Supper to supper on Saturday and Sunday. It was quite a weekend at the end of a looong week.
Twenty-four hours, beginning with cold cuts of pork loin with roast vegetables and ending with homemade tomato pasta with passata I had made earlier, and with more roast vegetables - as a salad.
In between
A friend had sent me about 10 kilograms of Roma tomatoes which arrived on Friday afternoon. I couldn't deal with them then, or on Saturday, so it had to be Sunday. It also had to be passata. I'm out of stock.
As most people know, my week ends around noon on a Saturday, after the market. While that's technically not my longest day, it's the hardest because of being on my feet from 6am, lugging my wares from the house to the market, hanging around in the elements. In the last three weeks that has included enduring a 20-minute cloud-burst that dumped 9,5mm on me and my wares to a scorching nearly 40° Celsius sunshine. Back home, it's unloading, packing everything away and cleaning up to eventually take a load off.
Technically, Sunday is the only day I really have to myself.
And this week, I didn't just make passata.
A little harvest of chillies - destined for jam. That, along with marmalade, is on this week's agenda.
Also, last weekend, friends were supposed to stay over, but didn't. I wasn't sorry. I was exhausted. I was glad, though they visited after the market. We sat on the stoep, drank spritzers and caught up. Then they went back to Cape Town
So I did have Sunday to myself. Phew!
Because: the other "in-between"
Well, it's hardly in between.
Over the next few months, I'll be remodelling the interior of my house to split it into two. As it's now just me, realistically --
- I don't need all the space
- there is a lot of wasted space
- if I use it creatively, my house can help to "keep" me by generating income
So, I'm working on making the house work for itself.
Needless to say, this is taking up a lot of headspace and time: I have to sort through 14 years' living here, plus sort through and dispose of papers going back more than 20 years: The Husband's and mine. There will be tears and burning. Literal and figurative.
It's begun with finding what is probably the first ever photograph of us together, and which used to live on his desk before he retired.
As an aside, my basil is still prolific, so I am happily plopping it on almost everything.
Those twenty four hours ended with my one of ultimate comfort foods: tomato pasta. With homemade passata. Of course.
PS I hope to document the house remodelling journey. Let's see how things unfold.
Until next time
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa
Photo: Selma
Post script
I blog here, on Instagram and via WordPress to my own website. I write for love and a living and you'll find out more about that here. Content for the first two, and sometimes the last, cross pollinate.
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Original artwork: @artywink
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