The brand before the brain

On Friday, son (3) came home from playgroup saying Ben 10 was "coolio" and he wanted Ben 10 for Christmas. He has never seen Ben 10, and only glancingly seen some adverts that haven't been whipped away quick enough after Humpf or something equally innocuous has finished. "I think you'll like something else better" I said. "Maybe a 2 wheeler scooter?" "YEAH! The sparks one!" What sparks one? Oh, that sparks one. How long does it take a brand to be recognised by a 3 year old? About 20 seconds, apparently. And i'm a mean mummy TV policer. I don't buy branded clothing for myself, I don't buy branded food, I am mean all round. So it has intrigued me that, since starting playgroup, son has become brand aware.

How? Kids go into playgroup with branded lunchboxes, Timmy, Thomas, Roary, Ben 10. They wear branded t-shirts,(all the above plus Disney). The girls sport hideous, hideous, pink Disney Princess outfits. (Take note daughter: this will not be you. Thankfully, she has already shorn the hair and disfigured the Snow White doll, so there's hope). A lot of marketing goes on directly targeted at kids. Read this article to recognise the full horror. Research shows that young pre-schoolers cannot tell the difference between adverts and reality, and are especially open to brand suggestion. So, short of no tv at all, what can you do? I believe that, as we are in a media world, kids need to learn how to manage their tv and PC viewing and learn what is real, what is selling, and what is entertainment. I can cope with "pester power", but I don't want my kids branded. I don't want them to be able to recognise brands even I don't. But already, a quick recce of my kids rooms and the house, apart from the toys, shows a brand awareness. When shopping, the kids clamour for the cereal with the charcaters on. Daughter wanted the Princess pants for her first set of pants. She's never seen a Disney Princess movie, but her older friend has. When teaching, I saw young girls with playboy pencil cases. Toddlers wear Tommy Hilfinger tops. It's everywhere, and it's damaging, I think. This may well be our last "brand free" year or two in our house.

What can you do? I'd like suggestions. Here's what I do so far.

• I buy second hand, brand free kids clothes.


• I don't wear brands myself


• I buy generic food, and grow my own. "Finest" is just a fine package.


• I explain the cost of something, and that the drawing and branding just mean it's "more pennies".


• I explain that brands are "all the same" and that YOU are different, individual, wouldn't you rather be you? So we decorate our lunchboxes etc.


• I say people like individual gifts, not "everyone" gifts. Let's make our own.


• I encourage individuality in clothing. As an ex indie chick, I love it! It means that son has gone out wearing his superhero cape, wellies, and long johns, but hey! Daughter loves leggings and legwarmers and nighties.


• We thrift. We make an outfit. I show how you can get more for your pennies.

But they are 2 and 3. When they are 6 and 7, it will be harder. This year, their stocking fillers are all ebay second handers. When they are older, will this still be possible? It worries me. My kids are MY kids, but also their own people. I want them to have a strong sense of what a brand is, and why they don't need them, before they reach school, so that they are more able to withstand the peer pressure and must-haves. ( At some point I will blog on just how worried I am about "Free schools" and the possibility for branding there. In the USA, schools are affiliated to Pepsi, or Coke. Really.) Of course, it has ever been thus, but back when I was a nipper, my yearnings were for slip on shoes and pedal pushers in maroon burgundy, not fly trainers and Ipods. Girls wore orange, red and the aforementiond burgundy, not just pink. Lego was for both sexes. Things are different now. The ELC does everything in blue and pink. Brands are everywhere. Kids of 8 have Facebooks pages, and can see all the ads. Of course parents have a responsibility, but even the meanest parent (me: no tv apart from 1.5 policed hours, no PC apart from the ever excellent Boowa and Kwala, and that is in the lounge, and will be for EVERMORE. You hear me, one day teen kids? It's never going to happen, that PC and TV in your room!) Navigating this branded world is so confusing for a toddler preschooler. How can we ensure that we teach that branded is not best? Please do comment.

Reading:

Eric Schlosser: "Fast Food Nation"

Naomi Klein: "No Logo"

website:

Pink stinks

Thyroid disease: the silent majority.

Because I am a woman with thyroid disease, I am not necessarily crazy. Because I am a woman with thryoid disease, I am still capable of holding a job, or staying at home, without being driven crazy. Because I am a woman with thyroid disease, I am not necessarily over or under eating. I am normal, I am just ILL DAMN YOU. Look, the woman on the right is happy, because back then, you just got a pig thyroid and it worked.

Yes, it's a visit to those crazy endocrinologists. Hey, how about this, you endo guys. (They say, in their big swanky offices). Why don't we, just for a laugh, get ourselves put in charge of an almost wholly female disease, and be mostly male ourselves. Then let's hone our patronising gland till it is as big as an airship. Then, after our patients, driven to us by misery, aftera torturous referral "service", turn up, let's discount everything they read, know, and feel, in favour of a sodding blood test. And oh, let's make the test we pick the most useless, generally unhappy making one. And when they visit, we can point to the test and say "We know best. We are men, we have never had this disease, but we went to medical school. We recieve visits from drug companies that give us golfing weekends, and this dictates our drug preference. We will not allow any other drug, because then people might start thinking we are soft. We are the endocrinologists, men who really don't like women that much".

How long did it take to get diagnosed? 10 years. How ill was I to get taken seriously? Nearly dead. How ill am I now? I am ok, but I have niggles that are not taken care of by my one and only choice of prescriptive drug. I thought i'd see if I could have another. Bad idea. Your (healthy) thyroid gives out hormones called T1, 2, 3, and 4. When your thyroid has gone kaput, you get given replacement hormone. But only 1, T4. The others can go hang. According to the British Thyroid Association (men), this is just dandy and fine. (So what were the other 3 horones for then, exactly? Window dressing? A trick of biology?). So, here I am facing a life with only 1 hormone out of 4 replaced on a daily basis until I DIE. You know, it doesn't work for me. I don't absorb it. I'm on a MEGA dose. And yes, dumb endo, I do take the tablets "properly" (did he think I didn't know how to take them? Gave them to the cat instead?) I still have thyroid symptoms. But, the designated test shows i'm hyper, not hypo, according to the dumbfuck endo. My TSH is 0.02, my T4 is 16. It took me years on a mega dose to reach a T4 that good. Good is 18-24. So, I say, "I've been hyper. I was skinny, eating for England, panicky, not sleeping, pooing 7 times a day and manic. Now, i'm not eating, gaining, backed up, my hair is falling out, i'm practically dead in the water, i'm NOT hyper." I point this out. Endo says, I quote "But you wouldn't know if you were hyper". I say "I would, I just told you". "But he moved on. "Having a surpressed TSH will kill your heart" "Only if I have symptoms, I don't". "It will ruin your bones" "Research says not" "Have you been reading on the internet?" "Well, yes. I have a lifelong condition that i'd like to know about. I'm not an idiot. I can read abstracts and articles from Medline as well as you do (or don't). I know there are alternatives. I know I can have a dessicated thyroid as treatment instead of T4 only. It will give me T1,2, 3 and 4, and might just make me able to function again. How about it?" "Well, it's unstable". "Well, my generic T4 is unstable. You just told me I could have a named brand on prescription, because some generics are unstable. What's the difference?" (silence). Result, a reduced dose, no hope of a new medication, and an anger that makes me boil. My last chance is my GP who may, just may, agree to do a "named person" prescription for the terrible substance that is not golf-weekend giving pharmaceutical thyroxine but natural. What are the chances of that happening? Nil. Excuse me while I venture out into the online world of prescription free pharmacies. I am 38. I am not prepared to stick with one medication, that does not work, for the rest of my life because the NHS says so. Think of any other illness that has no choice of treatment.Find me just one.

Why does this happen? Because 99.9 % of people affected by thryoid disease are women. Because there's no money in providing another option. Because generic thyroxine is cheaper than natural, and it's the only one they're prepared to give out free. Because sadly, it's seen as ok for women to remain at a below par level of wellness,because it's "as good as we can get you" (yes, really, I was told that). Or because it's easy to say "Well, it's your age" (I'm 38!) or "having children takes it out of you" (so that's 50% of the population written off, is it? There was me thinking it was my THYROID). And the one female endo, who you might have expected to be a little better, also diagnosed me as being hyper. She has super powers, because she did this through the wall without even seeing me. Wow! Women unite. So I will see my Gp on Monday, to persuade him to allow a trial of dessicated thryoid, which I will have to pay for, and source, and that's IF he says yes to my trying. If he doesn't, i'll be buying it without a prescription, and dosing myself. I won't be alone. There is a whole subculture of women, tired with being fobbed off doing it, at their own expense, because they couldn't face another 20 years ona drug that doesn't make you better than "i'm coping, just". How wrong is that?

It makes me angry. 1 in 50 women has this disease, yet there's no publicity, getting diagnosed is a nightmare, it affects fertility, pregnancy, menopause. It accounts for depression, Post-natal depression, and myriad health related problems. Yet it is consistantly undertreated, women are not, for the most part even given their results properly, if the correct tests are taken (I was told "who's the doctor, you or me?" and "you don't need to know the numbers, that's for me". "Have you been reading?" "You're within range, that's all you need to know" Except I wasn't. For 10 years. ). The NHS would rather fund anti-depressants, and weight clinics, when a little extra throught to the cause of the problem would eradicate the problems for many many women. could this be something to do with the way drug companies work with the NHS? Possibly. Definately something to do with the fact that it's women affected, and sadly, when you're feeling unwell, you are very unlikely to confront the doctor, and they know it. Women: get your angry pants on. If you have thyroid disease, here are a few pointers to getting treated properly.

1. Get the results. Get TSH, T4, T3, and TPO antibodies tested. Get the numbers. If they won't give them, say you'll go to Data Protection. They're yours. You own that data. Then get the ranges for the numbers.

2. Find someone to help you interpret them. Me, i'll do it. Or the thyroid mums thread on Netmums, or the Thyroid UK website will help.

3. Go in armed and dangerous. Insist on taking the meds and upping them until you are at TSH of around 1 and T4 of around 18-22, and feel well.

4. Take selenium, for antibodies.

5. If you are trying for a baby, tell your GP. Your TSH needs to be at around 1, or the change of miscarriage is MUCH higher.

6. If you are pregnant, likewise. You will need to increase meds whenever, GPs will say by 25%, rubbish, less for some, more for others. Test every 4-6 weeks.

7. After a while, they will say "it's a yearly test for you". Ok, but if you feel crook, GO BACK.

8. Menopause will most likely come earlier, be nastier, and will need dose adjustment. Get your angry pants back on, now you are not only an annoying sick woman, but you're old, and will be treated even worse.

9. Safety in numbers. If you can't get heard, take a friend or partner. And if you still can't get heard, change Gp's. I've been through 10. In 4 years.

10. Read. Learn. I can guarentee that by reading one book, you'll know more than your GP does. He learnt it all in 10 minutes at med school. And then forgot it.

Books.

Mary Shomon: Living Well with Hypothyroidism. A fab book.

B Peatfield: Your thyroid and how to keep it healthy, the great thryoid scandal. This is by a guy who was actually done by the BMA for daring to suggest that dessicated thyroid might be ok for some people.

Websites:

Netmums thryoid mums club: a support thread I started and which is now HUGE, very supportive.

Stop the Thyroid Madness: fab stuff on why single T4 is so bad, and what to do to get dessicated.

Thyroid UK: a patient advocacy support group and charity with some excellent advice pages.

Thyroid disease .org: a wide ranging support board.

There are many more, but these represent a good uk selection. Mary Shomon runs a great "About" site on the thyroid, which is very informative, but it is best to start on the UK sites, as the test ranges in the USa are better. Here, you have to be practically dead to be diagnosed. In the USA, they are more sympathetic and dessicated is diagnosed regularly, also T4/T3 combination therapy. I want to move!

Wikipedia: on Dessicated hormone.

Kiss your librarian and say goodbye.

Cambridgeshire: seat of learning, county of libraries. If you attend the university. Otherwise, sod you. Cambridgeshire: home of the library on its' last legs. If you love your local library, visit it now, it may be gone by morning.

Before I begin my rant, let me say I am partisan. I was a university, then a secondary school librarian before I became a teacher. I have seen first hand what a good library can do. Go back 15 years and see me in an Inner London school, surrounded by kids unpacking books they had chosen themselves for the shelves from a chaotic trip to Borders (now also gone). Hear the excitement as they shout "I chose this one! Miss, can I have it out first?" Every lunchtime there is a semi-chaotic rush to the cosy corner, where year 7 boys gape at the Guiness Book of Record man with the long fingernails, and I and my assistant rush round answering late homework queries and showing kids that Miss can find it quicker than Google. There is a thriving book club, a comic appreciation society and a team of willing library helpers. Boys read, not just girls. I've taught them about plagarism, they've had sessions of library learning. I run GCSE and AS/A2 revision and coursework sessions. Childrens authors and a beat poet come to visit. The library is not just for swots, it is for everyone, but it seems, sometimes, especially for those bookish, quiet kids who are shy and nervous, as I once was. When I eventually leave to train to be a teacher, my helpers hand me a video they have made, showing kids explaining what the library has meant to them. I cry.

Now fastforward to 2010. Cambridgeshire has no School Library Service. Schools can opt out of having a library.Use the public library then? Only if it's open. Hours are reduced. Speak to a librarian to help you find that book? Nope, they've all been laid off, instead it's a self service issue terminal, which confuses the older users who always used to get served by Cath, who is now redundant. You don't even get a stamp in your book, just a ticket. It's hard for some people to read, so the books goes oeverdue. The fines have gone up. Finding a book is even harder in the first place, as with no librarians, the shelving is done by volunteers. It's all over the place, Dewey is not their strong point and there isn't anyone to train them. The mobile service is non-existant, there is a charge for large print books. Volunteers are relied on to deliver books to the elderly. This is what the Cambridgeshire Council are doing. This is what "Big Society" means. It means my kids won't have a Rhyme Time with Joan, or a Reading scheme over the Summer. It means they won't get a cheery "Hello Stella" from Cath who recognises them. Seth and Stella won't get to discuss books with a librarian who cares. I won't get the books she puts aside for me because she knows I will like them. The library will be a building, with books in. I will cry. Then I will root out my heaviest encyclopaedia and march to Downing Street, where I will use is heavily against the side of Cleggs head for being such a sodding little twerp and abandoning ANY liberal tendencies he once had, before finishing off Cameron and stamping on him, with the last remaining library stamp, "withdrawn".

For further info on the horrors of cuts round the country on library services, see this blog by childrens' author and library activist, Alan Gibbons , and here at the Bookseller. You can protest by answering the questionnaire in local libraries about the proposed cuts, and write to your local, unfortunately Conservative, MP Steve Barclay. There is also a group of people protesting on "Cambridgeshire against the cuts" here.

Did no broadband make a difference?

I am back online after a time without a link to the broadband world. Did it make a difference to my everyday life?Ideally, i'd like to be able to say that either I was bereft and wept at the emptiness without an on-line world, or, that I didn't notice at all and my internal life was profoundly improved by not being able to access YouTube. In fact, it was really rather nothingy. I didn't really miss it after a few days and some positive things came out of it.

Here's what I did miss. I missed the Met Office, which I refer to every morning, and went out foolishly sans raincover and mac and got very, very wet. I missed a couple of websites, mainly poultry pages as we (finally!) got our hens (right, BooBoo, Lou-Lou, and Maddy). I missed writing my blog. I missed having my fingers tapping of an evening. I missed mailing relatives who live abroad. I missed managing my thyroid group,and they missed me. The kids didn't miss it at all since I am an ogre about it, limiting them to 30 mins PC and 1.5 hours tv a day (evil laugh). They didn't really notice we didn't have it, since I try to not use it during the day, only when they are having their daily Tom and Jerry fix. I missed Facebook though.

But, although Facebook is great for an isolated mum who rarely sees her friends, actually, it's far nicer, I discovered, to ring them up. I know it's awkward when the kids are tantrumming, and want feeding, but really, I have enjoyed actually talking to friends, rather than mailing or facebooking this past 10 days. And I solved the poultry queries by talking to a friend who keeps chooks (thanks Nancy). Of an evening, instead of wandering the information highway aimlessly, I watched movies with the husband and read. I finally finished piecing son's quilt top (by hand, GAH!, get that machine!). I talked to the chickens, and on occaision, my children. I discovered that the chickens eat everything the kids do not. Instead of browsing info on the web about my charming early menopause, I went to the library and asked them to order me some books (and inadvertantly got a lot of info, some of it unwelcome, from the clutch of menopausal librarians. I'd never really noticed her beard before, but by God i'm aware now, and keep looking at my chin). And mostly, I discovered, that with a little planning, I could live without the broadband at home. I'd simply have to plan my blogs and queries, and go to the library even more than I do now. (And there's the rub: I will post later on this week about the positively gruesome plans Cambridgeshire has for its' library services...)

A terrible choice for a mother, a straightforward one for the Government.

This news article made me cry. Mother Rachel Edwards, 6 months pregnant, with her son, aged sixteen, and daughter aged 2, had to make the hideous decision which of her children to help this August, as she plunged into a water filled dyke in Boston, Lincs. She chose to help her daughter, and her son drowned. I cannot even begin to contemplate her pain and anger, at herself, the world, everything. I wish her a healthy and happy new son or daughter. What I can contemplate is how very unique, and dangerous the Fen roads are.

Imagine, not knowing the area. You think it's all straight roads and a 50mph speed limit. Must be ok to drive at that, right? Wrong. Maybe you DO know the area, grew up round here. Ok to drive at 50mph for you. Maybe even faster. Right? Wrong. The drove roads are straight, for miles, but with 90 degree turns that you can't see. The camber is shot to pieces because of heavy farm and haulage vehicles. There are new potholes every day during the harvest season, due to the combines. The water in the dykes and drains is deep, and they flow fast. They're freezing. It's raining along the forty-foot, it's slippy. You skid, you're in. You're in, you need to get out. If you think you can do this easily, you're wrong. The death toll along one road this year tells its' own story.

The Fens have the highest teen death rate of any area on the road. This August, my own village/ town lost 3 boys in one weekend, two of them from the same family. Has it stopped the lads screeching their revved up cars down the drove roads? No, it has not. What would? Well, forgive me if you think that 50mph is a safe limit. It is not. Drove roads kill. The limit needs to be 40mph, less alongside drains, and there need to be cameras regularly along the roads. Fines need to be made, lives will be saved. This is not popular with motorists, and certainly not with the Conservatives,or indeed, the last government, who have enabled councils to remove cameras to save money. Not lives, though. If I were a 17 year old petrol head, and I lost a weeks wages to speeding, i'd think again. But the laws are not made on sense, car pressure groups and manufacturers have more sway than a death rate.

And why not a regional driving test? Why not make the lads (and ladies) learn how to get out of a vehicle under water, and provide them with window hammers? Make them learn how to cope with unsteady camber, right angles, left angles, sudden stops, the optical illusions of straightness the Fens produces. Make them learn how to overtake farm vehicles safely, and drive in pitch dark conditions alongside water. Make them, in short, pass a harder test. They might moan, but as a parent, I would back the idea. I'd welcome it. Before I climb into a car again after a period of not driving, I will voluntarily retake a test,locally. I'm sick of seeing roadside shrines where I live. I never want to see another family have to make the choice Mrs Edwards had to.

You can read more about the specific problems of safety on Fenland roads on the Fenland Road Safety Campaign site on facebook, here.

I'm the only one they bite.

I have been bitten a lot lately, in many different ways.

Firstly, the darn mosquitos. I live in the Fens. the Fens are full of water. Dank, standing water. Mosquitos love this. It is their very Heaven. It is no surprise to discover that hereabouts the airbourne devils were the cause of a high death rate from Malaria, then often referred to as "ague" or "shivering ague", in the 17th and 18th centuries, the rather well known Oliver Cromwell being a malarial sufferer and local Ely boy. They love the ditches and culverts, and they love me. This is a relatively recent occurance. Until 3 years ago, mosquitos eschewed me in favour of the then-fiancee. I could lay naked and laughing as they went for him, not me. Then, my thyroid packed up post baby. And then post baby 2, with the thyroid still packed up, I started the menopause, way, way early (IMO) at 38. What has this to do with mosquitos bites? Well, the little blighters love the scent of a high Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and they alos love the way cholesterol sits in the skin (a lovely side effect of autoimmune thyroid disease). and then, they really, really love the smell of estrogen. For me, as with many early menopause ladies, the perimenopause is NOT a slow decline of estrogen as the GP's would have you believe. It is often a massive "last blast" of estrogen, leaving you with weeks of sky high levels and rapid cycling cycles. So, I am REALLY tasty. Plus, I am blood group O, the most popular mozzie snack. Research shows they land more frequently on O's, and stay longer. Oh, and if you have a drink....but i'm saying nothing there.

So, dealing with the mozzie bites today, I spent a good twenty minutes in the bathroom applying ungents. Naturally, this is out of order as far as DD and DS are concerned. They have strict rules. If I am out of the room for longer than 5 minutes, they will turn into Fight Club. Or, courtesy of DD, 2, Bite Club. Naughty DD. We have a biter in the house. Cue much consoling of DS. "She BIT me!"(wail, wail). No skin broken. Sooth DS. Search out culprit. Culprit is hiding under her bed because she knew she done bad. Automatically blames DS. "He hit my head which is my BRAIN". As I was out of the room, I cannot deal with it as well as I would like. but I know, like a dog, she has tasted the scent of victory in that bite, and she knows it works. I'll be watching her.

And the final bite? Me, biting the bullet. Potty traing dd. She was 2 in June. She's so articulate, but lazy, and I want to do it now, while i've got an outside chance of still drying pants on the line. I tried earlier, but she wasn't ready. Now, she's taking her nappy off and wanting the "princess pants". I was blessed with ds, dry day and night after only 2 accidents, at 26 months. She, however, is a different case. I've bitten, there's no going back. 3 wees on the carpet, 1 on the chair, 3 on the loo. It starts here. Grit teeth, prep washing machine.

Thyroid, thyroid, thyroid

I'm going to rant. Post son, I was finally diagnosed with Hashimotos Autoimmune thyroid disease. This affects 1 in 50 women in the UK. I have probably had it since my 20's. Throughout my 20's, I would go through periods of being very hyperactive, lose weight, and be frantic, then plummet downhill and put on lots of weight. GP's fobbed me off. "You don't need your thyroid tested" they said, despite a 4 generation history of maternal thyroid disease. Fast forward to post son. I was 5 stone heavier, balding, with skin so dry it bled, and barely able to form a sentence, having palpitations if I walked anywhere. My milk was low, son wasn't feeding well and I was desperate. "PND" the GP said. "Take some anti-depressants". After a terrible night with me up having palpitations and son screaming, I went to A and E and demanded help.My TSh was 450 and my T4 nil. A healthy person has TSH of between 0.5 - 5 and T4 of about 18-24. If I could have gotten out of bed, i'd have sued someone.

Addenbrookes took me on under an endocrinologist. I hated the first one, saw another one. She told me i'd had this since my twenties and if i'd been tested for thyroid antibodies then, none of this would ever had happened. I cried. Then got cross. She told me about the problems it can cause with fertility if we wanted another child (it leads to a much higher incidence of miscarriage and it is harder to concieve. Many women have 10+ MC before falling). Unbeknowst to me, I was already pregnant. Routine testing on my hormones showed pregnancy hormones in there. I was 6 months gone! Panic. High TSH can cause developmental problems with babies, so cue a lot of scans. Luckily for me, daughter is perfect (apart from a wonky ear), and she is truly a miracle baby. Following her birth, I got my angry pants on. Since then, my thyroid has never been under control. And it makes me angry that there is so much wrong with our health system that this diesease goes undetected and is badly treated.

The first problem is the 99% of the people with thyroid disease are women. It is too, too easy to say "PND" or "mental" to them. My sister got told to "go get some exercise". 1 in 50 women get this, it runs down familial lines. In the USA, and Australia, thyroid tests are done routinely post-partum, as the condition commonly asserts itself then. The Oz research has shown that 25% of PND cases were actually thyroid related. A simple blood test would do wonders. So why don't we do it here? Cost. A thyroid patient is on thyroxine for life, and do not pay for it. In the USA, to get diagnosed your TSH has to be above 3. Here, it is above 10. If I had a TSH of 10 i'd be bedridden, but apparently it's "normal". It's "normal" because the chaps (note that) at the British Thryoid Association have decided that for us. And what they say is the law. My old GP was adamant that at TSH 0.02 I was hyperactive, despite my clearly not being so. I took myself up the hospital with my angry pants on and luckily for me, my endo agreed. "It's all individual" she said. But not according to the GP and BTA, whose rulings on this blight the lives of thousands of women every year.

Treat the PATIENT not the number. My great gran's mum was pre-thyroxine. She ate a pig thyroid every so often to keep herself pepped up. She self medicated. Why can't we? Because of the BTA. And why only one medication, and that a generic? If I have a disease of another type, I can choose between many types of medicine. Not here. In the USA, and Europe, I can take Natural dessicated pig thyroid, which not only replaces T4, but T1, 2, and 3. I could take a T4/T3 combination pill, or T3 only. Here, I am stuck with T4 only. And in a generic (for which read cheap) format, which varies widely in potentcy.

Where is the patient choice there? And why don't we get a choice? Money. And attitude. Imagine a disease that affects 1 in 50 men. How much money would be poured in? How well publicised would it be? How many drug companies would be clamouring to help? But not for us. No, this a womens disease.

I'm ranting because i'm cross. I'm due a return visit to the endo this month to sort me out again. I'm going prepared. I've got lists of what I eat (bugger all), so they can see it's thyroid, not fat. I've got a diary of symptoms. I'm ready to hear, again, that this is "as well as they can get me". Well? I'm knackered! I can't think! I want a libido! I want energy again! I want my joint pain to go and hair to grow! It's not "well enough", it sucks! I've got my angry pants on. And it isn't just me. Click here to see the support board I run for thyroid ladies on Netmums, and see how busy it is and how distraught the women are. How they're not listened to. Told they're "not ill enough" for medication yet. Fobbed off with anti-depressants. And check out your family history too, particularly if you are post-partum or menopausal, as these are trigger points. Thyroid Uk have a fab symptom list. They do great work as patient advocates for thyroid sufferers. I bet they wouldn't need to exist if this was a man's disease.

Tightness of clothes and reading.

I have promised that 2010 will be the year of no clothes buying. I will mend, I will make do, I will only buy secondhand from the Sally Army for under 2 quid. Thus far I have done well, but preparing for Autumn and Winter, shuffling through my boxes of clothes, a horrible thought dawned on me. Last Winter, I had just stopped breastfeeding daughter. I was still in the feeding tops (for which read horrid baggy things) that i'd worn with son. I was still breastfeeding her the previous Winter, and him the Winter before that. In short, all my clothes are stretched, baggy, and past it, not unlike myself. My pre-baby clothes are weeny, tiny things that I laugh at, sadly. I was a size 6 pre baby. Then 3 years of breastfeeding and thyroid problems put paid to that and I am now a 10. Which doesn't sound much, but I am only 5 foot tall. I'm fine with it, I will never be a 6 again, and I will never wear those black drainpipes again. So what to do?

Clothes swapsie! My friend Alison has doen the opposite to me, she's shrunk. She has bigger clothes, I have smaller. Cue parcels flying between Wales and the Fens, and two new wardrobes for the cost of postage, all without the hassle of shopping, and nice and thrifty too. New skirts, shirts, joy! Not knowing what you are getting in a parcel is a joy. Plus a nice chat with a friend and that nice feeling you get when you're waiting for a parcel. And the follow up call. All good, and certainly more humanising than normal shopping. This, along with my extra thrifty allowance of a huge £2.50 per week at the sally army shop, has bagged me two pairs of trousers (one Monsoon!), a M& S jumper, and a selection of 50p jumpers for the kids over the past few weeks. But my sticking point is this: shoes. I have , for the Winter, one pair of wellies and a pair of trainers. The amount of wet the Fens gets, this is NO GOOD unless I want to be wearing wellies from Spetember to April. I have excluded the kids from the new shoes ban, as they have wee little delicate feet, not shocking parmesan heeled chunks of size 3 like me. Size 3? Yes, 3. I can buy KIDS SHOES. Or boots. I'm foraging the charity shops, none. Because kids wear through shoes, none left to gift, and nobody else has such freaky wee feet. So it's going to have to be new. I'm enviously glancing at the kids snow boots i've ordered from Next. My kids will have toasty feet this Winter, mine will be in my Tesco kids wellies, toes encased in ice. It's not fair! I'M pushing THEM! I want new shoes! WAAAAAGH!

I think I may have found my sticking point there. I don't mind dressing in second hand. I don't mind wearing my wonky sewing. But I just want new, new, shoes. Pre kids, I wore 4 inch heels to teach all day. Marched around in them. Owned 20 plus pairs (my feet were then size 2. Get that! They were crushed and flattened into 3, one foot 3.5, by 2 pregnancies). Now I own plentiful pretty shoes I can't wear. I am an Ugly Sister. I want a pretty shoe. I want a boot that fits.

And herein lies the rub. Having a size 3 boot, I must be pretty weeny all over, right? Wrong. These calves have done some walking and biking. They have levered a double buggy over footpaths. They have biked the length of Portugal in 5 weeks. They have bourne down. They are not the calves of a pre-pubescent girl. So they don't fit any boots, except wellies. Feeling freakish, I googled wide calf fitting boots, already having abandoned my "no new" promise with regard to boots. 150 quid, at least, for the privilige of having weeny feet and slightly non pre-pubescent calves. This is the ONLY site found. Oh, no, hang on, this one has boots for only 80 odd quid (sob) Sisters of the non wee calf unite! Demand reasonably fitting boots! No longer will you have to rummage, asking for lace ups only! No longer will you have to remortgage your house for boots! No? What? An industry conspiracy??? Wellies it is, then. Nobody notices what I wear anyway, and now I have an excuse to be a weird mum with chicken poo on her boot on the playgroup run. The other, nicer, boots, were just too spenny.

When is a playing field not a playing field?

When it is a "brownfield site". Over 5,000 school playing fields have been sold to developers in the last 10 years, and now my towns' primary schools is to be added to that list. (See picture, right, courtesy of Cambs Times. See article here) 4 out of 10 playing fields vanished between 1992-2005. Under Labour, the loss was slowed and more community fields manintained, but this looks set to stop and reverse under the new government, with its' more "open" attitude to development, especially in my area, the East of England. There are apparently stringent regulations that require the school to maintain, after sale, "adequate" sports facilities, but what is adequate? Councils have to show they have looked into other possibilities, but who checks?

My own school will lose a large swathe of land, which includes a nature trail and pond which my son routinely uses with his pre-school. They pond dipped there this Summer. The play area of the school will be severly curtailed, and the school will now be oeverlooked by 67 houses, and have to contend with vastly increased traffic and all the noise and thunder of the construction. In my own case, the council have opposed the planning application. But because of the opposistion, the yay or nay moved to the Secretary of State, a jolly Tory Lady name of Caroline Spelman, (right) worth 1.8 million, who probably has no idea, given her rarified background, of the importance of these spaces to her rural and poorer citizens. No, she's too busy passing off her Nanny's wages as expenses and getting away with it. Needs £40,000 to clean her home, apparently. Must be quite big. Grrr! Apparently, it's fine to sell off the land, and the school will be just dandy without it. And neither will we need section 106 money (designed to compensate for loss, by giving money to replace the need, build like for like or help out with education),because apparently, the extra homes won't impact on our already oversubscribed schools. Tell that to parents who drive their kids to neighbouring schools 15 miles off, Department for Education.

Now, at the same time as telling us all that our children are fat and unhealthy, where is the sense in restricting the area they can play in? We can't all be hoiked away to fancy gyms in our 4X4's. There are no footpaths, save a few, round here. There are no cycle lanes. The roads are given over to tractors. There is no gym in town, no leisure centre, 2 crappy parks taken over by teenagers. No community centre with a play area, no all-weather pitch, nothing. Nada. Now not even a primary school field. What will the Secretary of State for Health think, when the kids are fatter? What will the chappie in charge of crime think, when, not having had the opportunity to learn a sport and run in their early years, the kids are hanging about in a gang being bored?

The Fens are the poorest, least funded area in the East of England. We have the highest teen pregnancy rates, high youth unemployment, and low achievment all round. And yet the parents I meet daily want the best for their kids, they want them to do well. Who is it, do you suppose, that doesn't? Could it possibly be the (whisper it) Government? Who want to hit a target of Eastern England Development very quickly? With sod all thought ot infrastructure? And what is this I see? 1,000 new homes on the flood plain at the end of my garden. And they'll be giving us (not promised, not in a contract, just offered to shut us up and never delivered), a swimming pool. How about a bigger Secondary? No? A pool you say? Well, we won't need it. The run off from the school playing field and the 1,000 new homes will turn the whole of town into one. Then we won't need to worry. Silly me.

foraging with kids

It is one of the great pleasures of Summer and Autumn to pack up the buggy with drinks and snacks, and plenty of tupperware boxes, and go off on a food hunt. You get exercise, the kids are occupied with spying out food, and you get to teach them a little about how food works: where it comes from, what sustainability is, and what will kill you if you eat it. Always useful to know.

(Right is the common mallow. You've got one in your garden, I bet).

Now we are in the grip of Fenland, I've discovered that many of the species I used to get hold of quite easily (like Sweet Woodruff) are not Fen friendly, they don't like the ground or water. However, some species, like sloes, seem more abundant. And, I am told, if you go further east, there is samphire to be had. When foraging with the kids however, I stick to easy to spot species, and ones that cannot be easily confused with other things. There are a few rules to foraging with kids. Before you even read the rules, you should buy a decent foraging guide. I have this one, "The Forager handbook" but a new River Cottage one is due out now too. It's on my xmas list.

Rules: or how to forage with kids with no-one dying.

1: Explain the difference between poisonous plants, plants that are safe once cooked, but NOT raw, and safe plants. Make them repeat it back to you before you go.

2:Dress them in thick trousers, long sleeves, and sturdy shoes. This helps with stinging nettles and biting things, and stops those annoying goosegogs of the bedstraw family from getting in their socks.

3: Take savlon, antihistamine if needed, and the usual suncream. Make sure you know what a dock leaf looks like!

4: Choose only plants that are abundant at the time of year. No kid wants to walk looking for something for ages and not find anything. Go for plentiful, they are kept occupied, and you know you'll come home with something.

5: Go for obvious: stick to the easy to find, and easily safe species. AVOID THE CARROT FAMILY ALTOGETHER and the NIGHTSHADE, when foraging with kids. These family includes a large amount of poisonous plants that look remarkably like the non poisonous ones. Also, stick to berries, nuts and leaves, leave the roots and seeds for later. they're too fiddly, and again, too easy to mistake. With leaves, berries and fruit/ nuts, you are firmly in season, when the plant is at its' most identifiable. My top kid forage hits are: the blackberry, hazel and beech nuts, rosehips, mallow, fat hen, chickweed, elderflower/berry, borage, yarrow, nettles, everlasting pea tops and leaves, crabapples, damsons, ramsons, and of course, dandelions. There's a lot of them, they're all safe as houses, and they're easy to get to. Most of them can be spotted along any rural roadside or footpath.

6: I'm going to be controversial here and say that your kids won't die if they eat some blackberries without washing them, worst thing is they'll munch a bit of protein in there too. There has been some concern about heavy metals in berries from heavily used roadsides, so avoid picking along motorways, but otherwise I think you're fine! But a general rule of thumb is wash it first and wait if you're worried. Don't pick things where dogs walk and wee, or cattle poo.

7. No fungi except puffballs.

8: Don't pick all of everything. Leave at least 2/3 of every plant and plenty of berries. Once Spetember is here, an old wives tale reminds people to lay off the blackberries, as the Devil enters them. A nice way of saying leave some for the birds, I think.

What do you do with the stuff you've got? Eat it! Mallow is a surprisingly tasty plant and was once used widely. It is still grown commercially in turkey,where it is a staple. In Greece it makes up part of the "horta" of wild greens. Here; it's a weed. It is somewhat akin to okra when cooked for very long, but swiftly cooked in an omelette or added to salad it's yummy. (Left is blackthorn, with sloes just starting to emerge in August. They need to be left till Oct/Nov to really ripen. )

The Anchor Inn and tomatoes

Evenings out have been few and far between since Husband and I had the kids. In fact, even the wedding got put off, twice, by each of them respectively, so that in the end getting married was really almost about having a night out. But this weekend was out first wedding anniversary, and we went OUT out. Admittedly, I was nor expecting wonders of the local hostelries. But I reckoned without a little local gem at Sutton Gault, The Anchor Inn. I won't be reviewing often, and I won't be going out often, but if I go out again this year, I will try to go out to Sutton Gault.

As I go out rarely, when I go out I want maximum entertainment for my pound. Nowdays this does not mean what it did in my youth (when it would mean all manner of wonders and weirdness,in London, invited and univited), but an entirely different thing. I want, on my child free evening out, no children. I want good food, and I want it a bit fussy, the sort of fussy I can't be bothered to do. I want meat I rarely cook, wine I rarely buy, and a nice setting with good beer on tap.

The Anchor Inn is perched on a drove road between Chatteris and Sutton. It presides over the river Bedford, aka as the 100 foot drain. In its' Fen incarnation, straight as a die and contained as far as the eye can see, it is Vermuyden's vision incarnate, although he probably wasn't holding the big glass of rose wine I was. The pub garden is riverside and offers a Fen view which is as pleasing as it is unusual. I sat and sipped my wine and watched the sun go down, and pondered the menu, which was extensive, and not (too) expensive. I settled on the duck, husband had pork. The duck was as perfect as I could have wanted it, just the right side of rare and beautifully presented with gorgeous gravy, or jus or whatever and a potato cake of the sort I cannot make. And in a generous portion that didn't leave you feeling short changed. We ate, and drank, and it was all, very, very good indeed, and the service impeccable (even removing a wasp from us as it blundered into our meal, and locating a rare taxi back). I urge you to visit, but book, it's busy!

Oh, and tomatoes. FINALLY, they are coming, and the best ones are yellow. Here they are, in a bowl, while I figure out DOF on my swanky new camera.

Nursery rhyme correctness and grills.

I recently found a copy of Ladybirds nursery rhymes for daughter. This is ideal, because she likes anything gruesome, dead-ish and messy. This book was published in the years of full glory, when nursery rhymes were still violent, crazed, misogynist, and fun. As an ex-history teacher (although please let me back one day, please), I love how so many of them are basically a history story.

Take "Mary Mary". Poor Mary Stuart. Piggy eyed, despised by her dad, her mum shucked off like a cloak for some strumpet, and so, so desperate for an heir and baby she went through false pregnancies. Took her mind off burning people. I do feel for her though, shut up with an ostracised mother for her youth, only allowed back to court on the understanding that she accept her fathers rule and attitude to her mother. Brave, in many ways, to stick to her Catholocism. But not, by any measure, popular once she DID get the throne by dint of Edward dying. So the rhyme shows us: Mary Mary quite Contrary (Mary, why the flip are you burning everyone, leave it out!) How does your garden grow? (And anyway, what's wrong with you? Pop one out you barren cow) With Silver Bells and Cockleshells (Spend less time at Catholic church (silver bells) and sort your husband (Philip of Spain) out, he's cockleshelling all over the place but not on you) OR (silver bells was a nickname for thumbscrews, and cockle shells was a nick name for...er....something else screws), and Pretty maids all in a row (reference to many miscarriages she went through). So, when I hear it, I feel sort of sorry for her, even though she was quite clearly a crazy woman. This illustration makes it clear it's about her.

And h0w about this. This charming illustration, showing a woman with a machine (!) for whipping her kids' bums. How amazing. Can you imagine this being in a book today? I love it. I like to think of that woman going "go on! Hurry up! Get the soup down yer, whup, and into bed, so I can have me wine!" Originally, this was about Queen Caroline/ King George, who had 8 children. George began the fashion of white wigs and was often referred to as the "old woman". The notion of whipping may be pointed too: the children referred to in the rhyme were the Members of Parliament, who needed to be "whipped" (not least because they were trying to dethrone him half the time), and we still have whips today to keep politicians on the party line.

And look at this for extreme violence for kids. This poor old soul being thrown head first over the bannisters.This dates from the Civil War, where "left footers" (Catholics) were prosecuted by the Cromwellian rule, and refers to sniffing out Catholics from their priest holes and dragging them off to justice, or, just throwing them down the stairs.

Finally, did you know that "Mary had a little lamb" was the first thing Edison said over his phone? They're deep in there, those rhymes. And the Grills bit? Husband had his first day out catering at the Skylark Showground. It went very well, you can see some photos on my Flickr stream. Another event booked for September, soon we will be barbecue millionaires.

Bubba Grills, Barbecue and motorbikes

Well, I've been making up 1000 portions of hot barbecue sauce for this weekend as husband road tests his Bubba Grill at the International Motorbike Festival at the Skylark showground this weekend. It's been all action stations on the Boston Bean and Pulled Pork front. I am just crossing my fingers and hoping the rain holds off, so the bikers can enjoy, hopefully to our full economic joy, husbands ribs, pulled pork and beans.

There's been a lot of interest in the kit. Men have randomly stopped and asked about it as they've seen it, Americans from the local area have stopped by to admire it. Bubba in the USA is cool, and Jamie Oliver saw them for his last book. Husband visited to learn their arcane barbecue arts, and now we are all stations go! It's a barbecue X10. I just hope we break even for a first venture. And man, my chilli sauce is HOT!

half arsed politics and combining

I have really gone off the boil, politics wise. I was pondering why, and it hit me: I can't face watching the news because it's too like the 80's, it seems like a replay and I don't want to watch it. I can't be alone in this. I am filled with apathy: when I should be geting angry and waving placards. It will come, doubtless.


And on a similar bent, at least, about the possible futures/pasts, I have been waxing lyrical about harvest, as the combines chug up and down outside my back garden. And it made me search out this poem by Edwin Muir, about the one-day return of the horse, machines abandoned.

Barely a twelvemonth after

The seven days war that put the world to sleep,

Late in the evening the strange horses came.

By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs ; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter,
Nothing. the radios dumb;
And still they stand in our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its' children quick
at one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep
Curled blindly in its' impenetrable sorrow
And the thought confounds us with its' strangeness.
The Tractors lie about our fields; at evening
they look like dank sea monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust;
"They'll moulder away and be like other loam"

We make oxen drag our rusty plough
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers land.
And then, that evening

Late in the Summer the strange horses came.

We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming, it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet, they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long lost archaic companionship.
In the first moments we had never a thought
that they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then, they have pulled our ploughs and bourne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed, their coming our beginning.





I just cry at this. It says more than I can, you get it.

straight backstitch, berries, spice,kindness and chickens

Well, lacking a sewing machine, and not wanting to fall back on drinking huge quantities of wine in the evenings in the absence of anything good on telly, I decided to start on son's quilt anyway. I chopped the material into 20X20 squares and 20X40 rectangles. No silly little bits this time. This quilt will be a super fast quilt, and an opportunity to practice sewing in straight lines. Plus, the material is really the star for him, all dinosaurs and airplanes, so lots showing is what he wants. I will get all fiddly with the quilting and binding, after all. Chopped up, I patterned it all out into one rectangle by 2 squares for each (big) block and commenced. My backstitch is now getting very tiny and straight: i'm pleased with it. And the blocks look nice anyway, even though they are big. I am doing 1 or 2 an evening and popping one in my bag for when the kida are busy at the park. So it might get done before Winter.

And then I started baking, or tried to, with the huge glut of blackberries we have. 25 bags in the freezer so far. I haven't found one cobbler recipe I like for them, they all seem to come out stodgy, but this could be the fault of my heavy hands, again. So crumble it is. Nobody else likes it, but I do, so soon I will be fat as well as balding.

As for the week of cooking 70's, it ended badly, with me yearning for spice and chillies. Everything was so bland, and whilst the kids can eat endless potat/cheese based meals, I cannot. I drew the line at a recipe that required spaghetti hoops from a can, and leapt into the arms of Rick Stein for his yummy malaysian broth, searing the roof of my mouth with chillis and making the kids cry. Mee Goreng tonight. Although it is VERY hard to source galangal in the Fens. Garlic is something they use to scare off vampires, the more exotic ingrediants simply don't get up here. Luckily, husband has a Chinese supermarket next to him when he goes to London.

And beautifully, a super act of kindness from a fellow set of Fenland bloggers. The kind lady here , Tina, rang me today to say that she has found a sewing machine for me, and I am overcome that someone who hasn't met me has been so kind! There are other ladies here in the Fens who are conspiring to get me sewing as an obsession, and I thank them. They are all too talented, they may have to show me how to thread the machine, let alone actually use it. you can visit their pages here to see their skills. http://fenlandtextiles.blogspot.com/2010/07/lists.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FenlandTextileStudio+%28Fenland+Textile+Studio%29

http://mixedmedia-jem.blogspot.com/2010/08/luttrell-psalter-exhibition.html I am not sure how to make the links look tidier.

And lastly, the coop is up and treated, the run is on its' way, and the chicken breeder sourced. In a fortnight, we will have our chooks. I have been reading up on redmite, lice, foxes, and the propensity of chickens to die, and frightening myself, but the kids will be sanguine should they kark it, I am sure.

shreddies are for cakes, not just for breakfast

The easiest cake in the world. It got to be the day before playgroup breaking up day and son mentioned in an offhand way that he had told his play-worker that he would bring in a cake for her. So rather than produce one of my unfailingly unfluffy sponges from the hands of cement (my hands just don't do fluffy), I reasoned that a shreddie cake would be the best bet.

It is a malt loaf, and it's DENSE but it's lovely with a bit of butter. It is forgiving, you don't need to measure. I use either a mug or a jug. My loaf tin will work well with approx 400ml.

Take yourself :1 cup of / 400ml of :

self raising flour

shreddies

milk

fruit (I use apricots and raisins, I also add chocolate)

sugar (caster is best for a lighter loaf, brown for a denser one).

Squoosh the shreddies up in the milk. Add the fruit and sugar. Sift in the flour. Stir. Bake for 60-75 mins at Gas 4. Leave to cool, best eaten after it's sat for a day.

How easy is that?

vintage recipes and food refusal

My two are so naughty at the moment. They have both realised that they can get attention off of the other one and onto THEM far more easily if they are naughty. One of the problems with having 2 so close is that they learn each others bad habits rapidly as well as good. I am usually very good at ignoring behaviour rather than pandering to it and only intervene when necessary (blood, wounds, screams that rouse neighbours). I want them to learn to get attention from good behaviour, not bad.

Unfortunately, the time when my fuse is short and they win out every time is over the dinner table. I am torn between my sensible desire to ignore them and my desire to shove something, anything down their throats. Daughter has learned to get a reaction from observing her brothers sleek "I don't actually like this now, I liked it the other day but not now" and copying it. From one day to the next I never know what they will actually eat. They will both blankly refuse the meal presented to them and then say "it's horrible, I won't eat anything tonight". I know I can ignore it. I say "Ok, wait till we have all finished and then you can get down". I ignore their pleas for snacks and milk. "No, you did not eat your dinner", but the next morning, after a night without food they are VILE and it is impossible to get them dressed without screams. So, they need to eat something.

I have spent weeks buying old 60's , 70's and 80's cookbooks from charity shops. The photos are vile, the food looks awful. But it was what I ate. And I ate it. I even remember liking some of it. Either way, I thought a week of "What mummy used to have to eat with no snacks" would do them, and me some good. Stocking up on mince was probably needed.

So, take this cookbook from 1973. I remember this from my Mums' kitchen. Nobody, I think, would now want to eat the "Savoury egg pie" consisting of bread, canned oxtail soup, cheese and , get this, peanuts, or the terribly names "Cottage cheese and orange mould". They probably didn't eat it then. But, as a challenge, here is my proposed week from a 1973 cookbook. I'll tell you how it went next week.

Mon: chicken croquettes with grilled tomatoes and cheese salad. (As this is late posting, I can tell you, this went down VERY well)

Tues: Family Cornish Pasty (Likewise!)

Weds: Macnamara pie (seriously, a pie made with powdered tomato soup!) and lamb chops

Thursday: Somerset Chicken Casserole

Friday: Spaghetti Moussake. A recipe involving canned, yes, canned spaghetti and mince. And you know what, I bet they eat it.

Saturday: I've had enough. Back to River Cottage.

I went out with my friends and we schmoozed

I made it to big London Town this weekend for a lovely Saturday with my friends, Cathy, Nancy, and Naomi. We had all ditched the kids and had a lovely day browsing the faces at the National Portrait Gallery, eating lots and lots of yummy Dim Sum in China Town and then meandering the fabric shops of Berwick Market. Oh, my. How nice it was to be able to fiddle faddle around these shops with friends who chatted and browsed alongside without having to chase toddlers and cut things short. We spent hours looking at cambrics, cottons and silks. I got a yard of a lovely cotton print which will be my first garment when my Ebay target reaches sewing machine level. The conversation was all about what we'd make if... and when... and so we repaired to a boozer and had a sly pint (in the day!) and chatted more. All of a sudden, I wasn't just "mum" I was me again, and even though we did (of course) talk about our children, I was suddenly doing it with friends, and I realised how very much I missed being able to swap chat and ask for advice with friends so easily.I am lonely out here in the wilds. We all madly exchanged stories and did that thing that women do so well, where one raises an issue and all the others say , "well, for me it's" and sudenly the issue is in a context, and it's all so much better. I had to go all too soon, the Fens are just so darn inaccessible (buses from March are not exactly regular. Well, regular like the sunrise, maybe) and I hadn't caught up nearly enough, there was so much more to ask and say. On the train, as I waited to see the turbines that meant I was almost home, I was thinking "Arse! I meant to ask about that...and see about this..." but then, that is all the more reason to do it again. And the extra spring in my step the day after means I will.

Fruitfly genocide

On return from France, we discovered that the house had univited guests. 8 billion of them in the form of the pesky fruitfly. Beloved of scientists on account of their easily managed reproduction and genetics, it is the same trait that makes them hated by me. Fruitflies reproduced within 8 hours. HOURS. And all it takes for them to do it is a merest trace of fruit juice or skanky water. Imagine how many "traces" there are in a house of toddlers (I'll save this bit of banana for later behind my playmobil.. I'll just see what my juice cup does upside down...etc etc). So, not wishing to live in a house resembling a horror flick, I commenced battle. Constantly walking around spraying chemicals is also out in a house of toddlers, so I had to do it by stealth.

Firstly, track them to their source. This is easier said than done. A teeny tiny trace of squished banana is sufficient for them to start their orgy of reproduction. So I cleaned the house, and I mean, cleaned. Then, I checked all the drains. Bleach down plugholes is NOT enough, these eggs are Nuclear war proof. Caustic soda is the order of the day. Then, take ALL food and drink away, and lock it up tight. Now you have removed food sources. Now it's a war of attrition.

Best tackled at evening and night, when the buggers settle. It is then that you realise the true extent of their numbers. Every time you sip your wine, there they are...... My best weapon was apple cider vineagr. Fruitflies are attracted to the yeast in fermenting products, hence the love of beer. So, get yourself lots of tumblers, and a big bottle of apple cider vinegar. It smells nicer than wine vinegar. Then pour an inch in each tumbler. Add 2-3 drops of washing up liquid and agitate. The soap prevents a miniscus forming on the vinegar, so when the little sods land to drink, they fall in and drown. I woke and found the previously pale cider coloured liquid to be absolutely BLACK with flies, a true indication of the problem. Of course, this method is useless if you are soppy about the sanctity of insect life, but trust me, if you have a true infestation, you wouldn't be.

Once you have your weapons, use them constantly. The war needs to be waged for at least 4 weeks, to catch any new hatches. And then, you must always, ever after, wash all your cans, bottles and cups of nice resides before recycling, move your bins FAR from the house, and never ever pour sweet residues of anything down the sink ever again. And even dry up immediately. The drippings of drying plates are manna to the fruitfly. And here is where the original source of infestation came from: bananas. When you buy them, bring them home and wash them. Fruitflies love them, will go crazy for them, and often lay eggs on them to hatch as you get them home. We had banana the few days before our holiday, although we'd eaten them, the eggs had been on the skin and hatched in the fruit bowl. They are so tiny you can't really see them. And then the skin goes in the bin and........9 trillion fruitflies. They also like flowers, and hitch lifts from the garden, wherby they feed off the sulphur in flower water. Plus, they can live on damp mops, sponges, flannels. Even damp houseplant soil. If you've done everything and they;re still coming, repot your plants, and give the roots a good wash.

And I hate their red eyes. I've got another 3 weeks to go before the all clear............

All the fatties in France stay inside.

Just back from a lovely week in Normandy, staying in a chalet and wandering the beaches of Omaha, Gold, and Arromanches. The kids built sandcastles on endless empty beaches, that were there to play on because of the bravery of the men who died, landing on them. The Mulberry harbours are still there, boats darting in and out of them. Poignant, but somehow uplifting. The small towns and villages along the D-Day coast are so welcoming, everywhere there are messages of thanks to the British, American, Dutch and Canadian soldiers that liberated them. The graves are spotless, and very thought provoking. We did not have to fight on our land. I hope, that if we had, we would have had as mcuh respect for the soldiers that helped as they do.

So it was a week of eating, sand, and wandering, encouraging the kids not to be petrified of the large mouse thing (poor French girl in a suit in 30 degrees) that was put on to entertain / scare them. I managed a morning away, wandering Bayeaux (skipping the tapestry, seen it already, though it would stand 20 visits), and having a long lunch. Then it struck me. There are no fat women in France. This despite the fact that EVERY meal and snack is 90% fat, even the salads come drenched in oil. The portions are larger than your head and everyone eats 3 courses every meal. Wandering a supermarket, I was dumbstruck by the aisles ans aisles of chocolate based snacks, and it was impossible to find cereal that wasn't chocolate. Even the Special K came with chocolate in it. Bowing to the inevitable, we purchased a tub of Nesquick for the kids milk. On getting back to the chalet, we found it was.... wait for it....BABY nesquick.

So where are all the fat people? All the young women are skinny, skinny, skinny and dressed in taupe. All the elderly women are skinny, skinny, skinny, suntanned and have small dogs. It's the 30-45 women that are gone. I think they all suddenly put it on around the waist when they hit their thirties, have a decade eating inside, saying "sod it" in French, then spend 5 years on exercise bikes in front of TV drama before emerging thin again.

a thrift life

Over the past few weeks, I've been busy sorting things, late Spring cleaning and ebaying for my sewing machine fund. I've been turning my fiver a week on tat to good use. The local Sally Army shop can be a thrift treasure trove, everything is cheap, and if you rummage and are lucky you can find some gems.

Over the past few months, i've noticed a lot of West German 1950's and 60's stuff in the shop. It started with a little Bay Keramik vase I found, and since then i've picked up some Emsa eggcups and bowls too. Emsa is eminantly collectable and very rare, if you see some with cursive joined up script logo, get it, it is pre 1971 at least. Early stuff is very sought after, particularly in the USA. It is just the sort of stuff that gets chucked or given to charity, but 50's and 60's plastic kitchenalia is VERY now, there are scores of collectors who love this stuff. Actually, I love the eggcups. How great is it that they stack up? Then some lovely late 50's Arcopal (very early French shatterproof), just begging for iced cupcakes and serviettes in candy colours, in gentle opalescent glaze. The colour deepens when there is warm liquid in the glass, just darling. And some 1950's USA CorningWare, in blue cornflower, hardly ever seen here and mostly a USA obsession. The Sally Army gets some house clearance willed to it, I have in my mind now a house that was in the forces, moved through France and Germany in the 50's and 60's, maybe friends with a USA family who gave them some corningware. Either way, it's been quite pleasant and sad at the same time to think about. However, the stupendous amount I won for the Arcopal and Keramik vase have helped to ease the melanchony and edged me nearer to my Janome of choice, which was more than my mother was prepared to stump up for, though she has helped!

I have been melancholic, in the true sense. Weepy and fretful, awaiting scan results and so on. I'm all clear from severe nasties, which leaves me with the horrid probable outcome of early menopause. I'm 38! I know it is linked to my thyroid condition, so i'm steeling myself for the worst. I've been referred to hospital again to check me out further. If someone could give me the choice between being baldy and menopause, I would take baldy, I think. I know menopause doesn't have to be terrible, but as i'm so early, and my medication precludes HRT, I can safely say that everyone who knows me would be far happier without me being hormonal, they'd learn to love me bald in preference to having me going crazy at them and then weeping while sweating.

one child booty

Husband took son up to Yorkshire with him today. For the first time since she was born, 15 months after son, Daughter is enjoying the status of the firstborn: mummy all to herself, all day and night! And my goodness, one is SO EASY! She is napping now, I am writing and sipping a glass of wine (naughty!). We took the bus to Ely to avail ourselves of the toy shop there, and have returned laden down, partly because at the back of the toyshop there is a superb haberdashers. I now own, along with a vile looking Barbie doll which daughter weeping, refused to leave without, a cutting mat and rotary cutter and 5 fat quarters that I just picked up and didn't need, but which will now have to be made into something. I have never used a cutter or mat before, all previous efforts have been manhandled using the kitchen tiles as guides, and cut with (whisper it) kitchen scissors! When daughter goes to bed (and i'm expecting that will be late, as a treat we will stay up and watch the recorded Trumptons she is obsessed with, and eat eggy toast with too much sugar), I will fuss and cut and chop the squares for son's quilt. I am making the pattern one rectangle two squares to each patch rather than the nightmare of oddments daughters was. Then I plan to finsih her dolls house. Today I bought permanant markers to do the little plug sockets and switches with, and teeny pots of Humbrol to paint the details with, flowerpots, roof tiles and decorations.

I am stunned at the difference one child makes. We had an entirely civilised cafe lunch, lit a candle in the cathedral (SO cool today in the heat, it was mobbed!) and wandered the market and river. Then we did the essential girly thing of buying her new shoes (she has short fat feet like mine, so there was weeping when the shoes with houses on were too big, but she copes when the silver and pink sparkly sandals came out, sigh. ) Nary a row, nary a squabble and a bus ride to boot. I'm expecting she'll be missing him by bedtime though, and in truth, so will I be. It's too quiet!

Ladybird chickens

I have been amassing a collection of vintage ladybird books, and selling them off on ebay one by one once I can't bear reading them anymore or the kids have lost interest. I pick them up for 10p, good ones can resell for upward of 30 quid. A "Well loved tales" Cinderella series 606D can go for 50 quid or more if it's in good nick. I love the illustrations, they are so evocative of my own childhood. I'm just about to post one off to an ebay buyer, it's "The Farmer" from the "People at Work" series, illustrated by John Berry. Narrating the farming world of the 60's, the combine pictures drew sons' interest briefly before he became motorbike obsessed. I love the drawings of the hop pickers, presumably some rough old cockneys employed at slave wages in yesteryear, but I love best of all the chickens and the text alongside that describes their lovely life in the shed: "In batteries and deep litter the hens are kept warm, well fed and have plenty of light": yes, for 24 hours! See how happy the battery hens are! See how they love their lives in the shed! Forever! Till they die prematurely!

I have a coop waiting to be built. I was hoping for hens this year but we have too much to do beforehand, a fence, a lawn. Our garden is 250ft long but mostly gravel for now as the previous owners of the house had 5 cars and a love of long driveway from the rear access. We stupidly thought it would be a quick job to do a lawn, now we know it will involve a mini-digger hire, which son will love. So the hens are next year. How happy they will be, though, to be garden hens and not ladybird battery hens.

little morrocan-ish meatball stew

This recipe is ideal for me with meat-loving veg hating boy and veg loving meat-hating girl. I simply dole out different bits from it onto cous-cous and hope that meat-loving gets some veg juice that way and veg-loving gets some meat juice that way. It is a bastardised Nigella one, smaller in scope (she always cooks enough to feed a film crew, and they do live with her, I suppose)and less fussy, with the addition of pulses for awkward daughters protein intake, and different veg entirely. I also add the meatballs to the stew to cook, I think it makes them smooshier, if that is a word. I don't normally like her, as I couldn't get over the vision of her sitting in a London bus looking exactly as if she'd never sat in one before, pretending she had, in the last series, and I can't read the chumminess of her books without wanting to shake her. Give me the Hairy Bikers anyday, but she does do the odd good recipe, if you just read the instructions and not the waffle about her terribly lovely life. The only way I would really like her is if she revealed she was bald. Anyway....
To make the meatballs:
1 pack of lamb mince (500g)
1tsp all-spice
1tsp cumin powder
very finely chopped spring onion
1 tsp cinnamon.
1 beaten egg
Really, it's a kids recipe in the sense that even they can do this bit. Smoosh it all up, that's it! Then the difficult bit comes when you have to roll the meatballs up. Usually I would go for bigguns, but in this instance I advise going for teent tiny 1/2 teaspoon sized ones. You should get about 50 out of 500g. Then, a quick flip on either side in the frying pan to firm them up. This takes a short while and I usually end up with about 5 less afterwards as I eat them. Set aside.
For the stew:
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 butternut squash
1 can chickpeas
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube or stock from freezer.
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp tumeric

Chop everything up, you want it a little bigger then the meatballs for a nice mouth feel. The squash you can leave quite big as it's nice to have big chunks of it along with the teeny meatballs. Fry it all with the garlic, tumeric and ginger for a wee while till getting soft-ish, then add the tomatos and chicken stock cube, along with a tin can or two of water, depending on how runny you like it. Add the chickpeas, and stir, then add the meatballs and stir. Set it all to a slow "blurp" on the hob and leave for however long you like, really, I usually give it 45-60 mins, but you can turn it off, leave it and reheat it if you like. Serve it with a dollop of cous cous and some toasted pine nuts and pomegranate seeds on top if you want to be posh. There are no pictures because I ate it all before I thought about it.

If you are me, place meatballs and cous-cous in one plate, assiduously removing all veg, and veg and cous-cous on the other, removing all meat. Wonder why on earth I do this fairy-tale like task every meal time. Next week: spinning grain into gold.