A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail – Bill Bryson

More than anything in the world right now I want to go bushwalking. I have a fruity French dessert cooling on the bench; a cup of tea beside me; an awesome job and a shitload of books and knitting to play with, and I want to chuck it all in and go bushwalking. That’s what this book does (although I admit the urge is never far from the surface with me). I think this is one of Bryson’s best books. He combines his excellent sense of humour with involved research and human study. The relationship between him and his hiking companion, an old friend who, in intervening years has developed and recovered from alcoholism and gained a lot of weight, is really interesting and touching — the characterisation of his friend is fantastic. There’s introspection and analysis, as Bryson looks at why he — or indeed anybody — would find the hike so appealing and satisfying; and this is woven around a history of the trail, travel observations and commentary on the natural and man-made surroundings. It blends together really well.

Coraline – Neil Gaiman

What an awesome book. Short and juicy, with not one excess word or scene. It’s creepy, exciting and fun and it rocks. Coraline and her parents move into a new flat with a mysterious door that opens on to a brick wall. One night, Coraline hears the door swing open and discovers a passageway leading to a parallel world, where bizarre caricatures of her parents (and the other people in her world) live. They encourage her to stay, but she returns home: shortly after this, her parents disappear and Coraline has to go back through the door to rescue them. Totally cool and exciting.

American Pyscho – Bret Easton Ellis

I did a teensy bit of work experience in a bookshop in 2000, when American Pyscho was first blowing everybody’s mind, and it had to be shrink-wrapped on the shelf, lest some innocent browser missed the title, cover art, blurb and back-cover reviews and didn’t realise the book was moderately confrontational in its psychopathic violence and was accidentally traumatised while flicking through the pages. There are some startlingly violent chapters in here (pardon me while I clutch my pearls) and some pretty mean sex violence as well, but frankly, it works. The narrator is a classic rich yuppie riding the high that 80′s New York promised to that lot: I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for certainty it’s an accurate portrayal, but it feels very authentic. The obsessive fixation of the author with his daily routine, his clothes, his life, his coworkers’ and friends’ appearance; the details are overwhelming, suffocating. The lifestyle he leads feels hectic, desperate, shallow and occasionally terrifying. If I tried to live the way he does, well, I’d probably end up a bit odd too, but mine would manifest in obsessive cake stomping or something, not brutalising people. The question that hangs over you the whole time you read is “did he or didn’t he?” And there’s a lot to throw doubt on everything he claims to have done. Something I found really interesting is that I desperately wanted him to be an unreliable narrator. Even though I knew he was fictional, all his victims were fictional, I was already so emotionally attached that I really, really wanted him to be all fantasy. As a reader, that’s a testament to Ellis: he created characters so real and believable as to evoke understanding, if not outright sympathy, so that I wanted the horrific things to be fantasies. To summarise: violent, yes, but compelling, clever, interesting, and really thought-provoking. The themes of materialism and the lies of success really echoed and left me churning them over and over well after I finished. Pretty awesome.

Interesting (or not) (possibly not) (probably not) side note: the last Bill Bryson book I read was also about discovering America, small town America, called The Lost Continent. I read it immediately adjacent to Kerouac’s On the Road, which is also about discovering America; and as some sort of complement, read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, an intensely English-flavoured book. This time around, I’m matching Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods with Bret Easton Ellis’ American Pyscho and contrasting it with Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. An interesting blend, fer sher.

On Ravelry, folks talk of going cold sheep, committing to no-yarn-buying until a certain target is reached, usually a destash goal or a time limit. I’m starting to think I need to go cold  sheep on my books, which would be cold tree or something. Only some of them are ebooks, so that would be cold…mobi?  Got a few off my list lately:

The Female Eunuch – Germaine Greer

Fascinating, stirring, occasionally annoying, and crowded with fictitious characters. This was a pretty cool book, altogether:. Took me a long time to read, because there’s a lot to get through. In case you’ve had your head stuffed under the carpet for the past billion years, this book is widely regarded as the one that set off the whole pesky feminist movement (well, that’s how it’s seen in some quarters, anyway). At its core, it argues that a patriarchal society fundamentally dehumanises women by sexually neutering them; in taking away their sexuality (defused through various bewildering methods of repression, judgment, criticism and threat), the culture takes away women’s personhood. They become objects — mother, wife, mistress — rather than people. The book explores this theory in range of life contexts, looking at attitudes towards women’s bodies, education, careers, motherhood, relationships and so on. And overall, it’s pretty compelling: while this is an older text now (first edition: 1970), we haven’t progressed so far as a culture that these scenarios are laughable or antiquated. There’s a lot to like in this book:  there’s a lot of agitation, frustration and anger, as if we needed reminding why the feminist movement needs to keep barrelling along. It’s also funny, sharp and really readable. But at the same time, there are a arguments that seem a bit strawman-ish: depictions of fictitious scenarios that are then challenged and criticised. But on the other hand, these arguments portray undeniably familiar tropes that deserve to be challenged. At times the book charged way ahead of me and I had trouble keeping up with where the arguments were going; when Greer started describing her vision for communal childrearing I was surprised and had to backtrack to find out how we got there. But ultimately, this is the kind of text that makes you open  your eyes and look around and start questioning some of those familiar tropes I mentioned — questioning leads to challenge and thinking, at least some of the time, so that alone is a damn good thing.

The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl (Volumes 1 and 2)

While working my way through The Female Eunuch, I was, on the side, dabbling in some dear old Dahl. Ever read the short stories? No? Just the kids’ books, huh? Well, I’ll wait — chase up…hmm,  which first…how about Kiss Kiss? Have a look. Yeah. Creepy as fuck, eh? I loved Roald Dahl’s books as a kid, not least of all because some had the thread of macabre running through them — the cruelty in Matilda, the gross aggression of the Twits, and the sinister Witches and giants (from The BFG) — and in the short stories, he really pumps it up. They’re fantastic. Many of them are creepy and clever and cunning; they’re weird and fast-moving and gripping and they are great. This collection included Kiss Kiss, Over to You (all stories about war pilots and flying: creepy, clever, thoughtful and interesting), Switch Bitch,  Someone Like You and Eight Further Tales of the Unexpected. Particularly satisfying stories: “The Way Up to Heaven”, “The Visitor”, “The Old Switcheroo”, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, “Neck”, “Mr Botibol” and “The Bookseller”. Oh, and “Skin”. And — oh look, just read them. They’re gripping and interesting and have a very vivid, Dahl-esque, English flavour.  Enormously good.

Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories - Angela Carter

Whiplash! Going from Dahl’s short stories to Carter’s gave me serious author whiplash. So completely different in tone and themes. Angela Carter’s stuff is terrific: I love Nights at the Circus, and The Magic Toyshop was a corker too. Burning Your Boats is a complete anthology, containing the books Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Black Venus and American Ghosts and Old World Wonders, and six other stories that were never collected (three early stories at the beginning off the book and three misc at the end). Carter tends towards the lush and detailed, and it’s interesting to read the stories in chronological order like this, because that lushness and detail is at its heaviest in her early stories, gradually thinning as her career progressed. So while I found the first three early stories a little unpromising — not bad, but not quite my cup of tea — by the time I had reached halfway through Fireworks I was pretty interested. And then The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories – a collection of retelling of fairytales — had me completely hooked. Favourites from Burning Your Boats: “The Bloody Chamber”, “Puss-in-Boots”, “The Kitchen Child”, “John Ford’s ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore’” and “Gun for the Devil”. Really juicy stories, ripe with action, sex, laughter and conflict, as with the best of Carter’s stuff.

The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

I started reading Lot 49 in uni but never finished it. (True story.) Found it in my collection the other day and read it, cover-to-cover, in one sitting (more or less — there were toilet breaks). Oh wow, man, far out, awesome. Oedipa Maas is summoned as the executrix of an ex-lover’s will and finds herself nudged all around by hints of a conspiracy: but you can never be sure if it’s in her head or if it’s an external force she’s stumbled on. This kind of book is perfectly suited to a single-sitting reading, because the story builds momentum and you end up sustaining the perfect headspace for the creeping feeling of paranoia that Oedipa develops. Pynchon’s got a reputation for being twisty and involved and complex, but Lot 49 is readable and interesting, with plenty of motion and dialogue and interesting characters. I think it’s a good intro to his stuff — I hope so, because I’ve got V and Gravity’s Rainbow lined up next.

In a misguided moment of honesty, I decided to have a squiz at how many books I’ve got on the go at the moment: if I only count the ones I’m earnestly reading and can confidently explain what plot point I’m up to, it’s still too many. Good problem to have.

Tiny steps

My Dadini taught me to love puzzles. I have a huge memory file loosely tagged “puzzles, misc” crammed with memories of us working together, quiet and cooperating, or chatting and laughing, or whatever we needed. And as I grew up, I realised ‘need’ isn’t too far off. They’re good for you. They’re head-clearing and settling. Puzzles demand patience.

If anyone knows patience, it’s my Dadini. As a family, we’ve had plenty (no more thank you, I’m quite full) of health crises and physiological turmoil. Some acute and instantly chaotic, some tedious, eroding and long-term: and all can only be addressed with patience and problem-solving. Dadini and I — and a few other members of the immediate Familini — have chronic health issues: the kind that periodically flare into interesting crises, but are generally just day-to-day challenges in patience, compassion and respect for the body’s obstacles. (APPROACHING METAPHOR.)

Taking shape

With a puzzle, you know you have everything you need to finish, but to get the pieces in the right order, you have to patiently sort through them. As you get them in, the others start to make more sense and you can find their spots as well. You work on different parts of the puzzle — I’ll do the bit with the swan princess and you do the bit with the chainsaw psychopath and we’ll match them up later — and so the big problem becomes lots of little ones, much easier to work on. From chaos to order through patient nibbling.

(METAPHOR IMMINENT.)

Starting to come together

Which, it turns out, is an essential life skill. The patience needed to manage chronic health issues is a godsend and a hard one to learn if you don’t already have it. Ongoing health stuff brings loads of unique challenges. Not insurmountable, but hard enough to make you want to sit down and bite kelpies whenever you think of them. So what do you do? You break them down into smaller challenges and get those in order, then you link them together and suddenly you’ve finished half the puzzle. Sometimes you have to go really small: some days, just getting a cup of tea has to be broken down into tiny, shuffling steps. Thank God I have a Dadini who gave me those skills well before I needed them.

From chaos, a rooster!

I have a Dadini who taught me patience and the ability to see a big, dragging problem as lots of little, manageable ones. I have a Dadini who taught me that if you’re patient and logical, you can solve almost anything. I have a Dadini who taught me to solve problems so well that I do it for shits and giggles.

Happy birthday Dadini.

Good things about summer:

1. Cherries. Just bought a kilo from the farmers’ markets for a stupidly low price. I almost feel like asking the sellers if they know how much cherries are worth, but all the stalls are selling for the same stupidly cheap rate, so clearly the market is just in my favour right now. I don’t want anything more from life than to keep eating cherries. Except…
2. Boysenberries. A friend came over last night and brought a bowl of boysenberries. I am blissed out on boysenberries. Boysenberry swirl was my favourite flavour of anything when I was a kid: ice cream, yoghurt, cake, packet-mix-self-saucing-pudding. They’re even better in person: lush and juicy and oooh hang on a sec I’ll be right back.
3. Late sunsets. Can you say “drinks on the back deck every night”?

That’s all. It’s a short list and it’s mostly food things. I’m clinging to these because summer also means hot hot weather and that’s pretty sucky. Love cold weather; less love for the hot. My house stands up nicely to the heat — there’s fans, an air-conditioner, and dark shades you can pull low over the front windows so not too much light/hot gets in. Surrounded by trees, too, so we get tons of shade (and tons of comments from Negative Nancys about roots getting into the toilet pipes; honestly, whatever happened to decorum?) (where was I?) (oh yes) and tons of plums. But I can’t stay in my house eating plums all summer. Bitch’s gotta work.

So this summer, so far, it’s been cool and damp and I love it. Normally by this time of year I’m bitching about how it’s too hot to sleep: this year, slumber city. Normally I’m living on lettuce and yoghurt and whining about how it’s too hot to cook: today, I’m an all-singing, all-dancing, cherry-powered cooking machine! Bread! Yoghurt! Tabbouleh and couscous! Dolmades! Maybe later dolmades: it’s almost three o’clock and I don’t feel like blanching the vines leaves right now. On the other hand, yeeeeaaah dolamdes!

Hellz, it’s cool enough that I’m thinking of getting out the jumper I cast on at the end of spring and working on it. Then I remembered that these cool weather oases are fleeting, and turned back to the summer dress. I’m on track to finish it by, oh, 2014. It’s a good project, though.

Vinland – George Mackay Brown

I was seduced by the damn gorgeous cover: muted fern green and fawn, with ghostly nordic/celtic coils watermarked over a hazy picture of a sailing ship. Serrr-wooon. Vinland, my Vinland! It tells the life story of Ranald Sigmundson, starting off with him going to sea with his Dad, leaving his poor old Mum to try and run the farm on her own. Ranald shows preternatural sea legs and good sense: he runs off from his Dad (who’s a total stinker, by the way) and joins a merchant ship. They find out later that his Dad’s ship was wrecked shortly after, and so begins Ranald’s life on the merchant ship. He shows preternatural skill at trading and bargaining and earns the ship a tidy profit. When he eventually makes it home and is reunited with his Mum, he shows preternatural skill in running the farm: he single-handedly drives out the blackguards who have been exploiting her, resurrects the farm’s good name and rules with wisdom and courage unheard-of in one so young! And so on. There’s lots of moments were someone refuses to be taken in by pomp and sasses an authority figure (usually our hero, and usually a king/prince/laird/etc.), and then the authority figure quivers briefly with rage before slapping their knee and ROARING with laughter, declaring that it’s a refreshing change to be told the truth. The sassy individual is then rewarded with a position of advisor and usually a fair whack of gold. (I suspect in real life the sassy individual would be killed fairly quickly). Our hero marries and has children, and the lives and adventures of those children as they grow and have their own children is recorded. The hero ages and his thoughts turn towards preparing himself for death.

On the whole, it’s not a bad read, but it’s a bit hard to take it seriously. The hero is preternaturally good at everything he turns his mind to, and shows wisdom and compassion beyond his years, even when he’s really old. A few of the characters are predictable and so feel easy and two-dimensional, and there’s one or two scenes whose development/endings are obvious as soon as they’re established. Having said that, it’s an interesting reflection on life and the atmosphere is lush and enjoyable. Vinland is set in pre-Christian Scandanavia, so there’s lots of revelry (mead, bread, cheese and honey, mostly), some battles, farming, and a fair bit of politics. Pretty escapist stuff, with a shake of reflection and philosophy.

so i am glad – A. L. Kennedy

My second dabble with A.L. Kennedy’s work, the first being Original Bliss, so i am glad tells the story of the relationship between (main character/narrator) Jennifer Wilson and a dude who shows up and moves into the vacant room in her share house. They’re expecting someone called Martin, so she calls him Martin: but it becomes apparent he is not Martin, but Cyrano de Bergerac, the 17th-century French writer and duellist. The way their relationship unfolds is really lovely and interesting: there’s setbacks, and both Jennifer and Cyrano have some very dark patches in their lives. But the strength and beauty, tenderness and growth that becomes apparent as their relationship deepens is touching and warming. I liked it a lot. Jennifer is a character who feels real to me: the narrative voice is convincing, fluid and articulate, especially the way she nudges against difficult matters and then darts away, to later talk about in depth — it feels a lot like talking to a new friend, as they test the waters to see how much to reveal about themselves. The change and growth in Jennifer over the book is wonderful. This isn’t a story that shirks the grime of ordinary lives, but it glows beyond it. I like it. Currently reading another one of Kennedy’s books, which I’ll talk about down the line. I like her stuff.

Quantum Man: the Undiscovered Sex – Ken Fegradoe

Okay, this one was tricky. The blurb opens with the question at the core of the book: “What does it mean to be a man in a world of dissolving sexual stereotypes?” The plot of the book is straightforward when you summarise it — it’s about the relationship between a man and his beloved partner, as they move in together and have a baby. But it covers a ton of turf in the process of answering the first question. The book explores the ideas of identity and what contributes to them — what makes a man, what makes a woman, what makes a child — and the way those ideas are challenged/demolished/reinvented in the context of a relationship. There’s a lot to like about this book: the sense of ideas bubbling and developing away as you read them, the sense of humour, the pace of the language (which isn’t necessarily a reflection of the pace of the plot, mind you: the baby’s birth takes two or three chapters). At first, I found it a bit self-indulgent and frustrating. I tend to be pretty sceptical of gender-based assertions, especially that motif of women being sacred, cosmic, in tune, emotionally fine-tuned, etc., while men have forced themselves away from their primary, intuitive understanding and civilised themselves to their detriment. I don’t think this is a gender issue: I think ignoring intuition is a person thing, regardless of gender. But I really dig the idea of fluid identity, reevaulated and reformed as your life changes and the people in it shift. So, overall: fun read, didn’t agree with all the ideas, but that’s totes okay.

Books are fun. Reader 4 lyfe, yo.

I’m not used to big, chewy, sugar-and-butter-laden, chocolate-chippified snacks. I’m typing at the speed of sound while doing a bidding war on eBay for something I don’t want while Skypeing with my Nan and singing along to Depeche Mode. I’ve never felt so ALIVE!

Oh, now I’m sad. Another cookie, please.

Tomatoes-to-be!

I had about 55 sprouts to divide up: after separating and planting out into seedling pots, several karked it in a pathetic, sprawling, gasping fashion. Drama queens. But I’ve still come through with about 25, I think, which is certainly more than enough to be wrestling with.

Meanwhile,

'errrrrrrrbs!

Hooray! Hooray for vegetables!

A vegetable garden! I built it! I planted them! Yay vegetables! I can’t wait to see what (a) survives and (b) is edible. The purple and white kales are really sweating my peppers: they’re so awesome. And the other, tall green kale is attracting white cabbage moths: white cabbage moths are super cute. I know the appearance of any insect NEAR my vegetables is supposed to induce tongue-clucking and head-shaking, followed by widespread chemical bombing, to crush the little bastards and their dainty wings, but I like insects and I have no problem sharing my veggies with them. Circle of life, yo.

I love food. So I love reading about food, food blogs, forums, etc. etc. Awesome places to yammer about yeast, waffle over waffles and shoot the shit about shakshouka. But, in keeping with Sturgeon’s Law, 99% of food blogs are crap are not to my taste. People, it’s not enough just to shove a photo of a slice of cheesecake up there and assume that it will distract us all from bad layout, dud writing and uninteresting posts. Allow me to guide you through some basic principles.

I’ve got some rules about what I’ll read. (I didn’t sit down and plan these out or anything, these are just observed patterns of behaviour.) First rule is that you’ve got to be interesting. Time is short. Like my legs. Your skills with a baked ham may be beyond reproach, but if your writing is blabbery and unfocused, you’ll just sound like a nine year old who needs to pee LIKE RIGHT NOW, and you’ve lost me. No recipe is so awesome it’s worth trawling shit sentences.

Rule two! I am uninterested in your cupcakes. You can have photos of dear wee decorated cupcakes that moisten the panties of the masses: I can promise you they will not move my cold, dead heart. It will be as a marble heart carved on the tomb of your ancestors.

Third rule: if at any point your recipe suggests I have to open a packet of cake mix, brownie mix, powdered French Onion Soup mix, or any other prefabricated box of crap, my cursor is already hovering over the back button. Proceed with extreme caution, and know that the presence of two prepackaged ingredients is likely to result in a muttered curse and clearing Chrome’s history .There are exceptions, obviously: peanut butter, sriracha, mayonnaise, jam, Cointreau – I could go on). If you post a recipe that involves pre-grated cheese, you should be prepared for the repercussions. That chill on the back of your neck and those nightmares you’ve been having: yo. You deserved it. (If you post a recipe that involves cheese from a can, then you can expect carbuncles, bunions and plagues of dildos raining on your next garden party. That’s not me, that’s just divine justice, but I wholeheartedly support it.)

Rule the fourth! A sandwich is not a recipe. C’mon, put some effort in.

All of this boils down to one thing, and it holds true across the internet. Don’t waste people’s time. Never forget for a second that your brave little blog post is launched into the heaving, extra-spicy combination laksa of info, stories, pictures and games that is the internet, and your reader could be reading something waaaaay more interesting and informative at the click of a mouse. Give folks a reason to stick around and read your blog instead of, say, foodgawker, Wild Yeast or Rabbit’s Reviews. You’re asking someone to give their precious time and eye juices to you: to make it anything less than 100% worth their while is downright rude. And stupid.

Let’s talk about this.

1. “Kitchen Sink Cookies“: biscuits with heaps of things added. “Kitchen Sink” as in “Everything but the…”. Can be applied to soups, stir fries, casseroles, bakes and the like. How does this not conjure up images of soggy biscuits covered in used tea leaves, squashed under dirty cutlery and plates with bits of dried egg? Is everyone else using their kitchen sinks for something far more dainty and neat than I? Have I been committing a huge faux pas all this time, using my kitchen sink for dirty dishes? I wouldn’t want to eat anything named after that zone.

3. “Garbage Quiche/Soup“: in application, very similar to the “Kitchen Sink” approach. Scraps and leftovers from the week revived in quiche or soup form. I am totally behind this practice, but the name…Imagine it: your friends show up one evening, bearing a much nicer bottle of wine than you’d usually buy for yourself, and you say “Fantastic! That will go really nicely with the Garbage Quiche!” The name suggests you scraped out the scungy stuff from the bottom of the crisper and the lid of the compost bin and slapped it in a pot. Eat up, chums.

2. “Chockablocks“: What a whimsical little name! Definition: biscuits with loads of extras: oats, sultanas, nuts, chocolate bits, etc. They are chock-a-block with extras. GET IT? If you’re more than eight years old you have no excuse for employing twinkly twee twiddlesome names like this. You start with chockablocks, then you move on to snickerdoodles, suddenly you’re wearing a flouncy apron, ironing your colour-coordinated tea towels and crinkling your nose if the dog hasn’t been washed in the past hour. You’re probably the kind of person who sees nothing gross about the name “Kitchen Sink cookies” because your kitchen sink smells like cinnamon and is so shiny it keeps the neighbours awake at night.

4. “Icebox Cake“: after seeing a bunch of recipes on foodgawker labelled “Icebox Cake”, I had to look it up. I mean, I know what an Icebox is — an old-timey word for frij — but I didn’t understand its relevance to the recipe. Now I get it: it’s because you leave the cake, once assembled, in the icebox overnight! CLEVER. I’m going to start calling everything I make by its preparation or storage equipment. Can I offer you another bowl of Tupperware Container Soup? You can have some Pantry Crackers and Crisper-First-But-Then-On-The-Bench-For-A-While Cheese to go with it.

5. “Impossible Pie“: this is one I learned from Aunts and Grandmothers (misc.). It isn’t always pie, but the “Impossible” part of the recipe name is essential. It’s an Impossible Pie because…wait for it…it’s IMPOSSIBLE to stuff it up! Hah! I assert that it is completely unnecessary to have a joke in a recipe title. I further assert that, if you’re going to make that sort of claim, you’d better have the balls to back it up, mate. I hear that recipe name/punchline, and I think “impossible, you say?” Believe me, I will dedicate myself to fucking up that recipe, ruining your joke, wasting the ingredients and swearing at the children.

Right. Feeling much calmer now I’ve got that off my chest. Strozzapretti, anyone?

Meanwhile, the laundry has sprung into sprouthood! It’s been two weeks and the sprouts are incredible. Week one:

boi-oi-oi-oi-oing

…and…

whoa, beets!

…and…

I cannot think of a better use for home hydroponics than basil, can you?

But then I forgot about them for a week. Can’t do the washing while I’m on stilts, so I haven’t needed to go to the laundry much. This morning I hobbled in and WHOA:

BROCCOLI GO BOOM

…AND…

HOLY CRAP TOMATOES

Which is completely awesome! Having learned a trick or two from the wily cuttlefish, who lays a bajillion eggs in the hopes of securing two babies, I planted every tomato seed I had in the hopes of securing, say, six plants. I decided that if I had more, I’d give them away to folks. Now it looks like I might have a mighty forest of tomatoes on my hands. (This is one of three trays of tomato seedlings. And by tray, I mean cut-up milk carton.)

****METAPHOR ALERT**** So while I’m hobbling about, trying not to think about how I can’t mow the zooming lawn and can’t dig up the last of last year’s vegetables (man, you want bang for your seed-planting buck, plant silverbeet!), sprouts are flourishing and my leg is mending quietly in the background. It’s hard to feel the progress, but I know it’s happening.