The Kitchen Chair Issue

Posted on February 10, 2015 by nicdempsey

In June, I’ll have been living in my flat for 6 years! Which is be the longest time I’ve spent in one place since I was a kid. We were in North End Road for nearly 17 years, I think, before Ma, Ben and I moved out when I was 20.

When I moved in, I knew that it would take a while to get it exactly as I wanted it, mostly because I was moving into a completely unfurnished space, with furniture that came from lots of different places. I took the view I would live with as it was, decide what I really needed and then eventually get what I really wanted. I wanted to get things that worked, that would last, investment furniture. Not necessarily the most expensive furniture but things that suited me, the flat and how I lived.

No-where was that more clear than in the issue of the kitchen chairs. When I moved into the flat, I had 3 Ikea folding chairs and a directors chair. Eventually after much thought, I pulled the trigger and bought two new kitchen chairs. I was planning on buying more and eventually, I would have lovely, comfortable kitchen chairs, done and done.DSCF3199

It didn’t work out quite like that. They were very rubbish and the legs were a bit bendy and dangerous – one of them, collapsing when I was sitting on it, with a small child on my lap. We were unharmed but clearly they were not the solution I’d hoped for.

Kitchen chairs are expensive so I soldiered on with what I had. Then Ma moved out of her flat and I inherited two more chairs. Another directors chair and a proper old fashioned kitchen chair. My chair. in fact. It was one of our dining room chairs, painted brown and later, I took off all the paint and varnished it (not a great job but I was a teenager!), it was my desk chair. The amount of bad essays and angst written while I was sitting in that chair is best forgotten! Now it’s mine again.

I think the perfect solution my kitchen chair issue, may never exist. I think a mishmash of chairs may be the way it plays out and it probably suits my ‘no decoration’ style of interior decoration. Having said that, all three of my kitchen chairs are comfortable and sturdy so provided that I don’t have more than two people over to dinner at a time, it’s fine!

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Life Happened – this is getting silly

Posted on February 9, 2015 by nicdempsey

I’m still not very well and really, really grumpy about it. My head is full of things that it shouldn’t be, my ears hurt, my sinuses make draining noises when I’m lying down and I’m wheezing. I can’t do yoga either, because the pressure in my head makes bending very painful. I know that there are worse things to be sick with but I’ll like it to stop now, it’s getting boring.

So I spent this week, in much the same way as I spent last week, working, getting to bed early and coughing. I averaged about 4 and a half hours sleep a night, which is not helping with the grumpiness.

On Thursday night, I went for dinner at Christina and Fred’s, it was lovely to see them and Tom and Yoey.

Friday morning was a bit of a mess, I was tired and the trains fell over so it took ages to get on a train and I was late to work…IMG_2742Thanks heavens for pain au raisin, quiet work days and telephone conversations with my brother…IMG_2744I may have spent my lunch hour working out cocktail measures, how many bottles of booze Christina would need to make 50 odd cocktails for her birthday party at the end of the month. I’m not obsessed, I’m helping a friend and it was good distraction from thinking about what I’m going to wear for the party, the dress code is black tie or superhero, so I’m a tiny bit stumped!

Friday Night PizzaIMG_2748And a cupcake followed by bed!IMG_2749I skipped the allotment volunteering on Saturday morning in favour of rest and coffee. Ma came for dinner on Saturday night. I cooked a variation on Cassie’s Penne Rosa which was really good.IMG_2758IMG_2754

 

We arsed about as we do and the next morning had cheese on toast for breakfast and went Ma went home, I went to Kathy and Adam’s to play with their kids, while they did some organizing. We made rice krispie cakes (and the kids got covered in chocolate!), it’s been nearly a year since they arrived and it’s been lovely to watch them become a family unit and see how ordinary and extraordinary the process has been for all of them. It’s easy to take our experience of being loved by our families for granted but sometimes we need see it from another angle to appreciate the miracle of it.

Did you know that Saturday was National Libraries Day? I didn’t until someone pointed it out, but it was also the day that my library sent me a reminder that my books were due back on Monday!  So on Sunday after I left Kathy and Adam’s, I took a walk into Ealing and went to the library. I love that Central Ealing Library is open on Sundays! I got some new books, wondered about and walked home through the parks because it was such a beautiful day.IMG_2763

 

Now it’s Monday and back to work…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Friday Links

Posted on February 6, 2015 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! Last day of the week, I’m pretty much alone in the office, all the others are on leave due to sick parents, hen weekends and weddings, so it’s going to be a quiet day!

Here are this weeks links…

1) Paying everyone a basic wage would kill off low paid and menial jobs. It’s an interesting idea.

2) An explanation of the planned Marvel films. This is really for Ma, so I don’t have to explain it when we go and see them (and we will, Ma has never come across a Marvel film she didn’t like!)

3) On the removal of the affordable housing levy. Find me a politician with the sense to sort housing out, please. It isn’t difficult and if the market worked, then we wouldn’t have a housing crisis.

The story seems familiar: a crisis is growing, while the government still tells us to put our faith in the market. But housing is more visible than finance – if your neighbours are evicted, you’ll see; if social housing is demolished to build luxury flats, you’ll see. For the thousands who joined the March for Homes on Saturday, the solutions were straightforward. No one proposed letting luxury developers run roughshod over the metropolis, trousering wads of cash.

Their demands have been unchanged for years: more council housing and rent controls, secure tenancies, and a halt to evictions. All these proposals, especially rent controls, are popular and, most importantly, something the government can deliver. They’re simple, manageable and achievable. There’s no point waiting for the invisible hand of the market to sort out the housing crisis when property speculation is one of the main causes of the country’s wildly unequal and increasingly unaffordable housing market.

4) Kitchen Disasters. The comments are great, I have had many kitchen mishaps, the boiled eggs that I complete forgot about (I left the house – they were cremated) . The pan of oil also forgotten about and left on the hob as I went to answer the door which erupted into flames. I also have a bad habit of setting tea towels on fire. Also worth an honourable mention are disaster that was my attempt at key lime pie and the several failed attempts at meringue (although I have that sorted now!)

5) Giles Fraser nails what I found so wrong about Stephen Fry’s (and indeed all atheists arguments about God and His existence). Also why so bloody angry with a God you don’t believe exists?

6) The different portrayals of Thomas Cromwell by Ben Miles and Mark Rylance. I haven’t seen the RSC plays but I’m completely surprised by how good Rylance is (I was dubious about the casting). I love the slowness of him, when he’s around situations that are dangerous and the lightness when he’s at home. I also love the lighting and the pace of the series so far and the way that the actors are showing us character with actions. I loved last week, when Henry just holds his arm  out and expects Cromwell to sort out his sleeve. This is a man who always gets what he wants and who generally never has to ask. You understand why it’s a shock to him that the Church isn’t giving him the divorce he wants. And I need to go and read the the books again…

7) Linda Grant on housing prices.

8) Money, family spending and explaining it to the kids. It’s interesting to see how people do this. I don’t think we knew how much money was coming into the house ever. We knew when things were difficult and we knew that Ma was the one carrying it but we didn’t ever have a sense of what money went where.

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Food this week

Posted on February 5, 2015 by nicdempsey

My cooking has not been imaginative this week, mostly it’s been easy food that doesn’t require too much effort. Having said that, it’s still been pretty healthy..

What I mean by healthy, is unprocessed food. My diet doesn’t have much processed food in it and really like it like that. Yes, I do recognise that all the food I eat is processed to some extent, frozen veg doesn’t magically freeze itself, yoghurt doesn’t come into being and leap into cartons without processing in some way, neither does cheese for that matter, carrots do not clean and walk themselves to the supermarket!

I mean ready meals, food that has additives I can’t pronounce or things I wouldn’t put in the food I cook. This week (and I did have to look at this week’s food plan and think hard) the processed food, I’ve eaten consists of caramel wafers, oatcakes, a fruyo, this fish and some coffee ice cream.  I’m not knocking the occasional ready meal, our entire Christmas dinner was prepared by M&S and I’ve never cooked a fish pie in my life but I wouldn’t eat like that all the time. I couldn’t afford to eat like that all the time but even if I could, I don’t think it’s healthy.

Anyway this is what I’ve eaten /am going to eat this week

Saturday night was fish and chips. Fish from a packet and home made oven fries and it was really good but I will talk about it properly another time because we were far too interested in stuffing it in our gobs for me to take a proper photo!IMG_2740

Frittata for dinner on Sunday and then breakfast for 3 weekdays. My basic recipe is based on what’s always in the fridge, 6 eggs, a pepper, an onion, a carrot, mushrooms, feta. Other times, I chucked in leftover green beans and peas, leeks, roasted vegetables. Like my anything soup, which I’ve never put a recipe up for because it doesn’t have one, frittata is a great use for vegetables on the turn and is endlessly adaptable.DSCF2723

Monday night was French Onion Soup with extra sautéed vegetables.DSCF3946

Tuesday was a feta, grilled courgettes and rocket thing and there are no photos because I was hungry and wasn’t planning on telling you about what I ate this week.

Wednesday was the chickpea and spinach thing with a poached eggs.  This is still one of my favourite things to eat. I used 6 blocks of frozen whole leaf spinach (which I buy from Iceland because it’s nicer than the chopped frozen spinach from Sainsburys and to go completely off on a tangent, frozen veg and whole frozen fish fillets are good value from Iceland, provided you’re not one to go for the 100 different types of processed food you can buy there…)DSCF3038

Tonight, I’m out at Christina’s for dinner so who knows what’s for dinner! Tomorrow is Friday though so breakfast will be pain au raisin and dinner is Friday Night Pizza!20140317-065757.jpg

 

Lunches have been vegetables (carrots and peppers mostly) with boiled eggs and oatcakes or leftover chickpea thing. Snacks and puddings have been fruit and Dark chocolate tunnocks caramel wafers.

What have you been eating?

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What I’ve Read – January 2015

Posted on February 4, 2015 by nicdempsey

It’s a new reading year! In line with my stated aim of not buying booked and getting through my ‘To Be Read’ pile and kindle list and to keep me honest, I’m going to list where the books came from mostly that should be

A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong – Cecilia Grant (Kindle TBR list)

This is a short novella in the Blackshear Family books. I love Grant’s writing style and this was delightful.

One Summer: America 1927 – Bill Bryson (Library book)

I love Bill Bryson, he has a great writing style, informative, funny and you want to keep reading. This is no different, things I didn’t know and learnt, what a git Herbert Hoover was, how many new things were happening in the 20’s, pretty much everything about Charles Lindbergh and early aeroplanes. Seriously, go and read.

The State We’re In – Adele Parks (Kindle TBR list)

I read it, I was underwhelmed. It was all too tidy and easy, even though I suspect the the the end was supposed to make people cry, I did not. It was free from Amazon and it’s one more book that I can take off the TBR list so I guess that counts for something!

Tigerman – Nick Harkaway (Library book)

Another Nick Harkaway book I love. That’s 3 for 3. Harkaway’s books are all utterly fantastic but also funny and sometimes wise. I love the plotting. This made me laugh out loud on the train:

You had to listen to what a Brit was saying – which was invariably that he thought XYZ was a terrific idea and he hoped it went very well for you – while at the same time paying heed to the the greasy, nauseous suspicion you had that, somehow the sum of the whole was that you’d have to be a mental pygmy to come up with this plan and a complete fucking idiot to pursue it. After six years working with the Brits in various theatres he’d come to the conclusion that they didn’t do it on purpose. The thing was, Brits actually thought that subtext was plain text.

The Second Chance Cafe – Alison Kent   (Kindle TBR List)

This came recommended but I didn’t like it at all. The characters felt flat and there was so much going on that wasn’t focused on the main couple, their story got lost.

Lady Windermere’s Lover – Miranda Neville (Kindle TBR List)

I did wish that the hero wasn’t such an idiot at the beginning and that the heroine and hero would just use their words but I enjoyed it and am seriously considering the rest of the series

Red Rising – Pierce Brown (Kindle TBR List)

I’m not sure if this is YA or not. I’m told it is, but apart from the age of Darrow, I can’t see why, it reads like science fiction and I’ve seen it shelved in Sci Fi at the library – which is what prompted me to read it. I liked it, I want to know what happens now and what the bigger plot is. I’ve reserved the next one at the library.

It Takes a Scandal – Caroline Linden (Kindle TBR List)

This was an easy read when I was ill, it’s a measure of how ill  I was that it took me 4 days. It’s nice to read a historical where the hero is a flawed human being, instead of a fabulously wealthy duke!

The Hydrogen Sonata – Iain M. Banks (Library Book)

The last Iain M. Banks novel I read was The Algebraist and I didn’t finish it (I generally enjoy his science fiction books but I couldn’t get into it) but I saw this in the library and decided to give this one a go.

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The Cold that will not die and other things I’m not happy about…

Posted on February 3, 2015 by nicdempsey

Ok it’s official, this cold will not go away…IMG_2724I’m now on the third week of feeling grotty. I have a sore chest, coughing fits and am bunged up, in fact at night when I turn over, I’m woken up by the squeaking noise that my draining sinuses make, coughing also wakes me up and last night was so bad I threw up. I’m tired and fed up, I’m not properly sick but I’m not properly well either and just done with this. What’s it going to take to get this sodding virus to leave me the hell alone?

We had a tiny bit of snow overnight. Although there seems to be a fair amount of train chaos at the moment, none of it was on my line or seems to be caused by the snow. Yay. London didn’t fall over because of half an inch of snow. Finally! Mind you it wasn’t proper snow!OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’m really trying hard not to be grumpy, with only partial success, provided no one speaks to me after about 7pm, I can do it. After that I really don’t have a conversation in me or the ability to be nice. I’m blaming tiredness but I do sometimes wonder if it’s age and I’m slowly turning into my father, except without the beard and the drinking! I’m not impressed with life this week, Ol’s face here perfectly sums up how I feel!20140721-072332-26612119.jpg

 

Right I’m going to boil my head and try and cheer the hell up!!

 

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Life Happened – Normal-ish

Posted on February 2, 2015 by nicdempsey

After the week of sick, I went back to work on Monday. I was (in fact, still am) a bit croaky and I have a cough from hell but was in that in between stage that everyone who has gone down with cold seems to have, not sick enough to be in bed but feeling quite miserable. Mostly I was just really, really tired and went to bed really early!

Work was busy and frustrating, mostly because I was playing catch but also because people don’t read emails, it’s very frustrating to be constantly repeating myself because people don’t take time to hear me the first time! Life will be much easier when I am the benign dictator of the world!

I did pop round to see Kathy, Adam and the children. K&A are tired, toddlers will do that to you, but the toddlers in question are delightful and they like me, so that’s quite an ego boost!

Friday was also a team building afternoon! (My company is very keen on team building and my boss is very anxious to ensure that they don’t take away that budget!). We went to  a paint your own pottery place. The challenge being to paint a mug for another member of the team that reflected what you know about them.IMG_2734I have zero artistic talent. I used to joke that my art teacher had a death wish….my death. I also got the boss.  So I went with a very simple idea and it wasn’t too horrendous..IMG_2737When it’s fired, it should come out in company colours!

That done we went for dim sum and I had a cocktail.IMG_2738

I then went home for a ‘disco nap’ so I had enough energy to go to Jenny’s for dinner. It was delightful, the food was amazing, the company excellent and I was in bed by midnight.

Saturday was chore day and Ma came for tea. We had fish and chips and fizz.IMG_2740And after a quiet Sunday, due to resurgence of the sore throat. I’m back at work.

The plan for this week is mostly to survive it. I’m at Christina and Fred’s for dinner on Thursday and volunteering at the allotments on Saturday morning aside from those things, I want to get to the gym, go to the library and get lots of sleep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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January Recap

Posted on January 31, 2015 by nicdempsey

It’s the end of the month already, the first month of the year is done!

So what happened in January? Not an awful lot.

I went to Strasbourg.IMG_2718Where it rained, a lot and got to spend time with Ms T and Jo.IMG_2699It was fun, however, it wasn’t good for my health, I came back with a cold and spent 4 days in bed and another week feeling rotten.

Strasbourg and illness has left me trying to pack 20 days of work into the 12 days I was actually in the office, which means things have felt quite busy.

In terms of my exercise goals, I’ve managed to do 15 minutes of yoga for about 20 of the 31 days of January. Not brilliant but not terrible and given travel and sickness and everything else, I’m calling it good. Not so good has been my complete inability to get to the gym at all, not even 8 times. There’s always next month! However, I have been using the Fitbit all month and am working hard on getting my daily targets met and every little helps!

I’m also happy to report that I have not bought a book at all in January. I have used the library and where I can, I’ve reserved books there. I’ve also got the TBR list on my Kindle down to below 90, yes, I know it’s still a ridiculous amount, but I have 11 more months to work on  it!  I think giving myself a limit on how much I buy has helped my willpower in this area, knowing if I really want it, I can buy it has helped me wait and think about how much I want it, whereas an absolute ban is too much denial for me to wrap my brain around!

I’ve also been thinking about money. Ma has named this year, ‘Austerity Year’, which is about right. Generally, I think I need to reset how I think about money and spending. I need to recognise the difference between want and need too, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as my general feeling of uncomfortableness with my body and life generally has gone up, so has my spending. So as well as really thinking about what I spend money on and my attitude to stuff, I’m committing to not using my credit cards at all in 2015. So far so good but there are 11 more month in the year!

The flat is looking good and I feel it’s totally under control. I’ve had a sort out of the cupboard under the sink and thrown out a lot of stuff that I just wasn’t using in the kitchen. Generally, it’s great to come home and not feel bad about things that need to be done, that helps me feel peaceful and on top of life in general!20140122-110042.jpg

February Plans and Goals

BODY

Using the Fibit,  by the end of February, I’d like to have taken 364,000 steps and walked 154 miles. 13,000 steps a day and at least 5.5 miles a day.

I want to make 15 minutes of daily yoga a goal but if I hit 20 days of the 28 in Feb, that’s good enough for me. I’m going to reset the gym target and get there at least 8 times in February.

HOME & MIND (BOOKS)

Continue as I’m going.

HOME GENERAL

  • Clean the oven
  • Hang the pictures of Oli and Ben that I was given for Christmas
  • Tidy the cupboard (again!)DSCF4422

MONEY

Food budget. It has felt like the amount of money I’ve been spending on food has been going up. So I’m going back to my £20 a week limit and committing to spending no more than £80 on food this month. Which when you put it like that, sounds a lot but bear in mind that this is for all my meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner which across 28 days is 84 meals so is less than a £1 per meal and includes having people over to dinner a couple of times. It’s not quite living below the line but it does require some planning!

So that’s what I want to do in February. Also happening in February…I’m going to Any Questions, making cocktails at Christina’s 30th Birthday party and generally celebrating the increasingly lighter days!

 

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Friday Links

Posted on January 30, 2015 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! I hope you’re all as happy to get to Friday as I am! Here are this week’s links…

1) This, all of this. I’m am not a mother but I can have an opinion on parenting.

2) Harry Baker did another TED talk. Full disclosure, his parents are friends of mine, so I might be slightly biased, but they did a good job with both of their boys.

3) Lucy Mangan on poverty and bad choices, and Hilary Mantel. Right about both although my favourite Mantel novel is A Place of Greater Safety, which lead both Ma and me on a French Revolution reading bender and which you should go and read if you haven’t already!

4) Gin Craze. I can’t help but feel this guy is well behind the times, but interesting nonetheless.

5) People having to share rooms because the rent is too high. I’m horrified but not surprised.

6) What where you live in London says about you. So funny….especially about Clapham

7) Katie Price and means tested benefits. Just for this:

It is the beginning of the decision that says benefits are not an entitlement but something up for debate that can be chipped away at until they completely disappear.

8) Zoe Williams and the rhetoric around benefits and poverty. I know I keep banging on about it but it’s an important point and worth making until people start to understand and vote accordingly!

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Food this week – the still not feeling very well edition

Posted on January 29, 2015 by nicdempsey

I’ve been back at work since Monday and although I am feeling much better than I did last week, I’m still not 100%.

My daily routine consists of getting up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner and being in bed by 9pm. I am officially no fun. Mostly though, I’m just really, really tired, the dark circles under my eyes are really bad and I’m on the not positive side of grumpy, sorry everyone that has to deal with me in real life! The plus side of the hacking cough is that you can hear me coming and run away!

One of the not so great aspects of feeling tired and sick, is the desire to eat all the high sugar ‘comfort’ foods I can lay my hands on and to slump discontentedly into the sofa. I know this and I know long term that this doesn’t in any way help me get to the place were I don’t feel tired and sick.  Although I don’t feel up to getting to the gym, I’ve been trying and mostly succeeding in getting my 10,000 steps a day because if I’m going to feel exhausted then I want to at least have done something for it!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABecause I knew I wouldn’t be up for cooking this week, I’ve deliberately kept my menu plan to low effort and as healthy as possible so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat all the sugar. I wanted to make sure I got a hefty amount of vegetables into me, I can’t remember who said it but the person who pointed out that when you’re sick for a while and cooking is an effort, often all the food you eat seems to be beige, there’s something in that, last week, I mostly ate toast!

Breakfasts have been greek yoghurt or smoothies. Snacks have been clementines or fruit from work. Lunches, apart from Tuesday when I was out for a work thing have looked something like this minus the grapes, the chocolate and the ham! LunchBecause cutting up veggies is easy in my ‘weakened’ state and oatcakes and hummus don’t need to be thought about too hard. Dinner has been soup and some of the bread I baked at the weekend.DSCF2022That’s pretty much it. Not featured are the chocolate buttons that I have after dinner because treats are important.

Given that I haven’t spent more than 30 minutes a day preparing all the food I eat in a day, I think it’s pretty balanced. I’m drinking loads of water and herbal tea and while I’m all for the comforting warmth of a hot toddy, I think it makes it harder for me to stay asleep, so I’ve been avoiding alcohol completely.

So that’s food in my life this week. Not terribly exciting to eat or cook but helps me function.

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