Collatoral damage from the heat wave

I'm still feeling rough from the battering the heat doled out to the respiratory system and blood pressure. Recovery is very slow. The BP came down to a respectable 125/65 the day after the storms. The lungs are still creaking, making every little effort a struggle.

One thing I haven't cut out of my routine, is cooking a meal every day. Yesterday, however, the brain hadn't caught up with the rest of the recovered bits. I defrosted a pack of salmon steaks from the freezer for to poach for lunch. I'd put them in the fridge to defrost and had reasoned that I would have the second steak cold with salad from dinner. 

Before I remembered that they were in the utility fridge, I set up the slow cooker to cook a beef stew with carrots. It was only when I went to the utility fridge to get a drink to have with lunch that I noticed the salmon. Rather than waste the salmon, I worked out that I would refrigerate the stew overnight to have the following day. So yesterday, I lunched on poached salmon, new potatoes and carrots and had dinner pf cold salmon with salad (red oak lettuce leaves from the kitchen garden) with feta cheese and home grown tomatoes.

The red oak lettuce is 'cut and come again'. I don't think I will have to buy any salad leaves until the end of September. The tomatoes are coming to the end. There is one new truss of flowers but I doubt they will have time to set fruit that ripens before the end of summer. 

I've put some washed red oak leaves into the fridge to help crisp them and encourage the remaining lettuces from which they were harvested to regrow. 

Today, I had a helping of the beef stew and carrots, with a baked potato, for lunch. The remainder has gone into the freezer for another day.

Feeling physically tired is a real challenge. I need to keep my mind occupied to stop it going to places I'd rather not go. Luckily, one of my old school chums has agreed that I can help her research her  ancestors, through the male line, initially. It's much easier to do than when I started researching my lot in the early 1970s. By the end of an hour and a half, I'd traced the male line back to the 1700s. It took me years to do that using hard copy methods. Anyway, concentrating on a task helps quieten my mind and my emotions. It also made my friend very happy.