Like Trying to Hide the Daylight From the Sun

1. did eventually get myself out to the plot (after aborting the first attempt and going back to bed when I realised I'd made it almost to the main road without my bike helmet). successfully acquired More Saffron.
2. cooked a lot of beetroot, most of which I grew, for dinner -- one of the books I acquired from Oxfam just for interest, The Modern Vegetarian, has a "textures of beetroot": keftedes, tzatziki, a bulgur pilaf and a salad using the greens. I had a mix of colours, and the ombre gold-to-pink were very pretty in the salad. (and picking over the leaves very, very carefully yielded a tiny snail! who is now in the viv.)
3. I am continuing very slowly on the mend from the probably-a-cold from nearly a month ago: today I didn't get any active minutes walking up and down inside the house to hit step goal.
4. the post brought Fancy Chocolate. even some of it is Fancy Chocolate in my preferred flavour of same!
5. I have somehow achieved having my accounts almost agree with reality about how much cash is in my wallet! and I think I've found the remains of at least one Missing Receipt in the back pocket of a set of trousers, which does at least provide an explanation. it is very satisfying when I actually manage this.

Went to the Autumn London Pen Show! Got the Lamy 2000 EF nib ground down to a needlepoint by Thomas Ang! Did not properly notice until settling in to play with it properly that it's got this amazing slightly stubbish character to it! And he also tweaked my Platinum UEF nib to be slightly less Horrendously Dry (which had somehow not occurred to me as a solution), and... having now settled down for a bit more writing for the evening, I think I might actually really like having two UEF/needlepoint nibs to use different colours of ink in.

The idea was to reduce the number of pens in regular use by dint of retiring the Platinum, not increase it. Oh no.

Some other things! The Rudi Rother Pelikan is even prettier in person; I still do not get the appeal of Leonardos (though to be fair I think my sense of their general appeal is massively skewed by That One Very Active Person who thinks they're The Most Beautiful Pens In All The World); the Visconti Van Gogh series do not impress me any more in person than they do in photographs; next time I can justify buying another TN insert The Inked Paw are delightful and we had an excellent chat and Trying Each Other's Pens while I was in Thomas Ang's queue (and they slightly discombobulated me by asking me if I had an Instagram when I flipped through my notebook to show what I use the UEF for...)

... yeah no I am just absolutely delighted by this ridiculous pen, EXCELLENT outing + date activity, Ben's Cookies also successfully acquired, Very Happy.

You know the way I just said -- I just said -- that I had worked out how to make wagamama's current menu yield something I was actively enthusiastic about eating?

WELL GUESS WHAT. THIRD TIME UNLUCKY.

I had really not expected the pad thai to vanish in a menu overhaul, okay, what on EARTH.

(So we came home and ate butternut squash & quince stew instead, and maybe by the next time it is Ritual Wagamama O'Clock I'll have resigned myself to eating something that isn't The Thing I Just Worked Out.)

This morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).

Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.

So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)

Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.

1. Bookshop.org is now doing ebooks in the UK. Unlike Hive, they do not apply DRM to everything. V excited about this!
2. I think -- think -- I have worked out an Acceptable Wagamama order, at least for the time being. I'm mildly annoyed about needing to order extra vegetables in order to have enough vegetables in my vegetable noodle dish, though. (The yasai pad thai + wok-fried greens is not My Favourite Thing They've Ever Done, but it is better than anything else I have managed to make the current menu disgorge. Which is useful, because we have A Routine, and it involves Wagamama.)
3. I have POACHED SOME QUINCE (I am turning windfalls I located round the corner into cake, and the Gift Quince are probably going to turn into a Ruby Violet sorbet recipe). I am going to make a cake, probably with added bay leaves, as I think I mentioned, probably tomorrow but the quince won't hurt for spending a bit longer sat in syrup. I am contemplating the merits of showing up on the doorstep of the folk with the quince tree, with some cake, and being all "hello yes I made this with windfalls onto the public path, I will very happily make you more things :) out of quince :) if you don't know what to do with them :))) which I am KIND OF ASSUMING YOU DON'T given that the branches overhanging your garden are still COVERED IN THE THINGS, unlike the branches overhanging the public byway..." (The social anxiety almost certainly means I won't actually do this, but I am, you know, considering.)
4. Meanwhile today's poking around at recipe books introduced me to the concept of medlar sticky toffee pudding, which is now extremely high up my list of things to do with this year's medlar as and when we get any. (Recipe is in a book I'm not actually going to get from Oxfam, or at the Torygraph.)
5. I continue to really enjoy looking at the Pelikan Art Collection pens (further links from within that one). It is possible I tripped and fell and spent more time reading about them this morning.