annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bread and jelly Another fucker of a day, of my own devising, mostly. One of the things my therapist pointed out on Friday was that only being able to see a limited number of options is trauma thinking. She was talking about when the landlord put the rent up on my flat in the city and Bloke invited me to live with him again. I thought those were my only choices - it never occurred to me to find a cheaper flat, ffs. Likewise today. I'd planned to make rose hip jelly and tiny sourdough focaccia for my niece's birthday tomorrow. I started the jelly yesterday and had it in a muslin bag dripping into the pan overnight, very good. This morning I started the focaccia, also good. Then I logged into Tuesday zoom art group, too early as there was the miserable bloody bint from Mind, mouthing off as usual, pissing me off, making it really hard for me to maintain the chill I'd achieved after yesterday's shite. But I got my head down and did some tiny pictures of items from the shelf in my kitchen - jugs, teapots, mortar and pestle, lemon squeezer, bowls of fruit and veg. They weren't great but the doing of it calmed me down. Till I remembered I'd had a text in the middle of the night telling me I'd used all my data for the month - I can't go into it all, it's been a nightmare. I called O2 but they said I had to go down there to sort it out. Again. This makes 5 visits since I upgraded my phone a few weeks ago. Sigh. This is the point at which I could have decided to either leave the phone or leave the cooking. But I was right out on the edge of my nerves and I forgot that I could make that choice. So I did the next stage of the focaccia, which now needed to rest for a few hours, then on to the jelly. Mix a load of sugar in, heat it slowly till the sugar's dissolved then boil the fuck out of it till it reaches setting point, 105C. But it wouldn't get that hot. I boiled it and boiled it and it stuck at 103C. Eventually I decided I must have too much in the pan so poured half of it into a jug and boiled the rest. Yay, 105C. There's a little test you do where you put a spoonful onto a saucer and push it with your thumb. If it's reached setting point, it wrinkles. It wouldn't fucking wrinkle. In the end it reached 106 so I decided it had to be done, poured it into the jars and went. I could do the other half later. Hours and hours later, fucking hell. The girl (that's how old I am, that young women seem like girls) at O2 did her best, was kind, friendly, patient and persistent, but she nearly broke with the tortuous shite we had to go through. We had to download the app, which we did. They wanted a security question - the name of my first pet. I gave it, she typed it in. She did it right, I could see. When we tried to get data we were asked the security question, but they wouldn't accept the answer, said it was wrong - but we'd only just put it in. Ach, it was shite, but when I came out I discovered that it had lashed down with rain while I was in there and now it was over, so that was something. And the sky was glorious. Home again, home again, jiggedy jig. The jelly hadn't set. I boiled it all again and it still hasn't. I made the focaccia, following the recipe, they looked really good till I put them in the oven. 200C for 20-25 minutes. I set my timer for 20 and they were already way overcooked. So for her birthday she can have a jar of runny jelly and some not-quite-burnt focaccia. It tastes OK though - I'll make it again but keep more of an eye on it. I'd intended to make Niece a birthday card as well, and her brother, they're twins, but I've only just remembered and it's too late now. Niece is very pregnant - I'm wondering if she'll have the baby tomorrow - it was her granny's birthday as well, so that would be cool, having three out of four generations sharing a birthday. Ah well, my friends, tomorrow is another day.
11:22 p.m. - 24.10.23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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