Myyy Precioussss...!

..or, what are the most valuable things I own? This is apropos of a couple of minutes' thinking about what to write here, and waiting for my fingers to start doing the magical thing they do once they start their dance over the keyboard and I can feel my mind slipping into The Zone. What are the valued things? Here, I am not talking about people, or love, or gripes, things that are talked about as being possessed, but which is never true. I'm talking about things, pure and simple. Take my need for my family as a given; take my not very well paid job for what it is; understand that what I am considering of value here is not things that are, per se, valuable, except that they are of worth for me. Let's start.
1) right now, my hands. only after you've had a limb out of use for a while can you truly appreciate having full use of all of them. I suppose I should extend this to all my bits, but my hand will do for now. Hands in general fascinate me: I remember one time at university, when I was in my halls of residence, watching a Sudanese student washing up his plates in the sink, and seeing the gentle, clever grace of his hands as they caressed the plates into cleanliness. Whenever I accidentally catch sight of my own in a reflection, there is always something slightly shocking in the moment, simply because they look so delicate and poised, yet I know how much strength there is in them.
2) The table at which I'm sat, which is in fact a bureau. An old, cheap bureau, a hand-me-down, but one at which I feel at home, and which feels like a thing born to be written upon. It is warm to the touch, I feel stories woven into it, and I love its simplicity.
At this point, I feel I should mention that this is a random list.
3) My key ring. This is in fact liberated from a gym bag, coloured white and red with the slogan 'Play Football!' upon it, over thirty years ago. It is the oldest thing that I have continuously owned upon my person, and it still performs the function to which it has been adapted. Why change what works?
4) A Citizen Automatic, a gift from Nur several years ago, which is currently languishing in the bureau, its mechamism in need of some TLC. I didn't appreciate it at first, but it's a truly lovely bit of watchmaking.

Yum!

This evening's meal was mainly a freezer clearout, and involved stuff you just shove in the oven then shove in your mouth. However, I felt a hankering for cilbir, so I made that too, and realised how much I missed it. I've posted something about it on here before ages ago, but it's worth a repeat mention, because it's so ridiculously simple but so bloody delicious. The first time I heard of it, I thought it would be utterly bloody disgusting, then I tried it. Trust me, if you make this, you'll get hooked. And it's perfect with raki - or a dry white wine, or a well matured and chilled fino.
Cilbir, aka eggs in yoghurt
you will need:
eggs
garlic
yoghurt
mint and/or dill
flakes of crushed chilli.
total time: 5 minutes - 15 minutes, depending on your eggs
first of all, decide what you want to do with your eggs. for this dish, they should, traditionally speaking, be poached, but I think it's far better when scrambled. If you go for the latter, fry the eggs in butter and a bit of sunflower oil.
Crush garlic, and either chop up or crush with a mortar and pestle. take your yoghurt (Turkish or Greek style, but not strained yoghurt - you need to be able to smooth this over, or pour, over the eggs), put it in a bowl, mix with the garlic. make sure your eggs are cooked. put on a service dish. pour yoghurt over the top. garnish with mint and/or dill, and flakes of chilli.
that's it! Eat with big chunks of fresh crusty bread.

A novel cure for Haemorrhoids?

I just recieved this slip through the letterbox.
It reads:
have you got piles?
need help to bring them down again?
well if so give sue a ring on xxxx xxxxx xxx

Oh, sorry, forgot to add the top line:
Ironing service.

Muddy.

That pretty much sums up my sunday afternoon ride up to Goring via the back roads past the Mapledurham estate and back via the Thames path to Pangbourne, Purley and Reading. You'd think a path that is a river route would be pretty flat: not a chance of it. It was up and down, up and down, and some clever bugger put large steps on some sections. The bridge tolls at Whitchurch show the prices from the early 1800s, which remained unchanged right up to the early 1980s.

well, you don't see this every day...

...snow in the south east, that is. Sunday morning. It lasted all of six hours. Of course, I had to build a snowman.
However, it was looking a bit to cute, so decided to make it a bit more sinister.

My desk.