who only by moving can balance

Reading. A Snake Falls to Earth, Darcie Little Badger, as part of the Big Library Read, Per My Last Post. I ended up not getting on with it brilliantly, mostly because I absolutely did not buy the near-future Earth half of the setting (the influencers' favourite app is in l337 5p34k???) and partly because of how Extremely Old I felt at a character's internal lament, aged 14 or thereabouts, that there was only ONE other ace person in her class--! ... and I just have Too Many Memories of being the only out person at my school for my suspension of disbelief not to fail, viscerally, at that. I know things have changed! I understand that It Got Better! But.

Black Water Sister, Zen Cho, on the other hand, I am enjoying immensely -- and I am very glad that I got to the front of the library hold queue (I joined it in about July, subsequent to which my library consortium acquired two extra copies, and it still took that long!) just in time to Be On Holiday while reading it. I was a little worried that I'd bounce off it the same way I bounced off Sorcerer to the Crown, but happily that is not the case.

Watching. The first two episodes of The Trap Door. Each is about 3 minutes long, which apparently means I can scrape together the audiovisual processing at least sometimes. simont linked me to a moment in the middle of an episode a few weeks ago; I was sufficiently charmed by That Moment In Particular that I made Adam watch it too; A followed up with "gosh I haven't watched any Trap Door in ages", and promptly found a set of DVDs on the Oxfam website. So! There is probably more of this in my future.

Playing. More Chroma! A bit more replay of the first set of levels, and then this evening I solved The Green Room that we were stuck on in 2.04, which was Satisfying. On the one hand we're still stuck on a lot of the other half of the level; on the other I have worked out a way to get both of our player-tokens into the same room; on the gripping hand, I'm not sure that's actually useful. More Poking To Follow.

Cooking. A variant on the caramelised onion & squash tart: we were out of fake parmesan so made it with 100% Cheddar instead of 2:1 Cheddar:Italian Hard Cheese, and also I got distracted and accidentally did a whole butternut squash instead of half of one, and also I cooked the pastry much more thoroughly than I usually do, but somehow it turned out Well and I'm now going to have to conduct some Testing to work out which of those variables made it a Particularly Good Iteration.

While I had the oven on I also roasted a Seasonal Winter Squash my mother got delivered but didn't particularly want to eat, for the purposes of turning into winter squash pancakes. This recipe has the distinction of being the first Smitten Kitchen recipe I've tried by which I was distinctly underwhelmed; I'm willing to blame that on the indifferent pumpkin in the first instance, and A was not underwhelmed so we'll probably be trying those again.

And! I used the leftover pastry from the tart case (and the second tart case, which went into the freezer to make life easier next time, which is how I do tart cases...) to turn the last apple (all but one of the apples my mother gave me at the same time as the pumpkin fitted into a single dehydrator load, after I'd used some for Strudel) into more sk apple dumplings, because that recipe is absolutely one that has joined the rotation.

Eating. Of particular note: Cartmel (of Sticky Toffee Pudding) Lemon Drizzle Pudding. I discovered Cartmel Sticky Toffee Puddings in the village shop the summer I was based at the Coniston Coppermines youth hostel for my mapping project; when they started being sold down south via Waitrose many years later I (told my mapping partner, who also instantly ran off to buy them) made A try them, and they have been a Freezer Staple ever since. But! There are puddings other than the Sticky Toffee that they'll post to you if you buy direct from them! So we acquired also the Sticky Banana Pudding, two Sticky Ginger Puddings, the Lemon Drizzle Pudding as discussed, and two packs of fudge for A.

The Lemon Drizzle Pudding does what it says on the tin: it unites the general premise of Lemon Drizzle with the textural je ne sais quoi of steamed puddings, and we had it with raspberries, and lo, It Was Good and I enjoyed myself. Probably not enough to buy more of this pudding in particular, but I'm very happy to have tried it and I am looking forward to reporting back on the Sticky Ginger Pudding this time next week...

Growing. I dug up a bit of self-layered jostaberry, and some raspberry canes, and some horseradish, all of which have now been Transplanted to New Locations; fingers crossed they survive the process...