Roll on 200,000 miles.
- Pam
Monday, 29 June 2009
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Good-bye Michael Jackson
Maybe, I'm a cynic; when the news came through on Thursday evening that Michael Jackson had been rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack, I turned to DH and said "I wonder which drug?". Later, DH woke me at 4am to tell me that Michael died - my first thought was that his biggest mourner would be the promoter of his concert tour.
While I feel sorry for his family, friends and fans, his death leaves me pretty much indifferent and that puzzles me. I've been wondering ever since when it was that I stopped being a fan or if I ever was...
I think he lost me in the mid-1980s. It's not the music; it's never been about the music, although I was more of a rock-and-roll girl than a dance-music girl. Michael's earlier albums were full of great tunes. Maybe it was the stories circulated by the media; the image of "Wacko Jacko" has a long history. Certainly something made my skin creep and I turned against him. Perhaps it was the serial nose jobs: he was a really good-looking young man and the second nose job was totally unnecessary (I'm not really sure he needed the first).
Anyway, he's gone. And I am sorry he never had the chance to live a normal life. I'm sorry his self-image was so distorted that he resorted to the surgeon's knife in an attempt to feel better about himself. More importantly, since it's too late to save Michael, I hope whatever warped him has not warped his children. I hope they know they are loved for themselves and that they get to live a normal life.
Good-bye Michael Jackson. May you rest in peace.
- Pam
While I feel sorry for his family, friends and fans, his death leaves me pretty much indifferent and that puzzles me. I've been wondering ever since when it was that I stopped being a fan or if I ever was...
I think he lost me in the mid-1980s. It's not the music; it's never been about the music, although I was more of a rock-and-roll girl than a dance-music girl. Michael's earlier albums were full of great tunes. Maybe it was the stories circulated by the media; the image of "Wacko Jacko" has a long history. Certainly something made my skin creep and I turned against him. Perhaps it was the serial nose jobs: he was a really good-looking young man and the second nose job was totally unnecessary (I'm not really sure he needed the first).
Anyway, he's gone. And I am sorry he never had the chance to live a normal life. I'm sorry his self-image was so distorted that he resorted to the surgeon's knife in an attempt to feel better about himself. More importantly, since it's too late to save Michael, I hope whatever warped him has not warped his children. I hope they know they are loved for themselves and that they get to live a normal life.
Good-bye Michael Jackson. May you rest in peace.
- Pam
Friday, 26 June 2009
Frugal Friday - Make Do And Mend
I was listening to episode 81 of Cast-On yesterday when Brenda Dayne read out a listener's email about the MakeDoAndMend tag in Ravelry and I thought I'd check it out. (If you have never heard of Ravelry, it's an online community/resource for knitters, crocheters and spinners. There facilities for loading pictures of projects, details of yarn stashes and needles/hooks, discussion groups, etc. Members can message knitwear designers to ask questions if they don't understand a pattern. It is an amazing resource.)
Anyway, I was stunned!
If you are looking for low-cost/frugal sources of inspiration check it out! There are links to patterns for making spiral socks out of the remnants of multi-coloured sock yarns, together with photos of dozens of examples; bags made out of recycled felted sweaters (check out Wynter's First Sweater Tote (rav link)); various rugs; and baby clothes. My favourite item is Manisha's "To Stand On Whilst Brushing Teeth Carpet" (rav link), a rug she crocheted out of strips ripped from an old duvet and some pillowslips.
Manisha was kind enough to answer some questions about the rug. The fabric was ripped into 1.5cm strips, which she zig-zagged together on the sewing machine, until she had a big pile of yarn. then she single crocheted the yarn into a rug.
I'm really tempted to make one of these. I have a couple of old sheets that are on their last legs; they're threadbare and it won't take much for them to wear through.
- Pam
Anyway, I was stunned!
If you are looking for low-cost/frugal sources of inspiration check it out! There are links to patterns for making spiral socks out of the remnants of multi-coloured sock yarns, together with photos of dozens of examples; bags made out of recycled felted sweaters (check out Wynter's First Sweater Tote (rav link)); various rugs; and baby clothes. My favourite item is Manisha's "To Stand On Whilst Brushing Teeth Carpet" (rav link), a rug she crocheted out of strips ripped from an old duvet and some pillowslips.
Manisha was kind enough to answer some questions about the rug. The fabric was ripped into 1.5cm strips, which she zig-zagged together on the sewing machine, until she had a big pile of yarn. then she single crocheted the yarn into a rug.I'm really tempted to make one of these. I have a couple of old sheets that are on their last legs; they're threadbare and it won't take much for them to wear through.
- Pam
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
A day out of time
6.30pm Tuesday - Arrive home. All I want to do is write. Dinner preparation gets in the way - including the inevitable "What the hell am I going to cook today?". Decide on White Fish Curry sans courgettes (they haven't grown yet). Three-quarters of an hour later, I finally get to sit down and pour out the words inside me. So, what have I got to write about?
What I did on my holiday
In his Discworld novel, Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett's character, Two Flower, causes a revolution by publishing a book about his travels in foreign lands called "What I Did On My Holidays". Mine is much less dramatic and could just as easily be titled: What I did on my anniversary, since I spent that day on holiday, three weeks ago. Only, it wasn't about celebrating the anniversary - that was coincidental - for me the day was about yarn and gardening, a long lunch with DH and a friend, and a whole lot of laughs.
I got YARN!:
More skeins of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Wild Things, Ecru and Black Purple. I collected these from the local Royal Mail Sorting Office first thing in the morning. The postman had tried to deliver them on the Tuesday but couldn't get the parcel into our letterbox.
And two bright green PRESENTS!:
I bought the blue Cascade Heritage Paints yarn from Tama via Ravelry and she surprised me by putting two skeins of her hand dyed sock yarn in the package. The colours are stunning. I was in the garden, earthing up the potatoes, when DH brought the package out. My hands were covered in dirt so I demanded he open it for me and then gawped at the yarn as it glowed. It took ages to scrub the soil off before I could touch it.
DH and I took the day off because we had audience tickets to the filming of QI. Filming started at 7pm but to guarantee our admission, we had to be queued up by 5.30pm. That would have meant leaving work mid-afternoon, so we decided to take the lazy option and stay home for the day. We met a friend for lunch on the Southbank near the studios. There are dozens of restaurants along the river bank near Royal Festival Hall, each sharing a view like this:
QI is like no other comedy program on television. The focus is not on telling jokes; QI is a quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry where the aim is not necessarily to give the right answer but to give the most interesting answer. (QI = Quite Interesting.) The four competitors are all well known actors or comedians. We had Alan Davies, Graham Norton, Dara O'Briain and David Mitchell.
It was like eavesdropping on a group of friends chatting in the pub. They talked, cracked jokes and topped each other's stories for nearly three hours. The comedy was very gentle and affectionate. They were incredibly funny and very knowledgeable, answering questions on the theme of genius. They really enjoyed themselves and the audience. It was a brilliant end to a memorable day.
- Pam
What I did on my holiday
In his Discworld novel, Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett's character, Two Flower, causes a revolution by publishing a book about his travels in foreign lands called "What I Did On My Holidays". Mine is much less dramatic and could just as easily be titled: What I did on my anniversary, since I spent that day on holiday, three weeks ago. Only, it wasn't about celebrating the anniversary - that was coincidental - for me the day was about yarn and gardening, a long lunch with DH and a friend, and a whole lot of laughs.
I got YARN!:
More skeins of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Wild Things, Ecru and Black Purple. I collected these from the local Royal Mail Sorting Office first thing in the morning. The postman had tried to deliver them on the Tuesday but couldn't get the parcel into our letterbox.
And two bright green PRESENTS!:
I bought the blue Cascade Heritage Paints yarn from Tama via Ravelry and she surprised me by putting two skeins of her hand dyed sock yarn in the package. The colours are stunning. I was in the garden, earthing up the potatoes, when DH brought the package out. My hands were covered in dirt so I demanded he open it for me and then gawped at the yarn as it glowed. It took ages to scrub the soil off before I could touch it.DH and I took the day off because we had audience tickets to the filming of QI. Filming started at 7pm but to guarantee our admission, we had to be queued up by 5.30pm. That would have meant leaving work mid-afternoon, so we decided to take the lazy option and stay home for the day. We met a friend for lunch on the Southbank near the studios. There are dozens of restaurants along the river bank near Royal Festival Hall, each sharing a view like this:
QI is like no other comedy program on television. The focus is not on telling jokes; QI is a quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry where the aim is not necessarily to give the right answer but to give the most interesting answer. (QI = Quite Interesting.) The four competitors are all well known actors or comedians. We had Alan Davies, Graham Norton, Dara O'Briain and David Mitchell.
It was like eavesdropping on a group of friends chatting in the pub. They talked, cracked jokes and topped each other's stories for nearly three hours. The comedy was very gentle and affectionate. They were incredibly funny and very knowledgeable, answering questions on the theme of genius. They really enjoyed themselves and the audience. It was a brilliant end to a memorable day.
- Pam
Saturday, 13 June 2009
All gardened out
I have come to the conclusion that the purpose of gardening is the journey, not the arrival. That it was better to view the physical effort of gardening as an end in itself and to enjoy it for itself, because what gets delivered at the other end can be so damn frustrating!
Earlier this week, I planted out the broad beans. Yesterday, I earthed up the potatoes for the fourth and final time.
And today, we've spent the afternoon extending the vegetable patch.
DH did most of the hard labour: lifting turf, breaking up the hard soil below and loads of digging. Amazingly, since it's right next door, the new patch is less like heavy clay and more like real soil (I have a theory: I reckon the new patch is where the Anderson shelter was during WW2 so they shipped in soil when they filled it in, whereas the old patch is unimproved clay.)
We dug in a bag of compost, in an effort to improve things further, before planting out the sweetcorn and butternut squash I've been growing in the kitchen. Behold my cornfield, with onions behind.
The newspaper is a weed-suppression trick I read about in The Lazy Kitchen Gardener by John Yeoman. Take 3 or 4 editions of a multi-sectional newspaper, fold each section into half or into thirds then dump into a bucket of water for at least 5 minutes or until sodden. (You are making papier mache.) Lay out to form a lattice. Plant your seedlings in uncovered areas and water in well.
The newspaper eventually rots down into the soil.
The first time I attempted the newspaper-trick, I laid the newspaper down in sheets and then discovered that it is really quite tough so planting the onions through it was really quite hard. Then a couple of weeks later, I looked outside to find that some of the sheets had shifted and torn. Couldn't figure out what had happened - once dry, it forms quite a hard shell on the ground and it didn't lift up in the wind.
The cause was squirrels! About a month ago, I looked out the kitchen window one morning to see a squirrel shredding the newspaper and whisking it off to form bedding for its nest. They stole about half the newspaper I'd used to cover the old veggie patch.
- Pam
Earlier this week, I planted out the broad beans. Yesterday, I earthed up the potatoes for the fourth and final time.
And today, we've spent the afternoon extending the vegetable patch.DH did most of the hard labour: lifting turf, breaking up the hard soil below and loads of digging. Amazingly, since it's right next door, the new patch is less like heavy clay and more like real soil (I have a theory: I reckon the new patch is where the Anderson shelter was during WW2 so they shipped in soil when they filled it in, whereas the old patch is unimproved clay.)
We dug in a bag of compost, in an effort to improve things further, before planting out the sweetcorn and butternut squash I've been growing in the kitchen. Behold my cornfield, with onions behind.
The newspaper is a weed-suppression trick I read about in The Lazy Kitchen Gardener by John Yeoman. Take 3 or 4 editions of a multi-sectional newspaper, fold each section into half or into thirds then dump into a bucket of water for at least 5 minutes or until sodden. (You are making papier mache.) Lay out to form a lattice. Plant your seedlings in uncovered areas and water in well.
The newspaper eventually rots down into the soil.
The first time I attempted the newspaper-trick, I laid the newspaper down in sheets and then discovered that it is really quite tough so planting the onions through it was really quite hard. Then a couple of weeks later, I looked outside to find that some of the sheets had shifted and torn. Couldn't figure out what had happened - once dry, it forms quite a hard shell on the ground and it didn't lift up in the wind.
The cause was squirrels! About a month ago, I looked out the kitchen window one morning to see a squirrel shredding the newspaper and whisking it off to form bedding for its nest. They stole about half the newspaper I'd used to cover the old veggie patch.
- Pam
Friday, 12 June 2009
Frugal Friday - It's all in the planning
What do you think when you hear the word "frugal"? For many people, it conjures up visions of hard work: growing vegetables, making bread, patching clothes, servicing the car, building your own home etc. After all, isn't that the way frugality is portrayed in the media?
It makes good photo opportunities, but there is more to frugality (and less effort involved) than that. The Frugal Zealot, Amy Dacyczyn, split frugality into two camps: active and passive. The things I listed in the first paragraph are all examples of active frugality. Passive frugality is about not doing things: not shopping, or not upgrading your mobile phone just because a new model is on the market. I'd like to add a third category (although I'm struggling to come up with a name): semi-passive frugality. (See what I mean? Still struggling.)
Most of the time, being frugal doesn't take any more effort than not being frugal, but it does take more planning. And that is why I call it semi-passive frugality: apply a bit of forethought now and save money in the long run. For example: imagine you are tired and late home from work. You're hungry and "Want dinner now!". Doesn't it seem so much easier to order a take-away than cook a meal from scratch? Now, imagine you had planned for this scenario and, last time you cooked a chilli you made a double batch and froze half. Instead of spending £15 on a takeaway (and having to wait 45 minutes for it to be delivered), dinner is waiting the freezer and just needs zapping in the microwave. That is semi-passive frugality.
It takes very little effort to cook a triple batch of dried beans / frying up 3 or 4 extra onions when you cook a curry and freezing them as base / preparing a double quantity of shepherd's pie/lasagne/meatloaf/nut roast, having one now and freezing the second for later on. But you have to plan for these activities so that you can take advantage of the opportunity when it arises.
Tonight, I prepared a double batch of Parsnip & Cashew Nut Roast. It took 2 minutes to peel the extra 2 parsnips and 3 seconds to select a larger onion. In a month's time, when I'm struggling to come up with dinner, I'll have it in the freezer waiting to fall back on. No more Chinese takeaway on speed-dial for me.
- Pam
It makes good photo opportunities, but there is more to frugality (and less effort involved) than that. The Frugal Zealot, Amy Dacyczyn, split frugality into two camps: active and passive. The things I listed in the first paragraph are all examples of active frugality. Passive frugality is about not doing things: not shopping, or not upgrading your mobile phone just because a new model is on the market. I'd like to add a third category (although I'm struggling to come up with a name): semi-passive frugality. (See what I mean? Still struggling.)
Most of the time, being frugal doesn't take any more effort than not being frugal, but it does take more planning. And that is why I call it semi-passive frugality: apply a bit of forethought now and save money in the long run. For example: imagine you are tired and late home from work. You're hungry and "Want dinner now!". Doesn't it seem so much easier to order a take-away than cook a meal from scratch? Now, imagine you had planned for this scenario and, last time you cooked a chilli you made a double batch and froze half. Instead of spending £15 on a takeaway (and having to wait 45 minutes for it to be delivered), dinner is waiting the freezer and just needs zapping in the microwave. That is semi-passive frugality.
It takes very little effort to cook a triple batch of dried beans / frying up 3 or 4 extra onions when you cook a curry and freezing them as base / preparing a double quantity of shepherd's pie/lasagne/meatloaf/nut roast, having one now and freezing the second for later on. But you have to plan for these activities so that you can take advantage of the opportunity when it arises.
Tonight, I prepared a double batch of Parsnip & Cashew Nut Roast. It took 2 minutes to peel the extra 2 parsnips and 3 seconds to select a larger onion. In a month's time, when I'm struggling to come up with dinner, I'll have it in the freezer waiting to fall back on. No more Chinese takeaway on speed-dial for me.
- Pam
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Sing as you mean to go on
Guess what I just found? A clip of a choral concert I sang in last year at the Cadogan Hall. We're singing Handel's Messiah. Enjoy.
Did you spot me? I'm third from the left at the back. You can just see a blond head behind me.
Saturday was our latest concert, Orff's Carmina Burana. The performance was amazing and I had a ball. Sadly, no recordings have come to light so far but, if I can find one, I'll post it.
- Pam
Did you spot me? I'm third from the left at the back. You can just see a blond head behind me.
Saturday was our latest concert, Orff's Carmina Burana. The performance was amazing and I had a ball. Sadly, no recordings have come to light so far but, if I can find one, I'll post it.
- Pam
Friday, 5 June 2009
Frugal Friday - Frugal Gardening and Horse Manure
For the past three years, I've attempted to grow a vegetable garden. Last year, it was potatoes and tomatoes with a couple of pak choi and one purple sprouting broccoli; the year before, it was courgettes/zucchini, broad beans, two sweet corn, and bell peppers. My success rate has been pretty dismal - I did get broad beans but the sweet corn were still born (I didn't know, then, about how they pollinate). Something ate the leaves off the bell peppers before they'd been in the ground five minutes. The tomatoes were doing well and I was looking forward to bottling some home-made tomato sauce, until the night I came home from work to find the vines had turned black. (Like everyone-else's crops last year, they'd got blight.) Even my success-story courgettes have a one-in-three plant survival rate.
This year, I'm growing potatoes, approximately 50 onions (bought as "sets"), 12 garlic, six broad bean plants (only two planted out so far), one courgette (I planted out three), 8 or 9 sweet corn (not planted out yet - I think the 9th won't survive), and 3 butternut squash. It's raining, so no photos of the garden, but here is a shot of the "nursery" beside the big kitchen window:
Corn to the left; broad beans and butternut squash in the middle; just planted sunflower seeds to the right. The blue trays are the ones the supermarket sells mushrooms in. The clear plastic, 3-inch pots are yoghurt pots.
So far, I haven't spent a huge amount of money on this year's vegetables: I've purchased fresh corn, courgette, sunflower and broad bean seeds. (Around here, packets of seeds cost between 69p and £2.) The other seeds are survivors from last year. The onion sets were £1.95 for a bag of 100 from the shop in Kew Gardens. Whilst I was there, I spent another £1.90 on three supposedly "disease free" garlic bulbs, only to find them riddled with that grey mould when I went to plant them out. Therefore, my garlic comes from a couple of bulbs bought for cooking, which sprouted whilst I stored them in the shed. The butternut seeds were rescued from the innards of a butternut squash I used in a stew.
My main expense comes in the form of organic peat-free grow bags, which I buy for the compost they contain. At £2.46 each, they are the cheapest way I can buy a peat-free growing medium for the pots/potato tyres and they're the largest bags I can lift at the garden centre (I think each grow bag holds 40 litres of compost). On Wednesday, I lugged home four. Grow bag compost is what that seedlings are growing in.
Also on Wednesday, I purchased a packet of seeds of a variety of late summer sprouting broccoli. When the corn gets planted out on Sunday, I'll fill their blue tray with compost and try growing them. I could have bought seedlings, but they weren't that healthy.
Our soil is my biggest problem. In some places it is impregnable. (I planted a couple of lavender once, only to have one die because its roots couldn't penetrate out of the hole in which it was planted.) One of the gardening books I read suggested growing giant sunflowers because they have really tough roots which break up hard soil - sort of nature's rotavators. Hence the sunflowers I'm attempting to grow.
My other great-white-hope for our soil is our compost bin, a.k.a. The Dalek. And that is the source of today's Frugal Friday tip:
Locate your nearest stables and collect some free horse manure to compost.
Two weekends ago, we took a couple of flexi-tubs, the big fork and spade, and popped into the local stables. For a "Please Ma'am, may we raid your manure heap?", we collected enough horse manure and discarded bedding (wood shavings as well as straw) to half fill the Dalek. It cost us 15 minutes and a smile. I'm tempted to do it again, to fill the Dalek up completely, and then get a second compost bin. Heaven knows, we need the stuff!
- Pam
This year, I'm growing potatoes, approximately 50 onions (bought as "sets"), 12 garlic, six broad bean plants (only two planted out so far), one courgette (I planted out three), 8 or 9 sweet corn (not planted out yet - I think the 9th won't survive), and 3 butternut squash. It's raining, so no photos of the garden, but here is a shot of the "nursery" beside the big kitchen window:
Corn to the left; broad beans and butternut squash in the middle; just planted sunflower seeds to the right. The blue trays are the ones the supermarket sells mushrooms in. The clear plastic, 3-inch pots are yoghurt pots.
So far, I haven't spent a huge amount of money on this year's vegetables: I've purchased fresh corn, courgette, sunflower and broad bean seeds. (Around here, packets of seeds cost between 69p and £2.) The other seeds are survivors from last year. The onion sets were £1.95 for a bag of 100 from the shop in Kew Gardens. Whilst I was there, I spent another £1.90 on three supposedly "disease free" garlic bulbs, only to find them riddled with that grey mould when I went to plant them out. Therefore, my garlic comes from a couple of bulbs bought for cooking, which sprouted whilst I stored them in the shed. The butternut seeds were rescued from the innards of a butternut squash I used in a stew.
My main expense comes in the form of organic peat-free grow bags, which I buy for the compost they contain. At £2.46 each, they are the cheapest way I can buy a peat-free growing medium for the pots/potato tyres and they're the largest bags I can lift at the garden centre (I think each grow bag holds 40 litres of compost). On Wednesday, I lugged home four. Grow bag compost is what that seedlings are growing in.
Also on Wednesday, I purchased a packet of seeds of a variety of late summer sprouting broccoli. When the corn gets planted out on Sunday, I'll fill their blue tray with compost and try growing them. I could have bought seedlings, but they weren't that healthy.
Our soil is my biggest problem. In some places it is impregnable. (I planted a couple of lavender once, only to have one die because its roots couldn't penetrate out of the hole in which it was planted.) One of the gardening books I read suggested growing giant sunflowers because they have really tough roots which break up hard soil - sort of nature's rotavators. Hence the sunflowers I'm attempting to grow.
My other great-white-hope for our soil is our compost bin, a.k.a. The Dalek. And that is the source of today's Frugal Friday tip:
Locate your nearest stables and collect some free horse manure to compost.
Two weekends ago, we took a couple of flexi-tubs, the big fork and spade, and popped into the local stables. For a "Please Ma'am, may we raid your manure heap?", we collected enough horse manure and discarded bedding (wood shavings as well as straw) to half fill the Dalek. It cost us 15 minutes and a smile. I'm tempted to do it again, to fill the Dalek up completely, and then get a second compost bin. Heaven knows, we need the stuff!
- Pam
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Twenty Years
Twenty years ago today, I landed in the UK for the first time. I was on a working holiday visa and my plans were simple: work, travel, train as a midwife, get some experience then go home. I expected to stay maybe 3 years, 5 years tops. I had dreams.
I was a nurse who wanted to work at one of the legendary London hospitals: St Bartholomew's, Guy's or St Thomas' ("Bart's", Guy's or "Tommy's"), before increasing my skills and qualifying as a midwife. British midwifery training was sold to us as being the best in the world, a step up from the training I would have had in Australia. Unlike in Oz and the US, pregnancy and childbirth are almost entirely midwife-managed events in Britain. During a normal pregnancy and delivery, the mother never encounters an obstetrician. Since my ultimate plan was to go work in a remote hospital in the Bush, I needed the best skills possible. I wanted to study midwifery at Tommy's or at Queen Charlotte's (Charlie's). I'd tried applying from Australia, but all the hospitals wanted you to be in the UK first - they wouldn't even schedule an interview - so here I was.
The midwifery dream collapsed with the nursing dream. Within a year of arriving, a bad job at a certain south London hospital killed my confidence and removed me of the desire to ever nurse again. I ended up as a secretary until the firm I worked for trained me as an accountant.
I'm not sure what I expected when I got here. I certainly wasn't prepared for what I found: a country where the cost of living was double what it was in Australia, even before you factored in the exchange rate (if a loaf of bread was $1 in Australia, it was £2 here); a job that barely paid a living wage and certainly paid less to a qualified nurse than what I'd earned as a first year student nurse; a banking system 50 years behind ours (Aussies could walk into the London branch of Westpac and check the balance of their accounts in Australia, move money around, make withdrawals, all within a few clicks on the computer; I couldn't withdraw money from a different branch of Barclays without them phoning my branch to check my balance! And then charging me £10 for the privilege). The $1,000 I'd brought over in traveller's cheques vanished in the blink of an eye. I was instantaneously broke.
Looking back, I wonder if I was naive. I was certainly a romantic fool. If I could take a husband back home with me to Australia, so much the better. Posh Englishmen had a certain cache - blame Brideshead Revisited - and my mum would have loved it if I'd married a Jewish doctor. Add to that the fact that life had yet to cure me of the reactive response: the deeply embedded one that says you have to date someone just because they fancy you, because it's better to have someone than no-one in your life even if they treat you like dirt. (Pretty, popular teenage girls recover from that one early.) I tried not to believe I was capable of such a thing, but it is how I ended up dating Dumbo (also, I think I was blinded by his Oxford MA). I was such an idiot!
Even the travel dream didn't come off. I'd flown into the UK after spending 5 days sightseeing in Copenhagen. Apart from a weekend in Paris with some girlfriends to attend a Eurythmics concert, I didn't leave the country again until I flew home for my mum's funeral. I didn't see that much of Britain, either. Dumbo's idea of a holiday was the Conservative Party Conference each year (which I inevitably paid for) and I couldn't afford to go off on my own.
Gradually, painfully I grew up. I'd have sworn, 20 years ago, that I was an adult, but in reality I wasn't. I was a fledgling, just emerging into independence. It wasn't until I chose to walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel of my relationship with Dumbo that I think I came into myself. The life I'd settled for wasn't the life I wanted. It forced me to give up so much of the essential me: my love of travel; my crafts; my music. Oh, how I mourned the music - I didn't sing for 15 years and Dumbo's idea of music omitted everything between Bach and Blue Oyster Cult, so I didn't listen to classical, rock or pop music either during the years we were together. I even gave up knitting.
One hot summer's day in 1998 I decided enough was enough. My world had crashed down around me and I saw what my life was really like. That was the day I decided to divorce Dumbo. Slowly, gradually I began to reclaim myself and build the life that I wanted.
I think I'm lucky now. All the essential bits of me are back: I knit. I sing. I've built a new career. I've met and married the love of my life. We travel, go to concerts, listen to music as diverse as Nickelback and Mozart. He shares my dreams and I share his.
I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.
- Pam
I was a nurse who wanted to work at one of the legendary London hospitals: St Bartholomew's, Guy's or St Thomas' ("Bart's", Guy's or "Tommy's"), before increasing my skills and qualifying as a midwife. British midwifery training was sold to us as being the best in the world, a step up from the training I would have had in Australia. Unlike in Oz and the US, pregnancy and childbirth are almost entirely midwife-managed events in Britain. During a normal pregnancy and delivery, the mother never encounters an obstetrician. Since my ultimate plan was to go work in a remote hospital in the Bush, I needed the best skills possible. I wanted to study midwifery at Tommy's or at Queen Charlotte's (Charlie's). I'd tried applying from Australia, but all the hospitals wanted you to be in the UK first - they wouldn't even schedule an interview - so here I was.
The midwifery dream collapsed with the nursing dream. Within a year of arriving, a bad job at a certain south London hospital killed my confidence and removed me of the desire to ever nurse again. I ended up as a secretary until the firm I worked for trained me as an accountant.
I'm not sure what I expected when I got here. I certainly wasn't prepared for what I found: a country where the cost of living was double what it was in Australia, even before you factored in the exchange rate (if a loaf of bread was $1 in Australia, it was £2 here); a job that barely paid a living wage and certainly paid less to a qualified nurse than what I'd earned as a first year student nurse; a banking system 50 years behind ours (Aussies could walk into the London branch of Westpac and check the balance of their accounts in Australia, move money around, make withdrawals, all within a few clicks on the computer; I couldn't withdraw money from a different branch of Barclays without them phoning my branch to check my balance! And then charging me £10 for the privilege). The $1,000 I'd brought over in traveller's cheques vanished in the blink of an eye. I was instantaneously broke.
Looking back, I wonder if I was naive. I was certainly a romantic fool. If I could take a husband back home with me to Australia, so much the better. Posh Englishmen had a certain cache - blame Brideshead Revisited - and my mum would have loved it if I'd married a Jewish doctor. Add to that the fact that life had yet to cure me of the reactive response: the deeply embedded one that says you have to date someone just because they fancy you, because it's better to have someone than no-one in your life even if they treat you like dirt. (Pretty, popular teenage girls recover from that one early.) I tried not to believe I was capable of such a thing, but it is how I ended up dating Dumbo (also, I think I was blinded by his Oxford MA). I was such an idiot!
Even the travel dream didn't come off. I'd flown into the UK after spending 5 days sightseeing in Copenhagen. Apart from a weekend in Paris with some girlfriends to attend a Eurythmics concert, I didn't leave the country again until I flew home for my mum's funeral. I didn't see that much of Britain, either. Dumbo's idea of a holiday was the Conservative Party Conference each year (which I inevitably paid for) and I couldn't afford to go off on my own.
Gradually, painfully I grew up. I'd have sworn, 20 years ago, that I was an adult, but in reality I wasn't. I was a fledgling, just emerging into independence. It wasn't until I chose to walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel of my relationship with Dumbo that I think I came into myself. The life I'd settled for wasn't the life I wanted. It forced me to give up so much of the essential me: my love of travel; my crafts; my music. Oh, how I mourned the music - I didn't sing for 15 years and Dumbo's idea of music omitted everything between Bach and Blue Oyster Cult, so I didn't listen to classical, rock or pop music either during the years we were together. I even gave up knitting.
One hot summer's day in 1998 I decided enough was enough. My world had crashed down around me and I saw what my life was really like. That was the day I decided to divorce Dumbo. Slowly, gradually I began to reclaim myself and build the life that I wanted.
I think I'm lucky now. All the essential bits of me are back: I knit. I sing. I've built a new career. I've met and married the love of my life. We travel, go to concerts, listen to music as diverse as Nickelback and Mozart. He shares my dreams and I share his.
I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.
- Pam
Friday, 29 May 2009
Frugal Friday - Growing Potatoes in Tyres
Years ago, on an episode of Gardener's World, Bob Flowerdew demonstrated his method of growing potatoes in tyres. I remember watching fascinated, thinking "one day, I'll try this". It didn't use much space, didn't seem to need much equipment and (important for me) didn't require a whole lot of effort.
Potatoes, Bob explained, need to be earthed up so that you get the maximum crop. But in a regular garden, that requires space. Bob used tyres to earth up his potatoes, stacking a new one on whenever the potato stems got tall enough and filling it in with compost. When he unearthed the potatoes in the autumn, Bob got 100-odd from just one stack.
At the bottom of my garden is a semi-barren patch where I've spent the last five years fighting weeds and brambles. Everything is covered in weed suppression cloth. The soil is like iron (about an inch down, it's pure clay. They used to make bricks around here). This is where I am growing my potatoes.
This year, I'm growing two tyre stacks worth. The method is simple. For each stack, you need four tyres (in total) and a sprouting potato. Place a tyre on the ground and fill it with compost / a grow bag / soil (if your garden has decent stuff). Bury the sprouting potato in the centre of the tyre, just below the surface of the soil, and water well. Water daily.
They grow fast. Here are the potatoes I planted three weeks ago, which I earthed up on Monday.
As you can see, they've grown a lot. We've had a little bit of rain this week (Monday evening, Tuesday) and a lot of sunshine. The ones in the foreground were more than ready to be earthed up again. I wasn't so sure about the ones at the back, so I plonked the next layer of tyres down and measured them up.
(The tyres are worn out ones I begged from the local tyre shop. They were free. I only took four the first time, so this afternoon I went and got some more.)
I decided against earthing up the one at the back. There weren't enough leaves peeking over the top. If I earthed it up now, it would struggle and possibly not develop as many potatoes.
So I just earthed up the front one, packing the soil under the rim of the tyre as well as filling in the centre. I'll continue earthing up the potatoes until the tyres are stacked four deep.
Not sure if you can see from the above photo, but the second batch of tyres is larger than the first. They must have come from a bigger vehicle (I didn't have any choice this time - the tyre shop only had four in their "to be disposed of" pile). You can get a better idea from the photo below.
It isn't as precarious as it looks. Next time, I'll use all the large tyres in one stack and the smaller ones in another.
The frugal part? The tyres cost nothing and the potatoes effectively cost nothing (they were sprouting in the veggie basket). To fill them in, I'm using up a 100 litre bag of "soil improver" (a.k.a. compost) purchased from the garden centre last year for three or four Pounds. Next year, when the Dalek compost bin has done its job properly, I'll use compost.
- Pam (looking forward to home grown spuds)
Potatoes, Bob explained, need to be earthed up so that you get the maximum crop. But in a regular garden, that requires space. Bob used tyres to earth up his potatoes, stacking a new one on whenever the potato stems got tall enough and filling it in with compost. When he unearthed the potatoes in the autumn, Bob got 100-odd from just one stack.
At the bottom of my garden is a semi-barren patch where I've spent the last five years fighting weeds and brambles. Everything is covered in weed suppression cloth. The soil is like iron (about an inch down, it's pure clay. They used to make bricks around here). This is where I am growing my potatoes.
This year, I'm growing two tyre stacks worth. The method is simple. For each stack, you need four tyres (in total) and a sprouting potato. Place a tyre on the ground and fill it with compost / a grow bag / soil (if your garden has decent stuff). Bury the sprouting potato in the centre of the tyre, just below the surface of the soil, and water well. Water daily.
They grow fast. Here are the potatoes I planted three weeks ago, which I earthed up on Monday.
As you can see, they've grown a lot. We've had a little bit of rain this week (Monday evening, Tuesday) and a lot of sunshine. The ones in the foreground were more than ready to be earthed up again. I wasn't so sure about the ones at the back, so I plonked the next layer of tyres down and measured them up.(The tyres are worn out ones I begged from the local tyre shop. They were free. I only took four the first time, so this afternoon I went and got some more.)
I decided against earthing up the one at the back. There weren't enough leaves peeking over the top. If I earthed it up now, it would struggle and possibly not develop as many potatoes.
So I just earthed up the front one, packing the soil under the rim of the tyre as well as filling in the centre. I'll continue earthing up the potatoes until the tyres are stacked four deep.Not sure if you can see from the above photo, but the second batch of tyres is larger than the first. They must have come from a bigger vehicle (I didn't have any choice this time - the tyre shop only had four in their "to be disposed of" pile). You can get a better idea from the photo below.
It isn't as precarious as it looks. Next time, I'll use all the large tyres in one stack and the smaller ones in another.The frugal part? The tyres cost nothing and the potatoes effectively cost nothing (they were sprouting in the veggie basket). To fill them in, I'm using up a 100 litre bag of "soil improver" (a.k.a. compost) purchased from the garden centre last year for three or four Pounds. Next year, when the Dalek compost bin has done its job properly, I'll use compost.
- Pam (looking forward to home grown spuds)
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Don't Panic Mr Mannering!
Are you as underwhelmed about Swine Flu as I am? Looking back over the last four weeks, it seems like the proverbial storm in a teacup. It seems to have morphed into a damp squib.
I have a theory about why Swine Flu isn't as virulent outside Mexico as it appears to be within it. It's quite simple and doesn't involve higher level genetics or virology. My theory boils down to this: Mexico is a poor country without a nationalised health service. To see a doctor or be treated in the ER, you have to pay. Therefore, I reckon that only the sickest of those infected sought out treatment in Mexico, the ones who were already at Death's door. Following on from that logic, it means that for the 100-odd deaths in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of people were infected with Swine Flu and have recovered from it. They weren't so ill that they would spend their hard earned dollars on a doctor's visit.
It isn't SARS. It isn't Bird Flu. It isn't that virulent. Journalists of the world should get over it. The rest of us should just employ good hygene, avoid touching our faces and washing our hands often.
- Pam
I have a theory about why Swine Flu isn't as virulent outside Mexico as it appears to be within it. It's quite simple and doesn't involve higher level genetics or virology. My theory boils down to this: Mexico is a poor country without a nationalised health service. To see a doctor or be treated in the ER, you have to pay. Therefore, I reckon that only the sickest of those infected sought out treatment in Mexico, the ones who were already at Death's door. Following on from that logic, it means that for the 100-odd deaths in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of people were infected with Swine Flu and have recovered from it. They weren't so ill that they would spend their hard earned dollars on a doctor's visit.
It isn't SARS. It isn't Bird Flu. It isn't that virulent. Journalists of the world should get over it. The rest of us should just employ good hygene, avoid touching our faces and washing our hands often.
- Pam
Friday, 22 May 2009
Pattern: Fingerless Mittens
It seems rather ironic to be writing about fingerless mittens on the hottest day of the year so far, but less than two weeks ago, I was desperate! My office has two temperatures: winter icy cold, or summer boiling hot. The cold radiates inwards to my desk from the outside wall. Even when the heating is on, it does little to counteract the drafts.
For years, I've had a pair of commercially made, acrylic [spit] fingerless gloves in my desk drawer, which I wear as a last resort. Because they have fingers, they make my fingers feel fat and heavy, and it is much harder to type accurately. When I finished the Berrocco socks, I decided to make these from the leftovers:-
Ingredients:-
35 grams leftover sock yarn - 4 ply or fingering weight*
2.5mm double pointed needles ("DPNs")
Garter Stitch Rib:-
Row 1: knit all stitches.
Row 2: *K2, P2. Repeat from * to end of row.
Methodology:-
- Pam
* Thanks to the postal scale at work, I know each mitten weights exactly 16 grams. I didn't quite have enough yarn so used a couple of grams of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Ecru to finish off each mitten.
For years, I've had a pair of commercially made, acrylic [spit] fingerless gloves in my desk drawer, which I wear as a last resort. Because they have fingers, they make my fingers feel fat and heavy, and it is much harder to type accurately. When I finished the Berrocco socks, I decided to make these from the leftovers:-
Ingredients:-
35 grams leftover sock yarn - 4 ply or fingering weight*
2.5mm double pointed needles ("DPNs")
Garter Stitch Rib:-
Row 1: knit all stitches.
Row 2: *K2, P2. Repeat from * to end of row.
Methodology:-
- Cast on 56 stitches and divide them over 4 DPNs: needle 1, 10 stitches; needles 2 and 3, 20 stitches each; needle 4, 8 stitches. Ensure the cast on row isn't twisted and join the yarn by knitting from needle 1 onto needle 4.
- Place a marker at the start of your first row (I suspend a row counter from there).
- Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 rows.
- Rows 11 - 51. Work in Garter Stitch rib, ending with a first row.
- Row 52: commence on the thumb hole. At the marker, turn back on yourself and work as if knitting flat. *K2, P2 until you get back to the marker.
- Row 53: turn the work and knit until you get back to the marker.
- Repeat rows 52 and 53 eight times.
- Row 68: joining row. Slip the marker from the left needle to the right needle. Knit into the back of the first stitch on the left needle, taking your yarn over the needle instead of in the usual way, under the needle. You want to make this stitch as tight as possible. K1, *P2, K2. Work from * to end of row.
- Continue in garter stitch rib for 9 more rows, until row 77.
- Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 more rows (86 rows total). Cast off in rib.
- Weave in your ends and you're done.
- Pam
* Thanks to the postal scale at work, I know each mitten weights exactly 16 grams. I didn't quite have enough yarn so used a couple of grams of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Ecru to finish off each mitten.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Stepping back in time
Tonight, my mind is on events of nearly 70 years ago. For most of the last two hours, I have been a lifetime away, focused on the day to day events of the first year of the Second World War. In reality I'm in the middle of North Lincolnshire, staying at my regular hotel, on my monthly visit to Site, but it doesn't feel that way.
I have been attempting to finish Simon Garfield's excellent collection of diaries from the Second World War, We Are at War. I know I've written about it before, but I have to comment again about the power of the writing. The diarists are so eloquent as they chronicle their personal War: the privations; the sky-rocketing food prices; the crippling taxes; their fears over being bombed and the possible invasion. The War was hard on the civilian population, particularly those who were struggling to begin with. Once again, I find myself marvelling at how people survived and how they "made do".
I was so completely absorbed tonight that it took an effort to refocus my mind on my life, on the present day, on the waiter who brought my drink and the waitress who cleared the plates away. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in this series: Private Battles, covering 1941 to 1945, and Our Hidden Lives, covering the post-War period 1946 to 1948.
- Pam
(If you're curious as to why this book wasn't finished months ago, the answer is simple: I don't get much reading time at home. It's too noisy or there are other things demanding my attention. I tend to do most of my reading when I'm travelling for work.)
I have been attempting to finish Simon Garfield's excellent collection of diaries from the Second World War, We Are at War. I know I've written about it before, but I have to comment again about the power of the writing. The diarists are so eloquent as they chronicle their personal War: the privations; the sky-rocketing food prices; the crippling taxes; their fears over being bombed and the possible invasion. The War was hard on the civilian population, particularly those who were struggling to begin with. Once again, I find myself marvelling at how people survived and how they "made do".
I was so completely absorbed tonight that it took an effort to refocus my mind on my life, on the present day, on the waiter who brought my drink and the waitress who cleared the plates away. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in this series: Private Battles, covering 1941 to 1945, and Our Hidden Lives, covering the post-War period 1946 to 1948.
- Pam
(If you're curious as to why this book wasn't finished months ago, the answer is simple: I don't get much reading time at home. It's too noisy or there are other things demanding my attention. I tend to do most of my reading when I'm travelling for work.)
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Don't you hate it when this happens?
I have been knitting for 36 years, since I was seven. For 35 of those years, I worked from the outside of the ball inwards, unravelling the ball as I went. My mum tried to convince me to work the other way, from the centre out (her argument was that it kept your yarn clean), but she failed.
Last summer, Kate convinced me to try doing it the other way, working from the centre outwards and, also, to role centre-pull balls. Her logic was unassailable - if you work from the centre outwards, the ball doesn't need space to roll around so I wouldn't need to take my ball of sock yarn out of my small sock-knitting-purse. Fewer chances for it to roll off and get dirty.
Yesterday, I started knitting my latest pair of socks. And was rapidly reminded why I'd given up on centre-ball-outwards knitting 36 years ago:
Two rows in, I tugged on my yarn and hauled out a huge tangle from the centre of the ball. It took 50 rows to knit out. I'm now at the 73rd row and I'm still fighting tangles.
Don't you just hate it when that happens?
- Pam
PS: It's Opal's Harry Potter sock yarn in the Draco colourway.
Last summer, Kate convinced me to try doing it the other way, working from the centre outwards and, also, to role centre-pull balls. Her logic was unassailable - if you work from the centre outwards, the ball doesn't need space to roll around so I wouldn't need to take my ball of sock yarn out of my small sock-knitting-purse. Fewer chances for it to roll off and get dirty.
Yesterday, I started knitting my latest pair of socks. And was rapidly reminded why I'd given up on centre-ball-outwards knitting 36 years ago:
Two rows in, I tugged on my yarn and hauled out a huge tangle from the centre of the ball. It took 50 rows to knit out. I'm now at the 73rd row and I'm still fighting tangles.Don't you just hate it when that happens?
- Pam
PS: It's Opal's Harry Potter sock yarn in the Draco colourway.
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