Read the highly original Die Wand (The Invisible Wall) by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer. A dystopia where a sole (?) woman find herself isolated from the rest of the World (and its fossilised beings) by a transparent wall. And learns bit by bit how to survive with an Austrian hunting lodge, a cow, a dog and a cat. This is a fantastic book in all senses of the term. From the survivalist aspects, which are always engaging!—and reasonably realistic, albeit I would have used the cow for carrying heavy loads, smoked the meat of the deer shot by the woman, made cheese out of the milk, rather than butter, and turned hazelnuts into flour—, to the psychological damage of loosing human contacts, to the erasure of the wall between this survivor and the animals (with a paradox that is the top spoiler of the book!).
Cooked a sweet potatoes and cocoa cake in preparation for my trail race on La Sainte-Baume, near Marseille. With cocoa made from the beans I had brought back from Guadeloupe last summer. Not particularly tasty, despite a large input of melted cocoa, since I only added a few eggs, no sugar, and no flour, but at least definitely healthy. And, no, it did not impact my speed in the least! And keeping up with cocoa I visited a chocolaterie in Marseille that solely uses Madagascar cocoa beans and offers workshops for making one own’s bars. As well as superlative pure, unsweetened, chocolate drinks.
Watched The Million-Follower Detective, a Taiwanese detective story combined with a superficial reflection on the impact and excesses of influencers. Very heavy going, with an omniscient villain and a cascade of convenient coïncidences.
