Free
stuff comes to those who persevere and I had persevered for a whole week.
‘Free’ is a relative term though and relative, in this instance, to carrying the stuff down 10 flights of stairs and up one, door handle or no door handle.
We
still have our door handle.
Free
stuff gets you into situations you wouldn’t be in for all the money in the
world. This is how we ended up locked into a storage unit terrain at exactly
the same time a group that looked nothing if not criminal were
depositing/collecting/god knows their guns/drugs/god knows.
We
left without the trailer.
Free
stuff means you’re not choosing things but trusting things. Trusting that either
it will fit through the door or the rain will stop so that you don’t have to
leave the thing you didn’t choose to be suede under a tarp in the rain. Rain
isn’t good for suede and tarps aren’t magic.
We
got it through the door.
Free
stuff is always exciting and we were excited so we planned a meal around
the occasion. We were to get a free couch and so we were to eat our first
dinner on the couch and let dinner cook whilst we were out getting the couch.
We
were out getting the couch longer than expected.
We
had burned our dinner.
I’d
gotten a cold.
We
didn’t eat our dinner on the couch (suede is hard to clean anyway).
We
drank Hot Toddies.
Here's a recipe for our Hot Toddy and more on the couch drinks.
Hot Toddy
For one cup
Stir 30 ml bourbon, 30 ml cognac and 2 dashes Angostura bitters in a cup. Grate nutmeg over. Stick in 1 cinnamon stick and a piece of lemon studded with cloves.
(Or, instead of nutmeg, you can add fresh verbena leaves).
Tahini Hot Chocolate
For 2 cups
Heat 500 ml milk and 2 tbsp agave syrup and whisk until syrup dissolves. Add 3 tablespoons tahini and 50g chopped bittersweet chocolate. Whisk until smooth.
Your own Chai
Crush 4 green cardamom pods, ½ tsp fennel seeds.
Add to 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat and whisk in 4 cups whole milk. Add 4 tbsp strong black (loose) tea and simmer until tea is fragrant and creamy. Strain through sieve and sweeten sea with honey.
