Hope and expectation

It seems only days ago that I was watching the House of Lords in the wee, small hours. Yes, I watched as they debated ‘Bojo’s prorogation’. And, for some reason, it was imperative that I watched the debate through the night. 

It seems only days ago that John Bercow was shouting ‘Order’ only to shout it no more when parliament folded ahead of campaigning for today’s polling in the General Election. It seems an even shorter length of time when Anna Soubry, Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna defected to the Independent Group for Change. 

We’ve had so many votes and calls for ‘clear the lobbies’ in the House of Commons over Brexit it seems there has been no time for parliament to discuss anything else. When the results are in tomorrow some MPs will have lost their seats, even Bojo only has a 5000 majority. New MPs will take up their places as backbenchers and others will be returned to the House.

Parliament will sit on Monday but surely it’ll soon be time for their Christmas recess. I wonder how many days MPs have sat in the debating chamber since Bojo was made PM. It seems very few. And the Irish parliament has hardly sat at all in three years. As the rest of the UK seems to be working round the clock some MPs seem to have had more time outside the House than in it. Not necessarily through choice.

And after all the hype and visits to Europe who remembers what Theresa May did or stood for? Will she regain her seat? And will she be remembered? 

It has been the strangest few years in politics that I can ever remember and I guess one sign that we have ‘weakened’ political parties is that no single party has had a strong majority in the house for over nine years. Another sign that there is turbulence or a lack of faith in our current leaders is, I believe, the fact we’ve had so many general elections in the last few years. It’s a case of choose the least worst leader rather than positively vote for who you feel will do the best job possible.

The country isn’t just divided by left or right politics, nor just north or south, black or white or pro- or anti-Brexit. We are divided in how we treat our poor. 

Last Christmas I couldn’t help quoting the old miser Scrooge from Dickens’  ‘A Christmas Carol’

‘If they would rather die than go to the workhouse, they had better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population.’

That was published in 1843. Some of the harshness of how the poor were treated then was echoed in 1847 in Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’. Today shocking headlines report a similar treatment of those in need.

‘More than 17,000 sick and disabled people have died while waiting for welfare benefits, figures show’

( The Independent, January 2019)

In the world’s fifth richest nation money spent arguing about Brexit and on high court or supreme court judgements over Bojo’s decisions since becoming PM could have saved some of those lives.

Tonight I will be watching the tv again into the small hours. Results from the general election will be pouring in. With fingers crossed I too will hope for the least worst outcome: a hung parliament. Above all our welfare state and NHS must be ‘reimbursed’ and protected from future cuts. People in Britain must be able to expect better. 

Yesterday, in the space of an hour I was unable to get cash out from an ATM-it was empty, unable to get medications from our pharmacy-they had run out and I had to wait over half an hour in a long queue in our sole remaining local post office (as so many others have been shut). If I was almost destitute or ill I couldn’t have gone on for long without cash in my hand nor medicines in my bathroom cabinet.

When I can get into town I will donate to the Trussell Trust. I have missed the Christmas deadline but no-one will say no to tinned steak, chocolate, wholesome soups and sticky toffee puddings, will they? That’s almost as good as turkey and Christmas pud, isn’t it? 

I do hope my efforts benefit someone in need and I wish Britain would return to being a caring nation. This time tomorrow we will know. And it’ll seem light years since all the electioneering, pamphletting and risen expectations were daily occurrences. My fingers are crossed for a better Britain. No-one should be born into poverty in a modern UK. Jesus Christ was born in a cattle shed. Surely we’ve become more caring about the have-nots in the last 2000 years? We should not have to hope. We should be able to expect better as we leave 2019 behind.

If...

If all goes well tomorrow

the 1960s home of my childhood will no longer be part of our family. It will have new owners.

It is five and a half years since my 89-year-old mother came to us for the Easter holidays. She never went back to her house - my childhood home. 

Easter Sunday 2014 was the beginning of a new journey for our family. Mum had rarely been ill and on Good Friday she took her usual sprightly self off into Bath and enjoyed tea in the Pump Room. But on Easter Sunday morning she said she felt a little unwell. I was listening to The Archers and at 11:15 that morning I heard her groan as she came upstairs. Nothing unusual there. Her 89-year-old bones occasionally made her moan as she reached the top of any staircase. A few minutes later I went to check she was feeling ok. I found her crumpled on the sofa bed.

Mum had flopped on to one side, her eyes were flickering and she couldn’t raise her left arm. When I questioned her she did speak - 

in a monotone gutteral - 

‘I’m not feeling very well.’ 

‘Not very well’ was a massive understatement. However she made sense and understood what I was saying to her.

I called 111 who put me straight through to 999. The ambulance arrived within minutes and they confirmed what I’d already been told. Mum had had a stroke. 

The extra difficulty that day was the treatment to halt the worst of the stroke. Thrombylosis was performed on mum within the recommended time but it had to be reversed as her face swelled and she couldn’t breathe. It had given her an anaphylactic shock. By the time we got into the acute stroke unit we were greeted with

‘You’ve had a very rough ride.’

We knew no different. We hadn’t ever been in A&E before. Mum’s stroke alone was bad enough. We hadn’t appreciated how difficult the anaphylactic shock had been for her and the emergency team. After the drama the consultant brusquely said mum was unlikely to live. She’d had a very deep stroke. I had never felt so upset.

Next day another consultant said they would attach a drip as mum was speaking and was awake. In other words they weren’t just going to let her be... the route to a slow death. Things began to look a little brighter. 

In what felt like a very long time from that day on she was able to sit up and drink tea and eat small meals, after many months of a liquid-only diet.

Meanwhile spring 2014 turned to summer. Mum’s garden flowered and grew. Summer turned to autumn and we had to manage mum’s property and get power of attorney. With luck my brother is our family solicitor. My elderly aunts cut mum’s lawns and trimmed the hedges and we weeded, cut back shrubs and roses and spread bark on her flower beds. 

By Christmas 2014 mum had been transferred to a medical nursing home near my brother’s house. He and I had shared mum’s nursing needs by getting in carers during the day: 3 months at my brother’s house and three months at our house in Bath. Mum was no longer a guest but a patient who had carers all morning and most of the evening too. But after months on her back - she wouldn’t use a hoist nor a wheelchair - mum’s bedsore was not improving and she needed turning in the night.  A fulltime nursing home was the only option.

Christmas 2014 - five years ago as I write - saw me clearing her house of valuables and glassware, silverware and china. I believed the builders were coming in. I hastily bedecked her room in the nursing home with Christmas decorations but, back at her house, in her sitting room on Christmas Eve I felt a new sadness. For so many years I’d gone home on December 24th to see mum heating mince pies and hanging up her Christmas cards while listening to ‘Carols from Kings’. 

This time there was a pile of adverts dropped in her letter box. No Christmas tree. We had ordered a new kitchen and bathroom for the house. (My brother and I thought we could rent it out. His firm of solicitors are also estate agents and they deal with rental properties too.) Instead of cards and a mini Christmas tree her sitting room was full of new kitchen units and bath panels. The builder was ready! But we weren’t going to enjoy another Christmas there ever again.

Then the real fun started. Our family builder couldn’t proceed to improve the house as there was a crack in the kitchen wall and above the bathroom. After months of wrangling my brother got a surveyor to inspect the property. He recommended that the council remove trees on the field next to mum’s house - the roots were causing mild subsidence to the foundations and a new kitchen and bathroom had to be put on hold.

It took two years for the council to do anything about the trees. 

By December 2016, however, as mum’s house was going through repairs her deep stroke worsened and she had a series of mini attacks. Her funeral was on December 2nd. She’d felt no pain. 

A further year after the trees were finally removed time alone allowed the soil to settle around mum’s house. And suddenly we were in 2018. My elderly aunts were no longer doing mum’s garden and had engaged a professional gardener.

By early 2019 the cracks in the house had been repaired and the surveyor said it was in a fit condition for renting out. The property had a certificate to that effect. The new kitchen and bathroom went in and by Easter this year, five years since mum had her massive stroke, the hallway, landing and stairwell, kitchen and bathroom had all been revamped and decorated. But my brother, exhausted by the five years of negotiations, decided to sell mum’s house rather than rent it out. And I agreed.

Owing to a slipped disc in 2018 I hadn’t been there since 2017. By Easter of this year I dreaded seeing cobwebs, messy carpeting, an overgrown garden and general gloom.

But, no. Last March Richard, a family friend and I went home and prepared the house for putting it on the market. The day we arrived my brother had arranged for an auctioneer to clear mum’s house. I feared the worst. I expected to see poor wallpaperings and stained carpets left behind after the clearance.

On the evening we arrived I was remarkably relieved. Yes the back garden was overgrown, in parts. But inside, thanks to my family doing weekly cleans and checking the heating was working, the house was fresh and warm.

We spent six days redecorating. Walls, ceilings, skirting boards, doors, door frames and the staircase were given a few coats of white emulsion and Farrow and Ball eggshell.

Yes it was hard work. But I didn’t get a sinking feeling as I saw mum’s house for the last time. It didn’t look dreadful with no furniture and it made it much easier to wield a paintbrush and roller without having to move tables, sofas, heavy bookcases and the like. 

When we closed the front door on mum’s house for the last time Richard’s arms were in shreds from a vile bramble which he’d tugged at and removed. I’d opened up mum’s rose garden and made her pride and joy as tidy as I could. We had been working in her garden on one of those hot days we’d had during this year’s heatwave. 

Finally the house went on the market in August and sold within a week to a lovely woman who had been mum’s hairdresser for twelve years. We all felt happy with the outcome. 

However it has taken until today, December 5th, for the exchange of contracts. Tomorrow we should complete. Tomorrow mum’s house will have new owners. 

It has been a long journey from Easter 2014 until now, Christmas 2019. And it’s the end of my childhood home. But rather than being sad to say goodbye to the old house I am mightily relieved it will be going to new, kindly people. Five years and eight months after mum left home to visit us in Bath someone else will be boiling the kettle in the kitchen. 

More scrumptious eating for autumn

The tale of the orange squash: that is the orange flesh of a squash (or gourd) not the watered down fruity drink.

Although the outer skin was as tough as a leather rugby ball and the colour of khaki the inside was a fantastic tangerine and the squash made a superb soup. An unprepossessing outer shell hid a lovely rich flesh.

The soup recipe I chose to use with the squash was

Squash, carrot and ginger soup 

• Approximately 1.5kg/3lb 6 oz peeled and deseeded squash 3cm/1 in cubes 
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 2 medium carrots - chopped
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into cubes
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp clear honey (optional)
• 5cm/2in piece fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1.5 litres/2½ pints vegetable stock
•  freshly ground black pepper

The squash I was given yielded a little over 1.5 kg. You can either adjust the rest of the ingredients to suit or just enjoy a thicker soup. I don’t use honey or salt, by choice. If you read my previous post you’ll realise that cutting into the flesh of a squash is tough indeed. However place it in the bottom of an oven while cooking something else - for an hour - and the flesh yields to a sharp knife more easily. When the squash has been de-seeded  cut the flesh into chunks or 1 inch cubes.

Have a large re-useable plastic bag ready for tossing the vegetables in the olive oil. The method is very straightforward: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.
2. Tip the prepared, cubed squash into a large, resealable freezer bag with the onion, carrots and red pepper. Add half the oil and pepper and toss everything together until the vegetables are evenly coated. Tip into a large roasting tin and spread out to form a single layer.
3. Roast in the oven for 40–45 minutes, or until tender and tinged brown. Drizzle over the honey, if using, 5 minutes before the end of cooking.
4. Place a large, deep-sided saucepan over a medium heat, add the remaining oil and, when it is hot, add the ginger and fry it for a minute. Pour in the stock and bring the whole to the boil. Remove the vegetables from the roasting tin then stir them into ginger and stock mix and add pepper for seasoning. Bring the whole to the boil, simmer gently for a few minutes. 
5. Remove the saucepan from the heat and, using a food processor blend the mixture until smooth. Return to the heat to warm through and serve ( or cool down and freeze).

The carrots, pepper and orange flesh make this soup look bright, warm and nourishing. The added ginger gives it an extra zest. 

Enjoy! 

Healthy and scrumptious eating for autumn

This time last year I had let up on my healthy eating regime, and, of course, I put on weight. Not immediately. I was still exercising: walking, swimming, running on the spot and doing steps up. But I relented a little on my hitherto strict carbohydrate intake. The introduction of one potato, for instance, or a slice of bread, a biscuit or three or, of course, cake, put on the pounds.

In order to up my calorie intake for winter - we need it as temperatures drop - without growing to look like a pumpkin I have found a use for spicy squash, mustard and other ‘hot’ ingredients.

A good friend of ours brought two squashes to us. She had grown them on her allotment. One was flat and light in colour and weight. The other was as tough as a leather football. 

That weekend I was baking biscuits for a craft fair and, as the oven was on, I placed the smaller squash at the bottom of the oven. After an hour of biscuit-baking I removed the squash too. Because its thick outer skin was now much softer I could get a knife into it easily. I removed the skin, sliced the flesh into wedges and removed the seeds.

I chopped the flesh roughly, parboiled it and put it in the fridge, covered until I was ready to make it into soup. The flesh was pale but, mixed with carrots, it was looking like a healthy, free, filling lunch. 

The quantities of ingredients I used are for six servings but if you only want to make a small batch my suggestions for cooking-for-three are shown in brackets. I don’t add salt, out of choice.

Squash and carrot soup: 

FOR 6 (3)

2 onions chopped (1)

1tbsp olive oil

1 squash, peeled and diced

4 carrots, peeled and sliced (2)

2 sprigs fresh thyme or basil leaves only (1)

Salt ( if desired) and black pepper

1.5 litres hot vegetable stock (750 ml)

Parsley for garnishing

Crème fraiche for garnishing

The method is a standard soup-making affair. I use a large double-handled, non-stick, iron-bottomed casserole which acts as a deep frying pan or wide saucepan. And I make soup on the induction hob:

In a large flame-proof pan fry the onion, over a medium heat, in oil, until soft. Add the roughly-diced squash and sliced carrots and stir. Cook them for a further 5 minutes, watching that the onions don’t get too brown and overcooked. Add the herbs and season well with freshly-ground black pepper. Pour over the stock and bring the whole to the boil. 

When the soup is bubbling away turn the heat to low. Allow it to simmer gently for 30 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked through and soft.

If you are using it straight away pour the contents into a food processor, blend for 30 seconds until smooth, garnish with creme fraiche or thick Greek Fage yogurt and parsley.

If you don’t want to eat it immediately allow the soup to cool, blend it in the food processor and pour it into a sealed container for chilling in the fridge or freezing.

                                   *

Next time I will write about a richer recipe for a lovely soup made from squash with orange flesh. It tastes superb with a little added ginger.

We’ll get through autumn in style! 

Boeuf for a winter’s night

Boeuf Bourgignon

While my husband has been unwell I’ve shared the cooking. Once he’s got started his ideas come flooding back and he’s good to go but, some evenings, his post-surgery anxiety prevents him from taking the initial steps.

At our local French restaurant, owned and run by French chef Christophe, I enjoyed a superb boeuf bourgignon. I had made it myself the week before but my sauce was less rich than Christophe’s. On the day of our visit our hyperactive chef was up a ladder repainting the exterior to his eaterie. At any moment I expected him to strip off his overalls, wash his hands, tie on his wrap-around apron and start cooking but on this day he stuck to one thing. Decorating!

When we left I asked him how he got such a rich sauce for his boeuf bougignon. My recipe was a ‘Delia’ and was part-cooked with white wine ( that was a mistake - red wine is a must). After a lot of joshing from Christophe about using a Gordon Ramsay recipe he said the secret to a good boeuf bourgignon was in separately cooking each of the ingredients and laying them to one side until your dish was ready for the oven. And then there was the special, secret ingredient.

‘What’s that, Christophe?’

‘It’s a trade secret.’

However, undaunted, I took to my cookbooks and discovered The Hairy Bikers wrote a recipe very in keeping with the Frenchman’s preferred method: each part of the dish treated separately. The net result was a truly rich,thick sauce and melting meat. It took approximately 2 hours 5 mins as I used ingredients for two people - cut down from a recipe for six.

Stage 1

9 oz good-quality braising steak (diced)

2-4 tbsp olive oil

freshly ground  ground black pepper

31/2 oz lardons ( or diced bacon) 

1/2 onion (finely chopped) and 1 clove garlic ( crushed or finely chopped)

38 cl red wine

1 tbsp tomato puree ( a generous spoonful)

1 beef stock cube

1-2 bay leaves

leaves from a sprig of thyme

1. In a large saucepan heat 2 tbsp olive oil, season the steak with ground black pepper, take a third of the meat and brown the steak evenly over a medium heat. Lay to one side. When the steak is browned all over transfer it to a flame-proof casserole dish.
2. Pour a little more oil into the pan in which the beef was browned and fry the bacon for 2-3 minutes until it is crispy and beginning to brown. Scatter the bacon over the meat. Add a touch more oil to the frying pan and fry the chopped onion over a low heat for 5-6 minutes, stirring often until softened. Stir the garlic into the pan and cook for one minute more. Turn the oven on to 170 degC, 150 fan or gas mark 3.
3. Add the cooked onion and garlic to the pan with the meat and pour over the wine. Stir in the tomato purée and 150ml/5fl oz water. Sprinkle the stock cube into a little water, allow it to dissolve, pour over the meat, add the herbs and stir. Place the casserole on a ring, bring it to boiling point and quickly allow it to simmer for a moment. Stir well, cover with a lid and transfer it to the oven. Cook for 1 hour 20 mins, or until the beef is almost completely tender. This stage can take 13/4 hours if you are cooking for six.

Stage 2

1oz butter. 

12 silverskin onions 

5 oz button chestnut mushrooms, wiped, peeled and halved or quartered (5 oz).               

2 heaped tbsp cornflour

2 tbsp cold water

freshly chopped parsley, to garnish

1. While the beef is cooking, wash and peel the mushrooms and halve or quarter them.
2. A few minutes before the beef is ready, ie by the time it’s tender, melt half of the butter in a large non-stick frying pan with a touch of oil and fry the onions over a medium heat for about five minutes, or until golden-brown on all sides. Tip into a bowl. Add the remaining butter and mushrooms to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes over a fairly high heat until golden-brown, turning often. 
3. Mix the 2 tbsp cornflour with the 2 tbsp water in a small bowl until smooth. Don’t halve the flour ingredients if only cooking for two. It’s best to keep 2 tbsps flour & water to keep the sauce thick and rich.
4. When the meat is tender remove the casserole from the oven and stir in the cornflour mixture, followed by the onions and mushrooms. Return to the oven and cook for 45 minutes more, or until the beef is melting and the sauce is rich, tasty & thick. 

Enjoy!

A superb sample of French cuisine in your own kitchen.

And the trick is to use red wine and keep the sauce thick and rich. I still don’t know what Christophe’s secret ingredient is but this version from The Hairy Bikers was almost as good.

Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Nexus Methodist Church in Bath

has a smaller institution in Eastbourne Avenue, Fairfield Park, BA1 6EN.

When three of us rescued the Larkhall Art Trail event this time last year the Nexus church was keen to get on board and act as a hub for artists’ work.

The Claremont Community Centre, no longer Claremont Nexus Church, had been a space for play groups and a prayer room and other events but less so an art gallery.

Now it’s hosting a year-round art event. David Ringsell had his own show up until mid-October. From now until January more artists’ work is on show: Ruth Davies, Joanna Cacanas, Pam Jones, Niall Briggs ( the curator and Nexus pioneer worker), Dominique Coiffaitt, David Ringsell, Liz Carson and my husband - Richard Olver.

We had a private view two Fridays ago and the cafe has been open since. This Saturday a group of us are selling pre-Christmas goodies at an early Christmas craft fair. That’s on November 9th from 10:30 am to 4 pm. 

I do hope the Claremont Centre takes off as a community hub. I sense more volunteers are needed to operate the tills and serve lunches say on Tuesdays, Fridays and every Saturday rather than just on an occasional basis. It’s such a good light, bright location and Niall is impressive with his hands-on, can-do approach. 

But if we want a community space to serve our community we have to serve it, otherwise I fear it won’t survive. Our local is threatened with being knocked down to make way for new builds. Now is the time to foster local amenities. 

As they say ‘once they’re gone, they’re gone’ 

Apologies for the pause in my blogs

Psychosis and post-surgery trauma

When my husband first showed signs of post-surgery trauma he sat bolt upright in bed for three nights and had to ‘sleep’ in the guest room. Not only had he had the shock of being told to use a catheter on himself - something he wasn’t expecting and which hadn’t been discussed pre-surgery - he was also not told he had no cancer cells lurking in the prostate. (That was why he’d been in surgery in the first place. A fifteen minute investigation to be 100% there was no prostate cancer. )He had been assured surgeons would be able to tell if the area was clear of cancer during the procedure. Not to be told that meant Richard had the triple anxiety of 

a) recovering from anaesthetic

b) having to shove a catheter up his willy

c) not knowing if there was any prostate cancer 

On the third day after being wide awake ( ie in a state of shock) he dialled 111 and had an appointment at Outpatients. The medieval-looking catheter ( to be used straight after surgery until he could self-dilate ie put a catheter up his willy by himself) was leaking and the fourth stage of Richard’s trauma came about at midnight on the Sunday night

d) the post-surgery catheter was wrenched out from his penis without depressing the balloon first ( which should have been done) and without anaesthetic - he hit the roof in pain.

I will, of course, be filing a complaint about that dreadful weekend in late July. However worse was to come:

In August, after weeks of being told by three GPs that he had a hernia, Richard had to ring round three hospitals to see which one would operate on it. For the weeks of mid-August to mid-September Richard was frightened to move or lift anything. That gave me a trapped nerve in my neck as I was having to do things which irritated my sciatica.

August bank holiday was dreadful for both of us. In mid-September Richard was very stressed about another surgical procedure but went to see a consultant in a neighbouring town. He did perform ops on hernias - unlike surgeons at our hospital in Bath - but the kindly consultant examined Richard and quickly told him he had no hernia at all. That should have come as a relief but it left an anxious Richard in a state of bewilderment.

By September the medical dramas, pain, uncertainty, concerns about his bladder ie using a catheter on himself, overloaded his over-taxed brain. On the weekend of 20th September he had a psychotic episode. Thank goodness we were due to see his GP first thing that Monday morning. Richard was talking nonsense and his GP referred him to our local mental health team immediately. They came out to see him two days later and have been in touch every few days since.

I have looked into post-surgery trauma and it is more common than one would imagine. It is, of course, especially prevalent in cancer patients. But the sadness in Richard’s case is that he neither has cancer nor a hernia but believed, through the worst ravages of the psychosis, that he was dying.

His body is in a good state but his shattered mind is only now being rebuilt. And for a 15 minute procedure the cost to his mental health has been far too great.