Wandering mind

I spent at least an hour caring for my pot plants. I had grown some chives in a pot on my balcony in Pretoria, and when I arrived here, put them into the first bed we dug up in my garden here. Then I found, having planted them at the far end of the bed, behind a hedge of cosmos, I couldn’t reach them – so a few weeks ago, I put them back into a pot and brought them upstairs. Chives and Spring Onions. They need regular trimming to keep them growing – and removing the dried husks of past stalks. Turns out there were some cosmos seeds in the ground as well, so I’ll have a few cosmos upstairs in my pots as well.

I nearly had to cancel the muffin baking – as I realised I was almost out of sunflower oil, which I use for baking. I needed 160 ml and had exactly 150 ml left! I added 10 ml Olive Oil, so at least I could have food at work today – they turned out lovely, as always. I cheat, though – I’m not particularly keen or good at baking, I prefer cooking, so I buy these muffin pre-mixes where all I have to add is oil, water and eggs (of course I also add chocolate chips!) then mix with a spoon and bake. Cooking is a different story, though – I love cooking. I tried ‘cheating’ there, recently, and bought myself some sauce pre-mixes, where all I have to add is boiling water. I was badly disappointed, though, as they tasted like plastic to me – all flavourants with no flavour. And no, I didn’t mix it in a plastic cup. Well, it was an experiment. Now I know that even slap-dash rushed sauces made myself taste better than any pre-mixes.

I had a strange experience a few years back. I have a large variety of herbs and spices I use for cooking – I like to have everything available, even saffron, though I use mostly only a few spices or herbs per dish. We had some new colleagues from Slovenia – and when they saw the host of spice- and herb-bottles on my kitchen counter, quite seriously asked whether I was a witch! If I had a kitchen filled with bundles of dried spices hanging everywhere, I would have understood – but mine are all in Spices-for-cooking 75ml bottles? I was a bit stunned.

Speaking of spices – I don’t understand the popularity of all these pre-mixed ‘use for ...’ and then the specific type of meat is listed. Like ‘Spice for Mince’ or ‘Spice for Chicken’. Who likes that kind of monotonous food? We’re humans, not robots – or am I missing something? I like different spices at different times, just like I don’t want the same meal on the same day every week. I thought it was a disorder to need that kind of repetitiveness? Ah well, different strokes for different folks! That’s one of the reasons I’m not so fond of baking – because when baking, one must follow the recipe rather precisely; whereas with cooking, I have the freedom to get as creative as I like.

Speaking of creative – hmmm, I got nothing. I’m looking at the weather forecast for the weekend, Saturday looks tolerable, sun mixing with clouds and 18°C maximum. So, any gardening I plan to do, I better get done on Saturday, because Sunday is forecast to be cold with rain. Then what will I do on Sunday? Hmm, that’s where creative could come in! I would need to clear the table, though, to make some space – but where, or where will I put all the pot plants? Theoretically, the courtyard should be a good place – except it is just not getting sun. A few rays for half an hour or so a day is the best any position in that courtyard can hope for; and that’s just not enough. I’ll worry about that tomorrow!

I’d like to get back to drawing again. Or maybe even painting. I dreamt of capturing the sunset colouring in oil pastels, something I’ve never tried. Oil is not a medium I’ve ever been comfortable with – but I do like trying something new. Over the past couple of years I’ve tried such a lot of new things – some I’ve kept and some not. Like I started experimenting with my hair. After having had it just long with regular self-trims for decades, I started shortening – to the point where it was really just an inch or two long! Then I started adding colour – for a while I kept it black with pink and purple patches. Sounds awful, but it looked kind of cool!

I also had my first manicure! Yep, I went over forty-five years through life without a single manicure – always took care of my nails myself! They’re not very healthy, for some reason my nails always stayed soft and never grew past the school-rule of not beyond the tips. If I don’t cut or file them when they reach that length, they start splitting. Except my thumb-nails – those are as hard as … well, nails. And it’s not lack of calcium – with milk being my favourite drink, there’s no way I’m deficient in calcium! I’ve also tried treatments, like hardeners and such – no change. Anyway, I started playing with nail polish – at first a gentle pearl pink, and then I got bolder, until I discovered glitter blue! Loved that! Had my nails done that colour for quite a while! Unfortunately they did not like polish and started splitting really badly, so I gave up. Now I don’t polish at all, they’re still soft and bendy and if I don’t keep them trimmed, they split. And with the gardening, polishing my nails would be kind of silly.

I’m not happy with my hair at the moment, though – all colour has grown out and it’s long, again. And I’m tying it in a plaited pony-tail again, like I did in High School and for all those decades when I didn’t care. I’ve been meaning to make an appointment for a cut for ages, but somehow I just never go through with it.

Normally, at this stage of a project, I’m down to working only two-three days a week, giving me two or three weekdays to do grocery-shopping and hairdresser appointments. But I’ve been fortunate on this project, and will probably be full-time right to the end. So I only have the weekends free – and I don’t consider time at a hairdresser fun or quality time. A cut won’t take long, though – maybe I should just make an appointment around the corner and get it cut? And maybe I want to try experimenting with colour at home, again? The last time I tried that, my hair ended up purple, though! I was trying for black! That was on the day South Africa won the Rugby World Cup against New Zealand in 1995 – I remember that, because it was my birthday, and nobody came to my party because everyone watched the Rugby. That sounds bitter, but actually I wasn’t. I knew in advance, and it was a very special game; and my neighbour at the time came up to visit and was the first to see my purple mishap. We still laugh about it, so it’s memorable and all good. It took a week to wash out – and I had to go to work with it. Of course I got a lot of comments – good times!

So, I’m a bit hesitant to try out home-colouring again. Maybe something less drastic? Like some kind of auburn?

I’ve got to say, I’ve been feeling a bit down these past two days – in part due to the cold (I don’t do well in winter) and in part since I’ve not had much work at work these past two days. Hence all this writing. But the plans to try something new have revitalised me! I don’t want to wait to play with my oil pastels, I want to get busy playing now. But it’s dark, the light is no good.

Well, tomorrow I have to go to Makro, they open at eight so I’ll be done with the shopping nice and early again. Maybe I’ll give the Food Lovers Market another try – but I don’t think so.

As far as the garden is concerned, I have another drum to fill with bits off that hedge of horror – I haven’t decided, yet, whether I’ll open up more to extend the rockery, or whether I’ll target more thorns. It’s such a pity the owner is such an eejot! That hedge needs serious work – here he has a tenant willing to do the work, and he won’t pay the removal. I had a verbal agreement with his mother – but he decided it’s cool to renege on that. Burning didn’t go down well, either – so now I’m reduced to tackling it drum by drum, which is slow going. Pity. I think, though, that I may have to cut back the cactus tomorrow, it looks like parts are about to come off, again. When I moved in, large arms of it had been hanging by a thread with a loads already lying on the ‘lawn’. It was a really crap job cleaning that up. Ah, well, can’t cure stupid.

Since today is obviously done, let’s leave tomorrow for tomorrow.