The Breath of Life

Well, what a summer!  I was wondering why I was so tired and put it down to a combination of lots of visitors, viruses and de-stressing (I cannot believe how much I had been affected by the NHS changes).  However, I sat in my chair one day and just didn’t get up until bedtime.  I had to make myself get up to go to the loo.  Didn’t feel ill, didn’t hurt, didn’t ache, didn’t feel anything, and didn’t want to do anything.  I could make myself do something if the necessity was enough, but I was very slow doing it and puffed and panted like I was running a marathon (not that I’ve ever run a marathon, but...).  This, for me, is frankly weird, so I phoned the doctor.

As soon as I spoke to the triage nurse, she said “have you got asthma?”. I had completely forgotten my asthma and I’m not quite sure that she thought I was all there.  When I was diagnosed the first time, I had the most terrible whooping cough that had caused all the registrars to come from their room to gather around my convulsing body and hum to each other. Bless, they were cancer docs so basically didn’t have a clue, but it was very amusing.  Not a hint of a cough this time! Anyway, I trotted down and got some inhalers, sold what remained of my body to pay for them and now have to spent the rest of my life and those of my niece and nephew down the mines to pay for the inhalers.

When I went to see the asthma nurse, she said that it would take months to get back to normal, due to the fact that my tubes were almost closed and it had been going on for some years.  Oooh er....

So I’m hoovering every day, (central vacuum system, marvellous for this type of thing) and trying to go for a walk or cycle every day. After 6 weeks, I can now do 4 things a day, (hurrah) unless I forget to hoover, like over this weekend,  when it all goes rapidly downhill.  It’s incredible how much we are dependent on getting enough oxygen and how easily things can sneak up on one.

There is also the fraught question of what to do with the cat.  Should one get rid of a living creature, who is really very attached to us (yes, you sceptics, it is us, not the territory) and to whom we are also much attached just because I can’t breathe? Ah, I’ll just have to see.

The thing that really worries me at the moment is that I promised Graham that I’d go to the Labour Exchange/Job Centre and I’m not going to be able to hold down a job at the moment. Oh well, just suck it and see, as it were....

The Causes of Ructions

Major, and I mean major, cultural differences do tend to crop up in the most surprising areas.  Take for example

1) the place of moss on a roof - Swede: Arggghhhhh, wash it off NOW!
                                                 Brit: Oooooh, how lovely
2) the place of plaits on a woman - Swede: Oooh, how lovely
                                                      Brit: Arghhhhh, cut them off NOW!
3) the place of bananas on a pizza - Swede: Ooooh, how tasty
                                                      Brit: Argggghh, take them off NOW and I'm washing my mouth out!

and these sorts of things cause wars.....

Hamming it up in Autumn

Autumn is definitely in full swing and I'm keeping a close eye on the elderberry tree next door. I really must buy the wine making bucket and airlock in the paint shop (??? I don't know why there either, but hey).

With the chill in the air and the heating on, thought turn (natch) to comforting, warm, lovely food. It's great how easy it is here to get ham hocks/jointed gammon and I picked one up the other day on special offer from the local supermarket as I had some orange juice and needed to use it up.
The recipe was honey and marmalade gammon.  When I got home, I realised there was a slight technical hitch in that whilst I had the orange juice, I didn't have honey, marmalade, whole cloves or ginger.  So I had to adapt and the result got the thumbs up from both Graham and the cat (who will turn somersaults for it).  I've tried to make the receipe work internationally..

Red berry Ham

Put your ham into as small a saucepan as can be.  Cover with orange juice and water mix.  Put in an onion studded with cloves (I used an onion and put in some ground cloves). Boil for 2-3 hours depending on the weight of the ham.

Take out and keep the stock for dried pea soup. Discard the skin.

Mix lingon jam (or cranberries or another tart berry depending on what country you're in) with a Dijon style mustard according to taste. (approx 5tbsp jam to 2 tsp mustard, but hey).  Smear all over the ham and bake for about 35-45 minutes.

Eat.

A patch of my own

I was very worried that I would miss the lingon season (aren’t we all!), but, fortunately the doc found out that the not being able to breathe and being extremely tired was due to resurgence in my asthma.  Quite why it’s chosen to come back now is anyone’s guess, but nevertheless ... probably all this clean air. (Anders, it’s your sawmill!! J)  So I decided to celebrate the beginning of my resurgence by trying to find the lingon patches I’d noticed up an old track in the hills to the north.  After cycling up the hill, well, I say cycling, I mean – after cycling on the flat bits and the slight slope, I get off, try and start breathing again, check which pocket the phone is in case I collapse on the right side and need to ring the emergency services, walk the rest of the hill. After that, what I failed to notice previously was that the first lingon patch is over a ditch, which is filled with that moss stuff, which grows in water and is about 6m long. Humm, I didn’t bring my wellies, which is a big mistake in a forest (yet another thing they don’t show in adventure films!). Oh well, try a bit further on and there it was. Behold - A large rock with trees growing on top of it surrounded by a glowing mass of lingon and no ditch!  As rocks tend to have a severe lack of water, I knew I’d be safe with my trainers and so I was.  It was marvellous, piles of the things, I picked 2.5kg in an hour, give or take a few minutes spent breathing.  All the other patches of lingon in the area have been completely picked clean by ravening locals or ravening town dwellers that come out in fine weather, park in sidings and pick berries/mushrooms/anything else that is lying around. So it’s my very own local lingon patch, known only to me and several ruminants. Hurrah.

I suppose I should say that the English for lingon is cowberry. It’s much nicer than cranberry having a richer taste and is slightly tarter. Cranberries are, in fact, lingon lite.

Party On

Last Saturday we gave our first party in Sweden.  I mention this not because it was particularly funny, strange or abnormal that we should have a party, (although only one in a whole year...), but because of the gifts.

Having said that, I should qualify it by saying it wasn’t particularly funny, strange or abnormal for us, however, as my 104yr old grandmother said “it wasn’t Swedish at all (pause), I had a good time though” (bless,  It must have been a good party. This from the woman who thought it a shame that bananas couldn’t grow in Sweden as they would taste better.).  Incidentally, she bought a gift of home baked biscuits.

It was a combined housewarming/1 year in Sweden anniversary/oooh look, we’ve just had summer/hey, what the hell party, so we were expecting a certain amount of flowers, which is the traditional housewarming gift and this is the traditional country.  Naturally the people we invited were all totally lovely, so we thought the standard of flowers would be quite good. Well, what can I say and there were others too!

1)      Flowers:  Horsenden Hill Allotment and Garden Association eat your heart out.  The dahlias and other assorted garden flowers would have walked the first prizes at the shows, no worries. 

2)      Book (oh yes....) “things to do in Sweden” book – inspired, given the number of visitors we have got (booking for next year opening in January)

3)      Home- made squashes – these have to be tasted to be believed. A home-made squash is truly awesome and I have estimated that I need 10 hectares of berry bushes to keep me in squash for the year. One of the bottles contains a blackcurrant concoction that is made to the receipt devised by my great-great cousin – get that!!! The tea jar can come under here as I may appropriate it for biscuits. It makes sense honestly!

4)      Home-made/local produce jams – including a blueberry jam where the berries had been picked that morning and was still warm. And lime curd from England!

5)      A huge chunk of moose meat – from the local forest.  Can’t wait to cook it and have the red wine (see no 10) with it.

6)      Several orchids and other houseplants, including several chrysanths with a bowl to pot up for the porch. 

7)      Home-made crisp bread – I can’t make crispbread until the maker of these dies, cos I just can’t compete.

8)       Cakes – oh the cakes..... I will give the red currant cake receipt in a future blog. It is really rather nice. Haven’t eaten the chocolate or coconut one yet, but I will, oh yes, I will. (oh and Graham might get some too)

9)      Cash – someone gave us something to get something for the home, which was incredibly sensible as they would have had no idea of our taste and it turns out to be totally different.

10)   Wine – this was the second main difference with London parties.  We got 2 bottles of wine.  Yes, that’s right, two. Whereas normally you’d have more than you started with (approx 40 for a party of 3 people), here there are rather a lot of rabid teetotallers, so we had to discreet with the wine and people who did drink were very restrained. We did have one English chap to the party and he drank, so that was OK. (no national stereotypes there then).

11)   Choccies – what can I say?  The drug of choice.

 12)   Eggs  - the most gorgeous colours to the shells, subtle pastel shades from happy, contented local hens that I’ve seen.

So, great neighbours, lovely people, great food.  What more could you ask?  Another party!!!!! yeahhhh

Still, Mustn't Grumble

It’s the Olympics and everyone (rephrase: everyone in the media) is getting terribly excited about the World’s Greatest Sporting Event and, let’s face it, one of the world’s biggest events.  Just to remind you that it happens once every four years and was last in London way, way before my lifetime and probably won’t be there again whilst I’m alive.

Again, the world’s biggest and greatest sporting event is starting in London and it’s on for 3 weeks.  The person interviewed on the news this morning was just totally typical of the soul destroying, dust grinding, jaw clenching, constant, oh so constant irritations of the UK health and social system.  I say HSS because the person interviewed afterwards didn’t work in that milieu and was cheery and positive. Oh this woman moaned....

Reminder -  GREATEST EVENT for THREE WEEKS ONCE A LIFETIME! 

She worked in Newham as a Mental Health Worker and lived in Brixton, she cycled to work so had no travel disruption. The reason that she was totally fed up with the Olympics and wished London had never got it was....... some meetings had been postponed until after the Olympics, and some clients had difficulty getting in. I’m not even going to go into locality of clients (for those who don’t know, Newham is not large) and the mental health benefits of walking. Errh, which bit of GREATEST EVENT EVER!!!! aren't you getting?? And to think I had to put up with the constant mental rubbing of this sort of attitude every day.

Oh the marvellousness of living in a culture that encourages positivity. We had a whole lot from Proverbs last night and this just shows – ‘A cheerful look brings joy to the heart’. ‘Pleasant words are a honeycomb,  sweet to the soul and healing to the bones’, and ‘A cheerful heart is good medicine,’

Still, mustn’t grumble.

I think there's something happening out there

About 8 years ago, I was walking from my flat in Shepherd’s Bush to work and realised that it was late May and I hadn’t notice Spring. 3 years ago I walked in the bit of Epping Forest near work and there were about 3 species of grass, daisies, dandelions and 2 other flowers, in 2 miles. Oh a few trees, about 5 species.  Even Horsenden Hill hasn't that much diversity, though Perivale Wood is better.

One of the best things about holidaying in the summer house here was the smell.  You just have to be here, but the upper notes of the pines in the sunshine, the earth and the damp vegetation with the occasional doft of the wild flowers and fruits. It’s just unbelievable and I could have spent all my time just breathing... (Ed – errrh, is there something you should be telling us?  Alien lifeform perhaps??).

London dulls things: you train yourself not to see, not to smell, not to notice anything but where the best restaurants and bars are, who is the next celebrity. You forget that in the winter, the only colours are black, gray and white, with splashes of diamond, gold and burgundy.  There is no smell or sound in the forest when the temperature is  -15C.   Here, you are cut off, bundled up and turn in to yourself and your home, where the family and noise of the house make cooking smells the best and the colour comes from the lights in the windows, the curtains, the pictures and the people.

The wait for spring is palpable. As the snow melts, the landscape turns amber, brown, chestnut, russet, chocolate and tan. There are elusive wafts of damp earth and musk.  Then a film of green. Suddenly the grass is out and the stars have fallen under the trees.  The wood anemones dapple the ground under the deciduous trees and are everywhere.  As the temperature rises the smell comes back, gradually, not to scare us and the birds start singing.

Then the full scale assault of late spring and early summer starts.  Quite frankly, you need ear plugs for the bird song. The sun comes down in all the meadows as great drifts of dandelions fill the countryside.  There is barely time to draw breath before the lupins start.  A Monet painting is as nothing, a pale shadow of colour. Every one is a different colour and are framed by the Queen Anne’s Lace frothing all over the place.   As for going for a walk! Every step is filled with pleasure, “oh look there’s some Lily of the Valley, and some blue things, and some more blue things and some other pink stuff.” How many grasses are there, for goodness sake! Not to mention sedges and other straggly things.   Fields of sorrels turning every shade of red.

After that, things settle down in high summer.  There are many more types of flower, but they are more restrained, less “look at me”, just so many of them and then again you can spend more time eating than walking. Blueberries, wild strawberries, wild raspberries and then the lingon (cowberry), though the last can only be eaten in jam stuff, to be fair. And the smell!  Just totally and utterly gorgeous.  The feeling of lying on a little beach with the whisper of the breeze in the birches, the scent of the pines and the lapping of the water, with a few birds chirping away and the sun on your skin –ahhhhh.

Then autumn.  Mushrooms, earth, the smell of the burning wood, the feel of wool against the skin, the hunt and the golds and brunettes of the woods and fields bring you down the the glistening, soft whiteness of the first snow and shutdown.

Anyway, it’s not that you’re not going to notice! No chance of missing that lot.  In fact, sometimes, because I hadn’t had any time away from London and work for about 2 years, I had to come in and bury my head under a quilt because it all was a bit too much for my poor senses.

To quote my friend BA “why do you want to come here, it’s just a load of trees”.....