Ouch ouch ouch! Way too many pancakes. This is the problem with cooking-for-one...Yesterday I was so miserable during our hour-long slog-through-the-mud-and-pouring-rain down in the woods with Nika that the only way I could make myself keep going up the slippery sliding muddy hills was by promising myself lovely hot pancakes with maple syrup when I got back. So I did. I whipped up pancake batter, had a lovely, unhealthy pancake lunch--and had about 2/3 of the mix left over. This morning I tried to use it up at breakfast, gave up with a quarter of the mix still left, and oooooohhh, my stomach isn't happy with me! (They did taste nice, though....at least until the last one, when I knew it was all becoming a Terrible Mistake....) I must, must, must remember to cut all the ingredients in half (or less!) next time I make the recipe.

Right now Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" is playing on BBC Radio 3, lending a nicely dramatic tone to the morning. Nika's curled up in her "throne," ears cocked suspiciously, on her guard for intruders/mailmen/cats. I'm preparing to start writing, on the theory that if I get some fiction writing done early in the day, I'll feel less sullen and resentful about my thesis work and end up getting more of that done, too. Last night I hand-drafted Chapter Twenty-Seven of my novel, so in a couple of minutes I'll type that up, revising it on the way.

But ohhh, my stomach is still regretting those pancakes!