Muffins and meandering

Officially, I'm on holiday. Alright, so I happen to be holidaying at home during a lockdown, but it's still nice to lie in bed on a Monday morning with the knowledge that all my coworkers are already hard at work. Well, at work, anyway.

After a leisurely hour or two perusing yet another Georgette Heyer, (a regency one this time) I abandoned the intricacies of Miss Fanny Charing's sham engagement, and dragged myself out of bed to make muffins.

(You'll be wanting to know about yesterday's murderer. Turns out I had the motive and backstory spot on, but had identified the wrong neighbour as the long lost first wife. It was in fact the nosy vicar's wife. Well played, Ms Heyer.)

I'd actually been planning to make these muffins for the past few days. My choice of Alison Holst's carrot and pineapple muffins was governed mostly by the standard 'having the ingredients in the cupboard' rule, but more specifically by the following:

1. I had plenty of carrots, product of a generous colleague's recent vegetable-sharing activities.
   
2. Some months ago I bought a bag of walnuts in the shell, expecting to use them in zucchini bread over the summer. Sadly, my courgettes have not done well this year, and the walnuts remain largely unused.
   
3. The recipe uses a full two cups of wholemeal flour, something I happen to have in excess. On at least two occasions I have selected what I thought was plain flour at the supermarket, only to find it is wholemeal when I get home. It's as bad as bayonet vs screw-in light bulbs.

I set about cracking and chopping the walnuts, grating carrot and similar activities. Soon I had the muffins in the oven, though the mix looked very dense and the muffin pans overfull. 

Sure enough, the end result was a collection of heavy and unappetising muffins, though they do taste better than they look. I'm sure I'll eat them. After all, they're wholemeal with both fruit and vege in them - that's practically health food. Right?

Baking completed, I retired to a sunny spot with a pot of tea and last night's leftover pizza. There I picked up the book again, and did not stir until the tangled affairs of Miss Charing and her various friends and relations had been tidily resolved. Then, conscious of a lack of exercise in my current routine, I took myself out for a walk.

Walking around the block doesn't sound like much in the way of exercise, but it is quite a big block - good for a 40-minute walk if you're moving briskly. And that's a whole lot better than nothing.

I spent some of the walk entertaining myself by spotting bears in people's windows. It did seem a bit intrusive, peering into houses as I passed, especially since I had no kids in tow! The peering may be justified when you actually do spot a bear, but all to often my eye was drawn to innocent plants and vases, and in one case a storm trooper helmet which I speculate may have been a cookie jar. In the end I opted for a sort of surreptitious glancing, which probably looked even more suspicious. 

With so many essential services based in this neighbourhood, the streets of Hornby are still seeing a fair amount of traffic. It's much emptier than usual, but not completely deserted. The most obvious signs of life are the obediently-spaced queues of individuals outside the local dairies. Interestingly, I saw no queue outside Countdown, which makes me wonder what's drawing people to the dairies instead. Good for the dairy owners though. It would be nice to think there are some small businesses who will find this Covid situation more of a boon than a burden. 

Walk completed, I sat down to write up this entry. And I'm seriously starting to wonder if there is ever a time that Windows doesn't want to do an update/restart? (Don't worry, it'll only take about 90 minutes..) So I'll get this posted and think about some dinner while Windows does whatever it does. Maybe this time it'll be satisfied for a while (but I doubt it).