delightful weekend mostly spent away from the computer

I had another delightful weekend mostly spent away from the computer. I managed to read LJ over breakfast, but actually posting takes time. Saturday was gaming in the afternoon, and projects before and after. Sunday was SCA fighter practice, followed by a birthday party for the exchequer, which was quite fun. I got to meet more people in the shire, and was introduced to a Swedish birthday party tradition (normally only for kid's parties, but we are all kids at heart). I had been talking to someone (in English) and suddenly most of the people who had been sitting around stood up and started heading up stairs. I asked and apparently the Swedish announcement I hadn't noticed (since I didn't understand it) summoned us upstairs for fishing. "Excuse me?" I asked, thinking I had misheard. I hadn't. Fishing it was. We stood in line on the stairs, and when we reached the top we were faced with a sheet, to which a variety of paper fish had been attached, mostly blocking the entrance to a room. Handed a fishing rod we each cast our line over the sheet in turn, and when we felt the tug on the line drew it back to discover a bag full of candy + a box of raisins attached. I can see why this is a popular activity. I happily ate my raisins and gave my lollies to archinonlive, who was kind enough to give me his raisins, too (he would have enjoyed eating them himself, but since the raisins were all I wanted from the loot he was happy to share).

Sunday evening was our normal folk music session (he plays violin with the other musicians, I happily enjoy the entertainment while working on sewing projects, or, as in this week, take a short nap as well as sewing) followed by folk dancing.

Monday I should have been doing uni work, but all I really managed was three loads of laundry during the day, and folk dancing in the evening. The Sunday class is an advanced class, but Monday is the "continuing beginning" class (I skipped the beginning beginning class, since I have a partner with over 10 years experience at this style of dance, and am a quick learn). As with many dance classes we change partners after every dance. When the class begun it was almost painful to dance with some of the other students they were having such difficulty managing to coordinate the steps with the music. However, now that the class is nearly over they have all got the hang of the basics. Now it is fun to dance with all of them, and not just the ones who started the class knowing what they are doing.

Today, on the other hand, I did manage to get uni work accomplished, and even sent my erstwhile boss the draft of the paper in progress (which still needs quite a bit more information added) so that he has a chance to give me feedback and suggest directions before I write too much of it. I also gathered together the figures which have been mentioned thus far, added captions, and put them into a single pdf.

I tried stopping into the geology dept to talk to someone there about local rocks, but he wasn't in his office just then, so I e-mailed him instead to ask when would be a good time. But mostly it was an excuse to get out and enjoy some fresh air. It is so very much spring out there--deep slush and puddles everywhere. Walking requires either waterproof shoes, being very careful, or not minding getting your feet cold and wet. Have I mentioned I don't really care for spring? All of my beautiful snow melting and turning into slush, and then refreezing at night to so that it is good and slippery the next day when it starts to melt again. Ick. In an ideal world spring is when I would go on holiday somewhere else, so that when I left the world was beautiful and snowy, and when I returned the snow had been replaced by green grass. But that isn't happening this year. Oh well, I can't really complain--I am having much too much fun living here!

Swedes come up with odd combinations for food

This afternoon I was feeling hungry for something with a bit more protein than I have had in my diet the past couple of days, so I looked at the shelf, spotted the container of chickpeas, and decided they would make a lovely base. I drained and rinsed them and put them into the food processor with some sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and pumpkin seeds. After grinding them I added some spices (garlic, onion, pepper, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and cilantro)and an egg and blended it some more. Then added some milk, and some fil(a liquidy sort of yogurt available here), some thawed chopped spinach, a handful of rolled oats, and a small scoop of rye flour. The resultant texture was sort of like a thick muffin batter. I debated baking it, but finally settled on frying it in butter. This worked quite well. I spooned it onto the hot pan in small amounts, and wound up with little browned patties that are vaguely reminiscent of sausage in their texture. Being hungry, I ate a stack of them straight away, and put the rest into the fridge.

When archinonlive came home from work a few hours later I showed them to him, and he decided to take a couple, and ate them reheated with mashed potatoes, cheese, and a huge dollop of raspberry jam on them. I would never have thought of putting jam on such a dish, but he says they are really good that way, and he points out that they look kind of like liver sausages, which are traditionally eaten with lingonberry jam. I reminded him that it is only here that people do that...