Excitement and, I think it’s fair to say, extreme drudgery and long patches of boredom.

I like Steve’s paintings, too! Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s made up his mind to part with any of them yet.

And I *love* the paintings!

Oh, you’ve never had it? That’s a good recipe. If you’re feeling lazy, though, you can whip up a decent mug of mulled cider in a microwave with a few dashes each of powdered cinnamon, allspice and cloves stirred in.

I hadn’t heard of that album, but thanks for the indirect reminder of the alternate, and to my eye, preferable spelling for the genre: “chantey.”

Speaking of vocab, I guess you know that we Americans have betrayed our roots and now use “cider” to refer mainly to the non-alcoholic drink — unpasteurized apple juice. What you guys just call cider, we have to qualify as hard cider. And to make matters worse, most of the easily available commercial brands of hard cider are not authentically made. But mulled sweet cider fortified with rum does make a good drink.