Fresh home made bread with hot soup.

Back in the good old days when a beef roast cost Zim$0.25c/kg and entertaining was done on a grand scale it was very pleasant to invite a dozen or so friends around for a dinner party and serve a delightful four course meal consisting of  soup, fish, meat/main and pudding.  The menu would be perfectly planned and invitations sent out well in advance.
Table linen, crockery and cutlery were checked to make certain that all matched and there was enough for all the diners. Table decor, such as flowers and candles was preplanned to ensure that everything would be available on the date required.
I can remember making light consommés and thin melba toast to go with them.
Fish, especially in Zimbabwe in the seventies, was hard to come by and it was usually a case of going to the fish monger to see what was available on the day, not an ideal situation, however we always managed to serve something special.
Meat, of any kind was cheap and available and therefore we tended to go a bit overboard with Boeuf Wellington or Stroganoff, Suckling pig, chicken Marenga  or a magnificent leg of lamb or pork.  We only served vegetables in season and the gravy was made from the juices of the meat and not a packet.
Puddings, always my favourite course, were such as Baked Alaska, apple crumble (made the English way), hot chocolate pudds with baked-in sauce , gooseberry pudding and the like.  Cream was thick and fresh from the farm and custard was made when required so that it would always be piping hot when served. 
Meals to be remembered by the hostess and visitors alike.
When we moved to South Africa the in thing was always braais (barbecues), still is, I hate to say. These have never been my favourite meals and never will be, to me it is a division of the sexes - the men stand around the fire with chosen alcohol beverage clasped firmly in one paw and the braai fork in the other with the host wearing his latest funny apron that his sectary gave him for his birthday, while the woman gather in the kitchen to prepare salads and such and the keep a good supply of beers and whatevers flowing out the fridge and into the garden.
The men tend to converse on all subjects from sport, to work, what is a good book to read and have you seen the cute new chick at the office.  The woman being a lot more boring discuss children, husbands, recipes, knitting etc.  I love cooking but am damned if I want to talk about it while socialising.  Get a life ladies there is a world out the back door that does not contain your husband, children, recipe books and knitting patterns and sometimes it is a nice place to be.
Back to the braai, we used to get something called boerewors, a South African speciality sausage that was absolutely delicious.  Now we just get wors in many flavours, one as bad as the other, and the majority of the contents being rejects from a pigs compost heap.
With regards to the cooking, it is plain for all to see why the chefs of the day have other full time jobs.  What a waste it is to me to see beautiful cuts of meat thrown on a dirty braai grid, and no, the dirt does not add the the flavour.
I do not think anyone has their meat cooked to their liking, the food is eaten more because of hunger pangs than anything else. Having a braai is an expensive and lazy way to entertain and I cannot understand why anyone would want to make their friends and family suffer with badly cooked food and a shortage of seating arrangements.
If you want to be a lazy hostess then make a huge pot of rich soup with plenty of meat and vegetables - quick, easy and inexpensive to do. Go to your local supermarket,  buy a few packs of  ready to bake bread dough, then have fun making breads and rolls in all shapes and sizes.  Sprinkle them with different seeds or toppings, bake and use them to decorate your table with.
Add a few salt and pepper grinders, butter and/or margarine, olive oil and a bottle of sherry for those that need a bit extra in the taste line. 
Guest can serve themselves to the soup, rip off a piece of bread and settle down to a great meal where friends and family matter the most and a quick to make meal that will steal many a heart.
There is nothing quite as good as do it yourself home cooking. Yes, I do advise to cheat with the bread dough, use it as a basis to show your baking skills.

Food is one of the best ways to entertain so make the most of it.

The Paisley patterned path to success and happiness.

Wandering around the planet in a daze of half truths and half fables I find myself at a loss of what is for my own good and what would better be left behind hanging on the trees of happy memories and harsh lessons.  Over the great many, or so it seems, years that I have lived and hopefully grown wiser I have realised that it is not always a good thing to hang onto what in the past brought about feelings of euphoria. Pleasant memories so often tend to keep one in that space and time of their lives not allowing the natural forward movement that leads to wisdom and self-contentment, it is not only others who make us feel good about ourselves, past experiences play a major part in our private battles for self esteem. 
How easy it is to hang on to those moments, re-living them to allow ourselves to smile at what once was or even might have been.  In the human way of strange self-preservation we leave behind or slam doors on those things that have made us feel unhappy about ourselves and our situations. 
Being busy trying to recall joyous and opportune experiences we hate the thought of losing, we prefer to let go of iniquitous times not realizing the magnitude and significance of why we had to go through with them.  The circles of life and learning then come into the concerto of our lives as we repeat, almost like an out of tune descant, the failures, broken relationships, abuse, shattered hopes and dreams of past and closed off thoughts and feelings.  Humans regard the good things in their lives as being their just deserves and the bad as being bad luck. 
Perhaps if we were to take all the sad and hurtful negative moments that we have endured and put them on the window sill to take a better look, we would see that in a strange way they seem to link with each other. The whirls and swirls of feathered Paisley patterns form a maze of confusion in our brains until we realize that all is repeated until the lesson is learnt.

It is then, and only then,  that we free ourselves enough to know that we can be our own best friends and stand on our own two feet to face the world of success and happiness.

Seasonal cycles

October already and as students start charging ahead with their studies and the shops are filling up with Christmas goodies I thought it was time for me to have a bit of my time.  My time being catching up on reading, doing the mending, writing a blog post every day, taking a stroll around the neighborhood and having delightful tea parties sitting outside under the shade and discussing all and everything that comes to mind.
Instead there seems to be a huge rush to get things done and as fast as best plans are laid so dates are changed and all the arrangements so carefully noted and discussed go to the dogs and seem to lie on the front lawn amidst a collection of old dog toys, tennis balls and half chewed bits of rawhide and hoof that seem in some strange and inexplicable way to keep canine teeth white and shiny.
Here one must note that this is such an environmentally good way to clean teeth.  No plastic packaging, no boxes to hold new tooth brushes and pastes, most important of all no taps running while water is being sloshed around the mouth and a generous rinsing is being done.  Do not forget after all of this to please rinse the basin, another huge waste of that precious commodity water.   Please someone out there try it and let us know, thank you in advance!!!
However we digress,  back to the subject at hand, seasonal changes.  For the first time in many a year I will not be hosting the family Christmas Dinner Party, instead my daughter will have the pleasure.  My grandson has already made the most glorious Christmas pudding, and as it sat in the pot boiling merrily how all the delights of the festive season came back to softly tease my mind.
Here in South Africa when mid-summer arrives all the flowers in the garden seem to lose their scents and unless one rises with the Sun we tend to forget what pleasure Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,  fresh spring roses, jasmine and lavender bring to our noses on the slightest breeze.  Yet come the time to bake the Christmas cake why is it that the smell from the hot oven seems to waft down the road and remind us all of good things coming in the near future?
I do not know what Christmas will bring to me and mine, I do not know which friends will be invited to the dinner.  I wait patiently for lists of what the family really want as gifts and think long and hard about what I would like to receive, here the choice always seems to come down to which book or CD do I really want at the moment.
There is family talk about moving homes, changing schools, what is needed and what should be discarded.  Why is it so hard to part with something we have forgotten we own and have not used for months?  Perhaps in another lifetime my family have all been related to magpies and have not yet lost their talent for hording at that glitters and a lot that does not!
Then, when I take all into consideration, is it me that is the magpie, trying so hard to keep all together with an invisible piece of string?  Me not wanting to have the changes that are part of life and growing up and growing old?  Me sitting so contentedly with so much that I love around me?
Me that wants things to stay the same all for the sake of feeling secure!!!

Bread for the birds

Being overweight and having a huge liking for bread it is always hard to resist temptation and walk past the racks of fresh bread or even the packs of uncooked bread dough that seem to beckon me from all corners of the local supermarket.
I love the old fashioned unsliced loaves with the crispy crusts and the soft inners that one can cut quite thick, toast and spread with great lashings of butter and thick slices of cheese or dollops of home made jam. (Yes alright, no wonder I have a weight problem, don't say it I know).
Not being faint of heart where food is concerned I cannot be bothered with the light, fluffy and flavourless, plastic wrapped and sliced thin commercial excuses for a loaf of bread.
Food must always be substantial and enjoyable, for is it not the staff of life? Since I tend to think big in so many ways is why I probably eat big as well. Sorry to say though that I do not have the big energy thing, never have had it actually.
Back to the bread, there is rather a lot in a full loaf and as the man of the house has four slices for lunch and the dogs share two on their anchovy paste midnight snack there is almost half a loaf every day that is left for me to walk past every time I enter my kitchen.
This is not good as I do not like drooling whenever I walk past it, so I have had to come up with ideas of how to enjoy bread yet not eat it if humanly possible.
That now bring me to the birds, with it being spring and there being no cats in neighbouring gardens I have so many small families of swallows, yellow weavers, pigeons, black-eyed bull-bulls, white eyes and sun birds that are busy building nests and homes in trees and rafters around the property.
I have found if I open the lounge curtains early, place a comfortable chair with a good view of the world outside, spread crumbs and small pieces of my bread over the garden with slices of fruit so that all my feathered tenants are fed properly, I can then sit for at least an hour and enjoy watching them eating my bread.
I am finding this form of dieting to be rather good, I still have the pleasure of shopping for the bread, but am also getting so much benefit by seeing others eating it. My weight is slowly decreasing and there are not many things that are more peaceful than sitting in your own home and witnessing nature just outside the door.

Half baked friendships

Humans seem to put so much into the importance of friendships, the feelings of belonging and being loved and cared for. Why then, I ask, do so many of us prefer to correspond via sms messaging, e-mailing or type talking? Are we not cutting our human ties with each other by linking more and more via electronics where we so often cannot hear or see each other?
Have we not taken the ship out of friendship and now each of us quietly rows our own little boat in the hope that a storm will not come up and dash our boat into someone else that is paddling along minding their own business?
When last did you put pen to paper and lick to stamp and write a long letter to a friend, take the walk or drive to the post box and post the letter ? Or when did you last receive a handwritten letter from one of you near and dears that have taken the time and trouble to sit down and devote some real time to their thoughts about you?
I love going to the post box and on opening it finding that I have a letter, I take it home, make myself a cup of coffee and sit quietly all by myself to read what someone has made the effort to write. If I am lucky this happens once or twice a year, instead when I go to collect post there are bills of all sorts, or statements. These only seem to remind me of how I need to control finances better than I am at any given moment.
The next question I need to ask is when did you last pick up a telephone and call someone just to see how they are? Most of us these days only phone as a last resort and when we are needing urgent answers. How often when we see who is phoning us do we not bother to answer?
Shame on us all, no wonder we are tending towards getting more and more psychopathic with each other, we are losing the social skills which are so important to developing lasting relationships, or is that another ship that is sinking?

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Originally uploaded by meadow ladies

Oortjies, a brave little dog.

Oortjies is a small male dog that has had a bit of a rough time over the last few months. Although very much loved by his human parents his Daddy passed a month ago and his Mommy has gone to stay with his big human sister in Australia for a few months.
Oortjies is fourteen years old and quite frail and his family were worried how he was going to cope with no Mommy or Daddy to look after him. Euthanasia was discussed, as the local kennels for some reason, will not take animals over seven years old as boarders.
We live next door to Oortjies and on hearing the sad story volunteered to have him with us until his Mommy returns home. When he first arrived he was nervous and very unsure, and seemed to battle to understand why he had been left over the wall.
We also had a language problem as Oortjies has been brought up as an Afrikaans dog, and our Afrikaans is at the laughable stage. Please do not say that animals are not language orientated and they only understand the tone of voice used with them. Like humans they understand best the language they are brought up with.
Not only was little Oortjies now staying with strangers but also with two rather frisky and full of life female dogs. Life had suddenly changed so very much for him, for a few days he hardly ate and would sit all day by the corner of the exterior wall and bark rather sadly in the hope his Mommy would appear to fetch him.
Talking, treats and just being near him started his acceptance of us and our family. Oortjies took over little Dixie dog's bed and they decided between them to swop dinner bowls and within a week the dogs had accepted each other and Oortjies had decided that as humans we were not as bad as he first thought, even though we do talk in a funny way.
We now have three dogs that run around and play together all day, eat their meals together and when we go to bed at night each knows where they will be sleeping and after anchovy paste sandwiches and being tucked in for the night calm and peace settle over the house.
Oortjies is the perfect boarder, he never complains about what meals he is served and is willing to share chairs and couches with humans and other dogs as long as there are blankets and hugs that go with the sharing.
It really is a pleasure to share our lives with this small gentleman for a while and he will always be welcome in our home.

Surroundings of death.

Last month seems to have brought more messages of deaths than any other time I can remember.
Although those that have gone to a better place have not been family members or close friends the deaths have been close enough to affect me with a strange sort of depression.
I have always believed that life is a celebration and therefore the passing of a life should also be a celebration for the soul that is now freed. Yes, admittedly there are always and should be tears of grief and sadness with any passing, human or otherwise, but is this grief and sorrow not more for those that remain behind than those that have passed.
When a loved one leaves us for a better place we know that we will miss them and we are allowed to take the journey of disbelief, grief, anger and all those other emotional feelings that seem to clog up our systems and stop us from moving forward.
This is however a part of being human so should be considered as acceptable to a point. Perhaps, in a cold blooded sort of way, I do not understand others feelings about death, what I do know is that when the bus runs me over then I hope that no one will be playing sad and mournful music to celebrate my beingness.
No matter what sort of life we have led there has always been happiness in some form or other to dull the blade of hopelessness. Physical life is a pleasure in so many ways and to learn to enjoy each lesson and hurdle can only enlighten us to greater heights.
When I am gone I do not want my family to ever think of me as poor ........., rather let them continue to laugh with and at me, sing "All things bright and beautiful" and may no loved one or friend of mine ever have to carry my coffin enclosed dead body.
Life is always good whether spent here on Earth or in some other place in the Universe.