OK with that.

It's true.
I'm a lousy blogger.
Occasionally I feel like I'm letting the side down by not posting anything for weeks.
Sometimes you need to take stock of why you put things on the internet - ask yourself, "what am I endeavouring to contribute to this mess?"

Lord knows. In that sense, blogging is the same as art.
And, therefore, I am attempting to be more impulsive about what i put up here.
This isn't, and can't be easy - I generally mull over things for long periods, especially writing.
So I decided I'd note down what I had for breakfast.

This recipe is what's been sustaining me for the past few weeks, it keeps you pretty full until the afternoon, provided you have some kind of light snack - a piece of fruit, for example...

To begin, I place a handful of oats in a pot. Not the quick cooking variety - you want whole, rolled oats.
Then I throw in a bunch of sultanas. A really tiny pinch of salt. A bundle of chopped walnuts [one day I used almond meal instead, and it was good, but lacked the subtle texture of the walnuts]. I grate half a red delicious apple straight into the pot, to make sure the juice gets in there too.
Then I add about a cup and a bit of water.

This all gets slowly brought up to heat on the stove top. At this point, there's usually coffee brewing, and it's slightly cold in the kitchen. Sometimes I have music flowing through my head - but I generally don't put on a record, because I don't want to wake up my flatmates. One song that has been regularly permeating my mornings lately is the wait, by built to spill. [Oh, and just another day, by brian eno.] Both of these songs have that distant quality that allows you to continue a manual task while your mind drifts; floating over vague thoughts of lost love [and lovers], camping trips never made, little paper-mache models, possible blog posts and back to...porridge.

Once it has reached the texture of...well, porridge, it's ready. I always re-use the pot, once it's been scooped out into a bowl, to heat the milk. That way the cleaning of the oatsy pot is half done for you. While the milk warms up, I drizzle a decent spoonful of honey over it and sprinkle a bit of ground cinnamon over the top.

There's a lemon that's been sitting on the shelf right at my eye level, which keeps taunting me. Almost every time I make porridge, it cries out for me to use a little bit of lemon zest or juice in the mix. But I'm afraid of throwing things out of balance, and the possibility of my porridge beginning to taste like christmas cake. Until I can break out of this routine, the [possibly repetitive] ritual of porridge-making will remain decidedly un-zesty. But I'm OK with that.