Finally resolved the void! After the plaster had dried, I sealed with with diluted PVA and gave it two coats of white paint. Then turfed all of my stuff (all two bags of it) out of my room and moved the hammock to the living room, and transformed it into something that looks more like an actual bedroom, for guest use this month.
Stacked a beach crate on beach bricks and filled it with compost to expand my garden even further. Planted radishes, chicory and land cress in it. A second hungarian hot pepper sprouted in the loo roll seed trays on my windowsill! But it looks a bit unwell.
The Cloud Garden, looking lovely.
Summer in Dysart. Dad and Ruth came to visit. Lunch in Anderson's.
Took Dad and Ruth to the craft fair in West Wemyss. It wasn't very exciting, but they were happy. I walked back along the beach while they took the bus.
Ginger cake that's "just like mcvities". I followed a recipe to achieve this, which involved a lot of sugar (caster, golden syrup, molasses). But it went down well with the family.
A full size quiche for the first time using chickpea flour batter. It was quite soft inside, but tasted great, and my pastry was fab (as usual).
Also featured: a rhubarb and blueberry cake with coconut cream and rhubarb banana jam in the middle; a standard shepherd's pie, the dish I make when I need to feed a crowd but have no energy left.
My latest mushroom pins have all aborted, my sourdough starter went mouldy in the fridge, and I rescued my inside tomato from a giant slug this morning.
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rhiaro 2020: I have exactly one 35L backpack of stuff, am attached to none of it, and the idea of more is horrifying.
[ [ pandemic ] ]
rhiaro 2021: would you like to come and look at my collection of oil paintings in the flat that I am renovating?
(I don't actually have a collection of oil paintings.. yet.. I'm thinking about buying a couple though.)
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Deconstructing the old, slightly gross, bathroom, with a hammer. Fortunately the tiles came down easily without too much disruption to the underlying plasterboard. And then work begins on putting new tiles up.
I now own a grout gun.
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Early morning routine of touring various Kirkcaldy industrial estates with my Dad in the van every other day is developing.
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Dysart summer.
Put art on my walls. Unprecedented level of settling in.
Cooking for four, stretching me to my limits, but a vegan fryup for three with limited stove space is the kind of logistical challenge I love to solve.
Also made a fancy pasta with spelt shells, sweet potato coconut sauce, roasted nuts and green veg. Multiple crumbles, and rhubarb jelly.
At the Community Kitchen: many flatbreads, plus vegan cheddar (that had not set when I left; not sure how it turned out).
New things sprouted (chicory, land cress and radishes in the crate) and other things are growing! Tomatoes are maybe looking bushier, and kale and broccoli and chard certainly are. Bok choy looks spindly but doing its best. Some basil and a couple of parsley are going to make it. Planted out a new cucumber (who had a head start in the polytunnel) to replace the one that died. Very proud of my runt radish, who is now the best of the bunch.
The alien orchid has sprung two beautiful purple flowers!
The mushroom pins that popped up at the start of the week aborted. Chopped up the substrate of the healthiest (most populous) looking bag and layered into new substrate for a second round of incubation. Put the other bag in a compost bin. So let's see if they go anywhere.
A morning swim from Dysart beach with Dad. An afternoon jaunt to Largo.
More summer in Dysart. Fancy dinner with Dad and Ruth in the Duchess.
Slug damage on the orchids. But new purple flowers on the bromeliad.
Surprise (to Dad, not to me) visit from H.
We let a radish go to seed, and it is getting massive.
In my footpath garden, chard and broccoli are looking bushy. Attempt 2 at bok choi sprouted.
Lots of extra people in the flat, so lots of extra food. Lemon pie, apricot cake, pancakes, haggis/neeps/tatties and other meals for the family. Lasagne at Community Kitchen. DIY birthday cake in a jar for K. Sourdough with H's Greenland starter.
Outing to the Pittenweem sea pool, and the chocolate shop of course.
Beach ambling, and H's departure after sibling lunch at Koku Shi.
H and R separately spotted mushrooms growing out of a tree in Ravenscraig Park. They're dryads saddle - delicious. The next day, a trip through the woods near Wemyss yielded a lot more of them, but we wait a bit to see how they grow.
My sister spotted a large and interesting bracket fungus in Ravenscraig Park, and I soon learned this is Dryad's Saddle, aka Pheasantsback. It's edible so long as it's soft. R and I went questing to our nearby woods, and found loads more! Some of it was small, so we left it to grow a bit. But went home with absolutely tons.
The taste is bland but the texture is excellent and it takes up whatever you cook it with, so it's fab for marinading, even just in soy sauce, or putting in a stew. It smells mildly of cucumber. If you leave it out, or even in the fridge for too long after picking, it'll fill up with worms, so it's best to process and cook it as soon as possible.
A secondhand TV cabinet from Furniture Plus, transformed into a bathroom sink unit. I sanded it down (much more work than anticipated, despite help from friends and tools) then re-varnished it a darker colour. Also boosted the height by a couple of inches with some scrap wood.
Dad did the work of making the holes for the sink, and plumbing it all in.
I learned to grout, and grouted a lot. Also spent much time cleaning dried on adhesive off all of the tiles (grumble).
The sink, shower, and toilet got plumbed in, the shower screen up, the floor down, and a new bath panel made from fragments of the old one plus flooring. It's almost there.
Back to the woods to see how the dryad's saddle are doing. They grew! We harvested a shit ton. We've taken to referring to the trees which have an abundance as "dryad's fountains".
We also found a cluster of nice oysters on a precarious log, and some jelly ear mushrooms too. Plus, lots that I don't know and are probably not edible.
Rate of orchid decimation has finally decreased from 2-3 slugs per day to 0-1 slugs per day.
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Many calzones in Community Kitchen. Teriyaki dryad's saddle steak (with sticky rice, asparagus, tomatoes) was a big hit. Plus made (some to freeze) several other dryad's saddle dishes: with noodles, broccoli and peanut sauce; with coconutty curry; with tomato and Italian spices; with Chinese spices and jelly ear; simple stir fry. Also made chocolate brownies, rice pudding, lasagne.
I just caught a slug on my orchids because I heard it chomping, over various not insubstantial background noises.
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A giant Scottish thistle has joined my footpath garden. And sprouted a mushroom.
Things are growing.
Caught a loud orchid slug.
Misc Dysart/Kirkcaldy.
On a late night wander through Ravenscraig Park, we found chicken of the woods! I spotted it! I knew it was important even though I'd never seen it before. A lower down bigger one was a bit old, but we harvested it. A higher up smaller one that was young so we left it to grow.
We proceeded to a small woodland in the middle of Kirkcaldy, and found some oyster mushrooms! We filled up a box, and well pleased with ourselves, thought that although it was getting late, we should probably do a quick scout of the rest of the surrounding area to see what else was about.
Then we had a mushroom emergency.
Multiple logs, absolutely bursting with beautiful oyster mushrooms, in perfect condition for harvesting.
But we were at capacity! It was getting dark! What to do?!
I phoned for backup.
K gracefully interrupted here evening to come and rescue us with a car and several large boxes. What a night! We picked as many as we could, and were up late cleaning them.
Two days later we returned to pick what we'd left because it was too young, or we just couldn't fit it. And got another massive load.
Processing oysters is a lot of work, and they really really need to be sorted quickly or they fill up with worms like the dryad's saddle. But worse. So we bottled litres and litres of three kinds of mushroom soup, stock, and cooked batches more to turn into pie filling and freeze. Plus, we ate loads of them too.
