The Unutterable Weight of Glory

Bit tired today after being suddenly woken by a loud yell in the middle of the night from my sleeping companion, who was about to slide into a whale's blow hole. To add insult to injury, he immediately went back to sleep, while I lay awake with thumping heart for quite a while.

Prayer walked into town; saw these birds (pigeons or doves?) flying in the restored dome of the castle entrance. 

Met Mike for a delicious three-course lunch with wine at the new Pátio da Oliveira, which now has neither a patio nor an olive tree. But still has good prices - 22 euros altogether for both of us.

Capon has at last got to the point in his recipe of "Lamb for Eight Persons Four Times", where he is thickening the stew, ch 9, "The Suspended Solution". He waxes lyrical about the magical properties of mixing fat with flour to thicken a liquid:
It is worth considering, however, just what it is that you have done. Thickening is perhaps the most ordinary of the finishes of which a dish is capable. It is, often literally, child's play: the exercise by which the eight- or nine-year old first realises the visible and palpable magic of cooking. Yet for all its commonness - or, more accurately, precisely because it is common, it is one of the most deeply satisfying processes of all. Only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory.