Day 26
I have been making masks. I have bought some rather nice ones from Sea Salt in bold colours, but you still look like a bandit.
https://www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk/accessories
I prefer the highwayman look
myself.
I have a number of snoods also from Sea Salt in pretty materials that you can pull up over your face, but the material isn’t dense enough to be much protection for you or anyone within your sneeze range, so I have been experimenting with various linings. I have made pockets to use with disposable filters (You can get Filter Paper Activated Carbon Filter Pads which are 5 layers thick from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08694ZJ9V/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
but the difficulty is keeping them in place. I hadn’t realised how much one’s chin moves around and even a small amount of movement dislodges them. So then I tried making a permanent filter of triple sheets of fine woven linen which works quite well but is an expensive option and, again you have the problem of them slipping around. The best results have had so far have been from a M&S sports bra: Seam free medium impact sports bra, cost £12. It was a lousy bra, almost impossible to get on without strangling yourself, but excellent for this purpose.
It’s made of double layers of a soft stretchy honeycomb cotton and lining which moulds itself to the contours of your face. Using the bra’s shaping I have manage to cut six very adequate and comfortable shaped linings. I was also able to use the straps to reinforce the top of two of the looser snoods so that they stay in place.
I have also made this version in a very fine weave cotton and then disguised it by attaching it with Velcro to a square silk scarf folded highwayman style.
This has the advantage that the scarf won’t be ruined if we are ever allowed to return to a mask free world.
Playing around with masks like this, has made me think about them – Will people wear them? How effective are they? They present a huge problem to the deaf. You can’t lipread a mask. Will they increase petty crime because they are a very good disguise? Ask any highwayman.
What about the Perspex visors that some shop assistants are wearing. How effective are they? I would have thought, if they are effective, that they would be a much better option than the mask. There would be no problems for the deaf. They wouldn’t obscure identity. They would be more comfortable to wear and easy to clean. I suppose it all depends on how the cunning little virus travels. I know it can’t pass through air on its own. It piggy backs on nasal spray and spit. How do they travel – horizontally? Up or down? If the visor were snug to the forehead that would exclude horizontal and downward spray. Would nasal spray be able to creep up under the bottom of the visor?
Any thoughts?
Here is a book to take you away from the wet British summer to the wilds of Northern Canada and adventure.
Beyond the Wild River by Sarah Maine
If you were to read the synopsis of the plot on the back this book, you might be surprised that the cover
a) isn’t shiny
b) doesn’t have textured lettering
c) doesn’t feature a heaving bosom, a hank of copper coloured hair or flashing emerald eyes
To add to your confusion, one of the straps compares it to Steff Penney’s Under a Pole Star, which I think is equally misleading, excellent though that book is. The heroine is not eccentric, has had a fairly conventional upbringing and even in the midst of the story does not step very far away from the conventional role of a Victorian woman traveller.
What we have here is an adventure story, peopled by normal (if sometimes unpleasant) human beings reacting to circumstances which are well within the bounds of credibility and it is an excellent story, told well, with complete control of the plot and the characters.
I suppose you could call it an old fashioned adventure story in that it allows the characters, plot and settings to carry you along without resorting to the usual tricks of modern historical novels. The heroine, Evelyn, has no anachronistic yearnings to dominate, just the perfectly understandable dissatisfaction of a future as the wife of a rich man confined to an estate on the Borders. She feels that the wild women of the early Americas might have had a more interesting life. But she doesn’t seize the action and rampage around, she reacts to what happens like a woman of her time.
It is so refreshing.
Equally, the other characters are people, not our caricature vision of the Victorians. Even the villain is just the sad product of the class system and his upbringing, rather than the embodiment of evil. Emotions may be felt, but they are very rarely expressed and that very restraint adds to the power of the story.
I love this book. It is fast paced, intriguing and very satisfying. It would have been very easy to overcook the plot and produce a run of the mill bodice ripping yarn. Instead Sarah Maine has produced a novel that both entertains and satisfies.
This is what I have been listening to and watching. I love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBccEsqAOaY
Food
This is a quick and easy pasta sauce for when you are hungry but have better things to do than slave over a hot stove. Adjust quantities as necessary – at least 1 thigh per person.
· Chicken thighs (chopped into fine strips)
· Pancetta or bacon (fine chopped)
· Shallots (fine chopped)
· Garlic
· Carrots (fine chopped)
· Marsala, Madeira or Red Vermouth
· Herbs
· Olive oil
1. Scent the oil with garlic and a handful of chopped herbs. Don’t let them burn
2. Add the vegetables and bacon and sweat over low heat until onions are golden.
3. Add chicken and stir fry fast until golden (3 – 4 minutes, don’t overcook it or it will become dry and stringy)
4. Add a generous wine glass of Marsala, Madeira or Red Vermouth and stir.
5. Garnish with chopped herbs and serve with pasta.
Today’s Picture
Fall Plowing is a 1931 oil
painting by Grant Wood depicting a ploughed field in Viola in his home state of
Iowa. It pays homage to the recently developed walking plough and steel ploughshare
commonly used by farmers in the Midwest during this time. It has the same pride
in the land that Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews has.
I also wonder if it influenced Hockney.
Midsummer East Yorkshire
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