BLOG ACTION DAY - CLIMATE CHANGE

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Today is Blog Action Day. Apparently this happens every year on October 15th, when bloggers are encouraged to blog in unison on some important issue which we feel is not getting the creative attention it needs. I have not done this before, but now that I know about it I think it is worth doing. This year it is about CLIMATE CHANGE.

I have no special angle on climate change. Like most people, I suppose, I believe in global warming, because the evidence seems undeniable. My own experience tells me that the weather is changing for the worse - but don't we always think that? I checked in on the Blog Action Day website and had a look at the Top 100 effects of global warming. Alright, most of them are quoted from newspapers and newscasts, and may not yet be fully attested scientifically - but can we afford to disbelieve them? Many of them are long-term effects which I am unlikely to see:



Ice melting, waters rising, sunamis and hurricanes, rivers drying up, more fires.

Loss of trees, plants, animals and fish. An increase in noxious plants and insects.

More diseases spreading, people getting sicker.

Increased threats to national security due to migrations, boundary tensions, and conflict over food and water. More wars, more refugees.



I think of my grandchildren. I think of those two girls and four boys, aged between 8 and 17, to whose flesh and blood I have contributed through my own sons; who bear my DNA, and will inherit, to greater or lesser degree, the physical and mental characteristics that I have passed on to them. They are my legacy to the world that I must leave, they are my immortality. But what sort of world will there be for them to inherit? Will it be a world that is still full of natural wonders, magnificent resources, beautiful habitats for man and beast a like. Will it still be possible to live full and satisfying lives, lives of invention, service, caring, and creativity? Or will the basic struggle for survival take all their energies. There are enough suffering peoples in the world already leading such lives. My family has been fortunate ...... will it continue to be through all the generations that will follow me?

I do my best with reducing, reusing and recycling, but we need strong and willing governments to lead us as well.
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More scones - by special request

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From The Aga Recipe Book for 2 oven Aga Cookers [no publication date but purchased in 1960]

SCONES

Recipe

8 ozs. plain flour

1/2-1 oz. butter

1/4 pt. milk (sour if possible)

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

(1/2 teaspoon if sour milk used)

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

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METHOD

Sift together the dry ingredients. Rub in the butter and mix quickly with the liquid. Turn on to a floured board. Knead lightly and roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Mark into eight, or cut with a shrp round cutter. Bake for 7-10 minutes on the top shelf of the roasting oven, turning once during baking.

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From Mrs Beeton’s Cookery and Household Management, 1960

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER WHEN MAKING SCONES

1. If the basic proportions are correct they can be varied in many different ways
- see suggestions.

2. It is most essential to be accurate with proportions, e.g. too much soda will ruin
the scones.

3. Whereas yeast mixtures are kept warm, scones etc. made with other raising
agents should be kept as cool as possible. The cold air expands with the heat
and so helps to make the scones lighter.

4. The best utensil for mixing scones is a round-bladed knife; it gets well down to
to the bottom of bowl and can be used for mixing without pressing on the
mixture.

5. The most important rule is to add all the liquid at once and mix lightly to a spongy
dough.

6. The scones should be handled as little and as lightly as possible.

7. Scones should be cooked quickly - 10 minutes in a hot oven for small scones
and 15 minutes for a round of 4 or 6.

8. Cool oven scones on a cooling tray to keep the outside crisp. Girdle scones are
best cooled in a tea towel to keep the skin soft.

NOTE: From Experiment it has been found that better results are obtained if the scones are allowed to stand (after cutting out) for 10 minutes before cooking. This applies to scones raised with bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.

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I baked some scones on Sunday. Now that might not seem like anything special to you, Gentle Readers, but those who know me well will be in wonderment at such an event. I do not bake - indeed, these days, I scarcely even cook. I did succeed in feeding my family reasonably well when they were at home, but I never did any baking.

I was enabled to take this stance, on arrival in our first home, by finding an Aga cooker installed. I don't know how they are today, but in 1960 our solid fuel 2-oven Aga was not an easy project for cake baking. It was recommended to use a special Aga Cake Baker (like an inner oven, I believe), or to reduce the heat of the roasting oven. All this was clearly going to be too complicated and stressful for a young mum with an 18-month-old and another on the way, so I declared or new home a no-bake area. How I survived to be a no-bake wife and mum of four grown sons speaks more for the tolerance of my family than for my housekeeping skills. But I got away with it.

But I love scones, especially small ones, warm from the oven. The older I get the more resentful I become of shops and cafes who only supply great big lumps of scone that are more than I want, and rarely fresh. For some years I have wondered if I might learn to cook scones myself. But circumstances are still against me. I have lost what little culinary skills I have, I have an ancient oven on which the thermostat no longer works - and come to think of it, I don't even have a kitchen table, only worktops. I realised, as I tried to visualise it, that it would be impossible to knead and roll out the mixture at worktop height - it really needs to be done at arms' length.

But suddenly, this time, I was not going to be beaten. I was about to put in an order to Tesco on line, so was able to order some fresh flour. All the other ingredients I had, including bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartare. Are they still used for scone baking? I was using my old Aga recipe book, since their recipes were always nice and simple. The next day I got everything ready, including clearing my dining table of papers and putting a plastic cloth over it. The only thing I forgot was to take the butter out of the fridge to soften. I tried putting some in the microwave, but even 10 seconds, my minimum setting, was too much, and it nearly all went runny. Never mind, press on, and at last I had a dozen scones in my hot (but I didn't know how hot) oven.

They weren't very nice. They were recognisable as scones, just, but their only virtue was that they were a first for me! I got my Mrs Beeton off the bookshelf then, and looked at her "Eight important points to remember when making scones". I had got every one of them wrong. But I had made a beginning.

Later that afternoon I visited my young family on the other side of the village. Walking into the kitchen where my son was preparing dinner, I said to him: "I'm going to tell you something that you will find very hard to believe - I baked some scones this morning." "Now that I DO find hard to believe" he replied. I had taken four in a plastic box as evidence, but although the children showed some interest in the box when they came across it, nobody had suggested trying one by the time I left, after a dinner of roast shoulder of lamb . Can't say I blame them.

I baked some more this morning. There was a marginal improvement, but I've a long way to go.....................................

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Fragment

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Strange what bits of information will strike you in the course of listening to the news. A few days ago in one bulletin, I learned that I am six years older than the London Lost Property Office, and eight years older than Pinewood Studios.

I only managed to get 354 days start on Mickey Mouse, however, who was created by Walt Disney in 1928, and whose birthday is celebrated on the 18th November, eleven days before mine. I wrote about me and Mickey once before.

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Busy, busy, busy

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I promised to write here about what had been keeping me away from blogging for a good while before I went away. I write often about Growing Old Disgracefully, the network for older women to which I belong, and it is working on a job for them that has kept me busy.

We used to have a website for a number of years, a simple brochure on line set up by one of our members, but we ran into problems and a year ago it was closed down permanently by the host. In discussions with the members about setting it up again a lot of interest was shown in enlarging it to include a 'members only' section, in which news and events and reports could be posted.

This would be a much bigger undertaking than before and not all were agreed upon its desirability. In the twenty years since it began, the organisation has only slowly become computer-literate. I believe I was the first to publish my email address in the newsletter in 1999, and now, ten years later, we still have only 50% of our membership on the internet. But there was a strong urge to bring ourselves up-to-date in the world of the web, and a sum of money was voted to allow us to employ professional designers for the job.

A small working group was set up in the spring to explore the possibilities, to establish our requirements, and to approach a number of designers and commission one of them to do the work. Through unforseen circumstances a group which should have been 4 was whittled down to two, of whom I was one. And so began a very sharp learning curve for the two of us, both of us fairly competent computer users, but having no notion about how websites are built. We asked for help wherever we could, and there has been a constant stream of emails - she lives in Oldham and I live in Hertfordshire. We only met once to get to know each other, and to lay out our ideas of what was needed, and how we should go about it.

The next time we met was three weeks ago in Harrogate, when we were able to report to the Annual Business Meeting that we had commissioned the designers - (appropriately a firm of women website designers) - who had set up a temporary holding page for us with contact details, so that Growing Old Disgracefully is once more on the worldwide web. They began work with us straight away on the main website, and on Wednesday next the two of us are having a project meeting with them in Manchester, to firm up the structure of the new website and a whole lot of other matters that need dealing with - more than I could possibly have imagined at the start!

The learning process still goes on, of course, and I find I have to keep very focussed in order not to lose my way. It is really hard work, and there are times when I feel it is making demands on my stamina (physical and mental) which I am barely able to meet. But it is fascinating, and creative in a way that I enjoy, and my colleague and I work very comfortably together. But I do wish at times that we were a business in an office, and not a nationwide organisation in which we all work from home!

Oh, did I forget something?

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Ah yes, "talking of beautiful young men...."

In Betty's one of the waiters was an exquisite child of no more than 14 or 15 I would say; straight and supple and blond and perfect of feature, he seemed to carry himself like a ballet dancer -calm, poised, never ruffled. I could not stop watching him.

Indeed, I could almost have wished to be Oscar Wilde.

Going to Betty's

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Talking of beautiful young men ..... but I'd better begin at the beginning.

The reason I have not jumped into print here immediately on my return from Harrogate, is that I managed to do something so perversely idiotic that I was pretty much prostrate for nearly a week after getting home.

Our Growing Old Disgracefully annual get-togethers are so arranged as to give us at least one free afternoon for sightseeing, talking or sleeping, according to need or desire. It has long been my ambition to visit the famous Betty's Tearooms in Harrogate (they don't use an apostrophe but I insist on doing so). This free afternoon was a good half way through when I broke away from a small group of Disgracefuls who were sharing scurrilous anecdote and laughter in a comfortable armchair huddle in the lounge. If I didn't go now, I would never get to Betty's. I had been told it was 15 minutes walk - no trouble at all - although at the back of my mind was a feeling that I had passed it on the top of a hill on my way in to the town the day before.

I set off down the hill and soon realised that the further I went down, the further I would have to go up again, before I would reach the tea rooms, which were not yet in sight. Now I have not walked up steep hills for several years, as I get puffed, and my heart is no longer gets the blood supply I was given at birth. I knew, but refused to accept, that the hill was too steep for me. I was going to Betty's. I had not done any sightseeing at these events for several years, and this time I was going to.

Before starting up the hill, I took a couple of prophylactic puffs on my GTNT spray, which helps the heart to keep going if it is struggling somewhat. I stopped several times on the way up, and finally saw that I was reaching the queue which seems to form outside the Tea Rooms most days, so great a demand is there for tables. As I took my place I quickly realised that I would very likely fall down if I didn't sit down soon. When the Table Manager/Hostess person next came out, I explained that I thought I ought to sit down rather quickly, and after taking a look at me she kindly found me a table at once.

I sat drinking a pot of tea for the next hour until I felt strong enough to ask for a taxi to be ordered to take me back to the hotel. This they were happy to do, and also offered me the use of the disabled access toilet on the ground floor. This was a magnificent apartment in heavy oak panelling to match the rest of the decor, but provided with the latest fittings and and automatically sliding door.

So I got to Betty's, as evidenced by my trophy above, the paper d'oyley from under my teacup. But I had to sit upstairs in the street-level cafe, as I didn't the strength to go downstairs to the Spindler Gallery Tearooms, which house a collection of exquisite Marquetry scenes of Yorkshire from the Art Nouveau period, from the studio of Charles Spindler in Alsace. Nor can I find any of those pictures on the web, much to my disgust.

I went straight to bed, and had so frightened myself that I decided to give the rest of the conference a miss and go home early next day. (Ring NHS Direct on 08454647 if you are in a panic in the middle of the night - they can be very reassuring.) And the irony of all that is, that when I eventually went to get myself checked out by the doctor, she told me that with the packet of meds I am taking for my heart it is well supported and quite capable of the effort I had made. What was at fault was my general level of fitness, which obviously leaves something to be desired. So, a useful lesson learned, but the hard way. And my midnight fantasy as illustrated below was not realised!