Remembering Stephen

I started writing this by stating when and how my brother died, but then I realised I didn't want to start at the end of his life but rather at the begining.

This memoir is hard for me to write because as I try to recall things it saddens me to acknowledge that I perhaps didn't know my brother as well as I wish I had. However, he was my brother and I have always wished that I had a memorial to him, perhaps this will be that.

Born in December 1967, my younger brother Stephen was 23 months younger than me.  Stephen, like me, was adopted when he was a baby, I don't have any details other than he was born in Glasgow and like me had been given up for adoption.  I don't remember life without him, I was very happy to be his big sister.

Stephen physically was as opposite me as you could get, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, he had a long back and short legs for his size, I had dirty blonde hair and a short back with long legs.  Family photos of us as children are comical.   We had a family dog called Sheena and we both adored her, playing football with her in our back garden.  Family life was generally happy enough when we were wee,  our Mum stayed at home to look after us and the house and our Dad went to work 6 days a week, occasionally getting Saturdays off which meant we were taken swimming.   I was a shy and very willing to please child, always wishing I had my brother's determination and spirit much more.  He was far more true to himself than I was, and if he didn't want to do something he wouldn't!   I vividly remember Stephen starting at the primary school we both went too, I was so proud to have a wee brother at the same school and spent my playtimes trying to make sure he was ok, I needn't have bothered, Stephen always got on fine without my interference.

When he started school he was sent to speech therapy to correct and slight stutter and lisp, I used to help him with his exercises.  Sammy the snake slithers through long grass, we used to repeat over and over.  Our childhood was not so bad, we definitely suffered at the temper of our Mum, I don't think we were actually that bad, just naughty in the way kids are.  A new primary school was built in our area and Stephen was moved there as it covered the school zone we lived in, I remained at the old primary for another year until I moved up to our secondary school.

Stephen hated school, he actually refused to talk about it when he was older.  Our Dad had already written me off as not that intelligent and I think he decided Stephen was the same too, nothing really could have been further from the truth.

During our early teen years we were a gang of two, watching Top of the Pops, Friday nights eating Findus French Bread pizza (how exotic) in front of Monkey Magic and spending the weekend buying new singles and listening to them as loud as we could.  Stephen was a punk, I was a rocker, then he was a rocker and I was a punk.  We shared hairspray and t-shirts and worked part time at the local supermarket where we used to annoy the manager by swapping our sections if we didn't like them!  Stephen was the coolest brother ever, and once I started college all my new friends fancied him, always asking me to get him to come to parties.  I loved those rebellious times, driving round in my banger of a car while Stephen got too cool for that and bought a Vespa.

Stephen left school with no exams, once again teachers assuming he was 'thick' and managed to get an apprenticeship with a local plumbers.  That lasted about 6 months until Maggie Thatcher brought in the YOP/YTS programmes effectively killing off apprenticeships.  Stephen moved up to Aviemore to work a season at the Coylumbridge hotel, only returning every once in a while with his bags of washing and sometimes with a punk girlfriend in tow.  I was now at college, on quite a destructive path following the death of my boyfriend and we didn't spend much time with each other.

Stephen had taught himself to play guitar as a teenager, he was left handed and now I can't remember if he played a right or left handed guitar, I think he played right handed?  He left his beautiful blues guitars to my sons, his nephews James and Liam, both play guitar very well, and the music that comes from these amazing D'Angelico guitars makes me feel as if Stephen is still here.  Whilst still a teenager living in Glasgow, Stephen was in a band called 'If Only', he always said those were the two saddest words in the English Language, full of regret at not doing something.

And here is where my beautiful, bold and brilliant brother lived his life in a way that I always admired and I really wished I had told him that more.  After various unfulfilling jobs in Glasgow, Stephen moved to Aberdeen and attended a degree access course for the University of Aberdeen.  Of course he passed, and started his undergraduate degree in English and History as a mature student when he was 25.  During the second year of his degree, his supervisor had a meeting with him to discuss why Stephen hadn't told the department that he was dyslexic, Stephen's answer to that was that he wasn't but he was encouraged to undergo testing where they showed that he was severely dyslexic however very highly functioning in his other IQ tests.  He was offered extra help to complete his degree which he refused, saying that he wanted to complete it under his own merits.  He achieved a 2:1 Joint honours degree in English and History.  The first one ever on either side of my Mum and Dad's family to graduate from University.  I am so proud of what he achieved, he inspires me to try and achieve as much as I can out of life without listening to what others think of me.

The 5 years that Stephen lived in Aberdeen were probably the time when we were closest in our adult lives, as I had moved up to Aberdeenshire with my job in 1992.  It was really great to be able to spend time together, Stephen got on really well with my boyfriend/then husband Paul and as we started our family we shared some great moments with our new baby daughter and then son, as my big 'tough' Glaswegian brother melted into the best uncle 'Pop' ever, always offering to babysit for me if I needed a haircut or to do some shopping in Aberdeen.   He absolutely adored all our kids, sadly by the time he met his life partner they didn't manage to have kids of their own.   Funny stories included him having to buy his niece, Lindsay, a book in Waterstones which she had grabbed as he had pushed her around in her pram as he was in buying books for his course.  The book was a children's book but quite advanced for a one year old, his answer was to shrug his shoulders and say well he thought she may cry if he took it away from her!  The big softie, I'm sure he would be very proud to know how the book loving baby now has a degree in English Literature and is now studying for an MLitt, with a view to then completing a PhD and becoming an academic.  Probably all down to that book, eh Stephen?

As I get older, I now realise that our dysfunctional childhood, growing up very much bonded together in a home with parents who we weren't related to and actually gave me one of the most amazing loving relationships of my life.  Stephen didn't care about what others thought about us, he only cared about whether we were happy or not.  And whilst I busily tried to fit in and keep people happy (effectively stifling and drowning out my own thoughts and needs) he did the opposite, he listened to what was said and then let it go in one ear and straight out the other.  I will always admire how he did that, I do try now, especially as I am struggle trying to 'deal' with our father, the only one of our family I'm left with now, as our lovely Mum died 6 months after Stephen.  In a strange twist of fate Mum died on Stephen's birthday, I always felt it was a way of them telling me that they were together.  There was another sad side to that story but I'm not actually strong enough to tell that today, perhaps one day.

Stephen, I miss you every day, but am left with memories of big laughs, being drunk together and feeling that it was you and me against the world sometimes.  I wish I hadn't been quite such a bitch of an older sister, I wish I had told you how amazing you were every day,  I wish I had managed to share part of your next life adventure in Portugal with you before you died, and not to have only visited after your death.

After graduating Stephen moved to London, to work and start life there, which included motorbikes and trips from the Ace cafe down to Brighton on your Triumph Bonneville.   I am so glad you met Trish, the love of your life and that she brought you such happiness and joy, for the last years of your life.  I love that you played the guitar, rode motorbikes, loved dogs and cats (even though you were allergic) travelled and got your beautiful tattoos (apart from that first one which was supposed to be a shark but you said looked like a tuna!).   I love that you really loved your friends, and in turn they all loved you back, I know from the ones that I know that they miss you as much as I do.

My last story for this post Stephen, was what you did for me when in 1991, I had finally found to guts to leave my lonely, loveless first marriage.  I had told my ex that I was leaving him, and then had to go round to our parents house to tell them.  When I got to the house they already knew (thanks to my ex who had phoned them!), and when you got back from work that day I was standing in tears in the kitchen whilst Mum stood and cried and Dad shouted at me.  You walked in the door, shouted at the lot of us and asked what the fuck was going on?  I turned round and said I'm leaving my marriage and Mum and Dad don't want me too and think I'm an idiot, and you said 'Are you ok? Has anyone died, is anyone dying?' and when I said I was ok, you said right get your coat we're leaving.  You took me out the house and up to the pub where you proceeded to buy me gins until I had calmed down.  You always said that night that nothing in life really mattered apart from being happy and if I wasn't then I needed to sort it out and that you loved me and would help anyway you could.  And you did, and always did.

On July 14th 2009, Stephen died.  He died in one of the end of life ward at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital Sutton, Surrey less than a year after his diagnosis with advanced oesophageal cancer.  He had originally been misdiagnosed with acid reflux, by the time he couldn't swallow and was properly diagnosed the prognosis was terminal, Stephen didn't actually tell any of us he was terminal was until about a month before he died.  He was only 41 when he died, the staff at the Royal Marsden were wonderful and when the time for him to pass came, he was given breakthrough pain relief and died listening to himself playing his own guitar composition via his headphones.  Those he left behind were devastated and heartbroken.

Eight years since you have gone, it is so hard to think that I have to spend the rest of my life without you, so I hope that you don't mind me talking to you, asking your advice and trying to think 'what would Stephen do' because I hope that you are always still here for me, as I will always be for you.

Thank you for being part of my life Stephen, I am a better person because I was your sister, I am so proud that I still am.

Love you Stephen x

Spring, art and conversational french

Since my last post I have been working towards the next stage in my life.  This time next year I will be facing the very real possibility of becoming an 'empty nester' and whilst that future fills me with sadness, as our children grow up and move away to start their own adventures, there is also a sense of excitement as I wonder what is next for me?

I have been writing, lots of ideas and thoughts jotted down in books, but as I have also been proof reading our daughter, Lindsay's final dissertation and essays for her English Lit degree, I haven't really wanted to do much of my own.

However, a few other things I have been amusing myself with are a French conversation class, where I spend 2 hours every Friday morning trying to speak French and remember the difference between J'ai and Je suis!  It is great fun and I hope that I can manage to converse if only even a small amount when we are on holiday in France this October.

The other grand project for me has been to start an Art for Amateurs course at Nescol college.  I spend one afternoon a week trying to draw, learn perspective and experiment with different medias, it is just the best fun!  This week we are trying wet on wet (no idea!) but it should be landscapes, so I am going to use the photo below and try to paint it.

Findhorn Beach 

The other exciting thing is that we are finally restoring our Railway wagon.  As mentioned in GardenCuppa years ago this has been on the project list for years.  I will blog about it on there as we progress!   

Life is changing, with new things ahead and I want to think of this next stage of my life not being the end of raising our children but as them beginning their next stage in life and that, I think, is the same for me too.

Ali

x

For the love of Tea

My favourite drink is Tea.  It always has and always will be tea.  My favourite drink in the whole world, the drink I can count on every time and even better than gin!

The idea for this piece of writing was brewed up as surely as freshly boiled water is poured over dried leaves and left to brew.  The resulting amber liquid, the best thing to drink, with or without milk (my favourite being almond at the moment).  I have never taken sugar in tea (my Mum was a dental nurse in Glasgow and well aware of the horrors that too much sugar could do to your teeth!) but I have been given strong, sweet tea at times in my life, and those were stressful or sad times when perhaps the caffeine and the sugar were needed to restore and revive.

My first memory of the magic of tea was a blue 'Caddy-Matic', attached to our 1970s kitchen wall between the gas cooker and the sink.  I was allowed to stand on a chair, reach over and press the big cream plastic button, and whoosh, the tea leaves dropped, perfectly measured into the warmed (always warm the pot) teapot.

The tea was Typhoo and it came in a nice red cardboard box that looked a bit like an old fashioned Telephone box.  I used to love tipping the leaves into the plastic hopper of the Caddy-Matic

Our teapot at the time was shiny metal, stainless steel perhaps?  The lid knob and pot handle were either black plastic or bakelite I think and the pot itself was engraved with some fancy pattern.  My Mum was quite proud of this pot, which had a matching strainer which looked liked a knights shield and sat in its own tiny metal bowl.

Inside the teapot was where the alchemy happened.  I remember my Mum or Granny telling me that we should never put soap inside the pot to wash it but just to rinse it out.  The texture on the inside of the pot was black and velvety.

I started collecting teapots as a teenager.  My Mum was a great fan of jumble sales, I'm not sure that they happen anymore given the rise of the charity shop.  Anyway I bought a pale pink china teapot with a white handle and kept it on the windowsill in my bedroom.  I don't collect teapots anymore, I really have no space for them but I do have a chosen few which I will never part with.  I do have a small collection of milk jugs collected and gifted from friends, for some reason I never quite understood, it was always seen as bad manners to have a milk bottle or carton on the kitchen table!  Therefore I have always used milk jugs too.

Tea is my first drink in the morning, always made in my favourite pot,  which is a small cosy Highland Stoneware one.  I have a large Emma Bridgewater pot for making tea for the 5 of us and I have my Mum's Picquot-ware teapot for when there are only 4 of us at home.

My friends and family have given me some of my favourite Tea gifts over the years.  From milk jugs and glass teapots for herbal teas, to tea towels and proper metal pots from the Far East.  One of my best friends from Calgary passed away, finally losing her fight with Breast Cancer and when her family visited us in Scotland last year they couldn't have brought me a more fitting present to remember her by, her horse patterned tea cosy.  I had been with Eileen when she bought it and we had laughed over our British way of having tea as the drink to solve all problems.

Most of the time these days I cheat and use teabags (always in a pot though!).  I remember when Teabags came out my Nana saying that they would never catch on and that teabags were just full of the sweepings from the tea factory floor!  Not sure about that.

My daily tea time table is as follows;

6.30 am, get up, feed dogs, put kettle on and make first cup of the day
Tea is either Lapsang Souchong or PG Tips (I like Lapsang Soughing as it is smokey and a bit like the first cigarette of the day, even though I stopped smoking 30 years ago!)

10.00 am - my one cup of coffee, mostly just instant as I'm not a huge coffee fan and its more to have a quick drink after I have mucked out my horses!

Lunchtime - PG Tips, sometimes I manage to sneak in an extra cuppa during the day too!

Green tea or Ginger Tea or Mint Tea - mid afternoon

4.00 pm - After school cuppa
Always Earl Grey, which I do add milk to too!

8.00 pm - Last cup of the day, some Rooibos with milk, no caffeine for me after 5.00 pm otherwise I won't sleep.

Some of the best events in my life have been celebrated with Tea. The first cup of tea when we moved up to Aberdeenshire and into our new house after living in two flats in Glasgow.  I had packed the teapot, kettle, tea and biscuits in a box that I had written OPEN FIRST on!

After the birth of our two older children the cup of tea and piece of toast that we were served at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital (Paul got some too!) will always be one of the most memorable meals of my life.  When we had our youngest son in Calgary, Canada they didn't serve tea and a glass of water was not the same, we saved the cup-of-tea-celebration until we returned home the next day and drank tea in the garden of our Calgary home.

I have drunk more cups of tea at funerals than I care to remember, and on those sad occasions it is just the ritual of having a warm, soothing drink that perhaps keeps you from smashing the cup and saucer to the ground.  I have essays to write about grief, and I'll probably be drinking a cup of tea as I do.

One of the first things I bought my husband when we started going out with each other was a Blue teapot from Habitat in Glasgow.  He didn't have a teapot then, we then added mismatched mugs to our collection.  It seemed like a fitting way to be starting our new life together, we don't have the teapot anymore but I do have a small pink milk jug that we bought at the same time.  Not bad for 26 years together.

So Tea it is, and if you like me are a tea-fanatic here are a few of the places we have visited over the years that are especially wonderful for a cup of tea;

The Cutty Sark, Greenwich - Walk on board this famous Tea Clipper, built on the Clyde and now restored and sitting on the Thames at Greenwich and smell the tea as you walk through her hull and learn the history of Tea.  You can sit in the tearoom underneath her hull, alongside figure heads and have quite a nice cup of tea too.

The Royal Yacht Britannia, Edinburgh - speaks for herself but they serve a lovely afternoon tea on board, in beautiful china too.  A proper tea.

Dobrá Čajovna, Prague, Czech Republic - we stumbled across this fabulous Tea House in Prague when visiting 10 years ago.  It was so lovely we went twice and also bought some fabulous Gun Powder tea leaves to bring home.

Places to avoid tea unless you can take your own are most of North America, unless when in Canada you can find a "British" tea place.  The sad habit of being served a cup of lukewarm water with a bag on the side is very common in most of the States.  If I am travelling now I have a travel kettle and will take my own teabags, sometimes the only way to get a proper brew.  We also have been known to have a camping stove and tea supplies in the back of our car on family holidays so that a cup of tea is ready after a day on the beach or a hike up a hill.

Well, now I am thirsty and that means it is time to put the kettle on.  

Cup of Tea anyone?

Ali

PS - How to make the perfect pot of tea - my way

Put a kettle of fresh water on to boil 

Just before the kettle boils warm your chosen teapot with a swirl of hot water

Add two teabags - enough for two people and an extra one if there are more of us!  We have soft water in Scotland and that usually brews fine

Wait for about 5 minutes or more but NEVER less!

Pour out into mug or cup and THEN add milk

Drink and enjoy x

The journey of grief, the price we pay for love

I first wrote this six years ago, but didn't publish it.  It was and still is too painful and too raw even now coming up to 8 years since my brother died.  The month of March is when my Mum's birthday is, it is when Mother's Day is and also it is Brain Tumour Awareness month.  And at the end of the month I am organising a fundraising Tea Party for the charity Brain Tumour Research, to raise awareness of this devastating cancer and also to celebrate the life of my wonderful Mum, who died 11 months after being diagnosed with a Grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme tumour.   I will be revisiting the thoughts and processes I have gone through in my grief over the next wee while, I hope to show what the deaths of my loved ones have taught me about living.  But for now it seems that it is time to show how I felt when I first wrote about my grief.

December 2011


Yesterday was my late brother's birthday, he would have been 44 years old but sadly he died 2.5 years ago.  Yesterday was also the second anniversary of my Mum's death, she was 67 when she died from a terminal glioblastoma brain tumour.

They both died too young.

About 6 months after my Mum died and a year since Stephen my brother had died, I attended a grief counsellor.  I explained how I had been feeling and she said what I was experiencing was normal.  Normal! surely not?  How were people managing to cope, to deal with everyday life while grieving?  Grief consumes you.  Her advice to me was to write how I felt down.  So I did, along with reading books on everything from life after death to visiting a psychic (which strangely was a very positive, reassuring experience).

What is written below was what I wrote in my journal after visiting the counsellor.  Re-reading it now I can say that I have coped, life does go on but it's still hard.  Writing this is a small way of moving on too.  I miss them every day but now the happy memories are the ones that I have rather than the sad ones of losing them.

Thoughts on Grief

Grief can't be planned or scheduled.
Violently, it sneaks up on you and punches a hole through your heart,
takes away your breath
and leaves a lump in your throat

Or, it comes and stays a while,
wrapping a thick foggy blanket of sadness
and melancholy
around you.
Invisible, of course.

Only the individual knows how their grief feels to them and it is hard for others to see and understand.  You can go for weeks feeling normal, yes perhaps you are 'getting over it', life does move on and is to be lived, and is too short but then grief descends and opens up the rawness and pain you have within.

When I was 17, 27 years ago, I had my first encounter with experiencing the death of a loved one.  My boyfriend and first love died after being fatally injured in a car crash.  He crashed his car on the day of his 18th birthday.

I have no idea how I coped, nobody spoke to me about it.  Friends ignored me, people crossed the street away from me (really they did).  No one knew what to say.  I was asked to be strong and carry on.  I was aware of feeling as if what had happened was a bad dream.  Perhaps some conspiracy had occurred where he had really just left us and moved to Australia (or something).  Being unable to talk to anyone, I ended my teenage years rebelling, on a self-destruct mission, which I'm very happy I didn't succeed with.

Every day now, I suffer from another loss, my dearly loved brother who tragically died of a painful cancer, undiagnosed until too late to save him.

And I am angry, so very angry about losing them both.  A parent's death at any time is a rite of passage, the natural progression of life that our older generation pass before us and as sad as this is I accept it.  To be able to die having lived a long, happy and fulfilling life leaving behind our children and their children is what we expect.  But, my Mum shouldn't have died at 67, that's too young but Stephen dying at age 41 is the hardest loss.   He had so much of life to live and it is so fucking unfair that he didn't.  My loss is an intricate one, my brother and I were both adopted, not related though but we formed a small unit of 2 and we experienced a world growing up in a home with our adoptive parents in a way only he and I understood.  And now he is gone and I am alone to deal with our father, who somehow managed to come through his prostate cancer to survive when my Mum and Brother didn't survive theirs.  I am so angry about that.  And that probably is another blog post altogether.

My wee brother (he would laugh at that, my over 6ft, Glaswegian, biker, tattooed beautiful brother was never 'wee' except to me) should still be here and I rage at that.  I am furious that he is not still here with his wry humour and his wonderful laugh.

Grief is the price we pay for love, and when there has been great love, the grief is visceral and leaves great tears and scars on your heart.

and I have to stop writing now, the tears are too many, my loss is too great

My favourite colour is

Blue.

Blue makes me think of the sea and the sky.

It is the colour of my childrens' eyes, all inherited from their father.

Blue is the colour of all my darlings' eyes, they are transfixing, passionate, merry, moody and never cold.  

My true love's blue eyes light up when he's enthusiastic about something.  They sparkle with mischief when he is laughing, they focus with intensity when he concentrates and then glow with pride when he is with our children.

I love the fact that our three children have his eyes too, my four beloved blue eyed people.  Only I have green eyes.

Our boys have bright blue eyes, soulful and open.  

Our daughter says her eyes are not blue, but grey, she is lucky, her eyes do change colour.  Sometimes her eyes are that pale, high in the sky blue and other times they are the soft, steely blue of the sea on a grey day.  Our daughter has the eyes of a wolf, one of my favourite animals.

The eyes are the windows to the soul and what beautiful souls they are.

My heart belongs to blue eyes.

The colour of water and sky.

I love the colour Blue.

Putting pen to paper, why write?

As I have been looking through my journals and pieces of writing I have done over the years, I have been trying to explore the reason why I feel so strongly about trying to write.

I started and completed a creative writing course a few years ago, the course was excellent (run by the OU and I highly recommend it if you are unsure where to start).  The emphasis on this course was to write fiction, and how to use language to form a narrative, the setting, the story, the characters and then how to use various tools to enable you to write.   The short story I finished as my final piece was about an unseen ghost, and I was quite pleased with it (if I can find it I will add it on here someday).

But now I look back at some of my non-fiction writing too and see that I have written poems,  descriptive pieces, lists and thoughts throughout various times in my life.  Sometimes I have been happy, sometimes sad, sometimes very angry and a lot of the time when I have been looking for answers.

That is when I realised that, maybe, one of the reasons I write is as therapy?

I can write the thoughts in my head much better than I can articulate them at times.  Especially when I am feeling happy or sad, as an emotional (some may say highly emotional!) person, there are times when the words I need to use to signify how I feel get muddled and garbled, and of course, I am absolutely useless if I get upset or tearful.  There is really then no hope of me trying to communicate my thoughts, emotions and needs.  This is when I write and through the writing I become coherent.

Over the years I have kept gratitude journals, wrote memoirs from my childhood, wrote letters about grief, letters about my own flaws, my wants and my needs.  I don't need to show them to anyone, but the writing is a way of me telling my story, or sharing my anxieties, my hopes and my fears and it works for me to then be able to read it back.

And as with any form of good therapy, through my writing, I then feel as if I am talking to someone who is listening to only me.   It is 'me' that is listening to me.

Writing gives me a space, a pause to stop and be, a chance to read what I have written over and then perhaps to realise that 'yes, I need to discuss that' or 'you need to get outside in nature, Ali', whatever the advice I decide to give myself.

Just as I can escape into a good book, I can also become immersed in the process of writing, it feels good to be able to do that sometimes.

There is also the joy, and the power of putting pen to paper.  I feel then as if I regain ownership of my voice, my feelings, my life and this is a then a tangible thing, not just a spoken conversation that can be remembered or forgotten but an actual object.  A real thought, emotion or moment that becomes more vivid and more lucid because I have taken the time to write it.

So perhaps, this is the main reason I write, not just because I have an imagination with wonderful stories to tell but also that I have a voice, and that sometimes the person I need to listen to the most is myself.

Ali
x

Dry January Failure

I blame Rick Stein.  If his Long Weekends series was not being shown at 7.00 pm on BBC2 each night since for the last couple of weeks we wouldn't have failed Dry January.

We did try very hard to resist.  However, we succumbed,  the warmth, comfort and joy of a small glass of red wine was too much to ignore, especially as we watched one of our all time food heroes visit lots of lovely Long Weekend destinations.

Every night we tuned in to watch Rick and his crew eat local food and, of course, drink wine (and sometimes beer too).  Last night as Rick visited Palermo in Sicily, we toasted him with a glass of very nice Shiraz (which actually went really well with the Pierogis and kale we had for dinner).  YUM, a lovely warm, spicy, comforting glass of red wine to wash down dinner and watch Mr Stein.

So there it is, I blame Rick.

Actually, I don't really blame Rick but perhaps he was the catalyst.  This week I took a close friend to her radiotherapy session for breast cancer, then remembered my best friend, Eileen, from Canada who lost her battle with cancer 3 years ago and also posted a condolences card to another friend who has just lost her brave sister to cancer.  

Cancer is a cruel reminder that life can be too fleetingly short and that perhaps taking pleasure in the every day small things is a way to living life to the full.

So whilst I continue to exercise, eat healthily - more veggies, less meat etc and we have really cut back on alcohol especially since the festive season, I would rather subscribe to being balanced about it all rather than abstaining altogether.

Cheers Rick, thank you for inspiring both me and Paul to cook, eat and travel, and of course to drink the odd glass of wine too!

Ali

Attempted Cookery Book Edit

I hoard cookery books.  I freely admit this and I know I may have a slight problem with wanting to collect, read and sometimes cook from cookery books!

Back in the day before I started my culinary book obsession I used to have a couple of magazine subscriptions - one to Vegetarian Good Food and the other to delicious.  Every month I would scour these magazines and then happily rip the recipes I fancied from them to put in my folder or recipe card file.  

That was before it became easier to buy cookery books and my recipe file still lives on to this day!  Then when I stopped work to have and raise our family, my life included buying cookery books on how to feed babies and toddlers, along with the addition of some of my earliest and most loved cookery books.   Delia Smith's Summer and Winter books, anything by Rose Elliot and also Rick Stein's Fruits of the Sea and Seafood books.  This was a time when I was in my late 20s, early 30s and we started to grow our own produce, keep hens and were pescatarian (only ate vegetarian food or fish).

A move abroad to live in Calgary, Canada with a restricted weight limit saw the first 'cull' of my precious cookery books.  It seemed sensible to only take 10 with me......

That quickly backfired as I discovered the joys of Indigo and Chapters bookstores complete with their  massive cookery sections!  The long cold Calgary winters meant weekend trips to the bookstores with the kids for coffee, book readings in the kids section and the chance to roam the bookshelves ourselves.  I moved back to Scotland with over 30 cookery books, and being able to watch BBC Canada meant the first time I watched Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver was over there and it was the ultimate comfort to living abroad watching British cooks and chefs on TV.  PBS also showed Two Fat Ladies and a friend sent me a box set of River Cottage dvds.  The 4 years abroad saw me not only develop as a home cook but also plan my herb garden, veg plot and start dreaming about keeping our own hens again.

I digress!  At the moment we are completing the final touches to the redecoration of our kitchen/dining and family room (repainted in Blue Grey from Farrow and Ball - I love it!).  The last parts to be completed are the built in shelves that house part of my cookery book collection and therefore these books are now on the floor waiting for me to sort them out.

For a book lover and keen cook like myself this is not an easy task, therefore I have decided to try and categorise my collection into the following;

Waiting to be sorted! 

Old Favourites 

These are the cookery books that are on the shelves (custom made by Paul for me) next to my fridge. These old friends have sticky pages and notes written over them.  I also have a couple of books which used to belong to my Mum and I will never part with them.

Specialist 

Recipe books from a particular genre, be it vegetarian, organic, meat, Aga cookery, fish, preserving produce,  etc whatever!  I may not cook from them often but they are a really good reference.

Aspirational

These are books which inspire me to cook, either been recommended to me or I have read about them or watched something on television about them.  Again I probably don't cook from them that often but I do enjoy them.

Seasonal

I do seem to have rather a lot of Christmas Cookbooks!  I love Christmas and all the preparation and planning, again I have my favourites including one book which I have been making the Christmas cake recipe from for the last 15 years (never fails!).  We also have some outdoor cooking books, for BBQing although these sadly don't get used as often as I'd like living in the North of Scotland.

Travel inspired

I have a small amount of cookery books which I have purchased when returning from trips abroad.  These books almost become like bedtime reading as I re-live my trip by browsing through the recipes.  My favourite of these right now is Rick Stein's Long Weekends book, made even more wonderful by the fact that I visited two of the same locations as Rick in 2016!

Gift books

I am very lucky in that I have received cookery books as gifts from family and friends over the years.  I love these very much and always feel very connected to the person who thought of me when they bought me that book.

Alas I must now return to the hard task of trying to reduce my collection.  After all I do need to have some space on my shelves for the books I have yet to buy!

The books I am reading, cooking from and enjoying right now are;

Rick Stein's Long Weekends

Sarah Raven - Good Good Food

Donna Hay - Life in Balance

Trine Hahnemann - Scandinavian Comfort Food

If you lose me in a book store you will always find me in the cookery section!

Ali

Rhododendron

Rhododendron, one of my all time favourite words and flowers.

'Rhododendrons are grown for their spectacular flowers, usually borne in spring. Some also have young leaves and stems covered in a striking dense woolly covering (indumentum) and some - the deciduous rhododendrons or azaleas - have good autumn colour.'   RHS Gardening website.

Rhododendron.  I was probably 5 or 6 years old, in Primary 2 at school and my teacher had called me out to the front of the class to show the rest of the children what I had just painted.  My painting was of the hedge we had at the back of our garden.  I had painted shiny green leaves, shaped like big ovals and had then added lovely splodges of purple and white for the flowers.  Each flower was arranged next to five others, in a circle pattern.  The paint smelled lovely and the paper I had used was going soft and wrinkly where I had used too much paint or where my watercolour had too much water.  The paints were large solid circles of primary colours in a plastic pallet and I remember being very happy when the colours (red/blue and some white) had mixed to make the purple I wanted.   

My teachers Mrs Hein, wrote a large word on the blackboard.  Rhododendron, it was a very long word and she wondered if any of us could learn to spell it.  This was the name of the plant/hedge I had painted, although Mrs Hein said you could also get white and pink flowers on those plants, I didn't know about that.  The flowers in my back garden were purple.

Rhododendron - it is a nice word to say as well as to spell out.

My Rhododendron painting got pinned on the wall.  It was the first painting I had had pinned up that school year, I had had a crayon drawing of trees hung up the year before but that was a different class and this time my painting was much bigger.  Those things matter when you are probably 5 or 6 years old. 

I went home and told my Mum all about the painting and the name of the flowers.  Mum helped me practice my spelling of Rhododendron, I wanted to be able to spell it properly as well.

My exact recollection of what happened next is a bit hazy but I think we had a student teacher or some other person, a 'lady', come into the classroom.  This 'lady' wanted to watch our class and then talk to our teacher and perhaps she would ask some of us about what work we were doing.  Then if she wanted to, she could take you into the headmistresses office (with your teacher there too) and she had a tape recorder where she could record you answering these questions.  If you got asked to go in, you would be able to hear what you sounded like on a tape player, it seemed very exciting.  I was very excited and happy about this.  Perhaps if I got chosen I could hear what I would sound like on tape.  My Dad had a Phillips reel-to-reel tape player that he used to play music on at the time.

I can't remember whether this 'lady' was in our classroom for a day, a week or a month.  This was 45 years ago after all.  Anyway, I did get chosen to go and have a chat with the lady and her tape recorder.

Mrs Hein took me into Miss Adair's (the Headmistress) office and sat next to me as I was asked questions.  What did I like about school, what were we working on, what was a I good at?  Well, I liked my friend Fiona, I liked my teacher and I liked painting Rhododendrons.  I could even spell it, Rhododendron and I did spell it correctly too.  Well, that seemed to make everyone very happy, especially me, and wasn't I lucky that I had a back garden with Rhododendrons growing in it she said?

I must have replied, well yes I was very lucky, because I was actually very special.  The reason I was special was because my Mummy and Daddy couldn't have children of their own and that God gave them me to be their child instead.  I did believe in God then, my Mum was very religious and I was taken to church and Sunday School right the way through my childhood.  The 'lady' finished recording me and then let me listen to my answers back, I sounded funny and I thought I had done well telling them about my Rhododendrons.   I was sent back to my class while Mrs Hein and the Lady talked.

That was when everything changed for me.

I was sent home with a letter for my Mum.  

My Mum had to go to school to have a talk with Miss Adair.

My Mum came home from school and then told me that what I had said was wrong and that I had said something bad.  I shouldn't have said I was special, even though that is what I had always been told about myself and my little brother,  from then on I wasn't to tell other people that I thought I was special or lucky or adopted.  I had to keep it a secret and not upset people.  I think my Mum got quite upset about it.  I remember thinking that she seemed sad about it.  I didn't like that I had made her sad, it made me sad too.

I can't remember what happened to my Rhododendron painting.

And that is the moment I think, when I remember back to my childhood,  when the 'fear' started.  The fear that I have lived with for most of my life but that now as an adult I try not to.  Naive that I was, I told the girl that I sat next to in class what had happened and about how I wasn't to tell people I was special because I was adopted.  That girl told me that she knew what being adopted meant, it meant that my 'real' parents didn't want me so they gave me away.  She also told every one else in my class too. 

I spent most of my childhood trying to be very good, but having nightmares about being given away again.  Anxious, timid, shy, daydreamer and quiet - all words from Primary school reports about me.   It took me until my teens and twenties to realise that I didn't have to be that scared person, although 'she' appears at times, I do think that I'm doing okay.  My fear of abandoment stays with me, it is much smaller now but it is still there. 

I will always love and grow Rhododendrons in my garden.  They are such happy flowers with beautiful colours and scent, although ours at home was not scented.

I may even try to paint them again.  I've signed up for an folio building art course in the spring, perhaps I'll get the shade of purple just right again.  

The Rhododendron hedge still grows in the back garden in the house where I grew up, my Dad still lives there, my Mum passed away 7 years ago.  

As an adult I think I have finally accepted that I will always carry that 'fear' and that primal wound that all adopted people have.  Even after searching and finding both my birth parents, one of whom sadly I can't have a relationship with and the other who is a very important part of my life, I do feel as if I am still scarred.  Actually perhaps scarred is not the right word?  Not scarred as scars heal, but that there is a covering or scab on that wound which shouldn't be poked or picked at too much.  And that is just the way things are, and as with everything in life that I cannot change, there has to be my acceptance of it.

And when Spring arrives this year in a few months, I will look out for the purple flowers of the Rhododendron blooming to remind me of my happy life, which I hope I live as well as I can.  Not special in any way but happy.  

And for that I am very grateful. 

Ali

Goldfinch

Thursday 5th January has been so busy I haven't had time to think about anything, never mind blogging or writing but I have managed to get a photo of the most recent visitors to my bird feeders outside our kitchen window.

Goldfinch - Muir of Fowlis 

I'm starting an art course in April, so I'm starting to collect ideas about what I can draw, sketch, paint etc.  Isn't this chap beautiful, I love having birds in the garden.

Dry January

I'm doing 'Dry January' this year.  I didn't last year and my reasoning was that as my birthday is in January and that it was a BIG one in 2016 (50!) that I wanted to be able to celebrate during that month.

I had friends that did 'do' it last year.  A whole month without alcohol?  Hmmmm, my life's philosophy (based only on my own experience) is that life is too short not to live every day trying to enjoy it.   I enjoy having drink to celebrate and relax so why on earth would I want to have no alcohol for a whole month?

However, this year I feel that I am actually going to participate in Dry January for a very good reason, and that reason is ME!  I have gone for almost 3 years in my adulthood without drinking in the past due to 3 pregnancies and 3 babies to nurse so I know that I can do it, but on those occasions I was abstaining for the health of my babies (which of course is a very good reason).  But this time I am not drinking alcohol for the whole month for my health.

And here are the benefits - a chance to detox, better sleep, more energy and hopefully some weight will magically drop off too!  A chance to give my body the love and care it deserves?  After all I cook and eat healthy food, we grow as much organic fruit and veg as we can (see my Garden Cuppa blog!), I keep my own chickens for organic eggs, I don't use yucky chemicals on my body or in my house (as much as I can help it), I choose cruelty free products and if I can't afford or source organic meat we don't eat it and stick to a mostly veggie/fish diet.

All good, but then I undo a lot of that when I drink alcohol, and yes we always try to not drink mid-week (ahem!), always 2 nights without alcohol, however, come Wednesday night I'm thinking it's almost the weekend and a bottle of red gets opened to be drunk with dinner, and then of course its all downhill, from finishing that bottle (or another one!) on the Thursday, Fizz Friday, Saturday nights Rioja and finally my Sunday night G&Ts!

So, for all the health benefits that I know happen when you skip alcohol for a few nights a week, now I am skipping it for a whole month.  And those friends that did Dry January last year?  I really noticed a difference in them, and when I have spoken to them they said they did feel much better, well, as an observer I can honestly say that they looked better too!  Now whilst I realise that aged 50 (almost 51) nothing is going to make me look like I'm 5 or even 10 years younger, perhaps getting better sleep and more energy will help me feel it.

Looking forwards to a healthy and happy year ahead, with less trips to the bottle bank as a bonus too!

Cheers

Ali
x

Here is a link to what I'll mostly be drinking this month instead!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/healthy-eating/best-non-alcoholic-drinks-dry-january/

Write

At the end of this festive season and starting of the New Year I find myself drawn to what I would like to achieve for myself in the coming year.

A dear friend has sparked my love of reading, writing again by giving me the most beautiful book as a gift this Christmas.

The book is called Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson (link below).  I have enjoyed reading books by this author previously but this gem of a book has totally captured my love of reading again.  It is a collection of short stories interspersed with recipes and I have devoured reading it.  How lovely to read a short story that takes you away, or to read a moment of the authors life when she is sharing recipes for food that either she or the people she loves have made.  Read it, it is a joy.

And so, I am inspired.  Who knows what will appear on these pages.  I have taken creative writing courses in the past and haven't shared anything I've written, I have also written lots about love and also about loss and I hope to create new pieces, write fiction and non-fiction, memoirs, recipes, poems who knows.  No set rules or deadlines just the chance to be creative.  It may be a journey or it may just be typing, but I have to try.

But enough for now, here is the link to that amazing book - read it and then buy a copy for someone you know loves reading, they will love you for it.

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/book/christmas-days/

Happy New Year

Ali