My heart bleeded, girl

This was my Yuletide story for 2024, a Peter Wimsey story that focuses on Harriet, and her relationships with the women in Peter's family (and one or two others).

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Work was nuts today, especially since I was out on Friday and some of my cow-orkers apparently just waited around for me to come back instead of sending an email themselves. Plus I had 2 committee meetings (unusual - we try not to do that unless we absolutely can't avoid it) but luckily 1 only lasted 15 minutes, so I was able to knock out the minutes in about a similar amount of time. *g*

Yesterday I roasted some ears of corn, and ate 2 for lunch and then scraped the other 3 into a big bowl and the added some crumbled up bacon, 2 pints of really beautiful grape tomatoes, some little pearls of fresh mozzarella, a sliced vidalia onion, and some salt and pepper, oregano, basil, rosemary, and thyme, and dressed it all with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! I will make some orzo to add to it for lunch over the next couple of days and I am looking forward to it.

I also finally hit upon a good way to cook hotdogs without a grill - in the broiler. I don't eat them very often but a couple times during the summer I get a craving, so when they go on sale, I sometimes snag a pack and some soft, cheap buns to eat with them. Of course, since I have the palate of a 5-year-old, I still prefer ketchup on my hotdogs, but since I live alone, there's no one here to judge me. *g*

*The Dodgers, not the Mets. Sigh.

***

In the space of a few minutes I got an email from Rosie saying class was cancelled today. A message from Kayleigh saying she'd taken Bodhi to nursery, and it was actually closed for a teacher training day, and one from James saying he'd slipped in the toilets at work and banged his head.

So, now I have a free morning but am both expecting a request to Bodhisit, and for James saying he's coming home.

The slip in the toilet annoys me. The disabled toilet James uses also contains a shower the staff can use, and when people do so they never seem to mop the floor properly and leave it slippery, which is a disaster combination. It'll all officially get written up, but whoever decided to put an open shower in the disabled toilet is an idiot. It's not like it's a cubical either, it's literally a shower in the corner of the room surrounded by a curtain.

It was our wedding anniversary yesterday. We don't celebrate as such, but did go out for Sunday lunch to Prego and as always the food was delicious. Apart from that it was the usual grocery shopping and getting ready for the week. I was looking at some of our wedding photos that came up on my phone memories, and so much has changed since then, including the loss of mam, my FiL and nanna. I still laugh at nanna being in every photo, she planted herself in a comfy chair and wasn't about to move, no matter what family grouping was being arranged. But, she was late 90s then, so deserved that chair. I do miss her, she was one of a kind and such a wonderful woman and nanna.

Saturday we went back to Beamish and did the last part we've never walked before. What we didn't know before heading there was it was a big transport event, add that to it being a sunny, warm day and one of the last days of the school half-term holidays. Well, it made for a very busy Beamish. Thankfully, with it being such a big site people spread out and there were only crowds and queues around the main shops/cafes, so we bypassed those altogether. We did get to ride on the steam train, which was a 30-minute queue for a five-minute ride. But, it was fun, and not a hardship to wait.

Saturday evening was the season finale of Doctor Who and all I can say is, I wasn't happy. I watched all the Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith eps, then stopped watching until Ncuti Gatwa who reignited my DW love. So yeah, I didn't enjoy that episode at all, for many reasons.

And, there's the message from James to say he's been sent home. Nothing from Kayleigh yet, so one of them must be off today. Now, lets hope I haven't just jinxed myself.

So, the Doctor ( spoilers )

What *is* it with Americans and mashed potato? I read this morning about THREE weddings that had "a mashed potato bar". One of them involved three different colours of potato (white, sweet, and purple) served in martini glasses, with a choice of toppings. It's mashed potato. I mean... what is the allure?

I fear that if I turned up at a wedding reception and discovered a mashed potato bar, I would be baffled rather than impressed, and if there were 'cocktails' of mashed potato I would assume somebody was demented.

*

BIL's birthday yesterday, we had a guided tour around the city, and by 'we' I mean Beast, BIL, Boy, Bun and Bun's Chap, plus six of Beast/BIL's cousins who'd come over to Norwich for the weekend. Today they are all coming here for lunch. I shall be peeling things in a very few minutes.

The tour was very interesting, although it would have been good to see a few more Interesting Bits and have the talking in smaller lumps, as it did mean standing in place for a while every time we stopped. Still, there is a lot of history in Norwich, and our guide told his stories well. I have now felt the nipple in the flint wall (for good luck)(it's a thing, apparently), and learned about how Sir Thomas Erpingham got away with murder, or at least manslaughter, and how a sixteen-year-old girl held off an army with only forty-two men-at-arms. What a hyphen-heavy clause that was. And many other things besides, which I shall no doubt forget.

Afterwards we went to Biddy's Tea Rooms for cuppas and cakes/scones, and had a jolly good chat.

Recs update!

unfitforsociety has been updated for May 2025 with 13 story recs and 2 vid recs in 3 fandoms:

✭ 12 Batfamily
✭ 1 Star Wars
✭ 1 Avengers vid and 1 Star Wars vid

***

I bought some string cheese a couple weeks ago on sale and today I breaded and fried it into mozzarella sticks. So good to eat! So messy to clean up after!

I slept poorly again last night - I had to shut the window while it was raining, and I don't know if it's the barometric pressure that's been giving me these headaches, but I don't like it. At least this cool rainy weather meant I made it all the way through May without turning on the AC. It looks like I will probably start needed it next week though. Last year, I signed up for the thing where they charge you the same amount each month to smooth out the ups and downs, which I've grown to prefer to the $110 swings in my electric bill come summer.

In other news, I learned that there really is a cocoa shortage and I'm not imagining it. So I'm glad I stocked up from King Arthur. Unfortunately, the bag had a small tear in it, so everything in the box it shipped with was covered in a fine dusting of cocoa powder. 🤨 But I washed it all and transferred the cocoa into a ziplock so it's all nice and tidy now.

***

I slept very poorly last night and woke up with a blinding headache and some serious nausea, so I called out of work and went back to bed for a couple of hours.

I keep meaning to post then forgetting what I want to say, since it's mostly just about work. I did get several amazing photos of Baby Miss L in a Spider-Gwen outfit with a hood (with a glittery pink mask on it), a cute blue spider on the torso (when I first saw it, I admit my initial response was "Khaji Da?" so it's more scarab than spider but also she's 2 and a half, so) and a skirt decorated with webbing. It's so cute and she apparently approved of it by saying "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!" in her specific toddler lingo. And the Superman dress finally arrived so I hope to see pictures of that soon, too! Also, she has taken to carrying her Easter basket over her shoulder like a purse and calling it her bag, so she is definitely getting a headstart on her fashionista personality.

In other news, I was reading some fic I was otherwise enjoying but I will never ever ever understand why in EVERY SINGLE FANDOM I have ever read fic in, there are some gobsmackingly awful non-canon nicknames that proliferate. Sometimes for characters who already have a canonical nickname, so why? I mean, I get that the use of a nickname can be intimacy marker (much like the switch from last name to first name, or full first name to canon nickname), but the fact is, none of the characters this is applied to would ever allow themselves to be called these names by ANYONE, not even an intimate partner. The worst is when Jason calls Talia "Tals." NO. WHO thinks TALIA AL GHUL, DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON, is going to let ANYONE call her "Tals." No, really, meet me in the parking lot, I just have some questions.

I also don't understand when people apologize for...well, anything really, in their author's notes, but especially when they say shit like, "Sorry this chapter is mostly dialogue! We'll get back to the introspection soon!" I mean, I guess some people don't like dialogue??? Obviously mileage varies. But it is frequently the best part of a story for me. If your story holds off on dialogue for too long in favor of maundering introspection, I will likely wander away and never come back (like, obviously if it's a 900-word plotless character ramble that's fine, but then you are not posting it in chapters, at least I'd hope not).

I guess if you're not confident in your character voices, dialogue can be difficult, but you're still going to need to get the character voice right in the narration/introspection, and some characters are not really going to be doing a lot of introspection at all, even in their own heads, so it's even harder to get them right. Which is probably when it's time to revisit canon. But I admit, dialogue is pretty much the easiest thing I find to write, so possibly it's just me.

*

I have often referred to the Middle of Nowhere, Norfolk. There's a lot of it, hereabouts.

I now know exactly where that is. I drove along Nowhere Lane today. There is a property there called The Middle of Nowhere. https://www.staythemiddleofnowhere.co.uk/about You can stay there, if you like.

*

I went to Nowhere Lane in order to visit the Bug Parc, and to meet up with nopseud and her family. We had a very agreeable visit, chat interspersed with bugs large and small. The big, leaf-sized katydids were particularly impressive, there were giant (gigantic!) snails, a butterfly house that felt like walking into soup, which probably explains why one of the butterflies spent quite a while trying to drink from me, there were millipedes, beetles, all sorts. Cockroaches do look quite a lot like Priuses. And there were two wonderfully twined ropes with ants marching along them in both directions—carrying large pieces of leaf to the giant pot, and coming back to the plants for more leaf pieces.

*

Very enjoyable evening at chorus, practising Christmas songs while our regular MD is away.

Earlier, I got a text from Rosie saying she's going to send out a survey about what people think of the weight management programme and what else we'd like her to include. But also, that she was thinking of changing the day of class, so it won't be on a Monday at 11am but instead on a Tues/Wed or Friday morning at 9:30. And, do not want. I like having class on a Monday, so I know my week has started. The survey hasn't come yet, but I really hope the majority don't want a Friday.

My MiL's visit went well, and we dropped her off home on Monday. Like I mentioned in my last post, she watched the Sunderland match with James -- they won, yay! on Saturday and on Sunday we went out for lunch at Prego, the restaurant we like at the seafront. We had a nice day, but then my MiL wasn't feeling well in the evening ( cut for minor medical stuff )

I watched the series finale of The Last of Us, and ( Read more... )

On misbegotten 's rec, I've been watching The Pitt, and man, what a show. I was so invested, and watched the last ep this afternoon. Talk about a gut punch and something wringing all emotion out of you. It's such an interesting format for a show, with each episode being an hour of the shift. I really think it works very well in terms of engaging the audience, and I'm really interested in how season two will work considering the format.

But yeah, a rec from me too if you like gritty medical shows with excellent writing and characters.