I’ve been working on pharmacy projects for the last couple of weeks – today I’ve been writing a proposal that involves both hospital and retail pharmacists so I hit on the idea of the pestle and mortar as symbolic of the content of my day.

I got home and tried to set up my shot and nearly damaged the lens of my camera because I didn’t screw up the tripod head enough and the camera flopped forwards on the tripod and got a big mark on the lens – I’d have been really pissed off to have damaged it so I was very relieved when David gave it a bit of TLC and cleaned off the mess and left an unscathed lens. Thank you David!

Then I was going about my business, taking my picture and cooking at the same time with my new toy going full-blast with Lloyd Cole’s Rattlesnakes in it and singing away happily when David came marching into the room, threatening to take it back to the shop because it was on so loud. He’s such a killjoy. I was really cheesed off because I was having such a great time. Unfortunately for both of us he tells me there is a weird acoustic blip that means he can hear every strangled note of what I’m singing from his office. I do feel some sympathy for him as I’ve watched the expressions of my family cringing at my singing over the years – I’m so intimidated by it that I won’t even sing along at the footie and the crowd at WHL is hardly in the league of a male voice choir.

I’m going to have a whale of a time on ‘dull days’ over the next few weeks with depictions of songs – can you imagine how fabulously exhilarating it will be to photograph ‘Forest Fire’ (not that I’m suggesting I’m going to become an arsonist, you don’t have to go the whole hog to depict something) or ‘Perfect Skin’ or Speedboat? Having this little CD player is making my life such an unadulterated joy at the moment, I can’t tell you how fab it is to cook with one of my faves blasting out next to me. I’m only a tiny fraction of the way through my (extensive) CD collection too. Mind you, if truth be told, I’d still be pulling 7” singles out and playing them. Bah humbug to David for making that difficult for me with his ‘posh’ record player that requires taking apart to change the speed. That’s such a pain, especially as I usually want to play vinyl after a few drinks and I’m terrified of mucking up his player now – I wish he’d left the cheapo one there. He’s now mortified that I’m complaining but I really HATE the fact that the turntable has to come off to change from 45rpm to 33rpm and you just can’t plan that you’ll play all the 33s then the 45s – life just ain’t like that….well not in my head anyway.

Anyway, I thought the pestle and mortar looked a tad dull with nothing in the mortar so I decided to bung in today’s spice mix and photograph that. So, for the interested, we have….cumin - seeds and ground, coriander, chillis, garlic and ginger. They’re photographed before I pounded all life out of them because I was so fed up with being told off for singing!!!

I titled the photo ‘alchemy’ because I love the idea of our food being a sort of simile for turning water to wine or gold from coal.