Belonging...

Yesterday I met up with an old friend for dinner. It was a nice catch up. I had fish and chips, served complete with 'newspaper'. The first time I have eaten on paper in a restaurant.

Valentine's Day

I had a nice one this year.

I saw this as somebody's Facebook status and thought it was nice.

Pancake Day

Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Tuesday) is the day before Ash Wednesday. It is 47 days before Easter Sunday and this year falls on 12^th February (today!). The word shrove is the past tense for the English verb shrive, which means to obtain absolution for one’s sins by way of confession and doing penance.

Pancakes are a way of using up rich food such as egg, milk and sugar before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. I have made my pancakes today.  I used a Delia Smith recipe Canadian Buttermilk Pancakes with Maple Syrup. They were of course delicious!

 

The next question is what am I going to do for the next 40 days of Lent?

I am so hungry I could eat a...

So for the past month we have been hearing about certain foods being 'contaminated' with horsemeat and later it transpires that some food is actually horsemeat

It made me start thinking about what I actually do eat...

In the past month I have been more or less confined to my flat and I have only been shopping once (I did a big shop before my confinement!). I have managed to eat three meals a day and some fruit. I have mainly been drinking water and fruit juice. I have eaten breakfast every single day for the past 18 days - that has to be a record on my part. I have returned to the childhood favourite/staple of Weetabix (but no added sugar to my bowl and covered in semi-skimmed milk). I have had limited access to chocolates, sweets and cakes...and I don't miss them. I seem to eat mostly salmon and salad, salmon and rice, salmon and noodles or salmon and potatoes. Am I sick of salmon yet? No - it is delicious baked, fried or grilled. I guess when the salmon runs out I will have to start on the chicken. From time to time I dip into a pot of Rachel's organic low fat vanilla bio-live yogurt. I am not sure if it is doing me any good but it passes the time and fills the stomach! I have had the privilege of eating freshly cooked moimoi - heavenly!

I am not sure when I will be able to make it to the supermarket next. However when I do, I am going to have to completely revise my shopping choices. Of course, other people have talked to me about this before but I think perhaps I have been too stubborn for my own good.

Now I need to think about dinner for tonight...

The Party

It's February and I am in 'recovery' mode. In the spirit of this - I created a few musical stories. Thought this one was fun!

Mince pies

So it is now the 30th day of December. Where has the year gone?

Christmas has gone - mince pies all eaten.

December has been eventful...

w/e

This is now the twelth day of the month of November.

2012 is rushing to a close at speed I cannot appreciate...

What do I have to say about November so far?

Not much - Barack Obama was re-elected for his second term.

I remember this moment 4 years ago in 2008.  I was doing night shifts and then went on to do a study day in central London - buoyed on by the belief that anything was possible!

 

Currently most of my November energies are directed towards work - I am not so sure that that is a great thing but there seems to be so much of it!

The weekends however - I have managed to get out and walk through a park or two and take pictures.  The autumnal colours are amazing and a sight to behold.  I am not quite sure I have captured it with the pictures I have taken. A combination of over and under exposure - never quite meeting perfection. However I have just been enjoying the feeling of being alive.

Little book of calm

I bought a little book some years ago from Welsey Owen/Dove Books when it was still open. I never really look at it, it sits in the back of my rucksack and acompanies me back and forth to work.

I picked it up today and opened it up on this page:

It is not work that wears people out, but sadness, anxiety and worry. To God all your griefs are worthy of consideration.

Philipian 4: 6 - 7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 5: 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you

Something to think about this week...

sometimes we pray

Last Sunday I went to Holy Trinity Brompton for the seven o’clock service. The service was good – the worship was excellent. I found myself crying through the song “Guardian” by Ben Cantelon.

The service was by David Ingall and based around Isaiah 43: 1 – 7 .

But now, this is what the Lord says—

he who created you, Jacob,

he who formed you, Israel:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

² When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

³ For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

I give Egypt for your ransom,

Cushand Seba in your stead.

⁴ Since you are precious and honored in my sight,

and because I love you,

I will give people in exchange for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

⁵ Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’

and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁷ everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

 

Although the main body of the sermon was a  hard message at times to swallow – I somehow found incredibly refreshing and encouraging. I think I have just honed in on those words that I have highlighted such, ”you are mine”, “I love you”, ”do not be afraid I am with you”.

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I am weak and not strong – if I am relying on 2000 year old words of scripture to keep my spirits up. I simply do not know. I have not quite managed to read any more of Isaiah but perhaps I should do – instead of falling alseep on the Tube! I get the tingling feeling that there is a message of hope to be found within those pages.

At the end of the service I went for prayer. Although I had many worries, I could not think of any one thing that I wanted prayer for so I asked the lady to just pray as she felt led. Now I cannot really remember what she said but I do remember her saying that God understands why I am doing what I am doing. God says that it is not my fault. God will be with me always. A little confusing and I am not sure that I really understood all of it but it somehow made me feel like at least the week could be started afresh.

I was reminded of the fact that I used to go for prayer on a 'regular basis'. I am not sure why that stopped.  I even used to keep a record of this in my e-mail account. I opened one of these e-mails last week - written in 2011.  This is what it said:

 

"Remember you went to HTB on 24th August and somebody prayed for you

Said that God was singing over you and delighted in you"

Not sure what to make about it now a year on and life very different.



 

TM

This is not how I expected it to be.

This is everything I expected it to be.

#youcannotbeserious

Creature of habit.

I will always sit in the seat at the front of the 1st carriage.

There is a small internal whoop of joy when there are no changes (I am easily pleased) and I do not have to emerge sleepy-eyed 3 stations from the final destination.

From my little corner on the carriage I can observe - the little dramas that fill the sixty minutes it takes to get from West to East.

Today I am amused.

Today I watch as irritation meets hunger.

I can smell the fried food before the owner reaches my end of the carriage. I must admit, even my stomach is rumbling.  The carrier of the chips and burger sits down next to me and munches away. I am just about to settle in an iPod haze, the 'I've Got To Tell You What A State I'm In' playlist is loaded and ready to go, just about to hit the shuffle button for that extra element of 'surprise', when the woman opposite  us clear her throat.

We both look up - and the woman makes the noise again and says "You're not serious?"

The eater of chips carries on eating. I carry on...,well - sitting.

The woman speaks again "You can't eat on the Tube, it smells!"

The eater of chips, stops for a moment, takes a bite from her burger, chews, swallows and continues to stare at the woman opposite her. The eater of chips takes another chip from the paper bag and replies "I'm hungry, I'm tired, I've had a long day".

The woman opposite - somehow had left her empathy at the ticket office, says, "I don't care about that. I'm tired too. I should be able to get on the Tube and not have to smell that food"

The chip eater continues with the mission, never wavering - "Sorry, I can't help you there. You're free to move"

The woman opposite is clearly not grateful for this  piece of advice - it is the first time I have seen an outraged splutter - and it is truly amusing...

In Between Days

GJM

A year is a long time in between days...

7th October 2011

This was the word in earnest, in faith

That I love deeply and am loved

That I give and am given too

That I am forgiven and forgive

That I am fruitful and bless the Earth

That I be joyful in your name always
 

Time travel has not been invented yet

Throwing the baby out with the bath water...?

Just ploughing through the 1st chapter of the  Religion For Atheists by Alain de Botton (Wisedom without doctrine) and picking out the interesting bits.



 

 

"One can be left cold by the doctrines of the Christian Trinity and the Buddhist Eightfold Path and yet at the same time be interested in the ways in which religion deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use  or art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude a the beauty of spring"


"We invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not been able to solve with any particular skill:

1. the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and violent impulses.

2. second, the need to cope with terrifying degrees of pain which arise from our vulnerability to professional failure, to troubled relationships, to the death of loved ones and to our decay and demise"


"Religions merit our attention for their sheer conceptual ambition; for changing the the world in a way that few secular institutions ever have.  They have managed to combine theories about ethics and metaphysics with a practical involvement in education, fashion, politics, travel, hostelry, initiation ceremonies, publishing, art and architecture..."

Over the past year I have become more interested in why people follow religions/come to faith.Sometimes I wonder if it is just an accident of birth that we end up following one religion or another - or at least until we are old enough to make our own decisions. Sometimes, in fact many times, I have doubts about the whole thing. Why do I have doubts - the 64 million dollar questions? Many reasons - many of which are personal but I can see the 'benefits' of some aspects of religion which is why I am reluctant to throw the baby out with the bath water...

Patience

 

I am waiting patiently. The hospital radio plays on in the background (who choses the playlist? 'Wind beneath my wings' and 'You are my one temptation' are to name but a few). The waiting room is slowly filling up, as is my bladder as I sip my prerequisite amount of water and try to ignore the encroaching discomfort. A husband and wife team enter, both clutching their one litre bottles of Highland spring water. I am not sure who is having the scan but they both earnestly sip away. It's sweet. Opposite me is a mother-son duo. The son in his work suit staring straight ahead - preoccupied while his mother mutters away to herself while rummaging through her handbag. Eventually she finds what she is searching for - her mobile phone. She pulls it out in triumph, flips open the cover and then looks at it with a puzzled expression on her face. She takes off her glasses, peers closer at the tiny screen and passes the phone to her son. At that moment he is called by the ultrasongrapher and hastily hands the phone back to his mother. It is then that I ponder on why I assumed it was the mother and not the son who had come for the scan; it is then that I  ponder on what his story might be and while I am pondering my name is called.  It is time.

Golden Harvest Moon

September 2012 is over in a few hours.

Do I have any ground-breaking news of my own to contribute?

Not especially...

This month has mostly been about work for me but there have of course been a few nice things.

Twenty years ago it was 1992 and I had just turned 16. I was at secondary school and had just started my 'A' levels: Biology, Chemistry and Physics.  Had a look through my diary from September 1992 - makes for interesting reading...For the most part I cannot make any sense of it. Most of it is written in code form, in the way only a teenage girl can write when she thinks the whole world is just waiting to read her innermost thoughts! All I could ascertain was that I had made a promise - which it seems I could not keep.  It also seems that I went on a biology field trip to Wales - Abergavenny. I barely remember that trip! I also had a penchant for breaking into song, in the form of written text, in the middle of a diary entry. The trials of being a teenage girl...!

10 years ago it was 2002 and I had just turned 26. I was a junior doctor living and working in Portsmouth - my first job outside London and first time living truely away from home. Looking through my diary from Septmber 2002 - is...
Seems I spent much of my time working, writing presentations, studying for exams and complaining about being lonely and tired!

And Golden Harvest moon?

Well, it seems September for me is best happily remembered as a primary and infant school child. September marked the start of the new term - new school clothes, new books and new teachers. Fresh floor polish. September sun. In the infant school we used to sing Golden Harvest Moon. I have Googled this time and time again and it does not seem to come up as 'lyrics for a children's song'. I remember...
"Golden Harvest Moon, shining in September
......................................................... remember
When I go to bed, I can see you shining"

Not much of a memory it seems...

Akara!

It may seem like all I do is eat!

This is akara - one of my favorite Nigerian dishes. I am still working out how to make the perfect 'beanball' but after years of watching my mother I am still unable to recreate that perfect crunchy spicy taste. I think the key lies in having just the right ratio of fluid and black-eye beans, the right amount of oil and the right amount of frying time...easier said than done.

I must have weird tastebuds - because for me this dish is only complete with a bowl of custard! The combination of savoury and sweet is mouthwatering.

My favourite memories...? Why Christmas, of course!

Bowled over...

Bowling in East and Central London.

Seems I am not that bad at it...or maybe it was just flukiness and high spirits!

In anycase, have not had so much fun in ages. 

Somehow inspired the later peanut butter and banana smoothie - delicious.

The thin red line

The telephone alarm  woke her up as per usual at six am but the sun was not shining through the curtains as it had been for the past two months. Instead there was a steady beat of rain against the window pane. Julia reached out her arm to turn off the phone and thought “Five minutes, I’ll get up in five minutes”. When she opened her eyes again, the clock on the wall was showing five past seven. She groaned to herself, “Late again…” it almost seemed as it was laughing at her – the short hand on seven and the long hand on one like a gymnast who was taut, stretched, ready for action.  The complete opposite of how she felt.  She sat up and looked around her room.  What to do first she thought – pack her back, make her sandwiches, eat breakfast, shower, clean her teeth, iron her shirt and trousers. Somehow she managed to all the morning manoeuvres by eight o’clock. Five past eight saw her leaving the flat with bag on shoulder and iPod headphones in her ears and her little black umbrella shielding of the worst of the rain.

When she arrived 15 minutes later at the station, the crowded platform, passengers sticking heads out of the carriage doors, alerted her that there was yet another delay on the central line. She therefore took her time when buying her weekly travelcard (increasing every year, with not much to show for it) and walked slowly along the platform looking for the least crowded carriage.  She eventually found one and squeezed between a pregnant lady and a bearded man. The train driver announced that a “passenger has fallen ill at Stratford; the ambulance will be waiting at Mile End”. She looked around at the other passengers who were furiously texting work colleagues about the impending lateness, some looking annoyed and some looking resigned to the fact – ‘just another Monday morning’. She wondered what was wrong with the passenger – heart attack – was the first thing that popped into her mind. Looking around at all the middle-aged men in suits that surrounded her, they did fit the stereotypical candidates.  But there were all range of people and illnesses possible. As more people pushed onto the carriage of the train that was not moving, she wondered idly about the pregnant woman. ‘How many weeks was she?’, ‘Is she comfortable standing up?’ ‘why won’t somebody give her a seat?’, ‘Why is she not wearing her “Baby on Board Badge”.  At this last thought she almost burst out aloud – she smiled and wondered to herself – ‘Whose idea was that?’. Some sensible person from Transport for London no doubt.
 

As the minutes ticked away and thus her chances of arriving at work before 10, her thoughts dwelled on pregnant women in general.  One the occasions that she obtained a seat on the Underground, she could never relax, always looking out for a pregnant woman standing in front of her that would need a seat.  She sometimes found it difficult to tell who was in the early stages in pregnancy and who was just, well…’well covered’.  It could sometimes be a close call – the thin line between offence and grace.  Sometimes in these cases her inner voice chided her “Julia all those years of medical training and you still do not know?”

 

Last week she had met up with an old friend, well more like acquaintance, who was seven months into the pregnancy.  Despite the swelling – she had somehow avoided other tell-tale signs of extra fluid. Her ankles and wrists remained bony and sculptured and heart shaped face undistorted. In fact the only other indication that she was incubating a life within and not an enthusiasm for fast food were her breasts, which were popping out of the low top of the maxi dress she was wearing. She seemed healthy, happy and content.  She has stopped working a few months previously and was in all respects a lady of leisure.  While her husband worked, she would be arranging the baby clothes in colour and size order, setting up the nursery, meeting friends for lunch and who wondering she would employ as a nanny when the baby arrived. At the same time knowing that these were here last few months of freedom, once the little bundle of joy arrived – life as she knew it would end.
 

In contrast, Julia thought back to the hour long conversation she had had with her friend, 4 months post-delivery, struggling with a jealous three year old and a fractious husband. This other friend had worked until the 36^th week, taking the 2 hour commute in her stride but arriving at work and home in a breathless heap. In addition to buying all the baby equipment herself, she had to clear out the tiny box room currently occupied by the first child to make room for the new arrival.  When the baby arrived, pulled out her belly with the help of the surgeons tools and much bigger than anybody had predicted, the paternity leave seemed to end all too soon and once again she was alone for large portions of the day.

Such different lives she thought – but at least they would have their babies – their prize and joy. 

“STAND CLEAR! DOORS CLOSING” She was jolted out of her melancholy musings by the announcement by the train driver and the train lurching out of the station. Hey ho another day begins!
 

Coffee, vanilla and walnut cake

Today is the August Bank Holiday. I baked another cake!

Walnut, vanilla and coffee. It tasted nice but the icing somehow did not work! Not as thick and fluffy as I expected. Maybe because I ran out margarine and used only half the ingredients to make the butter icing.

Anyway it tasted delicious. I am not sure what I will do with the rest of the cake. Perhaps take it to work tomorrow.

We shall see.

Egusi Soup