The son is sick. A stomach bug … Ill spare you the details. No matter how old a child – once they’re sick, everything is different. Reset.
My office is no longer in the office, but at home at the kitchen table. Work is improvised, as I’m unprepared and – of course – the documents I need to be able to work from home are not here but there. Once I am back at work, I will always (!) scan everything (!). Every single piece of paper. But that does not help me for the moment.
Food is different too. Chicken and rice. Biscotti, Rice and chicken. Biscotti … Pretzel sticks and coke are no longer recommended when sick – I knew that already. Grated apple and mashed bananas aren’t good either when you have a virus (too much fructose) – that’s what the doctor told us this morning. Hence, I won’t give it to the son any more. Two liter of camomile tea instead, says the doctor. … So far, my patient has had three cups. And he may not even drink one liter by tonight, I am afraid … He’s a teenager after all. Reading the Guiness Book of Records, bored beyond belief, playing games on this cell phone. Halfway sick, on the mend – sounds familiar?
On the positive side: outstanding weather! Hence, I spend most afternoons outside in the garden, hand digging goutweed. I struggle every year with this beast, trying to eradicate it, but I don’t think I’m winning. Ever. Goutweed is a Hydra. Every tiny rootlet will soon become a new plant. A web of underground rhizomes from which each leafstalk emerges. Bigger and stronger than before. Yes, I know, one can make salad from it. Apparently it is delicious. However, I don’t want to. I could supply all of Berlin with goutweed salad, maybe even Northern Germany …
And then there is wood. Again … Close to work two big birches had to be cut and I may have been a bit too fast when lifting my finger … Now, it is all mine and that is a lot of wood! Load by load I am bringing it home in the car. To cut and to stack it, together with the son – that was the idea. Instead, most of it is in our driveway now. Tomorrow is Friday. The man will be home, ready to work the wood splitter. Voluntarily (those who know him will laugh now).
At night, I fall into bed. No surprise. Lights off at 10 pm. In the morning, muscles ache that I didn’t know I had. You can tell: there is not much knitting around here right now. Not much blogging either.
But soon my knitting mojo will be back. Then, I will show you the sweater I am working on with the yarn that once was to become a Birkin sweater. However, it is a totally different pattern now and knits up fast and easy. Fortunately! I will not frog this yarn again.
What else? It was the man’s birthday last week and he asked for a “cellar cake” as his birthday cake. Coconut fat, raw eggs, cocoa powder, a reminiscence of childhood – however, I dread that cake 🤢. But I would do anything for love … Hence, I found another recipe of the very same cake:
Heat 1 cup of cream, melt 3 cups of coarsly grated chocolate in cream, add 1 cup of butter. Stack with biscuits in a cake tin and refridgerate for a few hours. Done.
Lots of calories, I know. So what? Three ingredients, each of them is good, together they are perfect. Try it, it is so worth it!
Now, I’ll make another pot of chamomile tea and then I’ll go back outside. Goutweed is awaiting me …
