Ol' Blue Eyes

Struggling for blips now, but at least I can make occasional visits to the alleycats when taking the rubbish to the bins. Mr Blue Eyes was looking a bit the worse for wear last week, but he seems to be on the mend, though he's still thinner and less glossy than he was. Their food supply may be less regular than pre-lockdown; luckily for them I have a whole sack of Lidl cat biscuits that Mystère flatly refuses to eat, so every time I go up there I take a bagful for them. Today they'd been given some paella too.

Speaking of food, Mystère and I were sitting on the terrace this morning when we were both startled by a sudden whoosh and a brief squawk. We had just time to register that one of the kestrels had swooped on the loquat tree a few feet away and carried off a small bird, and it was gone. I suppose kestrels need to eat too :(

Also food: it was my turn to go to the supermarket for the weekly shop. I did not enjoy it. It wasn't crowded, but there were more people than I was comfortable with. Luckily everyone else had proper masks, as my improvised one with a scarf kept sliding off my nose, whereupon I decided that not having it at all was better than adjusting it and hence touching my face. However I got virtually everything we wanted; still no flour, but I did spot a plentiful supply of fresh yeast tucked in beside the yoghurt.

Lunch was baked hake because B, whose shopping I was also doing, had asked for hake fillets and they didn't have any, only very small whole ones. So I bought a couple on the assumption that if he didn't want them we could eat them. Served with new potatoes and an improvised sauce gribiche (basically mayonnaise made with cooked egg yolks instead of raw, with bits in: chopped egg white, gherkins, red pepper from a jar, shallot). To start we had a salad made by S, featuring loquats and cured duck breast. And cheese and biscuits for afters.

After lunch, more food: started a sourdough loaf and now that we have a plentiful supply of eggs and butter I made a couple of jars of lemon curd.

Last night's film was Tati's Jour de Fête (1949) which we had never seen. His films don't have any plot, and dialogue is optional (there isn't much, and you don't need to understand it to know what's going on). It was mildly amusing light entertainment featuring Tati as a bumbling, bicycling postman. It occurred to me that Dany Boon must have been somewhat inspired by this in Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, especially the sequence where a progressively drunker postman is wobbling around the village trying to deliver letters. We might watch HIGNFY on catchup this evening if I can get it to work, just to see how they can make the current news funny.