1 Week Holiday, Day One: Rosewater, Ukrainian Books, and a Radio

It's the first day of a whole week off of work — the first time I've taken off more than 1 day at a time since 2018.

My direct manager had been on a work trip for one week, then a week of vacation; we had our first meeting after that on Friday. When I told him something of what had been going on (culminating in finding out that D.S., one of my father's cousins, had died), he said that frankly he himself wouldn't feel able to work under those circumstances, and he recommended a week off.

I put my work matters in order and, already past the end of my tether, took the advice.

So I woke up today, knew that I didn't need to open the laptop, and then realized that there was a feeling that I usually feel on workday mornings that was absent — and that this feeling might be intense self-loathing. It's a relief not to measure myself by a procrustean professional standard for once.

That said, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the frantic array of activities I generally take up whenever there's a gap in the work schedule, might not be the wisest approach.

After eating breakfast with Mama and coordinating with her to take out the paper recycling to the courtyard, I cycled away to drop off black tea, pasta, gummy bears, shampoo, soap, and shower gel at a refugee charity. It was drizzly weather, but people were waiting in line for the donations. A volunteer who was bringing around a tray of paper cups of tea and coffee to those who were waiting, asked me which I'd like in Ukrainian; but we quickly switched over to English when I mentioned that I was just there to drop something off. When I remarked that there were a lot of people there, she said, yes, people even seem to prefer waiting in the rain to waiting in the heat! (It was about 35° Celsius in Berlin yesterday.)

That done, I dropped by the bank and checked that my debit card was allowing me to withdraw money again, which it was. The florist's shop that shut down during the pandemic because the owners were exhausted has reopened, and flowers were bristling happily outside the shop window.

Then I went to the Turkish supermarket for the first time in ages, soaking in the familiar scents of the vegetables and fresh herbs, as well as its beautiful organization. When I reached the refrigerator and tinned fish sections I kept an eye out for caviar (not sturgeon caviar, of course) for the sake of a blini recipe from a Ukrainian cookbook, but didn't see it there any more. Whether it's for geopolitical reasons or other reasons, I have no idea. But in the fruit section there were fresh figs, green and deep maroon, which I bought on impulse.

Back at home, I reopened the cookbook Ripe Figs and made a Middle Eastern-inspired porridge recipe: oats, oat milk, water, dates (I'd found the large ones that the cookbook author asked for, with a rich, caramel flavour), rose water, flaxseed, and date syrup with a touch of butter to make it more filling.

Elizabeth David's Book of Mediterranean Food also has a two-ingredient recipe that was worth making too as the ingredients were there: fresh figs and orange juice. While I was highly skeptical, it turned out to be much more delicious than the figs would have been on their own.

Then one of my mother's friends came for a visit.

I drank coffee and water, and finished the porridge and the figs, while reading more chapters of the satirical novel The Adventures of Menahem-Mendl. Written originally in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem, set in Ukraine at the time where Bismarck ruled Prussian politics, it is the last Ukrainian book I want to read before moving on to Myanmar/Burma in my reading 'journey around the world.'

Finally I looked in a neighbourhood record store for British rock music of the 1960s, based on recordings that I've enjoyed watching on YouTube; and realized that it's best for me not to attempt more outings today as I was feeling exhausted again. But I did make poached eggs with garlicky yoghurt and pul biber (Aleppo pepper) butter, also from the Ripe Figs cookbook, when my two youngest brothers came home, and we enjoyed them. It was lovely to cook with rare (to me) ingredients, as I have never eaten Aleppo pepper before in my life; and we don't have many recipes with rose water at home, even though — in default of other ideas — it's always tasty when drizzled over vanilla ice cream.

Lastly, on another front, a breakthrough: I rediscovered an old radio/alarm clock, and it worked with a pair of new AAA batteries. So my weekend historical experiments will finally be scored with period-appropriate radio sounds.