Monday 31 July 2017

Urghhhhh


I went to a spin class last night to try and build my leg strength.

I hurt everywhere.

Even worse, my friend from down the road said come in for a drink, to celebrate that we both didnt die in the class. 

urghhhhh

I had 3 of those little cans of gin and elderflower tonic.  I feel like death still and it is 1pm!  I either need to stop getting older or start drinking on a regular occassion rather than once a year.  I am sick as a pig.  

Back tomorrow with something better!

Friday 28 July 2017

Borehole water, advise of filters please


Do you have private water from a well or a borehole?  Do you have a an in-line filter?  Is it ultra violet? I never thought much about it at my grandparents farm we just drank it and cooked with it.  Now looking at houses in Cornwall a lot have their own water source and I am keen to really learn as much as I can, not only on the great internet, but straight from people who actually use them everyday.

We are purchasing a berkey stainless filter, it has been on my must buy for a long time (come on, the filters do 23000 litres of water - about 11 years!  its a steal for crying out loud.  Plus Kymber and Jam are wax lyrical about it and they have used theirs since moving to {Framboise manor}).

I would greatly appreciate any advise you could give on this and I am still looking for book recommendation!

Many thank in advance for your lovely thoughts on this...

Thursday 27 July 2017

Book Recommendations Please


Well hello there...

After I have posted about The Colour Purple, we will only have 3 books left to read from this years read a long!  Wow, it's gone fast hasn't it.

I would therefore love it, if you could give me some book ideas, preferably classics that we could read.  And maybe some contemporary reading that I could like.  Heck, am I missing out on the new next big thing in Young Adult (YA) fiction that I really love, with a touch of dystopian fantasy that I like?  Recommend away....

And just for some eye candy here is Jensen Ackles reading.  I know, you can thank me another time...


I love a good gif!

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Read a long book - Wurthering Heights

Wurthering Heights.

Apologies to Ray, I am so sorry this is so late in coming to the blog.  

Revenge is a dish best served cold, should have been the title of Wurthering Heights. 

Heathcliff is filled with vengeance and wrath.  A few thoughts popped into my mind when reading this, (I always feel the need to think about this if it were set in modern times).  His fixation with Catherine has made him mentally ill.  At some points I felt that she played him and enjoyed his out bursts and jealousy.  She has clear narcissistic tendencies.  If this was now a days and someone described these two, to me I would think there was bound to be problems and tell them he needs to seek counselling.

Although Heathcliff goes away and comes back educated and with pots of money, from who knows where.  The rest of the book is purely set in one village.  No one seems to go anywhere but to church, everything else must be grown and produced on the properties.  That is pretty isolating, where as other books written at this time, the characters are more worldly and venture to London or to the sea.  This insular environment would suffocate me.  And Cathy having never left the grounds of the estate, although it may have been vast, means that other than her father and the few servants she will have come into contact with, she would have had a very very small world.

Was Heathcliff in love with Catherine, or did he see her as his possession?  Was he really a misogynist or a love sick puppy who went a little la la?

The book is filled with sadness on nearly every page.  And after years of plotting and scheming and then is plan coming together to get both estates by marrying is invalid son to Cathy.  He has a contract drawn up so that she would not inherit her fathers property on the death of Linton.  That is pure evil genius.  Along with what he does to Hareton is beyond despicable.

Towards the end, Heathcliff seems to lose his mind.  Its as if he no longer has a reason to live, he just gives up.  Maybe he is hallucinating through lack of food, or maybe he really is seeing Catherine, come to take him with her.  

I also found it a little ghoulish that he digs next to Catherine's coffin, breaks the side of it down so that they touch when he is buried.

Nelly to me is the real subject of the book, being the person who is telling the story to Lockwood.  Lockwood being a some what nosy bystander.  

And at some points in the book I would have liked to have slapped Joseph.

My friend absolutely loves this book and has waxed lyrical about it.  "Oh, and when you get to this bit, text me.  I want to see what you think!", she said.  She also said, "maybe you should read it again, you might get more from it".

I didnt like it.  I cant see myself reading it again, if I did, I think I would watch one of the film adaptations of it.  That way getting me into reading it again.

4/10

I would love to read your comments on this.  Especially if you love it.  I am trying to love all the classics and am looking for other people points of view.  Maybe one of your reviews will make me read the book again.

p.s I have blogged this on my phone which is super hard.  I apologise if there are spelling mistakes I cant find the icon to check.

p.p.s I realise that the picture is of another area of Yorkshire, but when I typed in Yorkshire moors, that beautiful picture came up.  Isn't it stunning?

Monday 17 July 2017

Getting quotes...


Part of moving house for us is getting someone to pack our house up and transport it all for us.

The man came with his tablet wandered around, I told him what comes apart and what doesnt.  Then we went to the shelves.  He started counting shelves.  And you can see his head turning to the side to read the titles.  A little nod of the head every so often told me he had read a book on that shelf.  

When I look at peoples houses on the internet, I always look to see what books they have on their shelve.  Same as magazines, a picture of a person in front of book shelves, forget they are wearing some new fashion, I am the person who turns the magazine and brings the picture closer so I can squint at the titles of the books (I know the shelves will have been styled, it doesnt matter to me, I will still look).  To see if that person is a 'me' person or not.

With tablets and kindles and other e-readers I wonder if we will be able to tell what people read in the future?

I saw {THIS}.  I liked it.

Have good day.

Friday 14 July 2017

Короп

I spoke about carp in the comments the other day and then saw Rachel's comment on Cro's blog, about Russian Salad. My family recently all cleared the local Lidl out of frozen carp.  Its in a white bag with flowery bits on it and the make is called Polish Taste.  

Now a lot of people have an adverse reaction to the thought of eating carp.  "Ew, its tastes like dirt and pond water".  Well, yes it can, but people who catch it to eat it regularly know you have to purge it.  Like they do with snails.  They give them only leaves and no dirt to travel over and voila, no dirt taste.  

Big business has taken away the need to spend all day at a lake or pond, we can drive to Lidl park and then calmly hustle in as fast as can be to get them into the trolley as fast as you can.  

Serve with butter and sumac.  Or if you are fancy you can have carp and Russian salad for your meal on Christmas eve.  (yes I really just used the word Christmas, get used to it, its less than 6 months away).

I Googled it to see if I could find it, but then I found {THIS} and saw the below youtube.  lol  

Run dont walk!  Enjoy!!!



And the bonus, a 5 minute trolley dash in Lidl, because everyone needs to buy a wardrobe in a supermarket!


If it was me I would have stayed with the electronics and the coffee aisle and gone in earlier in the day to choose what I needed to get and memorised where to go.  But that is just me.  5 minutes isnt long!

Thursday 13 July 2017

This onion is made for walking

My family talk about all weird and wonderful things.  Most of all we talk about growing vegetables.  Being able to grow as much as you can at home with little input is my type of gardening.

Whilst drinking my millionth cup of tea of the day, a little bit dozy as I am emotionally tired, bordering on exhaustion at one point, my ears heard something I hadnt heard of before...

{Egyptian onions}.  My cousin and my aunt are fierce vegetable gardeners, both have had 6 children.  My aunt has 28 grandchildren and has started on great grandchildren like my mum.  (My mum has 8 already.)  Family dinners take a lot of food.  The more you can grow, the less you have to buy.  My cousin said she thought that there would be lots of free onions next year.

Now I did dredge my mind and I am sure I had read about them before but by the name walking onion.  Its called this as it spreads like crazy, but if there are lots of mouths to feed I think this would be an excellent plant to have in the garden.

My questions to you are

Do you have Egyptian onions?

Do you eat the raw as well as cooked?

Is the flavour milder than brown onions?

How many do you think are equal to one brown onion?

I am thinking I will just have one massive bed of this and let it go at its own pace.  Weeding must be easier as they are already a set and not a seedling that you could accidentally weed out thinking it is a bit of grass.  (yes I have done that before, doh!)

What are your thought?  Hit or Miss on Egyptian onions?

p.s. my dad was sat up in the bed yesterday, progress!

Wednesday 12 July 2017

Bread from Pompeii


A complete change from the subject of late.  I enjoyed this on the ipad with my dad.

Enjoy.

Monday 10 July 2017

Treading water whilst holding hands

I am home for a few days, my Dad is now on a normal ward in the hospital.  I heard him speak yesterday, before I left.  I cant explain it, but the relief has been like a pain in itself.  I thought I would never hear him ever again.  

I have felt like a pause button was pushed and now life is playing again. Slowly, but it is playing.

The bubble which we were all in has burst, but before we all start hurtling through life again, I wanted to just say, family is a massive thing.  Massive.  When you dont want to hear beeping, or to have to anxiously try and listen to a nurse as you watch wiggly lines on a monitor with numbers going up and down at the side of the screen. Tubes going every where.  The sweet sound of the whisper of the person in the bed, when he politely tells you "Solly, you look like death" and you joke back, "you arent so hot yourself".  My god, it is like air rushing into your lungs and you didnt know you were holding your breath.  

Yep, family is a massive thing.  There maybe lots of us, and we all have opinions on each others lives.  We interfere with the best of intentions.  Joke and rib each other a little too hard as we know we will get 'rises' from each other.  But when all is said and done.  When the chips are down, family comes through.  Hand holding, tissue givers, dinner makers, ironers, baby sitters, dog sitters, tea makers, petrol fairies, floor sweepers, sweet notes written in wobbly hand writing of 4 and 5 year olds, prayers said out loud at dinner by said 4 year olds when they try and remember that they are supposed to say thank you for something and it turns out they are super thankful for a felt tip pen - you all snigger, sniff a tear back, because you are saying your own private prayer where you are bargaining with god.  "God if you do this I will give up that, and wont do this any more.  Ok god.  I hope you hear me.  I promise I wont, just make him wake up...."  praying to a god that you havent prayed to since you were a little kid and Father Christmas was real.  Heck family comes through, we may hate each other one minute, but we are stronger together and when the call comes we are all there.

I used to be really embarrassed when we used to go any where together when I was younger.  I didnt want people to see us as this massive loud family, with all the kids.  "dont they have TV's at home?", is usually heard.  We are the baby wearers, the toddler wranglers, the people in the restaurant you never want to sit next to.  We field questions from little kids with out batting an eyelid.  Why is the sky blue?  Why do boys have nipples?  My favourite of the week?  We were watching Outlander, my mum pipes up, he can make me coffee any time *Cough hic* (My mother cough hics when she thinks she is being funny).  5 year old who has an ear infection and is on the sofa sleeping, "whats the difference between a skirt and a kilt?".  "A skirt is usually worn by a lady and a kilt is made of a cloth that shows someones family name, its tradition and is usually worn by a man".  Some creasing of the brow of the child.  "so if I give my skirt to Alfie and I have written our name on it, its a kilt?".  "shall we Google it?", I replied.  "No its ok, I will tell him he has to wear it, its tradition". (Alfie is 3).  Back to the family.  Yes, I am no longer embarrassed.  

I am no longer embarrassed.  I dont care for you looks, I dont care that you think we should all shut up.  I dont care if you think you are better than us.  I dont care if we hug the same person 15 times before we leave to get in different cars that are all going to the same house like we arent going to see each other for a year.  I dont care that we block the pavement.  I dont care for your rolling of the eyes if we have 5 toddlers and only 2 high chairs and you think by tutting and remarking that "you would have thought that we would have told the restaurant that we had so many children".  I dont care if you accept the desserts my family send you, as my Mother heard you tell the waitress that its you anniversary, or not.  I dont care if you are being disturbed by us standing up and passing a baby down the line so that person can eat their food.  If you are that worried, stay home and dont choose the restaurant near a hospital, where there are going to be lots of people like us, who have someone inside the buildings next door.  I am not embarrassed. If you were in our shoes I bet you would wish that you had as many as I have in my family.

My family is massive in many ways, heart, soul, noise, hugs, kisses, (why have one when you can have 15).  More hands to hold yours, more hands to squeeze yours. More talking more reminiscing.  More, just more.

We are all treading water, I am just grateful I have lots of people holding my hand.

*thank you everyone for your worry and your thoughts and comments.* I think of them as a digital hand hold.  

We are on the up.  I dont know how long he will be in there, but I hope he will be home soon.  We have a lot of noisy living to do together, a lot more congratulation celebrations to be had, more marriages, more babies, more christenings, more baptisms, more exam results.  More us.  More, just more.  In my mothers words, "Love one another", thats all. 

thank you again for your kindness and if you got to the end thank you for reading.  you can be an honourary member of my family, I will digitally hold your hand any time you need it, no matter what for.  

Because sometimes, there are no words just gestures.

Monday 3 July 2017

I'm Spinning Around


Hello, sorry for the radio silence.  

We had a mad dash to Cornwall to look at some houses, only for my sister to call and say my mother had fallen and had hurt herself quite badly and had stitches to the head.

Whilst there, my dad felt ill and had been coughing a lot but had not had a cold.  His leg was stiff and hot and when we looked him over it looked like he had been kicked in the leg.  My cousin said we best go to casualty with him.

My dad had a DVT in his leg but also had another in a major vein that needed surgery.  He has previously had a {PE}, this made him need an emergency operation.

As my father is older now, the operation was a huge thing and unfortunately there were complications.  He is now in ICU whilst they try and stabilise him enough to go on to a normal ward.  He was in high dependency for a week.

Fingers and thumbs everything works out.

My mother is OK, although obviously worried about what is going to happen.  She isnt liking that they cut her hair...

Ray I owe you a book review.  Now I have my laptop I will be on it!  It will take my mind off of everything for a while.

Hope you are all well.

Sol xxx