Staycation week

Today is Saturday; I've been on Staycation since Monday (or indeed, Saturday last week, if weekends are counted when considering annual leave). I took a weeks' annual leave in an effort to get some sleep, some rest, and to re-route my sanity which was somewhere quite far west of where I am currently residing.

The hands down best thing about the Staycation is that I didn't have anything planned at all, although I organised my annual leave so that it coincided with Shannon's. We could say, in terms of my plans, that I'd intended to be Chilling with my Dawg. Yep, indeed, we be chillin' (and watching a million* episodes of the Wire**).

TV series consumed in mass quantities:

• The Wire Series 4
• True Blood Series 1 and 2 (a solo pleasure; also hands down some of the silliest television I have ever watched)
• The Sopranos Series 6

I love reading about characters/actors/series on Wikipedia but I have the worst habit of reading in advance of the episode that I am currently watching; read - spoiling it for myself. (Warning! This episode synopsis contains spoilers!)

 

I was the worst at this when I decided I wanted to 'check up on something' in True Blood and then found out about the shape-shifting guy waaaaay too early on in the piece. No more Wikipedia checking on True Blood for me. Wikipedia is the reason I never finished watching the second series of Twin Peaks.

 

Let's over-analyse this impulse: is it because I hate surprises? Can this spoilering-impulse be twinned to my reasons for favouring TV dramatisations of classic novels over watching 'real' movies? And why I re-read/re-watch? Is it the fear of the unknown...? Do I constantly crave safety in my entertainment life in order to make up for the uncertainty in my life-life? Thoughts?

Staycation Cooking

Staycation cooking has involved filling the freezer (in the days when we lived with flatmates it would have involved more baking; as it is, Shannon tends to eat what ever is in the tins so slowly that it goes stale before it's all been eaten , and I have the inverse problem: namely, EAT ALL THE CAKE).

I made Budget Bytes' black bean quesadillas and roasted vege burritos and the shelves in my freezer look exceptionally happy. (Related: I cannot roll burritos.) I am SO excited to go back to work and eat delicious black bean tortilla things for lunch.

Lots of free time has also mean reading a heap of blogs. Hence Smitten Kitchen's (/Ottolenghi's) baked orzo with eggplant and mozzarella, and blackberry and apple loaf as posted by Bex. I made this into a cake because I have no loaf tin, and with blueberries and lemons because that's what I had lying around. And in an effort to avoid the stale/eat all the cake issues: lots of this cake has been moved around Petone, to Nat and Mark, and to a fabrication workshop that let Shannon use their big presses. Giving baking to other people is pretty great.

Final food efforts: chicken stock, slow-cooking dried pulses and then freezing them, brioche in the bread maker (the hugest loaf ever) and baked oatmeal - the Super Natural Every Day recipe. Incidentally, the baked oatmeal is also killer for dessert.

It was my turn to cook yesterday evening and - you might be surprised to discover - I had cooking fatigue. Something simple with tofu for dinner tonight.

Wellington is getting that "good-looking spring"-thing

Wednesday Shannon and I went to Eastbourne and walked around in the sunshine and wind, and ate weird-but-good sandwiches. I threw pebbles at large logs (and repeatedly missed). Shannon picked up dead botanical things and what he thought was an abandoned sea-animal skin. The beach we were on (on the way to Pencarrow Lighthouse) is gloriously barren and windswept and there was no-one around.

Eastbourne bus terminal is pretty cute. Art deco?

I have only three more days before I go back to work. Yesterday I watched a crazy huge amount of television (in an effort not to deal with something annoying) so I suspect that if I've got to that point it's probably time to go back to work and do something insanely productive. Like update web pages.

*hyperbole

**Also, I've recently read (and re-read) this article about the top 25 outdated rap slang words. I still have no idea what 'chickenhead' means.