yonmei

12:17 pm: Sleepy polar bear
I am going to St Boswells to spend about 30 hours uninterrupted time with my family.

So this morning I went to the zoo to see Mercedes in the tiny little polar bear enclosure where she has lived for 25 years, which has driven at least one polar bear insane (that I know of).

Next week Mercedes leaves for the Highlands, where the Army has built her a much larger enclosure where she can roam around like a proper polar bear would. Probably no seals, though. At least, not for long.

Mostly, Mercedes was asleep. I don't think that's surprising: none of the coffee shops in the zoo open till half past ten. (I had to leave about 10:25, and went back via the market, where I had my usual skinny double-shot latte and considered buying provisions for the weekend and decided that, however apprehensive I am, if I want to spend time with my new nephew/get to know his mother, it would probably be necessary to leave my room some of the time. (Unless I can persuade them to hole up with me and leave my brother to fight with our parents on his own.)



Tags: bears, coffee, family stuff, zoo

09:13 pm: throat hurty ow ow CHOKE
I felt fine up until two hours ago. Well not fine, but at least not like my throat was a small tight painful knot that I couldn't swallow past. Ouch.

I had picnic lunch with friend (after stopping to buy coffee at the police box stall, and discovering that the coffee maker who knows me well enough to ask "your usual?" and get it right, on farmer's market Saturdays, is also at the coffee Tardis in front of the cathedral on Sundays) and then walked over to the station with her, and walked home.

Made broccoli/pea soup. Did washing-up. Pottered.

And about five hours later, my throat shut down. OUCH.



Tags: being ill, coffee, lunch

03:34 pm: Coffee and toffee muffin
I just walked round to Rocksalt to enjoy the sun and to buy a very large coffee and a toffee muffin. It had actual toffee poured on top of it.

It's very, very sunny and I'm indoors and a bit frantic.




Tags: coffee, weather

12:50 pm: Saturday in June: sun and rain
At the farmer's market this morning I bought eggs, tomatoes, a fresh supply of Stoats bars, a couple of pretzels from the German baker (one baked with cheese, one with salt), resisted more Arran cheddar though I love it, resisted a bright yellow cheese made with Jersey milk though the sample tasted excellent (I already have a lot of yummy cheese at home), and then spotted that the puddledub pork stall was selling flour from the Tweedale mill (they used to have a stall at market, but I guess didn't do well enough on their own). So I bought 3 kilos of lovely strong wholemeal flour and a bag of rolled oats, and then sat down with a double-shot latte and the Guardian on a sunny bench to try out the cherry cake I had bought from the German baker. (It was fine, though I didn't realise till too late that the shine on top was probably achieved with gelatin. Oh well. I lose 3 vegetarian points. I love their bread, and sometimes I love their cakes, but for this one I felt only moderate affection.) Then Ajay and one of her lovely work colleagues stopped by and we sat with coffee and talked about this and that: so that was nice.

Caught the 16 bus back to Leith Walk to stop off at Tattie Shaws for fruit - they had Scottish strawberries and curious flat peaches from Spain and I got apples and a couple of pears, and a small bag of cherries, thinking it was going to be a sunny afternoon suitable for picnicking. Walked down Leith Walk to Barnardos for something to read, and got The Sixth Winter and The Other Boleyn Girl. Which latter I feel a little guilty about, since I'd meant to buy it new, but I also wanted to read it, so yay.

I came out of the charity shop and a lovely sunny day had turned into thick grey clouds and a very humid feeling in the air. There's a nice Internet cafe just a few doors down, so I turned in here and sat down to check e-mail and the Weather Pixie... and before I'd been here more than five minutes, it was pouring. It still is. I would have got soaked. Instead I am here, dry, writing this, and feeling an unholy sense of satisfaction. I could even have a fruit smoothie (I'm still feeling quite caffeinated from that double-shot latte from Torchwood).

Actually the worst of the downpour seems to be over, but it's still drizzling: well worth paying for half an hour's Internet time to avoid.



Tags: coffee, flour, just my life really, weather

09:44 am: Coffee disaster
Oh how I hate it when I spill my cafetiere all over the floor first thing in the morning.

(And over me, though fortunately I was not in my work clothes at that point, meaning I needed to have a bath as well as thoroughly wipe down the kitchen, all before I could have coffee.)

Tags: coffee

11:49 am: I haven't had coffee yet today
No headache. Hands not shaking. I am not in a killer mood. I have not drunk coffee since about 5pm yesterday. (Over the weekend, I went for a 24-hour stretch without coffee....)

So, well. From time to time I like to prove to myself that I am not a coffee junkie, I just like coffee. Mmm, coffee.

I am also bleeding really heavily, which certainly makes up for last time, but, um. Now looking forward to it stopping, kthxbye.





Tags: bloody bloody bloody, coffee

03:05 pm: Planting my meadow
( garden record for the record )

Tags: clover lawn, coffee, garden record

12:41 pm: M is a terrible letter
There are too many Ms in Scotland. I'm just saying.

This is your cryptic post of the day. I'm about to go drink fluffy coffee and read website proposals. There may also be cake.



Tags: coffee

08:34 am: Good morning dragons and coffeeeeeeee....
Blue Rose Seizure died (I think she was just one click away from growing up, assuming the clicky-limit hasn't gone up recently). But her half-sister Cloud Feminist might still make it:

And eggs:


Woke up early and did some work: aim to be in office by 9, so I'm running, I'm running...

I also meant to write a to do list for today last night, and didn't. :-(

Tags: coffee, dragon eggs need clicky

03:25 pm: In a cybercafe
I got out of the house today. I'm quite impressed with myself. So I am sitting in a cybercafe on Leith Walk, having walked a mile or so in the fresh air (and even stopped in a graveyard on the way to take pretty photos of autumnal graves) drinking a very pretty latte (sadly, not a very flavoursome latte, but nicely presented...) which, shortly after the cybercafe owner had brought it to me, appeared on my screen - a cute little popup told me in blue that my "DRINK PROCESSED" was a cappu/latte price £1.55.

Really I just wanted to sit down somewhere for 20 minutes, it's just kind of cool that it gets to be in a cybercafe.

I'm feeling better. :-) This means back to work on Monday. :-(

Tags: being ill, coffee

11:03 am: All alone at work...
( makes coffee )

Tags: coffee, evil american politics, evil awful mondays, imagine better, work, write write write

04:50 pm: Coffee and tiny doughnut
I have just had a mug of coffee and a tiny sugary ring doughnut.

The coffee was excellent: the doughnut mediocre: but the combination was lovely.

I am due to go to the gym tonight. I packed a Stoats bar to snack on to avoid hunger.

Now why shouldn't the healthy snack of a Stoats porridge bar just kind of cancel out the unhealthy irresistibleness of, um... doughnut? (I'd had another earlier with my lunch, so I already knew they were slightly mediocre. I have high standards about doughnuts, on the, I feel, perfectly rational grounds that anything that bad for you really ought to be delicious. I feel the same way about mince pies.)

I had to go home again right after lunch to pick up a file I needed I thought I had emailed to myself, and as it looked to be set dry for the afternoon, and both Bob and Wolf wanted to go out, I left them both sitting on the steps, looking a bit surprised... they haven't both been outdoors at once in ages, it seems.

I have updates about Bob, but they can wait till post-gym.

Tags: bob, cat politics, coffee, food politics, gym membership, wolf

01:16 pm: Insane Picnic
The sun is shining, on 1st July I'll be promoted (no more money, lots more work, honour, and significant amounts of What Fresh Hell Is This, WFHIT, I need an icon that says that...) and I want to have a picnic.

I invite you all! (This may have to be an imaginary picnic. Or a virtual one.) We will meet on Whinney Hill on Sunday 6th July, at noon, and stay there till we run out of (a) food (b) drink (c) the glorious view. (I have decided not to worry about the sun not shining or it raining.)

I have a clever container which is luggable in which I can bring ice-cubes and cold drinks. (I do not do fizzy sweet stuff with chemicals, so if you like Fanta or Coke or champagne, you need to bring your own supplies.)

Besides large quantities of orange juice, and lots of ice-cubes, and a litre of water, I shall bring:

A couple of bottles of wine. Red and white.
A large supply of home-baked rolls.
Butter and cheese and whole-grain mustard and chutneys.
Apples.

Also, if I figure out a way of transporting both, a flask of espresso and a carton of ice-cream so that we can have iced coffee, because there is Nothing Nicer.

What will you bring to my picnic? (While I don't myself eat meat or fish, I'm not actively opposed to other people doing it in front of me. I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals: I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.)

PS: I have reasons to be depressed, but we'll talk about those later. Right now: picnic!

Tags: coffee, eating some delicious food, green in the city, imaginary friend meetup, weather

12:45 pm: Being known
Today at the farmer's market I walked briskly through the market, as usual, noting which stalls were here and which were not, and stopped at the coffee stall at the far end (I usually do: the Torchwood coffee stall at the end nearer Princes Street is always the one with the longer queue). There was only one person ahead of me, and by the time I'd bought a copy of The Big Issue (Doctor Who! Captain Jack!) there was no one. The woman looked at me thoughtfully and said "Double latte, skimmed milk, medium size?"

I was slightly gobsmacked, but pleased, and nodded. "Yes."

She didn't remember whether or not I liked chocolate sprinkles. That was a relief. (I'll drink coffee with chocolate sprinkles, but I prefer it without... er, unless they're the really really posh sort that are just grated chocolate, in which case, yum.) It would have been somewhat disturbing if she had remembered even that. My last coffee till Monday morning.

I bought autumn oak leaf wine and elderflower wine, and the Arran cheese stall was offering 4 cheeses short-dated at £10 for 4, which is a total bargain so I bought them - which meant not buying a round of their chilli cheese, since although the cheeses will be good into May, that's definitely as much as I need probably until I leave for Germany. That's life. I did have a bag of the Crisp Hut's crisps with chilli-and-lemon, and ate half sitting down with a horseshoe cake from Falko and the remainder of my coffee. The horseshoe cake was delicious, almondy and chocolate: you can buy a markedly inferior drier version in packets, but this is how it's meant to be. Well worth it.

I also bought kamut wheat flour from Real Foods - a small batch of kamut sourdough is rising as we speak.

We drank autumn oak leaf wine at my sister's birthday dinner - I brought the bottle to share, and it was good. (We ate at the Coconut Grove at Tollcross, a Mexican restaurant I didn't even know was there, but it was delicious - recommended.)

On the way back, I took photos for my planned project of documenting the Leith Walk Themed Obstacle Course.

Tags: bread, coffee, eating some delicious food, nonphotos

11:15 pm: I need a caffeine-free day
( *yawn* )

Tags: coffee, dragons, just my life really

11:42 am: The inevitable and useful process of decay
( Interesting things added to the dalek )

Tags: chilli, coffee, dalek record, garden record

09:39 am: Coffee
My brother gave me my unbreakable steel cafetiere just over three years ago, and this morning is the third time I've knocked it off the counter when it was full of coffee.

So I brewed myself a mini-cup of coffee in the mug cafetiere, drank that, cleaned up the coffee all over the kitchen, and am appreciating the fact that when I knock a cafetiere made of stainless steel off the counter, I may lose my coffee (though this time, all the paper towels soaked with coffee and smeared with grounds can go in the compost bin for the worms to get high on) but I can brew more!

Tags: coffee

09:17 pm: Snowdrops, coffee, penguins, pigeons, and light
( It is spring! )

( and a pigeon )

( coffee trembling on the train )

( Penguins in Dundee )

( P-P-P-P-Pick up a penguin! )

( Church cloaked by haar )

Tags: coffee, garden record, penguins, photos, pigeons

06:57 pm: Coffee and Mackintosh
I wrote a very elegant post about Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his art, and then I made the mistake of pressing Return and this appears to have the effect of deleting the post completely, never to return. Here's what I remember of what I wrote.

I wrote about meeting surliminal, hfnuala, and chillies in Harvey Nichols coffee shop. The view is splendid, the little biscuits they serve with the coffee are very nice, the coffee is fine, the muffins are poor, the scones (by report) are very nice indeed.

chillies has grown a very successful beard since I last saw him. Suits him.

Then we went off to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh exhibition at the Dean Gallery, and walked around and generally feasted our eyes. CRM is best-known as an architect, and all architects draw, but CRM seems to have done water colours all his life but done most of his painting when on an extended holiday in the South of France in the last five years of his life. His wife, Margaret Macdonald, outlived him by five years but had stopped painting by 1921: her career was destroyed where it was not subsumed into his. (In a letter to her in the 1920s, CRM acknowledges that "half or threequarters" of all his projects were hers....) Someone should write a book like Joanna Russ's How To Prevent Women Writing - a companion volume, How To Prevent Women Painting.

I found most interesting a painting by CRM of a French hillside town, but he had changed the red tile roofs to grey and the sky was grey and overcast. It looked more Glaswegian than you could believe a French hillside town could look. He must have been homesick....

I liked best a painting of a fort, on a rock, with the rock and the fort most detailed and exact - but over the shoulder of the fort you could see in the distance a harbour (he painted it elsewhere) with the water rippling and shadowed by cloud. Another painting of the harbour, the warehouses across from his hotel, showed the warehouses clear with almost architectural exactness, and their reflections in the water rippling and elongated, and the waves at the foot of the painting almost abstract glints from the paper.

Update: chillies wrote about the exhibition here. hfnuala wrote about the day here.

Tags: charles rennie mackintosh, coffee, imaginary friend meetup

08:47 am: Things I did not want to do this morning, #4848
Spend 40 minutes or so mopping up coffee grounds from knocking over my (fortunately unbreakable) stainless-steel cafetier and spilling over half the coffee in it.

Tags: coffee