The Jolliest Scrooge of the Season

That is me.

A Christmas contradiction.

source:flickr.com

I love Christmas. 

I love the magic of counting the days of advent by reading a special winter or Christmas poem every night before we eat our evening meal. Since I selected all the poems, they are all poems that I love. So, every night when I open the folder to read the one for the day I smile and Spiderman says, "Wait! Don't tell me! Is this one of your favourite ones?"and I laugh and say, "Why, yes it is!"

I love my birthday which is two weeks before Christmas. I love the tradition of putting up our Charlie Brown Christmas tree on my birthday. I love that for every year we have been married we have bought or made a new ornament for the tree. I love that we buy a card and write a message to each other that reminds us of what we have experienced together that year. Every ornament on our tree holds a memory.

I love that on my birthday we always eat leek and potato soup. It is so warm and comforting and delicious. When we were first married, it was the symbol of England. We ate it dreamed of someday moving to the UK. And now we have. It is like having my dreams come true when I eat that soup.

I love that on my birthday we always watch The Muppet's Christmas Carol.  I love hearing Spiderman hum along to the songs and occasionally do his Jazz Chicken impression on the songs that have a brass band.I love being able to feel genuine grief when Tiny Tim dies. I cry every year even though I know perfectly well that he is actually alive.

I love going to the Pantomime for birthday. I love the familiar fairy tales (this year Dick Whittington!) I love the interaction where you shout at the actors. I love the songs, ridiculous costumes and dancing. I adore the terrible jokes and puns.

I love picking out the fancy paper and making our Christmas cards. A friend recently offered us a chance to use her  e-card service for free, but I had to tell her no. I love the beautiful paper. I love the feel of the gluestick in my hand. I love the skritch of the scissors. I love the joy of making.

I love waiting for the sound of the thunk on the doormat downstairs and knowing there might be a Christmas card in the post. I love rushing downstairs and opening the door and quickly grabbing the post and scampering upstairs again because it is bloody freezing down below and I am in my sock feet. I love opening cards from other people. I just love getting post.

I love Christmas dinner.  I love nutroast, potatoes, and vegetables smothered in gravy. I love sticky toffee pudding. I love being in the kitchen with Spiderman as side by side we prepare the food. I love drinking Norfolk punch (a non alcoholic mulled punch made with orange, lemon and elderberry juice with herbs and spices that range from cinnamon and cloves to chamomile and dandelion. The recipe comes from Medieval monastery.)

I love bundling up on Boxing Day and taking a walk in the frosty air and strolling through a nearly deserted town with my beloved.

I love sitting in front of the telly in my pyjamas and watching Christmas dvds while nibbling on fruits and nuts and candy.

I love eating Turkish Delight and pretending that we are Edmond and the White Witch in Narnia.

I love celebrating Jesus' birthday.

But I also feel in a way that contradicts all that joy.

source: freerepublic.com

I hate Christmas

I hate that shops begin to put out Christmas decorations in November. This year it started in October. Wilkos had a row with Halloween decorations on one side and Christmas decorations on the other. 

I hate Black Friday. I hate people pushing and shoving to get a bargain. I hate all the emphasis on presents. Did you see me mention presents up there? No. No, I did not. 

I hate the commercialism of it all. I hate the greed. I hate people thinking what can I get here rather than how can I help.

I hate the fact that it centres around  suffering and death for so many people. Order your Christmas turkey early to avoid disappointment! Why not try roasting your potatoes in goose fat this year for extra crispness? 

I hate how busy all the shops are. Everyone pushing and shoving. People lose their manners in December (and by this I mean people are so fixed on their agenda that they don't notice you. They wheel their trolley right over your foot and then glare at you because you were in their way not the Louisiana definition of "lose your manners" which means to fart.)

I hate that Santa's Grotto (or Grotty Santa as we have been calling it) sets up in town with real live reindeer. I know as a child it would have seemed magical to see real reindeer, but as an adult I can see how miserable they look being forced to walk up and down the crowded shopping parade. Plus they were really shivering and the trainer lady said they needed to be indoors soon as it was getting dangerous for them as several were ill. They had rheumy eyes. But you know what? They were all still there two hours later when I passed by again. 

Our town has at least eight Christmas trees. I hate that one has to be in front of the Tower where my friends run their vegan stall. Last year the tree was up from late November to mid January. That is seven weeks that they cannot be out there selling cake to raise money for animal charities. I hate that they are blocked from doing good due to a tree. 

I hate the Christmas lights. Well, it's not the lights themselves that i hate, but rather the cost of running them for the season. The lights in Carmarthen were officially turned on November 18th. November 18th, people! When we lived in Hitchin, i recall an appeal where they needed to raise £10,000 to pay the electric bill for the Christmas lights. They already had £10,000 and needed ANOTHER £10,000 to afford to run the lights. £20,000!!!!!! That is more money than we make in a year. 

I hate the fact that budget cuts and unemployment rates have skyrocketed. I hate that more and more families cannot meet their basic needs, let alone try to cobble together something for their kiddos for the holiday. I hate that we spend £20,000 on Christmas lights when people go hungry. 

I hate that people lose sight of the fact of the importance of the Winter Solstice and forget about the birth of a baby in a manger.

Are you a conflicted Christmas person, too? What can we do?

Although, I will be making cookies, too.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall....

....Oh to see ourselves as others see us.

In my job as a private tutor we have been doing a month long book study about my favourite book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.  It is always enlightening to share this book with someone who is unfamiliar with it, especially if  they only know the film version.

The main characters all have a fervent desire for something they truly believe they don't possess.

The Scarecrow wishes for brains, but comes up with loads of clever ideas to help them through their journey such as suggesting how they could build a raft to travel down a river or use a tree as a bridge to cross a canyon.

The Lion believes himself to be a coward, but shows many acts of bravery such as fighting the Kalidahs (head of a tiger, body of bear).

The Tin Woodman thinks he has no heart and desires one so he can love and be kind and yet he repeatedly shows great depth of feeling. My favourite example is where he accidently trods on a small beetle and it causes him to cry so much he rusts his jaw shut. The Tin Woodman is almost like a Jain Monk here--even the smallest insect matters.

Often we already  have the very qualities that we wish to acquire.

But the reverse is true as well.

Sometimes how we see ourselves is more generous than is actually true.

I received this in my inbox recently and it got me thinking.


I know LOTS of big-hearted people in the world. People who care deeply for animals. People who are shocked and appalled by animal cruelty. People who would adopt every stray that they meet. People who would do anything, give anything they had for the animals in their care.

But only SOME animals.

Furry animals.
Cute animals.
Dog and cats.
Pets.

It is a type of selective compassion. It is a type of speciesism.  It is saying that "some animals deserve our care and love and some do not."  The magnificent book Why We Love Dogs,  Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An introduction to Carnism  by  Melanie Joy  delves into this idea.

I know and love many good hearted people who see themselves as good hearted people. They see themselves as kind and compassion, as a righter-of-wrongs.  But they are selective in who they extend that compassion to.

I was once like this. I was a big-ole animal lover (despite my crippling allergies to most conventional pets) who from my teens was a passionate animal rights activist. I researched and boycotted companies who tested their cosmetics and shampoos on animals. I refused to buy Tide to wash our clothes because of P&G's record of animal abuse. I gave a shit about animal testing long before *anyone* else I knew did.

But I was still eating animals.

I hadn't made the connection.

It took me many years for my eyes to open and see that ALL animals deserve our respect. ALL animals deserve our compassion. ALL animals have a mother and NO animal wants to die.

I think of what I want for myself-- a life free from fear and pain. Why would I not wish this for every living being on this planet? This is universal compassion. 

Being a vegan is the best thing I ever did with my life. It is my proudest achievement. Because I know, that every choice I make is a choice to end suffering for ALL of God's creatures (not just SOME) and that everything I do with my life is in the spirit of LOVE.

Peace Begins On Our Plates.

I want the world to wake up and think about the pets they adore and see every animal in the same light--with the eyes of love and compassion.

I have a dream......

It's not easy being green

Tomorrow is the big day.

Election day.

The General Election.

Sure, we have voted before since becoming British citizens. We have gone in with the little pencil like you get in miniature golf and the bit o' paper into the study carrel and put an X by the name of the candidate which made it seem like voting for prom queen.

But this is different. This election will determine who the Prime Minister will be.

This is important.

Our country has been run primarily by the Tories (Conservatives) for the last few years and frankly I am tired of the rich ole boys network that seems to reward the rich and punish the working poor. I am sick of a party who support hunting, battery cages for pheasants and wants to extend the badger cull  despite scientific evidence that proves that is not badgers that spread Bovine TB to cows but factory farming that spreads TB.

The problem is I struggle to find a party I can believe in. So far, out of the mainstream parties Labour was looking pretty good. I like Ed Miliband.  He is not slick or cool but I think that works in his favour. Our current PM David Cameron is an oily snake. It is refeshing to see someone like Miliband who is slightly awkward like the rest of us. I don't trust anyone who has an answer for everything and says it in a condescending tone of voice. 

So why am I not voting Labour?

I was all set to do it. To back a party that has an actual chance of winning. I liked that Labour opposes fox hunting, the badger cull and battery cages for pheasants as well as opposes a ban on wild animals in circuses. 

Then Miliband made his crucial mistake.

When discussing which parties he would NOT join in with to form a coalition in case none of the parties got a majority (which is what happened last time) he said under no circumstances would he join with the SNP (Scottish National Party)  because of their views on the Trident Missiles. The SNP wants to see them disbanded. They think spending billions of pounds each year on weapons of mass destruction that we will never use is a fool's game when schools and hospitals and everything else that has suffered cutbacks is crying out for funding.

This where he lost me.

I spent months knitting a metre square panel and joined it up with others at the Wool Against Weapons protest where people all over the world sent panels that were joined together to make a seven mile long pink scarf between two armaments factories. This matters to me and so I have to go with my gut.

It has to be Green.

 They say no to:
Corporate tax evasion
Benefits sanctions
Trident missiles
Nuclear power
Fracking
GMO foods


They say yes to:
Local authority accountabilty
Affordable housing
Renewable energy
Investmetns in school and hospitals
Animal welfare
Renationalisation of railways

Am I throwing my vote away? Probably. But in the last general election only 60% of eligible voters even bothered to vote so if all those people who didn't vote voted Green they might have a chance.

But I can't in good conscience vote for Labour if they support trident missiles.

Polls are saying Labour is in the lead to win and I hope it is true because they are the best of the major parties even if I disagree with some of their values--if i can't have green I would prefer labour over Tory and don't get me started on UKIP.

But wouldn't the world be better if it was a little Greener?

Sneaky Pizza

I love to sneak healthy stuff into my food. Does that even make sense? We already eat an incredibly healthy diet--a whole food diet, a real food diet, a vegan diet--but there is always room for a bit of extra nutrition. Mission nutrition means that we add an extra dose of healthy to our already healthy diet. So if you are out there and wish you could add a bit more of the good stuff into your diet (or need to sneak some vegetables into your picky eating  toddler or spouse’s food) then this is the pizza crust for you.

 

You heard me…pizza crust just got healthier.

 In the Spider household, we are pizza fiends. Ever since I bought that cookbook by Julie Hasson called Vegan Pizza we regularly have pizza. Mmm…pizza. As I have a wheat intolerance I chose it’s lower in gluten cousin spelt flour for our flour of choice and saved my gluten free flours for other baking treats. We choose wholemeal spelt because it happened to be cheaper and is definitely healthier than plain ole white spelt (or any white flour for that matter) but for this recipe regular wholemeal wheat flour would work.

 I got the idea from this blog: (Never) Homemaker. http://www.neverhomemaker.com/2011/08/yet-another-perfect-pizza-crust.html  They use pureed veg as part of the liquid substitute in their crust. They started off with canned pumpkin puree which I am sure was dynamite but we can’t find pumpkin puree in a tin other than Libby’s brand which is owned by Nestle (Or Nasty as I like to call them. Go here if you want to read about the questionable ethics of Nestle  http://spidergrrlvstheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/nestle-is-nasty.html) Yeah, I know you could gut a pumpkin and roast it or steam it or whatever but who has that kind of time? I wanted something quick. Bish, bash, bosh. Done.

 

This recipe calls for pureed chickpeas and carrots as part of your liquid substitution. So you get a protein and veg boost in your crust. Also it has the added bonus of making the crust moist and chewy as opposed to heavy and dry as wholemeal baking can sometimes be.

 

First open a tin of chickpeas and a tin of carrots and drain them and rinse well. Again if you have the time you could steam your own carrots but I am going for quickness and cheapness. A tin of East End chickpeas sells for about 37p and a tin of carrots about 19p.

 

Then blend them all in a food processor. If you are like me and your food processor died and went to Silicone Heaven, they puree up very well using an immersion blender and some ingenuity. Now you have a beautiful orange puree. Next divide in half. Did I forget to mention that the puree makes enough for four pizzas???? Their recipe said it made two 1 cup portions. My tin of carrots is a little small so it makes two ¾ cup portions. Whatever. Still works. Save one half for this batch and then store the other half in the fridge if planning to make more pizzas in a few days or do like I do and freeze the other half. Then defrost overnight in the fridge and take it out a few hours before you want it to come to room temperature. Easy peasy. 

 

Their directions were more standard where you mix the yeast with the water and let it froth and then mix it into your flour.

 

I do it the lazy way and it has never failed me. Three cheers for the lazy way! 

 Sneaky Pizza crust

 3 cups wholemeal flour (or 3 and ¼ cups if using wholemeal spelt)

1 packet instant yeast

1 heaping teaspoon sugar

1 tsp (sea) salt

¾ to 1 cup sneaky orange puree

1 and ¼ cups (plus a bit more?) quite hand hot tap water (about 110 degrees)  

 

Put your flour in a bowl. I don’t even bother to sift. Lazy way strikes again.

 

Sprinkle over the sugar salt and yeast but don’t stir it yet.

 

Mix the orange puree in a pyrex cup or small bowl and add your hot tap water. I let my tap water get as hot as it gets for this. About 110 to 120 degrees. I checked it obsessively with a thermometer the first few times but now just let my tap water get hot.

 

Mix the wet into the dry and stir until combined (you may have to add a few more slops of hot water) and then knead a bit with your hands--maybe 5-10 scrunches. Then cover the bowl with Clingfilm and let it rise for 3 hours or so in a warm place. We pop it on a small heat mat made for the spiders.

 

Then when it has risen, divide in two (I weigh it but you can just eyeball it.) Then you can roll one out now and make the pizza or do as I do and wrap in Clingfilm (re-use the Clingfilm that you used to cover the bowl for one of them) and then pop in a ziplock bag and into the freezer. Defrost in the fridge overnight before you want it and then on the counter for a few hours before the meal.

 To bake:

Preheat oven to 250C/500F

Roll out the dough and bake for 5 minutes then add half a cup of sauce and toppings of your choice and bake for another 10-12 minutes. Then let it rest for 5 minutes (if you can stand it) and slice and eat.

 

Literally it is that easy.

 

Here’s one I made earlier:

It has a smoky cream sauce made from cashews, nutritional yeast, liquid smoke and *love* plus caramelised onions and mushrooms and chestnuts. I got a load of chestnuts for pennies around Christmas time and we are still reaping the benefits. I only used half the pack so we will have chestnut risotto soon to use up the rest. Two meals from one packet--bonus!

 

This crust is delicious and healthy with the wholemeal flour, chickpeas and carrots.

 

Go and make it now, dude!

This is not a Wal-Mart in America, people!

I noticed the other day that there were signs for Black Friday sales here in Wales. Say what? Black Friday is the big sale day after Thanksgiving (a holiday we don’t even celebrate over here! Although I never could get my East Texas grandmother to believe it) where crazy people all rush into a store in a frenzied manner and then beat the crap out of each other for bargain merchandise.

I was so cross when I saw the sign that I began a full tilt rant that caused me to swerve into an oncoming old lady for which I had to apologise profusely. Apparently I cannot be indignant and walk in a straight line at the same time. Go figure.

But my worst fears were justified as news coverage today describes near riots in several shops all over the country. According to BBC News:

 

Greater Manchester Police appealed for calm after attending seven Tesco shops, at which three men were arrested and a woman was hit by a falling television.

The force said the issues were "totally predictable" and it was "disappointed" by shop security. Tesco said only a "small number" of stores were affected.

Police were called in places including Dundee, Glasgow, Cardiff and London.

Incidents included:

• About 200 shoppers refused to leave a store in Middleton "despite being told stock had all gone"
• Fights broke out between shoppers in Stretford, and a woman suffered "minor injuries" after being hit by a falling television. The store was closed at 00:36 GMT
• A man was arrested in Salford after he threatened to "smash a staff member's face in"
• In Wigan, officers were called to reports of "several hundred people trying to enter the store". Police added: "Two men were ejected before control was regained"
• There were reports of fighting in a store in Hattersley, where a man was arrested for a public order offence
• A man was arrested for assault at a store in Green End

Jamie Hook was buying food at Tesco in Stretford on Thursday night when he said "the screaming started".

"I looked at the massive crowd to see people climbing over shelves and displays, staff running for cover, fights breaking out, stock flying through air, people breaking through carrying televisions - and this was before the sale had even started," he said.

"The lady on the till I was at was in tears, terrified of it all, but she was under orders to close her till to go and help crowd control."

What is wrong with us? Why are we becoming more and more like our American counterparts? Not in the good ways, but finding the worst and most savage and destructive behaviours and thinking, “Hey! I’d like to be like that!”

We’ll all be carrying guns next.  

Clash

I love finding a bargain. We have so many charity shops in our town as well as a market, you never know what you might find. On Tuesday and Saturday the market is mostly fruit and vegetables (and is the cheapest place to get your 5-a-day) but Fridays are given over to antiques and flea market junk. It is fun to potter around and see what’s out there. I have a friend who sometimes has a stall on the Friday Market so I went out to see if I could find Peter, but instead I found a bargain.

I had a nosy around the CD stall and I found something I hadn’t thought of in years. The Clash--Combat Rock on CD for £3. I have a long history with the Clash. In 1982 for my thirteenth birthday Brad K bought me the 45 single record of Rock the Casbah.  Does anyone these days even know what I mean when I say vinyl record album and turntable?

 

I adored the song--the catchy chorus, the slightly unintelligible lyrics, the video (remember this was the early days of MTV back when they actually showed music videos) where an Arab and an Hasidic Jew bonded over rock music whist being inexplicably followed by an armadillo. I loved the way it pushed my Mum’s buttons--she believed that any band that said the word Rock in that tone of voice was probably saying F*ck. Good times.

 

Later that year I saved up my pocket money and bought Combat Rock on the latest musical innovation--the cassette tape. Man those were great--they were portable--you could record on them and play them back! You could put your tape player next to the radio and wait until they played the song you had requested (in my case Luka by Suzanne Vega) and then press play and get a badly recorded version of poor sound quality with a DJ talking over the music. But you had a copy and were sticking it to the man--you didn’t have to buy the music! Good times. My boyfriend Tim and I used to record music to share (this is how I was introduced to Pink Floyd) on one side of the cassette and then talk on the other in some rambling monologue about things like undying love and Elf Quest. This was before SKYPE people, you did what you had to.  

 

I recall really being moved by the lyrics of the first song Know Your Rights. I had grown up with social- conscience-political lyrics from the 1960’s but these were the first social-conscience-political lyrics of my generation that I had ever heard. Probably the second one I recall being moved politically by was Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil. Maybe these song were the beginning of activism for me.

 

Upon re-listening, I was moved all over again by the lyrics and shocked by how contemporary they still are. Particularly with the recent press coverage about the police cover up during the Hillsborough Distaster. Read about it here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster Plus with all the cutback on benefits and welfare the amount of people having to rely on food banks has risen by something like 2000%. There are suddenly a huge number of people being made homeless and going hungry whist our bankers lives in luxury with £1,000,000,000 bonuses-- the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Our Meeting house has worked with other churches to set up a food bank in our town as previously they would have had to travel to Letchworth because  who can afford bus fare or petrol if you can’t buy food?

 

Here are the lyrics--do you agree that they still feel relevant today?

This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights all three of them

Number 1
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a CRIME!
Unless it was done by a
Policeman or aristocrat
Know your rights

And Number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights
Wang

Know these rights

Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it.

Know your rights
These are your rights
All three of 'em
It has been suggested
In some quarters that this is not enough!
Well..............................
Get off the streets
Get off the streets
Run
You don't have a home to go to
Smush

Finally then I will read you your rights

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you

Listen to this
Run
So maybe the message of the Clash is a good one.

 

Clash with authority if they lack compassion.

Clash with the system if there is injustice.

Speak up for those who cannot speak.

Speak your truth.

Make some noise.

That was the week that was

Or perhaps that should be: These were the weeks that were. We have survived the first two weeks of school but we’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time it write. Loads of ideas buzzing around in my head like bees, but nothing pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as it were). Did you miss me my little Spiderlings? 

 

Well, last year was a bit of bottomer for me last year (I will not say it was a bummer as that has a *completely* different meaning over here) as my beloved school was in turmoil. Our school was deemed below level by the powers that be and declared in special measures.  Our head teacher (principal to my American peeps) quit and we had a series of temporary heads. We were scrutinised and run through the ringer, but all the blood sweat and tears (and there were lots of tears, oh best beloved) have finally started to pay off. Sadly we lost seven members of staff, but have added many new ones this year. It was a crazy time and although the stress was mainly on teachers, I felt their anxiety as if it were my own.

 

This year I have vowed to be different. I am a champion about worrying about what ifs. I endlessly sweat out situations in which I have no control.  I could worry for England if it were an Olympic sport.  I have trouble “letting go.” Spiderman once described me as a bulldog when I get my teeth into something. I am vowing to be different this year.

 

So far it is working. I had a brilliant summer. I was massively creative and had a lovely holiday and I came back to school feeling well rested and revived.

 

We decided this school year to make a vow to have more fun. More fun, you ask? I know it seems genuinely impossible because I often feel that we have more than anyone I know. But there are lots of ways to take more risks and have more fun and put ourselves (particularly me) in situations outside our comfort zone. So this is how it started:

 

The first day of school clever Spiderman had arranged for the genius who is known as Mitch Benn to come to his school to speak.

Mitch Benn is a comedy songwriter and host of our new favourite once-a-month night out in London--The Distraction Club. He is also the author of his first science fiction novel Terra which I would highly recommend--even if you are not a sci-fi geek--this is the story of the universal condition which is about feeling alone in the world and growing up. Terra is a human raised on another planet. She is the only one of her kind. Haven’t we all felt that way?

 

Luckily Mitch was there in the afternoon so as I only work mornings I skeedaddled over there and got to listen to him myself. Fun number one.

That night was actually Distraction Club in London so we went. Just like that. Look at us going out on a school night.  The night was fantastically funny with loads of great musical comedy acts and good food. (we saw Jonny and the Baptists there in June and they have a song called Not a Pub which talks about  a real pub doesn’t have a children’s section or a variety of wine or hummus and pita just a slightly racist landlord, some taxidermy and ales in jugs and pork scratchings (pork rinds to my US peeps) to eat. Basically, a real pub is like living in Louisiana. We are thankful that the Phoenix pub where Distraction Club is held is not a pub because they make the best sweet potato hummus with toasted pita bread for Spiderman and crudités for me.) Fun number two.

We bought some original artwork by Chris Riddell. Art makes us happy. Collecting makes us happy. Children’s literature makes us happy. This covers all three things. It is still on exhibition in Bristol, but will arrive to us shortly. Something to look forward to. Fun number three. 

I’m in a book club at church and we had our second meeting. We all hated the book (Solar by Ian McEwan if you want to avoid it) but we had a great discussion and delicious brownies. It is good to get together with friends and talk about books. We range from age 43 (me) to 91 (Nell) and the discussion was very lively. The book was touted as being hilarious but the one thing we agreed on was the funniest bit was where the odious protagonist got his penis frozen to his zipper when he was in the Arctic. Then he thought he felt it fall off but it was actually his chap stick. We were laughing at him and not with him, though. Fun number four. 

I am an unashamed groupie for the Offley Morris Men. I do not know why English people hate Morris dancing the way they do as I think it is brilliant. On Saturday they were dancing by the war memorial and so I went along to see old friends and watch them dance. They danced a good set with hankies, long sticks and short and the bark was flying! They always ask anyone from the audience to join in on the last dance and I seem to always be the only one. But hey--I love a jig and  so I was in there having a blast despite what passers by might have thought. I ran into someone from my school who inquired with that look like she smelled something bad  if I was there because I had to be (“Is your husband dancing?“ she asked as she peered at the jingle bell laden men) No, I was there because I wanted to be there. I admitted to being a huge fan of Morris dancing and she shook her head in a bemused way and said, “Your secret’s safe with me.”  Well, it is no secret. I am a Morris groupie. If there were a female troop nearby I would join tout de suite. Fun number five.

After a summer hiatus, I picked up my beautiful ukulele Tallulah again and have been trying out a repertoire of new songs in preparation for my Mum’s visit at Christmas. We’ll be able to sing along to Peter Paul and Mary’s Gillgarra Mountain and Neil Diamond’s Song Sung Blue. Fun number five. 

 

Since I don’t work Fridays I have decided to do something adventurous on some of these days. So I went into London by myself for a lecture. This may not seem like a big deal but I am hugely phobic about travelling on my own because I could not find my own arse with a torch and a map and sign saying “this is your arse.” This is really how bad my navigation skills are. I was going somewhere relatively nearby--Friend’s House the Quaker headquarters about 15 minutes walk from Kings Cross station or right across from Euston station if you take the tube.  Spiderman managed to defuse my anxiety about all that could go wrong by turning it into a board game. You know you roll the dice to try to get Spidergrrl to Friend’s House. Along the way were lose-a- turns which included stopping to buy a Big Issue (magazine sold by homeless people) so lose a turn, plus £2.50 but have a warm glow in your heart. There was also a lose-a-turn where I got distracted thinking I saw Paddy Gervers from Jonny and the Baptists but it just turned out to be a lady with long blond hair.

Paddy is on the right

 

Well, anyway I did get there without losing anything. I went to hear a lecture about the 50^th anniversary of the publication Towards a Quaker View of Sex which was so radical in its time because it said, among other things,  a loving and committed homosexual relationship was not a sin in the eyes of Quakers who believe in the goodness of all people. You must remember that at this time male homosexuality was illegal --even stuff you did privately in your own home could send you to prison.  Many people spoke movingly about how at this time they had so much self hatred and contemplated suicide and felt they were cut off from society and had to choose between being in a loving relationship and God’s love. The document saved them and gave them hope. Quakers have always been at the forefront of change--we were the first religious organisation to publicly come out in favour of gay marriage as well. It made me proud to be a Quaker and proud I did it on my own which is good practice because I’ve got a peace education workshop there in a few months as well. Fun number six.

Saturday night Spiderman and I went out to Ransom’s Rec for a bat walk. We heard a fascinating lecture about bats in Britain, saw some bats that had been attacked by cats (their number one predator in the city--so lock up your cats at night, folks!)  and had lost a wing and would now have to live in captivity. Then we all went out into the *freezing* night with our bat detectors and went on a bat hunt. We did not see any, but we heard several on the bat detectors. It was so cool! We often see bats in the summer flying by the river skimming off water bugs and so Spiderman and I have vowed that when the weather warms up we will fork out the £60-£90 for our own bat detector. No point in doing it now as they’re all about to hibernate. But if you come and see us when it’s warm we can go out bat watching. Fun number seven.

Today after Meeting for Worship we had a speaker who has come from doing peace and reconciliation work in Burundi. We raise money for this so it was wonderful to hear what our money goes for. After we had a simple bring and share lunch and it was so enriching to talk to people about real global issues. We had long discussions about examining our food choices and purchases to see if they “contain the seeds of war and oppression” (a quote from Quaker Advices and Queries) and how sometimes sacrifices must be made to boycott companies who do not care about animal or human rights. Our old friend NESTLE has recently come out saying that fresh water should not be a right but a commodity. Everyone should be allowed a 30litres (an average bath tub holds 90 litres) for washing and drinking but beyond that they should have to pay for it, preferably by buying their bottled water. This from the same company trying to patent a herbal remedy so that people who pick the plant and use it will have to pay them. It was such a wonderful time together, eating and sharing ideas and making the world better. Fun number eight.  

 

This is just over two weeks! I am really noticing how much I am getting out of life by spending time doing things that enrich me and it really helps me to give back love and hope into my community.

 

The only bad thing that has happened is our washing machine has broken and it is taking longer than I care to get it sorted. But as we discussed at table on Sunday how lucky we are to have enough clean water to use a machine. Many people are not so lucky. So even with a minor  hiccup I am still really relaxed and groovy and not stressing over things I have no control over.

 

Peace.

Nestle is Nasty

Folks, Nestle is at it again. For many years we have boycotted Nestle products due to the baby milk action protest.  You can read more about the campaign here: http://babymilkaction.org/nestlefree

 

The original boycott began in 1977. Basically, despite advice from the World Health Organisation (WHO) Nestle was aggressively marketing their baby formula in developing countries. They would have women dressed in a white coat to make them look like medical staff visit women who had just given birth and give them free samples of their formula and tell them how healthy it was. The problem is that these new mothers believed it, their breast milk dried up and they were forced to rely on buying ludicrously expensive formula ( it can cost up to a quarter of the household's income to buy formula) which meant they often used less formula than necessary to save money so the babies weren’t get proper nutrition. Also sanitation and access to clean water are a problem in developing countries so baby formula was often mixed with unclean water.

This makes babies die.

UNICEF estimates that a formula-fed child living in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions is between 6 and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child.

 Despite pressure from the WHO and charities such as Save the Children they still did not stop, which is why I will not buy their products.

But now they have done it again, only worse. Spiderman was reading the twitter feed of Stephen Fry and he came across a link that told us of their current misdeeds.

From : http://action.sumofus.org/a/nestle-nigella-sativa/15/2/?akid=2049.1596590.Nyhnx0&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=1

 Nigella sativa -- more commonly known as fennel flower -- has been used as a cure-all remedy for over a thousand years. It treats everything from vomiting to fevers to skin diseases, and has been widely available in impoverished communities across the Middle East and Asia.

But now Nestlé is claiming to own it, and filing patent claims around the world to try and take control over the natural cure of the fennel flower and turn it into a costly private drug.

Tell Nestlé: Stop trying to patent a natural cure.

In a paper published last year, Nestlé scientists claimed to “discover” what much of the world has known for millennia: that nigella sativa extract could be used for “nutritional interventions in humans with food allergy”.

But instead of creating an artificial substitute, or fighting to make sure the remedy was widely available, Nestlé is attempting to create a nigella sativa monopoly and gain the ability to sue anyone using it without Nestlé’s permission. Nestlé has filed patent applications -- which are currently pending -- around the world.

Prior to Nestlé's outlandish patent claim, researchers in developing nations such as Egypt and Pakistan had already published studies on the same curative powers Nestlé is claiming as its own. And Nestlé has done this before -- in 2011, it tried to claim credit for using cow’s milk as a laxative, despite the fact that such knowledge had been in Indian medical texts for a thousand years.

Don’t let Nestlé turn a traditional cure into a corporate cash cow.

We know Nestlé doesn’t care about ethics. After all, this is the corporation that poisoned its milk with melamine, purchases cocoa from plantations that use child slave labor, and launched a breast milk substitute campaign in the 1970s that contributed to the suffering and deaths of thousands of babies from poor communities.

But we also know that Nestlé is sensitive to public outcry, and that it's been beaten at the patent game before. If we act fast, we can put enough pressure on Nestlé to get it to drop its patent plans before they harm anyone -- but if we want any chance at affecting Nestlé's decision, we have to speak out now!

I urge you to go the above  link and sign the petition and then make the compassionate choice and stop buying their products because they don’t care about human lives, they care about profit. Then make sure you contact the company and tell them exactly why you will not buy their products. Kick them where it hurts.

 PS here is a link that shows just what products Nestle owns so you can stop buying: http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestleboycottlist