Irish Mental Health Hotline

I don't know about you but I hate telephone answering systems. No matter who you ring these days it's rare to hear a live voice and have a real human to pick up the phone. If you do manage to find an option to speak to a real person, you're lucky if they're even in the same country these days.

It drives me mad as the answering system rattles off the options to you, trying to pick the relevant one and remembering the number they told you to press.

Now if I thought the ones I ring are bad, this is the answering system from Hell! I love it!

Frank Kelly alias Father Jack strikes again!

My Third Guilty Pleasure

Watching Daytime Telly

Now why should I feel guilty about it? My husband never does, he can watch telly all day, however I do get the guilt pangs.

Maybe it’s because there was no daytime TV when I was young other than children’s TV. Ah the memories come flooding back, Muffin the Mule, Andy Pandy, Bill & Ben the Flowerpot men.

So what is the charm of daytime telly for me? Well I still haven’t got used to getting up and not going to work. So I watch telly programmes when I think I should be at work. It feels a bit like skiving off. Wonder when I'll get used to this. Strange how you're conditioned to going to work.

The telly is usually on as my husband switches it on the minute he gets up, that's anytme after 5.30am. He seems to be addicted to watching the BBC morning news. I wouldn't care I've seen it and they repeat the same things afer about an hour.

He then goes off to work and I make my latte and sit down to watch a little telly.

What do I watch? Well not the BBC news, I don't want to be depressed watching stories about the economy.

Inspector Morse is one of my favourites. I do like a good detective programme and this is probably the best. Funnily enough I didn’t like it at first but it grew on me. It has just about everything to recommend it a few murders but no gratuitous violence and bad language. It has an amazing cast of characters in every programme, a virtual who’s who of British actors. The one with John Gielgud is one of my favourites. There’s humour, fabulous scenery, wonderful scripts and although opera music isn’t my favourite genre, it does add a touch of class to the programmes.

This is one telly series that actually improves on the books. I’ve read a couple of Colin Dexter’s Morse books and they’re OK but the programmes are better. Colin Dexter himself admitted this on a programme about the making of the telly series.

Pie in the Sky is another wonderful TV detective series. I love Richard Griffiths, he has such a dry way of dealing with situations and nothing like the dreaded Uncle Dursley character he plays in the Harry Potter films. If you haven't seen it, forget Starsky and Hutch, Kojak and CSI; this series is a million miles away! There’s not always a dead body, no bad language (a pet hate of mine) wonderful actors, lovely gentle humour and a recurring food theme with his restaurant which provides the title for the series.

Wanted Down Under is something I’m almost addicted to. I absolutely love watching a UK family being transported to Australia or New Zealand to see how they would adapt to living there. Apparently 40% of UK families who emigrate there return in less than 2 years, so this programme gives them an opportunity to check out the place, the work situation, housing and lifestyle in a place of their choice. It’s great seeing the different places and the people’s reactions. The hardest is watching the videos from friends and families. I have to say I would have loved to live in New Zealand but I know I could never have left my family behind.

Jeeves and Wooster is a series I didn’t see first time around for some reason. The antics of those wonderful upper class twits is a joy to behold, the ridiculous situations they get into really makes me laugh. There’s lovely scenery and again there’s a wonderful cast, the pairing of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry is a just class.

I also watch a lot of children's telly once I pick Lauren up from nursery. I don’t like much of it but have to say I fell in love with In the Night Garden and I don't feel at all guilty watching it because I'm keeping Lauren company!

I could listen to the introduction over and over again, well I do most days! I love the poem and the music, Derek Jacobi provides the perfect rendering of the poem. If you haven’t heard it, here’s a clip.



Those characters with the silly names are great, there's Upsy Daisy, Igglepiggle, Tombliboos, Makka Pakka, the Pontipines, Wallanders, Haahoos, the Ninky Nonk and the Pinky Ponk, well you get the picture! How sad is that knowing all their names? I need to get a life!

Along with most other young children, my granddaughter has all the characters, books, toys, jigsaws, DVDs, dressing up outfit, pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. Wish I had shares in that programme.

Upsy Daisy and Igglepiggle

They have a good section on the CBeebies website that Lauren loves to play on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/

Want to play in the Night Garden? Just click on one of the stars.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/flash/index.shtml

If you have a webcam you can have your/child/grandchild’s face appear in parts of the picture and only you can see it. The instructions are here http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/info.shtml

Yes, sad old git that I am, I’m hooked, I’ll admit it.

Anyway, it’ll be OK when my husband retires because he's a definite telly addict, it'll be on all day. I'll have no guilt at all, well he certainly doesn't. We can watch it together, as long as it’s not flippin’ sport! I heard the good news today that F1 is returning to the BBC. They've even got a new section on the BBC website for it. He'll be over the moon as he's complained non stop about it being on ITV and "constantly" interrupted by adverts. Good old advertising free BBC! Well that's if you don't count all the trailers for their programmes.

I have one story about telly I never let him forget. When I was at the polytechnic many moons ago, I had to go on a field trip for twelve days to Yugoslavia, as it was called then. I felt really guilty about leaving the children (nine and eleven so not that young) for so long. You see my guilt complex! My husband said not to worry, it would be a doddle! He would take a couple of weeks off from work, look after the kiddiwinks and decorate the living room and dining room.

I came back home and guess what? No decorating done. Why? Well it was late June and the 1982 World Cup was being played in Spain. I suppose he must have watched every match televised even though England didn't win. Again!

Swimming and Me

I love swimming even though I’m not very good at it. When we go on holiday I love swimming in the pools whatever kind of water it is and no matter what the temperature. I have to swim at least once a day.

It must be something inbuilt and I've never admitted this before but I've often had nightmares where it's the last day of my holiday and for some reason I haven't been into the pool. Talk about panic, I'm demented. Maybe it's a metaphor, something to do with getting older and you haven't done the things you really wanted to do. I don't know. Sometimes I really wonder about myself. Good job I've never seen a psychiatrist.

Anyway I can swim quite a few lengths but I just can’t put my head under the water so I’ve never been able to do the crawl. I’ve always envied those people just effortlessly gliding up and down the pool doing the crawl. My son in law has a wonderful smooth style, barely a splash and he taught himself to do it. Well I’ve tried, but without putting my face into the water, what a farce.

When I was approaching sixty, I had that feeling you get when you start to think about all the things in your life you’ve never done. A bit like that Bucket List film I should think. I kept putting off doing anything about it because I have to say putting my face into the local swimming pool full of chlorine and other nasty stuff just didn’t bear thinking about.

Well last year they opened a new Aquatic Centre in Sunderland, about 7 miles from where I live. Until this pool was built we didn’t have a 50 metre pool in the North East, the nearest were Leeds and Edinburgh, over a hundred miles in each direction.

Opening Night at the Aquatic Centre © City of Sunderland

It's a weird looking building from the outside and has lots of derelict land which hasn't been landscaped. I gather it's part of a redevelopment area and at the moment they're going through a public consulation. Still you think they would have tidied it up and put a bit of grass on it.

Front Entrance

Side View (Looks a bit like a Hovercraft!)

I didn’t get around to visiting it until a few weeks ago and I was very pleasantly surprised by it, well the inside anyway. It’s got 10 lanes of 50 metre length which is wonderful for a spot of exercise. There’s a diving pool too, not that I have any ambitions in that direction. Both the main pool and multi-purpose pool have moveable floors so their depths can be varied. This accommodates a range of activities from aqua aerobics to water polo, enabling swimmers of all abilities to use them.

Pool Area © City of Sunderland

The main pool also has a movable boom, which can be used to alter its length or sub-divide it, allowing more than one group of swimmers to use it at the same time. So you can have three different sections, school children having lessons, a free swimming area and lanes for the more serious swimmer.

Children's Activity Session © City of Sunderland

There isn't a children’s pool as this is not a leisure pool although they do put on fun sessions for youngsters, usually in school holidays.

However for me the best thing is the water quality, it’s fantastic. Some kind of bio filtering system so there’s hardly any nasty chemicals in the water.

To save time and travelling costs, I went back to our local pool in Washington last Friday morning and it was awful. It was packed with people of a certain age, like me, but the problem was they were swimming so slow I don’t know how they stayed afloat. Made me feel like Rebecca Adlington, well not really. Apart from the obvious fact she got two gold medals at the summer Olympics last year, I don't spend a fortune on Jimmy Choo shoes. Then there were the awful chemicals to contend with. Yuk!

So I made up my mind I was going to visit the Aquatic Centre more regularly and procrastination time was over. Yesterday I signed up for a swimming improver's class as they call it. Bargain of the day, it only cost £13.50 for 5 sessions! I do have a membership of the leisure club which is quite cheap if you’re over 60 and that made the classes very good value.

Well today was the day, I went for my first lesson. There were only 5 people there for the lesson and we had quite a laugh. The instructor was really nice and she taught me to put my face into the water. Success! I eventually kept it there for a few seconds. I also managed to swim a width of the pool with a float doing a crawl kick. Good grief I thought I would lose the use of my legs, it’s so hard to do compared to breast stroke kick. Must be really good exercise.

I’m really looking forward to next week and my second lesson. I’m feeling pleased with myself for getting off my bum and trying to improve my swimming. Hopefully by the time I go on holiday to Rhodes in May, I might be able to do a sort of crawl. Might being the operative word. Watch this space!

My Second Guilty Pleasure

I Do Like a Lie in!

I really do love not having to get up for work now. I always used to love a lie in when I was young and my Mam bless her used to let us lie in until lunch time if we’d been out to a dance the night before.

I’m just not an early to bed person, I’m rarely in bed before midnight and I’ve never been a morning person. I always found it hard to get up when the alarm went off, and I used to turn over for an extra few minutes. I used to leave the alarm on at weekends just for the pleasure of turning over and switching it off. I’m not bad tempered or anything I just function better afternoons and evenings.

Guess what? My husband is the opposite, he gets up anytime after 5.30 am. It’s such a pain!

Some mornings I’m still up early to take the kiddoes to school and nursery but others I have a lovely lie in, It's especially nice if the weather is bad, I just snuggle back under the duvet.

I’m making the most of it because once my husband retires, I doubt if I’ll get to lie in for very long.

It’s Pancake Tuesday!

I love pancakes any day but I try not to eat too many as my favourite is pancake with honey and lemon. I don’t have sugar but it’s still a bit fattening.

Never mind our grandchildren love pancakes too so we have to make and eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins.

The pancake has a very long history and has been featured in cookbooks dating back as far as the 15th century. Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday, (apparently the word Shrove came from the old English word shrive which meant confess all sins) is traditionally a time to feast before fasting. Apparently it started when Christians who observed the Lenten tradition of fasting wanted to use up all the rich ingredients in their cupboards before Lent started. The humble pancake was the perfect way to use up ingredients like eggs, sugar and fat that weren’t allowed and would otherwise spoil.

The tradition of tossing or flipping a pancake dates back just as far and is a very serious pastime for some people.

Did you know?

• Ralf Laue from Leipzig broke the world record for tossing a pancake by flipping it into the air 416 times in two minutes.
• The world's biggest pancake was cooked in Rochdale in 1994, weighing in a three tonnes, measuring a delicious 15 metres in diameter and holding an estimated two million calories.
• The largest number of pancakes tossed in the shortest time in the UK is 349 tossed in 2 minutes at Felixstowe, Suffolk in January 1995.
• Chefs at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago tried to build a record-setting stack of pancakes, but the wiggling, wobbling stack of flapjacks just wouldn't stay put. Organisers wanted to nab a space in the Guinness Book of World Records by building a pancake tower that was 16 feet tall. After nearly an hour of work and the help of some extra-long toothpicks the crumbling stack of buttermilk pancakes never made it past 16 inches.
• The tallest recorded pancake stack is two feet, three-inches tall.
• Mike Cuzzacrea ran a marathon whilst continually tossing a pancake for three hours, two minutes and 27 seconds.

The Art to Pancake Tossing

It seems that there is far more to tossing a pancake than meets the eye. According to a study conducted by a senior physics lecturer from Birmingham, the solution to tossing the perfect pancake is down to speed. He concluded that a pancake should be flipped into the air at a speed of 10 miles-an-hour, which means it takes less than .5 of a second to reach the top of its trajectory. I think it just needs a pretty nifty wrist and a good non-stick pan!

My husband is the better pancake maker and he made sure we had all the ingredients and the accompaniments yesterday.

The BBC website has more information and fancier recipes for anyone wanting more sophisticated culinary fare.

Here are some tips and a good basic recipe:

• Don't use a heavy pan, yes they will cook more evenly but you'll either not be able to flip them or end up dropping the pan.


• Do not put too much oil in or you'll end up splashing yourself or someone else with hot oil.


• Stand slightly to the side of the hob, if the pancake falls on the floor you can just thrown it away. If it falls on to the gas ring you've got problems.


• Be confident when you flip them, you need height not forward movement.

Basic Pancake Recipe

Makes: 8 pancakes
Preparation Time: 15 minutes, plus standing
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

4 ozs/110g Plain flour
2 Eggs
7fl ozs/200ml Milk mixed with about 3fl ozs/75ml water(You can use all milk if you wish)
Vegetable oil, for frying
Sugar, lemon and orange wedges to serve.

Method:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre.
2. Add the eggs and beat with a whisk or fork.
3. Gradually beat in the milk, drawing in the flour from around the edge, until you have a smooth batter.
4. Cover and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
5. Heat a little oil in a non stick frying pan, tilting the pan to spread the oil evenly.
6. Pour out the oil into a dish, be careful this will be very hot.
7. Pour in just enough batter to thinly coat the base of the pan.
8. Cook for 1-2 minutes until golden on the under side.
9. Flip over, and cook the other side until golden.
10.Transfer to a plate and keep warm, while you cook the others.
11. Oil the pan again and repeat with the remaining batter to make eight pancakes.
12. Serve with a sprinkle of sugar and a squeeze of orange or lemon.

I prefer honey with lemon on mine and my grandchildren like chocolate spread.

Happy flipping!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thank you Rudee for this award. I'm not sure I'm that creative but I try.

I'm meant to pass it on to seven other bloggers but as usual I'm going off track, breaking the rules because I find it hard to choose from all the lovely blogs I visit. So if you visit my blog on a regular basis please take the award.

If you want to follow the rules for this award, here they are:

1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

So thanks again Rudee, I love reading your blog. You make me laugh and you inspire me. Happy house hunting!

Blogger Backup

As a final note I found a back up site for blogs called Bloggled which is free if you sign up for just the basic service.

I've had a couple of problems with Blogger and worried that it seemed to have lost the content, however it did come back. I just thought that one day it might not!

Seems OK it copies the photos and comments as well as the content of your postings. So if you want to take a look it's at http://www.bloggled.com/

Sisterhood Award

Thank You Patsy for this award!

I'm going to cheat otherwise I would never get this done.

I'm supposed to choose at least 10 blogs which show attitude and or gratitude, then link to the nominees. After that I have to let them know by commenting on their blogs and then link back to them.

Well I have to say it takes so long to choose just 10 other blogs and I feel awful leaving some out of all the great blogs I follow. Then there's checking out whether they already have the award before I do all the linking stuff!

Too little time available so if you're a regular reader and would like the award, please feel free to take it.