Week 49 of the experiment, and it’s been another manic week. Indeed it has been so manic I’ve had to scrub a couple of things I wanted to do; one needs a certain amount of elbow room and breathing space. Anyway here are my five picks of things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

1. Productive Meetings. I’ve had several meetings this week and at least two have been really good and productive.

   Yesterday was the Anthony Powell Society AGM; as a charity we have to do things by the book. Like all these meetings it is seldom hugely well attended although, as yesterday, we normally get 20-25 members present (as well as a tranche of proxy votes). This makes for a productive meeting with some useful discussion and excellent ideas from the members to keep people like me on our toes. And somehow I always manage to find an interesting speaker; yesterday was no exception so thanks to John Blaxter.

   And on Monday I had a really good meeting with our doctor’s Practice Manager and his deputy working through how we’re going to organise and run the Patient participation group which I have now been fingered to chair. Another extremely productive hour.

2. Cold Sausages. I love sausages. Almost every sausage from plain British bangers to Bratwurst in a bun. But cold sausage always goes down well in a sandwich for lunch.
3. Adnam’s Ghost Ship. Naughty child that I am I’ve had a couple of pints twice this week. One of them was Adnam’s Ghost Ship, a very pale, light, beer with a delightful fragrance and a citrus-y flavour, almost like a clear Wheat Beer. Here is Adnam’s own description:
   

   This beer has good assertive pithy bitterness with a malty backbone and a lemon and lime aroma. Ghost Ship is brewed with a selection of malts – Pale Ale, Rye Crystal and Cara. We use Citra, and a blend of other American hop varieties, to create some great citrus flavours.

4. Left-Overs Risotto. One evening during the week we had accumulated several bits of left-overs: the end of the beef joint, some dressed salad, some spare veg and a couple of steamed potatoes. Thrown together i n a p[an with some Arborio rice, some stock from the freezer and a good slug of red wine it made a really hearty rich risotto.

   

5. St James’s Church, Piccadilly. As I mentioned above yesterday was the AP Soc. AGM which we held at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. But “Arrgghhhh!!!!!” there’s the TUC Anti-Austerity March going along Piccadilly exactly when we need to get the car there to deliver stuff; not a hope due to road closures. So we had to go early in the morning and waste time. I asked the church if I could leave our boxes there for the morning (we had the room from 1pm). Not only did they oblige but they let us have the room for most of the morning, to guard our valuables and set up at leisure. They even evicted the TUC stewards who were using another of there rooms as their coordination point and squatting in the adjacent room! Excellent service and way beyond what I’d even dreamt of. They are also extremely good value; room hire is so much cheaper than almost anywhere else in London; and it’s an historic church with many associations, which does good work and is well worth supporting. Oh and Tuesday through Saturday every week they have a super antiques and/or craft market in the churchyard — well worth visiting for those special presents.

At week 48 we’re now 80% of the way through my 60 week experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

Yet again it’s been a busy week, but a week crammed full of good things, so here are my top five picks fro the week …

1. Lunch with Friends. All this really isn’t good for my waistline or my blood sugar levels. Twice this week we’re had lunch with friends. First on Monday we had one of our 3-ish times a year get-togethers with a few former colleagues. Then on Thursday we were in Norwich (again) to see my mother whose birthday was on Friday and we again had a superb gastro-pub lunch with a friend. All most enjoyable.
2. Smoked Chicken. I think it must have been Wednesday evening we had smoked chicken breasts with salad. The Rannock Smoked Chicken comes from Waitrose. Surprisingly isn’t any more expensive than the regular stuff, but a whole lot nicer. In fact it’s so good we always keep a couple in the fridge.
3. Online Shop. At last, after weeks of work an d endless head-scratching, I managed top get the Anthony Powell Society online shop up and live. It’s been a lot of work, not because it is inherently difficult but there was a lot of it and there was a coding bug I just could not find — but which I did find on the third minute read-through of the code. And it is already proving it value with a number of unexpected orders flowing in.

   

4. Sunday Lie-in. With such a busy week we’ve had a number of early starts and I haven’t been sleeping well. How lovely then to not only sleep pretty well last night but also sleep late. I know I came to a couple of times in the night (that’s normal for me) but I didn’t even begin to surface properly until almost 9 this morning, and didn’t manage a vertical position until 10. All done naturally, without alarms etc., so I felt rested and relaxed (so relaxed I’ve done nothing much today).
5. Roast Beef. One of the two major things I’ve done today is our roast beef dinner. A melt-in-the-mouth double rib of beef, nicely rare (actually a bit too rare for Noreen — sorry!) with jacket potatoes, and steamed cabbage, broad beans and fennel. Roasting beef never was one of my strong suits, but hopefully I now have it sorted, although I still can’t be bothered with the faff of doing Yorkshire puddings.

Well her we are at week 47 in my experiment documenting each week five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful.

And what a week! I’ve not had time to turn round this week and the next two don’t look any better; I’m feeling seriously stressed and lacking “me time”. But it serves me right for volunteering!

So anyway, to my five things. This week I give you …

1. Family Reunions. On Monday I met up with my father’s three half-sisters. The eldest I have met once before when I was 10 and she was 18. The younger two (both within a year of my age) I had never met. My grandfather’s illicit liaison, which started during the war, ended up splitting the family as my father was always seen by his brother & sister to be on grandfather’s side against grandmother, and grandmother wouldn’t give grandfather a divorce. Frankly my father was trying to be fair to everyone (even if somewhat heavy-handedly) and give his half-sisters a chance in life, especially the younger two who ended up in Barnado’s — after all their predicament wasn’t their fault. Anyway, yet again I’ve managed to put a broken piece of the family back together. My half-aunts were overjoyed as they thought their father’s side of the family was lost to them forever. We spent a great afternoon with them and a couple of my half-cousins, sitting in a London pub just catching up of family things. And here’s the photo to prove it …

   

2. Norwich. It was Noreen’s birthday on Thursday and she chose to spend the day in Norwich. Fine by me as we both love Norwich. We took one of our friends and spent the day revisiting old haunts, and discovering one or two new ones. Then on the way home we dropped in to see my mother briefly. Yes, it was a good day, and even almost dry! Photos on Flickr when I get some time!
3. PayPal. One of the things I’m doing for the literary society is building a decent online shop. And in the process we are trying to move our credit card merchant facility away from the current provider (who are charging us too much) to PayPal. After much to-ing and fro-ing PayPal finally accepted us this week! Now I just have to get the shop pages to work properly!
4. Pork & Apple. See here.
5. Sunshine. After a dismal start to the week we’ve had several sunny days and i even managed to spend an afternoon in the garden — actually repotting houseplants. Lovely crisp sunny autumn days!