Extreme Weather

The weather today was atrocious - high winds and heavy rain - and I was the only person crazy enough to venture over the allotments, but the weather suited my purpose. I needed to establish where the water is getting in to the new shed. Sure enough, there was a significant quantity of water on the floor near the door apart from the drips that had blown in with me. The little trays I had put down to catch the water had nothing in them, but had floated out of position on the puddle that had formed beneath them. Didn't stay there long - long enough to mop up and drink my coffee, then on to Sainsbury's to do some shopping. Outside there was an advert for a special offer - buy Fairtrade goods and receive a free cotton tea-towel, bag or apron. I didn't pay sufficient attention to the details but thought it worth asking if I qualified at the check-out. The check-out assistant didn't know the details either, so she asked her supervisor who admitted her equal ignorance. They had a feeling maybe it didn't start today, perhaps, as they hadn't been told about it. Outside I checked the advert - a spend of £5 or more on Fairtrade goods qualified you, and sure enough I had spent over £6 on qualifying products.

Back home I phoned the store and spoke to customer service who apologised and confirmed that I should have received a free gift but there had been a breakdown in communication. She suggested I take the receipt in later in the week and give them the chance to rectify the deficiency.

I was happy to stay at home in the warm for the rest of the day reading and commenting on a friend's novel, and happier still to get a bit of exercise in the evening at Dance Class. We practiced the Waltz, Cha Cha, and social Foxtrot, and were introduced to Salsa. All good clean fun.

I was home in time to watch the news on TV:

"That's strange" I commented, watching footage about the chaos recent extreme winter weather has brought to China, "it says 'POLICE' on their backs"

"What's strange about that?" asked Vic, "They are the police - that's their uniform"

"They're in China - you'd think it would be in Chinese".

Meetings, meetings, meetings

For somebody who's unemployed, I certainly seem to attend a lot of meetings. This morning it was the Mental Health Links - in the past other projects we've tackled have proceeded with all due speed and success but with this most recent one we've been talking about it since the summer of 2006 and not really made much progress. We acknowledged the frustration in our midst. It strikes me that I'm hearing fears (whether of commitment, or of encountering the unknown I'm not sure), and if that is the outer world I'm experiencing, my current 'ACIM ' exercises suggest that the outer world is merely reflecting my inner world. A group member has suggested that, as we are all busy people, the proposed 'Mental Health & Spirituality Group' should meet once a month. Chaplain, David A_, countered with the view that as the group is intended to cater for mental health service users, a weekly meeting would be more beneficial, a view I favour. Afterwards I receive a copy of the minutes from our diligent scribe (who has commented before that he who writes the minutes exercises control over the contents) and discover that this has not been minuted. I start to write a hasty email to correct the omission, and then cancel it. Further thought and introspection required. Meanwhile through the amazing power of the internet I have been able to make contact with a lady mentioned in the meeting who has successfully set up a group similar to that which we propose, and she has suggested I attend, guess what, a meeting - to learn more about her group.

Back home I make a fresh batch of yoghurt, adding some evaporated milk to the regular milk and simmering for a while until the volume is reduced, then straining it. As I'm writing retrospectively, I can reveal that this is the best batch so far, having a lovely smooth consistency and good flavour.

After lunch I walk to the Mental Health Forum planning group meeting, with a lovely view from the top floor window out over the brightly beautiful winter's day. My quiet time reading this morning included the encouragement to serve, and when the need for a Minutes Secretary for the Stakeholder Group meetings is made known, I offer my services, pausing only briefly at the thought of yet more meetings.

I walk back home and cook a roast dinner using the leftover chicken from Sunday. There has been a lot on TV lately about the raw deal chickens get, and sponsoring the idea that consumers should mark their displeasure with this by buying ethically-sourced chickens, chickens that have had a happy life. I did look around for happy chickens in the supermarket but ended up buying a Sainsbury's basic. The meat - particularly the breast meat - was tough and chewy, and re-heating it in gravy did nothing to improve the texture.

Jacky and Dave (sister-in-law and hubby) are good cooks, and much like son Dave, bro-in-law Dave doesn't like vegetables, but will eat honey-glazed roast carrots. At Christmas, son Dave also approved these roast carrots, so I've taken to cooking them that way. I'm not altogether sure of the benefits - on the one hand he will eat a portion of carrots with his dinner now, but on the other hand is there sufficient nutritional value remaining in a roast carrot to make it worthwhile when you consider the additional calorific intake? Such are the questions that a loving mum has to consider, along with whether it's really in his best interests me doing his laundry and ironing for him from time to time. But I digress...

In the evening I attended another meeting: Cell group. The house we were meeting at this week is home to a particularly gifted art student, and it is a real delight to look around at some of her artwork on display. She's a beautiful young lady, and has done a well-executed self-portrait which would look great on anybody's wall.

Back home in time to listen in on Vic's telephone conversation with Vix. She's currently temping as a civilian employed by the Police and is pleased to have passed her Level 1 Police driving test. This will give her the opportunity to earn a higher rate and to escape the office occasionally, driving about to collect evidence or CCTV tapes for example.

And so to bed.

Little objects of desire: Electric Blanket

Today's trip to London for the Recruitment/Training Day began early - I was up at 6.30 am and enjoyed my 'Quiet Time' bible study before breakfasting on home-made yoghurt, fresh blueberries, nuts and seeds. Left home prompt at 8 am with my friend, arriving at the venue 10.10 am - time to use the loo before signing-in. It was an old building with some maintenance issues. The carpet was wet in a corner of the classroom with signs of water leaks on the ceiling panels around the pipes, and the plumbing was loud every time someone flushed the toilets next door. I took a glance at the information pack I'd been handed and at first decided to sit near the window to help with reading the tiny print. Not so many years ago (2000), I had 20/20 vision but now rapid deterioration has led to the need to wear glasses to read the newspaper or regular print even in good light. I was wearing a cashmere pullover, normally warm enough to keep me cosy, but the windows were ill-fitting metal-framed single-glazed and the draughts made me shiver. I moved away from the light, but even in the centre of the room it was cold and draughty. I put my scarf back on and kept it on for the rest of the day.

I've had some training and experience in the past in conducting telephone interviews and had anticipated that the work - telephone interviews with mental health service users to measure the degree to which they have experienced stigma or discrimination as a result of a diagnosis of mental illness - would be easy, but was surprised to find the role-playing exercise much more difficult than I had anticipated. The script was awkwardly phrased, yet interviewers would be required to keep to the script in order to ensure consistency so that the results would be meaningful. I found myself wondering whether I really wanted the job. It began to look like a recipe for frustration, more so since I would be working from home and my internet connection has been patchy and unreliable the past few months.

At the end of the day I met up with my friend again and we went to the cut-price ticket booths in Leicester Square. At the first booth we asked about tickets for the musical, "We will rock you". Outside these tickets were advertised at £31, but the very attractive salesgirl said apologetically she only had full-price (£55) tickets available. Curiously I asked if she had tickets for another show, "Stomp!". Oh yes, she could offer cheap seats for that show but she should warn us that they had a very limited view. We came away to discuss it, and I suggested we try a different ticket booth. I had assumed that all the booths would have access to the same tickets as they are all computerised these days, but this second booth WAS able to offer the "We will rock you" tickets at the reduced price, leaving me to speculate that perhaps the very attractive salesgirl in the first booth was capitalising on her assets and trying to earn herself extra commission by achieving full-price sales.

The show began with very low frequency loud noise, something like an aircraft engine, on the edge of painful. The show was enjoyable apart from being unnecessarily loud, which robbed it of some of the melody.

It was great that the rain held off almost until we were in the car on the way home again, and even better that Vic had switched on the electric blanket for me! It was lovely getting into that warm, cosy bed and reflecting back on an interesting day.

Interesting Textures

I've been listening to a Leonard Cohen CD off and on the past couple of days. It began with me singing to myself a phrase from 'So long Marianne': "You know that I love to live with you, but you make me forget so very much; I forget to pray for the angels, then the angels forget to pray for us" until after a while I wanted to hear it sung properly. I like the interesting texture of Cohen's voice, and on the CD when he's joined by the female backing vocalists or the choir of children's voices, the contrast between his voice and theirs makes theirs seem particularly angelic.

Talking of interesting texture, the latest batch of yoghurt has some chewy bits in. I simmered the milk for a while as this reduces the oxygen (Lactobacillus grows better in milk that has lost most of its oxygen), but didn't strain off the skin. Knowing what they are, the chewy bits aren't a problem to me but I'll refrain from offering visitors a sample.

Not everyone likes the skin off home-made rice pudding, and I suspect that 'skinny latte' probably doesn't mean latte with a skin, does it?

Today I walked into town and withdrew the cash for Vic to buy his new motorbike tomorrow. The bank teller asked my birthday to verify my identity, which proved problematical when it turned out they had the wrong date on their records! I was invited to step into an interview room to correct the matter, which turned into a consumer survey and marketing exercise. When I saw the direction the interview had taken, I explained politely that I didn't really want to talk about travel insurance or breakdown cover at that point and left.

Tomorrow I go to London for a Training/Recruitment day for part-time work as a telephone interviewer, working from home, interviewing other mental-health service users in connection with a research project to determine the current level of discrimination/stigmatism experienced by those suffering mental illness. Should be interesting. As I type that, I tune in to Leonard Cohen to hear "Who shall I say is calling?". Who indeed.

Potato Day

From Burns Night to Potato Day - such an exciting life I lead . 'Potato Day?', I hear you asking - go on, don't deny you're riveted by the title of this post. Calm yourself, I'm about to reveal all. A Potato Day is kind of like a Craft Fayre only instead of Crafts, you have the opportunity to buy seed potatoes. There were over 140 varieties of seed potato on sale. I've already placed an order for 3 kg each of Foremost and Saxon with another plotholder, but it seemed an idea to go along to see what it's all about. Do you know it was so exciting that the local news team were there filming as we arrived - I kid you not! We paid our £2 each to get in and wandered round looking at ... well .... potatoes. Oh, and there were some gimmicky copper gardening tools, just to ring the changes, not to mention the onion sets in one corner and the heritage seed swap in another, but mostly it was seed potatoes. I bought 3 tubers each of Estima, Sante, Anoe (Claire), Golden Wonder and Amandine plus a 1kg of Stuttgart Giant onion sets. The tubers were 14p each, and the bag of onions was £1, so in total it cost £3.10 plus the £4 entry, plus the fuel costs, and then of course we stopped for a pub lunch - and I'm thinking that if you add that all up, it comes to very expensive potatoes. However, it's good to try these things or you don't know what you might be missing. Don't think I'll be going next year.

Last night's dancing was extremely energetic - the unfit were falling by the wayside, but us regular dancers were up for (almost) every dance and enjoying the exuberance of it all. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the lone piper in the foyer. In a contained space, bagpipes are decidedly overpowering, and the poor guy was really breaking sweat. Anyway, the good news is the dancing took my mind off the migraine for a while (probably brought on by Thursday's Chinese lunch). Felt a bit fragile when I woke up this morning but I'm trying a mind over body thing of telling myself I gain nothing from being sick. As a kid, illness used to get me out of school a lot when I was going through a bad time of being bullied which may have set the stage for ill-health cutting in whenever I'm feeling double-minded about something. 'A Course in Miracles' talks about the power of the ego and it makes a lot of sense.

Burns Night

I've had a clumsy day today - hoping it doesn't carry on to be a clumsy evening as that could get embarrassing...

In the new shed over the allotment, Brian has put up a thick plywood backboard (from which I can suspend tools) and a couple of plywood shelves. At home the garage is packed with carefully hoarded leftovers from years gone by, so without too much difficulty I was able to acquire half a tin of teak-coloured wood preserver to treat the plywood. It was a pleasant task, not requiring a great deal of finesse, and as I happily wielded the wood-stain loaded brush, my thoughts were trundling off in other directions not paying much attention to what I was doing. Then I almost dropped the brush, which made me jerk the other hand carrying the tin, which slopped a large quantity of the deep brown liquid over my hand, wrist and the floor. I was wearing latex gloves, but they didn't extend up the wrists. I mopped up as best I could with the kitchen towels I happened to have to hand and carried on to finish the job, then came home and discarded the ruined top I'd been wearing and washed off as much as possible of the wood preserver, leaving only a suggestion of an odd-shaped area of tan.

Whilst cooking the dinner I spilled a quantity of uncooked rice, then slopped soup out of the bowls, then dropped the loaf of bread. Tonight I'm off to a Burns Night Ceilidh , and would rather like to engage in some graceful dancing. Let's hope the 'clumsy' virus has passed out of my system.

A traditional Burns Night Celebration usually includes a supper of Haggis and bashed neeps, and I can't recall any barn dances I've been to which haven't included a meal, but apparently tonight's doesn't. Oh well, more time for dancing, I suppose.

Ladies Who Lunch

Last night's Cell Group meeting went ok - the Krispy cakes were popular, the gluten-free sponge drops less so, unsurprisingly. Vic had tried one beforehand and complained that they sucked all the moisture out of your mouth, an attribute I felt duty-bound to mention as I placed them on the table and invited people to help themselves. He also suggested I should pretend they had been made by a primary-school child as the lemon icing was of less-than-professional standard, to put it politely :-)

One thing did make me smile inwardly was noticing a speck of glitter on Christina's face. I'm guessing she caught it from me when we embraced in a girly-greeting. That stuff gets EVERYWHERE! It's from the party top I wore at Christmas. I popped it into a pillowcase to wash it, the same pillow-case I use to wash my bras in (so that the hooks don't catch on other clothes). Of course, it was all over the next bra I washed. I tried to shake some of it off, and then had to hoover the kitchen. We've probably inhaled specks - wonder if they'll show up on an X-ray :-)

Went for a girly lunch in the local chinatown eat-all-you-want buffet restaurant, which was very pleasant. There were five in the group, 3 from Cell group, one friend from the allotments plus her friend from U3A. I walked there and back, maybe a mile and a quarter each way, to atone for the unnecessarily large number of calories I've eaten today. Dance class tonight should help on that score, too. Over lunch we talked about making it a regular thing for a group of ladies to meet together and encourage each other in goal-setting and attainment. On the way I passed the Baptist church and considered joining their Scrabble club, meeting on Tuesday mornings, with the option to stay for lunch afterwards. On the other hand, I won't have quite so much spare time on my hands if I get the job I'm attending a recruitment/training day for next week. We'll see. Meanwhile I'm keeping the grey cells active with Sudoku puzzles, and occasionally still keeping up my Brain Age Training on David's Nintendo DS. I've been reluctant to re-do the Brain Age test since I scored 30, and Dr Kawashima admitted he was impressed :-)

Now I'm waiting in for the Window Installers to come and replace a pane that has cracked, and casting the odd longing glance out of the window at the clear blue sky and winter sunshine. Would have been a nice day to go over the allotment.

Growing herbs, growing cultures, growing waistline

Knowing my interest in growing things and in healthy eating, David gave me this very fancy herb garden for Christmas/birthday. Each day we marvel at the speed with which the herbs grow: mint, italian basil, dill, cilantro along the back row, parsley (yet to put in an appearance), purple basil, chives in front. Looking forward to trying out some of the suggested recipes.

At the weekend I decided I wanted to start making my own yoghurt again (it was something I used to do years ago). The first two batches failed. I was using Onken bio-pot natural yoghurt as a starter and wondered if the problem lay there, so yesterday I tried a teaspoon of Yeo Valley yoghurt as the starter, and left it well-wrapped up in tea towels overnight. Success!

Tonight Cell Group is meeting here, so this has been my excuse to make a batch of Chocolate Krispy cakes and a batch of lemon-iced gluten-free sponge drops. So much for the planned 'healthy eating' regime to get me back in shape! The gluten-free sponge drops were experimental, and absorbed in what I was doing, I missed an appointment with the psych - unusual for me. At the point I remembered it, and realised I was late, the phone rang. As I answered it, I accidentally pushed a button which cut off the call. Assuming it had been from the psych ringing to see why I hadn't turned up, I dialled her number and gave my apologies, and we re-scheduled the appointment. During the course of our conversation, I realised the phone call I had cut off hadn't been from her after all. I dialled 1471, listened long enough to hear the number of the last caller, then dialled it. Had I listened longer, I would have discovered that the last recorded number to call had been at 10.40 am. How the phone rang at 1.10 pm is a mystery. My favoured explanation is that it happened to get my attention.

Goodbye Spencer

Spencer was a lovely great softy, thoroughly enjoying having his tummy rubbed, as you can see from this photo. He settled in and had a lovely week with us, but having thought the answer to the fecal incontinence query hanging over him was the presence or absence of suitable shrubs, as the week progressed it became clear there was something else going on. When we picked him up, I'd noticed that his left eye was drooping a little, although this wasn't mentioned in his medical notes. Three days into his stay and the eye was drooping even further, after a night when he'd been fretful and unsettled. I mentioned it to the Fostering manager and she asked us to bring him back for a brain scan. We took him back on the Saturday, and today learned the sad news that the scan showed he'd had a stroke, and they hadn't wakened him from the anaesthetic.

Welcome Spencer!

Today, 5th January 2008, we greet a new short-term addition to the family. Spencer is a large, elderly male labrador. He weighs around 45 kg and was picked up as a stray by Battersea Dogs' Home, London, early in December. He is somewhere between 7 - 10 years old with a few health problems. The Dogs' Home has a foster programme and Spencer is our first assignment. I was offered a choice (sight unseen) between Spencer and Jasper (a labrador cross, aged between 6 and 12 months). Jasper sounded very cute but possibly quite a demanding handful.

We were told Spencer was 'very clean in his kennel', but outside appeared to suffer from fecal incontinence as he wasn't stopping to squat, simply walking on apparently unaware of what was happening at the other end. It wasn't clear whether this was a behavioural issue, related to the stress of being in kennels, or if there could be some other explanation.

He jumped into the back of the estate car without hesitation, allowed me to harness him in and settled down happily for the ride. Once home, I walked him straight through into the garden and let him off the lead. After cocking his leg a few times, he began combing the shrubbery for the right place to squat, finally backing his butt onto (yes, in contact with) a prickly young holly bush. It didn't look the most comfortable place, but evidently it met his requirements and he proved that given the right circumstances, he would take the time to pause and reflect on the moment. I praised him.

We brought him indoors and showed him his lovely new doggy-duvet (all equipment, food, toys, medicine etc. is provided by the Dogs' Home). He was so excited, he immediately dug in, ripped the duvet from its cover and tore a hole in it before we could convince him to give it up. He'd only been in the house a matter of minutes and feathers were flying already! Not a good start! We removed the luxury feather duvet from its cover, replacing it with some old blankets and towels and checked his response - one sniff and he dismissed it as of no further interest..

I sewed up the hole in the duvet to prevent any further feather-loss and hoovered up the feathers. At this point we had confined Spencer to the kitchen, but I opened the door into the lounge to check out his reaction. He walked in to inspect ... and promptly decided the house-plants needed watering. I told him "NO!" very firmly (don't want the maid becoming upset that he's taken over her job). I took him outside again and praised him each time he cocked his leg out there, then brought him back inside to try again. Same result - although he does respond to the "NO!". Back outside again, plenty of praise when he cocks his leg out there, then back in again - to sniff the houseplants and cock his leg yet again. Stubborn old boy. Yet he's fine in the kitchen - no houseplants there.

After we'd had lunch and Spencer had had a chance to settle in (confined to the kitchen), I took him out for a walk. Originally I was intending to walk over the allotment and back, to check out his stamina. However, by the time we'd gone a quarter of a mile I realised I might not have the stamina - it was proving quite strenuous work walking him as he was pulling with all his weight. I replotted the walk to around the block (about a mile). Then we came to a place where he began to look purposeful, sniffing the shrubbery with excitement. Once again he squatted right in the shrubbery, with a bush up his backside, and produced a diarrhoea dump. Fortunately it was quite easy to scoop it up in the bag I'd taken for the purpose and drop it into the doggy-poop bin further along our walk. Once he'd done his business, his pace did settle down and he was more inclined to walk alongside me on a loose lead, and acknowledged the praise with a waggy tail.

I think we may have solved the question about the fecal incontinence - the Dogs' Home has some outside dog runs where the dogs are exercised, but these are all tarmac with no greenery, and Spencer does seem to prefer to hide in the bushes to perform.