Writing with Dev - Part Seventeen

I have nothing to say - or more to the point I don't have much to say and it's been a bit of a dead day workwise and I have very little to say.

So we're going to write along with Dev. Write for five minutes. 

I could talk about harissa paste. I bought some the other day not quite knowing what I was going to do with it. Now I'm glad I did . So tonight, for dinner, I got some of the chicken thighs I bought the other day for making jerk chicken, I took a dinner's worth of it, coated it in harissa and a bit of olive oil and roasted the chicken thigh for dinner. Along with some Coles Green Goddess salad, this was an inspire choice. The rest of the chicken thighs are marinating in a jerk chicken rub, made of chopped onion, garlic, thyme, allspice, soy and lime juice. These will get baked tomorrow some time.

Thinking of food, I'm having lunch with my mate Katrijn tomorrow and breakfast with the inimitable Davo, who I'm meeting at 7 am tomorrow and I really have to put this in my phone so I don't forget. 

I'm sipping on a glass of kombucha, which is tarter than I normally like it - think the warmer weather speeds up the fermentation process. But it is not bad, but it tastes like the stuff you get in the shops. 

But I've just worked out I need to remind Damo that we are meeting - must do that now before he goes to bed.

Now we are supposed to write for ten minutes. 

I took a doss hour today. After a meeting and after lunch. I got in the car, forgetting that it was getting around to school pick up time, pretty much just to get out of the flat. I'm glad I have a job which allows me to do this. I needed to get out. It seems we're all grumpy in the office and we're in need of some relief. We're meeting in town for lunch on Friday - looking forward to that. looking forward to being out during the day. Looking forward to taking a train into the city. Looking forward to going to our book group restaurant and seeing who is left. Looking forward to having calamari salad for lunch - and not the chicken parmiagiana which they do so well. Looking forward to seeing my workmates in the flesh.

But today, I did a book shop run. I went to one of my Faber class mate's book launch. She's written a memoir about her time in Afghanistan. I couldn't listen to the talk live as I was at the gym last night, but I listened to the recording after and I was intrigued. So I went out. Drove to Hawthorn, and Readings bookshop, knowing that the book was in stock there, parked in the Coles car park and went in to buy the book - along with another, which I shouldn't have done, but there is a rule somewhere that you cannot go into a book shop without buying at least two books. So along with Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet,  I picked up Sanaz Fahouhi's Love Marriage in Kabul. The latter is my classmate's book. I was intrigued by the book launch chat, and Sanaz has said a lot about this in class. We're having a picnic on Saturday - I'll get her to sign my copy at the picnic. If I'm lucky I might get to play with her year old son. Should be a good day. 

It is weird not wearing masks on the street. You have to wear a mask when you're in the shops, but on the street - no masks - though lots of people are still wearning them. I felt kind of naked as I got out of the car, very self conscious. I was rather enjoying the anonymnity that the mask provides. 

Now for the prompt section:

In my twenties I had no idea who I was. Absolutely no idea. I somewhat misguidedly moved to London when I was 23 and I stayed there for the next eight years. And it was here that I started to find myself. I still think that if I'd stayed in Australia I would be dead now. I was that miserable. It took a lot to shake myself of that misery, work out what all of it was about, and rid myself of the most of it. I liked becoming somebody else. But it took time. I loved living among the history. And the pubs.

Around the corner, talking of pubs, is a pub which I keep going back to. It's the National on Victoria Street. It has great food and a wonderful selection of gin. We're having out book group there in a few weeks, partly because I know it's a good pub and partly because the beer garden is COVID friendly. We all know we're going to have to keep COVIDing for the next eons, but knowing you're outside to eat is good - as long as it's not raining.

Believe it or not, we had a big discussion about where we were going to hold our last book group of the year. The book is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. I have to find lollies which are wrapped and some plastic cups in which to put in the lollies and get all that stuff done as I normally do. Just to be COVID safe with the lolly vote. We have a couple of members who have elderly parents. 

Eventually, as the discussion about where to hold the book group took place, we came to a concensus that that an inner city beer gardened pub was the way to go. Our members are in Reservoir, South Kingsville, Mordialloc, Mentone, Elstenwick, Elwood and Hawthorn East. Richmond is a good place to be sort of central for all of us. And I can get pissed and walk home if I want. :)

In the future, we will need to get used to this COVID normal arrangement. I know I'm still not there. I'm still in lockdown mode - used to not going anywhere, liking that I'm not going anywhere. But I am sort of itching to get to the library, work from the library, get into the office and see somebody other than my cat. But it's still a foreign thought. It's taking a bit to get used to.

There, done. 

Today's Song: