Life goes on

I’m failing to fit everything in again so we have a brief summary once more. I’ll try to keep the more interesting points up front.

We have acquired a second-hand Roomba. So far it has failed to produce the anticipated hours of cat hilarity. Treacle is really rather cool and laid back about it. Teddy is still under the duvet and has yet to meet the latest member of the household.

Roomba does not seem to be a very efficient vacuum cleaner but that’s OK, as that’s not what he’s planned for. Mr L just wants to hack him to do more interesting things.

Yesterday was spent mostly in removing the conservatory door. This is the main point of access to the house and has long been a problem. We gave it new hinges, once we had managed to drill the old ones out. Fitting new hinges and re-hanging the door was a breeze by comparison and took virtually no time at all. The removal process had been lengthy however and left us without time to take advantage of the wonderful weather. All my plans to take the new camera out were pretty well scuppered.

As regards the camera – I still have much work to do in familiarising myself with all the knobs and buttons. The 365 project reached Day 60 yesterday, without a break. I am feeling pleased about that. Finding number connections becomes ever more challenging.

Yesterday was pizza night. Have you ever always known something to be true and yet never actually implemented your wisdom? I finally applied the less-is-more philosophy to my pizza yesterday and lo – the best pizza that I ever made. Funny that.

We had planned pizza because last week when we went shopping we had spotted “mozzarella” in the fridge. Not proper Mozzarella, that would be too much to expect here, the shelf life is way too short, but the rectangular rubbery stuff. Better than nowt. Of course this week there was none but having planned pizza, pizza we would have. They did have Mascarpone this week, and I quite like a mascarpone-topped pizza.

I made basic pizza dough with 00 flour, using 500 gms and splitting the dough in to 3 parts.  One part made rolls for tea today. One part went straight onto the pizza stone. In the past we have always made one large pizza with a thick base because we have only the one stone. Last night I made a pizza half as thick. I also pre-cooked the base before adding the (much less this time) topping – 5 minutes. With only half the amount of topping, it took just another 5 minutes to finish, which meant pizza number two could go into the oven whilst the first one was resting.

The result was the lightest (fastest) crispiest and most delicious pizza that I have ever made.  My secret tomato sauce went on top, with a light layer of finely grated parmesan on top of that – then a scattering of thinly-sliced salami, some tiny spiced pork meatballs, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. Dollops of mascarpone went over that, with a final grating of cheddar (for overkill) , a drizzle of olive oil and plenty of black pepper. The spicy meatballs were re-purposed sausages from our local butcher, Donaldson’s. The Hot and Spicy pork sausage proved perfect for the task. With a salad on the side and a glass of Shiraz… delicious.

Today I am engrossed in my new PC. I am still trying to get it set up just the way that I want it. Installing software and setting preferences. Today has been spent mainly in getting Lightroom working right. This afternoon I might try reorganising my desk and getting my graphics tablet up and running again.

The studio is slowly regaining some sense of order and I have all the spinning wheels tidily stored. The trouble is, I need to be getting one out and using it! First I must find proper tidy homes for all my new photo kit… things just seem to go around in circles.

One piece of good productive news is that I actually did some knitting last Monday – the doily came out to play!

and now, I must get on. So much to do, so little time.

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