Seeing red

Not a good day for me but weather-wise another corker and without any thunderstorm threats in the evening. I gather that after weeks if not months of clear skies, large parts of the UK were cloudy tonight for the event, the Trump moon. 

If it's any consolation for those who missed it, I found it a very big anti-climax much like Trump himself. All the press making a huge fuss about it and when it came it was a whimper. In the extras, my best shot which was taken just after it was supposed to have been in full eclipse. I had to post-work the photo so as to see anything - I thought it was just dust on my notebook screen. Admittedly I only had my mobile phone and set it to maximum zoom and in the post-work cropped it even more. Mars impressed me more than the Moon.


But just maybe it was my mood and even possibly vision. The day had started OK with a 7:00 am dog walk followed by some more cucumber & gherkin pickling and some post-work on making some jars of dried tomatoes which I had been forced to pick in the greenhouse the day before as they were literally about to burst.

Dried mainly in the oven for hours at just under 100°C (with PV belting out "free" electricity that doesn't hurt) and then in smallish jars together with fresh basil leaves from the garden and some slivers of garlic before topping off with olive oil.

I have never done them this way but read recently that they can add a "meaty" type taste to sauces and are thus quite good in vegetarian dishes that could be a bit bland. If she doesn't do any herself, I will have to send them to my daughter in Ireland but she could probably buy better ones locally!

I would have liked to continue the "storing" of other excess vegetables in the garden but got totally demotivated by an incident. I don't remember ever setting out to get drunk - not once in 63+ years. But today I did.

OK, it's pretty easy in my case, even an alcohol-free beer makes me drunk but somehow even after two of the very few bottles of Franziskaner wheat beer, my son and son-in-law hadn't managed two weeks ago, had shown no effect, I hit the gin bottle. I can't remember when I last had a hard spirit drink. We are talking years not months or weeks. Possibly I had a Pimms in 2017 but that isn't exactly "hard".

So after four or so gin and lots of tonics, I did at least manage to induce sleep. I woke up 5 minutes before the Trump event and staggered down the drive to find the moon hidden from view at the house by the trees. I didn't have a headache and felt generally very well. I fear I may now be an alcoholic but given I have outed myself on Blip, not Anonymous. I didn't even have red eyes in the morning. I doubt I will do it again at least before the next eclipse regardless of the annoyance which is likely to continue in Trump manner for some time yet.