Tag Archives: breakfast

Unpacking a Crowded Head

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At the end of the day I go to bed with far too much stuff in my head. Yes, it would have been much more elegant to use the word “thoughts” but it wouldn’t be as accurate. Much of the contents of my head are half-formed, or amorphous wafts of something, or simply daydreams. Recently, for instance, I have been instrumental in sorting out English cricket, regaining the Ashes and have refused both a  knighthood and the hand of a minor royal in marriage. Even if they were prepared to pass an Act of Parliament to allow me to be married to two people at the same time, I’m not prepared for a life of conversation relating to horses and undetectable poisons. I will say no more about the latter subject, but it would solve a few problems they are currently experiencing.

They aren’t really the sort of family I’d want to be linked to.

As I say “thoughts” would be an exaggeration.

Pendle Hill with a scattering of trees – when we lived with my Auntie Lizzie while we were between houses I used to wake up to that view every morning, only closer. It’s not often that sunny if I’m honest

I had an email today telling me about the progress of the reforestation of the Ribble Valley. That’s where my parents grew up, and are now buried, where I spent some portions of my youth, and where the bones of the Wilsons, and associated families, clutter many country churchyards. I’m quite keen on planting new trees and decided, after paying for some in various places, that I would concentrate on the Ribble Valley Trust.

I had another, earlier in the week telling me that my car’s MOT is due. They will doubtless find something wrong with it. Every year there seem to be more rigorous restrictions and more ways to fail. Normally I take it in my stride but as I use it very little and have had two big bills in the last two years I’m beginning to dread it.

Ribble valley with trees and a distant view of what may be Pendle Hill but might not be. They all look the same to me at a distance.

Hawaii, as a state of the USA is, I note from a history site that sends me reminders, is younger than I am. That’s strange – I’m sure it used to be a fully functioning independent state. Oh yes, that’s right, it did, but the USA decided that it would be better if it was occupied by the USA for defensive purposes. I’m sure that’s ringing a bell somewhere . . .

And finally, I’ve just skimmed an article about gene-splicing dogs to stop them triggering allergies in their owners. Amazing. We could get round the problem by not having dogs if we have allergies. But we decide to use science to alter dogs. We could probably use the science to help children, no, we’re going to use it to make dust-free dogs. I could go on the cover the unspeakable cruelty of breeding dogs that can’t breathe etc, but I might have to also unleash a broadside at the despicable members of the RSPCA and Kennel Club who allowed, or even encouraged it. And allowed dogs to be mutilated to meet breed standards.

You see, I used to be in the poultry industry, and we were often criticised by people like the RSPCA for “cruelty” even though we were just trying to feed people. But at the same time they were happy to see dog breeders breed all sorts of problems into dogs in the name of fashion.

Over the years bulldogs have been bred with so many faults that they can’t breathe properly, can’t breed without assistance and have a much reduced life expectancy.

Actually, when I said “finally” just above, I meant penultimately” as I’m now going on to complain about salmonella. The egg laying industry was unjustly slandered by Edwina Curry MP in the 1990s (though I’ve heard her repeat it since) who claimed egg layers were infected with salmonella. She was wrong. As an industry the egg laying side kept their stock clear of salmonella by good management, good hygiene, and testing breeding stock.

The salmonella problems that occurred at the time were all traced back to poor practices in the catering industry, and in one case, to foreign eggs. We have an outbreak now, and it also seems to trace back to the catering industry and imported eggs.

My advice is to only buy eggs that have been cooked properly (I never did like runny eggs), support British farmers and never eat in a place that doesn’t display a green food hygiene rating sticker with 4 or 5 stars. It’s very easy to get and keep a 5 Star rating, I did when we did the cafe on the farm. If a place doesn’t display its rating you can be sure it is low. The food inspector I used to work with had an app on his phone – he would eat at a place with a 4 star hygiene rating if there were no 5s around, but would never go three star.

Now that I’m on two drugs that suppress my immune system I’m quite keen on food hygiene.

Olympic Breakfast – I prefer my yolks hard but am happy not to make a fuss and will eat them as they come.

American readers, meanwhile, are suffering the same way. In the USA they treat eggs differently to us – instead of producing them cleanly, they rely on washing them after laying (thus removing their natural protection) and have to keep them in fridges when they distribute and use them. Ours are able to go on shelves in the shops and don’t need to go in the fridge at home despite what people say on the internet. Yes, it helps maintain quality a little longer, but maybe you should buy fewer or use them faster. Both systems, generally, produce a good, wholesome food, they just have different ideas about how to do it.

Anyway, in the USA they have just recalled 1.6 million dozen eggs (that’s over 19.2 million eggs) due to salmonella infection. That’s on top of the big food poisoning problem with 13,000 people falling ill after eating lettuce.  It’s not the farmers taht are the main problem, it’s governments that don’t have robust systems in place to check things. It’s nice to have an industry free of regulation, but people need a big Government stick to make them do the right thing.

I’m hoping that the current Government might do something involving threats to make our water companies clean up their acts. There is no excuse for the way they treat our waterways or waste water from leaky pipes.

Less visually appealing than the one above, this is how I do it

 

Breakfast Thoughts

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Saturday morning, just after 8am and I am starving. It is a dilemma. Julia is having a lie in so if I start making breakfast I will probably disturb her with all the clattering in the kitchen. I will also be selecting a time for her to wake up, which is not really the point of a lie in. The whole concept really demands that you are allowed to wake when you want and ease yourself out from under the covers at a time you feel is suitable.

On the other hand, someone making breakfast for you is always a bonus.

As a compromise, although I’m hungry enough for a cooked breakfast, I may settle for a sensible, and quiet, meal of cereal and fruit.

It’s partly about consideration, but also partly about self-preservation. After 37 years I have learned not only to be sensitive to my wife’s welfare, but to wake her gently. She has a tendency to imitate the fabled bear with a sore head when woken suddenly, as I have found to my cost more than once.

Healthy Breakfast

No, I’m still feeling too peckish for cereal. Looks like I’m going to go for a cooked breakfast and risk the consequences, though a few harsh words are hardly a deterrent when compared to the more likely scenario of a heart attack. I just looked up heart attack and found myself smiling at the risk factors, which are very close to being a biography in my case. I note that one of the factors, which I had never seen before, is psoriatic arthritis, which is one of the two sorts I have.

I was half-expecting to read that using a keyboard with a missing “t” was a factor. It doesn’t seem to be on the list but “hostility” does, and I confess to feeling fairly hostile towards my keyboard a the moment.

As a finale, I managed to publish before the photos and title, so I can now mention “senior moment” too.

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

Pride Goeth Before a Fall

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I was so pleased with myself yesterday. Or, the early hours of this morning, to be accurate. I wrote a blog post, I didn’t veer off into politics, and I left with the Devil’s Gallop playing in my head and a hamster running round a wheel . . .

I knew there was something wrong as I published, but couldn’t work out what. I even had a title, which is the thing I most often omit.

But there was something . . .

This morning, I realised – no pictures. You would think it was obvious. but I managed to miss it.

Looking on the bright side, it has taken me over 100 words to talk about it, and it’s all grist to the mill as I restart my blogging habit. As a result of that missed step, people all over the world will be able to wake up and read about an ageing man who has mental pictures of hamsters, burns cabbage, and now, it seems, can’t even remember to add photos to a blog post.

As I say, I was so pleased with myself. I really need to work on my memory.

Meanwhile, as I sit typing, I haven’t eaten anything, so can’t talk about my progress in the eating of 30 plants.

That leaves me short of things to talk about, and hungry. I have a choice now – wake Julia up and hope she makes breakfast, or do it myself. Neither will be good. She will produce cereal and fruit again, and I will make a breakfast that is far too meat-based. Actually, no. I can do beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. And with one breakfast 18 food types becomes 21. Only 9 to go.

I’ve just realised I have a title for my next post. I’m happy now. I’m also off to eat breakfast.

 

 

Sunday Morning, Seed and Song

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Sunday morning. I marked the occasion by going back to bed and didn’t switch the computer on until just after 9.00. The spellchecker just tried to claim that I marred the occasion.  Can’t really blame the machine as I should have spelt it correctly in the first place.

Next I checked emails. Nothing of interest. Then I started peering into the lives of people who I follow on WP. Gardening, cycling, concerts, watching baseball . . .

Fascinating stuff.

Breakfast. We had a cereal delivery last night so were back on cereal with fresh fruit. I like porridge and sausage cobs and crustless breakfast quiche (we ran out of cereal three days ago, in case you were wondering – logistical and conversational breakdown. Cereal and fruit seems like it is a better choice, though I worry about the amount of calories in the fruit.

“Worry about” and “have cut out” are two different things. I could go onto plain wheat biscuits but I mentally group that with “gruel” and “bread and water” – a punishment rather than a breakfast.

I’m back at the computer now. Next task is to order more sunflower seeds for feeding the birds. The last lot are nearing the end. They have been very popular and 20kg has lasted eight months. It works out at about £1 a week, which isn’t bad. A second class stamp (if I ever want to send a letter)  is 87p these days. At least we have birds every day – under the new postal system we only have letters alternate days.

I note that I have just had five emails – one is confirmation of the bird food order. Three are unwelcome and unnecessary and one is telling me about a sale on clothes for big men, which may be slightly interesting. All in all, though, email is pretty useless. The spam box is even worse – prizes, special offers, parcels for delivery, schemes to help me become rich at the press of a button . . .

This is all done with the assistance of China in Your Hand going round in my head. I heard it on TV a few days ago and it has stuck with me. Click the link to You Tube and you can have it too. No need to thank me . . .

 

Four Hours

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Feathers and Water

The day is slipping by. At 6.48, after one of those nighttime visits my age demands, I decided to go back to sleep. The postman woke me when a heavy parcel fell to the floor with an emphatic thud, and 8.02 I rose. After checking emails (nothing of interest) I answered my WP comments and looked up butterflies on websites. The USA has 750 species, Australia has 420, the UK has 55. I feel, yet again, that I am the poor relation.  Then I wrote a poem. It is now 9.58 and mid-morning approaches, signaling an end to what I always feel is my most productive time.

The “poem” that I wrote is far from complete, but it is a promising start. In human terms, I have the skeleton in place, and mostly in the right order. Some of the limbs have flesh on.  More a zombie than a human, and more a grotesque pile of words than a finished poem, but it’s a start. Every journey starts with a single step, every pearl with a grain of sand, and every poem begins when you put a few words together to form a thought or picture. They aren’t always the right words or in the right order, and they don’t always appear in the finished piece, but it’s a start. It’s already on its second title . . .

I’ve been worrying about my poetry recently.

View from Bangor Pier

it’s 10.22. I have eaten cereal and fruit, drunk tea and watched birds. At one point we had 16, possibly more. It’s difficult to tell when they are milling about and perching inside shrubs. It is a great advance from the handful we used to get when we moved in last winter. How much of teh change is due to a gradual build-up, and how much is due to seasonal changes, we don’t know. I will have to look up kaleidoscope in the dictionary.

Invented by a Scotsman, patented 1817, it seems to have been regarded as a serious bit of scientific kit in its day, rather than the child’s toy it became. See, I wanted to look up a word to use in writing about a whirling mass of birds, and ended up reading about Scotland, science and the Disruption of 1843. That’s where my time goes.

Another view from Bangor Pier

Back with my poetry thoughts, I’ve been worrying that I have become one of those poets I used to view with suspicion – friendly with editors, prolific and widely published. But have I written anything of merit, or have I just found myself a groove where I churn out the equivalent of greeting card verses for poetry magazines?

That’s something I will be thinking about over the next few weeks. For now, as the clock nears 11am, I will add tags and photos to this post and think about what comes next.

Coffee, sorting books and worrying about the direction of my creative life.  It is enough.

Pictures are from July 2019

Hoverflies on an orange poppy

Sunshine over Flat Fields

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January Afternoon – Country Park – this is the picture Julia used to make the one shown earlier in the week.

This morning, after a breakfast of cereal and fruit followed by toast and marmalade (I still half hope that the oranges in marmalade count towards my five-a-day) we noted the birds in the garden and went out. The Blackcap has not been seen for a week now. He has probably migrated back to Europe, as this is the right time of year for that. They have quite a complex migratory pattern and my head is still spinning after reading a paper on it. There is a lot of information on the tracking devices and the way the stats are put together and quite honestly, a lot of it is way over my head. You can’t rule out a cat or a better selection of food in another garden, but I’m pretty sure he has gone for the summer. Maybe another bird, one of the population that migrates to the UK in summer, will replace him. It is all very confusing. He is a male, in case you are wondering – they have black heads. The females have chestnut brown heads, but we have only seen a female in the garden twice.

Blackcap

Out trip out was to the Fens. I like the Fens, the massive flat area of land that used to be under water. Apart from the flatness, they have very undulating roads (caused by the movement of the ground under the road, and majestic skyscapes. I wanted to start to learn my way round again and also wanted some photographs for a research project. It was a lovely day, but spoiled by a couple of sets of diversions which made navigating difficult. We got the photographs, but the rest of the day was a bit of a washout as we didn’t get any photos and the only farm shop we found was badly signposted and we passed it before realising it was there. By that time it was late in the day and I decided to carry on home rather than turn round and go back.

In Chatteris, the market town where I wanted the photos, we stopped to use the toilets. They looked disused but Julia put 20p in the slot as required. Nothing happened. The next one along had a coin jammed in the slot. However, the disabled toilet worked on a RADAR key and I had mine in my pocket. There are benefits to being old and rickety. Disappointingly, they don’t work using radar, it is just the initials of the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. They are more accurately (in my opinion) also called NKS keys – NKS being the National Key Scheme.

Rabbit at Ferry Meadows

 

A Few Odds and Ends

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Yesterday we started the day late, with an almost Full English Breakfast for brunch. It was, to be fair, Full enough, and lasted us until the evening, when Julia cooked Iranian Vegetable Stew, which we ate with fresh bread from the bread maker. It’s a stew made with squash, spinach, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and (in our case) cranberries, flavoured with ras el hanout. Julia’s version is similar to the recipe in the link, though there are various versions of the recipe, and after reading the link  I see there are various versions of ras el hanout.

There is, I feel, little point to retirement if you have to get up early and stick to a routine, or even a recipe.

We had black-headed gulls in the garden yesterday. They didn’t stay, just dropped in, grabbed some bread and flew off. We have frequently seen them overhead but this is the first time they have come to feed. We also had white doves. There is a small flock that flies round. I presume somebody local has a dovecote. There is no way to record them on the garden birdwatch site, but at least the gulls were a new species, as was the rabbit.

Then, between darkness falling last night and Julia looking out of the kitchen window this morning, something managed to open the bottom of the peanut feeder and drop the nuts to the floor. It was almost empty so it isn’t a disaster, but at the moment we can’t find the base. We suspect the squirrel is heavily involved. That’s the trouble with squirrels, they just have to escalate things.

Thought this might be Cauliflower Fungus. As I don’t intend eating it, it doesn’t really matter.

A Bright & Early Start, Declining . . .

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It’s the full vegetarian breakfast experience for Julia today. She’s doing most of the heavy lifting in the move so Sunday breakfast is the least I can do. Scrambled eggs, beans on toast, mushrooms, fried tomatoes. We are still ripening the tomato crop in bags with bananas. It was either that or fried green tomatoes. Next year, with the new kitchen, I may make green tomato chutney. Or, the slightly less trying climate of a sheltered back garden a bit farther south, we may not end up with a basket of green tomatoes. It seems to be lacking bacon, sausage and black pudding but at our age it’s probably time to develop a healthier lifestyle.

Actually, that time was probably  thirty years ago but, like tree planting, the second best time is now.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

When we move we will, as I think I said yesterday, have a microwave that does air frying, which should be even healthier. Something I noticed when I started to make my arrangements for retiring was that I started to worry about dying before I had enjoyed sufficient retirement. I have enough plans to last me for the next fifty years so I’m not going to run out of stuff to do.

Obviously, going into politics with my new party “The Grumpy Old Men of Great Britain” has been put on the back burner – it will be a few years before the next election so, in my normal tradition of procrastination I will leave it for a few years before starting.

It’s going to be a one issue party with a focus on bile and vitriol, because this seems to be rising in popularity these days. I will leave the “foreigners” alone because most of them have enough to put up with and don’t need me to add to it. Anyway, it’s bad manners to make guests feel unwelcome, and if a party of old people is going to stand for anything, it should stand for good manners. For a while, I did think of picking on young people, with their Americanised speech (“Can I get a coffee?” is a deplorable crime against the English language) and their dreadful music, but, as Julia pointed out, they are the ones working to pay for my pension and health care, so I’ve shelved that too. Politics, deep down, is about self-interest, after all.

I parked this while I went to eat breakfast, then forgot to get back to it. I feel slightly disorientated on discussing breakfast at 6.30 pm and wonder where my day went. (It was mainly sorting and dusting books).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Setting the Bar Low

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Olympic Breakfast

 

I have just written a post and deleted it. It has, so far, been that sort of morning. Julia is unhappy with my many failures as a husband, the weather is miserable and I can’t get a grip on writing a short post. What more can go wrong?

At the moment that is a genuine question, rather than a rhetorical one. Give it an hour or so and I’m sure I will have some answers for you.

Some subjects just seem to keep coming round in domestic arguments. I am, I admit, completely unable to read Julia’s mind. I’ve never been able to do it, and have never been able to learn how to do it. If she is, for instance, lying in bed and showing every appearance of being happy and relaxed on a Sunday morning, does this mean she is happy and relaxed and intending to have a lie in. I thought so. However, it seems she was merely waiting, like a coiled spring, to leap into action and devour the substantial cooked breakfast that I had no clue I was supposed to prepare.

I don’t mind cooking breakfast, but I only tend to do it when I know we are ready to eat. It seems a waste of effort to make a breakfast that will then cool and congeal as the intended consumer snores gently upstairs.

Even if I had cooked it, I would have been wrong. I’m thinking of doing something meat free. It’s healthier, better for our weight and, more important, it cuts out some of that carcinogenic cured meat we keep hearing about (or bacon as we used to call it). We all know that in a perfect world I would consume huge fried breakfasts, but as I approach my three score years and ten with a variety of ailments and a large amount of extra weight, compromises must be made. One is that we can’t eat bacon all the time. It’s better for us, and it’s better for the pigs.

Breakfast at Harvester