Food. Finally someone in The White House is addressing the issue of food and the effects of harmful eating on lives and healthcare costs. See Michelle Obama’s recent speech:
Michael Pollan, who wrote the seminal In Defence of Food, is the narrator of a new film entitled Food inc. A subject close to my heart. You can watch a trailer at http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Remember: Eat food*, not too much and mainly plants. This blog could save your life.
*If its origins are not recognisable it is not food.
Sophie-G leaves for Ecuador tomorrow. Twenty five days on a World Challenge expedition. We have been buying strange outdoor camping equipment for the last few months; inflatable this and that, cute fold-away cutlery, a silk (no less) sleeping bag liner. As I speak a mosquito net is soaking in some foul smelling liquid in the sink. She has stomped for hours around the house and garden in her new hiking boots and reads by the light of her head torch in bed - a perfectly normal, shallow, self-absorbed teenager, Sophie is not beyond laughing at herself.
Mr. J. is off go-carting in France so it is up to me to help her pack - oh and by the way it is not just a rucksack anymore, in case you were wondering, it is all about litre size. Packing for an expedition is a domaine in which I am utterly useless, a complete girl. My friend the late Graham Harris once said,
“To my wife the great outdoors was that bit between the house and the car.”
I’m not that bad, I do like nature but I have never seen the attraction of eschewing a nice comfortable mattress and duvet for a night under the stars. Aged eleven I went with the school on a look-see to Cuffley Camp. I stared in horror at the latrines hanging over the cesspit already turning into the petit-bourgeois snob that I am today. My almost-camping experience was ended when my cousin Christine got off the bus after a week of Cuffley hell and promptly burst into tears. Aunty Joan and Mum spent a great deal of time on the phone discussing the incriminating evidence - a wet pillow case. And thus I spent a week protected from the rain in a lovely youth hostel in Saffron Walden instead.
As a child our holidays were spent in caravans in Cornwall and Devon, above ground, albeit hovering at half a metre, but with all the comforts of home. We would set out in my Dad’s lime green Anglia, the car packed to the gunnels and mum sitting up front with a cooked chicken for sustenance. (It’s a long haul to Cornwall from Hertfordshire in an Anglia).
I am watching (I have been demoted to watcher) Sophie pack her blah blah litres backpack still shocked that I have a daughter who finds the idea of 25 days in Ecuador attractive. I feel a little like Edwina in Abfab always trying to get her daughter to stop studying and behave like a naughty teenager.
“No sundress? Flip flops?” I ask standing in the threshold of her room momentarily confusing Ecuador with Torremolinos.
She looks askance.
“You might want to take your boots off at the end of the day and those erm, hiking trousers and put on a pair of shorts and some flip flops.”
“We’re in the jungle Mum!” She says getting up and closing the door.
“Good night”, I say sheepishly plodding back to my room feeling not only totally inadequate but a little worried as I never thought we would get this far, to the point where she was actually leaving for a place called Quito. I thought she would go off the idea, see some pictures of world challengers having to wash in a river covered in nasty bites, murky shadows in the undergrowth and that would be the end of that.
I go to sleep thinking that maybe a wet pillow case would have been the making of me after all.
Art. Means different things to different people. Some people live in palatial houses and are happy to buy pretty pictures at Ikea to hang on their walls. Others prefer to buy fabulous art and live in a small apartment. I am somewhere in the middle. I have laughed along with the audience to Jasmin Reza’s very clever theatrical piece entitled Art - where three men fall out over one man’s purchase of a completely white piece of canvas for a ludicrous price - and I painted over the one picture I owned from Ikea.
This year we went to the Basel Art Fair with our German friend and guide, Rolf and I fell in love with the work of Spanish Photographer Alejandro Vidal.
Rolf is driving us to Basel. The conversation bounces around as always with Rolf from spirituality to art to cars.
“Did you know Rolf that the Reverend Ed Baker recently declared on TV that being Gay was a gift from God?”
“Ah, ha ha. Some believe that God created Man, Woman and Gays BUT the Gays were so perfect, they caused too much trouble. ……….It is not easy. I am a man but at times I feel schizophrenic, I have this fucking female side that is so strong you know.”
Rolf turns on the GPS to find the hotel as we approach Basel (male side). Mr. Jules intervenes here and their male egos collide as they squabble over how to programme the (effing) navigator.
Stuck up French navigator voice, “Tournez à droite à 200 metres.”
“That’s not right, it is over there, I’m sure.” Rolf indicates to the left, his male side affronted.
“A droite.”
“No.” (Nein).
“Faites demi tour”.
The car becomes uncomfortably silent.
“Faites demi tour.” It may have been my impression but I’m sure that second “demi tour” had angry undertones.
We keep going, through numerous sets of traffic lights unable to turn left, right or around. Suddenly we reach the river and can go no further.
“Vot IS this?” He snaps off the GPS angrily.
We eventually find the hotel using our combined (female) sense of direction.
I remember once when the children were tiny and I was reading everything I could find on bringing up children feeling woefully inadequate, I came across a photograph in a book written by a very enlightened Swiss (from the East side no doubt they are the ones wearing birkenstocks) of a terribly messy room shared by two boys. The author was ecstatic with delight. All children’s bedrooms should be like this, she wrote and there was part of me that let out a huge sigh of relief - housekeeping not being a great forte of mine I tend to buy more flowers when the dust gets out of hand - and a part that wasn’t too sure.
A girlfriend of mine once told me that when she came home from having left her husband with her kids for the weekend there were wet towels everywhere even in the guinea pig cage and she was so disheartened by the mess she considered never going away again until they had all left home. I commisserated with her as it drives me mad if I can’t find a certain piece of paper or the kitchen is full of flies and icky juice stains. I like order. Madre is the queen of order and housewifery and apart from the love of pot pourri and ornamental spoons I’m a chip off the old block although I don’t think my standards are quite up to hers. I understand the importance of an orderly life and how it frees up our minds to be more creative but it can’t control our lives, stop us seeing friends or spending time doing things we enjoy.
This is Sophie-G’s bedroom. She has oftened chastised me for not writing about her and always writing about him (Ollie). This morning she ran out of the door grabbing a flask of tea and toasted sandwich shouting,
“Don’t go in my room today Mum. Bye, love you.” (Sophie’s big on affection).
You can’t see the details too well but on the floor is a pile of dance tights and an upended dance shoe - she’s performing in a dance show at the moment - her beloved camera is on her bed. There is a maths book under the bed (best place for it she got my gene in numeracy) and the book she is reading at the moment Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper (if you haven’t discovered this author you should, start with How to Talk to a Widower). Hidden to the right of the door is her mac, a Snoopy make-up bag full of ballet hair nets and clips, an ipod and portable phone (both dead) plus random items such as what looks like half a missing essay, a bottle of water, blank cds etc. On the window ledge is a dried bouquet of flowers from someone who is no longer in her life. There is a painting of her Swiss grandmother when she was Sophie’s age and to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance propped against the far wall. There are numerous, scarves, belts, hats lying on the floor discarded when choosing today’s outfit.
Ollie’s graduation evening was - and I’m not ashamed to admit it - one of the best evenings of my life. It was a mixture of relief (the pressure of the exams over), pride and happiness; happy for all those gorgeous, smiling 18 year olds full of promise and enthusiasm for life before the onset of adult responsibility hits them and makes them tired and cynical.
He is 48 hours into his holiday,sunning himself in Ios with the whole grade from school in a hotel that has headings entitled Party Zone and Wet T-Shirt Competition on its website.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the working population are lying on the bed watching The Apprentice (If gormless James can get that far then I am destined to be Prime Minister…no better still with my maths ability Chancellor of the Exchequer) when Mr. J’s phone beeps.
“Hi Dad. It’s great here. I’ ve run out of my own money. How much can I put on the credit card?”
(The very same one used in times of emergencies would that be Oliver?)
Mr. J. lets out a belly laugh and replies,
“How much do you think you need per day?”
(Big mistake but then again this was the man whose father used to reply only half-past whenever he or any of his siblings wanted to know what time they had to come home. The reasoning behind this being that you are giving the child responsibility because the child knows exactly what time, how much money etc).
Beep. “Anything from 65 to 105 euros, depends what’s going on.”
Both belly laugh at this stage.
“Read your book, stay away from the bar and you’ll be amazed at how little you will spend.”
No reply.
No reply.
“Yeah right. Haven’t read a page, having the time of my life. Will try not to spend too much. Love you.”
I think Mr. Jules may have to review his parenting skills.
