Snow days, desert blues – and lemons?

We’ve enjoyed – or endured, if the novelty of shovelling snow has worn off – three pretty big winter storms the past couple of weeks. Two of them arrived only three or four days apart, and the (welcome, from me) accumulation was quite something. The pile of snow, post dig out, on one neighbour’s lawn is twice my height. I feel like scaling it and planting a flag!

The blizzard conditions did slow us down with regard to heading into the woods. I checked today (Wednesday) on the trailhead, and the city snow plows have created a high barrier across the access point between two houses. Blocked and probably not great for Scout at the moment due to the depth of powdery snow on the other side. It would be way, way over her head. I think she’d like to have a go, wallow in it for a few minutes, but she’s not going to get too far until some snow shoe tracks pack it down, create a trail. Who could do that for her…

So we’ve been a bit more indoors than we’re used to, finding some different diversions to pass the time pleasantly enough. For me, that’s extra music and kitchen time. Yup, the desert blues and lemons mentioned in the title above.

For the desert blues, can I heartily recommend two albums? The first, “Heritage” by Songhoy Blues, is a delightful set. A slight departure from their first three noisier albums, the tracks here are still pretty lively, but the sound is more traditional, mostly unplugged and absolutely wonderful if you enjoy their Malian style.

The second album I’ve played over and over the past week or two is “Imarhan” by Imarhan, an Algerian band I’d not heard before until I went down the desert blues rabbit hole. If you like Tinariwen or Songhoy Blues, then you’d probably like this album. I’ll certainly be listening to their other albums in the next little while. Desert songs for snowy days? Why not?!

Listening to these albums reminded me of the time we were technically homeless a couple of decades back (we were waiting for a house purchase to complete) camping our way from SW France down into southern Spain. It was early spring and almost always sunny, with the sparkling Mediterranean on our left as we drifted from coastal town to coastal town happily enough, listening to music broadcast from North African stations on the radio. We’d stop at little markets and grocery stores to pick up essentials like coffee, beer and churros, as well as amazing oranges and lemons. That time was among the first of our ongoing series of midlife crises, and then, as now, we certainly enjoyed it. Does life have to give you lemons? No, but if it does…

Lemons! We’ve almost got there! The most enjoyable new recipe I tried this week has to be this lemon desert, oops, I mean dessert, by Rachel Roddy. Like a sharp OldPlaidCamper, the result is zesty, tart and sweet, and really rather more than enough. If you find yourself snowed in and you’ve more lemons than you know what to do with, then this might be the way to go?

Dessert (yup, again, hehehe) blues on lemon flavoured snow days – too much of a good thing? Not for us! Although, as I’ve eaten more lemon dessert than is medically recommended, I guess I should leave it here this week and head outside, try and dig our way into the backyard and burn off a few calories.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!