イギリスに引っ越して来てあと半月で１年になるので、最近、去年の今頃はなにしてたっけ、と思い出しているのですが、去年の今頃は丁度引っ越し作業の真っ最中でした。懸案だったわたしのイギリスのビザは無事届いてほっとしたものの、まだ自分たちのイギリスの家の売却も新しい家の購入も手続きが完了していなかったですし、夫の仕事もギリギリまで終わらなかったので相当ストレスフルな時期。そして、わたしは多分ダンボールや埃のアレルギーで咳がで始めたときでした。
In a couple of weeks, it’ll have been a year since we moved to England so I often think “I wonder what were we doing this time last year?”. Last year around this time we were right in the middle of moving out of our apartment in Singapore, packers were packing up and we will have moved to a hotel soon. Although my UK Visa had arrived, which was such a relief, the sale and the purchase of our houses hadn’t been finalised and my husband was still busy at work so it was very stressful time for us. I was also coughing because of the allergic reaction to things like all the packing boxes and the dust.
咳はこの後バリ島に旅行している間はおさまっていましたが、シンガポールに戻ってからまた酷くなり、気分も優れない日が続きました。最近、「そういえば、あの時期が今の時期のようにコロナが問題になっていたら、あの咳ではお友達にお目にかかることも出来ず最後のご挨拶も出来ないままお別れだったし、検査で陰性でも人前には出られなかっただろうし、機内でも気を使っただろうし、イギリスに来てからもお友達や家族に会えなかったところだった。」と思っています。
Although I stopped coughing in Bali, where we spent a few days after we moved out of our apartment, it got worse again when we got back to Singapore and I wasn’t feeling very well. I think the haze was also quite bad at that time, so that could have been another cause of it, but I often think it would have been awful if this coronavirus were already the problem, I wouldn’t have been able to see any of my friends to say goodbye properly and it would have been awkward to go anywhere since people would have been frightened of me always coughing, even if I had a test done and the result were negative.
今日のディナーは、久しぶりにチキンのオリーブとトマト煮込みにしました。強力粉をまぶしたチキンの外側だけ焼き付けた後、ニンニク、玉ねぎ、人参、セロリを炒めて缶トマトと黒オリーブのみじん切りを加え、白ワインとスープストックで煮込んだもの。黒オリーブの味は案外強くなく、コクのあるお塩のような役割をします。ちょっと塩辛かったのですが（お塩はほとんど使っていませんが、黒オリーブがかなり塩辛かったのだと思います）、美味しかったです。人参と炊いたご飯と一緒に。ソースが余ったので、近いうちに缶トマトを足してパスタソースにしようと思います。
Today’s dinner was Chicken cooked with olives and tin tomatoes. I dipped chicken pieces in flour then browned both sides, then sauteed garlic, onion, carrot, celery until softened, then added tin tomato and minced black olives (dry type), white wine and soup stock and simmered gently for about 20 minutes. The flavour of the black olives isn’t as strong as you think, it acts like salt with a deep flavour. Although I used very little salt, it was a little too salty for me because I guess the olives were very salty, but it tasted very good. We had it with rice cooked with carrot. There is some sauce left so we’ll add more tin tomato and use it as a pasta sauce in the next few days.
