The past week was a bit of a drag and I was often in a lousy mood, so I’m glad to turn over a new leaf.
After Amber’s physiotherapy appointment on Saturday, we walked around the flea market near Cimetière d'Ixelles, where we picked up a bottle of hot sauce that turned out to be quite delicious. The rest of the weekend was quiet. Amber was still in pain, and I was very tired. We cooked a little, rested, and I completed my animation project. We decided against making a quick trip to Paris on Monday to see Rhea and Prateek for a couple of hours before they headed back to India. It was the right thing to do with our health situations, but I sobbed not once but twice after the decision was made.
Amber hurt his shoulder/arm again on his way to see the doctor on Monday morning, so his recovery has been slow. Being one-handed is obviously frustrating for him. Work was petering down for me this week, but with more household tasks on my docket than usual, I don’t feel as relaxed as I could have been. To make matters worse, a poorly-time spam call and accidentally leaving my phone on ring overnight disturbed my sleep early morning on Wednesday, leaving me with a terrible migraine and unabating nausea. I took it relatively easy the next day to recover, and went for a walk around les étangs d'Ixelles in the evening. It was an unexpectedly delightful visit, birdwatching-wise. Amber and I saw a grey heron perched on the edge of the pond, ready to hunt. We were lucky to see it stealthily look closer into the water, grab a tiny fish and gulp it down. The sun set soon after, and the rose-ringed parakeets that roost in the area were making a noise, and we enjoyed watching over a hundred of them dart across. They made me miss Humayun’s Tomb. Last but not the least, half a dozen cormorants were chilling on the weeping willow in the middle of one of the ponds. My quest to find a (good) Vietnamese iced coffee in Brussels continues. I finally found the drink on the menu of a café not far from home, but gah, the coffee was watery and not at all good.
I started working on an update of my work website. Still a long way to go, but I managed to write and edit over 2000 words of project descriptions and make a temporary home page while I tinker under the hood. This overhaul will involve upgrading to Squarespace 7.1, and I am not looking forward to the mess that will create.
The highlight of the week were the meals we prepared: chicken chettinad paired with plain galettes bretonnes, which I’m beginning to think are a wonderful local substitute for appams and dosas; shrimp mole with cilantro rice and pineapple pico de gallo; butternut squash and apple soup with fried sage and halloumi; pizza with kimchi, mushrooms and red onions; vegetarian chilli with butternut squash, parsnips and peppers; and mac and cheese with roasted broccoli. Can you tell the weather has become cooler and I am gravitating towards cozy food?