The following week started fairly quietly. There was quite a bit of toing and froing about a further contract with Huddersfield. My immediate colleagues and I were pretty much in agreement as to what it should look like, but there was a bit of faff and legal hoop jumping required. There are still a few i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, but everyone is now on the same page in principle, and the agreed work should see me most of the way through to the wedding before we have to have another negotiation.
On Tuesday I went for a run, and as the weather has improved meaning less mud, I tried going the other way along the canal. This worked fine at first, and it was nice to get a bit of variety in the scenery, but then I got to a slightly complicated junction between two different bits of canal and one river, and although I thought I'd just gone in a straight line, when I turned around again and got back to the same junction I managed to get turned around, so it ended up being a rather longer run than originally intended.
On the Wednesday evening I went over to York, and was feeling a bit tired to cook, so we went out for dinner at the Star Inn the City. We stuck to fish, but that was about the limit of how Lenten we managed to keep it. We both started with great fat scallops, and followed them with slightly different white fish mains. I had sea bass, and Mark had the catch of the day, but I've forgotten exactly what. There were lots of similarities, in particular both being served with delicious samphire, and being cooked exceedingly well, with the flesh light and flakey and the skin crisp and flavoursome. But the sauces were distinct and interesting and very well balanced. Definitely somewhere to come back to.
I had a relatively leisurely start to the next day, leaving York around 9.30, but my train got delayed en route, so I ended up with a slightly awkward amount of time to kill, but not quite enough to go home and out again before my afternoon appointment. I found a pleasant enough cafe and grabbed a goat's cheese salad for lunch, and then made my way to the first of three sessions of post-diagnostic support for adults with ADHD. This first session was at a fairly introductory level - discussing what the symptoms were, the diagnostic criteria and process, the available treatments and other resources, with the intention that the following two would be looking at strategies for dealing with symptoms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the material was pretty much all stuff that I was already familiar with, but nonetheless, I found it a useful experience to be in a group of other people with the diagnosis. Most of what I got out of it was continuing reassurance that it's a real thing, not just me making excuses for incompetence - the combination of "this is a normal part of the spectrum of humanity, you're not on your own or just uniquely useless", and "this is not normal, you genuinely do have additional challenges that neurotypical people don't have to deal with". That evening![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
khalinche came over for dinner which was lovely. obandsoller cooked, so I got to thoroughly relax and just enjoy the company.
The next day I went slightly outside my culinary comfort zone, trying my hand at vegan baking, because the vicar was coming over for tea, and had Lenten restrictions to work around. I made flapjacks with cranberries, walnuts, and pecan, and whilst they were a little crunchier than usual made with oil instead of butter, I was pretty happy. The purpose of the tea was to discuss plans for the not-a-wedding church service we'll be having at St John's, and I think we came out of the afternoon with a plan that feels weddingy enough to keep me happy, but isn't going to risk getting Mthr Alice in trouble with the Bishop. That evening![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
plumsbitch had ventured North for an afternoon appointment, so we met up for dinner nearby. We had tapas at La Fabrica, one of the best of many fabulous eateries on Stroud Green Road. They're one of my favourite people to eat with, because they are just as delighted by and expressive about food as I am, and that delight is always intensified when it's shared.
On Saturday I decided to skip Parkrun and treated myself to a rare lie in which was delightful and long over due. I spent the afternoon pottering, and then headed to the Southbank for a quick dinner withobandsoller, themidnightgirl, cm, artsyhonker, hairyears, _pinkdaisy_, khalinche, smhwpf, and smhwpf's Dad winodw, before a trip to the Globe to see their all women-of-colour production of Richard II. It was bloody brilliant. The acting was excellent throughout, with particularly standout performances from Adjoa Andoh as the most masculine Richard I've ever seen, and Shobna Gulati as a kind and motherly York. The use of music and dance and the blurring of fight and traditional choreography was brilliant, and the costuming was superb and really helped the play's exploration of what England means in our postcolonial Brexit-infused world. This was my first visit to the smaller, Sam Wanamaker auditorium, and it's an absolutely beautiful space - intimate and entirely candlelit, but the seating is distinctly uncomfortable, and a lot of us came out with aching backs and cricked necks. In this instance the play was engaging enough to make it worth it, but for any future visits I would choose my seats very carefully.
On Tuesday I went for a run, and as the weather has improved meaning less mud, I tried going the other way along the canal. This worked fine at first, and it was nice to get a bit of variety in the scenery, but then I got to a slightly complicated junction between two different bits of canal and one river, and although I thought I'd just gone in a straight line, when I turned around again and got back to the same junction I managed to get turned around, so it ended up being a rather longer run than originally intended.
On the Wednesday evening I went over to York, and was feeling a bit tired to cook, so we went out for dinner at the Star Inn the City. We stuck to fish, but that was about the limit of how Lenten we managed to keep it. We both started with great fat scallops, and followed them with slightly different white fish mains. I had sea bass, and Mark had the catch of the day, but I've forgotten exactly what. There were lots of similarities, in particular both being served with delicious samphire, and being cooked exceedingly well, with the flesh light and flakey and the skin crisp and flavoursome. But the sauces were distinct and interesting and very well balanced. Definitely somewhere to come back to.
I had a relatively leisurely start to the next day, leaving York around 9.30, but my train got delayed en route, so I ended up with a slightly awkward amount of time to kill, but not quite enough to go home and out again before my afternoon appointment. I found a pleasant enough cafe and grabbed a goat's cheese salad for lunch, and then made my way to the first of three sessions of post-diagnostic support for adults with ADHD. This first session was at a fairly introductory level - discussing what the symptoms were, the diagnostic criteria and process, the available treatments and other resources, with the intention that the following two would be looking at strategies for dealing with symptoms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the material was pretty much all stuff that I was already familiar with, but nonetheless, I found it a useful experience to be in a group of other people with the diagnosis. Most of what I got out of it was continuing reassurance that it's a real thing, not just me making excuses for incompetence - the combination of "this is a normal part of the spectrum of humanity, you're not on your own or just uniquely useless", and "this is not normal, you genuinely do have additional challenges that neurotypical people don't have to deal with". That evening
khalinche came over for dinner which was lovely. obandsoller cooked, so I got to thoroughly relax and just enjoy the company.The next day I went slightly outside my culinary comfort zone, trying my hand at vegan baking, because the vicar was coming over for tea, and had Lenten restrictions to work around. I made flapjacks with cranberries, walnuts, and pecan, and whilst they were a little crunchier than usual made with oil instead of butter, I was pretty happy. The purpose of the tea was to discuss plans for the not-a-wedding church service we'll be having at St John's, and I think we came out of the afternoon with a plan that feels weddingy enough to keep me happy, but isn't going to risk getting Mthr Alice in trouble with the Bishop. That evening
plumsbitch had ventured North for an afternoon appointment, so we met up for dinner nearby. We had tapas at La Fabrica, one of the best of many fabulous eateries on Stroud Green Road. They're one of my favourite people to eat with, because they are just as delighted by and expressive about food as I am, and that delight is always intensified when it's shared. On Saturday I decided to skip Parkrun and treated myself to a rare lie in which was delightful and long over due. I spent the afternoon pottering, and then headed to the Southbank for a quick dinner with
obandsoller, themidnightgirl, cm, artsyhonker, hairyears, _pinkdaisy_, khalinche, smhwpf, and smhwpf's Dad winodw, before a trip to the Globe to see their all women-of-colour production of Richard II. It was bloody brilliant. The acting was excellent throughout, with particularly standout performances from Adjoa Andoh as the most masculine Richard I've ever seen, and Shobna Gulati as a kind and motherly York. The use of music and dance and the blurring of fight and traditional choreography was brilliant, and the costuming was superb and really helped the play's exploration of what England means in our postcolonial Brexit-infused world. This was my first visit to the smaller, Sam Wanamaker auditorium, and it's an absolutely beautiful space - intimate and entirely candlelit, but the seating is distinctly uncomfortable, and a lot of us came out with aching backs and cricked necks. In this instance the play was engaging enough to make it worth it, but for any future visits I would choose my seats very carefully.
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Date: 2019-04-29 04:25 pm (UTC)From: