Edgy

S's New Year task is to prune our vines, since the person who was renting them has retired and we can't find anyone willing to rent or buy the plot. Electric secateurs are ubiquitous now, saving wrists and hands, but not worth buying for our tiny plot. However that does mean that vintage manual ones are easy to find on sites like Le Bon Coin. So he went to fetch some today from a village half an hour's drive away. A snip (sorry) at 25 euros. Will need sharpening before use.

Today started well, as I did Wordle in three, and found I'd managed to lose the kilo I gained over Christmas, so I can now continue on the downward path ... hopefully. I made a healthy and protein-packed lunch of Cumberland sausages from the freezer in a lentil stew. It was very tasty. And after lunch I went for a brisk walk.

On the negative side ... the two jars of sourdough starter abandoned in the fridge when we left in mid-December had both grown a coating of mould and smelt of cheese. I binned all except a tiny scraping in each jar, transferred to clean jars,  and fed both, but success is not guaranteed. I called fellow sourdough baker B for help: "Yes, of course, I've just fed mine!" So I popped down to her house with a jar and she gave me a good dollop of her lively kefir-fed starter. I hope it isn't too much of a culture shock for it having to survive on spring water. Anyway I now have a huddle of three jars of starter, none of which smell of cheese yet. I may get to actually bake some bread in the next week.

I finally wrote something about The Bee Sting, which has bumped my book count for 2024 up to 31. Hopefully the link will work, as the Goodreads site has been up and down all day ... again. I don't think Amazon care about it. Could be a nudge to switch to Storygraph for 2025.