Theme of the Month Wash-up: Quiet

This month has indeed matched up with the expectations - it has been a far quieter month than previously.

One thing that has been quite noticeable, though, is that on almost every forum that I've been talking with people we seem to have run out of things to say. Nothing much is happening to generate new conversations, and so the well just runs dry. Which is a shame, but I suppose not really unexpected.

Next month is likely to see things start to get back towards normal as we proceed with the unlock, which in theory at least should see new conversations being generated. I guess we'll see...

Things I Miss, and Things I Don't

During the lockdown there have been various things that I have missed for obvious reasons - seeing friends, family, and even colleagues; going to church, and for other outings. I'm not going to talk about those here, since they are indeed obvious. Instead, there are a few things that I have missed more than I thought, less than I thought, or in a surprising way, and it is those that I thought I'd discuss here...

My Commute: Not surprisingly, I don't miss the drive to the office and back. For the most part, it was just an annoying drain on time, a source of frustration, and something I'm quite glad to be without. But...

The commute did have one thing going for it, and that was that it gave me time. Specifically, time by myself to try to decompress after the day, before getting into the various activities of the evening. In lockdown, my 'commute' consists to leaving one room and going into another, and just doesn't provide that airlock. And what I'm really missing is:

Time to Myself. Prior to lockdown, there was a block of time on Friday afternoons when, almost every week, I had come home from work, LC was still at work, and Funsize was at nursery. And so I got a couple of hours in the house by myself with very little requiring my attention. In lockdown, that's gone.

To a certain extent, I've been able to carve out a little time by continuing to get up early, even on weekends (thanks, insomnia!). Though even that is far from certain, since Funsize is quite likely to wake up at the key time. It's not a particularly good block of time anyway.

Costa: This was an occasional treat that became a weekly treat (on my way back from Tesco), and it is something I miss. But, again, there's a caveat - once lockdown ends and Costa reopens, I think my intention is not to return to my previous pattern. The issue is that the cost really does add up, and it's been something of an eye-opener to see just how much money I've been saving by being forced to buy everything in a one-and-done Tesco shop. All those little "occasional treats" really should go.

Band Practice: I thought I'd miss this, but I find that I haven't really. I mean, band's fine and all, but... I just haven't missed it. I think part of the issue here is that we don't really learn any new tunes, and we don't really practice for anything, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to the point. But maybe that's just general malaise.

Being able to "just pop out". This one perhaps fall into the 'obvious' category, but I do miss being able to think of something I'd quite like to do and being able to just go and do it. Though, again, I'm not sure that's something that will revert to normal even when things do start back up again.

Day 150: Update on Goals

It's day 150 of the year, so here's the update:

• Books: By day 150 I should have read 24.59 books. I'm somewhat ahead of target. I'm also up-to-date on all sub-lists, and have finally finished "The Count of Monte Cristo". So that's all looking really good. In fact, my biggest concern now is that I'm running short of reading material, but I'm working on that.
  
• Weight: No progress since the last update. I'll need to take some action here.
  
• Blogging: I'm pretty much right on target on both blogs.
  
• Work: This continues to go well, mostly. I'm due my annual appraisal soon, so we'll see just how true it really is. But, either way, I won't be talking about it (much) here.

So, everything is actually going pretty well. I'm rather hoping that by the time of the next update the lockdown may be over, or at least much relaxed, but we'll need to see how true that proves to be. That in turn may have an impact on the progression of the goals, so we'll need to see how it goes. The next update is in July, so we'll see then.

#24: "The Count of Monte Cristo", by Alexandre Dumas (a book from The List)

#25: "Blindness", by Jose Saramago (a book from The List, and now the leading contender for book of the year.)

Experimental Cookery 2020: Chilli with Nachos and Cheese

This one comes from the Hairy Bikers "One Pot Wonders", and is pretty much what the name implies: a big bowl of chilli served with a topping of nachos and cheese.

The recipe for the chilli is slightly different from that in their Hairy Dieters book, and it's fine but not game-changing - it was another perfectly-serviceable chilli that we enjoyed but that won't be becoming our default chilli recipe. The topping of nachos and cheese was likewise very nice, but not exactly a revelation.

So file this one under "very nice, would definitely have again, but otherwise unremarkable". Sorry there's not more to say about it!

#23: "Centuries of Stories", edited by Wendy Cooling (a book for Funsize)

Experimental Cookery 2020: Malloreddus (sort of)

This one comes from "The Hairy Biker's Mediterranean Adventure", and is described as a gnocchi-like pasta. However, I found it because I had some gnocchi and was looking for a use for it, and liked the look of the sauce described here. So what I actually cooked wasn't Malloreddus at all, but rather gnocchi with a tomato-y, sausage-y sauce.

And very nice it was, too. I really like gnocchi (having had it all of half a dozen times), and so was always on to a winner, and it's quite hard to go wrong with good sausages and tomatoes. I was rather surprised at the tiny amount of liquid that was added to the sauce, but it turned out okay.

All in all, this was a winner. The only downside was a half-hour simmer step, but that should have been negated by starting cooking earlier than I actually managed. Would definitely have this again - indeed, I may end up having the leftover sauce with some of the leftover gnocchi for a lunch later this week, if LC doesn't beat me to it!

Experimental Cookery 2020: Pepper & Tomato Pasta Traybake

This one comes from this month's Tesco magazine, and was a bit of a winner. It's quick and easy to put together but, perhaps more importantly, it was a nice tasty vegetarian dish that we all enjoyed.

I don't have a great deal more to add at this point, due to the relative simplicity of the meal, except perhaps to note that I'm looking to gradually expand my repertoire of vegetarian meals in general. And this is a definite addition to that set.

#21: "Sharpe's Battle", by Bernard Cornwell
#22: "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Gaming the System

One of the ongoing controversies in the Scottish political scene concerns the formation of a new "list party" - a new party that will not stand in constituencies but will instead only stand on the regional list, and hope to do well enough to get a handful of MSP seats as a result.

The stated goal of such parties is to "maximise the pro-independence majority". The logic here is that the results of the regional votes are corrected to give each party the 'right' number of MSPs, so the better a party does in the constituencies, the fewer seats they get in the region. Thus the SNP, who can expect to win most constituency seats, have a very large number of 'wasted' votes in the regional votes.

Up until the weekend, this was a largely theoretical proposition. Over the weekend, though, a number of disaffected ex-SNP members registered a new party, and thigns got real.

I can't say I'm a fan of the notion, at all.

I should note at this time that my opposition is not from the "it almost certainly won't" work line of attack, nor even the more extreme "it's likely to be counter-productive" line of attack. Both of these are probably correct, but frankly that's beside the point.

On the one hand, if all the party exists for is to maximise the pro-independence majority, then frankly that shouldn't be allowed. It's an attempt to game the system - about 50% of people in Scotland are pro-independence, so there shouldn't be a significant pro-independence majority.

On the other hand, if the party has some other agenda that puts them at odds with the SNP (whether it's that they don't feel that the SNP are pushing independence strongly enough, because they simply don't like the current SNP leadership, or the trans-rights issue that I am absolutely not going to comment on at all, or whetever else), then that's fine - people can set up whatever parties they want and campaign on whatever platform they want... but in that case they should be campaigning explicitly against the SNP. They're rivals for the same vote, so they should act like it.

And that, incidentally, is both why this post hasn't made mention of the Greens, either as potentially "taking votes away" from the SNP (since they have that distinct agenda), and also as being the list-only alternative to the SNP (because if the new party is distinct from the Greens also, then that is also their prerogative).

(It's also why I don't have an issue with the three major Unionist parties all standing and vying for votes, even though the regional list system gives the a leg up. The three are all fairly clearly distinct voices - they just happen to agree on one topic. I just wish they were better.)

The Crisis Hits

The one thing that I will confess to panic buying before the lockdown was a stockpile of books. I figured that there was a good chance that deliveries of non-essential items were quite likely to be hit, and also that there was a good chance that the lockdown would last 2-3 months, so I stocked up.

However, I'm now reaching a point where I'm running short on some of my sublists. Worse, I'm now getting to a point where I'm running out of ideas for books to read at all - I have enough earmarked for the rest of this month, but thereafter I'm out of ideas. (Funnily enough, I predicted that that was likely to become a problem, and when, two years ago.)

The sublists for the year are four in number: Books from The List, New Books (which only has 10 entries), the Sharpe novels, and "Other". I have plenty of books lined up from The List and in the Sharpe series; the problems lie with the other two. New Books would have been fine, except that the virus has caused most of the novels on the list to be delayed by some months. But at time of writing, the next one is released on the 28th of the month, with one scheduled for each month thereafter. That means that I have a gap right now, but then should be okay for a while... assuming they don't get delayed again.

The "Other" sub-list is the most problematic. I need approximately fifteen books to see me through the year, and can scare up one or two for right now. Annoyingly, I can find loads of partial trilogies, but in each case either the early books have dropped out of print or the final volume has not yet been released.

The likely upshot of this is two-fold. Firstly, it is likely to mean that I'll read more books from The List than I had perhaps planned for the year. Secondly, it is quite likely that the reading goal will come to an abrupt end - many of the books from The List are hefty tomes, so expecting to read the full 60 books with so many of these to tackle isn't terribly realistic.

Unless, that is, I have some sort of inspiration...

Natural Optimism

During the lockdown, one of the things we have going on at work is a "Picture of the Week" contest. Well, a contest of sorts - it's mostly just a bit of fun. But one of the things that I have noticed is just how many of the pictures that are posted are of landscapes, or sunsets (or sunrises), or animals, or otherwise of the natural world. I suppose that's not surprising - the human world has come crashing down, so it makes sense to take comfort in what remains.

I can't help but thinking, yet again, of how priviliged that makes us. In most places in Scotland it's not that hard to get away to somewhere natural, or at least some facsimile of it. And even the less renowned parts of Scotland can still manage to be rather nice:

Given that we're stuck here for another three weeks, given that that lockdown is becoming increasingly hard to bear, and given also that even when it does end it won't be a reversion to the way things were before, it's very nice to be able to at least step out of doors and get a genuine and refreshing change in the outdoors.

#20: "Eberron: Rising from the Last War", by Wizards of the Coast

Theme of the Month: Quiet

One of the features of April is that it includes both our wedding anniversary and LC's birthday. Many years it also includes Easter, and it includes the schools' Easter holidays. So Easter can be a rather hectic month!

Of course, this year was complicated a little further by the start of lockdown in March, which then continued into April. This took quite a while to settle down, which made for an even busier month than normal.

So the theme I'm hoping to set for May is simply "Quiet". My hope is that it won't be a month of huge transitions (except maybe back towards 'normal'), while it is also unlikely to involve many celebrations or events. Alas, the gala days that should have started thing month have, of course, been cancelled or deferred until later.

That's the plan, at least. Cue the entire situation being turned on its head once again!