Comfort me with apples

Strengthen me with raisins, comfort me with apples, for I am faint with love.
Songs of Solomon

Some things are very hard to write about. Like the fear shadowing your mother’s face when she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

So I thought I would write about the things that bring me comfort, instead.

The different kinds of hugs my family give are high on the list of comforts. Youngest daughter’s are infinitely gentle and delicate, very similar to her grandmother’s in fact. They convey peace, compassion and cherishing. Oldest daughter’s are similar to her father’s – warm, generous, strong and fiercely devoted. My father’s are squashily understanding and caring, my father-in-law’s are hard and dependable. An embrace is an expression of love more demonstrative of the character of that love than any other; a kiss is less intimate (apart from a lover’s kiss), a look can be misconstrued, words are even less dependable.

Despite that, friends’ words are definitely another sincere source of comfort. Close friends provide the scaffolding which keeps me upright in the storm, but even those I don’t see very often say wonderfully comforting things. Thank you, all of you.

But there are strange things that comfort me, too. Not in the same way, or in the same league – sport even. But these small moments of peace and pleasure from my world sustain me.

One lovely re-occurring moment is watching my beautiful dog bouncing joyfully through a colourful meadow, where we commonly take his walk. I know this sounds like a bad advert for toilet paper, but if you can imagine a setting ringed with old and ancient trees, green and mauve waving grass speckled with buttercups, violets and forget-me-nots, swallows circling over-head, and a particularly attractive golden Labrador-cross-golden retriever grinning from ear to ear, you can sense my little piece of heaven. No, I’m not saying where it is. Find your own.

Here’s a strange thing which consoles me. It’s a cup – more aptly a mug, but the word has such poor connotations, I don’t want to sully my drinking vessel with them. So, my cup was given to me by my mother, mostly because she had no shelf space for it. To be honest, it is more my kind of cup than hers. She prefers delicate china. My cup is solid, glazed earthenware. It fits snugly into my hand, keeping the heat inside where the tea is. The rim of my cup curves almost sensuously on my lip, and the weight of it is solid, utterly to be relied upon. It is soothing and dependable, and no-one else in the family would use it unless desperate. It is a pretty blue, and it bears the slogan ‘Comfort me with apples’. I was intrigued by this, so I looked it up, and it is one interpretation of a line from the Old Testament, found in the Songs of Solomon, verse 2.5. Isn’t it beautiful? Can you judge me for finding it comforting?

Chocolate is predictably comforting, not just for the pheromones or the sweetness or the calories. Chocolate – good chocolate – has an other-worldly taste. It is an escape from reality, a sensual departure from the stress of daily life. It is sex for the tastebuds. And although I am certainly no fan of Tesco, I have discovered an award winning chocolate bar from their Finest range which is mouth-orgasmic. It is called Organic Dominican Republic 70% Plain Chocolate, and it has the added comfort of being Fair Trade. Some people are cynical about the Fair Trade movement, but my buying power, limited as it is, is my only influence on the trade juggernauts of this capitalist world, and I intend to use it as much as possible. Even this tiny thing – the thought that an infinitely small amount of the money I spend will improve somebody’s outlook to a tiny degree – brings me comfort. For I am faint with love for the world and the people in it, and I take my comfort where I can find it.

For the love of ...

I want to live in a world in which people are motivated by love. A world in which the reason we grow food or make money is in order to feed our families or improve the lives of our neighbours. Where we invent things for the greatest possible good, and destroy the ill-conceived fruits of our labour in order to protect others. A world in which the study of happiness is given the level of investment that the study of weaponry has been enjoying lately. It might be pie-in-the-sky, but it is no wonder that I love my job.

Family Learning is all about love.

The reason there is Government funding into a programme which effectively promotes happiness is because of the figures. Studies have been made which show the link between parents’ involvement with their children’s learning and children’s attainment.

If we get the adults back into school and show them what a creative and scientific place it has become – far from the desperate battleground it was in their day – they will be much happier about sending their offspring into the soft melee. If we help to teach them the basic skills they couldn’t learn when they were young and vulnerable, they will be confident and able to help their own children with their homework in the future. And if we gently teach them a few parenting skills along the way, they will be better at coping with the demands of fraught modern life without collapsing and becoming a drain on resources in so many other ways.

So goes the theory. And for once, the theory is very close to the truth.

For the past year, I have had the privilege of spending Government money on love. I have helped to set up courses for parents who don’t speak any English, but who have to negotiate the eccentricities of the English system for themselves and their children. I’ve set up confidence building courses for parents whose children have such demanding needs that they can’t bring themselves to hold a conversation in a playground with parents of ‘normal’ children, for fear of mental collapse under the strain of their misunderstanding and judgement. I’ve helped to develop courses to teach basic ICT skills to parents who have been frankly frightened of their children’s knowledge of the cyberspace they haven’t dared enter.

I’ve been lucky enough to teach parents, too. To take them through the bewildering world of graphemes, phonemes and split-vowel digraphs; to reassure them that if their offspring refused to read their school books in the conventional manner at age 5, it did not mean they were going to fail to read anything for the rest of their lives; and to introduce them to poetry that both made sense and touched their own experience of the world.

This is what I leave my daughter at home for. Someone else would do it if I couldn’t. But – but. Oh, the aching pain of that decision. Is my spreading a little love around for a minor-league salary worth the anxiety? Every day, I’m a little less sure.

Motherhood Rocks (and Hard Places)

There's nothing like your daughter having to keep a food diary to make a mother conscious of her parenting skills (or deficiency thereof).

This is the situation in our household. The twelve year old is baffling the experts with her inability to recover from CFS/ME. They make us record her every activity, from the time she goes to bed to the amount of outdoor time she gets a day. We have to balance rest time with activity time, create opportunities for her to socialise without wearing her out and keep her from being overrun by small, boisterous and adoring cousins. We keep records of how much she sleeps, how much time she spends on the computer and how much time she spends wearing herself to near collapse just by breathing in and out at school.

This time the OT came to visit, she couldn't fault our regime; and yet the small one was across the table from her, propping her slumped form up by sheer politeness, mumbling her replies because opening her mouth too wide was exhausting. We must be doing something wrong, but what?

Then the idea struck - perhaps she isn't getting the nutrition she needs? She is a twelve year old vegetarian who won't eat vegetables, after all. So to find out, guess what? Write down every thing she eats in a day. For three weeks. Sure. Why not?

I happened to be working from home today, so I could keep a close eye on what she ate. But that also meant I was responsible for proving that I do feed her a balanced diet, and while I know I offer her a range of foodstuffs, as I may have mentioned before, she will only eat three.

Breakfast was easy, because the only thing I had to feed her was eggs and bread. So eggy bread, and because They were watching, half a banana. She loved this combination, so that was a good start. I didn't mention the icing sugar she smothered her eggy feast with - was that wrong? Oh well, there's only so much humiliation I'm prepared to take.

Lunch was a bit of a challenge, as there really wasn't much left to feed her. I settled on Quorn for protein, noodles with soy sauce and sea weed for carbs and minerals and half a frozen corn on the cob for vitamins (well, they contain some) and fibre. She ate the Quorn. And the seaweed. And one third of half a corn on the cob. Do the maths.

So by the middle of the afternoon, she's starving, and manages to persuade me that because her throat hurts so much she must have ice cream. Look, I was trying to get some work done, OK? And then she had 3 pieces of chocolate. Down it went on the list, in her own handwriting - proof of my incompetence in black and white in a Hello Kitty notebook. Sigh.

So, supper time. Determined to get something right, I turn Mother Earth and raid the kitchen cupboards for the ingredients for lentil soup. I was really proud of my creation, I thought it was delicious:

Take an onion and a bunch of left over broccoli (stems and all) and soften them in some olive oil. Add some garlic crushed in sea salt, then throw in a can of tomatoes and a cup of red lentils. Splash in a good dollop of red wine - for the antioxidants, of course - some tomato puree, your favourite stock and a pinch of Italian herbs. A little brown sugar will round out and soften the flavours. Simmer until the lentils are done, and whizz in a blender. Yum.

'What's that Mum? It looks like puree.' Not good - even the 15 year old thinks I'm trying too hard. I enthuse about how absolutely delicious my soup is (it really is). I serve it to the young one with sliced white, which is the only way she will eat soup, somehow spoons and hot wet stuff do not equate in her mind. And to entice her to bulk up her diet, a breaded Camembert, as cheese is one of the 3 things she'll eat. Sometimes.

This is what I've written in her food diary:

• Homemade lentil soup - 4 mouthfuls (and this took all my powers of persuasion, which obviously are not strong)
• two thirds of half a slice of bread (they can do the maths)
• the breadcrumbs and one fifth of a breaded Camembert
• two chewy multi-vitamins

Maybe it is her diet. It sounds bad, doesn't it? And this is only day one. By the time I get to week three, and I'm back to feeding her egg fried rice every day of the week, I'm going to die of shame and embarrassment. But somehow she keeps growing, and I've had to buy her a new wardrobe twice in the last year. She is slim, but perfectly proportioned, and her hair and nails grow so quickly and ferociously they could have a wardrobe of their own. And if I make her anxious about what she eats, her CFS/ME will get worse.

Rock over here, hard place over there.

That's motherhood for you.

Make war on the deficit

I really don't want to pay any more taxes. I'm way over my limit, tax wise, as it is. I pay tax in every which way you can think of, and it hurts. I don't want any more pain, thanks. And as for cuts in services - we have great services in this country. I know people complain, it's a national hobby and all that; but the service we have been getting from every institution lately has been nothing short of fabulous. Sadly, even the tax department has become more efficient. And helpful.

So I'm very depressed about the election. No matter who wins - and let's face it, it's not going to be the outcome I'd like - there are going to be tax increases and service cuts. Life is going to be harder, people are going to be angrier and the media is going to report such doom and gloom that we will all flinch before we listen to the news or pick up a newspaper. Who wants that scenario? Seriously?

I had a thought. How about, instead of being forced to pay more taxes for less, we band together and voluntarily wage war on the budget deficit? We could have a big campaign, collect money in the streets, have a telethon, get the kids involved. Rich people could send their political party donations to the campaign; poor people could dig their 20 pences out of the furniture; middle classes could join sponsored events, like a sponsored 'no whingeing' day/fortnight/month/year. Rock stars could hold concerts, Simon Cowell could make a record, and all over the country the contents of swear boxes could be poured into a deficit-reduction mountain.

Councils could have deficit-reduction meetings catered for by deficit-reduction charity organisers. Towns and villages could compete for the title of 'Best Deficit Reduction Contributor 2010'. Secret millionaires could publicly declare their compassion by donating money to the deficit-reduction fund on television; well-known millionaires and billionaires could change their domiciles back to the UK and become Lords, receive gongs and fancy titles and have tea with the Queen. The Queen could do her part too, come to think of it, and Prince Charles could grant funds to young people's deficit-reduction enterprises.

Even children could make a difference. They could have non-school uniform days where they dress up in their best designer clothing in order to donate a pound to the kill-the-deficit fund; they could even hold sponsored be-nice-to-a-teacher days, which would have the added bonus of reducing dumbbell incidents. And teeny tots could could hold workshops for adults in which they explain the concept of 'no, you can't have that until you've earned the money'.

I think we could do it. Together, we can. Let's leave things as they are - no Government department name changes and the expensive reordering of stationery they entail, no increase in VAT which just leads to poorer farmers and manufacturers, no cuts in health care, education or family support, no job losses, salary cuts and the strikes and unrest they bring, and above all, no media doom to ruin the first few minutes of everyone's day. Isn't that worth fighting for?

What's worse - being out of toilet paper or food?

I am writing this blog to record some of the wackier recipes I come up with to feed my increasingly faddy family. What better day to start than the one on which we seem to have run out of not only food, but - horrors! - toilet paper, too. I wonder which is worst?

I should stress that there is no connection between the over-use of double-ply-extra-soft-recycled in this chaotic home, and the meals I cook. My cooking is almost always eaten with pleasure, and if there is too much call for the other stuff, it's probably because they eat too darn much of it.

The cast of our small family drama includes:

• one man - yes, poor thing - who can't stomach pine nuts or large helpings of pizza, turns his nose up at fish and asparagus, but loves almost everything else (especially curry and gummi bears)
• one eldest daughter, who, at fifteen, loves her junk food, although the more junk she eats, the thinner she gets; hates fish and mushrooms, loves butternut squash and mashed potato with lashings of ketchup, refuses fatty meat and picks out her peas, but has double helpings of parsnips and broccoli; lives off tea and chocolate when allowed to
• one youngest daughter who decided she was a vegetarian some years ago and has stuck to it religiously - won't eat anything that was once breathing, or vegetables (particularly not mushrooms); lives off egg fried rice with sea weed, sesame seeds and soy sauce and, when she is allowed it, icing sugar on almost everything else
• one grandma, who will eat tiny portions of absolutely anything except muesli, easy on the chilli and the alcohol
• myself - a working mum who will eat anything at all, (although only tolerates blood pudding under extreme social duress), as long as someone else cooks it

There were three for tea this evening, and we only had pasta. No cheese, no cream, no tomatoes, absolutely nothing to make a sauce with, and no meal that all three of us would eat. So this is what we had:

• eldest daughter - pasta with baked beans on top and a once frozen corn on the cob which I really didn't fancy
• youngest daughter - pasta with two vegetarian hot dog sausages, olive oil and a once frozen corn on the cob
• me - pasta with a sauce made from frozen peas and a teaspoon of mint sauce with pan-fried salmon and a dollop of mayonnaise; it was gorgeous! Absolutely scrummy.

We were all happy, there was minimal washing up due to my clever pot-saving cooking methods and even the dog was pleased with half a veggie hot dog. It wasn't until after we had finished the meal that I realised my mistake. What goes in must come out, and there we were with one diminishing pack of tissues between us! What's worse - no toilet paper or no food to speak of? Definitely the soft white tissue on a roll, mate.