Was it really on 23 January that I temporarily abandoned these attempts to expand on the Things I’ve Done? Wonder how long I’ll last this time? Longer if I don’t try to be fancy about illustrations.

This language thing is a farce. When I drove down here, more than eight years ago, I listened t...

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For three days now thunder has rumbled around Rome, always on the horizon, promising much, delivering nothing. Until now. I was hoping for the best, and hoping too that the old umbrella voodoo ¹ would not be effective. And I was right. We were down on the flatlands, the dog and I, when big fat dro...

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I cycled down to the Castel Sant’Angelo this evening because I’d seen a poster in the local bar advertising fireworks at 9:00 pm. Today being the Feast of SS Peter and Paul and a holiday here in Rome, that seemed entirely likely. In the event, an hour later, no fireworks had happened. I’ll have to c...

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This whole "sticky dough" episode of late has been nagging at me. Then I remembered, I had this problem once before. But did I write about it? I did!¹ That time, I didn’t think much more about it than plastic bag=condensation, because there were all sorts of other things going on with the dough....

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It felt very strange putting the bread in the fridge to rise, but I had to get to the bottom of this new stickiness. The next morning it had indeed risen, quite a bit, but there was something odd and unexpected. A little rim of water around the edge of the dough. Ahah! Condensation!

I normally c...

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