MONDAY WITH BELLS ON

Monday started with a bang, the picture which hangs above my bed fell off, I was lucky it did not do any damage. Here is the odd thing, the hook which it hangs from was still in place and it could not have slid off so I am force to conclude that some one somewhere is trying to tell me something.

We breakfasted in haste upon poached eggs on toast as my son had an appointment with the dentist, such visits are always fraught and the out come is usually propitious only for the dentist who of course makes money. Luckily there is only a filling to worry about, and that will have to wait until my son returns from his trip to Derbyshire next week.

The loaves having been baked I set out to deliver large twist to my friend and to look at the Christmas display at the garden centre, they are adding new things all the time and it is the best it has been for years. Today I managed to get out without buying anything, and trundled home through a deep carpet of fallen Lime leaves of the riches gold.

I bit the bullet and decided to clear the airing cupboard , I set up the ironing table with many a groan and shirt after shirt after shirt was ironed and hung in the wardrobe. I needed to isolate the things which my son wishes to take on holiday . Failure to do this can mean hectic last minute washing and ironing , once bitten and all that!

During his holiday my son hopes to work on his new book but I have begged him to rest as much as possible he really does need to rest. Castleton at this time of year is beautiful, the village is lit for Christmas, every house and every shop has a Christmas tree outside and the bright colours are a sharp contrast pt the wide grey sky and the hills seared to sepia by the cold . Mam Tor black against the evening sky is a wonder to behold. Just a few mile away the great dams of Lady bower and Derwent reflect the Autumn colour of the surrounding trees which are filled with birds so of which are so tame that they will eat from your hands.

Half way through the ironing we had a visitor and I was obliged to switch off the iron and make some tea, as you may imagine I was deeply grieved......however I put a good face on things as I handed round the cookies. Our guest left at four and no sooner l=had he left than we received another visitor, Luckily I had already made the soup for dinner so I had time to entertain our new guest,

It was unfortunate that I had not time to finish the ironing and it was with regret.............that I packed the ironing board away and emptied the steam iron. The soup was good tonight, I had added some sweet potato and coriander to my usual mix of vegetables for a golden soup and with granary bread if was perfect for tonight.As soon as it became dark we lit our pumpkin lamp and put it in the window to show all the local young witches that we were ready to recieve them.

As we were washing up our first trick or treaters arrived, two splendid young witches complete with long frocks and grey hair . They had the good sense to bring the head witch (mum) along and we handed around the bowl of assorted sweeties and the chocolate chip cookies and they went away delighted. It is such fun to have these little people call and they work so hard on their outfits that a few sweets seems little enough in payment for all the fun.

I understand that in The U.S.A. The whole Halloween thing is a big occasion, here it is quite a new thing but as the old penny for the Guy tradition is fading this new one is taking its place.
Dressing up is fun, long may it continue. Oh yes, if anyone needs a Grim Reaper Robe for next year I have one!

Soon my son will leave for work and I shall see Pa safely bathed and then its of to bed for me.
Before I forget the falling picture is not the only odd occurrence today, Pa has heard a strange noise coming from upstairs when there was no one in the house and the cat, who normally spends all after noon and half the night in my room is refusing to go upstairs at all. Attempts to make her climb the stairs have resulted in hissing and spitting until ffinally with her fur standing on end she bolted through the front door and will not return ,not even for a bowl of chicken....................odd, don't you think?

WOOD SMOKE AND MIST

It was lovely to have an extra hour in bed this morning and I really made the most of it. I had the foresight to take a few cookies up to my room last might and I ate them with my morning coffee while watching the news . I was a quiet morning and when I opened the curtains a fine mist softened the view across the pane to the woods.

For our breakfast I baked a batch of blueberry muffins and as my sons friends arrived for their Sunday game each one joined us, I had made two dozen so there were plenty to go around. The boys set of to the pub and I went out for a breath of air. It was unusually quiet, so still in fact that as I sat in the orchard I could hear the leaves falling around me and from my neighbours garden sweet wood smoke wreathed through the now almost bare branches of the old apple tree.
My tame robin joined me sitting upon the back of the oak bench silver with age, I know I should give it a coat of wood preserver but somehow I cannot bear to spoil its silvery sheen. For the first time this Autumn the robin was singing his winter song, sweet and poignant, nothing like the full throated warble of his summer song, it fitted perfectly with the drifting smoke and the falling leaves and I felt the peace of the place settle upon me as I sat there.

The sudden appearance of the cat broke my reverie and caused the robin to give a quick call of alarm before flitting into the fig tree. He need not have worried, Twiggy tore down the grassy path and climbed to the top of the apple tree in one bound then down she came , fled up the garde path and climbed the ash tree by the potting shed after which she ran to the damson tree and took up her station in her tree house where she sat down to wash her face. Peace retuned and so did the robin, the three of us sat for a while longer sniffing the wood smoke until Twiggy decided to chase a few falling leaves and I decided that I had better see how Pa was getting on.

After all the baking of yesterday and because I never know what time my son will return from the fabled land he and his friends inhabit on the weekend I decided to make some steak burgers for dinner, there were some nice fresh buns and I made caramelised onions, salad and hash browns, quick and simple to cook from scratch in thirty minutes once the burgers were made.
SUNDAY BURGERS
1lb steak mince
6 oz fresh granary bread crumbs
1 teaspoon garlic salt
Quarter teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg
1 tea spoon of ground coriander
fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of tomato purree
1 teaspoon olive oil.

Put all the ingredients in to a bowl and mix really well, squashing the meat and crumbs together until you have a dough like ball. Then divide in to either 4 or 6 pieces of equal size. Roll each one in to a ball the place on a flat surface and flatten with your hands turning one to make sure hat both sides are flat. Repeat for the remaining burgers. Chill in the frefridgerator for an hour or so .
Using either a large frying pan of a griddle cook the burgers in a little oil for around five minutes each side if you made six and eight minutes a side if you made four. Alternatively brush with a little oil and grill for the same amount of time.

Caramelised onions
4 large onions thinly sliced in to rings
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 oz of butter
1 dessert spoon of demarerra sugar
pinch of salt
Heat the oil and add the onions to the pan, cook slowly until the onion are soft but not brown, if they begin to brown add the salt and continue cooking. Hen the onions are soft add the sugar and continue to cook stirring often so the all the onions are coated in the sugar and so that they brown nicely without burning.
They should be golden brown and slightly crisp when they are done.

Hash browns

You can cheat and buy these but if you want to make your own you will need

half a pound of cold cooked potatoes per person
salt.
A little flour for coating.
Oil to fry

Hash the potatoes roughly, they should not be smooth like mash, then shape into rounds , squares or any shape you like. Heat the oil in a large pan and when hot fry the hash cakes until they are golden brown and warm right through.
They can be seasoned with a little garlic salt, onion salt or herbs. I often add a little crispy bacon and serve them with grilled chicken of with baked beans for a lunch .

During the afternoon I carved our pumpkin mask for Halloween, we get some wonderful trick or treaters here , witches and ghouls of all sorts but they will only visit a house if there is a pumpkin in the window to show that they are welcome. We give them home made cookies or sweets and sometimes a small gift, a brightly coloured pencil say or a tiny note book. I usually make a skeleton too which we hang by the front door but this year I have not had the time which is a pity because the children love it. I hope for a fine Halloween as we are holding the last bat walk of the year on that night. These walks have been very popular and have certainly raised the profile of these wonderful little creatures in our area.

I wonder if we shall have snow soon as we did last year, the weather is so similar ans I hear that New York is having snow just now. We are almost ready for the winter now, the hitch curtains are in place and the draught excluder’s have been found, the radiators have been de fluffed with a good hoovering and we have all put our fur throws in a handy spot where they can easily be reached if the night becomes chilly.

We each had a fur throw for Christmas last year and found they wonderfully warm, it meant that we could turn off the heating at night which saved us a fortune, Pa's room is the exception and is always kept warm. The throws washed nicely and were welcomed like old friends this year, I need hardly add tat they are very popular with a certain little cat of my acquaintance.

This has been a long blog so now I shall bid you all a good night and a good week ahead.

BAKING DAY AT AVIES

We all over slept this morning , there was something about yesterday that seemed to tire us all out but by the time we sat down to breakfast we all felt much better. My son made breakfast this morning hot buttered crumpet and toasted oven bottom muffins with home made strawberry jam, the perfect breakfast for a busy morning.
After breakfast I gave my son the gift of a wolfs tooth amulet,I feel thta at this time he will need the strength and the survival instinct of this spelendid creature,courage he does not lack but he can be too kind for his own good. Such a gift made by a witch and given by a witch can be a powerful amulet, I am careful to buy only from reputable sources, if I am unable to craft the item myself. Wolfs teeth are scarce here abouts.

Today my son was expecting his gaming group so he went off to change,Pa went off to the shops and I repaired to the kitchen to try out a new cookie recipe. This recipe had cause an unexpected problem for me is so far as I had been unable to buy ant decent chocolate chips.
Since the welcome return of home baking in the form of the cupcake it is possible to by all manner of wonderful things in to and on to cakes on biscuits but chocolate chips seem to be out of favour. Nothing daunted I purchased a block of good plain chocolate, took it home put it in to a strong freezer bag and then beat it mercilessly with a cutlet bat until it gave in and became a bag full of chocolate chunks.

CINNAMON AND CHOCOLATE COOKIES
8 oz butter
5 oz caster sugar
1 egg beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
10 oz plain flour
pinch of salt
4 oz chocolate chunks
For the coating
1 heaped tablespoon of caster sugar
I tablespoon cinnamon
1 Preheat the oven to 190o C.

2Put the butter and sugar in to a bowl and beat until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg and vanilla essence. Sift together the flour and salt in to the mixture, add the chocolate chunks and
mix until thoroughly blended.

3 Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the coating then make small balls of the mixture, roll them in the coating and place them on a greased baking sheet them flatten them out gently with your fingers,

4 bake in a pre heated oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the trays for about five minutes than transfer to a wire cooling rack using a spatula.

You could if you wish substitute orange essence for the vanilla or even add a few chopped toasted hazelnuts . The amount of mixture should make about thirty cookies. You can really taste the chocolate and the frosted cinnamon coating makes them a splendid cookie for Halloween, bonfire night and of course for Christmas,nicely packaged they would make a lovely gift and they could be easily made by children with a little supervision of course.
It was at this point that the spotlight array went off with an almighty bang ant the kitchen was reduced to a twilight zone at once however I carried on regardless in the gathering gloom.

The cookies finished I was overcome with and experimental urge and decided to try my hand at Whooppie Pies. I confess that until recently I had not heard of these sweet cakes but having acquired the recipe off I went.

WHOOPPIE PIES
MAKES 14
7 oz plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
large pinch of salt
2 0z ground almonds
4 oz softened butter
5 and a half oz caster sugar
plus extra for sprinkling
1 large beaten egg
4 f oz milk silver balls to decorate

Buttercream filling
5 and a half oz butter
8 tablespoons double cream
10 oz icing sugar


Icing
4 0z icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons rosewater
Edible silver balls

pre heat oven to 180oc and line 3 large baking sheets with non stick greased proof paper. Sift together plain flour,baking powder and salt then stir in the ground almonds

2 Place the butter and the caster sugar in a large bowl and beat until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg followed by half of the flour mix then add the milk, stir in the rest of the flour mixture and bet until smooth.

3Pipe or spoon 28 mounds of the mixture on to the baking sheets spaced well apart. Bake in the preheated oven one sheet sty time for 10-12 minutes until well risen and just firm to the touch. Cool for five minutes on the baking sheet and then using a palette knife transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

4 For the filling, place the butter in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy , beat in the cream and then gradually beat in the icing sugar and continue beating for 2-3 minutes until very light and fluffy.

5 To assemble spread the butter cream on to half of the cakes on the flat side and sandwich together with the other half. Make the icing and then spoon into a small piping bag and decorate as you wish then dot with edible silver balls and sprinkle with a with caster suger then leave to set.

Mine came out well for the first attempt but I did make them a little too large, they resemble very much those little macaron cakes you get at French Patisserie, I intend to try my hand at those soon.

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I did and what ever you do have a wonderful weekend.

GOING TO THE DOGS WITH THE NHS 1

I fronted up early this morning for my appointment with the urologist at West Mid to discover that since my last appointment they had fired all the receptionists and you now had to queue for ages at the hospital entrance to book in on a computer. Since no mention of this had been made on the appointment I had neglected to take the form with me and soi the nurse was obliged to book me in exhorting me the while that it must not occur again. I was to hear this repeated ad nausium for the next hour and a half.

My appointment was for 10 45 and being use O the way the clinic works I turned up at ten fifteen to give me time to have the regular x ray, unfortunately the nurse on duty was not as familiar as myself with the procedure and so I sat down and waited. As I arrived the nurse was announcing that the clinic was running thirty minutes late, ten minutes later in was running forty-five minutes late. By the time I saw the consultant it was twelve noon and I had to be helped from my seat as my knee joint have completely locked. The chairs were so hard that they left me in need of and appointment with orthopaedics and I sat there waiting for such an age that I was practically geriatric by the time I was seen, perhaps they are touting for business

Of course there were no x rays , the consultant was not pleased, he asked my why I had not been x rayed and told him to take it up with the nurse at which he sighed and said no more.
He explained that I was at considerable risk from infection and ordered a urine sample, blood tests and an MRI scan. He told me that if I experience more pain I should goat once to A&E then loaded me up with a mass 0f paper work which I was to drop off at various parts of the hospital as of course they had fired the people who used to do this job.

I dropped off a file at imaging, another at the desk where they screwed up mu appointment because they did not notice that I was not to see the consultant again until the scan had been done. I explained that it was pointless giving me an appointment for two weeks time as the scan could not be done for at least six weeks. It took so long to knock home this piece of information that I wished for a hammer and chisel.

Next I went to get a blood test and when after fifteen minutes the queue had not moved an inch I had had enough and left already late for the meeting of the conservation group committee.
After all there would be not= rush to get the bloods done if \I was not seeing the consultant for two months. The pub was the next stop and I am glad to say that late as I was others were later and with worse excuses than my own.

My son attended the meeting and is now a fully fledged member of the committee, he will be running a blog for the group and has plans to revolutionise the committee, in the hope that the work load will be spread more evenly. At the moment two of us are doing all the work and speaking as one of the two I am knackered!

I downed a pint of strong ale and we made plans for our meeting with Our Member Of Parliament next week before heading home. By the time we got back it was three in the afternoon, and there you are, another day gone and bugger all done.

Stiff as a board and a little squiffy …...the beer was very strong I did not want to sit and was unable to stand either which caused a lot of trouble but by and by the effect of the ale wore off and all was well except for the vile aching in my right knee. I am grateful that today is over, tomorrow I shall be back in the kitchen baking cookies, tonight we had a take away thank goodness as I did not feel inclined to cook.

I have concluded that our Local NHS trust has fired a good many useful, indeed vital members of staff and keep its top heavy hierarchy upstairs in the plush admin section where the pile on the carpets is so deep that you can loose a shoe in it .
The whole hospital is in a state of disarray and the remaining staff seem to be either on a go slow or are coping badly with the changes. One thing is certain the current conditions are not at all beneficial for the patients, the waiting rooms are so full that there are not enough seats so the those left waiting in the corridor often miss there turn. The nurses are fraught because they are overworked and the the consultants are at their wits ends.

Many years ago Pa ran a large hospital and 28 clinics. HE HOSPITAL HAD A NURSING OFFICER AND A CTERING OFFICER AND BETWEEN THEM THEY RAN THE LOT . These days there are far too many people on the admin side of things, fro what I saw today there are more chiefs than there are braves . I was told that the way to tell the admin staff from others is that the admin staff are the ones wandering around with c cup of coffee and a clip board, those rushing about are the other ranks as it were.
The major problem with the new computerised system is that in the past two months the system has crashed several times this leaves consultants, nurses and patients without a clue.

In the old days a file was lost mm]now and then , these days hundreds of patients disappear at once, I talked to a man today who has been three times and has not once been recognised by the automatic book in computer, I must say he looked real enough to me, he has been waiting months to see a consultant and is understandably worried. It is time we stopped cutting corners with the nations health, what ever they save now it will cost much more in the future when people become ill through the negligence of all those cost cutting administrators..a pox take the lot of them.

FRIDAY ON A THURSDAY

Today has been taken up with all the chores normally done on a Friday and so it has been fraught with all the usual Friday problems and yet in a way it has been fun

My son and I set too with a will, unfortunately Pa was not at his best today and this did cause more that a few difficulties but we got through it all and now the work is done. We had lots of group hugs and cups of coffee to get us through and the prospect of a wonderful evening meal to cheer us on pour way.

Now we are all very tired but a t least tomorrow I can go off to hospital with a clear conscience knowing that all the housework is done. Then of course there is the meeting of the conservation group in the early afternoon at our local pub and this time my son is attending much to the delight of the rest of the group, we need all the help we can get..

I do hope all goes well at hospital tomorrow, I have had quite a lot of pain this week and t=it has been hard to concentrate on anything between the pain and the pain killers which make me whoosy.

I hope to have more interesting news tomorrow and on Saturday if all goes well there will be a new cookie recipe to post. Until tomorrow then, good night and blessings lite upon you all.

Oh there is one interesting thing. The cat Twiggy has passed all her exams and is now a fully fledged witches cat, just in time for our special night and she has been invested with the sigil befitting her new status. I am very very proud of her .

SWIMMING THROUGH TREACLE

There are days, sometimes even weeks when I never seem to get ahead of the game and each task I carry out is at the expense of some other equally important job, today has been one of those days and if it comes to that this month has been one of those months. Last not I was so stressed that I did not get to sleep until four in the morning and have spent the day feeling well below par as a consequence.

At the bottom of all this is is that meeting with our MP next Friday and the fact that this Friday I have a vital hospital appointment and and equally important committee meeting, the last before our MPs visit so there is much to discuss. During the past few days I have been rather distracted and this has led to some strange mistakes and misunderstandings some of which I may never manage to live down.


I have twice due to a laps of memory cheated my poor son out of his favourite pasta meal, firstly by making the wrong sauce (cheese instead of tomato) and today I totally forgot and defrosted some mixed game to make a pie when I had promised the pasta dish....my name is Mud at the moment. Things are not going according to the manual that's a fact.

Even so it was not unpleasant lying in a nice warm comfy bed listening to the rain beating on the window and the patter of leaves blown in the wind. I got up at three and made myself a cup of hot chocolate and munched a couple of cookies while watching the 24 hour news. That must have done the trick because I was asleep by four and did not wake until eight when my son brought me a coffee.

We breakfasted on poached eggs and planned our day...a fatal mistake. My son decided to write and I to bake......behold no sooner had he sat at his computer and no sooner had I assembled my ingredients we suffered a power failure. It stayed off for almost two hours, just long enough to bugger up our plans . To pass the time I put together our Christmas meat order and as soon as the power returned I went on line and put it through.

Being a country girl and used to shopping at a proper butcher I simply cannot get used to the awful rubbish pedalled by supermarkets. Even the best of them such as wait rose or M&S are not brilliant. This is why I always buy our meat Either on line or from a farmers market and being disabled on line is easier for me. The meat is excellent and the price so much less that London prices, the butcher I used today is in Yorkshire and delivery is free when you spend £100.00. We usually spend about £150.00 every three months and for this we get all our beef joints ,chickens , gammon steaks and joint, pork joints and in fact almost everything we need. The joints are large and the quality is excellent, this time I have ordered a bronze turkey for Christmas and a whole gammon these two items will not be delivered until a few days before Christmas and there is something so special about having the Christmas meats delivered on Christmas eve.

These two items cost far less that I would have to pay in a supermarket and all free range.
It is also nice to know that it will be next year before I need order again and with this order almost all of the Christmas essentials are sorted,so that is one thing less to stress about.

Dinner tonight was a mixed game pie, the game came with our last meat order and comes from the Balmoral Estate, it cost about half what I would pay for a similar product in London so it is not so extravagant as it sounds.
As a child I became used to eating all kinds of game from pigeons to venison and I love all of it. Home killed pork and local reared lamb, mutton and beef were also readily available as my father would barter pheasants, rabbits and hares with the local butchers for joints of beef, lamb or pork and sausages that were so good I can still remember the taste.

We have as a family lived through some hard times over the years but I have never cut corners on the quality of the food we eat, I grow most of our own fruit and vegetables and I always have. I have I freely admit done quite a bit of poaching in my time, I was taught by an expert , my father. He taught me to be self reliant and it has stood me in good stead throughout my life.

Of course these days thanks to these blasted T.V. cheffs things which used to be cheap to obtain now cost the earth, I ask you £12.00 for a saddle of hare, even pork belly joints and lamb shanks which butchers used to be glad to give away now cost far mope than they are worth. Wood pigeons and rabbits are still cheap and make wonderful stews soups and pies. I good sized rabbit and a few root vegetables cost a lot less that supermarket burgers and oven chips, they are so much healthier and taste amazing.

I am glad that these days I do not have to shoot game as I never enjoyed killing , in the past I had no choice. During a harsh winter in the 1970's when Pa was very ill we practically lived on rabbits,and wood pigeons ,hares and in fact anything I could shoot as we had almost no income, Today I am lazy and let some one else do the shooting but think of this, the creatures we eat have live a normal life in the wild, they have not been caged and kept in dreadful conditions. The meat is lean and not full of chemicals. Hormones and anti biotic, it ha to be healthier to eat.

I now this sounds like a crusade and that is exactly what it is. Perhaps it seems strange to you that someone who devotes most of her free time to saving wild life should be an advocate of eating wild things but you see that is the natural way and for me it I the only way I know.

I fail to see how the corporate ill treatment of animals for profit can be countenanced by any one with the smallest amount of imagination. If the day ever dawns when I cannot buy what I call clean meat I shall cease to eat meat at all.

Pa has been great today and is doing his best to keep his room neat and tidy, bless his heart, I am now half way down my second G&T and I must say the I feel less stressed, thank the Gods.

I have been looking at recopies and have found some even more amazing cookies to bake/At the moment I am planning a special Christmas party for some very special people so everything has to be perfect , I do love Christmas so very much and the planning is half the fun.
I shall be glad when next weeks meeting is over, then I hope I shall be able to take off my battledress for a week or two, long enough to make a special Christmas for those I love, family and friends, this is what makes me happy, very happy indeed.

A BLISSFULLY QUIET DAY

We must all have been very tired last night because we all slept well. My son fell asleep at eight and did not stir until eight thirty this morning, Pa also slept through and even I only woke briefly on three occasions which is very rare indeed. Twiggy once settled did not so much as twitch a whisker and I found her on waking in the identical position she was in when fell asleep.

This morning , still drowsy I made porridge for breakfast after which my son went in to Twickenham, I made the days bread and Pa went out to feed the birds,

I received a gift of flour from my neighbour a few days ago and so I decided to try it out today, there were two bags, one of spelt flour and one of fine milled granary,a very unusual flour indeed. As spelt flour can be rather heavy if used alone I add a mixture of half granary, a quarter spelt and a quarter white and this gave a really useful flour. The loaves rose well and the texture was excellent so we shall have some more when my neighbour next goes to Richmond Farmers Market. I made a big crusty bloomer for him to try decorated with sunflower hearts and pumpkin seeds, besides this I made another bloomer and two large tin loaves for toast and sandwiches.

My son found some excellent garlic for me, the best I had had in a long time. All too often the garlic in supermarkets is practically desiccated or even worse rotten, this was fresh and juicy, perfect for today’s meal of roasted pork belly with roast garlic sauce roast vegetables , jacket wedges and tarragon dip, a meal we have often as we all love it. It is the sort of meal that looks like a medieval feast when it I spread upon the table. There is the roasted meat on a platter surrounded by the jacket wedges, on another platter the roasted vegetables and in smaller dishes the baked courgettes in butter and the bowls of dip. The pork is sliced while hot and placed on to trenchers of day old bread which soaks up the juices beautifully and the garlic on which the pork is cooked is sieved to make the sauce which is then spooned over the meat.
It is simple to cook yet is looks spectacular when served .

Today has been the sort of day when very little happens and I am glad of the lull. We have had time for the small pleasures of family life, the simple sometimes silly little things which are in reality so very precious. Time to be together is something that we treasure as a family just as much today as when our boy was a small child when we played with him for hours at time, we still play even now . Board games are our favourite and as the days become shorter and the garden less demanding I have more time to thrash the boys at Ludo or get well and truly beaten at Carcassone, cards and dominoes feature also and as we are all good players the competition is fierce.

Sometimes we watch a film together and make jokes all the way through laughing until our sides ache, we eat jelly beans and giggle like children. Even the cat joins in chasing the odd jelly bean dropped on the flour.

Some times the days when nothing happens are the best days, the ones I remember when other more exciting events have been superseded by even more amazing occurrences
The small insignificant ordinary things are where comfort is to be found both now and in the future and I store them carefully away to be remembered on a rainy day when perhaps life is not quite so sweet.

These memories are my greatest treasures and in them those I have loved and who are no longer with me live again, they laugh and they smile for me and I smile with them. They are mine for as long as I live and with these wonderful memories I shall never be alone.

WINTER QUARTERS CAT STLYE

There as been a decided chill in the air these past few nights and it has caused my little cat to visit her old winter haunts. Since her arrival some six years ago she has located most of the warm quiet places beloved of a cats during the winter months. Most of these I know but there is at least one whose location remains a mystery.
From time to time Twiggy disappears without a trace, we know that she is in the house somewhere but that is all we know. I seems that she has found a very secret location and each year we are baffled as to where she goes for such long periods of time.

I have known cats to roost in some odd places, and with some odd habits ,mind you I have owned some odd cats. There was Truffles who insisted upon having her kittens in the airing cupboard, nowhere else would do and she would wear down my resolve that she should give birth in a nice well padded cardboard box by howling like a banshee until I gave in. Her silver tabby kittens always found good homes .
Then there was T. C.a cat of great character who likes to sleep so close to the fire that he usually sported a charred patch or two about the fur.

There was Bogey, the smallest black cat you ever saw with a permanently cross expression, she stalked and caught pheasants the remains of which were often to be found in her favourite roost, the boot cupboard.
Smoky Joe, a one eyed grey cat with a piratical air who slept on top of the wardrobe and was terrified of spiders.

Thomas, darling Thomas, the most handsome, intelligent,lordly tiger tabby cat you ever saw. He was a gardeners cat first last and always, he loved the potting shed and a warm greenhouse in the winter and in the summer time he slept in a tree or an open window, he also had a penchant for snuggling down under the bed clothes on very cold nights.

Snuffy a cream Persian slept curled up around my head like a Davy Crockett hat, he could never seem to get close enough and would sit on my chest stroking my face for hours at a time if I was unwell I still miss my gorgeous Snuffy cat.

Guinness, a black cat with a white head of course enjoyed playing with our baby owls and missed them when they were returned to the wild. There were many others all different and all much loved. But I digress, I was going to tell you about Twiggiest latest new roost. I recently purchased a pair of lovely Terra cotta curtains with matching voiles and at night I light a small lamp behind them in a corner of the window, the glow this makes looks very cosy. On the window sill I placed so old Terra cotta bits and pieces, an old Roman oil burner, an old pot or two and the effect was perfect. Twiggy however thought otherwise and on discovering the cosy spot behind the curtains scufted off the ornaments in a fit of irritation and now spend hours there each day . The effect is still pleasing but the effect upon the artefacts in question has not been good: Note to self buy some araldite!

My son saw his doctor today and apart from referring him to the dentist he is unhappy about his high blood pressure and has exhorted him to eschew stressful situations....some hope... and to rest more. He agrees with me that my son is exhausted and that eventually something will have to give. These words of warning/ advise were given with a few choice remarks about my sons employers. Not so choice however as my own words on the subject!

I am still feeling rather fragile after yesterdays episode and it will be a day of two before I shall feel safe again but at least today the pain is bearable thank the Gods.

Diner tonight was a mixed grill featuring panchetta, miniature Cumberland rings, eggs, mushrooms, cheese and my special tomato sauce. I whipped up a few dozen Staffordshire oatcakes to go with the meal as I did not get up early enough to make bread today. My kind son stopped off in town on his way home and picked up some crumpets and English muffins. After giving me two cups of coffee in bed he made breakfast for us all, tired as he was. He is so thoughtful, gentle and kind. He is also strong, stubborn, brave and extremely intelligent, yes I know that as his mother I could be a trifle biased, even so it happens to be true. He makes me proud every day of his life, and every day of my life I worry about him> If there are any guardian angels out there with a little spare time keep him safe for me, please.

A DAY IN BED

In the middle of this busy time I find myself confined to bed and in considerable pain. All seemed well this morning and after toast, coffee and a chat with my son I woke Pa with a cup of tea and made a breakfast of kippers with bread and butter. It was during breakfast that the pain came out of nowhere and I knew at once that I was in for a bad day. I just about managed to clear the kitchen before going to my room to lie down.

I know from experience that when kidney stones start to travel the only thing to do is to grab a hot water bottle, lei still and hope that the pain stops sooner ranter than later. It is the sort of pain that numbs the mind, it seems to occupy every nerve and fibre of the body, I was told last time it is in hospital that it is the worst pain there is. While I do not know if that is true It is certainly worse than giving birth without a doubt.

By mid afternoon thank the Gods the pain had eased sufficiently to allow my to make a hot drink for myself and for Pa. He suffers very much when I am unwell as he wants to help and is unable, he is not safe with hot kettles but he managed to sort out the laundry bless him.
I returned to bed with a fresh hot water bottle and gradually the pain drained away. I do not like to speak too soon but it seems that this time I have been lucky, sometimes the pain can go on for days.
I have an appointment with my urologist next Friday at which time I hope to learn the date of my referral for treatment, I do hope the it will be soon.

My son woke early today and insisted that we had take away tonight for which I am very grateful as cooking at the moment cooking is beyond my powers, with luck though I shall be better tomorrow, I do hope so.

The new cookies went down well with my sons friends at work so they will be added to my repertoire and may feature in this years Christmas collection, there are still quite a few new recipes to try yet so we shall see.

One thing that today has made me realise s that it is no use becoming stressed about being behind with my work, I always put off taking a rest until this or that job is done, the trouble is there is always another job following on and so the rest never comes. Today has made me stop and be still and has warned me in n uncertain terms that I need to do a little less in order to stay on my feet to the finish.

Next Friday is also an important meeting of the conservation group, that last before we meet our MP on the following Friday. After that I really must take some time off to wrap gifts, write cards and bake cakes,all the lovely family rituals of Christmas which are so special to us and which mark off the days for us better than any advent calender could.

Tomorrow starts my sons week off and I hope that this time we shall all be well enough to enjoy it, our time together is precious to us all. I have promised my son his favourite dinner meal this week as he has been confined to soups and soft foods for over a week, and if all is well with me tomorrow waffles for breakfast, wish me luck.

TWO RECIPIES

My son survived his return to work but I can not help being glad that there are only two days to go before his week off. He is so tired all the time and seems completely demoralised, normally nothing keeps him down for long, he puts a brave face on things but I can not help worrying. Something is very wrong with my normally happy son, we will see what his Doctor says on Monday.

I have been asked for the recipe of our tomato soup so just for Karen here it is.

Tomato and Roast Vegetable Soup

1 medium sized sweet potato
1 red pepper
half a medium sized butter nut squash
1 parsnip
3 carrots
2 red onions
8 cloves of garlic
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
half a tube of tomato purree
half a pint of milk
1 pint of chicken stock or 2 chicken stock cubes
salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
pepper
half a cup of olive oil
Peel the vegetables and cut in to chunks, place in a large baking tray add the olive oil and toss the vegetable chunks until they are covered in oil.
Bake in a hot oven 220oC for about thirty minutes, they need to be slightly charred at the edges.
Pour one can of chopped tomatoes in to a blender than add some of the vegetables sugar and stock , blitz until smooth then repeat with the other tin of tomatoes then with stock until all the vegetables are used. The soup at this point should be very thick. Add milk until you have the thickness of soup that you prefer then add salt and pepper to taste, heat in a large pan and serve. This is a main meal soup in its thick form but thinned with milk or extra stock it can be a lovely first course at dinner. If you what an even creamier soup add a small carton off crème fraich and a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. I hope you enjoy it.

PEAR, WALNUT AND PLUM COOKIES
4oz butter
2oz wholemeal flour
2oz white plain flour
2oz sugar
2oz chopped walnuts
2oz dried pears finely chopped
half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
red plum jam
beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy them add the fruit, nuts and vanilla and mix in. add the four and mix until it is absorbed . roll the mixture in to walnut sized balls and place on a greased baking sheet leaving room for the cookies to spread. Press down lightly with a fork and the with the end of a wooden spoon dipped in hot water make a well in each one. Put a little plum jam in to the holes that bake at 360 oC for about fifteen minutes. Cool on a wire rack. These cookies remind me of apple crumble, a lovely flavour for autumn and winter.

I managed to do about half of the ironing this afternoon and in the nick of time as shirts were short if you see what I mean, during my labours the cat slept in her latest favoured roost, on a pile of pillows at the head of my bed moving only to change position now and then. At the moment she is curled up around the lava lamp, a pleasure which she discovered last year and has just remembered.

Dinner tonight was a cheesy baked pasta using the last of this years courgette crop and lots of sun-dried tomato and mozzarella, nice and soft for my son, although he says that he is felling much better as far as the pain in his jaw is concerned.

I fixed up some twig lights for Pa this afternoon, in the summer I bought him a big purple glass vase in a sale and today I put in some twigs and white fairy lights they shine through the glass and look very pretty, he like this sort of thing as a night light, he is not safe in total darkness as he becomes disoriented. We have made his room pleasant, comfortable and cosy, he really loves it bless him.

Speaking of cosy I think I shall head for the bathroom before anyone else gets the mass idea and then Twiggy and I will curl up snug and warm to watch a film, it is her turn to choose the movie tonight so heaven knows what we will end up with.

THATS LOGISTICS?

I am in the throws of organising a visit from our Member of Parliament as I have mentioned before and the logistics of the affair are becoming more complex by the minute. When I embarked upon this enterprise I never in my wildest imaginings envisaged the number of people who have asked to be present for the event. While it is gratifying to know that so many people share our concern about the amount of development in our village I am now considering hiring a marque for the occasion!

I am beginning to dread checking my e mails as each time I find more requests and I have basely switched off my mobile telephone and hidden it in my knicker drawer! I looks as if it will be standing room only with enough seats for the elderly and infirm.....I hope!

There have been far to many deliveries to the house today, when my son is attempting to sleep I can do without an endless stream of delivery men hammering on the door so loudly that it sounds like a police raid . I am jolly glad I have no drugs in to house or I should be running about in a panic hiding my stash and flushing ashtrays full of old spliffs down the loo!
My neighbour who was at work today received a number of packages, all very large and of course I took them in but when another driver asked me to take in a parcel for some one further afield I was obliged to refuse as I had no more room to store them until they were collected and besides the person was away in foreign parts for a couple of weeks.

This sort of thing happens so often that I am on first name terms with almost every delivery driver for miles around and the fact that my son orders books all the time means that I see plenty of these young men. Today I found the whole experience disruptive as was trying to do some baking and had to keep on washing my hands to sign their wretched delivery pads.
After the fifth such interruption I came over all whimsical and wrote this parody of the UPS advertisement. Sung to the tune That's Amore'

When you're woken at dawn for a parcel that torn that logistics,
When the packagings trashed and the contents are smashed that logistics.
When you wait in all day and the van goes astray that logistics,
Then it turns up next day when you're ten miles away that's logistics.

I baked a new cookie today, this one contains dried pears and walnuts and is topped off with plum jam, My favourite cookie critics will be trying them tomorrow , tonight they have toffee spice cookies, Oh yes, My son is going to work tonight, he is all fidgety and says he feels much better, I am consoled by the fact that he has only three days to do this week so that if he is tired it will be over by Monday morning.
Pa had gone to the shops and I needed a word so I swithched on my mobile phone....big mistake...one after another the missed call, missed message bleeps reminded me that I had been incommunicado for some time.

My mother had called,I called her back...................................................................time went by.......................................Several calls that I needed to attend to were answered.............................................more time went by! Pa came home and I realised that I had forgotten to call him.

We had coffee and I tidied up the dishevelled kitchen and my dishevelled self and was just about to go out when a visitor arrived. In a panic \I looked at the clock. “ I won't stay long.” she said. Over an hour later at five fifteen she finally departed, I had not been out, I had not even begun to prepare our evening meal and my son needed waking with the customary cup of tea. I had dropped in as artless a way as possible that fact that my son ate early this week but too no avail and to make matters worse as she left she announced that she was being taken to dinner and therefore did not need to cook this evening. As she strolled up the path the tiger in me gave a silent roar, truly I could have spit in her eye.

Now I n my room with Twiggy sitting on my desk and my son drinking coffee in the armchair peace has been restored....I know that it cannot last as my neighbour returns home soon and will of course be hammering on the door to retrieve his numerous packages, He is fond of cookies and he likes a chat,.............................here we go again

FITTING A QUART IN TOP A PINT POT1

It would appear that I am a victim of my own success as far as the meeting with our Member of parliament goes. I had wondered if we would have enough people to make a good show at such shorty notice and at such an odd time of day but behold, I am being inundated with requests from people who wish to attend. Mt cottage is very small, hence the problem.

The strange thing is that the people who I thought would be keen to come are not the ones who are banging my door down for an invitation and thing have really hotted up today.
Our Chairman, who it must be said has been acting rather oddly of late has said that he will look in but will not stay if we seem to have too many people....excuse me, it is he whom I had supposed would speak on our behalf to our illustrious guest. My neighbour too is being very coy as to weather or not he will grace us with his presence, I can not make it out.

One thing I certain, numbers will not be a problem, almost everyone in living in this part of the village is keen to show solidarity and if we get too many people it occurred to me that we might have a bonfire in the garden and hold the meeting in the orchard, which is after all part of what we are fighting for. Any idea we had of using our local pub was scouted by the exorbitant ammonium the wanted to charge us for a room which would be empty at that time of the night.

I refuse to worry about the meeting, after all if too many people show up it will show the strength of feeling in the area for our cause, which since winning the battle of the churchyard as increased a great deal. I suppose there are those who would rather back a winner and now that we have proved that we have the clout to get the better of our Local Authority others are prepared to join us in the fight.

On the home front our breakfast guest stayed until lunch time as we had lots to talk about, he is a good friend as he is always welcome here at any time, he has a good appetite too which qualifies him for the breakfast club. I made Potato Pancakes today which was lucky as these are his favourite breakfast. It cheers Pa up to have someone like this to talk to and that alone would make him welcome, he is also a very kind person and has helped us many times with problems around the house.

His young daughter recently married is someone of whom we are all very fond at it was good to catch up on news of her and her husband, we may see them at the weekend so I had better get some baking done.

My son is now insisting upon returning to work tomorrow night, I think he I insane but who am I...Just his mother! With a doctors appointment on Monday I would have at least waited until then, but he is adamant. One good thing is that at least he is in a lot less pain now although he has asked for soup for dinner again and I have made a rich tomato and roast Mediterranean vegetable soup and there will be enough left over for him to take to work tomorrow night if he does not feel like a ham and cheese baguette.

I have returned after a long dry spell to my old acquaintance with the evening G&T, what my urologist would make of this I cannot say but what he does not know will do him no harm, besides a short life and a merry one has always been my motto!

I have had not further contact with any one from the Estate since the apologies arrived and I hope that peace has now been restored. We have had two weeks without any molestation and it is wonderful,I am beginning to believe that we have truly won and I am more glad for that than I can say.
We can settle down now and prepare for the festivals of winter, which are of great import too us all, beginning soon with All Hallows, and a great feast a festival at once of remembrance and thankfulness, of light and of hope, a hope that no evil will befall our people in the coming year, and a pledge to the future. I wish health wealth and happiness to you, wherever and whoever you are.

PAINS AND ACHES AND CHRISTMAS CAKES

Yesterday I took the decision that I would bake the first of this years Christmas cakes this morning, the auspices were good and I had nothing else of consequence to do. Fate, baggage that she is deemed it should be otherwise by inflicting upon ,me a catalogue of unrelated but time consuming events which caused sufficient disturbance to mess up my day. It all began last night.

My son,still unwell was up until very late, trying, silly so and so to keep awake in order to get back to work today, he failed and fell asleep worn out with the pain from his swollen face , he did however manage to keep me awake until past two in the morning. I awake again at four in acute agony from an arthritis flare up in my neck which is now so bad that I cannot turn my head at all. On my way to the bathroom to find the topical pain relief spray my left hip gave way and I fell catching my shoulder on the corner of the bath and as I franticly grasped at a shelf to stop myself falling twisted my shoulder and damaged the muscles in my back.

Thankfully by then both Pa, who had also stayed up late and my son were both fast asleep, I went back to bed, took a large dose of pain killers and tried to sleep myself. This proved impossible until about five a.m when I drifted in to a sleep much disturbed by strange dreams which are a side effect of the medication. I woke at seven thirty and spent twenty minutes attempting to get out of bed which I eventually managed only after much travail.

No one else was stirring, I made myself a coffee and watched the news, all grim as usual. I decided to leave my son to have his sleep out and took Pa a coffee at eight, he opened his eyes and smiled, a gesture which I mistakenly assumed meant that he was conscious ...not so.
I tried again half and our later and kept on trying until my temper finally gave way and I raised a yell that should have awakened the dead.....but not Pa!

My son however did wake up and was concerned to find his poor mama in such a state, we consoled each other with a hot drink and finally at ten forty five Pa regained consciousness.
By the time he was dressed and the porridge made and eaten it was twelve thirty.......so much for making a Christmas cake in the morning.

I packed Pa off to the shops, tucked my son up in bed collected all the necessary ingredients and away I went. The only time I do a Delia and way everything out is when I make a Christmas cake, failure to do this usually results in some vital ingredient being forgotten. This is a fiddling and time consuming business and crippled as I was it took ages, the recipe is an old one and the list of ingredients seemed endless.

I managed to put the cake together, God knoweth how and had it in the oven by one thirty, this meant that dinner would be late but what the hell I was determined. The recipe required my almost constant attendance as the temperature needed to be reduced gradually over a long period , having never baked a cake of this sort in my new oven the whole procedure gave my the jim-jams! Things were going well and at four I poured myself a G&T and spent an hour re arranging the cupboard where the preserves are stored, this activity did nothing to help the pain in my neck and shoulder.

Dinner was to be Cottage Pie as it would be soft enough for my son to eat without trouble
and I peeled the potatoes along with carrots ,parsnips and swede then made cooked off the minced beef and onion, glancing at the clock I saw that the cake would need pt be checked on fifteen minutes, it was at this point that the telephone rang.

I answered the phone very much against my better judgement and only because I knew it was the secretary of our committee and I had already missed a call from her. She had news....lots of news....bad news!!!! Our chairman had announced his resignation, some might say that he has not really been with us for some time, all the same it was a shock.

This means a bloody reshuffle and I dread the chaos that this could cause. Our secretary, who has been doing the chairman’s job for ages is every bit as busy as myself and has family commitments which tie her as well as a full time job.

Then there was the meeting with our MP to discuss the call went on and on and suddenly with an anguished yell I remembered my cake and fled to the oven chucking my mobile phone in to the laundry basket...............Saints be praised.. the cake was not burned ,even so it would have been better had it not been left in the oven for half an hour too long.

I retrieved our secretary from the laundry basket and we agreed to meet tomorrow to discuss our problems at leisure.

Our evening meal went to table much later that I had intended and by the time I had cooked it I could barely stand, leaving Pa to do the dishes.....rash fool that I am ….I sat down at my desk to write this blog. My little cat is snuggled up on my desk and is sound asleep. I feel as if someone had stuck my head upon a brush tail and cannot move my neck at all.

Still I did get the Christmas cake made...I did bugger all else but that is one I can cross off the list, Tomorrow I have a breakfast guest, as well as our secretary in the afternoon, tomorrow can jolly well take care of itself, I am off to bed.

Oh yes, should anyone want ancient recipe for this time consuming cake please let me know and I will post it on a future blog.

I'M TOO WRINKLY FOR MY SHIRT!

It is a fact sad but all too true that women of a certain age have for a long time been invisible to fashion designers. Lately however there has been a change of emphasis and they have now begun to realise that there is an army of women over a certain age and over a certain dress size who have money to spend on clothes and no where to go to buy them. Am I cheering, no I am not!

There has in recent times been a proliferation of fashion catalogues aimed at the older woman, you will have seen the commercials, My Style, Fifty Plus, Marisotta and Isme to name but a few. These catalogues trumpet their desire to cater for the older “more discerning” woman, shall I tell you what this discerning woman has observed, most of these catalogues are owned by the same company and quite often the clothes are the same.

Of course there are also quite a few different items but the basics are identical and unfortunately follow the same pattern as the catalogues for younger and presumably less discerning women. The clothes look great on the slim models and not so great on the more portly ones.

Some cater for the woman who still wants to look sexy and outshine her daughter, to her I say hang up your guns dear and give the youngsters a chance. Remember the tarty old hag who used to strut about in a mini skirt when you were younger,you know the one you all used to giggle at.......that could be you!

There are others who cater for the ex hippy types,in to which bracket I admit to belonging. The pages of this catalogue are full of flared skirts, maxi dresses. Gypsy blouses and ponchos. To this woman I say , when your hippy poncho is the size of the tent you used to sleep in at festivals it is time to take the flowers out of your hair and get the regulation perm!

Then there are the ones...and these are the sneakiest of the lot...which claim to cater for “The Real Woman”. They tell us that wearing their stuff will give us the confidence we lack, If I had as much front as Linda Bellingham that would be fine...I don't..
We are now in the realms of the fashion advisor’s, don’t wear block colours they make you look enormous, don’t wear disty prints they make you look enormous, don’t wear large prints they make you look enormous.....they all tell a different tale …...lets face it dear the truth is you are enormous.....this you will not hear!

I detest the clothes which women of my age are supposed to wear and I always shudder as I turn the page to find the mature woman section....Oh My Granny!... I cannot and will not associate my self with these dreadful garments. The fashions of today are lovely, they are almost identical to the type of clothes I wore as a teenager in the seventies, the only difference being that we wore our see through blouses with nothing underneath, today they cover there boobs with a camisole........where is the panache in that.

These days it would take more than a camisole to disguise that fact that gravity has taken its toll on my once svelte figure. I am a realist but that does not mean that I wish to look like my own grandmother.

I do quite a lot of my clothes shopping on line these days, I favour kaftans, kurtas and abyas in the summer time and I can pick up some lovely examples of these for between eight and twenty pounds. Try matching that in the high street or in the catalogues which charge exorbitant amounts of interest if you have an account.

In the winter time I admit to wearing capes, cloaks and ponchos, these too I buy on line and often for ridiculously low prices compared to normal shops. My most recent purchase was a beautiful embroidered crushed velvet kaftan which cost me the princely sum of eight pounds, you could not buy the material for that price.

So many women are bullied by fashion pundits in to buying in to a look which does nothing for them what so ever.,take the classic (mother of the bride ) out fit. My God I have seen some monstrous garments at weddings I have attended, catastrophic failures on the part of those advising the poor soul combined with the fact that the poor souls self image is about twenty years behind the times. These appalling ensembles are made even more pitiful by the addition of...A HAT!

This is in these time an item of clothing seldom worn except at Royal garden parties Royal Ascot or weddings and there is a fact which many women are unaware of and it is this, either you look good in a hat or you don't, not just a particular hat, any hat. I for example always look ridiculous in a hat, result I do not wear hats, with the exception of a fur monstrosity which keeps my ears warm in the winter. Eschew the fascinater,these are best left to characters in Agatha Christie novels.

So what is the point of this rant , firstly beyond a certain age it may be better to be unobtrusive, and as one gets really ancient neat and clean is perhaps the best thing to aim for. I prefere clean and exentric myself.

The real point however is this, once you realise that you are ever so slightly over the hill there comes a feeling of liberation. OK so you don't get wolf whistles any longer but you do not have to agonise about weather your hand bag matches your shoes or if any one will notice that you are wearing last years boots...you are free from the chains that bind younger women who still must compete for the fickle attentions of some man or other, that is a wonderful feeling.

Enjoy being who you are NOW, wear what the hell you like, the chances are that no one is looking at you anyway!!!!!!

News bulletin
My son is thankfully no longer in so much pain, he slept for thirteen hours ate a little scrambled egg for breakfast and then went back to bed, he has slept for most of the day only waking when the painkillers begin to wear off. I believe that he is suffering from exhaustion, I recognise the signs...he has all of them!

A BUSY NIGHT AND A PESTIFEROUS DAY

A pox,a plague and a blight light upon the N.H.S in general and our doctors surgery in particular! I called this morning to arrange an appointment for my son only to discover that our G.P is on holiday again and the practice is so busy that I could not get an appointment until next Monday. It is barely a month since he had four weeks leave which I mentioned to the receptionist who like many of her calling seems to feel that she is employed to keep the patients as far away from the doctors as possible.

Naturally I played merry hell and managed at last to secure a word with a member of the practice who prescribed some strong pain killers and told me to call again if their was no improvement. All this took quite a time and it was late afternoon before I could collect the prescription and take it to a pharmacy. The prescription is for Solpadol which contains 30mg codeine and 500mg paracetamol per tablet and he is to take two of these four times a day.

I gave him a dose with a cup of tea as soon as I returned home and the effect they had on him taken on an empty stomach was to knock him out cold. He is still sleeping and I have no intention of waking him for work although he will be furious with me I know. He is asleep and out of pain for the first time in days, I cannot tell you what a relief that is to me.

I shall call his line manager this evening to appraise him of the situation and we shall take it from there. I friend called to see him yesterday and was quite shock to see how ill he looked, and it is true, he looks like hell. To begin with he is exhausted and has been for a long time, this business with the decorators has been the final straw and an acute lack of sleep has catapulted him over the edge. Add to this the dreadful pain he has suffered and it is small wonder that he looks ghastly.

In spite of this all he talked about was going to work and I was obliged to deliver a few trenchant remarks upon the subject of his employers, which of course went in one ear and out the other.

One happy occurrence today was the arrival of our copies of my sons book which will now have to be signed yet even this great event was overshadowed by his health problems. The book is now on sale through LULU what ever that is, I am so proud of his work which has already received glowing reviews from the proof readers and others in the know. I just wish that he was well enough to enjoy the moment he has worked for over that past couple of years.

I spent a quiet hour or two wrapping Christmas gifts for family members living far away,I like to get them posted in good time and then it is off my mind. We shall have a good attendance for the meeting with our Member of Parliament, judging by the number of replies so far I shall be hard pressed to squeeze them all in to my little cottage, which is no ones idea of the T.A.R.D.I.S. We shall manage I expect and it is certain the a crowd in a small place will look more impressive that a few people in a large hall. I hope the

intervention of our M.P and a few local councilors who will also be attending that we shall prevail in our fight against the developers.

Having spent the greater part of last night making hot drinks and filling hot water bottles I am rather bleary eyed and more than a tad weary today.
My troubles have been added top be the unfortunate habit that my hip has developed of popping out from time to time. This is extremely painful and causes me to fall over so that I am black and blue at the moment. For once Pa is the healthiest of us all, the second time this has happened in recent weeks and something of which he is very proud, bless him. With his new calliper he is pottering about and has been able to help me here and there and now that he is taking less medication for his epilepsy he is less confused and his memory is better. Thank the Gods for this blessing, it is something to hold on to at the moment .

Even our little cat is sad and is camped outside my sons bedroom door dashing in whenever she gets the opportunity, or perhaps it is the huge Mongolian fur throw covering my sons bed which is the attraction, Call me a cynic if you like but I do know cats.

ROLL ON MONDAY

Today has been remarkably quiet at home, with my son keeping to his room and Pa learning how to adjust his new calliper. For once though I have hated the quiet because it s the sort of quiet which falls upon a house when someone is ill, how glad I shall be tomorrow when my son can speak to his own doctor and hopefully get some help.

I decided to make porridge for breakfast in the hope that my son would be able to eat some and he did eat a little, not enough though and I am getting more concerned about him by the day. At the moment he is insisting upon going to work tomorrow night and I know from bitter experience that nothing I can say will make him change his mind. Only the Gods know why he is so damned loyal them.

I spent a part of the afternoon rearranging our meeting with Mary McLeod . Our local member of parliament who was supposed to visit us on November the 18th and now wishes to come on the 5th of November,it is, not to put too fine a point upon it a bit of a bugger.

I am however very much aware that we are damned lucky that she is coming at all and having engaged her interest in our problems nothing will be allowed to stop this meeting from going ahead. Far too much, including my kitchen garden and orchard depends upon what happens at that meeting. We believe that the woods opposite our home are also at risk from the developers...we have spies everywhere...we must protect the badgers, owls kestrels and bats who inhabit this lovely old woodland.

Quite how I shall fit all these people in to my small cottage I have yet to work out but we will manage somehow I am sure.

Evening meals are proving difficult at the moment because of my sons problems but I believe that he is not hungry in any case . I made him a soft cheese omelette for dinner, he loves omelettes and he barely touched this one, I really am very worried indeed. I shall try him later with some hot milk with brandy and cream, a favourite family cure for most things.

How chilly it was last not, I woke at around two and reached for my fur rug, later when I made a hot drink for my son I noticed that the lane was filled with dense fog which swirled about just as it does in all the best horror films. Twiggy spent last night in bed with Pa keeping her little pink paws warm by tucking them into the neck of his pyjamas.

I do not expect much sleep tonight so I have put together a selection of DVDs to watch.

The Ghost Goes West, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca and The Fantastic Four, if these do not get me through the night I have Ground Hog Day in reserve, I shall most likely have square eyes by morning.
Two large G's&T later....... I now feel much less stressed, we have decided that the central heating must go on and I have hoovered all the fluff and cat hair which has collected in them during the summer time in the hope that this will prevent the annual allergic reaction to dust which I experience each year at this time. I have changed my mind about Ground Hog Day and have chosen Rear Window... the original of course instead.

LOVELY AUTUMN

The glorious weather continues and how my little cat has revelled in the sunshine today.
Before I could join her in the garden I had much to do as today was a baking day. My poor boy is no better and I shall be very glad when I can get him to the doctor, he is refusing to see any one else, silly boy. His jaw and the whole left side of his face is is sore that he is finding it difficult to eat so I made some very soft pancakes for breakfast and he managed to eat a couple.

I wanted to try out a new cookie recipe today , cinnamon spice with caramel , I had my doubts about the recipe but as always I tried it by the book first. I discovered, not for the first time that although the recipe looked good the person who complied the book had obviously not tried out the recipes first and as a result it soon became necessary to ad lib.

The resulting cookies were quite nice but frankly not to my usual standard and having used the recipe I can see what will be needed to make them so much nicer next time. The recipe was also totally wrong as to the number of cookies the amount of ingredients would make. I doubled the mixture and still did not make as many as the recipe claimed for half the ingredients.

Next on the agenda were two large ginger cakes, these are to be added to a special hamper which I am putting together for two recently married friends. They have just moved in to a new house and this will be in the nature of a house warming gift..

With the cakes done I was free and out I went to enjoy the garden, I recently purchased a new robin box and I put it in place on the old wall hidden among the ivy , that makes three new boxes this year and \I hope the birds enjoy their new homes. Our old robin box is becoming fragile wit age, it has been to home of more young birds that=n I can remember. Our own tame robin was born in the old box two summers ago, I have left the old one in place and located the new beside it, my robin watched the whole process with great interest, he s a dear little bird, trusting and so affectionate that today he pulled a caterpillar from my hair and ate it while sitting on my shoulder,this is a favourite trick of his.

Next I treated myself to one of the greatest pleasures of the season, A great big smoky bonfire of leaves swept from the paths. Nothing compares with the smell of such a bonfire and the residue scattered on the garden is good for the soil. Some one once told; me that a bonfire of leave lit among fruit trees deterred the moth larvae which eat the apples in summertime. I do not know how much truth there is in those old tales but it is a good excuse to indulge myself for once.

Foxy came out to see what was going on and my little cat watched from her tree house so as you see I was not short of company even though pa had gone shopping and my son was in hos room resting. I hated goi8ng indoors again but duty called and I had a meal to prepare.
For my son I made some rich tomato and roast vegetable soup which I served with sift new bread and butter. He managed to eat this meal I am happy to say, Pa and I had oxtail stew and as my son dislikes oxtail he did not feel that he was missing out on anything he liked.

After dinner I strolled into the orchard once more,it was dark and very still. The smell of wood smoke and burning leaves still lingered under the trees and the last few bright sparks twinkled as they curled around the edges of the last few unburned leaves. In spite of the coolness of the evening a few bats flitted here and there under the trees,looking down I realised that Twiggy was standing beside me ,every bit as absorbed by the dying fire as I had been. I reached down to stroke her pretty fur and then the two of us strolled companionably back up the grassy path to the warmth and light of the kitchen.

Now as I write she is sitting on ,my desk curled up around a pencil pot, I know that she is not asleep as every now and then she opens one eye to see if I am ready to give her a cuddle, she really is a dear little mortal.

I shall make some hot chocolate for the boys and then it will be time for a bath and bed. I do hope my son gets some sleep tonight and that tomorrow he will feel better,he too is very dear to me and I cannot bare to have him in pain. I have the means to make hot drinks in my room so if he cannot sleep at least I shall be able to keep him supplied with such comforts and keep him company. Good night everyone, sweet dreams.

UPS AND DOWNS AND DOWN THE HATCH

I am becoming very worried about my son who has been unwell for the greater past of this week. He has been in a good deal of pain and today he is much worse. Like all men he has tried to brush it off but toady even he has had to admit that there is something very much the matter. He has refused to see a doctor and now of course it is the weekend and the surgery is closed. In this neck of the woods the N.H.S direct doctors are not much use, experience has taught us that all they do is keep you waiting for hours and then tell you to see your own G.P as soon as possible or else advise you to visit A&E.

The last time my son attempted to get an appointment with his G.P it took the best part of a month before they could fit him in by which time he had been without his hypertension meds for three weeks. The doctor refused to fill his repeat prescription as he was due for a review.
By the time he was examined the doctor discovered that his blood pressure was through the roof....surprise surprise!

I have made him as comfortable as I can and at the moment I can do no more, it is so much easier to nurse a child who as a rule does as he or she is told,men can be so stubborn when it comes to illness. I have know my son go in to work on many occasions when he was really ill against his Doctors advice and my own and I would rather try to give a pill to an angry Tom cat than to attempt to get my son to take so much as an aspirin.

On piece of good news is that the apologies have arrived fro both the estate manager and the maintenance manager and I sincerely hope that this will be an end of the matter. However since both men were at pains to apologise for “Any misunderstanding there may have been .”I am not sanguine as to this and I shall accept these apologies in the spirit in which they were written

This is however a great occasion in the life of this estate as I am reliably informed that no such apologies have ever been received by members of staff from any of the managers. I shall accept these apologies with the same qualification as was expressed by their respective writers!

I have just given my son a cup of coffee well laced with brandy in the hope that it will help him to sleep, a combination of decorators at dawn and the pain he has been suffering have not allowed him to sleep properly for several weeks and he is now quite exhausted, I think that I might treat myself to a large G&T before bed myself, drink is a great solace I find and it has to be said that I have solaced myself quite often during the past few weeks. Cheers all!

THE QUIET LIFE

Cannot describe to you the joy of waking this morning with the knowledge that I would not have to be charging about opening windows at some ungodly hour . To be able to use the bathroom without encountering a paint smeared face peering through the window and having to ask the face if would mind absenting itself while I use the loo., was absolute bliss!

Another great improvement is to be able to close the doors and windows again after sitting in a draught all this week and most of last. To begin with the weather was hot and things were hunky dory but once the temperature dropped and the wind picked up it became a menace which has left me with a dreadful earache and my son with neuralgia, his face is swollen and he is in considerable pain.

We sat in our warm kitchen with the door shut and ate a breakfast of fresh baked blueberry muffins, it was a lovely lazy meal. Today is a cleaning day and on the weeks when my son is not sleeping during the day I give the whole top floor a good going over, Hoovers and steamers are too noisy to use when he is trying to sleep and I am usually far too tired to do the job in the evening after he has gone off to work.

Two weeks ago I moved all the bathroom furniture about to make more space for Pa, he needs a chair of course and room to get about with his walking aids, the result looks good and is also easier to keep tidy which with two men in the house is well nigh impossible. I am never surprised when we lose the world cup, football or rugby when I consider how bad the men folks aim is when attempting to get their dirty togs in to the laundry basket or hitting the waste bin with their bits of rubbish. Judging by the amount which I find on the floor each day I would say that it seems to be a genetic weakness in the male of the species. Notice however how well the women’s football team is doing...I rest my case!

Leaving the bathroom sparkling I put a large piece of rolled brisket on to pot roast for dinner tonight, it needs a long slow cooking time and as Pa had a hospital appointment at 3.45 pm it was a perfect choice for today as the meat will stay hot without spoiling and the Yorkshire puddings do not take long to do.

Pa returned with his new calliper which we hope will allow him to walk with more ease, I expect it will take time to get used to but it seems to be a vast improvement on the previous instruments of torture supplied by the N.H.S due in part to a mix up as to what he actually needed.

Today we have had true autumn weather soft and faintly misty , the air still and scented with the spice of fallen leaves and ripe fruit. In the garden the birds have been busy all day and the squirrels too have been busy storing away supplies for the winter. The cat Twiggy has spent the day in leisurely fashion strolling around her domain with the air of a landowner taking stock of her possessions just occasionally stopping to chew a blade of grass of to roll luxuriously in a dusty patch. High in her tree house later in the day she slept for an hour or so while small birds flitted around her without fear, I observed that she often had one eye open so it is to be hoped that the birds know their business.

Now that the day is over and we are all well fed and sleepy she will choose how is to be favoured by her presence tonight, my son and I are still in need of pain relief for our respective problems but at least with luck the tablets will ensure a good nights sleep.

The peace and calm of today was exactly what we all needed and like the cat just pottering about in a relaxed fashion has been the way we spent the day. And now for a hot bath and a soft bed, a goodnight every one , sweet dreams.

A DAY TO REMEMBER

This morning as we sat at breakfast the post arrived with an item which caused so much excitement that I have still to calm down. The proof copy of my son's first book “One False Step” which we were not expecting for a week of so turned up and really made my day.

The book has been on sale as a download for a couple of weeks but for an old fogey like me to actually have a copy of a book written by my son is truly thrilling. In a few days time the book will go on sale, this is step one of his plan to kick his liberty taking employer into touch and for me that day cannot come too soon.

He works long hours filled with almost impossible deadlines made more difficult by the rock bottom moral of most of the employees. My son heads a team of brilliant dedicated men and women who in spite of everything give 100% every time. The work is often difficult and exacting as even a small mistake can cause chaos.

There is among employers generally the attitude that as times are hard they may treat their workforce with a take it or leave it attitude. This is short sighted as these days companies need the loyalty of their staff to survive the competition. They should not be surprised if their long suffering staff tell them to shove it! Hasten the day!

I should be glad if could leave before he suffers some lasting damage from the near impossible work load he deals with night after night, stress is a killer and in the past year he has suffered from hypertension and that causes me great concern. I would worry if the company he worked for actually valued the sterling work he performs, but as often happens this is not the case.

Back to our celebrations, we had a guest at breakfast this morning, we were joined by Ben, the young man who is decorating the house. He is a true craftsman, unlike the dreadful crew that were here a couple of weeks ago. He is polite and knows his job well , this is his last day with us and we shall miss his cheery company. He joined in the celebrations and was pleased with the book, he and my son have got on well as they seem to have interests in common.

How I wished that I had arranged a special meal for tonight to celebrate but chicken in the pot had been decided upon last night and so chicken in the pot we had. I added to the root vegetables some of our own sweet potatoes and half of a home grown butternut squash, seasoned and flavoured with herbs from the garden and a big spoonful of apple and thyme jelly it was a lovely meal after all . Anything with chicken in it pleases my son..

We toasted his book launch in bilberry brandy, on of this years special brews. Book two is already in the planning stage and will be written on his next retreat in November. He is going to visit our old home county, how I wish I could see those hills again, sUmmer or winter they are beautiful and I miss the fresh clean air so much.

Nothing today however can dampen my happiness and to see my dear son so happy means everything to me, I can say with prefect honesty that he has never given me any reason not to be the proudest mum in the world, he has qualities which make him both special and unusual. It is a pity that he is much too modest to realise what a remarkable young man he really is.

Now I had better shut up before I bore you all to death with this eulogy, if he ever reads this he will hate it and I shall be told off in no uncertain terms, so don't grass me up...please!