Project 365 day 192: cookies!

J's PA was not well and didn't come today, so neither of us did the things - in my case the long list of jobs - we had planned. However, we did make some deliciously indulgent chocolate chip cookies, using Nigella's recipe from a programme years ago, and then, of course, ate some. They will keep us going all week, which will not help my sporadic and rather half-hearted attempts to return to my pre-pandemic weight.

I also managed to sit and read for a while with my coffee. Several years ago I resolved that if I'm making good coffee, I should sit in a comfortable chair and enjoy it, with a book or my knitting, even if it's only for fifteen minutes. This resolution helped me to get back to making a bit of time for reading, which had been crowded out of my life by other demands on my time, but over the fifteen months of shielding without outside support for J, I reverted to drinking my coffee while standing at the sink or letting it go cold while immersed in tasks. Since her PAs came back last month, I've tried to return to coffee in the armchair, and today I finished Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire, a powerful, absorbing and well constructed reworking of the Antigone story focusing on a Muslim family in contemporary Britain. Because it's based on a Greek tragedy, I knew, in broad terms at least, how the story would end; it doesn't have the suspense and tension of uncertainty. Instead, there is the horrible inevitability of seeing events move towards their conclusion, waiting to see not what happens but how, exactly, it is going to play out.