Blast from the Past

Today I had a glass of beer with my light lunch of brie and apples.

I have some difficulty in finding small bottles of beer and try to grab one when I see it. They have some fascinating names - and a wide variety of alcohol content; I showed one bottle to TBSITW and she said "Did you notice that that one was 8%?" Well, of course I hadn't, but now I look more carefully.

Today's was Brew Dog Punk IPA.

And then the memories came flooding back.

Of when I was a student nurse and then a staff nurse and spent most of my social life with other nurses, rather younger than me.

The drink 'du jour' was beer, in pint glasses, straight glass, none of those half pints or fancy glasses with handles. I remember Theakston's Old Peculiar was much sought after, however IPA, or India Pale Ale was what was most commonly available,

You could add, as our tastes matured, 'real ale' most of it being 80/-.

And then we progressed to making our own in 5 gallon buckets, initially with beer kits from Boots or someplace, then moving on to acquiring real ingredients. I remember a great shop in the old village of Corstorphine, Edinburgh which sold wonderful ingredients.

Home made wine was absolutely dire, even for cooking, but we were poor then and had to get our alcohol somewhere! However, home brew beer was excellent and we acquired proper bottles and stoppers.

The last memory of drinking beer was when I went in for diving (sub aqua) and I used to get back to the clubhouse with a very dry mouth from breathing in all that compressed air. A pint of 70/- went down almost as fast as I can type it!

After that I mostly gave up as a 'beer belly' is not so named for nothing.

Nowadays I have only an occasional glass on a hot day. In Scotland these days are few and far between.....

The Thunderbolt Kid

I finished The Thunderbolt Kid by bill Bryson.

I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would as I had become a bit bored with his other books. It seemed to give a very good picture of a small boy growing up in a small town in Middle America.

I grew up slightly earlier going to an all-girls’ school in a city in Scotland, so his experiences were quite different from mine, although I too remember the fear associated with the American stand-off against the Russians and the fear that the world might be coming to an end.

The Bay of Pigs, The Vietnam war and the draft did not touch me directly at all, although on this side of the pond we still had National Service. My then fiancé managed to miss this by the skin of his teeth by being at University until it was discontinued.

Here my worries were about exams, career options and those strange creatures, boys.

Do read this book if you have not already done so.

It is so hard to believe that a time so recent appears so far distant in the past.

Vegetable Box Delivery.

It is quite some time since I have been so pleased to see the organic vegetable box delivery; my fridge has gone down to NO vegetables of any description. I still have a bowl of potato salad and a serving of macaroni cheese.

The contents were potatoes, carrots (lots), 4 white turnips, broad beans, cabbage, broccoli, courgette, 2 lettuce and 4 tomatoes; the fruit was 4 apples and 4 bananas.

I think I may have got the wrong fruit bag as there was a label on the string saying “apples and bananas only. £2.5o”, whereas I pay £3 for the fruit and usually get oranges, fewer apples and fewer bananas. However, I shall sort this out with them later.

They always enclose a newsletter telling of the work at the farm and often giving a recipe. The recipe this time is for Cabbage with Potatoes, Cheddar and Feta Cheese. It looks good and I think I shall give it a try. If I like it I shall post the recipe on my recipe blog.

Striptease

I am a very cold blooded person. In the winter months I can go and visit my daughter, who probably has the central heating on, and have to wear all my winter woollies and my fleece too, while she is wearing a t-shirt.

During the “summer” in Scotland I gradually reduced the layers, one by one, first losing the cotton polo shirt and thermal vest and the thermal long johns (in varying order), then removing the woollen polo neck and wearing instead a t-shirt topped with shirt (to hide the bulges) and cardigan, and yesterday with t-shirt topped with cardigan.

It was so hot that I had to remove the cardigan too.

When I returned to the ranch, I joined the Scrabble players for a very welcome cup of tea, and removed my cardigan, saying “Look, I have arms!”

“Yes, and chicken wings, too”!, was the response….

Someone else remarked that it was the first time they had seen my neck (and kindly didn't mention the wattle!)

Afterwards I was going to pass a jigsaw on to one of my friends, and when we got to my flat I showed her one.

And also offered her a Gin and Tonic.

It is such a long time since we had a G&T together and was good to catch up. She has not been well and I have concerns for her health, even though she is younger than me (but by VERY LITTLE).

Gadgets and Customer Services

This morning my order to Lakeland Limited has arrived. My cleaners call me “Mrs Gadget Woman”! This time I have ordered battery operated can opener, jar opener and whisk, together with a “good grips” peeler and a scissor block with 3 (badly needed) new scissors of assorted sizes.

This is all to make life easier for my hands, which have difficulty gripping things.

At the Bridge Club, I tried out a curved piece of wood with a slot for holding the cards; it was not a great success, largely because of my tremor as I kept missing the holder or else knocking other cards out; so I gave up on that idea – nice to get the chance to try it without having to pay for one first.

I have found most of Lakeland’s products excellent and if you need to phone them you get a nice friendly English voice (which I can hear and understand). Recently I found one item to be less good than its predecessor and wrote a comment rating it.

I got a very nice email offering me my money back.

Now, that’s the way to do it.

I am almost ready to go to the Bridge Club now….

Later:

Used the peeleer and was somewhat disappointed. Washed it and left it to drain. dried it and there was a little bubble of water caught between the blades. Mopped the bubble but it wouldn't go away. Investigated more closely and it was a strip of film used as protective packing.

Oops, there's another IQ test failed!

Bits and Pieces

Today, after Church (where the sermon was on the Parable of the mustard seed, not the easiest of texts to understand, particularly as it is only 2 verses long), I collected the communal watering can and filled it at the outside tap, bringing it back to water all my pots.

I paid particular attention to the "Two Sisters", and not just to the flowers but also to the body of Mammouth as well in case it gets too dry and blows over in the wind as it is intrinsically rather light. I was admiring Miss Pig. TBSITW planted some ivy at the front to form a fringe, and it has thrived and grown sufficiently that it could act rather as the hair of Rapunzel, which was long enough to let down from her tower to allow her favoured prince to climb up.

Coming out of Church you immediately appreciate that the weather today is warm and humid. It is not as summery as earlier in the week, but the Church is so cold that it was like coming out into a warm bath.

I am going to make potato salad this afternoon, but otherwise have nothing planned. "The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson awaits, following a recommendation on another blog, but at this moment I can't remember whose.

Later: I went to Wikipedia to look up the story of Rapunzel, which was even darker than I remembered and I had quite forgotten that it was the witch who called out "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair" and the Prince overheard her and thus found out how to reach Rapunzel in her tower. If you want to know more, go to Wikipedia.

Trying to Become a Good Housewife

I started off this morning with a washing "oh, not again!" you cry, but I was thinking about what I was doing as I put the wash into the tumble dryer and carried two wool jumpers that can't be tumble dried upstairs and laid them on a large towel on my bed.

So, what I was thinking was that I was actually starting to get organised with cycling my jumpers. Instead of just hanging clean ones away next to others (which were clean of course, but not newly washed) I am hanging the washed ones on the other side of the wardrobe, with the idea that I wear only the ones that are on the not-washed side of the wardrobe.

And to think it took me 67 years to get that far!

Mind you there was a long time in my life when I didn't have enough clothes to make that necessary....

So, that done I went to prepare the evening meal and was torn between making a macaroni cheese or a potato salad. I decided on the potato salad and had all the work done (including frying the lardons) when I discovered that I had no shallots or even onions. So the cooked potatoes are now in a jug covered with foil and the lardons are on a covered plate.

So it was back to square one again.

Now the macaroni is boiled and the cheese is grated, so all I have to do now is make the cheese sauce. I felt I was due a rest at this point so I came to talk to you lot out there.

Never mind, shallots will arrive tomorrow and otherwise nearly all the work is done for that meal too.