Black cats and treacle scones

At ten o’clock this morning, my hands smelled strongly of garlic and when I looked at my fingers, they were sticky with red stuff.

Hallowe’en?

Nope. I don’t do Hallowe’en. (Though I do like black cats, with or without broomsticks!)

So what gives?

Autumn comfort cooking.

I found a recipe for a proper burger-tasting but veggie burger and thought I’d have a go. It required 3 cloves of garlic… and one tablespoon of tomato paste. As a canny Scot, “waste not want not” is as much engraved on my heart as Calais was on Mary Queen of Scots’ so the red nails came from digging out the last of the tomato paste from the tiny tin to freeze in dollops on a sheet of clingfilm.

At this moment, however, the garlic smell has gone. (Funny how much washing up is entailed in a cooking spasm!) While the very burgery-looking burger mix rests, I got down to the first baking I’ve done in … possibly years. (My excuse is that baking is creative!)

A friend is coming round this afternoon and I wanted to have something nice to offer with tea. Hallowe’en reminded me of foodie games we used to play on this night. Anyone remember such innocent fun as bobbing for apples? We all got wet and laughed a lot.

But on one occasion, one of my sister’s friends (previously mentioned in this blog as the Big Girls) kindly included me in an invitation to a Hallowe’en party. Her wise parents had set up the messy games in their garage. And after the apple-bobbing came a very messy game indeed.

A long rope like a washing line was hung up along the length of the garage. Suspended on string from the rope at intervals were sweet treacle scones, dripping with more treacle. The game was to try to eat a scone with both hands behind your back. Of course our faces got smeared with sticky black treacle!

But I loved treacle scones, so I decided to make some for my friend. I have just taken them out of the oven and had one with my coffee.
Are they as good as I remember? Oh yes!

Todays’ autumn treat

The clocks in the UK all went back an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Now we wake to daylight but plod home in the dark. Driving past homes with lights showing in their windows feels like a return to olden times. Home at this time of year welcomes us like a safe cave. And safe caves should have warm fires at their heart with a pot of something hot and tasty and nourishing on it. This means it’s time for real cooking…

So today’s autumn treat was butternut squash soup. A friend gave me a small butternut squash which reminded me how much I love that soup, so I bought myself a bigger one to add to it and this morning set to.

It is an extremely easy recipe.

Obviously you’ll need at least one butternut squash. Split it in half and scoop out the seeds. Peel it thickly with a knife, and chop it into chunks. Do the same with half the amount of potato. Meanwhile, soften in a little oil an onion (or two if you’re making a huge amount) that you’ve peeled and chopped.

When the onion’s soft, add the squash and potato and stir it round a for a few minutes before adding enough stock to cover. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 25 minutes.

Switch off and let it sit till it’s cool enough to blenderise.

The result is sweet and luscious,velvety smooth and irresistible.

You can make it elegant with garlic croutons (buy a packet!) tossed negligently on a gentle swirl of plain yogurt.

Then devour!

Though maybe after saying grace?

   ” For life and love, for rest and food,

     for daily help and nightly care,

    sing to the Lord, for he is good,

     and praise his name, for it is fair.”

John Samuel Bewley Monsell 1811-75

 

 

Will there be custard in Heaven?

The East Coast of America braces itself for Hurricane Sandy. Businesses in downtown Manhattan have closed, as has public transport, and the Stock Exchange. Even capitalism apparently knows when it’s beat!

Here we’re suffering changeableness. Saturday morning brought a storm of large hailstones. In moments the ground was white.

Then heavy rain followed and the inevitable flooding. But afterwards the sun came out, reminding me of Incy Wincy Spider who when the rain stopped, climbed back up the waterspout. I too braved the day for some fresh air and managed to get home before the next hailstorm descended.

Yesterday was grey. Rainy and overcast and miserable. A day for staying indoors with a good book – normally my idea of Heaven, but strangely I felt cooped up and resentful that I couldn’t get out for a good walk.

Since I had two services on Sunday, I’ve made today my Sabbath – my day off, day of rest. The morning was bright and I took myself off to my favourite seaside town. And it was only as I got near that I remembered today is the first day of half-term. Sure enough the place was heaving with families making the most of this last holiday before winter really sets in.

But I got the last free spot in the car park!

Seizing our opportunities for joy is maybe one of the keys of a happy life. It’s not something I’m very good at but I’ve decided I’m going to work on it. So after my outing, I came home and made myself a proper lunch (funny how hard that gets when you live alone) which included, for the first time this year, a pudding.

Now I don’t do puddings. I’ve never done puddings. I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth. Long ago when I was young, my stand-by puds for dinner parties was an interesting variation on trifle, a hot spiced fruit salad with ice cream, or a platter of good cheese.

Today I threw together a tub of frozen fat blackberries and some chopped-up wizened apples from the fruit bowl in a sauce made from blackcurrant and apple cordial with a splash of cassis I found lingering at the bottom of a bottle in the booze cupboard and bubbled it on the top of the stove till it was syrupy and luscious. And then… now this is the decadent bit! I made some instant custard.

There is something so soothing and comforting and redolent of  childhood/teenage years at home – for me in any case – about that hot yellow slurpy lava-flow of sweetness that enswathes  its pudding partner in such a loving embrace and fills our tastebuds and our tummies with comfort on a plate.

So, yes. For the first time in years, I made custard. Instant custard.

Will there be custard in Heaven?

How could it possibly be Heaven without custard?!!

Dementia Diary 16: Down with guilt

Today, two old friends of my husband’s are visiting him and taking him out to lunch. They’ve done this before and generally have a nice time, so I’m hoping that they will today too.

One of them made a particular point of saying that today was therefore a day off for me. I suppose it is. I arranged to go out to lunch with a girlfriend and we had a nice time. But I admit to being a bit twitchy. My mind kept swinging back, like the needle on a compass, to my husband and his friends, wondering how they were getting on.

There is a big lie that people assume when your loved one goes into residential care. People say things like ‘You can get on with your life now’. They think you’ve acquired a kind of freedom. But you haven’t. Just because you don’t share a home, a table or a bed any more doesn’t sever the relationship, the bond between you. In fact, even when the other party no longer recognises you and the relationship has become completely one-sided, the bond remains.

But there is a change. Distance does not make the heart grow fonder. It often simply makes you worry more – because you no longer have the moment-to-moment information about how your loved one is doing. And visiting time can be extra painful because of the jolts to your heart as changes impact more on you.

And when you’re on your own, as well as the beastly loneliness, there’s the ever-ready-to-pounce guilt! Folk who don’t understand why your loved one is in care, folk who only saw them for half an hour and on a good day at that, may express their disapproval, suggest that what you’ve done is ‘dumped’ them.

Read my lips: you haven’t. And you haven’t stopped caring for them either. A friend of mine who has a lot of experience in the care world, says that it’s the people who really care for their loved ones who place them in residential care – because they want what is best for them.

And that’s what you want.

You haven’t dumped them. You haven’t stopped caring. You’ve accepted that your loved one needs more than you can provide and you have delegated that to people better able to provide it than you. Now your love and care needs to be channelled in a different way. You must decide how frequent your visits should be. Too many visits may be more to salve your conscience than to benefit your loved one – who may be less able to settle into their new environment as a result. (As the very wise manager of a care home said to me, ‘One day you will have to let go.’ Clinging on to the old relationship, simply makes it harder for both of you.)

Oh yes, you’ll struggle with guilt. We all do. And it is a complete and utter waste of time and energy, energy you need for more important things. But guilt is something we’re all good at. Guilt trips lie in wait at every turn. But they are traps.

As I sat with my friend, enjoying our lunch today, I felt the temptation to guilt-trip. Here I was enjoying myself, without my husband. I needed to remind myself that he too would be enjoying himself (I hope!). No need for guilt.

When you’ve done the absolute best that you can do, there simply is no reason to feel guilt. But there lies the trap: we tend to be perfectionists. We want to be the ones who do it all and do it perfectly. But nothing in this life is perfect, and we cannot do everything ourselves. So, today let’s declare a halt to the inner battle with guilt. And each time it raises its ugly face – as it will – stamp on it, fast and hard!

You’re doing your best. I’m doing my best (and even as I write this, my inner voice taunts me: “Are you? Are you really? Surely you could….”)

Down with guilt!

The text: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” Romans 8:1

Prayer: Lead us from the darkness, Lord Jesus, and into Your light. Take away our guilt and self-recrimination. Stop us from beating ourselves us up and give us instead Your reassurance that we are loved and accepted by You. Give us Your peace. Amen.

Self-care suggestion: Try practising today’s key phrases: “I’m doing my best’ and ‘Down with guilt!’ Write them down if you need to. Put them on sticky notes and put them on the mirror. Keep reminding yourself… because it’s true!

 

 

 

You are what you eat?

Yesterday’s ACFW blog on understanding our characters’ needs and weaknesses was very helpful. But being a foodie, I got to wondering (as I pondered what to make for dinner) what my characters would eat?

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m happier as a veggie and can be perfectly happy eating vegan. (I’m thinking I need to order the Happy Herbivore Cookbook from Amazon.) But I think most of my novel’s characters will be old-fashioned Scottish carnivores.

They’d start their meals with thick Scotch broth or potato soup, and follow it with mince and tatties or plain poached fish served with melted butter and potatoes. Just like my mother used to make. She also did wonderful puddings which provided internal hot water bottles for daughters making the trek across town to school after lunch, braving the winter’s gales. Suet puddings, sweet with apples, and ladlefuls of hot custard. (I like mine runny.) Creamy rice puddings with plump raisins and spicy with nutmeg. (And no skin from the top, thank you!)

Enough! My mouth is watering. But what of famous fictional characters?

I see Jane Austen’s ladies (and Georgette Heyer’s) picking daintily at crisp toast for breakfast, and thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches in the afternoon. No doubt, the only way to keep those wasp waists!

My current fave detective is Philip Dryden in Jim Kelly‘s Ely series. Dryden is a journalist and eats… irregularly, is the only word. His coat appears to have gamekeeper’s (or poacher’s) pockets as they serve as his larder – storing sausage rolls, mushrooms, and a variety of other delicacies to be washed down with the miniatures of spirits kept in the glove compartment of Humph’s taxi.

I’m a fan of Donna Leon‘s Commissario Guido Brunetti but the descriptions of the amazing food distracts me so much I’m not surprised there’s now a Brunetti’s Cookbook!

Human beings have to eat, but do our fictional characters? And can we use their food habits and preferences as a way of providing more information – showing rather than telling?

For example, what if Sherlock Holmes had a passion for marshmallows? Dracula a hidden desire for lemon meringue pie?

Or is Holmes more a steak and kidney pie man? And Dracula….bortsch?

 

Diving-in time!

NaNoWriMo sounds like a great idea if you’ve been lurking on the launchpad but not diving into getting that book written. Unfortunately it won’t work for me. My Work in Progress is very much in progress with around 35,000 words already written so I am disqualified from having a go at NaNoWriMo this year. Maybe next year!

This year I have to get the tangles untangled before I have to stop to honour my contract for a non-fiction book, due to be delivered end-December. But the tangles have been annoying me. I felt I had written myself to a dead stop.

Which meant I had forced my characters to behave out of character.

Which meant I didn’t know them well enough.

So I’ve spent some time chewing over who I’d got wrong. And it’s Granny Leslie. Maryanne. She’s a bitter old besom, as they say where I come from. But why?

The answer came in church on Sunday. Something in the sermon leapt out and I was grubbing in my handbag for that notebook you always carry with you (yes?). And the note was made: ‘a baby with someone other than his wife’. Mmm, maybe a bit edgy for a Christian-market novel. But I note that CBA novels have become less sweetie-sweet and much more ‘real’. So I needed to test that thought.

And as I spent some time with Maryanne, I fathomed out her story. The reasons for her bitterness. Most of all exactly why she was so outraged when her daughter chose for her husband… the son of the man who had slighted her! Ah yes, it’s all beginning to come together again.

But first, back to the drawing board – which for me is the timeline: adding the two new names, Maryanne’s ex-fiance and the girl who stole him from her. Seeing who was where when at every stage of the story. And it all makes sense.

I have an upstairs study with a wall of bookshelves, my internet-connected laptop, printer, copier, stationery cupboard etc. Here I write this blog, work on my Sunday services, make phone calls… But I’ve taken over the dining-room for the novel. The table is strewn with paper as I work on my timelines, handwrite character studies, check out books for necessary facts.

And there at the moment the other laptop lurks. Untouched for a while.

But soon and very soon, I’m going to have to take the plunge – despite no NaNoWriMo to incite me!

Say it with me

Tuesday is one of my busiest days.

Off up the road in the mist, headlights and fog-lights on again, for my weekly weigh-in, moan about the results and coffee with friends. There’s always lots of laughter and good fellowship so I keep going, despite the weight not budging in the right direction yet again!

Home for a baked potato filled with Quorn chilli and topped with shredded lettuce, followed by a soya yogurt – very creamy and yummy. Then out again, a 25-minute drive through stunning autumn scenery for the next part of an excellent study on prayer.

Today we looked at formal prayer and collects.

One of the things we discovered is how few folk nowadays seem to know the Lord’s Prayer. We talked about when we learnt it – answers varying from at our mother’s knee to at school.

It’s the earliest prayer I remember ever saying for myself. I was a timid child and scared of the dark. I remember how comforted I used to feel saying this prayer every night:

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil,

for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

for ever and ever,

amen.

 

I’m sure I was like most youngsters in adding on ‘And please bless Daddy and Mummy and my sisters and…’

So today, I’m going to finish off by saying ‘And please bless everyone who reads this post and everyone that they love and especially anyone they are worried about at the moment.’ Amen!

Season of mists

‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ (John Keats: Ode to Autumn)

Well, we’ve certainly got it misty in this part of England. I’d the headlights and the foglights on as I drove up to the next town for my six-month dental check.

I’m very fussy about dentists. I don’t do unnecessary pain. I also don’t like unnecessary fillings, extractions, or generally unpleasant procedures. This means that a gentle-handed dentist with a low-intervention/prevention is better than intervention approach is worth his weight in gold to me. And I am greatly blessed to have found one such paragon. As a result I do not mind hauling myself along misty country roads with the headlights and foglights blazing at some unearthly hour in the morning (which means any time before midday) to keep my appointment.

His mild-voiced ‘Everything seems to be fine’ is akin to the ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ that I most covet on the eternal plane. These words have several things in common:

a) I feel I don’t deserve it (Anyone remember the brilliant Pam Ayres‘ poem I wish I’d looked after me teeth’?)

b) I always fear the worst (fillings!)

and c) I’m always surprised to be sent away with a blessing instead.

I paid up, chatted with the nice receptionist, and got out my diary to make the next appointment.

April!

Way into next year!

When it will be spring,and sunshiny, and there will be daffodils and Easter eggs and short sleeves and…

When I got outside, it was still grey and misty and autumn, but my diary has a date for spring, and I am reminded that round the next corner something lovely waits.

Sometimes it takes us a while to get there. But get there we will!

Before winter comes

 

Grey autumn Sunday afternoon.

The sky a heavy blanket of wet grey wool.

Trees shedding their leaves in damp heaps of gold and red.

Aladdin’s cave or dragon’s hoard,

Gold coins littering the streets, unrecognised.

‘Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.’

So short a season.

So utterly transformative.

Soon the trees will be stick-like skeletons against a white sky.

Winter.

And the world turns into another year.

Is there time left to do something wonderful before the year’s end?

What would be the bold, brave, amazing showering of autumn’s beauty through our gifts?

How long does it take to write a poem?

Say ‘I love you’?

Seize the day.

Before the winter comes.

For all things must end.

Seize the day.

Dementia Diary 15: The falling leaves

Suddenly the leaves have started changing colour.

Some of the trees blaze gold even on a grey rainy day like today. A display of wanton abandonment, a last-ditch bravado performance before the leaves drop and winter takes chilly hold.

The brightness of the colour depends, according to the scientists, upon the extra sugars developed during the summer.

Today I found myself searching the care home for my husband’s mobile phone. ‘That thing I keep” (he gestures to his back pocket) “and” (holds a hand up to his ear). He is losing words at a rapid rate this month.

I mention to the young, very on-the-ball staff member and she says she’s noticed it too. She says she’ll talk to the senior carer and the manager about it. Maybe he needs more help that this home can provide.

Searching for the mobile, we find it in the conservatory where he had plugged it in to charge it and forgotten about it. The conservatory is filling with elderly ladies, many in wheelchairs, waiting to be wheeled in to lunch. We are going out.

I greet them. Some smile. Some don’t.

And I see that the autumn of life does not necessarily bring sweetness. (Oh how I hope I’ll be a sweet old lady when my turn comes, so that the strangers looking after me will be kind to me.)

And my heart breaks again as I help my husband into the car and we head for the restaurant. How I long to be able to ensure he has a glorious autumn – except winter’s chilly fingers are already on my heart, and I think it may be too late. Have I done enough? Have we had enough good outings, happy lunches, nice times while he was able to enjoy them?

He enjoys his garlic bread. It really is excellent. We follow it with pasta, with spinach and bacon and gorgonzola – a strong enough flavour for him to taste. Then I notice on the sweet menu the chocolate, cherry and amaretto slice – a favourite. So we have one between two with a generous scoop of ice cream. Very yummy.

This is what I can do.

It seems so very little.

And almost too late.

The text: “Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” Psalm 23: 4

The prayer: There are very many of us going through this, loving Lord. Hold us securely in Your loving embrace. Surround us with Your care and compassion. Lighten our darkness…

Self-care suggestion: What I needed was a hug, a shoulder to cry on. If that’s what you need, don’t be too proud to ask – and use it! If, like me, you live alone, then you’ll need to take your pain to the Lord Jesus and let Him take it away and comfort you. He will.