annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan 13th

1. I started making the marmalade but got too anxious for the second part. The first part is juicing the oranges, gathering all the pips into a muslin square, shredding the peel, putting it all in a big pan with water and letting it simmer for a couple of hours. I did that, but the next bit where you add masses of sugar then turn the heat up and boil the fuck out of it till it reaches setting point, seemed an unattainable ambition for today, so I'm leaving it. I tried to work out if I can send a jar to the USA as I found I had exactly the right size of box to take a jar and enough bubble wrap to keep it safe, but I couldn't make sense of the explanations I found. Also, I am interested that my old recipe (which I can't find, but almost know by heart as I've been using it for decades), said to simmer for approx 2 hours, till the liquid was reduced by an amount I can't remember, and the ones I find now say to simmer for approx 2 hours, until the peel is soft enough to break with your fingers. So which matters most, the strength of flavour in the liquid or the softness of the peel? Both, I imagine, but strange too, how it's changed.


2. I saw a girl standing at a bus stop practising dance positions with her legs, one at a time, with great concentration. Pointing her toes and flexing. Holding them here, then here, just so. It was a private moment in public and seeing it made me smile and breathe out, a big old sigh I hadn't known I was holding.


3. I went to Buddhist centre yoga today on the bus, which was slower than I remembered so I was late, despite moving as fast as I could from the bus stop to the centre, dodging about, darting across busy streets, that kind of thing. Six minutes late. I've been going there for eight years or so, usually twice a week and I have never been late. People sneak into the class up to ten or fifteen minutes late all the time. For the first several years, the teacher was always late, till someone called him on it, angrily. Today the new woman on reception said, "I can't let you in. It's already started and he's cracking down on late-comers." Like fuck. I looked at her. She let me in. Teacher gave me a hug - he knows I'm never late. I felt really stirred up by it, which is why I'm putting it down here. I would have just gone home, probably, but she thought I was going to kick off, which I wasn't. I never do. The class was hard, I haven't done much serious yoga for what seems like forever, and you don't half seize up quickly at my age if you don't use your body, but it's only mildly seized up and I'll go every week now, honest.


4. I had to go to the mall to get jam pot covers - it's another world in there, I tell you. I did a bit of mooching about - went into the big shoe shop to see how much my Uggs would have cost when new. I paid £53 on ebay and they would have been £220 so that made me happy. I mean, they're second hand, but barely worn. Fantastico.


5. All this stuff about the royals is making me livid and ashamed at the same time. I mean, obviously I don't give a fuck about the institution of the crown - I think it should be abolished - there's no room in the modern world for people being set up as superior to others purely by being born - there's no sense in it, no reality, just history. Take it back far enough and they were the biggest bullies. But. The way that woman has been treated by the press is fucking disgusting. It's not the sort of news I read, but right now you can't escape it and people are sharing posts with stories about M alongside stories about K, the other princess, also a 'commoner' to those who believe such things. The difference in attitude towards the two, for identical fucking events is really quite shocking. Example, there was a separate story about each of them with photos when heavily pregnant, about the way they can't stop stroking the baby bump. Kate's was all  "Bumping along nicely! The Duchess was seen placing a protective hand on her tummy as she exited the event." As opposed to Meghan:  "Personally, I find the cradling a bit like those signs in the back of cars: Baby on Board. Virtue signaling, as though the rest of us barren harridans deserve to burn alive in our cars."  Terrible one about avocados. There's an endless stream of stories like this, criticising every aspect of what she does, stupid fucking things, things that other royals, other people,  do without comment. Like wearing an off the shoulder dress, or putting her hands in her pockets. And then we have the gruesome spectacle of loads of rich, old, white men on the radio and telly, beside themselves with fury at the very suggestion there's an element of racism in this coverage. I hate it. I hate hearing them saying the UK is famously less racist than other places as if that was a fact and as if it was a fact that counted for anything. Ach, I could go on about it but I won't. And he's had a lifetime of the media making comments about who his father 'really' is - no wonder they've had enough. Good luck to them.


6. One of the cats has done a shit in the litter tray and it smells vile but I can't bring myself to clean it and take it outside while it's dark and pissing down with rain. I don't know how people accept cat trays as a thing for the whole life of the cat. These two have got till about June to get the hang of going outside.

12:16 a.m. - 14.01.20

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next