Monday 28th September 2015

Sunday

It seems my claim made in yesterday's post that I have been allergy free pretty much the whole year was perhaps a tad premature. However, my words as describing where a cold ends and allergy begins is a tricky one, even for me. What I can say is that for the most part of yesterday, I had a cold, but after some lawn mowing action, it seemed I touched my eye which still had some dusk/grass seed/who knows what on the top of the engine: the upshot was a badly bloodshot eye, and within an hour, a mighty sneezing bout which should have told me what it was, but by that time we were away from home where my drugs of choice are kept.

This is miles away from the bright and glorious morning when I awoke after some six hours sleep, much better rested than I should have been, but then I was still riddled with cold/flu. We had coffee. I watched the recording of the football. All seemed well, I even felt fine enough to go for a walk. It is the beginning of autumn, and there is fruit to gather, this time it was sloes. Sloes for Sloe Gin. The recipe calls for three ingredients: sloes, gin and sugar. Sloes grow wildly around here, and not many people pick them, so having noted where the best bushes are, we set off just after nine with bags and walking stick for gathering.

Along the lane at the end of the street to just before the pig's copse, then doubling back along the cross-field path down the dip to the farm. Through two hedges, back up the other side to the hedges that surround the farm. And sure enough there were many, many sloes. Although small in size, many were already going over or had burst. So we started to collect, and soon had a couple of pounds.

Back down the dip and back up to our street, where once home we had to go to the attic again to look for more demijohns, as we would be distilling, although that is not the right word, instead of bottles this year. On her way back from seeing Nan, Jools collected another bag of sloes from the layby at Westcliffe, so we had more than enough, or so we thought. She had also been to Tesco for the gin supply, five bottles. Along with a bottle of washing up liquid might be one of the odder shopping trips.

After lunch, Jools went to see Nan again, leaving with with six pounds of sloes and a sharp stick to prick them with. Minutes stretched into an hour; Jools came back, helped me finish the last bag, pour them into the demijohn. Nearly full. And once we poured in two and a half litres of gin, half a kilo of sugar, it was full. Perfect. Now to shake vigorously. Shake some more. And job doone, until tomorrow when we would have to shake again. And every day for a month, to ensure the juice is coming out of the fruit.

After a lengthy break, I am felling OK, so decide to mow the back lawn, and it was after this that I rubbed my eye and so began the whole allergic reaction thing. I washed my face, but that wasn'ty going to be enough, or at least I can say that in hindsight. We climbed into the car and drove to Canterbury. Again. Second time in two days, this time for a show.

Henning Wehn is German, and a comedian, and thankfully is very funny, this would be the third time we had seen him. We have seen him go from the 50 in Deal a few years back, to the couple of hundred at Folkestone, and now 1100 at the Marlow. And beforehand we thought we would eat out.

We drove into the City, found a parking space fairly near the centre, and being charged six quid for four hours of parking seemed very steep to us, only made possible by paying with a card. I mean, shouldn't these things be free once the shops have closed??

A short walk away was a nice Moorish restaurant we have been to before, and they have a table for two. We have a starter of Moorish Tapas, followed by a pan of seafood paella to share. We did to hold the squid, but some did still were mixed in with the rice. Now in the interests of being adventurous, I did try some baby squid/octopus, and although it is clearly not as unpleasant as kidney, it was something I could live without eating again, so left anything else that looked squid or octopus-like.

It was whilst we were waiting for our food that the sneezing really began, and once we were to leave I was fully blocked up, and not enjoying things very much at all.

On the way to the theatre, the full moon rose huge above the city. It looked amazing, and wish I could get a shot of it above the city. I took a few street shots, but we needed to get to our seats, or so we thought. Our seat was upstairs, which meant I could get the shot I wanted of the moon, if I could get close enough to the window to avoid reflections. We took our seat, the heat inside was incredible, and this served to trigger something in my sinuses to close whatever small gap I had been able to breath through up to this point. Maybe I should have given up at that point, but I decided to see it through, although it really wasn't the best of evenings for me, even if the show was very funny indeed.

The show ended at twenty to ten, we walked back through the almost deserted streets back to the car park, and then back home. Above us the full moon rose higher, and looking larger than normal. It was getting lose to be bright enough to be almost daylight.

Later that night, there would be a full lunar eclipse, we hoped to wake up to see it, but as things turned out, I would not sleep at all, so I wasn't going to miss it either way!