Day 100 or so...
I've lost track - this may be my 100th daily post or that might have been yesterday. So I think I will carry on until I reach pic-a-day 100 which will also be 100 days since we went into total lockdown.
And D-d called today to give S2C a card and some chocolates for Fathers' Day and said "Honestly, you wouldn't know anything had ever happened when you go down town." Which proves our new normal looks very similar to our old one - and that our government got it right.
Actually we decided the main differences between 'old normal' and 'new normal' are, firstly, that the two main shops where she looked for a suitable card had almost no Fathers' Day cards as, presumably, being branches of UK chains their head offices had concluded there would be few people able to access their shops to buy them this year.
The second difference is that the Department of Infrastructure seem to have taken advantage of the period with very little traffic to put paint all over the roads. Whole new traffic layouts have appeared, most of which do absolutely nothing to improve traffic flow, at least two are already being described as 'Accidents waiting to happen' - and they won't have to wait for long. And in another place a large notice was painted on the road asking vehicle drivers to 'Keep Claer'.
She is back in the office tomorrow, the children are back at school as usual, and the NYM will return to his office on July 1st.
And today's picture is of my dinner. S2C watched a TV programme in which Michael Portillo's travels took him to Malaysia, where he had a go at making a local curry. S2C thought the curry sounded lovely, and found a recipe for it that he asked me to make. I actually made it yesterday (it's what I wanted the galangal for), but the picture I took yesterday was out of focus. And the curry was always intended to be for today as well.
The recipe is here - yes, it is called Devil's Curry and yes, the recipe really does start with 20-30 dried red chillies.
But were these big dried chillies or small ones? How hot would 20 of them be? I know the smaller ones are hotter, so it might be that it meant 20 - 30 no matter what size... In the end I went with 12 of the big ones I got in the World Food Shop, reckoning that if it turned out too mild I would just add more another time. It also says 3lb of chicken for 4 portions. I used 4 chicken breasts from my freezer - the weight was a couple of ounces under 2lb. and there turned out to be plenty, with rice, to do 6 portions!
Actually the amount of chillies I used was right for me (I would say about 'medium' heat). S2C would have liked more and I added a little chopped fresh chilli to his portion for tonight and tomorrow.
And it was worth the effort, and I will make it again some time.
My white kitchen table makes a very good background, I should remember to use it more often for pictures like this.
And D-d called today to give S2C a card and some chocolates for Fathers' Day and said "Honestly, you wouldn't know anything had ever happened when you go down town." Which proves our new normal looks very similar to our old one - and that our government got it right.
Actually we decided the main differences between 'old normal' and 'new normal' are, firstly, that the two main shops where she looked for a suitable card had almost no Fathers' Day cards as, presumably, being branches of UK chains their head offices had concluded there would be few people able to access their shops to buy them this year.
The second difference is that the Department of Infrastructure seem to have taken advantage of the period with very little traffic to put paint all over the roads. Whole new traffic layouts have appeared, most of which do absolutely nothing to improve traffic flow, at least two are already being described as 'Accidents waiting to happen' - and they won't have to wait for long. And in another place a large notice was painted on the road asking vehicle drivers to 'Keep Claer'.
She is back in the office tomorrow, the children are back at school as usual, and the NYM will return to his office on July 1st.
And today's picture is of my dinner. S2C watched a TV programme in which Michael Portillo's travels took him to Malaysia, where he had a go at making a local curry. S2C thought the curry sounded lovely, and found a recipe for it that he asked me to make. I actually made it yesterday (it's what I wanted the galangal for), but the picture I took yesterday was out of focus. And the curry was always intended to be for today as well.
The recipe is here - yes, it is called Devil's Curry and yes, the recipe really does start with 20-30 dried red chillies.
But were these big dried chillies or small ones? How hot would 20 of them be? I know the smaller ones are hotter, so it might be that it meant 20 - 30 no matter what size... In the end I went with 12 of the big ones I got in the World Food Shop, reckoning that if it turned out too mild I would just add more another time. It also says 3lb of chicken for 4 portions. I used 4 chicken breasts from my freezer - the weight was a couple of ounces under 2lb. and there turned out to be plenty, with rice, to do 6 portions!
Actually the amount of chillies I used was right for me (I would say about 'medium' heat). S2C would have liked more and I added a little chopped fresh chilli to his portion for tonight and tomorrow.
And it was worth the effort, and I will make it again some time.
My white kitchen table makes a very good background, I should remember to use it more often for pictures like this.