Quince

Contest Winners; Quince-A-Rama

First, I’m happy to say that several many of you guessed that the thing missing from my tiny room was indeed a clock! Well done, and now you will all be murdered in nefarious ways in my new comedy book Murder Most Novel about a young woman/aspiring author who becomes embroiled in an Agatha Christie style murder scenario. If you have a particular preference for your murder (poison, machete, bashed with a clock), let me know, and I’ll try to accommodate. You were all very clever, but I have to say that Anonymole’s poem/riddle/guess really took the day:

Dueling portraits invite conversation,
while the bird tweets its irritation.

Below, the blood bright Persian,
offsets the walls’ psilocybin excursions.

A Tiffany, a punch bowl, a violin,
speak of parties, a present left to atone for prior sins.

Yet the room exists in silence,
it enjoys no ticks, no tocks,

For nowhere amongst its fine refinements,
do we see a cherry clock.

So thank you, my friends. You all rose to the challenge and proved that you really do know me so well!

In other news, I’ve been very busy because it’s one of my favourite times of year—the quince is finally ripe. Many years ago, we had a pear tree on our property which started to die. But as it did, another plant sprouted from its base, and that plant was a quince bush. Apparently, quince have hardier roots than some pear species so they’re often grafted onto quince. And while I missed the pear, I soon realized the (labour-intensive) joy that is the quince fruit. They are rock hard and can’t be eaten as is, but if you cook them first, they turn a delightful pink colour and taste amazing. Every year, I become super-home-maker-y and produce several batches of jam as well as some wonderful quince crumble. Of course, I always have more quince than I need so I can sell off the rest to quince lovers in the area and make some money to fund my miniature obsession.

In other other news, I also completed a miniature outdoor courtyard. I think it’s very cute but I’m at the point where I don’t quite know what to do with all these miniatures—maybe I can throw them in with the quince, like “Buy some quince, get a miniature room for free”. It’s a vicious/delicious circle.

Well, we’re back from our trip. The second last day was my favourite, I think, mostly because we toured around Halifax in an ‘amphibious vehicle’, which is to say that our tour bus turned into a boat at a certain point and we literally drove down a ramp into the water and then we were floating and it was supercool. I’ve done that once before, many years ago, but it wasn’t made clear to me that the bus BECAME a boat—I thought we were changing vehicles halfway through, so imagine my terror as we headed straight off the pier into the water. But this time I was ready, and I really enjoyed it. Overall, the cruise was pretty good—at least the food, wine, and destinations were great. It was just the crew that was chaotic, like tiny animated characters in an old-time video game just zipping around without any seeming purpose and bumping into walls and getting stuck and whatnot. The last day was pretty exhausting, having to get up at 7 am, eat a quick breakfast, and then wait to get called for our airport transfer. Once we were off the boat, Norwegian basically washed their hands of us and we had to find the bus to the airport on our own. We eventually did, and then had to battle all the other passengers who were equally desperate to get away from the ship and had NO F*CKING IDEA HOW TO LINE UP, CAUSING INCREDIBLE PANIC AND DISORDER WHEN THE BUSES FINALLY ARRIVED.

At any rate, we arrived home later that day, and Atlas was very pleased to see us; in fact, he stood up, put his paws on my shoulder and then licked my neck and face, something he has never done before, and it was very sweet. And sloppy. We unpacked, I did a little prep for the presentation I was doing the next night at the local library on writing, and then we went to bed. The next morning, I woke up and Ken was already downstairs. When he came up, he looked terrible.

Me: What’s wrong?
Ken: I was up all night with a fever.
Me: Oh f*ck.

So I gave him a covid test and guess what? IT WAS POSITIVE. Which meant I had to cancel my presentation, cancel work on Saturday, and pretty much spent the next few days taking care of him. Fortunately, we’ve both had all our boosters so he’s not as sick as he could have been. I tested negative, and so far, I still am, fingers crossed.

So you were right, ‘Mole, my friend—cruise ships really are a hotbed of bacteria. But the upside to all this (aside from having a readymade blog topic) is that it’s quince season and the quince on the bushes in my backyard are ready to go. It was a bumper crop this year, so I’ve spent the last couple of days making quince jam, quince crumble, quince juice (which is what you get after you poach the quince to get it ready for cooking). Quince is labour-intensive, more so than any other fruit in existence I think, but it’s worth it in the end. I have so much quince that I posted it for sale on Facebook Marketplace which obviously meant fielding stupid questions from people who don’t read ads and want to know where I live (it’s in the ad) and how much the quince is (it’s in the ad) and do I deliver? (no, I am NOT bringing quince to your house—I picked it for you so if you want it, get your ass over here).

So wish me luck—I’m usually a positive person but right now, I really need to stay negative.