COMPROMISES

Rheumatism has been a part of my life since my teen age years and I suppose that up to a point I have become used to working with it and around it. Facing the fact that my increasing infirmity will mean that a degree of compromise will be necessary has proved difficult however.
Notoriously stubborn I refused for ages to admit that I could no longer cream butter and sugar,whip cream or strain soup through a sieve by hand, but of course in the end I saw sense and purchased a small hand mixer and a blender for making soups.

That was fifteen or more years ago and I am now having to fact yet another compromise.
While making shortbread on yesterday I was obliged to hold the mixer in both hands as not only would the fingers of my right hand grip the gadget, my shoulder was giving so much pain that it was almost unbearable and the effort has resulted in having to have the shoulder immobilised for a while.

Here I must tell you that I detest modern kitchen gadgets and in the past have had to be bullied in to acquiring a micro wave (in the end my son just went out and bought one) to make things easier. Loving old fashioned kitchen equipment, and having spent a life time using these wonderfully tactile and always practical items I have always been loath to besmirch my kitchen with new fangled stainless steel soulless kitchenalia; a kitchen should look like a kitchen and not an operating theatre!

Now I must bow to the inevitable and today a food processor has been ordered, not one of those tricksy do everything but play CDs sort, but just a plain simple five litre mixing bowl(it needs to be big) on a stand with a beater, dough hook and a whisk. Hateful though this turn of affairs is to me I see the necessity for it very clearly as the alternative of returning to shop bought bread ,cakes and biscuits is not to be borne.

Perhaps you will think that I am making a good deal of fuss about nothing but you see, to me one of the great pleasures of baking is the feel of the ingredients in my hands, that and the fun of applying the skills it has taken me a life time to learn. Quite simply it is the end of an era and there is no going back from here.

Naturally I shall eventually become accustomed to using the thing as I did the hand blender and the micro wave but oh how I deplore the necessity for it. Coming to terms with greying hair, wrinkles and middle aged spread gave me no trouble at all, it is the feeling that I am loosing my faculties that bites so deep. What will be the next thing to go? I ask myself.

Simple things like edging the lawn and planting out the seedlings have become very difficult and pricking out and handling tiny seedlings has over the last two or three years become impossible. Resolved that I shall never give up I am there fore resigned to the need for a few gadgets and I am lucky in that the boys are only too eager to purchase these things which will make my life easier. Just now I am finding it hard to face the fact that the next batch of cookies I make will have been made in a machine and not by my own hands, I am I suppose feeling a little sorry for myself.

Sunday means the this is the last of our holiday days and tomorrow my son returns to work and yet we are more than happy with the week we had together. My son has finished the second novel of a trilogy(he certainly is prodigious) and I have to tell you that it is even better than the first ,the proof readers agree with my assessment and he is about to begin the final part. Publication will not take place until all three are ready to print which hopefully will not be long. Thriving as he does on challenge and needing an outlet for his creativity he out grew his present employment some time ago and to be frank they do very little to encourage loyalty or commitment in their employees. Hasten the day when he tells them that they can take their job and shove it as sooner or later he is bound to do if things carry on as they are!

Tonight they are screening the episode of “Top Gear” in which those intrepid petrol heads construct and then drive around on mobility scooters. Every one will be piling in to my room to watch and it should be fun there will be home made roasted nuts and some home made damson gin to help things along.

Sorry about the protracted moan,I shall get over my fit of the miseries eventually and besides. Spring is on its way. Only yesterday I saw a pair of magpies nest building in the grave yard behind my home.
I should remember my own maxim that when something goes out of your life another soon replaces it. Perhaps I shall have more time to sit in the garden and watch the birds. Perhaps I may even have time to take more photographs or even do a little sketching again. Perhaps I may just sit amongst the flowers and burgeoning fruits and read a book...........who knows?