vivdunstan

Starting our week of decaf coffee taste testing with James Hoffmann's Decaf Project. Have our beans (natural + 3 types of decaf processing, all same coffee originally) ready from an Aberdeenshire roaster. And going to be trying over 4 nights. Big YouTube live video on Sunday. We're going to make my usual style of coffee with our Hario Switch machine. And because we have a spare backup Hario Switch (!), that will be in operation beside it, making a coffee for Martin too. Who rarely drinks coffee, but is keen to take part in this decaf tasting. We are starting with the natural caffeinated beans, then working through Swiss Water, Ethyl Acetate and CO2 decaffeinated versions. Aiming to be done by Friday, one way or another!

Trying a new to me oracle cards deck. Which is gorgeous. Even has shiny red gilt like edges to the cards! Just using for a bit more personal reflection. This deck is autumnal equinox themed.

Sticking with my usual 3-card past/present/future spread, in a really loose form.

The cards are Foraging / Mead and Wine / Autumn equinox.

I can also relate these roughly to where I've been / am / am going.

Re "Foraging" I've been spending the last few weeks gathering together thoughts on my personal strengths, interests and goals. All within the limited context in which I need to operate. Figuring out what I want to do in the coming 6 months or so has been productive, and rewarding, and should be able to translate into fun activities. Including things I can work on from my bed. So that's been a productive process.

As for "Mead and Wine", well we've had a lot of celebrations recently, which are ongoing! September is a double birthday month for us, and also marked our 30th wedding anniversary this year. We had to postpone our big celebration meal (takeaway, but still huge!) for erm reasons. So that is still upcoming. And this week we treated ourselves to a postal delivery of gorgeous brownies and cookies from Norfolk. Coming today ... We are going to be so plump by a week from now! But yes, that card is on point.

The autumnal equinox card might seem to have been more appropriate a couple of weeks ago, but it's not really. It's only now that I'm really feeling autumn kicking in properly. To be fair I can't get out much to see the gorgeous changing colours around. But it's in the last week or so that I've really felt the chill kicking in, and autumn is well and truly upon us. And will be for another couple of months. I do need to get out to enjoy some of it. Will add that as an urgent goal! I am also writing a new IF game set around the changing seasons, starting with autumn. So I need to soak up as much of it as possible. Thanks to the card for the reminder.

So an interesting deck. I will continue to use it from time to time. It is especially gorgeous to handle. There are others in the same range for different times of the year. But I like autumn, so picked this one for me.

From Samuel Pepys on this day in 1660: “And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink of which I never had drunk before)”