Exciting times. I voted this morning – stood in a longer queue than I expected but luckily the friendly woman next to me kept me entertained with stories about her neighbours.
But then I did not take advantage of Wimpy’s offer of a free beverage for all who voted – perhaps I will go later.
I am waiting with great interest to see the outcome of this election.
This is one of my favourite websites. When I’m feeling down or particularly stressed, I log on and look at a few of the funny pics and then I feel (slightly) better.
Take a look at http://icanhascheezburger.com/
Awww, cute.
I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Saturday. Long. Boring.
Looooong.
Boooooring.
I usually love Cate Blanchett but really, all that bending over backwards trying to look – could it be – sexy? I just don’t know. It didn’t work for me.
Who loved this movie? Did I miss something?
I attended my second Herb Society meeting on Saturday afternoon. I joined the herb club last month and I am thoroughly enjoying it. It’s also held in a venue with a gorgeous garden, so of course that makes me very happy.
At our first meeting, the chair of the club demonstrated how to make drinks – hot and cold – with herbs and we all had a taste of each of the drinks. I learned a whole load more than I expected to. I had a pounding headache when I arrived, but after some soothing mint tea my head actually started to feel a bit better. And one old biddy got quite excited about the tot of vodka that went into one of the drink!
Last Saturday a wonderful woman came to speak to us about her aloe products and her business – yummy fruit juices, jam etc. A fascinating story.
So herb club is great and I’m glad I’ve discovered it (well my garden path-building friend Marion found it and invited me along). But what struck me is that the average age of members is, uh, quite elderly. Where are the young people? Aren’t these the days of miracles and wonder – I mean home-grown veg and herbs and everyone getting back to nature?
Have other people noticed this or is it just me? Chocolate wrappers, energy bar wrappers (oh dear, I’m revealing all my bad diet habits), milk cartons – they all seem wrapped up much tighter. I used to be able to rip open my choccies with gay abandon, but these days, after much intense frustration and unsuccessful pulling and tearing, I have to go hunt for a pair of scissors and cut the flipping wrapper off. This destroys much of my pleasure in the whole crave chocolate, need chocolate, buy chocolate, aaah bliss, chocolate stream of events. And by this stage my craving for chocolate is so bad I’m about to hit the ceiling. Milk cartons don’t fare much better in my house. Nowadays I approach them with a knife at the ready, that little plastic bit under the lid is really tricky.
So what’s with that? Have there been lots of wiggly insect thingies in our food that everything must be so difficult to open, or have my fingers just lost the nimbleness of youth?
I try to live a wheat-free life. My body does not react well to wheat, barley, oats, couscous and yeast sometimes bothers me too. So I spend quite a lot of time reading the ingredient labels on packages and boxes. I visited a health shop and restaurant recently and was in ecstasies of delight when practically the whole menu offered wheat-free food. A good find.
My latest trawl of the shops was to find wheat-free soy sauce. I finally found some organic tamari sauce in a health shop. So if anyone knows of any brands of soy sauce that don’t contain wheat, please let me know. I have an old bottle of soy sauce that is free of yeast but it’s finished now and I haven’t been able to find the same type in any shop. Stir-fries are dangerous things for me unless I get to inspect the sauce that’s used in them.
Does anybody else here live a wheat-free life? Where do you shop? How do you get around it? What do you do when you go out for dinner and are presented with, for example, sausages? Lots of sausage is made with cereal binder. Do you ask if the sausage is made with no wheat? Does one ask for all food labels to be presented at the dinner table? Do you shut up and eat and be glad that your friends/colleagues/family made you a meal? I’d be interested to hear how other people manage.
Okay, I confess that I didn’t actually build it. Most of the work was done by my friend Marion while I sat around making encouraging noises and pulling out the occasional blade of grass. I’d had a rough year, okay, my body was feeling a bit fragile. Building a path is hard work – I could tell this by watching Marion sweating away. I did help a bit but boy, is all that digging and chopping exhausting. Marion came up with the design and she did most of the heavy labour. Don’t think too badly of me, she did say she was frustrated with her small garden and she was quite enjoying the exercise. ‘We’ dug out grass, weeded, mulched and then joyously laid the pavers. It took us a few Sunday mornings of my encouraging noises. Miracles (my sweet little cat) loves the path – the grass that we spent so long trying to eradicate has found its tough little way back in between the pavers so there are often new blades, nice and fresh, just the way she likes her grass. She also likes to park her pretty little self on a paver and pose for me, it’s so sweet. Anyway, I am rather attached to my path and I have bored my friends with photos of phase one, phase two, phase three. Now every time I come home I spend a few peaceful minutes admiring it. There’s something very restful about a path curving through a garden. Thanks Marion!
I lost my beloved Nat-the-Cat to leukaemia in October last year. It was devastating and I still have a good cry often because I miss him every day. He had been my companion and ‘friend’ for seven years. My heart wrapped itself around his the moment I saw him – he was the most adorable four-month-old kitten when I got him. I miss his funny little quirks so much – he had such incredible character. He’d sit in my bath and miaow until I ran the water because he loved the bath for some reason; he’d sit on my foot when he was in the kitchen in the hope that he’d pin me down so that I’d give him some food; and he loved his toy rubber balls – he would carry them around with him and when he was a kitten he would take them with when he visited the neighbours. These are just a few of the things that I’m getting used to living without each day.
Has anybody else got a story to share?
What does everybody think about the feline Aids and leukaemia vaccinations?
- I have received responses from people that these vaccs did not work for them – the more stories people share, the more we can learn.
I live in a sandy area of the city and I am extremely lucky because I have a garden and it is blessed with a beautiful white karee tree. (I think it’s a white karee, I stand to be corrected.) I am trying to make an indigenous garden that’s lush and gorgeous, where I can lie on the grass and feel the magic of the fairies and the flowers. It’s progressing slowly and steadily but if you’ve ever tried to make a garden in sandy soil in a hot area – in a garden that’s ALSO shady – then you know you’re in for a challenge. After much trial and error, I’ve discovered many types of plectanthrus that flourish as well as ribbon bushes, lilies (strangely enough), Cape fuchsia and a few other gems from Kirstenbosch Nursery. I’ve now stumbled across baby sun roses, wonderful little red/pink vygie-type flowers that are apparently happy to grow in sand and shade. I’ve planted some and they appear to be doing well.
In light of my shady garden, I was excited to see that the Kirstenbosch Garden Fair this year is focusing on celebrating trees and shade plants. I’ll be there!
