The Brain Cells v Old Age

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Ham, cheese, mushroom, spring onions

Yesterday, whilst writing the blog post, I had three ideas for prose sections to haibun/tanka prose poems. In my mind, though I am probably wrong, the two things are interchangeable.

Anyway, with three ideas in my head, I thrashed along through the blog post, added photos and tags and a title and sent it on its way into a world of pixels.

At that point I realised I had only two ideas in my head so I immediately set to, wrote one and hoped the elusive third idea would come back. It didn’t. Instead, I forgot the other one.

Three ideas. Two forgotten. One remembered. I really must remember to use a notebook.

And so I made my way to the kitchen. I did not, if I’m honest, fancy the cleaning, so I didn’t do a soda bread, just a couple of quiches, a rice pudding and yellow split pea soup. The quiches involved ready-made cases (mine always do) so it was just a case of filling them. One is Stilton and Leek. We had that last time too, but we do have quite a lot of Stilton left. The other is ham, mushroom, cheese and spring onion. As regular readers will by now have realised, it was filled with what I had knocking round in the fridge.

Stilton and Leek. Stilton does not photograph well.

The yellow split pea soup is ana amalgamation of several recipes as there are some very strange recipes out there for what is essentially a bowl of cheap peasant food. Mine has celery, carrot, sweet potato and spring onion in it along with the peas. It would have been carrot, onion and celery, but it’s another of those leftovers things. I could have started a new carrot and a new onion, but I have wilting spring onions and half a sweet potato left so what am I to do?

Later, I will move on from this very plain version to something slightly more fancy. Perhaps. If it’s OK I will stick with this version. It takes a bit longer than usual because the peas need around an hour to cook down, so I will have to see if it is worth it. Otherwise it’s back to red lentils.

Latest news – the timer went off and I got to the kitchen just in time. The soup was very thick and the water was gone, but I got to it just before it started to burn. I have mashed it so far and it seems OK, though will probably need diluting as it’s more of a thin porridge than a thick soup. I don’t think it needs the hand blender as that will take the texture and the orange speckles out of it.

The rice pudding meanwhile, a slightly fine-tuned recipe, is done too.  All that needs doing now is for Julia to come home, congratulate me on my industry, compliment me on my cooking skills and enjoy a yellow pea soup lunch. Tonight we have the pasta bake and tomorrow we start the quiche and salad lunches.

Veg for the soup

The only fly in the ointment (an expression which, Wikipedia tells me, comes from the Bible) is hat I have to finish cleaning the kitchen before she gets back. Then I have to do some of the actual writing I was planning. So far I have written what is going to be the second post of the day (I will have to do something else for tomorrow) and one part of a poem. It’s a start, but a poor one, and I need to do better.

Yellow split pea soup, or porridge. It needs more water.

Wednesday Once Again

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I had another acceptance for a tanka last night. I’m currently running at four acceptances and three rejections for last month. Two editors have yet to reply – I’m hoping for one acceptance and expecting one rejection from those. The rejection will be annoying as it will be coming from an editor who, at one time, had taken eleven pieces from 12 I sent him, then started turning everything down – he’s rejected everything I have sent recently and now stands at 11 from 16. I can’t work out if I’m going wrong somewhere or if he has changed his requirements.

I also have three competition entries in. I don’t generally enter competitions because my results have not been good over the years and entry fees can be expensive. However, this year I thought I’d enter more as a way of sending more work out. I expect all three entries will disappear without trace.

Julia had a special session at woodturning yesterday where someone demonstrated various finishing techniques. It left her a bit lost as there was a lot to take in. Today she is doing a specialist class – the U3A is coming down to see the group and run a session in the workshop.  If I were a good husband I would be able to tell you all about it. I’m not, but I can say I think it is for making pens. I know that making pens came into it somewhere.

It’s not that I don’t listen, or that I’m not interested, it’s just that my hearing isn’t as good as it once was, and I find it increasingly difficult to retain everything. There’s probably a research project in there somewhere – the role of declining hearing in marital disharmony. Or, considering that you need clear speech as well as good hearing to communicate properly – the role of muttering. It cuts both ways and everybody seems to mutter these days instead of enunciating clearly.

I will stop here, as I have a feeling that I may be turning into my father . . .

 

 

A Fault Found, and Marmalade Musings

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Marmalade Hoverfly

Marmalade Hoverfly. Misleading name, they are not good on toast

I made an interesting discovery on my voyage of self-discovery and organisation yesterday. I’ve been doing quite well at doing the basics of my daily plan – emails, comments, read blogs, write a short post. In fact, I’ve done them every day. However, it suddenly occurred to me that these are the things I would have done nearly every day anyway, because they are the time-wasting displacement activities I was trying to avoid. Yes, I now only do them once or twice and then get on with something else, but they are still there and still wasting time.

However, I need to check emails, comments etc, and I need to write a bit for practice, so I can’t stop doing them. What I can stop doing is congratulating myself for doing them as part of my plan. I’m now not allowed to congratulate myself until I’ve done something useful.

Here’s a link to my new article on Cromwell’s Head on the Peterborough Military History Group Website.  I can’t seem to link to it directly, but if you go to the website and then the Research Page you should get it.

Of course, the posthumous misadventures of the head of a regicide/political visionary (other interpretations are available . . .) may not be your sort of story, in which case you can move on to more mutterings about things that don’t matter.

National Trust jam

The lack of quality standards for marmalade, for instance.  A couple of times a month we need marmalade. There are currently 14 types of marmalade available from TESCO. Some are basically clear orange jelly with a hint of orange and a lot of sugar and chemicals. They can be as little as 85p per jar. Or they can be up to £3.30 a jar. The cheap jar, by the way, is 454g and the expensive jar is only 370g. Some are only 340g. Surprisingly, all the marmalades, regardless of price, seem to score highly in the reviews. The ones i think of as better quality, which have big pieces of orange peel in them, do not last as long, because of the big chunks of peel.

There should, first of all, be a standard jar, so you can compare them properly. Then there should be a grading system. There are standards. The UN Standards are here, for instance. However, I’m not convinced they are mush help when shopping for marmalade. I’m sure the marmalade of the world is in safe hands, but the definitions don’t help with establishing value for money.

Some of the expensive marmalades seem nutritionally almost identical to the cheap ones when you look them up. The only difference is in the flavour (which could be produced artificially)  and the size of the orange peel pieces.

Toasted Teacakes

You can tell me it’s from Dundee or Oxford (these seem to be favourites), that it is bitter and/or chunky, though, to be fair, so am I, and that it is “Finest” None of these have any real meaning or legal standing. Dundee marmalade appears to be called that because it originated in Dundee. Oxford Marmalade originated in Oxford and uses some brown sugar in the mix. hardly rocket science is it?

I generally go for a mid-price marmalade, deluding myself it is better quality and that I am getting good value. I’m probably half-right on both counts. However, I am suspicious that it is actually the one with the highest profit-margin for the retailer, as that’s how this sort of thing seems to work.

And having tinged my breakfast with cynicism, I will go.

Did you know that one slice of toast and marmalade will take approximately 50 minutes to walk off. I do. I looked it up to stop myself going to the kitchen for toast and marmalade.

Plum Jam, I knew I had some (badly labelled) pictures somewhere

 

 

The Blog of an Old Friend Pops Up to Torture Me

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Healthy Breakfast

I’m now on an 8 Day Streak according to WP. It’s always tempting to see how far I can extend it, but it also doesn’t really mean much and I am tempted to break it deliberately. Yes, I’m feeling iconoclastic, and much better.

Apart from the last post, what did I do today? Well, I published before I had all the bits and pieces added, so had to add tags and photos after the event. Not that the photos were much good – just a a dull bronze medal from several angles.

I had an email turning down a haiku submission, but that’s par for the course. I only send them to show willing and to ensure I stay tough in the face of repeated rejection. They were good enough to be polished and used again, so that’s all for the good.

It was a two injection night, so those are still stinging as I write this. They aren’t bad, but sometimes they are painless, so this is not quite as good as it could be. However, it’s a long way from the days when I used to have ten pills that upset my stomach and an injection fro something like a stirrup pump tipped with a six inch nail. In other words, things are going well, but I do love a good moan. It’s the sorry of modern life – things are really quite good for those of us who have a roof and four walls, the trick is appreciating it.

Sunday fades, the sound of snoring is heard and night passes. It is now Monday morning and I am up and eager. I had a welcome arrival in my WP today – a post from a man who appreciates breakfast. He also used to be part of the Bread Group on the farm.

Proper Breakfast

So there you have it, a Monday morning blog containing a bit of dislocated Sunday and Sunday and a touch of Monday morning. I’m hungry now, and thinking about potatoes for breakfast (an idea my new focus on weight control quickly quashed) and soda bread (ditto). I may well do soda bread later, but it will be to go with the ratatouille for tea, not just because I’m peckish.

If my new plans for weight control go well there’s a possibility that I may merely be overweight by the end of the year. Who can tell? At the moment I have the desire for a full English, I have the ingredients for half of one (ran out of bacon and black pudding over the weekend) and the sort of calorie target that will allow me to have five flakes of cereal and a sniff of the toaster. It’s going to be a long, hard year.

McDonald’s Breakfast – my downfall

On the Brink of War – Surbiton 1936

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Surbiton Charter Day Medallion 1936 (Obverse)

This morning, I woke from a dream which featured a computer and I checked the time on the computer as I woke – 2.20. When I woke properly , I realised this was an imprecise way of checking the time so I looked at my phone. It was 2.21. It looked, at that moment, as if I had finally discovered a super-power. At one time I was able to wake at a specified time (varied by about five minutes) but as I grew older and bought better alarm clocks I neglected to use it. Had I rediscovered it?

I toddled off to the bathroom, went back to bed, set myself a target of waking at 5.20 (no point in being over-ambitious – 3 hours would do nicely) and woke up at 3.40. Clearly I had not rediscovered my old super-power. Nor had i found a way of improving my sleep. It looks like my ragged sleep patterns are here to stay.

Rising some hours later, full of energy, I set to checking emails and comments, then moved on to completing an article about Surbiton Charter Day in 1936. It was a day full of good cheer, civic pride and hope for the future. The newspaper said that hordes of eager schoolchildren listened to speeches from civic dignitaries, though I fear they may have erred on this point. The children were given packed lunches and small bronze medallions before setting off for a day of sports.

Surbiton Charter Day Medallion 1936 (Reverse)

That, I always find, is the problem with medallions from this period. A way of life was about to end, and a number of lives would be changed forever. The writer of this short memoire found that his life changed direction abruptly in 1939. For those of you not familiar with the term, here is a link to the Bevin Boys.

The war memorial at Surbiton holds 469 names. It is unusual, because that is more than were lost in the Great War, but it can be explained by he expansion of the Borough between the two World Wars. There are, as far as I can see, no names of civilians who were killed in the bombing. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission listed, but I know from various sources that 32 High Explosive bombs were dropped in the early part of the war and that 22 V! bombs hit the Borough in the latter part of the war. At least 12 people were killed in one attack, including four members of one family, the Scriveners, the youngest being 2, and the  two Gale sisters. They are listed on the Commonwealth War Graves site but not on the War Memorial.

St Mark’s Church was bombed in 1940 and not rebuilt until 1960 – stones from the bombing were used to make a cairn at the War memorial outside the library. There is a picture of the memorials here – WW1, WW2, Civilians of WW2 (no names) and the St Mark’s cairn. The CWGC gives 52 names from the Borough, including a variety of couples, family members and siblings.

I will add a link when my article on the medallion is published on Facebook. Sorry it’s a bit of a depressing post, but after finishing the original one about Charter Day, it seemed incomplete to leave it in 1936.

With a penny for size comparison

 

 

The Solution Becomes Clear

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The ground subsided and the tree drowned 

I rose just before 6.30 and, an hour later, am still feeling enthusiastic. I have done emails, comments and reading blogs so far. I am feeling good.

Approximately a month ago, plagued by many minor conditions, I was very depressed, worn out and, to be honest, wondering if this was the beginning of the end. People do die at my age, the obituary columns are full of people who don’t make 70. I know this because I started noticing it and had to make myself stop. I started making plans for sorting my life out so all the admin would be  a bit easier for Julia.

Merle Oberon, Jack Johnson, Benny Hill, Edward I, Geoffrey Hughes, Josephine Baker . . .

Trees near Slaidburn

My tastes, I admit, run to the low-brow. But by 68 they had all become famous, then died. I admit Geoffrey Hughes, most famous for playing a bin man in Coronation St (and Hyacinth Bucket’s slobbish brother-in-law in Keeping Up Appearances) may be stretching fame a bit but he was good at what he did.

Then I got better. It doesn’t take much.

Then I became ill again. Fever, cold, coughing, difficulty breathing, exhaustion, lack of appetite, food tasing strange. Having barely recovered from the firs mystery illness I am in the middle of the second, where I have just spent several days sitting in front of TV, mesmerised by the moving colours.  I’ve spent several extra hours in bed each day and have been able to do very little more than a couple of twenty minute slots at the computer. I have also been sitting on the edge of the bed wondering what I am doing (as it’s either getting into bed, or getting out of bed, or putting socks on, or taking them off, the choice is not huge and the answer should be clear.)

Cormorant at Budby Flash

That was the clincher. I did a lot of that when I had Coved.

So I checked the symptoms of Covid. They aren’t 100% reliable, because everything could be a symptom of something else, but staring aimlessly into space with food tasing like sawdust is highly suggestive.

And, as simply as that, the mist lifts and, having put a name to my condition, I am now feeling better again. Humans are strange things.

Heron at Clumber Park

 

Building a Blog Post

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greylag Goose

I’ve had two goes at a post and both of them became tedious rants. So I’m now going to have a go at laying 250 words end to end and see what happens. It’s a bit like bricklaying, though not as you may know it. Traditionally, bricklaying involves straight lines, tidy joints and a feeling that you are looking at something that will last for generations.

Bricklaying as I usually do it, is slightly different. My course undulate like a sea with a gentle swell, my joints are  quite clearly the work of an ungifted amateur and you are left with the feeling that it will last, if you are lucky, until you get off the site. It’s a skill I never quite mastered.

And that’s what you are going to see on this page. Two hundred and fifty words which undulate and zig-zag and give the impression they are about o fall down at any time.

Canada Goose

Did you know there was such a thing as Brick Tax at one time in the UK? It should be more widely known as it’s such a bizarre thing. It lead, for instance, to laws defining the size of a brick, as people started using bigger bricks to avoid paying so much tax. It’s a fascinating subject once you get into it. I will now be looking out for houses with bigger bricks so I can bore Julia with tales of brick tax. That’s also why they have thatched mud walls in Whittlesey, a small town about 10 miles from here. I have pictured it in the blog before.

And there you go – two false starts on political subjects are swept aside by a post featuring anecdotes about my awful bricklaying  and trivia about bricks. Sometimes I wonder why I bother . . .

Egyptian Goose

Failing to Move On

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Mute Swan – Rufford Abbey

I did some of the stuff on my list this morning, walked round the house, had a cup of tea and some porridge, had a rest (I’m trying to pace myself back to full speed) and watched a bit of TV. This became Bargain Hunt, a bacon sandwich and more TV. So far, I am being very successful at the elements of my plan which stress rest, relaxation and not rushing back to full production too soon.

If I’m honest, the parts of the plan which involve being more industrious and more productive are not progressing quite as well.

Mute Swans at Budby Flash

And that, I’m afraid, is where the blog post comes to a natural end. Ninety nine words. I’m not exactly brimming with creativity today.  This is a shame as I was hoping o show steady progress each day now I am recovering, but it hasn’t quite worked like that. It’s gradually sliding around to submissions time, and the clock is ticking on my medallion talk and I am grinding to a halt when I need to unleash my creativity and pounce on each day with vigour.

We had a goldfinch in the garden this morning for the second time this week. That’s three sightings in two weeks so they may be returning from wintering in the south. That’s the advantage of noting things down, patterns build up.

I just did the shopping – I will have to write a menu before I finalise my shopping list, but it’s started and I have my time slot booked.

That really doesn’t seem like much success to report for a day.

Swan at National Arboretum

 

The Ideas Factory

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After a good night, much of which was passed actually asleep, I find that ideas are starting to fire up. It is, as I think I said a few posts ago, a case of the more ideas you have, the more you get. They aren’t always sensible, practical or even sane, but they are all ideas. I initially wanted to call my first idea Tommy II, a rock opera set in the Scottish Borders. However, there may be a conflict with the (currently) better known Who effort of the same name.

I then went for Recycled! as it would fit well with current Disney offerings and anything that increases the takings would be welcome. I’m in it for the cash rather than the artistry and the storytelling.

Barbie led to a worldwide shortage of pink paint, well Recycled! is going to do the same for tweed. Originally I thought of a finale which relied on friction between Gore-Tex fabric causing sparks (an idea which came from a trip my dad and I had in our winter bird-watching jackets along an undulating Fen road in a Morris Ital.  The Ital was famous for many things but interior space wasn’t one of them (or build quality, style or reliability, to be honest). We spent several miles with out sleeves audibly rubbing, and the image has stuck for almost 40 years.  I think that at the time I was about 30 and my dad about 58. I am significantly older now than he was then. There must be something about memory I can write, but it’s not quite clear at the moment.

 

Anyway, the finale with the fiery finish has been rewritten, as I can’t see tweed exploding into flames. It could, on the other hand, produce a comfortably nostalgic feeling that persists as millions of Hen Harriers descend on Scotland, after a long journey from a distant galaxy, and demand to see our Leader, who turns out to be the wife of our cycling hero. The final scene sees her being thanked for her efforts to establish the Hen Harrier Bridgehead while the fizzing of lasers and shouts of landowners in the distance indicate that the Hen Harriers are righting centuries of human wrongdoing . . .

It started as an original idea, though it does seem to have taken on definite qualities of Batteries Not Included as we get to the finale. That’s how ideas work.

However, my second main idea of the morning – Imaginerobics – may have more chance of success. You sit in your chair, you watch TV, you imagine yourself going down the luge track at Cortina, you feel the camber in the corners and the rattle of the rutted ice, and at the bottom you have had quite a workout. Same for the Curling and a variety of other sports. It sounds quite active. And when it’s over, you reach for the cup of tea and biscuits placed conveniently next to your elbow.

Poetry, you say? No, I’ve had no actual ideas for poetry, but that’s the thing about ideas, you can generate them, but you can’t control the ones you get.

 

A question to provoke more ideas – why don’t waterbirds get cold bottoms?

The Glittering Prize

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The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords
F E Smith, Lord Birkenhead

I thought I’d quote Smith for the title, but make it plain I had done so. I didn’t want you to think I’d just nicked the title off the telly, though this is probably unlikely as I just looked it up and find it aired in 1976. hardly a current reference.

I needed a title with “prize” in it as I just won a poetry prize. It’s a poem of the issue award from Eucalypt, a tanka magazine. Every issue, they have two, chosen by the winners of the previous issue’s awards. I now have a commentary on my work and my subscription has been extended by an issue. More worryingly for a man with a very lacklustre education, I have select a winner from the next issue and supply a commentary for it. The one supplied for mine was insightful. The one supplied for the other winner was decidedly erudite. The one about mine used the word trochee. It’s something like 53 years since I last used the word trochee. I’m pretty sure I only used it once then.

As I grow in confidence as a poet I no longer worry about imposter syndrome and am sure I will mange to write an acceptable commentary. I can blog, I can write poetry and I can write about coins, how difficult can it be? I’ll need a few quotes to fill up the space but as long as I get down to it promptly I should be OK.

In the meantime, I should get on with my medallion presentation and making lunch ready for Julia’s return. The poem was a about the stripy shed on the MENCAP Gardens – that’s the pictures today.

I now, of course, regret not taking a photo of the whole shed instead of being arty.