Whole mess of lil fiddles… #humor #parenting

Oh, I remember those days of trying to get my sons to practice their piano pieces. The eldest son was quite good at it, but computer games would always win. The youngest preferred the guitar, and he mastered it very early on. He played in numerous bands before becoming a father himself and now stresses the importance of learning a musical instrument to his own sons. Lol – the whole vicious circle starts again. Apart from the guitar, he now plays the piano by ear and can play any tune with both hands, after never mastering being able to read piano music.

Barb Taub

In life, there are many social events which are easier to attend if you don’t have to play the leading role—births, weddings, funerals, and music-student recitals. As a public service to parents about to attend their child’s first recital, I would like to offer a brief description of your duties.

• DO NOT BREATHE during your child’s performance.
• Mothers: fix your eyes on your child’s face and silently mouth each note. You lose points for wincing.
• Fathers: Make a microscopic study of the floor next to your feet. Try not to think of the 3,000 times you have heard the piece played perfectly by the same child who has stumbled three times in the first line.

I was forced to become a recital veteran because I let my daughter watch TV. When the three-year-old saw Itzhak Perlman play the violin on Sesame Street, she decide to become a violinist. I was…

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The Chips are Down

Apparently one of our big supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, has not served chips (French fries) to children in their cafes for the past 18 months.  Kids have 5 options: Nuggets, fish fingers, sausage or veggie sausage, bolognese or macaroni and cheese.  They can have these with half a jacket potato, sweet potato fries, or veg sticks.  Each meal also comes with juice and a piece of fruit.

Sainsbury’s are obviously trying to do their bit to combat childhood obesity.  However, some parents are now up in arms complaining that the supermarket should not tell them what food they can give their children.  When a mother pointed out that chips are on the adults’ menu, she was told that children are not given chips at Sainsbury’s.  Mothers are also complaining that hypocritically, the supermarket will happily sell them frozen chips to cook for their children at home.

If this is the opinion of the parents, no wonder children are becoming fatter.  Maybe some parents need educating on what to feed their children?  Whatever happened to casseroles made of lean meat, fresh vegetables and stock?  What happened to grilled or baked fish without batter?  Instead fast and cheap junk food is taken out of the freezer and put in the microwave to collect around our children’s arteries and bring them to a possible premature death in their fifties or sixties.

These parents are offended in being ‘dictated’ to by Sainsbury’s.  They are of the opinion that nobody is going to tell them what to do, even though the supermarket is trying its best to ensure their child does not eventually end up in the cardiac ward.  Ignorance rules, and they will buy chips for themselves, put some on their kids’ plates, and smile with the knowledge that they have defeated the ban.  They grew up on chips themselves… it was alright for them, and so it’ll be alright for their children.

Gawd help us.

Sugar Math

As far as I’m concerned, sugar is poison. It seems to have inveigled itself into most things we eat, making us tired (due to Insulin having to be released from the pancreas to combat high blood sugar), and causing the blood to become acidic, therefore calcium to be leached from the bones to neutralise the blood. If too much calcium is taken over time, then bones may become brittle. Avoid sugar for one whole month and then try to eat something sugary… yuck! You won’t want to eat another sweet thing ever again.

It’s been six months since I decided to quit sugar and wheat and get my health back. I’m still at it and while I have not lost significant weight, just bloat, the most obvious signs of digestive distress are gone. Eliminating wheat has been a game-changer for me as far as how my body functions. That’s why I’m not often tempted by pasta, bread, cereal or other processed foods containing wheat. P.S. All processed foods contain wheat.

In “I Quit Sugar” Sarah Wilson admits to eating an occasional gluten free muffin or other low-sugar treat, and I admit to adding Saltine crackers to my homemade vegetable soup. The first ingredient on the Saltine box is “wheat” but I had a cold, then a cough, then bronchitis, for most of the month of October. So I needed soup. The first week we had vegetable soup and the second week, chicken noodle…

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How Not to Buy a Jumper

I had a rather bizarre experience in Marks & Spencer’s on Saturday, when I went in to buy a new jumper.

I saw the jumper I wanted, seemingly one of its kind.  I tried it on, and it fitted perfectly.  I was pleased with it and joined the queue to pay.  When I got to the counter the conversation went something like this.

Assistant:  “I can’t sell this to you.”

Me:  “Why not?  The jumper was on the shelves for sale with lots of others, and here’s my money.”

Assistant:  “I know, but sorry, you can’t buy it.”

The people behind me in the queue shuffled about and coughed.  I wondered if my face didn’t fit or whether my bank card looked a bit dodgy.  I tried again.

“Look.  I have my money ready and the jumper has a price tag on, so why can’t I buy it?”

Assistant:  “I will go and get the manager.  Please wait.”

So I waited.  About five minutes later the assistant returned with a grim-faced manager.

Manager:  “Sorry, but you can’t buy that jumper.”

Me:  “Can you please tell me why?”

Manager:  “If you wanted to bring it back, then we couldn’t give you a refund.”

Me:  “But I don’t want to bring it back… I want to wear it!”

Manager:  “It needs to go back to the manufacturers.  The others went back, but this one must have been missed.”

I couldn’t see anything wrong with it at all, and was becoming angrier by the minute.  The manager took it from me, and I found a different jumper and joined the queue again.

Me:  “Am I allowed to buy this one?”

The assistant smiled through half closed eyes and gritted teeth, as she rang up the purchase.

Who has ever heard of a customer not being able to buy something on the shelves that they want?  Whatever happened to the ‘customer is always right‘ saying?

Fit Git

I’ve bought one of those FitBit things.  It now sits on my wrist in place of my watch and not only does it tell me what the time is, it also nags at my conscience in a very subtle way to complete 10,000 steps every day.  Out I go every morning and evening for the 2 mile walk around the village if I’m not working (4250 steps x 2), or on work days there’s a 25 minute hike to the hospital (3000 steps) and back from where I park the car, and sundry trips around the hospital looking for patients’ notes.  These and a few other shorter walks during the day ensures my conscience is clear when I go to bed (it can even tell me how much sleep I’m getting).

It’s cheaper than if I owned a dog to make me get out and do exercise,  and I don’t have to walk around with bags of excrement!  All I have to do is to remember to plug it into a charger every so often.

It’s a great little device.  It tells me what my heart rate is, how many calories I’ve used up, and how far I’ve walked.  There’s even a setting for when I go out for a ride on the bike.  All I’ve got to keep doing now is buying new trainers every now and then!

Have you got a FitBit?  How many steps do you take in a day?

 

Home

A comment from fellow blogger Suzan Khoja saying ‘Home is something everyone wishes to be in forever‘ got me thinking…

Where is ‘home‘ exactly?  Is it your childhood home with your parents where hopefully you might have felt safe and loved, or is it the home you made with your own partner and children?  Is it still home when your partner may have moved out and your children left the nest to forge their own lives?

I go along with the saying that ‘home is where the heart is‘.  In everyone’s head is that picture of home that they all yearn to return to, where they were loved, wanted and needed.  Whether or not the sun always shone was irrelevant, as they were happy whatever the weather.

You can live in a house worth millions, but is it home if it’s a place where you are not happy?  In the 1960s my grandmother lived on the third floor of a rented house that  was eventually earmarked for slum clearance.  On the second floor lived one sister and her husband, and on the ground floor lived another sister.  Nan never cared if the roof leaked, as she was happy being surrounded by her family.  Next door lived her niece with her family, and they could lean out of their windows and talk to each other across the yard.  When it was time for Nan to move into a brand new flat away from her sisters, she was distraught.

Below is one of the places I’ll always call home.  It was just a pre-fab in the East End of London, but my mind often wanders back to the idyllic childhood that I never realised I had until it was gone.  That little pre-fab set me up for life and made me the happy soul I am today.

Here I am below with Mum and Dad in the back garden of our pre-fab around 1967.

Of course neither Mum, Dad nor the pre-fab or even the street are here anymore, and it’s just my 62 year old self who is left to remember them all.  I have had many homes since, and I’ve lived in my current home for nearly 30 years, but I’d return to this pre-fab like a shot if I ever had the chance!

Where is home to you?

Rain, Rain go Away…

Here in East Anglia we don’t usually get that much rain.  However, last Sunday was an exception when it rained heavily all day.  However, I do like to get outside and walk, and so I put on my wellies and enjoyed a tramp around an almost deserted village. Our road was  flooded, as you can see:

The water swirled around my ankles, but it was fun splashing around in my wellies like a little kid!  Hope the rain stops soon, as we’re off to the Isle of Wight again tomorrow for 5 days where we’ll close the van down for the winter before returning home.  I hate the thought of it being drained down and out of use, but hey, there’s always Springtime just around the corner…

Beer, Beer and More Beer!

Tags

beer, beer-making, Brewery

Somebody bought Sam a couple of vouchers for a tour of the Greene King Brewery at Bury St. Edmunds, and last Saturday we decided to use them, as Sam has rather a penchant for IPA beer.

We learned that the brewery was founded by Benjamin Greene in 1799.  It was taken over by his son Edward in 1836 and merged with Frederick William King’s brewery in 1887.  Greene had a huge house built which stands next to the Theatre Royal to house his second wife and their 13 children (although 8 died in infancy).  He made sure his employees were happy by having a community hall built next to his house which on weekends allowed them to socialise and also gave them free beer (not applicable now, as Greene King owns too many breweries)!

The tour guide was very informative. The brewery is built on 3 floors, which are all connected via pipes.  First of all, water from 1000 year old chalk wells under the brewery is pumped to storage tanks on the top floor and heated up. There’s a great view of Bury St. Edmunds from the roof of the brewery by the way, although the hot steam up there is a bit overpowering if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction:

Then the water is mixed with crushed malted barley to form a porridge-like substance and pumped to huge copper mashing tuns on the floor below, which run at about 65 degrees and have been in use since 1935.

The ‘sweet wort’ that is produced is then pumped to another vessel where hops are added (see below).  Every three cycles the mashing tuns are cleaned from the inside – yes, somebody has to get in there and clean them!

The whole mixture is then boiled for about an hour and then left to cool.  It’s then pumped underground to a fermentation tank across the main road where it’s mixed with oxygen and yeast and left to ferment for around 5 days (the fermentation vessel holds a quarter of a million pints!) before being pumped to the bottling plant.  Overall the site covers about 40 acres.

After the tour ended there was a beer tasting experience – rather unpleasant for me and the other 3 ladies there, as none of us girls liked the taste of ‘bitter’.  Each lady (including me) poured her little cup of beer straight into her partner’s cup, which then seemed to empty at an alarming rate.  After this we were all given a token to exchange for a free bottle of beer in the ‘Beer Cafe’ adjoining the brewery.  Sam ended up with 2 tokens, but I didn’t care if he had  2 and I had none…

The tour is well worth your time if you’re ever in Bury St. Edmunds.

Americanisation

A comment made by Beetley Pete on the ‘Englishness’ of my short story ‘The Noise Effect‘ made me smile.  I replied that I am English, and therefore in fact do not know of any other way to write.

This got me thinking:  Would I sell more stories if I wrote in a more Americanised way?  Do people prefer to read about sidewalks, trucks and apartments rather than pavements, lorries and flats?  For me to write in that way would feel very strange indeed.  However, I have heard that some publishers do alter manuscripts to make them sound more American.

Would I like ‘The Noise Effect’ to be altered to be made more American? Could it be altered? I’d be interested to find out how the description would read if one of my American friends would like to translate it, as I have no idea what the US equivalent of a council house or a council estate is!

What lengths would you go to in order to ensure a peaceful existence? Newlyweds Eve and Leigh Chandler are thrilled to be given a council house on a recently built estate after living with Eve’s parents for a year, and are eager to get to know their new neighbours. Eve quickly forms a friendship with Tessa Patterson at number 16, but things turn sour when Mark Denny moves into number 18 with his two teenage sons.
The Dennys enjoy playing their music loud enough for the whole street to hear. Leigh and Eve, both normally easy-going and placid, complain to the council after being driven to distraction by noise emanating from the house next door. However, this only serves to make them a sitting target for Mark Denny’s anger, causing Eve to discover a previously hidden side of her new husband that she was totally unaware of.

Anybody want to give the translation a go?  You can have a free copy of ‘The Noise Effect‘ for your trouble!

Country Life Isn’t What it Used to Be…

We moved to Suffolk in January 1991.  We had always wanted to get away from town life in London and live in the countryside. When a new job opportunity near Norwich arose for Sam, we made the move to a village near Bury St. Edmunds.  We loved being surrounded by arable fields, and our boys were always excited to watch the combine harvesters and tractors at work.

Nearly 30 years on from that happy day, there’s an unwelcome change I see every day as I drive the 12 miles home from work.  To get home I usually take the scenic back route from Bury town centre past fields of crops, and have always taken delight in the changing seasons while watching the fields being ploughed and drilled, and then the crops being harvested.  I know the change had to happen, but it’s happening too fast…

Hundreds of houses are going up like there’s no tomorrow.  Great swathes of fields are being sold off to developers, who are building what I can only call ‘Lego’ houses.  These houses are slowly causing the boundaries of Bury St. Edmunds to move rapidly outwards.  As farmers in other villages near to Bury sell off their land as well, it looks to me as though soon there will be no boundaries at all and Bury St. Edmunds will meet up with the Lego houses being built in all the surrounding areas.

We’ve had many lovely years of rural living here, but now there are plans for another 60 houses in our village, on top of the other new housing that has already been built.  Residents have no say in the matter. There is of course the usual ‘meeting’ in the village hall with developers and council officials, but hey, the ink has already dried on the contracts.

Nowhere is safe from developers.  Farmers sell off their land as I expect it is now unprofitable to keep it going.  Developers snatch it up and turn it into a construction site.  Do they worry about whether the infrastructure can cope with the influx of so many new inhabitants? No … they’re too busy counting the profits.

Our village school is full. There is one shop, and only a couple of buses per day that go to Bury St. Edmunds.  Each property will eventually have one or two cars on the road, and sometimes it’s quite dangerous walking along the country lanes now.

It ain’t good.  The Isle of Wight beckons, but I expect they’re building hundreds of Lego houses over there as well…