Mmm, foooood.

Everyone should go to The Works on New Street (or possibly wherever you happen to live) and pick up the little square recipe books. They're about an inch thick and called things like "Fish Dishes" and "Meat Treats" and are jam-packed with simple, effective recipes. Paul bought two from the book man at work (the pasta one where I got the chicken / gorgonzola / mushroom thing from, and "Breads and Baking", where I got the scones from) and I bought three more - the two above and one of puddings. They are absolutely brilliant.

I made the one below the cut last night because I had the ingredients and it was better than fish and chips. And, well, it's basically glorified fish and chips anyway. This is from memory, so forgive anything I may miss out...

( Potato Boulangere with Sea Bass )

Nothing else to report. Paul and I played a couple of games of Scrabble last night because it had been ages. During the Heatwave of 2006 we played Scrabble endlessly because it was too hot to do anything else...

Whilst dinner was cooking I also finally got around to consolidating my two versions of "Whisper" (the POTO fic) because I've been working on it at work but there was some stuff I did at home, and I was getting confused. Both versions are now the same, so I can follow the narrative better. Before bed I also finished my POTO fic in some rough fashion, and will attempt to tidy it up either tonight or tomorrow and hopefully post the final chapter at some point thereafter, and then I can get back to "Strange Glue". Whilst it would be appropriate if the story actually got back on track in time for New Year's, as that's when the penultimate chapter takes place, I was hoping to get it done before now...

I'm reading a very good book at the moment: Tracey Chevalier's The Virgin Blue. It's about two women born centuries apart who are connected, and the chapters alternate between the modern-day setting and the C16th setting. I'm finding the latter a lot more interesting and last night ended up reading two of the insanely long chapters instead of one, just so I could find out what happened next tonight. It's been quite a while since a book sucked me in. Possibly my reading-geek is coming back after English Lit killing it off. :)

Anyway. Nearly lunchtime...

I can not has tired?

So, I'm not at choir. I've been bloody knackered all day and just want to go to sleep, and the thought of not getting back until 9.00pm just filled me with dread. I got home at 6.00pm and lay down but sleep would not come, as the aforementioned story-narrative-thing ("Three Strikes and Out") was going through my head demanding attention. I want to write it, but I don't know if I want to share it... or, well, I DO want to share it, I just don't think I should, if that makes sense. It will contain a lot of things I really want to articulate, but I think it might upset people.

That is to presume, of course, that anyone would read it in order to be upset by it.

So instead of trying to sleep I got up and did something instead. As a result, jackiesjottings, your parcel is now ready to go and I'll take it to the Post Office tomorrow. Completely forgot to package it up last night.

I've been starving all day.

I'm feeling a little ambivalent about the whole choir thing, to be honest. As much as I want to do the Christmas concert, I find myself not enjoying the experience as much as I always used to. Instead I dread Tuesdays because they are long, and by the time I get to rehearsal I'm tired and cranky. Choir used to be something I would make time for, and these days I feel more like it's just taking up that time. After two years, I still don't talk to anyone there above greetings and occasional chats, and even though I didn't join with the intention of creating a new social circle (I have enough of those already, thank you), I do sometimes wonder if that would have made it easier or more enjoyable. Part of the reason I enjoyed choir so much at school - apart from the music making and the actual activity of singing - was because my friends were there as well.

I always feel ambivalent about it at this time of year because it takes me a while to get into the flow of it again after the summer break. I really enjoyed the Mahler and the opera concerts last year, just as I enjoyed the performance at Tewkesbury Abbey the year before that, but I'm usually not so ambivalent as to consider not bothering at all. I'm getting bloody sick of being tired lately, for no apparent reason, no matter how much sleep I get, and I hate it especially when that tiredness is so pervading as to interfere with things I should be enjoying. Except I don't think I do enjoy things really, any more.

There was a point earlier this year when I thought things were getting better... but lately I've just been trying not to fall into a slump. My writing keeps drying up for increasingly longer periods of time; this time it's not because I can't do it, it's just because I'm too exhausted to try. The ideas come rushing at full pelt lately (I had another novel idea on the bus this morning, once again thanks to the Metro) but I end up in this position of "Eh, what's the point" and never bother to take them further.

I should write "Three Strikes..." and get it over with. I think some of this stuff needs to come out of my brain.

I'll stick at choir until Christmas and then see how I feel.