small casserole which holds about three pints.
To the melted butter, add about a dessert spoonful and a half of wholemeal flour. Reflect on the sadness that leads to using wholemeal flour and thus turns white sauces beige. Leave to cook for a surprsingly long time on a low heat, to rid roux of all possible traces of flouriness (probably thetan-attracting).
Take God's gift to brocolli, which is emerald green and splendid and has been lording it over the sad carrot for the last day or so. Chop off a few florets and then finely chop until it's all little tiny green bits, because who wants to bite into a fish pie and get a soggy mouthful of brocolli? I like brocolli, but it has to know its place. Add to casserole with carrot. There should be about equal volumes of green bits and orange bits. Add same quantity of sweetcorn as there is of carrot and stir. Reassure delicate little vegetables that no one is going to pour tinned soup over them.
Stir roux, which is beginning to smell agreeably bicuitlike. Become alarmed at spitting noises from oven, and scared that the fish is going to be all scorched and dead. Pull out and examine. Discover it needs about another five minutes. Glance at timer, which has another five minutes to run. Feel smug.
Put fish back in oven, then stir roux harshly and add about half a cup from half a litre/just under a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Whisk very thoroughly and quickly add more before it turns into actual pastry and causes lumps. Whisking makes white (or beige) sauce feel loved. Once you've added enough to leave the end result looking like thin cream, if thin cream was beige and had bits of bran in it, turn up the heat just a little. Whisk very thoroughly one more time as a gesture of love, then leave it to do other things.
(At this point, if I had trouble standing, I would pour the sauce into a glass bowl and nuke it for a minute or two at a time until it had thickened to my satisfaction).
Turn oven off with two minutes left to go. Turn potatoes down and turn them over. Stir white (or beige) sauce. Chop a small onion finely, then eye vegetables and seemingly huge pile of onion. Add about half the onion to the mix and mutter about waste while discarding other half. Remove fish from oven and flake it into the veg. Be agreeably surprised at the pleasant, entirely foodlike smell which comes up. Stir sauce.
Turn potatoes off, empty into colander, then empty colander back into pan. Wash colander immediately to rid it of starch thetans. Go back to sauce, which can take just about anything except lack of attention. Whisk again to tell it you love it and then shake in dried or fresh parsley until the smell changes from a biscuity smell to a wonderful, only slightly herby parsley sauce smell. Adjust until the smell of the sauce seems like it would go well with the veg and fish mix. Add sauce to mix and discover that of course there's too much, but not by that much. Stir what is now finished pie mix and put to one side.
Mash potatoes, adding a pinch or two of nutmeg. You want enough to give a certain something, but not nearly enough to actually be able to tell the something is nutmeg. Spoon potatoes onto pie. Smooth over with a fork, reliving childhood days in nursery school and leaving patterns. Put pie into oven at gas mark 4 and set timer for half an hour.
Clean up kitchen, feeling good about life. Turn to leave, only to discover potato pan which has been beset by starch thetans. Battle and destroy all thetans, then clean up resulting mess from counter tops. Retire to the computer, cuppa in hand. Discover an hour later the timer has failed to go off, that the pie is fine and that next time you'll put it in at gas mark 6.
Next time I will also add butter and cream or milk to the mash, since it's a little too plain without.
Migraine pain got a little thumpy, about sixish, and then got splatted with tramadol. It's now down to a barely annoying three and spiking five only when kids play football outside. The pain bothers me less than the thumping.
I don't feel quite up to going out, but given all of yesterday's activity, that is to be expected. I did have enough energy to make a fish pie.
This is my first attempt at a home made fish pie, so the recipe follows exactly what happened. The final recipe will of course be altered to produce a better result.
Home made fish pie.
Take two fillets of coley defrosted the night before.
Put on baking tray and sprinkle with sunflower oil.
Add a lime leaf to the top of each and cover only the top of each fillet with a tinfoil hat to protect it from scorching and thetans.
Place into cold oven because you forgot to preheat, at gas mark 4
Set timer for fifteen minutes.
Peel and slice five small/medium maris piper or other mashing potatoes.
Cover in cold water in a thin-walled pan and put on to cook. Immediately wash knife and chopping board to guard them from starch thetans.
Place about 30g/quarter of an inch of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan at a low heat. While it's melting, grate a sad little carrot which, while not at all rotten, is about a day past its best. Put grated carrot into the bottom of a small casserole which holds about three pints.
To the melted butter, add about a dessert spoonful and a half of wholemeal flour. Reflect on the sadness that leads to using wholemeal flour and thus turns white sauces beige. Leave to cook for a surprsingly long time on a low heat, to rid roux of all possible traces of flouriness (probably thetan-attracting).
Take God's gift to brocolli, which is emerald green and splendid and has been lording it over the sad carrot for the last day or so. Chop off a few florets and then finely chop until it's all little tiny green bits, because who wants to bite into a fish pie and get a soggy mouthful of brocolli? I like brocolli, but it has to know its place. Add to casserole with carrot. There should be about equal volumes of green bits and orange bits. Add same quantity of sweetcorn as there is of carrot and stir. Reassure delicate little vegetables that no one is going to pour tinned soup over them.
Stir roux, which is beginning to smell agreeably bicuitlike. Become alarmed at spitting noises from oven, and scared that the fish is going to be all scorched and dead. Pull out and examine. Discover it needs about another five minutes. Glance at timer, which has another five minutes to run. Feel smug.
Put fish back in oven, then stir roux harshly and add about half a cup from half a litre/just under a pint of semi-skimmed milk. Whisk very thoroughly and quickly add more before it turns into actual pastry and causes lumps. Whisking makes white (or beige) sauce feel loved. Once you've added enough to leave the end result looking like thin cream, if thin cream was beige and had bits of bran in it, turn up the heat just a little. Whisk very thoroughly one more time as a gesture of love, then leave it to do other things.
(At this point, if I had trouble standing, I would pour the sauce into a glass bowl and nuke it for a minute or two at a time until it had thickened to my satisfaction).
Turn oven off with two minutes left to go. Turn potatoes down and turn them over. Stir white (or beige) sauce. Chop a small onion finely, then eye vegetables and seemingly huge pile of onion. Add about half the onion to the mix and mutter about waste while discarding other half. Remove fish from oven and flake it into the veg. Be agreeably surprised at the pleasant, entirely foodlike smell which comes up. Stir sauce.
Turn potatoes off, empty into colander, then empty colander back into pan. Wash colander immediately to rid it of starch thetans. Go back to sauce, which can take just about anything except lack of attention. Whisk again to tell it you love it and then shake in dried or fresh parsley until the smell changes from a biscuity smell to a wonderful, only slightly herby parsley sauce smell. Adjust until the smell of the sauce seems like it would go well with the veg and fish mix. Add sauce to mix and discover that of course there's too much, but not by that much. Stir what is now finished pie mix and put to one side.
Mash potatoes, adding a pinch or two of nutmeg. You want enough to give a certain something, but not nearly enough to actually be able to tell the something is nutmeg. Spoon potatoes onto pie. Smooth over with a fork, reliving childhood days in nursery school and leaving patterns. Put pie into oven at gas mark 4 and set timer for half an hour.
Clean up kitchen, feeling good about life. Turn to leave, only to discover potato pan which has been beset by starch thetans. Battle and destroy all thetans, then clean up resulting mess from counter tops. Retire to the computer, cuppa in hand. Discover an hour later the timer has failed to go off, that the pie is fine and that next time you'll put it in at gas mark 6.
Next time I will also add butter and cream or milk to the mash, since it's a little too plain without.
Migraine pain got a little thumpy, about sixish, and then got splatted with tramadol. It's now down to a barely annoying three and spiking five only when kids play football outside. The pain bothers me less than the thumping.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
In which the Rodent has much less trouble getting around.
Suddenly I am fit to go out alone.
Yesterday I failed to get to Rochdale. I missed one train and was too tired out to get another, but the thing is, I looked the train times up myself. I can't articulate why this is so difficult for me when not on strong narcotics, but it is. Yesterday it was simple. This morning, it was simple and I finally got to go.
I didn't just go to Rochdale. I visited the vet there, went to a supermarket and bought everything I wanted to without getting lost or frustrated. I got a taxi to the station and was able to read the signs and make a judgement call as to which train to get home again, finding myself in Manchester Victoria. I did have a small time of being lost, but it resolved fairly quickly and I got myself to Platform 6. It is nice being able to read signs and have them mean something. It's nice to be on a journey and at all times be aware where I am going and why.
Not only did I do all this, but I also had a successful flute lesson. The notes aren't waving lazily around the lines any more, which is making note reading easier. I am still flailing, but that's my own muppetry acting. I can deal with it being muppetry. It just means I need more practice doing sight reading. Ugh.
After the flute lesson I wandered around Bolton town centre. There's a museum and aquarium. Previously, I have spent unfun hours, literally hours, tramping around unable to follow the maps and getting lost. This time it took me about two minutes to work out where it was. Still slow, but I walked straight from the map to the museum and got to see everything and talk about fish care and filters with the two knowledgeable men. One had an enthusiastic air of knowledge, the other had a mop. I ended up suspecting the chap with the mop was probably the senior person there.
I didn't bother with the fake Egyptian artefacts, saving them for another day, but I did get myself a Hall I' Th' Wood mug for £4.75.
No Tramadol (yet) today. Cocodamol at the point where a football being kicked around outside started driving me barmy and I realised I was in pain and probably more cocodamol very soon, but no Tramadol. Tramadol yesterday and Tramadol tomorrow because it's Wednesday and I will have people over. Pain is at about a 5. Annoying but bearable.
Yesterday I failed to get to Rochdale. I missed one train and was too tired out to get another, but the thing is, I looked the train times up myself. I can't articulate why this is so difficult for me when not on strong narcotics, but it is. Yesterday it was simple. This morning, it was simple and I finally got to go.
I didn't just go to Rochdale. I visited the vet there, went to a supermarket and bought everything I wanted to without getting lost or frustrated. I got a taxi to the station and was able to read the signs and make a judgement call as to which train to get home again, finding myself in Manchester Victoria. I did have a small time of being lost, but it resolved fairly quickly and I got myself to Platform 6. It is nice being able to read signs and have them mean something. It's nice to be on a journey and at all times be aware where I am going and why.
Not only did I do all this, but I also had a successful flute lesson. The notes aren't waving lazily around the lines any more, which is making note reading easier. I am still flailing, but that's my own muppetry acting. I can deal with it being muppetry. It just means I need more practice doing sight reading. Ugh.
After the flute lesson I wandered around Bolton town centre. There's a museum and aquarium. Previously, I have spent unfun hours, literally hours, tramping around unable to follow the maps and getting lost. This time it took me about two minutes to work out where it was. Still slow, but I walked straight from the map to the museum and got to see everything and talk about fish care and filters with the two knowledgeable men. One had an enthusiastic air of knowledge, the other had a mop. I ended up suspecting the chap with the mop was probably the senior person there.
I didn't bother with the fake Egyptian artefacts, saving them for another day, but I did get myself a Hall I' Th' Wood mug for £4.75.
No Tramadol (yet) today. Cocodamol at the point where a football being kicked around outside started driving me barmy and I realised I was in pain and probably more cocodamol very soon, but no Tramadol. Tramadol yesterday and Tramadol tomorrow because it's Wednesday and I will have people over. Pain is at about a 5. Annoying but bearable.
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