Busy, busy, busy, - doing nothing?

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." Jane Austen

It's been just over a week since I wrote a post. I have been busy, busy, busy, and had no time, but when I look back at the week I have to ask myself was it all for nothing, or was it all worthwhile? After all Lao Tzu said that "doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing," and so if I was indeed not really doing anything meaningful then maybe I was indeed just wasting time - or procrastinating perhaps as another eminent voice from the past opined:

"While I am busy with little things, I am not required to do greater things." Saint Francis de Sales

So indulge me whilst I consider what I was doing, whether it was nothing, or something, and whether any of it was anything to do with food and therefore qualifies to be written about on this post.

Actually at least half of it was to do with food, which is marginally worrying in itself. Am I obsessed with food? Is this good? Is it bad? I will not dwell on that.

On Sunday we had another family get-together just to celebrate being able to get together in the holidays. So I decided to feature the original chicken butter cream - but for 11 - although in fact it was only 10 as my daughter-in-law was exhausted and excused herself. She too has been busy, busy, busy, but with so many more worthwhile activities than I.

So I stood on a footstall and retrieved my large rice cooker, and a very large cooking pot - actually a fish steamer - bought long ago in Daimaru - remember Daimaru? - and rarely used. One of those things that is essential when needed but otherwise a bit of a nuisance. It was the right pot to use, but somehow or other I ended up with too much liquid and couldn't boil it down because the chicken would disintegrate. Although I now realise I could have removed the chicken and then boiled the sauce down. Or even boiled it down before I put the chicken in. Silly me. Not my picture above which is pretty obvious, but I forgot to take any. I was just too busy.

There was of course too much but some was taken home by my oldest son, and the rest will be consumed by David and I this evening. Although what I shall do with the leftover vegetarian Paneer butter masala I'm not sure. And all the extra paneer I stupidly bought. By the way - the Lemnos paneer is better for this purpose than the Coles version which crumbled and stuck to the pan a bit too much.

I also made Meera Sodha's Leek, pea and mint samosas - which were made on Saturday, and frozen before use. I've frozen the leftovers - not many of them.

There was also a Christine Manfield mint chutney and Meera Sodha's cucumber raita, plus my onion salad. Dessert - made Sunday morning - was a Coles recipe for a sort of pudding, originally of berries but adapted to apples and blackberries in scrunched up filo pastry with a buttermilk custard. Also pretty nice and also leftovers. Leftovers of dessert are not a good thing. Far too nice and too bad for you.

Still on food, this week has been a book group week and on Monday I was playing host - which involves lunch. So on Friday I had also made a kind of corn and vegetable chowder - easily reheated, and Ottolenghi's Olive oil and apple cake with Maple icing. Well I made the cake on Friday and iced it Monday morning. It was a little bit special because it also acted as a birthday cake for one of our members. I would highly recommend this. Some of that is leftover too - after dinner tonight!

So yes, from Friday to Sunday I was cooking most of the time. A really pleasant activity for me on Friday and Saturday as there was no pressure. Sunday - well later on Sunday anyway there was more pressure as time began to run out and I began to worry whether I had made too much, too little, how much rice to cook ... and whether son Dom and granddaughter Zoe would finish cooking a mountain of pita dough made by Zoe in time. Overall, however, fun, satisfying - a pleasure - if it wasn't for the backache that my elderly self now gets when standing up for a long time.

And of course, it was family and I love my family dearly so yes it was not busy for nothing. It was time well spent. Pleasure was given and pleasure obtained.

For the Monday book group too, although that had its own pressure - fitting in the reading of the book with all this cooking, for I had left my run a little late. And there were only four of us for the meeting too - three sick absentees. Our numbers are dwindling as we age. Well we are all old in this group and besides it's winter. But yes, this was also a very worthwhile effort, even though I did not like the book all that much. Pleasure given, candles blown out, and pleasure obtained.

But that's not all. Yesterday evening was my other book group and it was my book, so from Monday to Wednesday evening I was pretty much occupied with reading my book twice and compiling something for the group to chew over as it were. Alas this was not such a success because mostly they didn't like my choice of book and I failed miserably to persuade them to change their mind. Well we can't all like the same things can we, and at least my brain was stimulated, both by the book and my preparation for presenting it, and also for the actual presentation. Even though it didn't go that well, and tempers were almost lost at one point. For which I was at least partly responsible.

So today I am indulging in this analysis of 'busy nothings', going to the shops, and walking back from them, before reheating Sunday's leftover chicken and rice.

Yes today I am indeed busy doing nothing. Or am I? Define nothing indeed.

In many ways, since retiring, I have indeed been doing nothing, and yet, as indeed we partly discussed at last night's bookgroup, in our working lives, we may have spent years doing nothing. Moving paper around, sitting at a computer. Of course this depends on one's job. Those in the caring industries have made obvious contributions to the well-being of people. Captains of industry too, and even we in more ordinary office jobs have had our moments of feeling we have done something worthwhile. There are, however, millions who do not have that blissful moment. Who spend their lives entering meaningless data (to them) into a computer, working at a repetitive task on a factory floor - some people still do - we are not quite at the robotic everything state. Maybe even the most creative people in the world have their meaningless moments - filling in the tax return, paying bills, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, doing the shopping ... Did Leonardo have doing nothing moments I wonder?

Perhaps the trick is in finding ways to both turn meaningless tasks into pleasure - cooking dinner for your family - the pleasure of preparation and the pleasure of enjoying the results with others, or if that's not possible then finding moments when you can indeed just be busy doing nothing. Nothing at all with not a thought in the world.

Like glancing out of the window and seeing the sun light up the top of a tree against a grey, grey sky.