A London and Nineveh feast

When LauraMuir told us that the dishes that she had prepared for our book group meal at her house in Glasgow would be a London-Nineveh fusion, I wondered out loud what she might have done with the jellied eels ;-) In fact, we enjoyed an absolutely delicious series of courses, cleverly prepared to represent the main locations that feature in There are rivers in the sky by Elif Shafak (universally liked by the group). 

Here on the left I have blipped the main course of shepherd’s pie with roast carrots, cauliflower, green beans, and mudardarah. On the right are the stewed fruit - figs, plums and peaches - served with vanilla custard for pudding. Our first course was herb and aubergine soup with flatbreads. Afterwards we drank mint tea with Maltesers - a book group tradition. Given one of the recurrent themes of the book, it might have been more appropriate to drink only water with our meal, but the sensible option was wine for us all, apart from our gallant driver Ridgeback13.

Earlier in the day, Mr hazelh and I transported Mummy hazelh to the Dunbar garden centre to place her into the care of my not-so-little sister (in great form) for the next ten days. They are now both happily installed at the house on Holy Island. It's almost four months since Mr hazelh and I last had our flat to ourselves. I miss my mother's presence, but in a good way :-)

This afternoon, while I read papers for a meeting tomorrow morning, Mr hazelh - in true engineer style - devoted masses of effort to trying to fix our sickly printer. When he finally concluded that it could not be saved, he rushed off to Kinnaird Park to buy a new one. His goal was to return home in time to set up the replacement printer and generate five decent copies of our Christmas newsletter for my book group pals. When I left the flat to walk and across town to meet Ridgeback13's and her other passengers, the printer was only just out of its packaging. Mr hazelh was absolutely determined that he would still get the copies to me before we all set off by car to Glasgow. Forty-five minutes later, he turned up in his running gear in Ridgeback13's street, just as I was about to get into the car. In his rucksack he had the newsletter ready for distribution. What a feat!

The journeys to and from Glasgow were both a very enjoyable part of the evening. On the way there I regaled the others with all the gory details of the recent discussions with my sisters on the future accommodation arrangements for Mummy hazelh. For them, I'm sure it sounded like I was pouring out the plot line of a fictitious family saga or soap opera. For me, confessing all to my friends was a form of therapy. Their supportive comments and advice set me up for a most enjoyable evening. On the way home in the car, we engaged in conversations that were a little more private: the two in the front talked about goings-on at one Edinburgh institution, and the pair in the back did the same for another.

Exercise today: walking (13,032 steps). (No exercise bike due to insomnia.)