It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

lizzyb1812

RedDoe - saw that link re pesticides earlier today too. Luckily I don't eat a lot of fruit and most I grow myself, also grow most of my own veg, although the pesticides enduring in frozen food is interesting as I have no luck growing peas and eat frozen ones - at least they weren't in the top ten!

There's a documentary on currently called Food Inc. about food production in the USA - I've only watched half an hour as I'm pretty well up on the state of play over there re food but the pesticides top ten story pales into insignificance compared with what goes on with USA food. :eek:

For anyone interested google CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and pray they are not introduced over here - there are plans apparently.

Back to OS - first set of new curtains up, old curtains washed ready to become linings to other curtains. Greenhouse 2/3 glazed - just the roof and door to finish tomorrow - then my tomatoes can go indoors to prolong the growing season. I planted several quite late hoping to get the greenhouse finished to do this. Looking forward to winter salads etc and an early start to things next spring.

My OS life is so physically challenging these days I'm having to stop for elevenses and an afternoon teabreak with a biccie to keep me going. And I've started doing what my grandparents did - always have bread and butter on the table to serve with the main meal as a filler. Home made bread and just a scrape of butter of course. It's surprising how many "ends of a meal" make a nice sandwich - had griddled courgettes yesterday.

Hugs to everyone dealing with the consequences of family loss.

shegar

Born blonde, sorry to hear of your sad loss, your mum sounds as if she had a good life and liked her garden may she rest in peace, and BB welcome to the board...

littlecal

Born blonde - I am so sorry to hear about your mum ((((hugs))))

shegar

Charis wrote: »

I can't eat any supermarket bread. It sends my heart into an erratic rhythm and it pounds away for an hour or so. I can eat bread I make at home, in small quantities. Maybe I've found the reason

Oh dear me,:eek:next time I eat a chunk of bread im going to think that im sitting on a tropical beach , 80 degrees , 2 stone lighter, and bronzed , and very very happy, to try to forget whats going on in the bakery dept.......................

kidcat

Born blonde sending hugs - and a word of advice take as much time as you need to do things the way your mum would have wanted and then remember the good times you shared - remembering to pass on those stories for future generations to share.

I remember when my maternal nan died years ago and my mum and her siblings found out the story of how their parents had met - my grandad had dated a woman who my nan worked with and when my grandad was posted away (WW2) he wrote and the woman had no idea how to write back so my nan wrote the letters for her, when he returned home the woman came clean and he insisted on meeting my nan as her letters had meant alot and the rest is history. My point being that I had known this story for years but apparently my nan had never told her children and it was only when I mentioned it that they heard the story for the first time.

Winchelsea

Born blonde - so sorry to hear about your mum - take care of yourself.

About funeral plans, also about rowan berries - my green funeral is all sorted, and as I lie in my wicker coffin I'll have a rowan tree growing above me on my grave. Shame I won't be cooking them - but I'll instruct the offspring that it will be OK to pick them and do something useful with them!

ChocClare

Hello all - been missing in action the last few days because of Stuff and because it's taken me AGES to catch up with the thread!

I had to drive DS down to Plymouth last week to get his accommodation sorted out for university - 3 hour drive through alternating torrential rain and blazing sunshine, about an hour in Plymouth looking at and agreeing to rent a flat and then... we drove back. I said, do you want to look at the shops/park/where you'll need to put your bike/how you get to the university from here and he said NO, THAT'S FINE :rotfl::rotfl:

Don't you just love boys. Me and DD would probably still be there having a nose round... Still, it meant we got back early, though I felt like I was still driving at 70 even when I was making the dinner that evening - long time since I've driven for six hours in one day with only a shortish break!

Hugs to those who need them - horrible stuff about DLA and losing close relatives, so big hugs for that. :grouphug:

Nice to see some delurkers here too and thanks to HariboJunkie for noticing I wasn't around - I'd like to say it was because I was producing lots of things (which I kind of was) but it was mainly because I got Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons I and II out of the library for DD and I sat down to watch the first one with her over lunch and got totally hooked. We watched both series over the weekend and I am now having severe withdrawal symptoms :eek::D

In sadder news, I think my outdoor tomatoes are succumbing to blight AGAIN - I'm getting to the point where I wonder why I bother - but we do have two new bantam chicks which are SO CUTE and happily look like they are both girls.

On the weight front, I am 5'6" and the least I have ever weighed as an adult is 9st6lb when I was a size 10 (on the bottom half at least - I'm too busty ever to be less than a 14 up top!). At that time I was INCREDIBLY fit and could cycle for miles. I didn't have an ounce of fat on me apart from my boobs. The doctor told me he'd "like to see me on the lower half of 9 stone." Which was gibberish, as I simply couldn't lose any more weight without having my boobs surgically removed. Apologies to the flat-chested among us but BOOBS WEIGH A TON as I told him. These days I would probably have lowered one of them into his hand so he could see for himself as there was a nurse chaperoning me at the time, but you don't have that much confidence in your early twenties :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Sadly, the days of my thinness are long gone - not enough exercise and giving up smoking and having kids all combined to send me into fat land. Sadly again, I still think I am thin so it can depressing to see myself in the mirror sometimes :rotfl: However, I notice DD is exactly the same build I was and weighs what I did and I'm glad to say she has absolutely no hangups at all about her weight - which is good because there is nothing of her. I've just calculated her BMI and it's 21.3 which is perfect, I think.

Yes, recommended weight has gone up (as have "standard" sizes) but that is a generational thing - my mum is 5'4" and never weighed more than 8st 7lb until recently which would be a BMI of 20.4. However, having grown up in/just after the war, her shoulders and chest are narrow which is common of women her age.

There was a study done in the eighties which compared "standard" sizes of women in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and people were just getting larger - not fatter, just taller and broader and their bones longer and more dense because of general better nutrition. Obviously, I'm not talking about knocking back Big Macs but I don't think that was quite so common in the eighties anyway - I'm talking about such things as having milk in early childhood and increased vitamin C - which are things which were championed in the war years, but take a while to be noticed in general health-of-the-nation terms.

I know that when I did a lot of vintage shopping when I was at college, I often couldn't find tops to fit AT ALL - not so much because I was busty but because they were often too tight across the shoulders or under the arms. People are just bigger. And I'd say I've got quite narrow shoulders by today's standards!

And of course now we're fatter as well, which doesn't help. Sadly, I know I don't actually eat to excess and that all this unwanted weight will fall off me if I would just get on my blasted bike and cycle to work. Unfortunately, as I haven't got a death wish, I will just have to take it slowly...:D

shegar

Winchelsea wrote: »

Born blonde - so sorry to hear about your mum - take care of yourself.

About funeral plans, also about rowan berries - my green funeral is all sorted, and as I lie in my wicker coffin I'll have a rowan tree growing above me on my grave. Shame I won't be cooking them - but I'll instruct the offspring that it will be OK to pick them and do something useful with them!

I never had time to pick my rowan berries, the blackbirds beat me to it.....:D.!!

ceridwen

Not sure about people getting "larger" rather than "fatter". Personally - I was born after the War and subsequent recovery period and am basically "normal" measurements in my eyes - ie no "starvation affected me scenario" that I can see.

I have noticed that the next two generations after my own are taller than we were - and, with that, will come an appropriate amount of extra weight. Also - the Pill has made a difference to women (eg bustier than they otherwise would be of themselves) - but I became (permanently) bustier because of the Pill and that never went away once I was able to come off it:(.

I honestly think most people are now overweight because most other people are overweight iyswim. That is - I compare myself with my "minds eye" picture of what people looked like when I reached adulthood. Younger people will have a "minds eye" picture of seeing everyone else walking past them in the street looking fatter than my generation was used to seeing when out walking around.

People of my (baby boomer) generation are simply not used to seeing people that are even obese - never mind grossly obese - ie because there were so few around like that in our early and early adult life. The norm was to be slim to standard size and there were very very few people who were bigger than that.

I guess there are a variety of reasons for this - snack culture/greater drinking culture/less exercise/peoples eyes have been "re-trained" to see "grossly obese" as being "obese"/"obese" as being normal/"normal" size figures as being slim and slim figures as being "skinny". Its also to some extent down to the people we personally know - and I'm still reeling at a comment from an obese man I was talking with recently in which he referred to me as "just right". Huh! I was/still am slightly overweight - and that is NOT "just right" in my eyes...its "work to be done/on the list" in my eyes.

Mrs_Veg_Plot

Born blond ((())) enjoy your memories of your mum, she sounds like a lovely lady.

softstuff the choc orange recipe sounds great but how do you prepare the orange?