About a precious moment last week

H = husband

On Wednesday, a sunny afternoon saw H and I at our local beauty spot, on our first, and, as usual, only, blackberrying sortie this year. Every September, I always have the romantic intention to find the lovely fruit which, often, by the time we manage to get there, has all gone!!

Still, we walked around the pool, passing a lovely little family, consisting of mum and two young children (inset-training day at school). As is the wont of ladies of my age and inclination, I have to talk to the children. They were delightful and followed us round, chatting as we went.

As we turned our different ways, we, to continue our, literally, fruitless effort and they to return to their car, the little boy (two years old - birthday, bonfire night, we'd learned) came running back and jumped up to both of us for a hug, followed, shyly, by his lovely five year old sister. 

It made our day and, in bed that night, its remembrance brought a smile of pure joy to me. Such precious moments mean so much. What a lovely job their parents have done to give them the confidence to be so free and natural, so open and loving. Long may it last and may they never be hurt by it.

About Stoicism

I read this definition recently and really liked it.

"Stoicism is.....coming to terms with reality and learning to live with it."

The writer (Quentin de la Bedoyere) continues with an example:

"So, if you crash your car and you are jumping up and down with rage, a passing Stoic would tell you that your anger is pointless - just accept the crash and think about your next rational step."

He goes on to add, "Easier said than done, but you suspect that he's right." , and ends the article with these words: "I would like to report that I am far advanced in my Stoicism but it is a work in progress. It certainly helps me to reduce irrational anxieties even if I cannot always quench them. And I have far fewer occasions of panic."

It sounds like it's well worth applying the Stoic approach. I hope to remember to try!

Catholic Herald: August 25 2017

About gender bending

Dear people of this world,

Do not, I beg you, mess about with gender. If you do, you are pulling apart the chain of life; not the chain which binds but the chain which holds together the miraculous helix of humanity.

All life is meant to be interlocked. It is the 'lego of love', the interconnectedness of human existence.

Another update on skinning potatoes - take 2

Tried the cross on both sides of three largish potatoes in the (fan) oven on 180 and it worked well. I don't think I made the cuts quite deep emough so will try again but it was still the best method so far!

Tried 1 small and 2 large potatoes in the MV today with one deep cross cut into the top of each potato. It worked really well.

PS Be careful not to cut too deeply because the soft white inner part can come off too easily and the potato can fall apart.

An update on 'skinning' potatoes

In these last few days, someone mentioned, coincidently, that restaurants put a deepish score on their jacket potatoes to cook them through more easily. I've tried it twice since then and it works marvellously, skins peeling off really well.
So deepish scores on both sides of the potato is now my favoured option. (I haven't tried the oven yet but it worked really well in the microwave.)

About there being no such thing as 'luck'

For years now, I have driven people of my acquaintance mad by the statement above; so much so, that I have to desist saying it every time I hear someone say, "Oh, I've been so lucky .....etc.". Don't believe it, it's not true.

Let's take the ordinary example of tossing a coin. Under normal circumstances, it is entirely impossible to predict which way it will fall but that doesn't mean that there is no cause for it's landing on its head or its tail.

What it does mean is that there are so many factors at play, the speed, direction, weight, external conditions, etc, that are 'unmeasurable', the outcome can be said to be unpredictable, unless there were some new, very hi-tech means to achieve this.

If something good comes as a result of our having called the 'right' result, we may feel that we have been 'lucky', when actually, it was pure science at play! Statistically, it is true that the more times a coin is tossed, the more the result will tend towards a 50/50 outcome; although it is possible, but highly unlikely, that 100 tosses could give 100 heads.

A personally irritating example is to be found in virtually every Wimbledon match commentary. Each time a player wins or loses a point due to the ball just rolling over or falling back from the net, it is said to be 'lucky' or 'unlucky' whereas that outcome is entiely due to the speed, direction and force of the winning or loosing player's shot.

There is, though, the element of chance. I wouldn't even like to begin to define the word but I do know that its mathematical and scientific study has formed the foundation of the subjects of Statistics and Probability and many of the advances in the modern world have come from the direction of those studies.

Take the example of a ticket being pulled out of a bag of raffle tickets. The hand goes in at a certain position and alights on one and decides to pick it out. If there are a hundred tickets and you have bought one of them then you have a 1 in a 100 chance of being the winner but it is entirely due to the circumstances of the shaking of the bag etc and the location of your ticket amongst all the others, another unknowable factor; merely science again.

The question is, "Does it really matter if we believe in good or bad 'luck'? Well I believe it does. In the case of 'good luck', it can perhaps make us feel that we are 'favoured' in some way, which we are not. In the case of so-called 'bad luck' it can make us feel that we are victims of 'fate', impotent, powerless against forces which we are unable to control or resist in any way. Whereas, if we believe that everything has a cause, then causes can be discerned and maybe overcome.

My scientific knowledge and (I'd like to believe) common sense, limited though they may be, tell me that every occurrence in life has a physical cause. Whether or not we can discern it is another matter but at least we can try!

About my baggy cotton cardigan

I am a great lover of wearing cotton clothes, especially in summer.
Having found what I thought was a very useful white cotton cardigan in Gap, I was disappointed to find that, after what I considered to be way too short a period of time, it became baggy and shapeless!! Having  DEFINITELY NOT had my 'money's worth' out of it, I was seriously disgruntled and about to put it in the bag of rags for the charity shop!!
The fact that it also had a tea/coffee/unspecified small stain on it, which was down to nobody's fault except my own was, sadly, another factor. My usual cold water/soap/vanish-soap treatment having failed, compounded its fate.
HOWEVER, a reprieve has been granted and it has been spared. I am also a very cold body in bed and needed a summer bed-jacket. Inspiration made me try my baggy cardigan and - guess what - it's perfect. I snuggle inside it, happpily warm and very happy to be getting more value for my money.
I feel so happy that my ugly duckling cardigan has become my super-duper summer bed-jacket.

Husband's thoughts about criticism

Apropos of various chats over breakfast, husband (H) came out with a string of comments which I thought were so great, I tried to jot them down. Sadly, they spilled out so quickly, I couldn't keep up but will try to give the gist.

• "If you want to speak against something, STUDY it!"
• You have to earn the right to criticise something!"
• You have to love something before you have the right to criticise it."
• People want to criticise something because it scares them."
• The only thing that works is example."

He did admit that, when younger, he was up there with those who do criticise (I'm happy to vouch for that one!) but that age had mellowed him and given him some wisdom and realisation that no-one can or should judge.
By this time, he was on a roll and I couldn't keep up but I was impressed and touched and proud. He's a man of instinct and when in full spate, can talk a lot of sense (and sometimes not, but that's another story!).

About skinning potatoes (plus a PPS)

There is no-one on God's earth who can convince me that eating a potato skin is a good thing to do, although I admit I do have an OCD issue with cleaning/rinsing food.

Skin, as far as I know, is dead material and, furthermore, potato skins are dirty, which they have a right to be, considering that they are grown in soil. No amount of (over-labour-intensive, in my view anyway) scrubbing induces me to wish to eat them, even though I'm assured that the heat has taken care of the possible germs. It's the dirt I'm bothered about.

So how to remove the skins. There are two main problems with potato peelers; one, they almost always take too much potato away, thereby removing the most nutritionally important part which is just BELOW the skin and two, peeling is such a horrible job!

Hence, I have come quite a long way in developing methods of skinning my spuds. Following are some tips for the various methods of cooking, should you wish to try. The basic principle is to 'cook' to just softening level, leave for about 2 minutes, dip in cold water and strip the skin away (I use my fingers) and rinse with clean water.

1. MIcrowave (only really useful for 1-4 potatoes) Score each potato with a sharp knife. I have tried a cross on each side but am now going for a ring around the middle or longways or occasionally both. 
2. Oven (Temp approximately 180) Place the potatoes on a metal dish (sometimes, I put some water in as well to keep them soft), place in the oven for about 40 minutes. Strip the skins as above and then continue to cook as roast or whole or wedges until cooked through. This works on higher or lower temperatures by adjusting the timing. PPS I drizzle the surface of the potatoes with oil (sunflower is supposed to be better for high temperatures) having shaken the skinned potatoes in water to ruffle the outside for roasties.
3. Saucepan This method works really well for new potatoes and though fiddly, it is, to my mind, a lot easier than scraping. I always start cooking them earlier than usual because the skinning is done at the end of the cooking. I find this method is not as successful with old potatoes because they tend to go mushy but I still prefer it because I hate all the waste of potato that peeling produces. 

(One of my son-in-laws calls me frugal, which I don't care for, preferring 'economical'. I leave you to be the judge.)

PS Sometimes, the skin comes off so cleanly, it's a joy, but, often, chunks of potato stay on the skin. I look on that as my perk because I eat those bits as I go along; naughty but nice, as I am a great lover of potatoes!