Tag Archives: vegan mayonnaise

Tuesday 29th April 2025 – WHAT A LOVELY …

… day I have had today. You won’t believe this, but I have been shopping, for the first time since I can’t remember when.

Not only that, I have the living room window open because it has been a scorching hot day today and I have made the most of it.

That was despite a horrifically late night too. It was well after 01:30 when I finally fell into bed after everything, and yet despite that I couldn’t go off to sleep for quite a while.

When the alarm went off to awaken me, I was dead to the World, completely dead. And I really don’t think that I have ever found it to be so difficult to leave the bed. It was a real stagger into the bathroom where I remembered to telephone the nurse to say that I was back.

The stagger into the Kitchen was quite a struggle too but I took my medication and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was in the middle of a dream and when I reached for the dictaphone it evaporated again. But it was to do … I can’t even remember properly what it was but it ended up with some well-known singer having to change his clothes when it was time for him to go out. He ended up changing his behind some kind of screen or other where there was no-one. Prince, the singer, he was there somewhere. He made some kind of remark about the fact that this guy was changing his clothes in public behind a screen and wrote a song about it which contained some not very nice lyrics about it at all about what was going on at that particular point.

The usual incoherent ramble when I’m being totally out of my tree in the middle of the night … "nothing new there of course" – ed …

The nurse came around and while he was dealing with me, he quizzed me about the hospital. When I explained the situation to him, he approved of my decision to walk out. Waiting around in a hospital for no good reason is a waste of everyone’s time. It might have been possible for a doctor to pull a few strings and arrange a scan despite the backlog, but she should have tried, informed me of the time, and then left me to my own devices to make my own way there if I were so determined to leave.

After he left I came back in here to listen to this week’s radio programme and send it off. And I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I actually forgot about breakfast.

My friend came round at about 11:00 and we had a coffee. Being an architect, he has access to an online 3D Planner (and so do I now, and I wish that I had had it years ago in the Auvergne) so we spent a happy three hours measuring the apartment downstairs by trigonometry and counting the floor tiles in the photographs, and then plotting where I’ll fit my furniture.

The conclusion is that I have far too much furniture and I’ll need to downsize – yet again. It’s a mystery how it all fits into this place.

Then we decided to go out. I have my old microwave that rotted away underneath me and the television that hasn’t worked properly since one of the ginger beer bottles exploded in the living room while they were keeping me in hospital several years ago and sent a shower of fragments of glass through the screen.

So in the glorious boiling-hot day with not a single blemish in the sky and the windows wide open, we drove to the dechetterie, after which I had two fewer things to worry about.

From there we drove to Centrakor, my first time in a shop since January 2024 if I remember correctly. We came out with all of the curtain poles, attachments and rods for the net curtains that I’ll be having.in my new place. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago I interviewed for the radio the lady who makes the clothes for the Carnival Queens. Her shop is about 250 metres from here, inside the walled city at the back, and I’ll be arranging for her to make my curtains.

Next stop was Aubade, the big bathroom suppliers. I sent my friend in and he came out with a couple of huge brochures through which I shall be thumbing at my leisure to pick out the things that I need for my shower. One thing that I am going to have for the toilet is one of those cisterns that has a small sink on top. I’m not going to keep on wandering around into the bathroom all the time.

Final stop was, of course, LeClerc. We had intended to go for a meal there but the restaurant was closed. Instead, we wandered around the shop, at a snail’s pace of course, and bought a few things. I still can’t find any neutral yeast though, so it looks as if I shall have to keep on with this horrible smelly yeast.

Back here, while my friend nipped back to the town for a lettuce (mine looked quite depressing) I made a giant salad with what I had and some of what we had bought. We’d also bought two vegan burgers with liquid curry filling that I had seen for the first time and was keen to try, so they went into the air fryer.

The pièce de résistance was the vegan mayonnaise. We found a simple vegan mayonnaise and with the food processor, I had a go at it. And believe me, it beats any vegan mayonnaise that I’ve ever had from a proprietary manufacturer. It was wonderful.

The curry burgers were delicious too so I took a photo of the label and sent it to my faithful cleaner, to ask her to buy a couple more packs for the freezer next time she’s there. I need to vary my diet more.

After my friend left, I washed the mountain of dishes and the food processor, then came in here to write my notes.

So having done what I needed to do, I am now going to bed. Much later than I would like but I don’t care. I’ve had a lovely day. It’s so nice to be out and about in the sun and I really have missed it.

What made it better was spending the day with an old friend. We had many adventures in the mid-seventies when we met in Manchester and then afterwards until, when with grown-up lives, we drifted away.
He comes from Grimsby and when I was over there once many years ago I asked him "shall we go to watch Grimsby Town? They are playing at home this afternoon"
"No thanks" he replied. "If I want to watch someone mess around and fail to score during ninety minutes, I’ll come with you to a disco"

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Tuesday 20th March 2018 – THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID …

new television place d'armes granville manche normandy france… for sitting on one’s sofa watching the football on the big screen.

Admittedly it’s only on the internet and the internet connection isn’t as fast as it has been in the past, but buying a decent-sized television and patching the laptop through it is definitely one of my better decisions.

And not only that – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a top-of-the-range DVD player with hard drive and recording facility which I resurrected after 7 or 8 years in a box, and the remote control is dead.

Today, doing nothing much in particular I actually found a new generic one on the internet. It seems that my DVD player is still top-of-the-range and still being made after all these years. And so a new remote control is on the way here (at least, it ought to be).

Who knows – I might even be even more comfortable pretty soon.

Last night was a slightly better night. Still not perfect but good enough. and after the usual morning performance I even had a shower, a shave and a change of clothes.

road works avenue des vendeens granville manche normandy franceThat was the cue to hit the streets for the shopping.

And a slight amount of excitement up near LIDL. For the last few weeks I’ve noticed piles of hieroglyphics on the road and on the pavement. But today, the street was closed off on one side and they were digging up the area.

I wonder if this is some more of the fibre-optic work. They seem to have moved on from round where I live.

But really I should have gone yesterday to LIDL. It was baking day and they had tons of stuff on offer, most of which had gone. However I did buy a baking sheet and … SHOCK! HORROR! … a cake box that might even fit my next Christmas cake -if there is one;

It was a pleasant walk back here.

And I can tell you that it must be Spring some time soon. The sailing school seems to have started up again and they were out and about in the briny.

I have been meaning to go to see them about a navigation course, but of course I have other preoccupations just now.

mobile crane port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut what makes the walk back even more pleasant are the things that you encounter along the way.

Desperately trying to negotiate the roundabout down at the port was a huge yellow mobile crane – a massive thing complete with rear-steering. And that’s the thing over there, fully extended.

It looks as if we are having some serious action on the harbour gates. It’s round about now that they are supposed to be installed.

As for the cooking session, the vegan mayonnaise was rather a disappointment. It was far too liquid and I don’t know what to do about that. But it tastes delicious and I’ll do some more of this regardless. Maybe a little less mustard.

But the hummus – that came out absolutely perfectly and I’m very impressed with that – almost as much as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin. There are two tubs of that in the freezer now for when I finish this packet of vegan cheese.

But it all goes to show that this mixing kit that I bought a few weeks ago was another excellent buy too.

The weather deteriorated for my afternoon walk and I finished in the rain which was disappointing. But it had cleared up by the time that I went out for my evening walk – a quick nip out at half-time.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with rice – cooked in the oven because with having nothing for pudding I made a rice pudding. It’s been a long time sonce I’ve had a proper one cooked in the oven and it was well-worth the effort. It was delicious.

Now that the football is over I can catch up with a couple of things and have an early night. I need it.

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Monday 12th March 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

.. last night when I said that I wouldn’t be doing all that much today. In fact, I’ve done another emulation of my namesake the mathematician.

And despite my early night last night and being completely stark out, I still had a struggle out of bed this morning.

And it’s not as if I had done much during the night either. TOTGA put in an appearance again though. Well, actually she didn’t, but one of her kittens did. A tabby and white one found its way into my car and was roaming around the floor getting in the way of the pedals. So I told the girl in the passenger seat that we would have to go round there to drop off the animal. That’s not anything that should wear anyone out now, is it?

We had medication and breakfast and then the usual morning ritual, and then as promised I attacked the photographs that I took yesterday. And if you missed them, they are now on line in yesterday’s entry.

But looking at them, I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that I’ve wasted my money with this new camera. The photos are, quite frankly, total rubbish. The standard lens that’s included in the package is just not up to the job and can’t produce a properly focused, sharp image if it were to try all night.

Consequently, on my walk this afternoon in the howling gale that we were having, I wound up the Nikon and took a couple of lenses with me. The max extension on the standard lens is the same focal length on the min extension on the zoom lens, so I took several photos of the same views with the two lenses, matching the aperture, speed and ISO, and I want to see how they turn out.

It might be possible that it’s the standard lens, and not the camera that is at issue and if so, I’ll see what I can do about finding a cheap AF-S lens to fit it. The irony of it all is that I do have a spare standard lens, and I’ve left it back at the farm, haven’t I? That’s annoying.

Another thing that has occupied some of my time is this 3D program.

You remember a few weeks ago that I had a little project on the go about some items, and then this other 3D site appeared that resells content. So I searched the Internet this morning too and found a tutorial about making clothes.

It uses Hexagon, the deep-level 3D design program that I have, but it assumes a level of knowledge that I don’t have. Something that took the narrator of this video almost three minutes took me almost three hours and I still wasn’t satisfied with what I had done.

But then Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m certainly learning a lot as I go round, and if that’s not a positive sign of progress then nothing is.

Tea was the rest of the pepper that I hadn’t used on the pizza, stuffed with the usual mixture, and with spicy rice. And I seem to be running out of salad dressing. But I have a recipe for vegan mayonnaise and now that I have a blender, I intend to take full advantage of it.

But I cracked this evening. I turned the heating off on Friday night as I went to bed and it’s not been on all weekend. But with the wind and the clouds it’s gone quite cool again. So this evening I switched it on low again. No point in freezing to death is there?

So an early night and tomorrow I need to go and fetch my rail tickets. My train leaves before the ticket office opens and I’ve seen what happens when the automatic ticket printer fails to work. I’ve no intention of arguing with an intransigent ticket inspector so I want my tickets in my sweaty little mitt before I set out on Wednesday at … errr … 07:45.

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