Ethiopian Lentil Soup

This soup lasted us 3 days for lunch. It was quite hot, hence the yoghurt on top.

It was a frosty night but sunny when I left the house at 9.15 to meet Gill at the top of Physic Lonnen. I got there early so I must have improved my speed since the last time we met. Just as well. We went round the moor for 6 miles. (36 miles this week so I’ve reached Launceston now!). On the way we met the old man (not yesterday’s mansplaining one) accompanied by a chum, looking for the pheasant shooters. We were able to tell them they were heading for Blue Mill via Rickety Gate. The chum is the dad of #2 daughter’s primary school friend. I was sad to see the decline in his faculties. We are getting to the age when people are succumbing to various ills but nonetheless it shocks me.

I uploaded my blurb family year book and also ordered my first cookery book for Jo who requested one as there was 40% discount if 4 books in total were bought. Santander rejected both my cards so I used another card. Then I noticed they’d texted me about “unusual payments” and to use a PIN number supplied. I didn’t want to pay twice so ignored it. Subsequently they called the house phone and went through a security rigmarole. I did all that and 5 minutes later they rang again and I put the phone down on them. Grr. Obviously it’s good they check but it happened 2 days ago as well.

Thomas is now testing negative and nobody else in the house is positive. However I had a text this morning from actress friend Lynne who I walked with on Monday, to say she had tested positive. She thinks she got it at rehearsal on Tuesday as 2 other members also got positive tests at the same time. I am still negative. I’m glad we ate outside the pub though.

I just had a very cheering WhatsApp from a Suffolk friend who took to writing sonnets during lockdown.

Here it is. I hope you like it as much as I do.

To ‘The Dispassionate Third Party’
She’s Godot and Garbo: elusive, aloof;
We think she exists, but we’re waiting for proof.

She moves with the stealth of a glacial drift;
There isn’t a stench that her nose hasn’t sniffed.

Her vision is ‘X-ray’; brain ‘second-to-none’
She arbitrates ethics, adjudicates fun.

She’s Clotho, the spinner of all human threads -
The peek-a-boo Grinch under reprobate beds.

A Mistral that’s brewing, to blow an ill wind;
The cloudy penumbra on whom hope is pinned,

The line-judge of bullshit, the umpire of glee;
She’s Poppins, and Matron, and Nanny McPhee,

Enigma, conundrum, a will-o’-the-wisp -
We yearn for her words to be even and crisp.

She’s not to be hurried, she’s taking her time
She’ll squeeze out her verdict, in Lycra, in mime…

But oh how we need her, and so she must stay;
We’re all in the thrall of this woman called ‘Gray’.