who only by moving can balance

Reading. I have got to the point in the archives of A Slob Comes Clean where reading speeds up considerably (because I'm skipping all the podcasts and videos, which is a significant proportion of posts by 2018).

I am also continuing to make my way through Meera Sodha's Made in India: I'm skimming and bookmarking. I think I am leaning toward "copying out the recipes of immediate interest, reconsider purchase later" at this point, but I am definitely enjoying myself!

Watching. The 2023 Migraine World Summit. So much audiovisual processing. Even with the captions. So much. Lots of useful Facts, though, and thankfully no more actual books added to my reading list (which is just as well given that I haven't yet finished the social history of migraine I picked up as a result of last year's Summit...)

Playing. A few rounds of Fluxx! A little bit of Chroma!

Cooking. Oh it has been a Many Foods week. Gosh. Okay. Let's see.

• FENNEL SEED ICE CREAM. EXTREMELY YES.
• sk's pear crisps with vanilla brown butter: also very yes; contemplating what tweaks I want to make next time. Plausibly hazelnuts substituting for some or all of the almonds in the hat.
• as previously mentioned, a beetroot and fennel and blood orange salad (which was the sort of thing I was actually looking for when I found the fennel ice cream recipe): concept (half roast veg + half raw veg + pearl barley + flavours) sound, but needs tweaking for our tastes.
• smitten kitchen everyday courgette-stuffed courgette with sorta salsa verde, as mentioned! mildly unsettling beetroot breadcrumbs. def tasty.

Eating. A made waffles for us on Tuesday morning! They were, as ever, Very Good, and also an Excellent Treet.

Also we appear to be getting into the actual habit of Collaborative Large Cooked Brunch on Sundays, in no small part to use up spare veg, and it is very pleasing. :)

Exploring. ZSL Whipsnade! Kew!

Making & mending. Liiiiiittle bit more progress on the fruit cage: I cut the wire for the door down to size. Need to buy more pipe clips to actually hold it in place.

Growing. More peppers are hatching! Aubergines have been removed from the warm box to acclimatise to Room Temperature! I sowed several beans and did a bunch of weeding! None of the Purple Ukraine are hatching yet but they've only had a week; if there's still nothing doing next weekend I will heave a sigh and repurpose the space for something else. I am still hoping for some of the Trinidad Perfume to hatch, as well, but if they don't then ah well, I suppose.

Observing. SO MANY BIRDS. Of particular note in Kew: a jay; a whole lot of parakeets; a jackdaw popping in and out of a hole in a tree, as well as some other jackdaws exhibiting less utterly captivating behaviour; coal tits; etc.

Also at Kew: a foot-long earthworm that was Determinedly Crossing A Path. The three of us (at that point) stopped and stared at it for a bit, and then cesy gave it a leaf to climb onto, which of course it promptly crawled under. However it did have the back half of itself sufficiently Over One Lobe Of The Leaf that I could use it as a hammock or a sling, so I snatched it up and deposited it on the other side of the path and then we stood and watched it some more while it found a Down and Posted Itself Into This Nice Safe Down. And! we saw a fox. :)

Several more foxes at points various, too. It has a been a good week for foxes.

And then, of course, Everybody At Whipsnade, or at least everybody we actually managed to visit at Whipsnade! Which was lovely. :)