10:00 Lois had a bad night and is feeling a bit rough, but she decides to go ahead anyway and "process" the pheasant that our neighbour Bob brought us earlier in the week. She will mostly be concentrating on the breasts to save having to do much unrewarding work, but honouring the pheasant at the same time, so that he didn't die in vain - poor pheasant!
flashback to last Sunday - I put Bob's beautiful pheasant in a plastic bag
and hang it up in our larder - sob, sob!
Lois has decided she's going to do a stripped-down version of James Mackenzie's "Great British Chefs" recipe for pan-fried pheasant breast with parsnip purée, parkin and pickled brambles - nice!
Lois showcasing the pheasant as it's looking today -
photoshopped out of the picture to protect its identity
11:00 I try and read the next 120 lines of the medieval mystery play "Thomas of India", written in the early 1400's. Lynda's U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting tomorrow afternoon on zoom, and this play is the group's current project.
Lots of interesting words, as usual. I didn't realise that our word "free" originally meant "beloved". We've lost that meaning of "free" today, but it's to be seen in the related word "friend" (a beloved person) and still sort-of there in the word "Friday". Friday is named after Frigga, the Norse goddess who was the wife of Odin. She was called "Frigga", a name based on the word "free", because she was Odin's "beloved".
Odin (right) with his beloved Frigga
Experts believe that the meaning "beloved" morphed into the word's current meaning after first being applied to the free members of your clan (as opposed to the slaves). These people (ie the non-slaves) were the people you loved - unlike the slaves, whom you were perhaps more indifferent towards.
Poor slaves!!!!!
I'm again disappointed, reading the text of this play, because it's proving to be quite slow-moving and we're basically still in Palestine, even after 270 lines. As yet there's no hint of the scene changing to India, which is a pity. Also Thomas hasn't appeared yet. But I'm going to let that one slide for now.
But it'll be a pity if neither Thomas or India appear in the play at all - I suppose that would be a bit deliberately-ironic, post-modern, or "deconstructed" or something like that - qualities which I suspect weren't much in evidence in the early 1400's. But I'm not 100% sure - the jury's still out on that one!
20:00 Lois and I sit down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, an edition of the series "Comedy Legends", tonight's programme being about the Marx Brothers.
We see again the scene where Chico is trying to get into a speakeasy, but he doesn't know the password. Groucho is the doorman and he gives Chico a hint, saying that the password is some kind of a fish.
Some lines just never get old haha!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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