PASSED OVER EASTER!

Academically speaking, though I know I'm not in a position to count myself as academic-because I'm not, there may be few surprises that Easter and Passover co-incide! As a child growing up in Jewish London Suburbia the primary schools were topped up by classrooms full of us 'jewish matzoh eating kiddies' if by chance the holiday didn't neatly slot into the Easter school break. Being compliant with the Passover rituals of not having any leaven in the home, eating leaven for 8 days or indeed, eating or drinking outside the home unless we were utterly confident that even the kettle and crockery had been changed over was so norm. Those were the days when my mum z.l. (may her memory rest in peace) would order 6 DOZEN EGGS for the passover weeks baking fayre, each Plava cake warranting 10 eggs!! My cholestrol is mounting at just the thought of it. Somewhere along the line I've been blessed with the ability to follow her recipie and produce small batches of coconut pyramids, almond macaroons and cinammon balls which would grace any tea plate but in oh such small quantities (courtesy of the cost of ground almonds). These days the effort is lighter since bags of the almonds already ground are readily available though as my urge to make a second batch this weekend was stronger than my urge to shop, I found myself soaking whole almonds in their skins in boiled water (as per yesteryear circa 196o's)... When daughter saw me slowly peeling each almond with intense concentration she was set up for the day by my labour of love. Yes, to be the all singing, dancing, baking and domestic mother of the 50's n 60's was indeed far more demanding. My mother owned a KENWOOD...Her prize possession perhaps! She was so proud of the different whisk attachments and blender that helped her produce all textures from coleslaws, to borscht soup, marble cakes to kichel dough (biscuits). Of course in comparison to her own mother who kept her meat in the safe out in the yard (a wire mesh cage that couldn't have possibly protected the food from anything smaller than a rabbit) and who thrived on gefulte fish and carp in jelly with chrane (horseraddish) over the said period life was also made simpler. And so it goes on. Nowadays I've given up buying Kosher for Passover Sugar and Salt, Washing up liquid and Milk but for one week in the year, I forgo bread, get a serious urge to purge n clean out cupboards and de-clutter. As for the real reason WHY IS THIS WEEK DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER WEEKS.....ah well, you don't have to be jewish.....but it helps! Chag Sameach (happy Holidays).

CLINTON CARDS DAY...

As with a host of other calender dates, what used to be a family gathering of feast or fast, to celebrate or consider, to pray or to holiday we now have a whole stream of never ending Clinton Cards with obligatory over the top gift selections to take us almost weekly from January to December... Mothers Day as far as I know, is a Christian celebration! Perhaps I should be doing some research before putting this to blog but I'm pretty convinced its a spring festival and is associated with Spring Flowers and Re-birth...All very understandable and rather charming in its ethnicity...Then, along come multicultural good ol, Gr8 Britain and the high streets, web sites, magazine, papers, tv and anywhere else that advertising can find itself full to the brim with ways to treat your 'mum'...from Thorntons chocs/flowers wrapped in ghastly pink paper, the obvious teddy bears to tell us we're the best in the world or maybe surprise tickets to a weekend Spa in Toronto (okay, maybe Teeside!!) or at least to hear IL DIVO...but out of hand it has got.
Do I wait to be told once a year that i'm a lovely mum? well frankly actions speak louder than words and its the other 364 days a year that will underpin that thought and smugness which I'm not at all sure I'm deserved of. Just the same I might as well appreciate the carefully chosen card, more the thoughtful words and even the trinket which in my case was a bright pink HEAD GIRL school monitor badge and the cutest rubber duck to float in my bath. Perhaps she thinks I'm quackers!!! Indeed, maybe I am.... So whether you'll be in church parade or just having lunch with the clan....i guess you -like me- might as well appreciate the effort...next week it will be another reason to do much the same for the best fathers in the world....maybe its not such a bad idea after all....

CREAM WITH EVERYTHING!

I'm definitely not the first, nor likely to be the last person to write for 20 minutes about Cream. Not the milky stuff, no, i'm talking decorating, colour charts and paint pots! To say I have felt nothing less than exasperation about the choices, from the hues of tinted whites to the richness of custardy yellows, not to mention the full range of citrus tinged lemons and some that are simply brown n dull. No, what I wanted was the right shade of cream for the room in question... In this case one that doesn't get any sunlight being at the back of the mansion and with a blue carpet currently covering the floorboards, something that wouldn't appear green or dingy...Should be easy...Check out any mainstream colour chart and take your pick....then put some up on the wall and..............yep, you've guessed it...it's wrong..Just not right.. too light, too grey, too dark, too peachy, too lemony and simply not what I had in mind...Of course if I were of male persuasion i'm sure MAGNOLIA would have been 'perfectly fine' but being a woman with so many buttons and controls perhaps I can be misgiven for checking out the Calico, the Barley, Whicker, Almond, Ivory, Nude Glow and frankly even the Snuggle Up...Whoever makes up the names is deserved of an award..Still in these recession hit months, its keeping the Returns desk at Homebase and B & Q busy!!

MAKE MINE A PINT!

With drinking and smoking laws as they stand, the Real English pub has, like most other traditionally English establishments had to move with the times.. No brownie points come to me for such observations! Since I was never a smoker, not even an ocassional, recreational, just pretend to be one..and have never lived outside the confines of the M25 bearing in mind it was built up around me at some stage of my youth, then my own forrays and dependence on pub life has been relatively uncommon, and not particularly worth mentioning. There would be no landladies/lords wondering why I hadn't shown my face for a few weeks or months...no favourite corners or preferences for draught or bottle...no, i simply didn't really get into pub life. Then again apart from frequently noticing that the outside of some public houses have been tarted up, bedecked with filled baskets of self watering (how else do they do it) hanging pots, that exteriors have been redesigned so that our smoker fraternities can pollute the air, enjoy the sunshine or even sit beneath anything but green outdoor heaters...do I sound bitter? I mean to!! Where was I? The nineties plan was to give pubs the new look and for many of the larger chains, plasma screens offering all day sport and quiz nights or happy hours kept some punters finding a good reason to keep going in but since I've never found either of those even mildly entertaining, i've stayed out...until now...My eyes have been opened, more my ears...live music...not everywhere but in some of the finer outposts, scattered from village to town, from south and no doubt north of Watford too, pubs with character, with new menus offering local produce or at the very least a range of dishes, less curry, more bream and along with the trad. log fires, there are now quite a lot of live music venues...From jazz, blues, soul n rock...open mic eves, acoustic and even some standards thrown in for good measure... I'm not talking Kareoke!....please.... not kareoke....but real musos who over decades have mastered their crafts and passionately play for pauperish payments if any in order to do what they do from the heart and to fuel us, the soda and lime punters (with an occassional real ale thrown in for good measure) back to the hearth of English Pub life. At last I'm ready to go out and explore, to enjoy some REAL entertainment and some REAL Ale....about time too!

JUST ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW!!!

Spending at least several hours more awake than asleep last night, I tuned into L.B.C as my beautiful, sleek n silver ipod , loaded up with culturally rich podcasts has gone into freeze mode on me! Quick note here....buy from John Lewis....they replace without question, quick n fast....and my new one will arrive on Tuesday afternoon! Back to L.B.C then! If you've ever earwigged into the phone ins throughout the night then you'll understand that the callers and subjects discussed can be anything from mundane to simply irritating but it was no surprise to hear that the majority of callers wanted their say about the Jade Goody wedding/publicity/cancer story. I've enjoyed a few reality TV shows in my time but have never found time, energy or desire to watch Big Brother and consequently know little about Ms Goody but somehow or other the media have spared her sufficient space even outside of the tabloid sheets that she like many other 'non events' have become household names! I have heard about her devestated childhood, spearheaded by drug abusing parents and her lack of formal education yet despite all odds being against her, she has been determined not to fade into the obvlivion but to forge her way into a spotlight through sheer determination and motivation even if all the publicity hasn't necessarily been in her favour. Over the past few weeks we have been awarding credits in all forms to the film Slumdog millionaire which depicts youngsters with no reason to succeed an opportunity to break from the harrowing life of poverty and insecurity ...yes of course thats just a film, but here the Goody story wins no oscars....Her planned wedding ceremony today can only ever be the beginning of a very shortlived, sick and sad few months and as someone who has weathered the devestation of Cancer twice myself, I am, perhaps, in some position to in a small but not insignificant way, to understand her fear factor and desire to find a way to provide for her youngsters. When Cancer is involved, education, wealth and love may indeed have a small part to play, but ultimately the suffering is widespread and a turmoil of emotions ripple from home to worklife, from nearest to friends rarely seen and the care the patient receives is largely a lottery. Fortunately for myself, the Royal Marsden which is a centre of excellence, an NHS hospital in both Fulham and Sutton in Surrey mananged to help me through my last six months. For Jade, the very same hospital with the same expertise are unable to give her much in the way of hope! In my own situation, being self employed for 28 years and married means that my financial benefits are limited to £63 a week for a maximum of 6 months after which I will not be in a position to claim any benefits as I am deemed fit for some sort of work and my husband should be able to care for me...As if it isn't enough to live with the strain of the diagnosis, the treatments and the knock on effects of weakness both of body and mind the government creates its own limits which clearly does not meet the needs of the many. So whilst Jade and I have little in common, though if I'm not mistaken, we are both essex girls, who am I and indeed, who are we to judge her for keeping her profile raised, for selling her story and for ensuring that one way or other her boys wont have to be financially insecure. The media circus are no doubt fighting for their rights to the book, interviews, documentary and film which once again reflects that society is thirsty and always ready to buy into others misfortunes. Dignity isn't a consideration. I hope her two young sons will remember her with high regard, will recognise that despite all, she was hoping to provide them with some security and whilst marriage isn't necessarily the fairytale we'd all like it to be....i wish her a wonderful day!

TOM TOM ....

Aha, I hear you think...a whole blog about how to get from A-Z without one of course!!! :-)
No, of late, these past few years I've scarcely made enough journeys to warrant the technical update for myself though I'm convinced it has been one of the best, most useful inventions in the past decade or so, besides the mobile phone, the computer of course and the hundreds of other things that Tchibo the High Street Store that nobody can pronounce stock, albeit it for only a week or so at a time. Nobody, if ever asked would think to mention that they shop in Tchibo. Why would they after all is it a coffee shop or a paraphanalea shop. One week the window will be sporting a range of free weights, thermal underwear and yoga mats and the next, a host of kitchen utensils that you have lived without until you see them, thinking that life would be totally transformed if only you had one of whatever it is that they are displaying. I'm convinced that nobody sets out from home with Tchibo on their shopping list.
Not only were we in this instance enjoying a rare but enjoyable hour of family time in our local shopping centre- Ma, Pa and El with plans to indulge in a Costafortune Coffee together -that's another story, but we were drawn en mass into the shop that sells whatever it has to sell for this particular week. We were drawn like magpies on the hunt, considering, discussing and even touching and weighing up whether or not the £3 bath pillow should be the purchase of the day! Of course we spent minutes at least wondering whether or not it would be machine washable, if we seriously needed one since we shower 90% of the time and if making such an impulse buy would create havoc with the finances! Thank goodness we weren't drawn to the towelling head turban for post shampoo effect at closer to £5. As we queued to pay we were invited to buy ourselves a coffee, either to drink in or take home..what else would you expect to happen!? Being cautious of being oversold to, we escaped, £3 bath pillow in bag and quickly made our way into the local coffee shop where we would no doubt be charged way over the odds for the joy of sitting down in a warm spot without all the temptations of Tchibo!.. Oh and just in case a little friend of mine is reading this....Hello Thomas!

EARLY HOURS

At 4.30 a.m. the day is young...frankly for others who might consider that i'm simply overdoing the late night bit, the facts are that I went to bed at a decent hour, slept for a few (3 maybe) got disturbed by a man getting beneath my duvet with me (yes, yes, I know the man!)....and then couldn't get back to slumber...felt hungry...just a little peckish...can't even blame my low sugars cos they were up..so it was a quick fix of insulin, a slice of bread n peanut butter (and a spoon of peanut butter without bread too- just for good measure) and then tea...then e mails, facebook, scrabble, lexulous or whatever its called and then...back to bed...an hour later...still awake, listening to some great arts programme that I'd downloaded but for the life of me, can't remember anything about it except that the man who was being interviewed was Iranian and had hidden in a hole in the desert for 3 years...and a japanese woman who is joining the force of many others that are publishing short novels onto cell phones..making me hope that our eyes develop and our fingers adjust to this never ending barrage of technology that is probably making opticians and physiotherapists rich ..( in some ways I'm happy about that...bearing in mind son no. 1 is one of them...physio i mean...but then i've mentioned that many many times...too often i'm sure..fractionally better than bleating about cancer, diabetes and groaning on about credit crunch and grey skies! ) ...then again......
So its 4.40 a.m. I need my sleep. not much less than 6 hours will suffice and the only light on this bleak horizon is that I don't have to be up early...perhaps late will be fine....Perhaps late will be essential ...that is....if i can actually get to sleep in the first place....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
could be a fug of a day tomorrow! bye bye everyone (very Sooty Sue n Sweep!!)