Spice of life?

Ok, I confess. I've not been in a photographic mood today; I was consecutively busy/feeling under the weather and said weather was anything but photogenic. So I've created a new photo for today by cobbling together a couple I took last week, inspired by a post by Wildwood about tidying out spice shelves (and other areas too, in a manner unfamiliar at Chez Blethers.)  Infuriated by my ever-expanding collection of herbs and spices, which was threatening to take over the cupboard in which they started off in this house, Himself put up spice-jar-width shelves, one above the door from the larder into the kitchen, followed by another two along one of the larder walls.

The astute observer of Victorian houses will observe that my kitchen is in fact an add-on to the original building, which for the first ten years of its life was twice the size; this was then split into two adjoining terrace houses with brick extensions being added at the back. That's the tale anyway. The kitchen has a low ceiling, with the insanely high-ceilinged bathroom above it; the larder, on the other hand, is under the upper flight of stairs and is quite lofty. It had a door between it and the kitchen when we bought the house, but we removed it and sold it to a builder who had designs on it. When the Everest man came to put a new back door on the kitchen - which had been riddled with dry rot because of years of water ingress below the old door - he remarked, cheekily, that it was the first time he'd put one of their superior doors on a cupboard. I've not forgiven him, but the door works ...

I had my online class this morning; we looked at Auden's Museé des Beaux Arts and had a fascinating discussion about how life goes dully on while dreadful, momentous things are happening - as long as they're happening to someone else. The fun of an adult class is very different from the equally enjoyable business of working with a class of teenagers; I'm glad to have the chance to experience it.

Other than that I spent the day trying not to allow myself to descend into paroxysms of uncontrollable coughing. I think I've had a hair-trigger cough reflex since I had whooping cough at the age of 6, and it seems more likely to end badly as one descends into decrepitude. It certainly didn't improve my singing at choir tonight.

And now it's time to descend to my odd little golden kitchen and make some toast and tea...