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Around the beginning of March (before I started lifting! it's okay, I promise I am monitoring all of this responsibly <3) I had a couple of weeks where I didn't manage to do as much stretching of my hips as usual. Whereupon. my left leg. pitched a tantrum. So I have been grumbling along with sciatic-nerve pain for the last month and a half, and getting on with life around it because, you know, pain, watcha gonna do.

... this morning, on the way to Acquire Breakfast, it blessedly, unpleasantly, emphatically twanged -- and there ensued several whole hours wherein it didn't hurt.

Tragically I then resumed sitting on the sofa in order to poke at computer some more, and despite position shifting......... yep, it retwanged itself.

I Am Doing My Stretches. :|

Some good things nonetheless:

1. brief respite from The Grumpy Nerve
2. we arrived at coot nest #1 when it was still in shade, and hung around long enough for the sun to hit it; whereupon the grown-ups Stood Up and the BABIES went on ADVENTURES. at one point a mallard with went by with her four tiny fluffy ducklings! and then subsequently More Coots! and all the Egyptian goslings are happily pootling about in the water, now, and several of them have discovered that they can go ZOOM under said water :)
3. there is on the way to the coots a very dramatic tulip, which I have been watching with interest: it's lily-flowered, with very pointed petals, and started out almost entirely white with just a tiny splotch of red at the tips of the petals. it's now got red feathering along all the edges of all of the petals and it's delightful.
4. bakery treats: v pleasant savoury pastry thing, Bred Puddin, cardamom bun. also enjoyed nibbling some of A's ridiculous raspberry brownie cruffin Situation.
5. we made a trip to the Household Waste Recycling Centre! I did not acquire a weights bench! ... A did acquire a scooter. for scooting. with The Child. therefore: we successfully got multiple things Out of the house, and the thing that has come in is Not My Fault. (and will make the Child very happy!)
6. ... turns out that doing lots of stapling hurts less when I actually activate muscles all the way down my back than if I just sort of mash my joints...

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This has become a bit of a staple of our rotation for when the veg box is made of brassica, and also brassica, and finally some brassica (I do frequently actively opt in to this, to be clear, but also... brassica). However! As you might have noticed, I have just developed a special interest in picking things up and putting things down again, and this in turn means I am going hmm about eating more protein.

When previously mentioning this recipe I have noted that As Usual my household thinks it wants about twice as much veg as written for the quantity of noodle. To this the protein variation essentially adds: some tofu that you've tossed with soy sauce and five-spice or other flavouring of your choice and then baked; and some edamame beans.

Base recipe can be found at Ocado or the Graun, and a fuller write-up will appear under a cut at Some Point in the Hopefully Near future (if only so the instructions are in the order that I want them to be in!).

I think the exhaustion and aches are down to my COVID spring booster yesterday afternoon, but I am definitely planning to not ever Touch A Barbell For The First Time on vaccination day again. (Conveniently, this is an eminently achievable goal.)

SOME GOOD THINGS, though:

1. weekend spring date breakfast, which for me included cinnamon roll and hot chocolate, consumed while watching the goslings experiment with going into water. coot nest #1 had at least six Hatched Squeaking Babies in it (some of them adventurously exploring down the sides of the nest); coots #2 were still Enthroned. AND we saw a GOLDFINCH on the way down the hill!!!
2. braised chickpeas with courgette & pesto continue very good and fairly easy food. the whole I Am Flat meant we Acquired pre-made pesto, and this was an extremely good move. project Eat The Freezer Stash Of Tortilla continues apace also.
3. A has successfully disposed of our old front door, complete with doing all necessary talking to other humans about it. our front hall now contains only one (1) front door and it is in the door frame where it belongs.
4. got raspberries from the supermarket yesterday, as a vague approximation of The Custard Fish Of Civic Responsibility (from the one shop in Chinatown, on the way back from the sexual health clinic to the tube). am enjoying raspberries a v great deal.
5. all three flowers the big white orchid had produced are now in glorious bloom. (still need to work out how to make the tiny purple orchid happier, but.) flowers!

Behold my works: today I went to the leisure centre, and went into the leisure centre, and went into the gym, and poked around a bit, and retreated to the stairwell to hyperventilate... and then WENT TO A CHANGING SPACE and CHANGED MY CLOTHING and went back into the gym. And picked! things! up!!! and put them down again!!!!!

I have now Touched Barbell, appear to have accidentally skipped most of Phase 2 of Liftoff in favour of Barbells, Apparently, but honestly the biggest and most exciting bit of this is that I did go back into The Gym and I did push through the social anxiety of What If I'm Doing It Wrong.

It is an excellent time of year to be doing this; the cherries on the way from the gym to the bus stop are in full and exuberant flower.

Things I thought would be fine: continuing to use the coffee table as an ersatz bench while I try to source a proper one at less-than-new prices.

THINGS THAT WERE NOT FINE: guess.

(I am unharmed! The coffee table is... not. The previous session was fine!!! ... the previous session was 10-20lb lower in terms of what I was lifting.)

( special interest within )

Reading. She's A Beast archives, forever and always (by which I mean that I am now up to October 2023).

Another few pages of my Wicked Problems (Max Gladstone) reread.

Also an absolutely baffling academic paper that is technically relevant to my academic interests but which... doesn't really explain why what it's doing is better than state-of-the-art, sure as hell doesn't demonstrate it adequately with an appropriate range of reference materials, and cites only my reference materials paper and not my one on actual real life rocks, which it absolutely should, especially as it is citing [redacted for professionalism] like it's a solid contribution to the field.

Writing. Manuscript is over 10k words???

Listening. Hidden Almanac continues; presently we are relistening to another chunk I've theoretically heard once already but actually slept through. Knitting during it continues a good way of preventing myself from falling asleep. I continue to enjoy myself. (Eminent Domain and Tapping Of Ley Lines is the chunk we're currently in.)

Playing. Games various with... nieces and nephews??? plus A's other relatives, particularly Boggle, Shithead (to which I have been newly introduced), and Five Crowns.

Cooking. ... I made a big batch of chilli? I made a big batch of chilli.

Eating. Many and various exciting cheeses. Some excellent potato dauphinoise that I didn't have to cook.

Exploring. North Leigh Roman villa, Chedworth Roman villa, some surrounding woodlands, and Davis's Copse near Curbridge (BLUEBELLS).

Making & mending. A's glove progresses, by which I mean I've stalled a little over the past few days because I foolishly decided I didn't need to bring my circs with me and therefore I am knitting flat on DPNs and it is Suboptimal. But. Nearly ready to turn around for the other side of the flap. Nearly.

Growing. Lemongrass much cheerfuller for having been put back into the warm box. No evidence of aubergine yet (yes I know I'm late). Broad beans now actually properly coming up!!! Oca doing nothing. Cherry finally just about ready to start blossoming as of Wednesday; josta definitively blossoming and really quite green; project Build Up Spinach Seed Stash progressing nicely.

Observing. Pheasants! BLUEBELLS, both as a sea in woodland and on banks with primroses. Cowslips. So many excellent spring flowers. Pheasants; COOT EGGS; Egyptian goslings; and I have spent the past couple of days being Menaced by a Canada goose that is OUTRAGED whenever anybody... passes it... on a tarmac drive... even if they're doing so in a motor vehicle. All extremely satisfactory.