Domestic – Deborah Makarios

September 26, 2026September 26, 2026

Circus, Leeches, and the Legal Fiction of the 2nd Baron Stamp

Hello again! As my recovery progresses, I am dipping a toe back into the waters of blogging. Or perhaps that should be dipping seven tiny toes, as I present you with a bit of this and a bit of that, culled from what I have been reading and doing of late.

A decorative mosaic cross hangs on a textured off-white wall above a white mantleshelf over terracotta tiling. On the shelf is a large brown glass jar with a flower arrangement. Long branchy arms swoop out to left and right, with spires of lavender and rosemary rising in the centre.

Speaking of culling, here’s something you can do with your prunings (beside compost them, chip them into mulch, or pile them up for critter habitat). The bulk of the above arrangement is from a branch of maukoro I recently had to remove. Its Latin name is Carmichaelia odorata – though I haven’t noticed any odours yet – and its English name is New Zealand broom, though it’s no relation to the European broom. Rosemary and lavender prunings add a bit of colour, foliage variety, and vertical interest.

Interesting Times

When one hears of legal fiction, one tends to think of John Grisham – but it turns out that the legal system is also capable of producing fictions, albeit not quite so gripping and bestsellery. For example, in English law, if two people in a family die and you can’t tell who died first, the legal fiction holds that the older died first, thus clarifying lines of inheritance.

This legal fiction is the cause of the record for shortest peerage: Wilfred Stamp, the 2nd Baron Stamp, died in the Blitz alongside his father, the 1st Baron Stamp. Since his father was, obviously, the elder, he was deemed to have died before Wilfred, and thus Wilfred technically became the 2nd Baron Stamp. However, as Wilfred had three daughters but no sons, the barony passed to his younger brother Trevor, who would have inherited it even if Wilfred had died first. The only differences were that Trevor became the 3rd Baron Stamp, not the 2nd, and had to pay two lots of death duties.

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May 24, 2026May 24, 2026

A Year In Recovery

What do you do when the number of people in your household not dealing with a debilitating chronic illness drops to zero? If you’re anything like me, the answer is Read A Book. The book in this case was The Fatigue Book by Lydia Rolley, who not only worked for many years in an NHS fatigue clinic, but had previously recovered from CFS herself, i.e. She Knows What She’s Talking About.

We decided to launch a Recovery Plan based on her advice. The key principles are simple – flatten out the rollercoaster of energy highs and lows by setting a baseline of activity which you can do on good days and bad without wearing yourself out. Not unlike Goldilocks, you’re looking for not too much and not too little. As your energy improves, you can gradually increase the baseline.

A sheet of paper on a wooden surface has uncial lettering in brown ink which reads "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. G."

But first we had to have our house mostly replumbed and rewired. (Long story; take my advice and be highly suspicious of any hissing noises in or near your walls.) In mid-May last year, we were finally able to begin resting. Which was absolute bliss, as long as you didn’t look too closely – or in some cases at all – at all the things which had to be set aside until baselines improved. (Set aside in the metaphorical sense. One cannot, alas, actually set aside an unvacuumed carpet, nor a thickly dustcoated windowsill.)

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March 10, 2026March 10, 2026

What Did You Do To That Egg?!

I well remember the first time I encountered a poached egg. I was perhaps 12 or 13 at the time, and visiting my grandmother. She asked if I’d like some bacon and eggs, to which I naturally replied that I would. Soon thereafter, she presented me with a plate containing bacon and a mysterious globby white thing.

A squarish white plate with chopped kale topped with a formless white glob sprinkled with seasoning. — Seasoned white glob OF MYSTERY on kale.

Being a shy and courteous child, I forbore to ask “where’s the egg?” but I must have made some sort of inquiry as to what “this” was, because she subsequently enlightened me: that was the egg. Due to a combination of the aforementioned courteousness and the formidable nature of my ex-military grandmother, I refrained from asking WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT?? but I certainly wondered. I also wondered why, when already frying bacon, one would not also fry the egg, but who knows – perhaps the bacon was grilled.

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